A group of transsexuals wrote to Reem Asalem – the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences – regarding her recent intervention on the Scottish Government proposals for Gender Recognition Reform. The letter was organised by me. Here is our letter in full,
12 December 2022
Reem Alsalem
Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
The United Nations
(by email)
Dear Ms Alsalem,
We are transsexual people, and we are writing to you to thank you for your intervention in Scotland, where the Holyrood Parliament is debating the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill.
In short, we welcome your comments, and we share your concerns. Trans people are not a monolith, and we have a range of opinions on most topics. Those of us signing this letter oppose the position taken by the Scottish Government.
We disagree fundamentally with the concept of self-identification of legal gender. Allowing men to declare themselves to be women – simply by filling out a form – makes women’s boundaries meaningless. We also worry greatly about the likely impact on children should they be allowed to change their legal sex before the age of majority.
But we would particularly like to raise with you the impact on transsexual people ourselves. The UK Gender Recognition Act was created for a relatively small group of people who had undertaken a process of gender reassignment and supplied evidence of medical need. Changing legal sex is not a process that should be undertaken lightly, and we believe that the checks and balances in the current legislation are necessary both to protect individuals from making a profound error, and to maintain the trust and confidence in the system.
Without medical reports, gender recognition would be open to abuse. That is obvious to us, and we do not think it surprising that there has been increasing suspicion of transsexual people and our motives. Ironically, this bill – and others like it – are damaging trans rights; they are certainly not supporting them.
Thank you,
Debbie Hayton, and others.
The signatories comprised transsexual people with a range of opinions. As we said, trans people are not a monolith. Some signatories were happy to be identified; others were not. One transman put it like this,
A TS man supported this but asked that his name isn’t made public as he doesn’t want abuse from T people who were once his friends
Trassexual man (name withheld)
We live in strange and disturbing times.
This letter was sent to Reem Alsalem on 12 December 2022
Debbie Hayton
Debbie Hayton 
21 replies on “Transsexuals support Reem Alsalem on Scottish Gender Recognition Reforms”
Debbie, I applaud you for continuing to take a logical and unselfish stand on this issue, and for being so concerned about women. More power to you.
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I think that it is not obvious to too many people that there are, indeed, different ‘trans’ people. Transsexuals, like you, did all that was required within the law at the time, and the vast majority never, ever claimed to be actual women. Having said that, this is when women’s boundaries began to be breached – deliberately and without asking for permission – and it has led now to this wholesale invasion by men with fetishes and paraphilia. Even if these men are not dangerous – and I do not, for a moment, believe that transsexuals of your generation are dangerous to women – they are, nonetheless displaying behaviours that women find troublesome at best, and downright vomit-inducing at worst. I really do not understand how any person, male or female, can simply expect women to put up with this intrusion.
I have heard and read men – usually straight men – say that women brought this on themselves, and I think it is the grossest insult. ‘Trans’ people in 2022 have every right that the rest of us have, while, in 1922, women had to fight just to exist in a public sense. In many parts of the world in 2022, females are being beaten down, left uneducated, forced into early marriage, genitally mutilated, refused any public presence… Football fans swan off to Qatar to virtue signal with rainbow armbands, but they have never, ever shown the slightest interest in standing up for female rights in these kinds of countries. Never. The hypocrisy is so blatant, it is sickening. Stonewall has them by the short and curlies.
Women will never forgive what is being done to them by misogynists who woman-face for reasons that appear to be highly sexualised. We all deserve to be accepted for what and who we are, but the ‘trans’ lobby seems to be determined to erase women and girls completely, and regardless to the harm that could ensue – no, will ensue. It is harmful to be told that you are no more than a frock and lippy, that you have no substance as a sex. I think you are right to say that a medical diagnosis is necessary, and dysphoria demands proper and effective treatment, especially for the young. In years to come, many, many women will become mental health patients because of the way they are being treated now by narcissistic men who care nothing for them at all, for their rights and needs. No decent man, no decent human being would stoop to do what the Stonewall-led ‘trans’ lobby is doing. As for the creepy politicians, enough said.
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Very well said, Lorncal. Somehow, women always come out at the bottom in social and economic exchanges.
Regarding today’s trans idealogues, I have read that even just ten or twelve years ago, trans women were not pretending to be real women. However, having pushed their ideas on society and gotten initial acceptance, they decided to go for the gold and make themselves “real” women and men via gender ideology. But the idea is cockeyed, and eventually people will see through it. I’m still fuming about Lia Thomas, who, I understand, was more than happy to flash her male genitals in the women’s locker room.
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Make that “ideologues”.
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Ah, I made two mistakes in my first post, not one:
idealogues = ideologues (paragraph 2)
via gender ideology = via gender identity (paragraph 2, line 5)
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Yes, Caleb, transsexuals like DH did not claim to be women, and DH still claims not to be. The thing is that women were never asked or consulted about male breaches of their boundaries – which, let’s get this straight, was illegal at the time. Psychologists and sexologists like Michael Bailey and Ray Blanchard deliberately set men on women’s spaces. The arrogance is quite astounding. Having said that, there were so few – and we always knew, by the way – that they were not a problem, and, I have said, they were never a danger. Now, because of this early breaching of our boundaries, men with no scruples, but plenty of paraphilias and fetishes think they can do as they please, and governments are backing them.
Third spaces will cost money, but these men do not want third spaces (I can’t talk for transsexuals) and their whole aim is to push women into accepting them, from where they will launch themselves into our rights proper, by taking away our sports, our jobs, our educational opportunities, our awards and grants… the list is endless. They mean to have them all. We could have lived with the handful of transsexuals, so long as our spaces and rights were respected, but we cannot, under any circumstances live amicably with the hordes that are coming for everything we ever fought for, so we will fight back.
People like DH will probably end up by being lumped in with these men, but that is not the fault of women who were never asked for their acceptance into our spaces in the beginning. We will fight this and we will take back our spaces. If not, we will create new ones of our own and challenge legally each and every incursion, one by one, and these men can fetishise each other. Woman-face is as insulting as black-face and anyone who doesn’t understand that is not trying.
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Yes, I know everything you are saying, and I agree with it all. I’ve been part of this fight for about five years now, although I do it all from my computer, since I am old and sick. I remember reading, several years ago, about the arrogance of a male judge who ruled that trans women were women, and must be able to use women’s locker rooms. The judge specifically said that if seeing male genitalia made women uncomfortable, well, that wouldn’t actually harm the women. He obviously didn’t give a damn about the 51% of the population which is female. We need more female judges.
In an effort to show people how ridiculous the transgender position is, I use the example of the four-minute mile. To date, around 1,700 men have run a mile in 4 minutes or less, but no woman ever has. So, if a trans woman were to run a four-minute mile today, would that be a victory for women as a group, or would that be a victory for just another man? I sent that question to the Washington Post, which is 110% pro-trans, and never got an answer. The stupidity of these ideas is just mind-boggling.
I was absolutely seething when that trans woman (who had transitioned just a month or two before), set a new winnings record “for women” on the Jeopardy game show. But of course, he’s no woman.
As for drag queens, I’ve been referring to them as a “misogynistic minstrel show” for quite a while now. If you look at pictures of them, most of them dress up like prostitutes with exaggerated make-up. The ones who are fat push their fat together to create cleavage. They are mocking women, of course, not flattering them.
I’m gay, by the way, and I feel estranged from the gay community over this issue.
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Oh, Caleb, how I wish that female judges were the answer. Lady Haldane, in Scotland, has just ruled that ‘trans’ women are women in law and may sit on boards as part of the 50% representation of women. In the longer term, that will mean 50% men and 50% ‘trans’ women. In effect, she has ruled that women are anybody who claims to be a woman. That changes the definition in law of women for all other purposes, too, because it undermines the category of sex as being a protected characteristic for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act. Of all the categories protected by section 5, only sex reassignment is now protected: age, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, et al are all now undermined because females can be all of these. The police, the judiciary, the legal system are all Stonewalled in Scotland, as are all public bodies. It is going to end very badly because women will not give in.
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I am an American, and our problems are not quite so bad here. Yes, some outrageous rulings have been made, but the U.S. has a very strong conservative contingent which is very powerful, and they are pushing back against transgender ideology. (I am a liberal, for whatever it is worth, but not a stupid liberal.)
The insanity will just have to run its course. You may have heard it being compared to lobotomies, which were trending in the 1960’s. People eventually came to their senses on that issue, and people will come to their senses on this issue too. Unfortunately, that will happen after I am gone, as I am 72 now.
In case you are curious, here is an article I wrote on the issue a while back. I am working on more articles.
http://sethnotes.blogspot.com/2021/07/transgender-people-are-seeking.html
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Thank you for that article, Caleb. A lot of good sense in there. Where I would disagree is in the statement that we should treat a ‘trans’ woman as a woman so that he can live in society as he feels he should. The thing is, Caleb, that transsexuals (physically transitioned) like DH, have been breaching female boundaries for a very long time, and, generally, we have known, but the numbers were so small, that we let it pass. We can no longer let it pass, I’m afraid, because the numbers are now likely to increase so dramatically, and this is a separate issue that requires to be addressed. We now cannot let any male-born person, physically transitioned or not, into our spaces and rights or they cease to be single-sex spaces and rights in law.
Those of us who saw this coming were pooh-poohed, but that is why third spaces will become the only feasible answer or women will desert all our safe spaces and set up new ones that specifically exclude all ‘trans’ women. Had this mass delusion not taken place, with our safe spaces already breached, there was always a small chance that women and girls would have accepted physically transitioned males, not now? Not a chance, I’m afraid, even though we know that they are no danger to us. They are still violating our legal right to privacy and dignity away from them. I find it hard to say it, but even DH has little idea of how many women feel about a man claiming to be a woman being near them, in their spaces, taking over their rights. No, we need our own separate spaces and rights, with no incursions by any male persons whatsoever, especially in medical facilities, prisons, etc. where we are vulnerable and require privacy and dignity. Make no mistake, we will fight back. ‘Trans’ identified males cannot force us to accept them, when they have all kinds of perversions and fetishes that we simply cannot tolerate.
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Lorncal, I think you misinterpreted what I said in my article. I said that the proper attitude for trans women to have is: “I am a man who, for whatever reason, feels like a woman. I would appreciate it if you would treat me as a woman so that I can live my life the way I want to”. All I meant, really, was to call her “she” to be polite. I didn’t mean to say that natural women should accept trans women into their single-sex spaces, especially the more sensitive spaces (such as shelters, prisons and sports). But I do have some sympathy for them. If a man, like Debbie, has gone the whole route, taking estrogen and having the operations, etc., I am not going to blame him/her if she tries to pass in the women’s rest room. Debbie has said publicly that she looks like a woman when she is naked. That being the case, I think I wouldn’t blame Debbie if she also tried to pass in a locker room. However, if society chooses to make a third facility available for trans people, I’m sure that Debbie is the type of person who would use it.
In public rest rooms, toilet stalls have doors on them. No one would even know if a trans woman was in there. In a locker room, I suspect that most showers are now individual instead of communal (though I might be wrong). What I’m trying to do here is to find some kind of balance between the needs of women and the needs of trans people. Ostracizing them is not an option. Given that you are a woman, I’ll understand if you disagree.
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Let me add that ultimately I agree with you. In a purely logical society, trans women would be seen as men and would be expected to use men’s facilities in every case. But the embarrassment of a trans woman to be forced to walk into the men’s room instead of the women’s room would be significant. I do think that counts for something.
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I think the embarrassment of women forced with males – no matter if operated on etc – also counts for something. I think the fact that women were never ever consulted about men in their spaces counts for something. Lorncal is totally right: this started with this small group of men calling themselves ‘transsexuals’ crossing our boundaries. If they wouldn’t have been there, the bigger group wouldn’t have come up either.
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Ok, Caleb, I accept that I might have misunderstood. However, as a man, I really do not think that you have any locus on why women should accept men into their spaces and rights – don’t forget the rights. I agree that, while DH was a member of a tiny, tiny community of transsexuals, we did nothing because we felt no threat to us either physically or on our basic human rights.
The new wave of ‘trans’ genderism – I do not believe that there is such a thing, although I accept that there is gender dysphoria/dysmorphia – is an altogether different animal. It is utterly determined to access every last female space and to enter our rights, initially diluting them, then, eventually, removing them from us to them. That is the reality we are facing.
The ‘trans’ men (women) will never be a physical threat to men, nor will they take your rights away because they cannot compete with you physically. I also believe that Ray Blanchard and Michael Bailey and other psychologists and sexologists are directly responsible for what is happening now by opening up, without permission, women’s spaces to transsexual men. Our decency has been trampled on, but no more. We are now wise to what is going on.
If we have to abandon every female space and set up new ones, we will do that, but we will now keep out ALL born males. I am not picking on DH at all, and I do understand how difficult this has become for transsexuals. Not at any time have either transsexuals or any other part of the Stonewall movement campaigned for third spaces: they have always assumed that women would give up theirs without even having the sensitivity to understand, in turn, why females need them: because we are prey for predatory men; and we cannot tell the difference between the goodies and the baddies here, and God knows, there are enough baddies out there without handing them the keys to the sweetie cupboard.
Frankly, I am constantly appalled at the sheer lack of interest, sensitivity and understanding of so many straight males at this issue. At least we know where we stand now, though. We are on this Earth to cater at all times to men, apparently, even when they abuse us and our common decency. One very well-known transsexual dies recently. He/she had been an employee of the BBC. He/she woman-faced while collecting the wages of a man, at the time that female employees were being paid half as much. The new ‘trans’ want all the jobs that the top females have, but cleaning the loos? Not so much. I have no wish to be rude to either you or DH, but neither of you has any comprehension of how women (most of us, not all) actually feel about about this issue, but our feelings do not matter.
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Lorncal, you are preaching to the choir. I agree with 95% of what you are saying. As an older gay man, I figured out many, many years ago that women are always at the bottom of the totem pole, even in supposedly enlightened societies. I used to think that gay men were at the bottom, but then I realized I was wrong. Even as a gay man, male privilege is very much mine (as long as I pass as straight). On the other hand, heterosexual men NEED women; they couldn’t run society without them, so there have been eras when gay men were sacrificed more readily than women were. (This is a complicated issue.)
Now, you can be absolutist in your views if it pleases you, but once the current trans craze blows over, trans people will go back to being a truly tiny minority of the population. That’s not to say that they should be allowed into most women’s spaces — but perhaps a few of them that are not so critical? If, eventually, societies start to build rest rooms and locker rooms for trans people, then that will be the solution.
I get the feeling that you have been abused by men in your life, either by a boyfriend, spouse or perhaps a stranger who raped you. I’m not bringing this up as a way to invalidate your views. Indeed, probably 50% of women have been abused by men, and that’s why they must be banned from women’s sanctuaries. Even women who have not been abused by men should be cautious around them, because abuse is always a possibility. Also, as my article made clear, there are indeed male predators who will pretend to be trans in order to access women’s spaces — not to mention the opportunists like Lia Thomas who found a way to grab some glory at women’s expense. My best friend is a Lesbian who was abused for years by an uncle when she was young.
In closing, I’d like to point out that if I don’t understand what it is like to be a woman in every respect, neither do you understand what it is like to be a man. Men have their own burdens. The Ukraine is an example. When Russia started to bomb the Ukraine, refugees started to stream out of the country, but the able-bodied males were not permitted to leave. They were expected to stay and fight; and Ukraine’s men have become the greatest casualty of the war. (They wouldn’t let the trans women out either because they judged them to be men.)
Anyway, you and I are in accord on these issues 95%. Perhaps you need to focus on the 95% instead of the 5% where we diverge, because I come as close as any man can come to being a friend to women.
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No, Caleb, none of those things, and I am not absolutist – at least, I was not until a few years ago. I think there is no way now but the third way, but this is where it all falls down because these men want validation, even the best of them, and, although I do understand that, having gone through hell to appear as women (most of them do not pass even from a distance, and the rest are plastic surgery jobs so extreme that you look and wonder, anyway), why should I be under any obligation to accept ‘trans’ women or transsexuals as my sisters? They are not. Years of having witnessed the ill-treatment of females the world over has radicalised me, although, personally, I have been fortunate in the men I have known. I do not doubt for one moment that DH is not a bad person, but even transsexuals must acknowledge that they make women’s lives harder than they need be.
If you ever read ‘trans’ widows’ testimonies, you will discover all kinds of hurt and damage to wives and children. Most, again, perhaps not all, ‘trans’ women have paraphilias, as all the available evidence shows (and, indeed, the evidence of our eyes at any Pride rally,)and no woman or female child should be expected to indulge them. Now, Caleb, I would like to end this chat because we will not agree, and we must agree to disagree, if you will. I do no know what it is to be a man and to have to fight in wars, but females do not start wars, albeit they might support them. I do not agree with young lads being put into uniform and forced to kill or be killed. This is a straw man argument. Most of the world’s resources are owned by men, controlled by men and fought over by men, albeit a male elite. However, men, in general, appear to support that situation because it affords them privileges as sweeteners denied to women. That is the uncomfortable truth you must swallow, I’m afraid.
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Once again, I don’t disagree with you. Young men, however, who always fight the old men’s wars, shouldn’t be included in the worldwide male pact because they are young and weren’t responsible for putting it in place. They may grow into their positions as privileged males as they age, but when they are young, they are not responsible for the world order.
Of course, there is a problem in that argument too, given that young men commit most of the crimes. The real enemy, you know, is testosterone. When you combine that with the anger and depression that people have coming out of their childhoods, you’ve got a toxic mixture. The middle-aged generation that is in power (the elite, as you called them) understands that they can channel that toxic energy into waging war.
I have a larger perspective here which you probably don’t have: I believe in reincarnation. The world is set up with natural losers and winners for a reason: those imbalances create a ripe field for spiritual growth. For no other reason than that women are, overall, physically weaker than men, women will always be oppressed to some extent. But then, before an individual’s reincarnational cycle is over, a soul will have experienced both genders. In other words, although I’m living a male life in this incarnation, I don’t see myself as male or female — and neither should you, in my opinion. So, you can’t dismiss my argument in my last post as a straw men because not all men are a monolith. And that’s part of the problem with our discussion, by the way: I think we are treating both men and women as monoliths. You certainly think in those terms, and I tend to think in those terms too; but both of us may be wrong.
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correction to final paragraph: “… as a straw-man argument because …”
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Caleb: I did say, I do not wish to continue this discussion. I absolutely respect your belief, as I respect Debbie Hayton’s, but I will not respect anyone who takes away my rights. As for young men in war, yes, I agree that it is older men who send young men to war. Do you have any idea of how many rapes and murders of women – unarmed, any age, from elderly to young children, any race or ethnicity – take place in wartime, any war, anywhere. These are committed almost exclusively by young men. Asking me to make allowances for them is like asking a camp survivor to forgive the man in the jackboots who murdered her sisters. We all have our limits of endurance before we start to hit back, and I think it is coming from women. It has been a long time coming
We all have a choice, Caleb, whether to do good as far as we can or do evil things that harm others. We can all make mistakes, granted, but I do believe that the ill treatment of females all over the world, in every era, in every culture, in every country, is down to more than a bit of male high jinks gone wrong. A visceral hatred underpins all of these horrors, a visceral belief that females are not fully human. Sorry, but, as I said, we all have a choice. Now, please, this topic is severely depressing so I’d like to end this here.
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The way to end a conversation is not to keep saying more things that require a response. Your point of view will be a little different when you are a man.
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[…] Cette lettre a été rédigée en anglais et envoyée à Reem Alsalem le 12 décembre 2022. Elle a été publiée pour la première fois en anglais sur mon blog le 14 décembre 2022 : Transsexuals support Reem Alsalem on Scottish Gender Recognition Reforms. […]
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