Thank you, Andrew Anthony, for your intelligent article “Transition alley” (May 13), where you look at Hannah Barnes’ book Time to Think on the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock Centre, London. Also, thank you for calling Posie Parker a “women’s rights campaigner” and the protests “claims of transphobia”. Such simple discriminations make a world of difference when so few seem to be able to see that there is more than one side to this fraught debate around gender. Sadly, the realistic fear of condemnation and cancellation, in NZ as well as overseas, makes it hard for concerned voices to be heard and so little thoughtful debate is possible.
While there is a lot of focus on male-to-female self-identification, in reality, there is a huge rise in the number of girls seeking gender reassignment. As a psychotherapist, I am concerned that there doesn’t seem to be enough exploration of either the personal, psychological or societal issues, behind what is presented as “gender dysphoria or identification”.
As a woman, I am not surprised that girls do not want to be female these days, it’s a world where femininity is either hypersexualised or devalued. Indeed, it must be hard for all young people growing up in a world in crisis and despair. But these issues need understanding emotionally, not feelings to be taken as facts, to be immediately changed with chemicals or surgery leading to irreversible damage and potential sterility. And above all, we need wise leadership by a government which can see and give value to both sides of the debate and not fall into the collusion that advocacy for women’s
