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In solidarity with them.

You're listening to transm on 4zzz amplifying the trans and gender non conforming voices of Brisbane and beyond.

You're listening to Transmission on 4zzz. My name is Ez. I use he him pronouns.

My name is Bet. I use she, they pronouns.

And we're all about the trans community. We're also all about making sure that you're aware that this one hour of broadcast will have some content and themes, triggers for people. We'll be touching on some topics around. Well, there's news and community news to go through. Not always the most pleasing the news today. There's only one thing to mention, but it's around the Olympics and that's not always fun. But also BET and I will be chatting about gender affirming medical treatment and how to talk to people online.

Yeah. How to have conversations around that. In my opinion.

Yes.

So are my opinions, bets.

Opinions on how to be online as a trans person and. Or an ally.

How to, how to talk to granny and how to talk to anyone that's giving you grief about supporting trans kids to transition.

Yeah.

And the media, really, if anyone's. I mean, you know, you can apply these things elsewhere too.

You can, you can. They're transferable skills. Exactly.

I'm gonna give a certificate. It's like a CERT three in advocacy for trans kids.

A BET approved stamp. But first up, let's jump into the news. The International Olympic Committee is considering universal rules for transgender athletes, with growing support for stricter eligibility criteria among sports bodies under new president Christy Coventry. The IOC reversed its previous stance in June, deciding to take the lead on setting criteria for transgender participation at the Olympics, which had previously been left to individual federations. In September, the IOC established a working group to explore how to best protect the female category in sports amid concerns over fairness and safety. While no decisions had been made yet, discussions continue with some federations already implementing their own guidelines. Currently, transgender athletes remain eligible for the Games, though only a few have competed, such as New Zealand's Lauren Hubbard in 2021. So yes, the debate again about whether women can compete as women is continues, never ending, never ending. Also in community events coming up. So today, as of Tuesday 18th November 12pm at Speaker's Corner, which is at 2A George street, which is in Brisbane City's Parliament House. The trans youth healthcare petition delivery will be happening. So if anyone wants to go there to support, there'll be a few like Trans Justice Project will be there and I'd be believable. Semi engines. People's Pride will also be there. Yeah.

Also on Thursday, this Thursday, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, there'll be the. The usual vigil. The bridge will be lit up in trans colours. It'll be at Wilson Outlook Reserve. That's on Bowen Terrace in Fortitude Valley, on those lovely cliffs overlooking the wharves there. Or it will be moved. If it's raining, it usually goes to QC or what's that other place in the valley where it was last year?

I can't remember the one last year, but I know that they went to the Brunswick. They did pop into the pub there if they needed to as well.

So they'll find a nearby venue if it's raining too much and they'll let you know.

Yes. A way to stay up to date with that is to follow the Facebook page. Many genders, one voice. That's where the event is. And you can. Yeah, follow that there.

I'd say that comes with a trigger warning too. That might be obvious but it's always a sad time. So yeah, yes, protect yourself.

Yeah. This will be to commemorate those that we have lost within the trans community worldwide through violence and suicide. And yeah, it's always a heavy time. Amplifying the voices of the trans and gender non conforming community of Meanjin, Brisbane and beyond transmission on 4ZZZ brings you.

The latest in trans community news, music and events.

Every Tuesday from 9am till 10am Join our team of hosts for an hour.

Of celebrating the unique perspectives of the trans community transm.

Tuesday mornings from 9am till 10am on 4zzz. My name is Ez. I use he him pronouns.

My name is Bet, I use she, they pronouns.

And we are chatting about gender affirming medical care, medical treatment for young people, the dialogue around that, what's happening at home, what people are saying online.

Yeah, I've noticed things heating up a lot online lately. I don't know if you've. Maybe it's just my algorithm. No, it is, but every positive post. So I've noticed that there's been a lot of La Labour politicians have come out with positive posts about trans kids recently and they will collect like a tonne of transphobes and bigots and people with questions and people with contradictory theories about this healthcare. Underneath those posts A bunch of trolls and disturbs me. So that's kind of leading into the, hopefully the release of the vine review, which as I understand is due any day now.

Yes, let's Google. Let's Google the Vine review. Where's that at?

Although I have to point out that the government hasn't committed to releasing the vine review. So while it's supposed to be finished any day now, it may not get released. Although I think the general feeling is probably that unless it's completely positive, they will release it because they need something to show why they're acting like fascists lately.

30Th of November.

30Th of November. So we're on the 20th or the 18th.

18Th.

Okay. So within two weeks, hopefully it's going to be released. But what that will mean is that the media environment will get even more heated. Obviously. Now, obviously, I guess we're going to be trying to keep it in the media cycle for as long as possible to keep this conversation going, to keep the pressure on the politicians. But what, what concerns me is that while we're doing that and while it's in the media cycle, there's going to be a huge amount of collateral damage happening because of all of the debates going on around that. And increasingly, the way I kind of look at what I do is so I interact with parents of trans young people quite a bit, but I generally interact with supportive parents of trans young people and I'm trying to reach the ones who are on the fence. Now, obviously I'm probably never going to reach the ones who are right down the rabbit hole and totally anti trans, but I'm trying to level up a bit and reach out to the ones who are on the fence. So every time I see a post on Facebook and it's got a whole lot of transphobia underneath it, I think of how I would feel if I was the doubtful parent of a trans kid somewhere in Queensland. Watching this unfold. I see a Labour politician come out in support of it. I click on the comments thread maybe to say thank you or something. And the first four or five comments I see are all transphobia or aggressive questioning about the evidence of space for gender affirming medical treatment. And that really bugs me because one thing that those parents are feeling is terror, is fear that their kids are never going to be accepted if they do transition. That's one thing they're feeling. It's not the only thing they're feeling, but that is one thing. Generally they're scared that their kids are going to be pariahs, if they transition, that they're never going to, quote, unquote, pass, and that society's going to treat them worse and worse. And so when they see all of that transphobia and that vitriol there, I just think that's not helping those young people. And so one thing that really, I really can't say forcefully enough is please don't feed the trolls, people. If someone comments on one of those posts with some horrible transphobic thing, just don't engage. Just let it drop to the bottom of the feed. If you engage and you see this all the time, there'll be like 20 replies or more to some transphobic comment, and that will push it to the top of the feed so that it's the first thing that anyone sees if they click on that comment thread. If you want to use your energy constructively rather than responding, contact the group or the politician or the page that hosts that post, that made that post, and ask them to mediate the comments thread or to moderate the comments thread.

Particularly if it's in a group, because it is actually that group's responsibility.

Exactly. So Matilda from LG LGBTI Legal says that theoretically we could, we could actually take them to court for not keeping us safe in their comments threads. Anyone who does a post, especially a public figure or a group, and they let that sort of transphobia run free in the comments thread is actually legally liable. And my feeling is that we'd probably do better rather than attacking the trolls one by one. I mean, that might be something to do to take one of those trolls to court one day, but I'd probably be aiming to take the group or the politician or whoever it is who's hosting the comments thread to court, because that's going to be more efficient in terms of if we scare them, we will hopefully scare all the other people in charge of comments threads into keeping their comments threads clean and safe so that we are not spreading this vitriol everywhere.

It's also a good measure as well, if you find yourself getting particularly heated online, reading comments and engaging to remember to put the phone down, look up from your screen, look out at something in the distance, like out a window, or go for a walk and leave your phone at home, just go around the block, do something for yourself that. That also gives you a bit more context because the, you know, the cortisol levels, your cortisol levels, your stress levels, how you feel, you know, we feel under threat when we as trans people reading these things. We know we go into a state of Protecting ourselves, whether that's fight, flight, freeze, all sorts of things. And so it's important to make sure that we're regulating our nervous system. And a way to do that is go for a walk, you can do some breathing exercises and then that way you can come back with a level head, take your time. And then you can just comment saying we love trans people. And then get all your friends to like that and put that to the top of the comments.

And if you do comment and you get some transphobic responses underneath your comment, which is very likely, here's a hint I just discovered recently, you can hide those comments. So if you click on the, the offending comment, so long as it's underneath your comment, then you're in charge of moderating your little kind of sub thread. So you click on the offending comment, you just say to hide it. Now it won't hide it from the commenter or any of their friends, but that's okay because if they're transphobes, their friends are transphobes too. It doesn't really matter. You want to hide it from other trans people, parents, anyone who's going to be harmed by that comment. And yeah, anyone who's going to take the comment seriously. And honestly, I would extend this to people who are aggressively questioning the evidence base too. They might not strictly be trolls or even bigots, but they're not adding much to the conversation. I have no, I just don't have any compunctions about just deleting them. Like yeet, get that out of there.

Yeah, yeah. Ew, icky. Throw it out.

And now obviously they'll be like, if any of them are listening right now, they are incensed and they're thinking about free speech and they're thinking that I'm trying to silence them. Well like eat it up, I don't care.

Yeah, do it. Munch on that. How's them apples?

You know, so also, I mean something else that's really bothering me and I just saw it again this morning and I mean I'm going to be like a broken record on this and I may never win this battle because I can see that like it's just like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. But maybe I can win it in, in mean or in so called Queensland. The detransition rate is unknown. Everyone. The other side is right about that. The detransition rate is not 1%. The regret rate is not 0.5% that I saw this morning. You can cherry pick all you like you can pick that study that supports that and what have you really gained? You've only convinced other people who already believe the same thing as you. And then you've spread this kind of. I'm going to be honest, I'm going to get out my vitriol, my own vitriol here. You've spread this mind virus, this woke mind virus that's teaching everyone that the detransition rate is 1%. It's honestly not. Detransition is not, it's a very poorly defined word. It's not defined clearly in the, in the scientific literature. I only ever use that word in quote marks if I'm writing about it or advocating for young people. We need to stop talking about it. Who cares what the so called transition rate is?

Also with detransition stuff as well, and whether it is a tiny percentage or a different tiny percentage or not exactly, you know, nothing happens in a vacuum. You don't know what's going on for those individuals. There could be a myriad of other things going on that are impacting that person to make all kinds of decisions. The likelihood of it being, you know, quote unquote detransition, whatever that means, because societal pressures make it terrifying to be trans, is probably very high. However, there are so many reasons why people make lots of medical choices and then change their mind. The regret rate for hip surgeries are really high. And so that's hard to be questioning those surgeries.

And that's something I was just thinking on my way in here is we can get more granular. We don't have to talk about this vague notion of detransition. We can say, I mean, you can find a statistic, a convincing statistic for how many young people re identify with their presumed gender at birth. And then you can also find a statistic for how many young people re identify with regrets. Yeah, and that might be the statistic you're looking for when you're talking about so called detransition. Right.

But also when we think about regret, how many later in life gays, lesbians, trans people transition and regret not doing it sooner?

Well, yeah, there's also very high.

Exactly. So, you know, when we, when we talk about regret, let's look at it from all angles and.

Oh, hang on, sorry, keep going. I lost my train of thought.

But just, just that like when we think, when I think about regret, I think about like, you know, I transitioned at 27 and I'm, we're working with young people who, who are like, oh, I Wish I did this sooner. And they're like 19 and I'm like, yeah, well you could have but you know, it doesn't. You're, you're doing it now.

That's right. And that's what I wanted to say. I've noticed this narrative going around. So as everyone starts to treat the 1% detransition rate, so called as gospel, I've noticed the next level is that people are saying that if, if any other field of healthcare had this kind of regret rate, it would be seen as a miracle.

Yes.

Now we don't need to prove that, that this care is a miracle. Right. Like it doesn't need to be a miracle. The detransition rate, so called, doesn't need to need to be 1%. It only needs to be as effective as any other healthcare. Like we don't have to hold, we don't have to collaborate with anti trans campaigners in holding gender affirming medical care to a higher standard than every other sort of healthcare. Right. So we don't need the so called detransition rate to be 1%. We need for there to be on the whole positive outcomes with every now and then someone who has a negative outcome. That's what happens in all areas of health care.

Right. Nothing is 100%.

Yeah. And even if this, what this is, the thing I'm thinking is even if this was 100%, even if we could show that no one ever had bad side effects and I mean we're never going to, but even if we could, it doesn't really matter. The other side has such a huge bias against it. They're always going to find arguments.

Oh yeah, they'll, they'll, they'll be looking your confirmation bias. They will continue to search until they found what they're for looking, looking for.

Yeah, but, but I mean realistically, there are flaws in, in the studies used to assess the so called detransition rate. A lot of them weren't designed to assess the so called detransition rate. That's not the wording they use. They, they're looking for something else like regret or they're, they're very frequently looking for discontinuation of hrt. And so the other side often conflates that with so called detransitions that if you stop taking HRT then you have supposedly detransition. Well, we know that's not true because trans men often stop HRT because they've just had the changes that they want and they don't need to stay on it.

Yeah.

But I will say one last thing on this topic, which is I also actually don't think. I mean, if I'm in my mind, I'm thinking of trying to reach a parent who's on the fence. I don't actually think that that parent is. Is thinking about all these minute little details and I don't think that they really want to hear these statistics being argued about. I think what they're worried about is a bad outcome, end of. And that bad outcome might be that the young person regrets what they did. The young person re identifies with their presumed gender at birth. That might be it. But it might also be that they have a shitty time because people hassle them in the street and they lose their job and they can't find a partner. The parent is worried about all those things. And so even when we tell the parent, look, the US transgender surveys showed that the vast majority of people surveyed spent some time back in their gender assigned at birth or presenting as that because of minority stress, because of all those things, because of street harassment and all that, we're not actually reassuring them. It doesn't matter. I don't think that much why the young person ceases to follow their transition. I mean, in a way, it could even be a worse outcome. If you think about it, if, imagine that you've transitioned, you can't cope because of minority stress and you go back in the closet, that's a terrible outcome whether or not you re. Identify with your gender. You know, so I think we are getting way too far in the weeds with all the. This stuff.

We could, like, we could nitpick this forever. I mean, and that's kind of. And they also want that, you know, the right. Really like it when you get into the world.

Exactly. They're doing a kind of a gish gallop on us and. And we respond by playing whack a mole with all the different stats that they throw at us right now. As I said at the start, we can get granular if we want to get into that argument, we need to get granular if we're getting in that argument. These generalisations do not help. But on the other hand, if. If you want to reach parents who are on the fence, which is who I want to reach, then I think, keeping it empathetic, try to think what they might want to hear. Like what? Not just what, don't tell them what they want to hear, but be truthful, but just like, how does it help to get into a. Into a polarised Argument about statistics. You're not reaching anyone.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, such heavy stuff and such. You can get really stuck into the, into the thick of it.

Believe me, I'm way in the thick of it, people. And I'm trying to get. Get a broad, broader focus here and.

Keep coming up for air. You're listening to transmission on 4zzz. My name is Ez, I use he, him pronouns.

My name is Bet, I use she, they pronouns. I rode a manatee Manitou to work today.

Oh, did you?

Yeah.

Through the calm water waters.

Through the calm waters, yeah. Lovely. That's the preferred method of transport for trans people.

Ideally. There's not enough manatee around. I'm not very familiar with how you, how you speak about manatees.

Manatees.

Manatees. Manatee.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know.

Where's Eco radio when you need them?

I just want to summarise, actually, before we move on.

Yeah.

What I was talking about before. I know when I open my mouth it just kind of comes pouring out about this topic and I need to like refine, I need to cook everything down and I'm working on that. So if you meet someone who is hectoring you about the detransition rate, so called, you could say, firstly, detransition so called is not a medical term and has no broadly agreed upon definition. Therefore rates are impossible to measure. Two, rates of re identification with presumed gender at birth appear to be very low and there is no evidence that they are rising. And three, cessation of HRT does not necessarily entail regret or dissatisfaction, nor does it mean that a young person was mistaken in their trans identity. Now, I realise that's not quite cooked down enough for social media. Media perhaps. People are probably going to read over that, but it's pretty cooked down.

It is.

One last thing. Yeah. So I wrote here, if a worried parent was speaking to me about so called detransition after briefly stating what I just said above, I would say that, yes, it's possible your child may change their mind. It happens very rarely, but it does happen, usually because of transphobia. On the other hand, an overwhelming majority of trans people report improved mental health following transition. So it may be that your child will be unlucky and unable to find peace as their authentic self because the world doesn't accept them. But shouldn't they have a chance to try?

Yeah, they should. Well said, Bet. And we all, we all deserve, you know, fairness.

Yeah. I mean, trans rights are human rights. It is.

They are all of, all of that I'm thinking about how. Sorry, I'm distracted. I'm distracted because I'm thinking about how it's really sad that we live in a time where we spend more. Where people are spending more of their effort trying to take away other people's rights or determine their access to whatever they need instead of paying attention to your own and like, it's people's bodies, it's not your body.

Well, look, I guess one thing that I advise, again, going into, specially if you're speaking in a forum where a parent of a trans young person might be listening or reading, or if you're speaking directly to that parent, I advise be empathetic with that parent. Now that parent's scared. They're taking on a lot of different information. And if there was an epidemic of child abuse in medicine, if there were a lot of an unreasonably high number of young people being harmed by this care, as the other side claims, then it would be fair for everyone to stick their noses in and say, hang on, hang on, this is not okay. Right. And so if the other side makes people believe that, then it's not really surprising that that's the response. Now, obviously, there are just some busybodies out there who are transphobic and can't let go of trans folks. And you can tell that you're dealing with one of them because they'll not only be up in arms about trans kids, but about everything else to do with trans people, like trans women in bathrooms and trans women in sport and blah, blah, blah.

And there are other trans obsessions.

Yeah. But every now and then you meet someone who is generally just worried for children. And I can relate to that. You know, like, I have done so much research because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't gonna be promoting something that was harming children. Right.

Yeah.

And having done all that research, I'm very confident that this care is not harming children on a broad. To a high degree, to any higher degree than any other. Paediatric care is harming children. And that's the only standard that I think it needs to be held to. What I did want to say before we go, because I'm conscious that we're running out of time, I just want to say what I'm trying to do at the moment is pivot the narrative. So instead of getting lost in the weeds talking about the evidence for and against, what I'm trying to do is pull back a bit and say, now, hang on, people, you know that the CAS review and all of the stuff that you're. You're citing, all of this disinformation actually stems from a 10 year disinformation campaign, an organised campaign of disinformation orchestrated by a handful of fringe physicians who have started this fake grassroots campaign which we've talked about before and I'm sure we're talk about more another time. So I want that to become essential to the media narrative and essential to any like in my opinion, no conversation on this topic should take place without someone acknowledging that there has been a decade long disinformation war waged against trans young people to try and ban this care.

Is there a place we can go where we can learn a bit more about this or.

Well, yeah, it's called the Internet, but I'm not. Look that. I'm sure there is a site that probably summarises it in amongst a whole lot of other stuff and I can try and hunt down a link.

We might put some stuff up on our socials as well if you haven't as well. Transmission has a podcast. We have a series. Whether you're on Spotify, Tidal, any of those apps that you can use to listen to podcasts, we're pretty much on the all of them. Or also you can listen to us on YouTube for free or the most preferred method is the Community Radio plus app. You can head there and listen back to a bunch of different episodes. BET and I have talked about a variety of different things over the last year and a bit around all the information regarding even the ban for gender affirming for puberty blockers through the public system. We've also covered off on detransition more broadly and really focused on that and like what that means or what that doesn't mean.

And that was that episode that we called EW Segum.

Yes, that that's.

I think it's E W W W Segum. Yep, that's S E G M so Segum Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine. They are the ringleaders of the anti trans movement that's focused on trans kids.

Listening to that, Listen to that. Yeah, that will be a. That's a fantastic one.

And ultimately I may create a website with. With focusing on a bunch of this stuff. You can also follow Protect Trans Kids Queensland Facebook group administered by me and a comrade and you'll see whatever I post there.

Yeah, great. And yeah, you can support 4zzz just like Russell from Gumdale subscribed just before to the station. Thank you so much for subscribing and keeping Community Radio alive and keeping Trans voices on the air4 triple z.org au support head over there. Pick your annual subscription package. Whether it's you're under 18, whether you're passionate, full super sub, whatever you'd like to do.

Can I say one last thing?

Yeah.

Please don't cite any statistic unless you know where it came from. Okay. You need to be able to actually back it up. Otherwise you end up in a polarised argument. You don't want to back down, but you don't know how to support your own argument. Yeah, and you probably got it wrong as well.

Question everything. So here's a good, good piece of advice, including yourselves.

Thank you so much for listening to Transmission. See you next Tuesday, 9 to 10aM on 4 triple Z.