At 4000 z, we acknowledge the traditional.

Owners of the land on which we broadcast.

We pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging of the turbul and jagger people. We acknowledge that their sovereignty over this land was never ceded and we stand in solidarity with them.

You're listening to transmission mission on four triple z, amplifying the trans and gender non conforming voices of Brisbane and beyond.

Peter Sterling, the only man in the world who's given birth to a child.

Someone might say you're a bit of a queer and they'd be right. You're listening to transmission on transmission. All about amplifying the voices of the trans community of Mugunjin, Brisbane and beyond. My name is Ez, I use he him pronouns.

My name is Bet, I use she they pronouns.

And yeah, I'd like to begin this episode by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land in which 4000 broadcast the tourable Yagora and Jaggera people. Sovereignty was never ceded and always was, always will be aboriginal land. Yeah, today's episode, we've got a lot to get through Bet, don't we?

Apparently. Well, yes, we do.

Apparently.

I've got a mountain of notes here. Like if I. I mean, if I'm not careful, I'll just be reading an essay out, so I'll try to avoid that.

Okay, what are we talking about?

Well, I wanted to do something on kind of advocating for trans folks in public forums, so. Because especially after the Imam Khalif saga in the Olympics, I noticed all these people jumping into these pile up arguments and I feel like sometimes the people who are on our side, whether they're trans or cis, can lose their head in these situations, like we all do sometimes. Right. And I just wanted to kind of outline, I guess, my philosophies and my bits of advice that I've kind of picked up or developed around how you can best comport yourself in that situation, I guess.

Yes. Advice from trans people on how to advocate for our community.

Exactly.

Yeah, by the community, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I guess I sometimes feel like in the trans community a lot of us interact mostly with other trans people. And so we kind of. There's some arguments that we just take as given, like they're common sense, if you know what I mean. To us, for instance, that there's more than two genders, you know, that's just a commonsensical thing and you don't generally feel the need to justify it and, you know, and there are plenty of others, but when we go outside the community and we're interacting, especially if we're interacting with someone who's from the complete other end of the spectrum and they're advocating against trans rights. Now, obviously, we're not likely to change their minds very often, those people. But if you're on Facebook or if you're at a family gathering or you're at school or you're out with a group of friends, then there's always this question of optics, like you're being watched. And so it's not just about convincing that person, and it's not just about making that person look bad or, you know, winning. It's about you coming out looking good, unfortunately. I mean, like, you have to keep that in mind, I think. And so it's like, you know, you've got a chance of convincing some of the people that are watching, perhaps even if you don't have a chance of convincing the person that you're debating.

Yes.

And I think that's an important thing to keep in mind. And I think I going into it just looking for catharsis, you know, like, maybe you should take up martial arts or something instead. Like, do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So I guess my first bit of advice that I thought about is remain calm, don't lose your cool, if you can at all do that. I think it's not disastrous if every now and then you get justifiably angry at someone for their obvious bigotry. But the thing is that bigotry isn't always obvious, right? Not to the cis people that are watching.

Yes.

So far better if you can remain calm and kind of draw that person out about their bigotry so that they say the quiet part out loud and they're not just dropping dog whistles, you actually catch them out.

It's a bit like, it's kind of reminding me of when cis men might dress in, like, tutus and, like, feminine clothes as a party fit. Oh, God. And then, you know, they're laughing about their attire and like, ha ha. This is really funny when you ask the question, like, why is that funny? And they're like, oh. Cause I'm dressed like a woman. And it's like, right. Why is being a woman funny?

Yeah.

And then they're like, oh, you know, like, what are you actually doing? Oh, you're laughing at women. Okay, that's real. That's misogyny. Right. And that also is where this transphobia comes from. It stems from misogyny.

Yeah. You're bringing back bad memories, by the way.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

And I could go off on a tangent, not that I ever did that, but. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And that always made me super uncomfortable.

Yes, yes. There's a, you know, question why things are funny. You know, that's. That's part of it as well. Like, what is it? Who is that? Who are we pointing at? And who is the cost of this joke?

Yeah, you know, oh, God, that's so important. And I think about it a lot. You know, it's very often that we'll end up in a situation where someone makes an off colour joke about trans people and all the cis people laugh and you might be the only trans person in the room and you've got to somehow explain, I mean, you know, while you're having an adrenaline response, you've either got to shut up and just take it, or else you've got to calmly explain to someone, at least one person, why that was not on, so that hopefully they can help you to communicate to some of the other people.

You know, and most of the situations, I think that we're going to, like, we'll come across in terms of, like, if cis people are trying to advocate for the trans community out, out and about in the world, you're mostly going to come across jokes. And I think. I think jokes are one of those things that people feel entitled to say, you know, that's.

I think that's true in the real world, but on the Internet, you can come across some just straight out, oh.

Yeah, that's a whole new place.

And then I guess the other thing that I'm thinking about, which is happening more and more, I've had it a few times. Even though people know that I work with young trans people, they will hit me with the social contagion argument. They'll say, oh, yes, well, you know, I respect trans rights, but what do you think about all these kids who are being transitioned and stuff like this? And I think those moments, like, say you're, I don't know, one of your relatives. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And say one of your relatives has read an article in the weekend australian and they're at the Christmas party and they bring this topic up with you and there are some people watching. Your first response might be anger. I mean, that would be justifiable because, like, we're all fed up with all this anti trans propaganda, especially being pointed at kids. But if you just get angry and defensive about it, then what have you really gained? So, like, I think you can acknowledge your anger, you can say, look, Nana, that makes me really angry. Right. But if you start throwing f bombs around and, you know, insult, trying to insult people or calling them names, than I actually think you've lost.

Well, then you put them in a defensive state. Right. And no one's really going to be willing to listen to new information when they're on the defence.

And it's not only that, but in the eyes of some of the other cis people, you make them into the victim.

Yes.

Right. Like, when we turn into an angry braying mob, then cis folks see us as the aggressors and what we're kind of doing is justifying them being an angry braying mob at us. And there's a lot more of them than there are of us. So while I think anger is justified, obviously, and expressions of anger are justified, sometimes, I guess I'd say try to be strategic about it. Like, there are times when you're just not going to get anything that way. Yeah, I know it's frustrating, you know, but maybe go to the karate class the next day. Yeah.

You can empower yourself in other ways with your anger as well.

Yeah. So anyway, that's the first thing that I. That I looked into here. Another bit of simple advice, I think, is to show genuine curiosity in your opponent's argument. Like, it's just possible that they might know something that you don't, even about trans people. And, like, it might be that they know something about some anti trans propaganda that you don't. Right. I mean, that's very common where I've had an argument or a discussion with a cIS person who doesn't know a whole lot about trans people, but they do know about this specific bit of propaganda and I've never heard of it before. And if I haven't heard of it, then I'm not going to be so good at neutralising it.

Right? Yes.

So I can learn from them. And I. You know, I got into the imam Khalif argument a little over the last couple of weeks, too, and there was someone from Brisbane who I engaged with who wasn't a. I don't think they were an out and out turf, but they were leaning towards turfism. I felt there were a few signs that they might be headed in that direction and I cautioned them about that. Like, I genuinely felt worried for them because they don't want to go there, I don't think. And when they posted a link to a gender critical podcast about Iman Khalif that called her a, quote unquote biological man, I listened to the podcast because they reckoned that it was really a great argument and it convinced them. And I wanted to find out, well, what is convincing these people, you know? And to be fair, the guy in the podcast was very knowledgeable about intersex conditions or differences of sexual development. He used terminology I'm not okay with, and he made assertions that lacked evidence, because we don't have any evidence about Imam Kalief having differences of sexual development. But I could see why he had convinced her because he was very convincing. Right. And I think I. I learnt something from that. I mean, because, you know, when you look at people on angry mobs online, calling Imam Khalif a biological man, quote unquote, you can just think they're insane or you can think that they're morons or they're sheep or whatever, but. And, you know, okay, that might be true about some of them, but not all of them, you know, like, it doesn't. I don't think something can gain that much traction without there being some intelligent people behind it, pushing it.

Yes.

If we underestimate our enemies, then I. I think we're doomed. And I think that's something that intelligent people do often, is that they presume that other people are dumb. Right. And I think, let's face it, there's a lot of intelligent people in this country.

Never underestimate your enemy, you know?

Yeah.

You've got to be prepared because they will weaponize language and they. And they'll weaponize science and or whatever to suit their agenda, if you will.

And the more intelligent they are, the better they'll do it. And that. Not only that, like, sometimes some people are so great at deliberately appearing less intelligent than they are and it draws you out. Right. It's like this has happened to me before because they're playing dumb. Yeah. And it draws you out. You start patronising to them and it makes you look like, I don't know, like a bit cringeworthy, I guess.

Yeah. Well, they're manipulating it.

Yeah. And they're meanwhile finding out what you know, because you're. You're putting all your cards on the table and you're knocking down all their arguments and they're not really saying that much. But then they've got like, a resume of everything that, you know, but you still don't know what they know.

Right.

Like, and they've trolled you with a few key one liners and you've given them whole paragraphs.

Yeah. They're baiting, you know.

Yeah. And they're wasting your time, they're wasting your life and you're not convincing anyone. So. Yeah. And related to that, I think this is gonna sound a bit hippy dippy, but, like, try to empathise. Like, especially if you're having an argument with your mum or your brother or your, you know, your nana at the Christmas party. You need to try and empathise with them. I mean, you don't. You don't necessarily want to have to cut them off, right. I mean, you might eventually if they persist with the transphobia. But if they've said something ignorant, I think it's important to try and ask yourself, why do they believe this? Like, what is it about them that makes them susceptible to this kind of disinformation? And if you can work that out, then maybe you can help inoculate them against it in the future. Like, I often think of the famous contrapoints video. I don't know if you've seen it. It's about incels.

Yes, yes.

So great. Like, she just goes right into the minds of the incels, and she even draws parallels between them and people she knows in the trans community and herself in terms of insecurities. Right. And she's not at all sympathising with their view. She doesn't condone their view, but she can see them as human beings and she can kind of start to understand why they are the way they are. And I think that's just so powerful.

Yeah. Understanding. And, you know, it's a big part of how we must go forward, because a part of me, usually when I hear transphobic rhetoric and people start talking about their fears, I'm always asking, like, what are you actually afraid of? Like, what do you think's going to happen? And really trying to peel that onion, which can be dangerous, but for me, it's a lot like, okay, you're afraid of trans people doing what, exactly? And then it's like, oh, well, you know, they're impersonating women and they're going into bathrooms and doing this, I'm like, are they?

Yeah.

Because what. But, like, are they? And I'll wait. Just, I don't fill them with any data or anything. I'm like, are they, though? Have you had. Have you personally experienced this? Cause I don't. I worry that you're listening to things that are not actually true.

Yeah.

And, you know, and express that empathy, concern. Like, are you sure that that's what you believe? Like, where did you hear this? Oh, I read this on Fox News. I'm like, right. Do you believe everything. Like, what kind of media are you consuming? And then I ask people, have you ever spoken to a trans person? Yeah, you know, because people can make all these fancy, use fancy language to get ahead. But in actual fact, if it's not a trans person speaking, you might come across some. Some things that are not accurate to lived experience as well.

Totally. And I mean, I guess for me, because, you know, I'm a bit of a. Well, I didn't realise this about myself, but I'm kind of a bit of becoming a bit of a science head, I guess, about these things. And I like to hear what the actual statistics are and where did the statistics come from? You know, so you could say to them, in that scenario, we don't have any statistics that show an increase in crime in women's bathrooms or change rooms in the countries where they have brought in self id or the states in the United States or here where they've brought in self id. There are no statistics showing an increase in crime in that scenario. So, like. And if you also haven't personally experienced it, then there is nothing here. There's nothing in your argument, right?

Yeah, pretty much. Well, we're going to keep chatting about this after we listen to some more music. And when we come back, we'll keep chatting about how to advocate and what advocacy looks like for supporting the trans community. Amplifying the voices of the trans and gender non conforming community of Meanjin, Brisbane and beyond.

Transmission on four triple z brings you the latest in trans community news, music.

And events every Tuesday from 09:00 a.m. till 10:00 a.m. join our team of.

Hosts for an hour of celebrating the unique perspectives of the trans community.

Transmission. Tuesday mornings from 09:00 a.m. till 10:00 a.m. on four zzzzz. We're having a conversation this morning about advocating for trans people when they're not around or what you can do to advocate for yourself, even.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

Specifically online maybe, or at a family event or with your friends at school when there's people watching. And it's kind of important that you don't come across as unhinged, hopefully.

Title of the episode, how not to come across unhinged.

Yeah. So I guess the next point I had here was, and this is big for me, I mean, it almost should be a bumper sticker or something, is embrace uncertainty. I give people this advice so often if they ask me for advice in all aspects of life, but especially if we're going to start quoting statistics. But not just that. I mean, just I've often wondered, why are people so convinced by an appearance of certainty? You know, like, often you'll see politicians who get up there and they just act like they've got the answers to everything. But that doesn't inspire trust in me at all. Like, to me, it's far more convincing if someone can entertain doubt about a topic because it shows that they're staying open minded, they're thinking on their feed and they're open to new information. Like, information isn't actually static. I mean, there are a few things that aren't going to change in a hurry, like the earth's round, sorry, flat earthers, it really is. Don't apologise, you know, so there are some kind of axiomatic truths. But especially if we're talking about trans stuff, often it's changing all the time, we're learning new things all the time. And if we're quoting statistics, for example, statistics actually are inherently uncertain. That's what they're about. Their predictions of a likelihood. They're not. You know, they take a small sample size compared to reality and they try to generalise from that. Obviously, they're never going to be perfect. So if we can't acknowledge that the information that we have is not flawless, then I don't think we come across as any more convincing than other people who are quoting their statistics. I mean, let's face it, there are all, you know, we've got us, on the one hand, we generally quote a 1% rate of detransition, or so called detransition, whereas on the other hand, you've got the terfs and Hillary cast in the cast review saying that 80% of children will quote unquote desist in their transgender identities by the time they hit puberty. They're not talking exactly about detransition. But, you know, those two statistics can't both be true. Yes, there's got to be some. To be honest, I think we need to give a little. They need to give a lot, but we need to give a little. So I thought I would dive into this question of detransition rates a bit more because it kind of. I'll be honest here, it bugs me a little when trans folks sometimes confidently declare that the detransition rate is 1%. Because I think I've read that study that claimed that I think it's quite old and I think it comes from the Netherlands or somewhere like that, but I can't even remember it and I don't think most of us remember where that statistic came from to begin with. So that's the first problem. But secondly, I don't think that it's necessarily accurate because I'm not convinced that any of the studies on detransition are accurate. And there's a few reasons for that. One, as I've said before, detransition is not a medical term, so it's not strictly defined. So everyone who does a study on so called de transitioners has a different set of criterion, so they're going to come up with a different result. It's just inevitable. So the best breakdown of this that I can find on the Internet, unfortunately, is not peer reviewed, but it is very convincing. And I'll put a link in the. In the podcast episode. It's by someone who I presume is probably a trans woman. Her name is Lexi Henny. She's an atmospheric scientist working for NASA. So she's not even an expert in this field. But my God, is she thorough. She's aggregated all the existing studies. She's rated their reliability and their bias. She shows all of the reasons why she gives them different scores of bias. And she comes up with mean D transition rates of 4% overall and 3.4% for minors. So that's still very low. I don't think we need to stick to the 1% thing. We can say something like this while acknowledging that it's uncertain. But she also remarks on the complexity of the question. So she points out that a lot of there's widespread loss to follow up, so we can't always keep track of all the trans people that transition. There isn't a registry of trans people who transition. And that's for a good reason, because if there was, then it would open us up to possible harassment or, you know, it's not a good idea.

Also, trans people who may not take the medical route for any transition as well.

Yeah. Well, I guess then that would come in under the heading of what is the definition of transition? Because of de transition. I mean, we could also ask, what's the definition of transition? These are not medical terms. Really?

Yeah.

And then on the other hand, she says, the other problem with any study like this is motives for detransition. And we've talked about this before, it does seem likely that most people who cease in following gender affirming medical care do it for reasons of minority stress and not because their gender identity changes. And so that kind of changes the narrative around detransition. So another study, which I'll link to, which I think is important maybe to have a look at if you're going to have this discussion, is Jack Turban, et al. We love Jack Turban. What a legend he is. Jack who looks at the reasons for so called detransition. And what him and his team do is they look at this huge survey of trans people, the biggest survey ever done of trans people, 27,000, I think it was in the United States. It's called the US transgender survey. And this survey, I think it was five to ten years ago, I can't remember, asked a huge bunch of questions of trans people. And so Turbin and his team, they're not doing new, they're not doing new research, they're analysing this research. And so they find 17,000 trans folks who reported that they had ever pursued gender affirmation. So that's a broad. They remarked that that is a broad definition to begin with. Pursued gender affirmation could mean a lot of different things. So 13% of those people reported a history of so called detransition. So that's quite high. But they're reporting a history of detransition, meaning that some of them retransition, and even retransition again sometimes because it's stressful being a trans person. And so they might start on the journey and then go backwards and then go forwards.

Yeah.

Did you hear? So they report, the other factors that might lead someone to cease gender affirming medical care, aside from changing their gender identity or regret, are pressure from families, societal stigma, difficulty finding a job, harassment, discrimination and transition just being too daunting for them. And I bet I can add another one to that, which is they're worried they're not going to pass. They don't think it's going to have enough effect on them for them to live a peaceful life. So anyway, 0.7% said that they thought transition was just the wrong decision and not right for them. So meanwhile, if Wikipedia is probably the quickest source that anyone's going to look at quotes rates of one to 8%. So I just. I'm pointing all this out just to say, in my mind, it's far better if someone harasses you at the next Christmas party saying, oh, but look at all the de transitioners. There's this huge flood of de transitioners. It's better not to hit them with some certainty, because if they have any intelligence whatsoever, they're probably going to recognise that that's not true. It's better to say, look, we don't really know how many D transitioners there are because detransition is not clearly defined in every study. There's not long term follow up. In many cases it's usually five years maximum. But we do know, oh, and the motives for detransition are different in every case. But what we do know is that the biggest cause of detransition, so called, is minority stress. So if you want to lessen detransition, lessen minority stress, lessen the problems that trans people encounter in society.

Yeah, I mean people won't be detransition or however you would define that. If we didn't have so many barriers to transitioning and existing, then de transition wouldn't be such a strange and uncertain and vague experience really and term because we would be comfortable to transition or not. And there would be no judgement.

That's right. I mean, because also the other thing that the terfs will bring up is, you know, like but if you, if you let your child socially transition then they're going to be pressured into sticking with that gender identity because it's going to be traumatic for them to detransition to go back again if they change their minds. Now there is a grain of truth in that because transition is always stressful. So if you've been, if you've been living stealth and you're a kid and you're at high school and you suddenly decide, oh, actually I'm not a girl, I'm a boy after all, then that is going to be hard because you are going to have to transition in front of all your classmates. But I mean, personally I don't think, and I've never seen any evidence that shows that that's a huge factor. I think it's very unlikely that many kids are going to stick with it.

But isn't just puberty terrifying anyway? Like for anyone, like it's a huge physical transformation. It is. It's a transition really.

Yeah.

You know, like your whole body changes. You grow hair where there wasn't hair before. All this sort of stuff. It's all quite scary. And then, and then, you know, if you do transition after the fact, after puberty, then, okay, maybe you've got a chance of feeling better and then maybe you try that and it doesn't work and then you go back again. The real question to me is why does that matter to other people if being a man or a woman is no different from each other? You're a person before.

Well, again, here I'm going to adopt the empathetic stance, because I can relate. I think, you know, every now and then, you'll see one of these really grief stricken, so called de transitioners who. It just wasn't right for them, and they're very upset, or, you know, they're struggling to. So Keira Bell would be one of the most famous detransitioners. She doesn't quite fit the bill of what I just said, but, like, she doesn't look too happy to. I mean, she. To most people, she would appear to be male. Like, she probably passed pretty well as a man when she transitioned, and now she wants to be seen as a woman. And so, like, as someone who would love to be seen as a woman and doesn't always make the grade, I can relate to that. I can relate to her suffering. But the thing is, that's one person's suffering as compared to 98% or something of other kids who transition around the same time, who are happy or happier with their lives after detransitioning. And they may be encountering minority stress, but they're not turning back. And if they do, it's not because of why Kira Bell turned back. It's not because they've changed their gender identity again. So I think it's those few, very few people like Kira Bella, who are struggling and having a hard time with it after going back to their original gender identity that are scaring some parents. They don't really want that for their kids. And I understand that because it's not fun to be trapped in a body that you don't feel comfortable with. We all know that. So I can have empathy for those so called de transitioners the same way as I can have empathy for their parents and for the. The few physicians who are sounding the alarm about this. But the reality is, like, as my paramedic friend says, we don't ban seatbelts because they hurt a few people. Like, every now and then, someone's in a car crash, and the biggest wound that they sustain comes from their seatbelt. Now, I forget. He told me what some of the wounds they can sustain are, but they sound pretty gory. Now. It would be conceivable for some crazy turf who was against seatbelts to come in and take photos of these people and their wounds and to talk to them about how horrible this experience of being disfigured by a seatbelt was. But we don't ban seatbelts because in most cases, they save people's lives, even if every now and then, they harm someone quite badly. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And we have to look at that majority, the majority of the, you know, the pros and the cons and the outweighs of that benefit and against the occasional few where it doesn't.

And that's where statistics can help us. And we cannot just jump to these kind of emotional responses because we saw Kira Bell on tv looking unhappy about not being able to convincingly pass as the gender that she started out as, right as the sex that she was assigned at birth.

Well, getting into some interesting.

Yeah, sorry, we're getting in the weeds here.

Yeah, yeah. Getting into some interesting discussion around detransition and what that means, what that doesn't mean. And as well as, you know, talking about how we can use statistics to benefit ourselves and advocate for trans people and advocate within the trans community as well for our needs and understanding more. Thank you so much to Julian from Kedron for subscribing to four zzzzz. Woohoo. Good stuff. Keep supporting community radio and keeping us on air.

Four triple Z has been celebrating the ways community sounds different since 1975. And this radiothon. We'd like to thank all the like minded comrades who've joined us in amplifying our special home brewed sound. If you're late to the party, don't worry, there's still time to subscribe. Head to four zzzzzz.org dot au to subscribe, make a donation or grab some merch. We've kept a few big prize drawers open just for you. Not to mention you'll still enjoy the coveted warm inner glow we all get from subscribing to four triple z.

How many genders are there? I don't know. I just got here. Okay. For the podcast exclusive section of this episode of Transmission now, bet, tell us. Tell us about all these extra things.

What have I got? Okay, so look, this is a big one, and I could probably do a whole episode just on this, knowing me, because I'm a bit anal about this stuff. It's please don't use their language. Don't use your enemy's language if you can avoid it. So that's why, like, I can't really avoid using the term detransition now because it's like everyone understands it now. It's a bit too late to just. There isn't another word that's as easy to say, right? I could say kids who ceased pursuing gender affirming medical care, but that's a very long phrase. So what I do instead is I try to keep prompting people to realise that I'm saying de transition in air quotes. I'm calling it so called de transition, for example. And I noticed that Jack Turban, the researcher I mentioned earlier, always does this too. Like, so it's not just me being anal, it's that this word was invented by cis folks for a specific reason, pretty much to try and take away gender affirming medical care, mostly from children. So that's not cool. And as I said, it's not a very well defined word. But not only that, it presumes that anyone that ceases pursuing gender affirming medical care is returning to being cisgender. Right. And that's just very rarely true. Like, as we said, there are many reasons that people will de transition. Mostly they're not about regret or a change in gender identity. And so those people are still trans, right? They're just in the closet again, because for many reasons, usually because of minority stress, they couldn't cope with being openly, invisibly trans.

Yep.

So detransition, inaccurate, and inherently transphobic. In my view. Some other problematic words would be desistance. So this is usually described, again, by people that want to take away gender affirming medical care for kids. It's the way they describe a kid ceasing to identify as trans. And this can happen, you know, like, a kid grows up thinking that they're trans, and. And then at some point, usually in their teens, they might be like, well, actually, I'm not. So we don't need to call that desistence. Right. Because desistance generally comes with a negative, criminal kind of aspect to it. We say that someone should cease and desist. And so if you look up the meaning of desistance online or in a dictionary, it's about stopping doing something undesirable. Right. So it's framing, transition, or being transistors.

Depends on how you spell it. Because if I say. If I say I'm dis, I desisted in what cis way? Desis.

Oh, right. Yeah, no, that's great. That's fantastic.

We could reclaim it in a different way.

Yeah, no, I am all for that. Yeah, no, desist with a c. Yeah, let's go there. I've never heard that before.

No, I just came up with that.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, just do that instead.

We gotta put that on a bumper sticker.

All right. And just click desist, listen to four triple z, and just have it spelt cissy.

Yeah, that's fantastic. It could even be a name of another show, but it could try to cis people instead of trans theme.

Yes.

Transgenderism. There's not too many trans people that say that word these days, but there are some, and there are some cis people that say it and they don't mean anything by it. They just think that's the word. But folks, that's not the word anymore. Transgenderism, like, transness is not an ism, right? It's not an art movement, it's not.

A philosophy, it's not an ideological view or.

Yeah, it's not an ideology. It's not an ism. It's just a fact of life. So, like, transness does just fine if you're looking for a noun to describe transness. Okay, I'll stop ranting about that now. On the other hand, what we can do, what we positively can do around language, is we can use precise, contemporary, consistent language. And if folks, if you want to find some of this a good place to start, and there are conflicts, but, like, go to a trans advocacy organisation online, a good one is transhub, and that's the biggest australian one I'm aware of who has a glossary online of gender and sex and trans related terms. If, like, language is contested constantly, right? Like, in a way, if everyone uses a word in a certain way, then that becomes the meaning of the word if it keeps going long enough. And so a lot of the words that we use, like, even the word trans, a lot of cis folks don't understand what it means. I've heard it said, in all honesty, this person, obvious, actually thought that transgender meant it was about transitioning, that trans. Or. No, actually, they didn't even know transgender. They just knew the word trans and they thought it was short for transitioning. So they thought that you could only be trans if you transitioned, and that if you transition to, quote unquote, the opposite sex. So, like. And that's probably a relatively common view. And the only way I think that we can combat ignorance like that around the language used to describe us is to be as consistent as possible in the way that we use the language. Right?

Should we go back to just saying transgender, like, the full thing all the time, do you think, or.

I don't think so because I. Well, firstly, because I think trans is a really cool word.

You know, I like saying it and.

It'S easier to say. Right. But no, I think what we should do is just try to be as clear as possible about what these words mean. Like, for instance, transgender. For anyone who doesn't realise these days, it generally almost entirely by trans people. And our advocates is used as an umbrella term to describe anyone whose gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth.

Yes. And that includes non binary people or gender diverse people. Gender non conforming people. Transgender is. Yeah, it's a big umbrella. Yeah. Yeah.

To make it a little more complicated, and I probably wouldn't say this to just any cis person, I'd try to make it simple for them, but to make it a bit more complicated, it's also an identity group. Right. So if a non binary person doesn't want to identify as trans, that's valid, too. And that makes it a bit complicated.

Yes, yes.

But on the whole, I haven't met. I don't know if I've met any non binary people or any gender diverse people who are really against being identified under the trans umbrella. So I think generally, we should be okay with.

The only times that I've met people that have been uncomfortable with it have been young people who were still questioning their identity and were not ready to be in a place to accept that label about being trans. But they were like, I know I'm not this. I know that I'm not what I've been told my whole life, but I don't know if I'm trans.

And I guess.

Yeah.

The other related to that, I have also met people, quite a few, who don't know if they've earned the right to call themselves trans. They feel like they're not trans enough or something. You say if they're non binary and they haven't done any sort of physical transition, but like that. No, you are all valid. If you want to be trans and you are gender diverse, then you're trans. Okay.

Don't do that to yourself. You're just as valid as the rest of us always.

So what got me thinking about this language thing, and I think about it a lot, but again, was the Iman Khalif saga, the Olympic boxing debacle? Because the language that people were using on both sides of the argument, but obviously, especially on the transphobic side, was so inconsistent. Like, I heard someone say that Iman Kalief was born a man. That just makes me think of that film Benjamin button with Brad Pitt. Like, what, they came out of the womb and they look like a grown man. Like, it's just crazy.

Yeah.

People just aren't thinking sometimes when they say these things, I think.

But, you know, it's hysteria, though. I think it's hysteria. I think it's this.

Yeah.

You know, it's born out of something.

And when you get a bit hysterical. Your tongue goes faster than your brain, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, it's like that. But it's like people get hysterical about what women can and can't handle in the sporting context anyway. But, you know, like, it's just a. It's. There's no. It's irrational thinking sometimes.

Yeah. So I guess what I think is the only way to counter irrational thinking is for us to be as rational as possible.

Yes. And calm.

And calm and. But you know, what? What do you feel? I mean, for me, when my Facebook feed was flooded with Imam Khalif.

Oh, my gosh.

Crap, I. You know, I didn't completely lose my cool and punch a wall or anything like I used to years ago before transitioning, but I did feel angry. Yeah, of course you feel angry, because you're like, oh, my God, like, it's 2024, people. What are we doing? What's this all about? This is crazy.

Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, okay, so touch grass, whatever, and then try to be calm. And I think. I mean, what bothered me was, okay, I expect inconsistent language around gender and sex from cis folks who are trying to take away trans rights and trying to kick women out of boxing matches and stuff. I expect that, but I would hope that we would be more consistent in our use of language. But what I realised is we're not always. So I mentioned earlier that I listened to a gender critical podcast about Imam Khalif, and the guy who was on there, who was very knowledgeable, was talking about intersex conditions. At one point, he complained that the International Olympic Committee had issued guidelines to journalists for how to talk about sex in the Olympics and gender, and they had suggested that journalists don't use the term biological male, right? And this guy was angry about this because he was like, but if we can't use the term biological male, then we can't discuss sex. And I was like, that's crazy. Like, of course you can, because biological male literally means the same as male. Male is a biological thing, right? It describes sex. You don't need to add that word biological onto it. But then I realised later, I was probably on Reddit or something, and I saw a trans woman describe herself as a trans female. And I was like, this is partly where this problem's coming from, because if we claim that word, like, so if I say I'm a trans female, then I have muddied the distinction between gender and sex. Right?

Yeah, you're blending that.

Yeah, I'm a trans woman. I'm not a trans female. I was assigned male at birth. My sex assigned at birth was male. And now there are some trans people who generally they adopt the identity of transsexual. And I'm not saying that's invalid. I think that's fine. And some of them have this kind of philosophy that it is possible to change your sex and that they have done it. Now, I think that's debatable, to say the least. I'm not a biologist, but sex is based on at least three different primary sex characteristics. When they identify. Well, actually, when you're assigned sex at birth, usually the doctor or the midwife just looks at your genitals and that's enough, right?

Yep. Tick, tick, tick boxes.

Not very accurate. And it can be wrong, it can be proved wrong later. But, you know, then there are also chromosomes, there are gametes, meaning eggs or sperm. There are internal sexual organs. So there are all these factors that go into making up whether you're male or female. And yes, there are grey areas around the edges because we know there are people with differences of sexual development. So I'm not saying it's a binary, but I think that this is a useful, you know, it's a distinction that's going to keep being made. In any case, they use it in medicine, and I think it's important that people are able to talk about sexual differences and use precise language to do it. So if I start saying that I'm a female, even if I did have bottom surgery, I don't think that's enough, really, to, in my mind. And, you know, I'm happy to be. To have this conversation with someone who thinks otherwise. And I know some people do think otherwise, but, like, we don't call it a sex change operation anymore.

No. Yeah.

Generally we agree that we're not changing our sex. Yeah. I guess I just bring this up because I think maybe have a look at the glossary on trans hub. Not for you. I'm sure you probably know it.

All right.

But if you're going to enter into these debates, I think consistent language, because otherwise, like, some smart person is going to bring you up on it, and then you're going to end up in this whole useless debate about gender metaphysics and sex and stuff that's got nothing to do with gender.

And they're going to. They're going to. They're going to scapegoat into something that's muddy and murky.

Yeah, and they're gonna make you look ridiculous. Right. Like, I don't think we should be arguing about whether we are a different sex from what we were assigned at birth. I think we should be arguing about what rights we get. And it should be like, maybe we should transition the argument from sex to gender because gender is what we're really focused on here.

Gender is the part that I predominantly focus on.

Yeah.

And I also focus on things like, okay, well, if you fixate on, like, hormones is one thing, too, which I try to express to people. Like, hormones are also dependent on a person's physical makeup, and that's not necess. Some people have more testosterone than others. Some people who identify as women have higher testosterone. That's like Iman Khalif, right? She tested high for testosterone.

Well, hang on.

Didn't she? Not.

I don't know if she did, because it was the. And we're going off on a tangent here, but I'll go there.

Yeah, no, I'm curious now.

Well, the International Boxing Federation claimed that. So they made two claims, and they were two different claims. One staff member claimed that she tested high for testosterone, and the other one, the head of the boxing federation, I forget his name. He's a russian man, said that it was a chromosome.

Chromosome. That's right. Yeah.

But they haven't released the results of those. Well, we don't know. We don't know. There is no evidence around this.

Wow.

And, like, okay, so maybe eventually it will come out. Maybe eventually. Because you see, now she's suing Elon Musk and JK.

And JK, thank goodness. Good idea.

That's great. But someone remarked, some transphobe remarked, oh, great. So now she'll have to prove that what they said was false. And to do that, she'll have to release the results of the. These tests. But the thing is, that won't prove that what she's saying is false, because clearly she comes from Algeria, so she must have female genitalia because someone assigned her female at birth. And in Algeria, they don't do, like, woke the death penalty. Yeah.

Yeah.

So it seems pretty clear. And she certainly seems to believe that she was. That she is female. Right? So it seems pretty clear that if anything, she might have differences of sexual development. Might be intersex. Might be. There's no evidence to say she is. Well, that still doesn't mean that JK Rowling was right to call her a man. Right.

Also, even. Even if. And maybe this is my. My wokeness. But even if. Even if she wasn't, she still identifies as a woman, so would that not then. Well, then I'm really taking the rat.

No, that's fine. I'm happy to go there. By the rules of the International Olympic Committee, that would be fine, because. And this is how my argument started online, was with a friend of a friend, a friend of a trans friend, and she'd made the comment, well, look, they just need to have clarity in the rules in the Olympic committee. And I said, well, they do. Like, the rule couldn't be clearer. If it says you're a woman on your passport, then you can compete as a woman. That's clarity, right?

Yeah.

But then she obviously, she'd used the wrong word. She didn't mean that she wanted clarity. What she basically meant was, I guess she wanted clarity, but she wanted clarity of definitions between male and female. Right. And that doesn't exist. Like, there are people. Like, it's a spectrum. And, yes, some people are clearly male, and other people are clearly female. And you can subject them to all these different tests, and they'd all come back telling you that, but with some other people, it's not so clear. And so then you get. You really get into the weeds. Then the podcast that I listened to, the gender critical podcast, made a convincing argument that people assigned male at birth are, on average, a lot stronger, not just because of their. So, you know, so testing for hormones isn't enough, because if you've gone through a puberty with a certain set of hormones, then you will have certain advantages. It made a convincing argument for that. I'm not saying I generally agree, because I don't really give a shit about sports when it comes down to it. I'm just saying these arguments, I think they're all valid. Right. But to me, the question is, okay, is man and woman the best criterion to divide up competitors in a sport? If you don't want someone to have an unfair advantage, wouldn't you do something like giving certain people a handicap or putting them in a different ranking depending on their skills, so that you've got people with similar skills?

My birth certificate says FDA. And for anyone who knows what I look like, I could go and compete in the Olympics for the Matildas or something like that. I used to play at a high level, so, you know, I. And if anyone came at me, like, as a man playing women's sport, like, no, I'm not. I've got f. On my passport.

Yeah.

You know, like. But I could say, yeah, identify as a woman. I'd be like, why? And if people kept coming at me, I'd just be like, I've got a vagina. I'm gonna prove it. Like, you know, like, and then that would be very confusing for the mass population.

Well, in a way, that would be the best actor that you could do.

If I've thought about it, I very heavily thought about it because I haven't changed my agenda marker on my birth certificate.

Well, I wanted to bring that up too, actually, because I have changed my. Oh, well, we're calling it a gender marker, but again, this is confusing because it's a sex. Yeah. What I've changed is that on my birth certificate, it now says f for female. And I will admit, like, because I've probably stepped on a few trans toes here with. With my insistence on this sex gender distinction, because I know especially some older trans women, they weren't brought up with this stuff. And, like, I understand we all have different ways of seeing these things. So I will admit that when my birth certificate arrived and I saw that f, I cried. And I'm probably going to cry now talking about it, because, like, wouldn't it have been amazing if I was assigned female at birth? Wouldn't it be amazing if I was a female? But, like, I'm not. And I only changed. Like, I went backwards and forwards about whether to change my. Well, I knew I had to change that, right? I knew I had to change the so called gender marker. But here's where it gets really confusing. You've got three options, at least in South Australia, you've got male, female or non binary. Now, those aren't all on the same scale because non binary is about gender, not sex. The other two are sex terms. So I could choose whether to choose female, which is inaccurate. And I know it's inaccurate, but at least anyone looking at it will know to gender me as feminine.

Mm hmm.

Or I could choose non binary, which is more accurate. But it wouldn't really lead to any increase in quality of life for me because half of cis people wouldn't even understand what it meant. And even those who did would probably want to. Like, they wouldn't realise necessarily that I wanted to be gendered as feminine. So I guess I just pretend that the f stands for feminine, right?

Yeah.

Like, and this is the thing, like, if someone were to challenge me on that, I would say, well, I just chose from the inaccurate options that cis folks gave me. Right.

Like, you gave me a small pool of boxes to take.

Yeah. You gave me three fucking boxes. And, like, like, so. And I know that trans advocates who have made this happen. Yeah. Have. Have done it for a good reason. And then when we've made compromises with the cis folks, to get, you know, like, it says f and m on everyone's birth certificates.

Yeah.

So we went with that. But, like, ultimately, we don't want to compromise on this shit. We want to keep going until everything is clear.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree.

Yeah. Okay.

So do you have any other points you'd like to add for our, for our listeners?

One tiny point. It is actually assigned sex at birth, people. It's not assigned gender. The medical term is assigned sex at birth. And when the doctor looks at you in a busy maternity ward, takes a quick look at your genitalia and declares that you're male or female, it's about your sex. It's not about your gender. That's why it's called assigned male at birth. Assigned female at birth. And we could say, we could make the argument that we are de facto assigned a gender at the same time, and I think that's true. But again, if we want to be consistent, the term is assigned sex at birth.

I like that. Great. Thank you so much, Beth. You're always like, just a well of knowledge and research, so it's.

Oh, you're welcome. I hope I don't chew people's ears off too much.

Yeah, no, you're all good. If you've got something you'd like to say or a topic that you might like us to cover, you can contact us at transradio with Azhorte Zed on Instagram. We're also on Facebook. Send us a message. I'm usually the one checking it. And we're always open to conversations that the community might be interested in. There's quite a lot of us on transmission now, a lot of different co hosts and covering off on different aspects of the trans community. So we're always interested in what you want to know, listener. But also if you are waiting to find out if you've won prizes from four thousand's radiothon and listening transmission as your favourite show, don't worry, next week we'll come back and I'll announce who those winners are. And in the meantime, you may get a phone call. So, yeah, hold on to that. Yeah. Thank you so much again, Bet. And, oh, thank you. Love you all. Goodbye.

Bye. Thank you so much for listening to transmission. See you next Tuesday night to 10:00 a.m. on four triple z.