Has Toff Bashing gone too far? - I should say not!

Benedict Cumberbatch

The ex-‘public school’ Harrow posh boy actor Benedict Cumberbatch, has said that 'all the posh-bashing that goes on' made him consider leaving Britain to go to the US. He added that he was often 'castigated as a moaning, rich, public-school bastard'. The Guardian newspaper asks; 
Is Cumberbatch right – has posh-bashing gone too far? 

Question1: Who or What is a Toff?

Let us start with the question of who or what is a TOFF? 

Those of us who are English, and who are not toffs usually know one when we see one, but does everyone else? 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a Toff as: 

• a rich or upper-class person. Origin: mid 19th century: perhaps an alteration of TUFT, used to denote a gold tassel worn on the cap by titled undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge.

The online Urban Dictionary, has this instead:

• Toff: Wearer of only Ralph Lauren polo shirts, usually worn inside with loafers and torn up jeans half down their trousers, with 3 day old boxers on underneath Always found drinking jugs of Pims brought by daddy or mummy at the local Hunt Ball, or pints of Bitter with their pals in their local underage pub.  Listen to songs like 'Roxanne by Sting' or the Top Gun soundtrack. Went to Public School paid for by daddy

Or as a mate puts it; 

• "toffs are 'posh gits' ."

EXAMPLE:  The use of 'Toff' in colloquial English:

The toffs had a field day smashing up the restaurant and throwing a big fat cheque after it to the owner, before going off and (illegally) jumping off the Magdalen* Bridge  into the Thames. The next day there they all were in their Ralph Lauren's trying to get their end away with the posh totties** down at Ascot Races. 

*pronounced 'maudlin' by Toffs who have been to Oxford University

** totty: usually female (but can be male) person whose poshness is an essential part of the appeal e.g. well educated; mellifluous voice; charming classy manners; sophisticated conversation; expensive clothes; trendy address, etc.

A Right Bunch of Toffs - Prime Minister and Mayor of London with fellow members of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University

Question2: Is Benedict Cumberbatch a Toff?

I will say this clearly. I do not think Cumberbatch should be bashed.  Other than unfortunately looking like a Toff, he does not appear to fall into the social category of Toff.  He was not born with the silver spoon in his mouth. He has not got wealthy parents who are inherited landowners, Polo players, Lloyds members, or Bank directors. Yes he went to a nice prep school, but that might have been because his parents worked very long hours in all sorts of jobs, just as we will be doing from September to enable our daughter to go to University.  

"But," I hear you say. "he went to Harrow - one of Britains' most historic Public schools?"

Cumberbatch did indeed go to Harrow - on a scholarship! He obtained his scholarship long after the end of the Direct Grant scholarship system, under which I been awarded a scholarship and attended a public school in the mid-1960s.  

Under the direct grant system, scholarships were awarded by the Local Authority to those children who had obtained the highest marks in the national '11 plus' exam. Just over  50% of kids at British public schools, between 1945 and the mid -1970s would have entered with a scholarships that paid their school fees in full.  Fifty percent ensured that there were more than enough of us with rough edges, to knock a few chips off the smooth edges of those from wealthier parents, rather than the other way round. Having since met many of my former school mates, I am pleased to report they are mostly pretty normal people with the same worries as the rest of us; kids, mortgages and the how to pay the gas bill. 

So, If Cumberbatch had a scholarship to Harrow, it is well worth reciting that it was not just because he obtained the highest marks in an exam, as I did. Under the Direct Grant system, I could have been given my scholarship, and my parents could have still been very wealthy, (though of course, in my case, unfortunately they were not).

However, by the mid-1980s when Cumberbatch went to Harrow,  not only did he pass the difficult Common Entrance Exam (CEE) used by Britain's public schools, but also his parents clearly did not have any sort of wealth, as he would not have been awarded a scholarship under the new rather stringent scholarship systems.   

As we explained to our children, unless we thought one of them really needed the extra input and consequent confidence  that came from going to a public school, we would not consider the Public School system, despite both of us having had an excellent experience of such schools.  Quite simply, we had enough income to afford fees for one of them to attend a Public School - but only long as the rest of us happily gave up on summer holidays and Christmas presents. However, we could never have paid for two or more to go. And we were definitely not poor enough for them to qualify for a scholarship, as a family gross income of £40,000 would only result in a contribution of 10% towards annual school fees of over £10,000.

So by deduction worthy of Sherlock Holmes, Cumberbatch, is not a toff , he doesn't have a wealthy background;  there was no silver spoon, he was a scholarship boy, and he studied at Manchester University not Oxbridge. Thus he is not by definition a Toff - it is just rather unfortunate that he looks like one,. But let us not bash him. 

Question 3 – Do we do too much Toffs Bashing?

There cannot be too much of a good thing.  and toff bashing can only but be a good thing. It gets our woes off our chests, it allows us to throw abuse at the current government which is made up almost entirely of toffs, without abusing the process of government itself, merely the set of multi-millionaires who are currently so catastrophically running our country. 

And, when we say nasty things about them, do thy hear us. I always say "they can say what they like behind my back, just don't do it to my face" [Unfortunately as a trans men, I find they do both; they say it behind my back and to my face. But lets ignore that for the time being.] If Toffs are getting upset by what we, the people,  are saying about them, then they need to get thicker skins.

A little bit of toff bashing

Toffs never have to experience it to their face. The only time they might be in our presence would be when we get the pleasure of serving them canapés or champagne, or changing their Egyptian cotton sheets, or brushing their horses, or sweeping their drives, or perhaps even ironing their Ralph Lauren's for pitiful wages. The only time we might touch is if they deign to give us a tip. 

But, it seems we say a few truths about them, and they get all uppity. So let me ask a couple of questions and make a few toffs a bit more uppity. 

3.a.Why did the toffs get so many tickets to the Olympics when we got none? 

The Answer: they were able to bid in the thousands of pounds for tickets, whereas we were worried about the couple of hundred of pounds worth we bid for. Then when the draw was done, and Locoq ran out of the posh £1200 seats, guess what?  They gave the rich toffs the cheaper seats, at the cheaper prices, so that in the end there were none left for the poor. 
Furthermore the richer you were , the cheaper the tickets - in fact in the end you got them for free. How many times did we see Dave, Sam, Boris, Seb, Big Phil, Anne, Harry, Will and Kate sitting in the best seats? Don't tell me they paid for them, if you believe that, you really are living in cloud cuckoo land.

However, if you were the unemployed poor and lucky, and Group 4 had got it's act together, you got to provide security for £8/hour whilst spending the fortnight camping out in a field out in Hertfordshire. [Apparently Group 4 is now refusing to pay those people who took the training for a job at the Olympics but who, because Group4 never got its act together, ended up sitting at home waiting for the phone call which never came].

Or if you were the less poor, and didn't have to worry about losing benefits, you also got to camp in a field in Hertfordshire. But, by agreeing to give up your vacation and stay outside the sports venues as a volunteer in a pink shirt, you got the pleasure of being  thanked profusely by a very well paid set of toffs who had loads of tickets for the games. 

3.b. How come every member of the our cabinet is a millionaire? and what the hell do they know about the price of milk or paying the gas bill?

Well, of course, they know nothing about either the price of milk or paying the gas bill. I really cannot believe that the only people worthy of running this country at present  happen, incidentally, to be multi-millionaires. Of course there are lots of people who are worthy, and many who might well be far more capable.  But because the toffs who currently run the Tory party only socialise with other toffs, they only think toffs have anything worth saying. The rest of us are quietly serving the canapés, not daring to say anything because we are just happy to have an evenings work for once, and we desperately need the wages at the end of the night. 

So that is my small bit of toff bashing. And, for those who say 'but that is discrimination' - no it isn't. Discrimination is when you treat somebody badly because they are different and it is to their disadvantage.  And nothing I have just said has disadvantaged any toff one bit, and never will. 

I say all this because I am angry. I am angry because it seems it has been perfectly OK for the toffs to say a lot of nasty stuff about the rest of us over the last couple of years. In particular, they and their nasty news rags have been saying dreadful things about 120,000 poor families on no basis other than a poorly drafted piece of bad research. 

Question 4: Who Do Toffs bash?

Whilst we might shortly get the pleasure of seeing a few of the news media toffs go to prison, for a few months, the truth is that is not a problem for a Toff. They simply spend their time inside writing a small but literate book about their experience, and once out they get a huge advance for it which more than compensates for the few months wages they have lost. Yet the 'rioters' who got such harsh sentences (and they were harsh) at the hands of the toffs who run our courts, will have no such luck, unfortunately. 

The truth is that toffs, especially those currently in power, and their nasty media rags, the Sun, Mail and Times, have made a new national, (a possible future Olympic?) sport of repeatedly bashing the nation’s 120,000* apparently 'problem families' , who they jointly have described as:

‘feckless, lazy, bone-idle, illiterate, innumerate, dole-scrounging, benefit cheating, asylum seeking, asbo-deserving, indian-dancing,*(see below) unemployable, unemployed, mentally ill, school failures and scourges of society’

They say this, though, we suspect, them of never having met anyone from any of these families - unless of course they accidentally brushed arms whilst a member of one of these families served them canape's  - but that can hardly be called 'meeting' can it?.

The 120,00 families are those in the Tory darling, Louise Casey’s report, “Listening to troubled families”  published in June 2012,  by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), which claims there are 120,000 troubled families in England, whose lives are so chaotic, that they cost the taxpayer around £9bn per year. Doubt has been cast on the accuracy of these figures. 

The findings have been slammed by one social worker as 'more anecdote than evidence' and a counter-report from the University of Bristol  shows that Casey’s report is a 
‘sample survey, case study by interview’ 
of families whose characteristics are radically different from those targeted by the Government’s consequent ‘Troubled Families’ programme. The families in Casey’s report are, quite simply, families suffering multiple deprivation i.e. they are POOR. There is no evidence in Casey’s report, or elsewhere, that these families are families involved in crime or anti-social behaviour. 

Professor Dave Gordon, Professor of Social Justice at the University of Bristol adds : 
“In the term ‘troubled families’ (Casey's report) deliberately conflates families experiencing multiple disadvantage and families that cause trouble.” 

Professor Ruth Levitas added:
“There are two possibilities. One is that the misrepresentation is deliberate. The other is that those responsible do not understand the research they are using. Either should raise alarm bells about the way policy is being made.”

As Zoe Williams put it in her excellent article: 
“There are ethnographic reports grouting the British Library (I found this enlightening) about what life is like at the coal face of a "multi-agency intervention". They are conducted over weeks and over months by academics who immerse themselves in the realities of the household, not government advisers who swoop in for a couple of hours to peer at the destitute. …. when you're straight repeating work that has already been done, but sloppily, with less sophistication, drawing egregious conclusions, isn't that a waste of time?” 

The toffs have set out to malign 120,000 families, who for all they know, are nothing other than poor people. 
Worse , they have also set out to make these families poorer, by reducing benefits especially for the disabled and chronically sick. 

If they can do that, surely they can take a little ribbing when it is on the other foot. If they don't like it,  they should get out of the kitchen, take the dosh, run off to their moats and their yachts and let the rest of us get back to running the country in a way which might mean we get a chance to finally rid these families of their poverty. 

* Indian dancing included here on the basis that when our Prime minister, David Cameron, defends his government’s scrapping of the 2 hour/ week targetfor school sport, saying some schools instead give kids two hours of classes in "Indian dance" he is almost certainly referring to the ‘problem’ schools of the sort which  the kids from these ‘problem families’ attend.

Do We want the T in Stonewall?

Do we REALLY Want the T in S-onewall?

or 

Would it be a REALLY BIG Mistake?

A few years back, there was an outcry from the UK's Trans community when Stonewall gave their Journalist's award to Julie Bindel. In the past, Bindel had written some nasty anti-trans articles.

At the time, Press For Change, the UK's transgender lobby and campaigning group, & its volunteers were vilified by many in the Trans community for their refusal to 'publicly' set out to attack Stonewall for the award & Bindel herself.


We. in Press For Change (PFC), felt though that had no choice. PFC has always had Rule 7 – which requires its activists to work 'by making friends and not by making enemies'. However, at the time, we had separately written to Stonewall and made it clear we could not support the award whilst Julie Bindel continued to write nasty things about Trans people. 

After the events of that month, we in PFC set out to create some sort of dialogue with both Stonewall and Julie Bindel. Julie came and did a web streamed debate at Manchester Metropolitan University, with the US transgender activist, film maker and academic, Susan Stryker. Julie didn't do that well in the debate, but during the process she chatted with the many trans people who had attended. At the time Bindel said her views had been very much altered after talking to so many ordinary trans people both at that event, and a previous BBC debate on the programme 'Hecklers'. She made a commitment and since then, she has kept to her word, & has avoided writing about our lives. 

The Meeting with Stonewall

Stonewall is NOT a support or an advice organisation. You cannot just give them a call, or an email and expect an answer to your request for support or legal advice . It is NOT what Stonewall does.

Later, along with reps from various other T groups such as London Spectrum and Gires, we also got round the table with Stonewall. At that meeting, we had several concerns, but the primary one was 'should the T be in S-onewall'? We made it quite clear that we believed LGB Trans people should be welcome and able to participate in Stonewall events about LGB issues, just as trans groups, we would welcome T people who were LGBT, straight or anything else. They agreed. 

Our major concern then (and still is) is that the T, if embraced by Stonewall, would soon, like the 'B' of Bisexual, go to the bathroom never to reappear.

Straight, Trans and Stonewall?

We also discussed what it would mean for the straight Trans community. Stonewall doesn't work on straight people's issues. 

• Could Stonewall represent straight trans people? 
• Would straight trans people be welcome at Stonewall events? 
• How could Stonewall represent the issues of straight trans people?  

Well, as things stood, Stonewall admitted the could not do these things. And, it had to be asked: what would Stonewall's Gay and Lesbian  supporters feel about the money from their primarily Gay and lesbian funded organisation going to support straight people's concerns? We could imagine the answer to be 'not very much'.

The Disappearing B

There are other layers of complexity to be considered. 

• Did anyone of us really know who would fall into the straight or a gay trans camp?
• Would a pre-treatment trans man who loved a man, be straight or gay?  

And as for the disappearing 'B' from Bi - our research has shown time and again, that whilst there is a large number of trans people who identify as straight, it is still a minority (47%). Of the remainder 16% identify as gay or lesbian, but that leaves  37% in the disappearing Bi (or Poly) group. 
Where would they be in a Stonewall with the T? Would they have also go to the bathroom and disappear?

Can Lesbian and Gay people accept us as the people we are?

For years, trans people have been like the mascots of the gay world and the gay bars. They take our money, they show us off, we even provide the free floor shows for many of them. 

• But, do they ever fancy us?  

A few gay men or lesbians can and do, but to most gay and lesbian people we will always be unattractive because, when it comes to the bedroom, for them we will never truly be the men or women we say we are. Ironically, the heterosexual community has proven far better at adjusting their grey matter to acknowledge we can be very sexy as the people we say we are.

The Separatist Lesbian Agenda still Exists

Now for the nail in the coffin! 

What is going to happen, when trans people arrive at a Stonewall event and then several lesbians then get up and leave the room as soon as we enter! 
There still are lesbian women who  still believe that trans women are men, and trans men are misguided self-harming lesbians. 
And they do not won't want trans people in their space.  Worse, they will not let trans people:

• use their toilets even if they are presenting as women,
• use their rape crisis centres even if they have been raped,
• use their safe housing projects even when they are homeless,
• use their social spaces even if they are lesbian identified.,
• use their social spaces even if they are women and sleep with women.

What things do the Stonewall funders fund?

Finally, as trans groups, we could all see our meagre bits of funding disappearing into the Stonewall purse, and to do what? 
Well what do Stonewall do?
I will say it again:

Stonewall is NOT a support or an advice organisation. You cannot just give them a call, or an email and expect an answer to your request for support or legal advice . It is NOT what Stonewall does.

Stonewall produce glossy little booklets. These little booklets will never reflect what it is really like to be Trans. For example, the latest 8 page, A6 glossy guide from Stonewall is about being a gay tourist in the UK - lots of pictures but less than 1000 words of advice. Would 1000 words of advice really help a trans tourist in the UK? No way, Trans people would need a short novel. of advice.
 

A couple of years ago, there was another glossy Stonewall booklet that made me jump up and down, go really red in the face and tear my hair out - which along with testosterone explains why I am bald. 

The booklet was about being a lesbian and having a baby. 

• The pages were mostly empty space - which in a world of disappearing resources always drives me mad.  
• The booklet really was much the same as any basic guide for a woman having a baby. 

I found myself wondering why on earth it had been written when far, far better books, by experts like Sheila Kitzinger and Miriam Stoppard, already exist.
The most those books need is an erratum page saying 'if a lesbian is seeking sperm, this is what to do ... etc'. 
Yet, I know from personal experience and from the experiences of so many other trans people, and the partners of trans people, to do justice to the same advice for trans folk would again, take a long novel.  
The advice would be very different, and even with it, because of structural discrimination and transphobia, many potential familes with a trans partner would still never succeed in having a child to care for.  And what we did write would be new! [oops, another book to write]


Of course, perhaps because Stonewall has so much funding to waste, we might get the money to write the guides we need to. But if you were Gay or Lesbian and contributing to a fund for your right to get married, would you be happy with it going to a guide for heterosexual trans people wanting babies when they can already get married?

Reaching an Understanding.

At the meeting with Stonewall, an understanding was reached that Stonewall would welcome LGB trans people, but would leave the Trans support and campaigning to Trans people. 

Personally, I still think that is the only way we will keep our issues live and on the agenda. It is certainly in my view, the only way to truly reflect the complexities of ours, our partner's and our families' lives.  

And I will say it again, Stonewall is NOT a support or an advice organisation. You cannot just give them a call, or an email and expect an answer to your request for legal advice . It is NOT what they do. Yet it seems to me, that that is the one and most important thing that the trans community needs.

So, do YOU really want the T in S-onewall?

What do other people really think? 

• Has the time come for PFC and other T organisations to give up the ghost so to speak? 
• Do people really want Stonewall to become an LGBT organisation? 
• What benefits would there be to the T community? 
• What might the trans community lose? 

I feel that before we set out a stall to get Stonewall to embrace our concerns, we need to decide whether that really would be in our best interests. I am still convinced having the T in Stonewall would not be in our best interests, but am always open to listening to what others think and why they think it. 

Sonia (‘David’) Burgess (1947-2010) : An obituary

Angelic Inspiration: Human Rights Lawyer Dies in Tragic Circumstances.

Amended to bring up to date, December 2012.

Sonia Burgess

I am shattered by the news of Sonia Burgess's tragic death. Sonia was the human rights lawyer every human rights lawyer respected. Sonia was the lawyer who inspired me to be the lawyer I am today. From 1992 to her semi-retirement in 2002, Sonia (as ‘David’) acted as the lawyer to Press For Change, the UK’s lobbying and activism group for transgender people’s rights.

Sonia specialized in rescuing deprived and alienated refugees and asylum seekers, along with persecuted lesbian, gay and trans people. Her work frequently saved the former from persecution, degradation, even certain death and advanced considerably the battle for civil rights for the latter, over that period.
When I first went to Sonia’s office, naive as I was, and coming from 'up North', I had expected a London lawyer to work in a fancy building, with polished furniture, and rich carpets. Instead I entered a dark, dingy, decaying building on the East London Road, where dirty magnolia woodchip papered stud wall partitions, with holes where they had been torn and kicked in frustration by the firm’s clients, and which looked as if they would collapse at any moment. Inside that den of iniquity, their seemed to be hundreds of grey people hanging out, hoping for a bob or two, or a cup of tea whilst they waited for the British Government to decide on their lives. Rarely did money change hands. Sonia, supported by her legal partner Robert Winstanley (now His Honour Judge Winstanley of the South Eastern Circuit), and backed by an army of pro-bono law students, mostly gave away her services. Her wife, a beautiful Nepalese woman, and a community nurse, was the breadwinner for the family, Sonia’s legal income was tiny in comparison.

On first sighting, Sonia (as David) was a tall, willowy individual with a toss of deep blonde loose curls on a face with the highest cheek bones any woman would die for. ‘David’ looked like someone of neither sex, and for all the world, as you might imagine an angel if you were ever to meet with one. I had always thought Sonia was Jewish, but that as her wife was Nepalese, I had presumed Judaism was not pushed within the family. From other things I have read since Sonia's death I am not so certain now, but if she did aspire to any religion it must have been one full of love, and a willingness to make sacrifice through goodness.

Sonia was a person with a contemporary reflection on life, with a vision of a world in which humanity acted humanely towards each other. As a lawyer, her mission, “a job that she had just been given”, she said, was to rescue the earth’s dispossessed, who it seemed, took up residence at the firm's office.

David Burgess

As senior partner of Winstanley Burgess Solicitors, Sonia’s work led to significant judgements in the House of Lords, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. ‘David’ worked on cases involving issues as diverse as fair trials in foreign countries, victims of medical torture, refugees who were being refused refugee status, civil claims against the Ministry of Defence for unlawful detention, country guidance casework on North Korea, as well as the many transgender cases we presented her with.

In 1992, Sonia agreed to take a case on behalf of our first child (referred to as Z) to the European Court of Human Rights. Sonia’s plan for the case was that our daughter (Z) would seek to have me, a (female to male) transsexual man, her father, and for all purposes other than providing the sperm, recognized on her birth certificate as her parent. She was claiming the right to a private life (Article 8) in which she have the full set of parents she knew. Sonia planned it very carefully. We did not ask for me to be named the father of our daughter. Rather our daughter asked for me to be recognized as her parent. By this ploy, we hoped that (a) we could extend the right to Lesbian and Gay parents, and (b) as the only space left on the certificate was for the ‘father’, the government would finally see sense and recognize me as such, which logically would then involve recognizing me as a man – because after all that is what fathers are.

It was a brilliant plan, and typical of the strategies’ Sonia would come up with. She would say they came to her in the shower, and I still tell me students that they will only  become real lawyers, when 10 to 12 years from now, they finally get a ‘eureka moment’ in the shower.

Four years later, by the time the decision in our case arrive, Z had been joined by Z’s 2,3, and 4. The decision came by fax at 8am in the morning, and for the next hour, with my wife’s consent I ran around the Manchester BBC studios to give 14 interviews, outing ourselves and our family. Sonia was constantly on the phone reading and analyzing the decision, so that within 10 minutes I was able to spin the fact that though we lost and were very disappointed, the court had found us to be a family.

Sonia’s work on this, and many other cases we came to her with, was to provide a sound set of strategic arguments in favour of trans people being recognized as entitled to the same Human Rights of privacy, dignity, family and equality as others.

She was equally brilliant on everything else she touched, and brought more than one home secretary down on their knees, as they lost case after case where they were attempting to return individuals to face persecution, degradation, or even certain death. However, I hated receiving the 9.30pm phone calls where she would ask me to write a ‘persecution risk’ brief for the court – for tomorrow at 10am. I lost many a night’s sleep at her request. It was an amazing high to find she had won the case. The rescued clients would then leave the court saying ‘thank you, thank you, I will, I will send you some money”. The money rarely came though.

In the end, financially the firm was on its last legs, 'David's' bad back was giving her a terrible time, and ‘David’ wanted to live as Sonia. My daughter has asked why she didn’t transition and work full time as Sonia? I transitioned in 1975, a period when ‘David’ was desperate to do the same. But Sonia was first and foremost a human rights lawyer. She already knew what I was about to find out. As a trans person, she would be tormented by peers, have no credibility at all in any court or tribunal and, most likely, she would lose her job - as I did many times between 1975 and 1990. 

It was many year into our friendship, before I was told of Sonia’s existence. Sonia’s wife had known of Sonia from before their marriage, but the children had been protected. However, they told me of the time when Sonia had been out for dinner with a friend, a fellow trans woman, when she realised she had been recognized by a fellow diner, a parent of one of his son’s school chums. ‘David’ decided that now was the time, she had had a difficult few years with her teenage son. When she finally got the courage and blurted it out, her son said “I thought you were really the most boring person I had ever know, thank god there is something interesting at last”. 

The family adapted easily, and happily accommodated both Sonia and ‘David’ within their household. In a statement the family said: “Sonia (David) was a loving and wonderful person and will be missed deeply.

When Sonia did semi-transition in the early 2000’s things had changed a great deal. She was able to work part time as a lawyer, and the courts acknowledged her considerable expertise. Technically she was still David, but looking very much more like that angel of neither sex. As her funeral service was to show, many, many lawyers and senior judges knew of Sonia's other life by then, and they did not find it a problem. However, Sonia was still uncertain as to what the consequences would be of transitioning to living permanently in her preferred gender role. She would have been greatly reassured if she had seen the great and the good of the law who turned out for her funeral. 

Sonia was just as beautiful  as David had been handsome, in many ways even more so. She must have had a picture decaying in the attic as she had barely aged outwardly, from when she had been 30. Sonia (rather than ‘David’) and I first met for a for Amnesty International’s photo shoot for a ‘Trans People are People’ campaign. She looked wonderful and very desirable. Quintessentially though, she had stepped outside of our current universe and entered what the transgender actor and writer, Kate Bornstein refers to as that (trans)gendered space outside of where everyone else’s gender is. Sonia claimed a position as a trans woman, and she was a supreme trans woman. Men might look and know there was something different, they would often desire her, but rarely guess she had been born male.

It has been very sad to see the tabloid references to her as an ‘escort’, implying that she was some sort of transgender prostitute. That was not Sonia, she simply sought love, and fun. 

Sonia's assailant was another trans woman, Nina (nee Senthooran) Kanagasingham, an asylum seeker who Sonia was helping. We will probably never get to the bottom of what happened on the tube train platform of Kings Cross station. According to one report as the architect of this terrible event, Nina was seen to be sharing a joke with Sonia. It could be just one of those terrible incidents that become a tragic accident, not everything is a crime. Nina was prosecuted at the Old Bailey, and convicted as being guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. She will spend a long time in a secure hospital - hopefully getting the treatment she really needs. 

I can only imagine that Nina had reached that terrible point of frustration and despair with the British Immigration Injustice system, when despair is the only possible response, and she lashed out at the person closest. It is one of the dangers of the job; Human Rights lawyers are not meant to have an easy time of it.

Knowing Sonia, she would have approved of that, she was simply ‘helping out’ with a trans woman’s immigration issues, but something went badly wrong. 

Sonia leaves behind her wife, two daughters and a son. May she rest in her well-deserved but humble peace. I now know that many of us were fortunate to meet with an angel.

These 3 short beatitudes from the sermon on the mount sum up the meaning and purpose of Sonia Burgess’s life:

• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
• Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you ...

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Key Case Law: Sonia ('David') Burgess
Chahal v United Kingdom, European Court of Human Rights
Razgar, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] EWCA Civ 840 (19 June 2003) Court of Appeal
A v Chief Constable of the West Yorkshire Police & Anor [2002] EWCA Civ 1584 (05 November 2002) Court of Appeal
R (Tamil Information Centre) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002] EWHC 2155 (Admin) (18 October 2002) Administrative Court
X,Y and Z v United Kingdom (1996) European Court of Human Rights. Case no: 75/1995/581/667
In re M (A.P.) (Cross-appellant and Original Respondent) 1993 House of Lords
The Queen v Immigration Appeal Tribunal, ex parte Gustaff Desiderius Antonissen. (Free movement of persons) [1991] EUECJ C-292/89 (26 February 1991) Court of Justice of the European Communities
R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex parte Sivakumaran and Conjoined Appeals (UN High Commissioner for Refugees Intervening) [1988] AC 958, 16 December 1987 House of Lords
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Copyright: Stephen Whittle 01/11/10 amended 28/12/12

ps. Jemima comments "Why is the value or status of a trans woman measured in her desirability?".  I feel an answers needed here. My reference to David's and Sonia's desirability had nothing to do with her trans status, her glamour, beauty, sexuality or anything similar. Sonia was 'desirable' as a person who truly cared, who always had a smile no matter how much pain she was in, who made you feel like you were the most important person in the room - when you were anything but, and who lived a life which was given wholeheartedly to others. I wanted to be as good a person as Sonia was, I desired to be like her, to feel the connection of her brain rather than her body. I wished I could have been her and live my life in the self sacrificing way she lived hers. People assume that the only form of desire is sexual, desire is so much more about aspiration.

Sweden depathologises transvestite, but not transsexual, people.

The Swedish Board of Psychiatrists recently announced their decision to remove transvestism from its diagnostic codes:
Clearly Sweden does not wish to ‘control’ the behaviour of trans people, unless it is motivated in some special way. You can wear what you would like, so long as your motive is purely to cross dress. Sexual titillation will not make it wrong in fact, it is evidence of the innocence of your behaviour. You are harmless, even sane, unless you have the wrong motive; a desire to live your life as a member of your opposite natal sex group, whilst wearing the once forbidden clothes.

If I was to discuss his in terms used in the criminal law, cross dressing might be described as being the actus reus (the criminal act), and except in very limited circumstances, (such as getting parking tickets), if cross dressing was a crime you would be convicted of the offence of cross dressing if you also had a mens rea (a guilty mind), i.e. you cross dressed knowingly whilst knowing it would cause offenSE.

What is the OffenCE?
In the criminal law if you have an actus reus (eg. flung out your arm) and a mens rea (intended to break the man’s nose) for the criminal offence then you will be convicted, unless you have an appropriate defence. A defence can be mounted, which can be either be full or partial. If full, i.e. you did not fling out your arm, or you did not intend to hit the man) you cannot be convicted of causing grievous bodily harm.

If partial (you flung out your arm, because you have epilepsy, and forgot to take your medication, and so flung it out without any conscious control) your offence can be downgraded, in this case from causing grievous bodily harm to common assault due to diminished responsibility, i.e. you carry some responsibility as an epileptic who knows he is epileptic you should take all your medications to ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen.

We have recently seen an example of the partial defence at work in the Crown Court, whereby Angela Gordon, who along with her partner, caused her daughter, Khyra Ishaq, to die from malnutrition has been convicted of manslaughter. During the time leading up to Khyra’s death, Gordon was found to have suffered a deep clinical depression. Consequently the judge directed the jury to find her not guilty of murder but instead find her guilty of manslaughter, i.e. Gordon killed Khyra unlawfully but under circumstances in which Gordon did not intend or foresee her daughter’s death. Her partner, Junaid Abuhamza, is schizophrenic and had already been similarly convicted of manslaughter.

Criminal law is simple , it is basic kindergarten mathematics that goes like this:

• no actus reus + no mens rea = acquittal
• actus reus + mens rea = conviction
• actus reus + no mens rea = acquittal,
• no actus reus + mens rea = acquittal
• conviction + full defence = acquittal
• conviction + partial defence = conviction of a downgraded offence.
  

What is the OffenSE?
Our cross dresser, has done the act of ‘being a man wearing female clothing’, which, if it was a criminal offence, could result in conviction if they had a related guilty mind. But in Sweden, you can wear what you like, so long as your intention is pure – like trainspotting only in frilly knickers. There is no guilty mind for those who return to work the next day as their same old, asperger-ed, self, still wishing to play with the train set in the attic. Cross dressing whether your wife’s lace panties and bra, or full drag for Stockholm Pride is, in other words, entirely innocent, so long as you are not thinking anything more than enjoying the feel of the lace panties and bra.

So, In Sweden, if you go out cross dressed, you will not be stopped by the police. Nor will any hospital or doctor be interested in you. The act of cross dressing is neither an offense nor an offence.

A small problem with this discussion, is that Sweden does not seem to distinguish between trans women and trans men. It may be my poor (non-existent) translation skills but it seems they assume cross dressing as essentially a male behaviour. Thus the following discussion is slightly askew, as it is very difficult to determine what exactly is their attitude towards trans men, so instead I will presume that as they think that the actus reus is wearing clothing of the opposite sex and the mens rea is expressing the desire for gender reassignment, therefore the sooner the trans man and the trans woman undergoes psychiatric assessment and treatment, the better it is for all, as they will no longer be cross dressing nor will they be desiring of gender reassignment treatments.

But we do face the problem of exactly what is the guilty act is. Is it wearing clothing of the opposite natal sex, or is it the wearing of women’s clothes by people who say "I am a man". It clearly is neither. So is it women wearing men’s clothes, or men who say “I am a man” wearing men’s clothes, or is it simply wearing clothes other people disapprove or. Well it is none of those either. Yet it is also clear that that having the gender identity, i.e. thinking of oneself as being a man or a woman, in and of itself, cannot be guilty act. Most people have one of those two gender identities.

But clearly no matter the extent of your cross dressing, it becomes an offense in some circumstances only. Not an offence in law, but certainly an offense against the state of the Swedish State. It seems you will cause offense if you do the act and/or express that guilty thought with an intention to think it. This takes some sorting out: Clearly the actus reus is not just wearing the knickers, but it is includes in the guilty act. The act of THINKING at the same time of wearing the knickers that perhaps you wish to live as a member of the opposite sex, also constitutes part of the guilty act. So if the thinking is part of the actus reus, what constitutes the mens rea? Transsexualism is one of those rare offenses where the thought behind an act matters as much if not more than the act itself.

The full state of the offense is the guilty act i.e, doing and thinking, and something which constitutes the guilty mind, and a guilty mind – which can only therefore be the expression of the guilty act. So you are mentally disordered if you have transsexualism, i.e. if at the time you are cross dressed you express to a third party that you think you wish to change your gender. The cross dressing combined with the thinking has become the actus reus of an offense and the expression of that thought to a third party becomes the mens rea of the offense.

When reviewing this position in depth, we find ourselves having to think about whether this categorisation of transsexuality as a mental health disorder has any basis in fact. Fortunately this is a blog and not an academic paper, and so I do not need to worry about the niceties such as references and footnotes or bibliographies. Secondly, this is opinion and not journalism. As we found out recently, in the Press Complaints Commissions’ pronouncement on the behaviour of the journalist - - sorry, column writer - - Jan Moir, who untruthfully reported - - sorry, opined - - that Stephen Gately suffered a lonely, addicted, drunken death, on the sofa while his male partner slept with somebody else in the room next door, which is apparently the fate of all Gay men, opinion writers do not need to tell the truth at all, not even a little bit of it. Unlike Jan Moir, however I am not going to lie when I opine.

Good Questions
I want to know why any physician would wish to continue a mental health categorisation for a group of people whose behaviour seems identical to that of another group of people. Of course the two groups are not quite identical, transsexual people appear to be in some ways more rational and therefore saner, as they frequently dress much more sensibly for the situation they are in. They know to wear jeans when gardening or boots when rambling, and they do not wear 8” stilettos whilst marching in Pride.

Why would they do that when it is well known, even amongst some Swedes, that such categorisation will have a severe impact on the individual’s well-being. We know it will result in the ‘real’ mental health problems of severe anxiety, depression, feelings of worthlessness, alcoholism, and addictive drug use, especially tobacco products. These will in turn cause further health problems as well as leading to workplace exclusion, family breakdown and social isolation. In turn, these people often become a problem for the state, requiring social welfare input, involving financial and social services support. We also know that none of this would arise if the person did not have a real fear of consequent prejudice, discrimination and violence that comes with being diagnosed as having the mental health disorder of transsexualism. .

Now it is only those trans people with the guilty expression of the guilty thought as well as the guilty act that are of interest to psychiatry (presuming all Swedish psychiatrists enjoyed forensics when at university). Presumably some psychiatric services may still be seeing some transvestites, but as with homosexuality, I believe, the numbers seeking psychological care will fall considerably over the next 10 years, as transvestite people discover they are no longer socially stigmatised.

I also would suggest that as there is no documented case of a cure of a transsexual person by the psycho professions anywhere within the scientific literature (though there are some churches who profess to achieved such a miracle), it would seem therefore the only treatment we have available to stop the [‘transsexual’] behaviour is gender reassignment. I will opine therefore that in Sweden, we should assume the sooner we can catch and ensure our transsexual citizens access the assessment and treatment process in a prompt and timely manner, and commence permanently living in their preferred gender role, the safer (nicer?) it will be - not just for them, but for all of us. After all we simply don’t want them around whilst they are still transsexual and causing such great offense, but our only alternative is to help them become the men and women they say they are, and so stop them wanting to cross dress.

Yet in Sweden, though some gender identity clinics are marvellous and progressive, in action as well as thought, clearly as can be seen from the new activism in Sweden, many clinics are still illogical in their approach, making it as difficult as possible for transsexual people to obtain gender reassignment treatments and to transition.

FREDA: Human Rights and Trans People
For a moment , lets pause and think about the principles of human rights; Fairness, Respect, Equality, Dignity and the right to Autonomy (Freda – not Frida as in the second most important event in Sweden’s history, the formation of ABBA) . It seems clear to me that this decision, which has just been embodied in Swedish law lacks fairness, fails to afford respect or dignity, certainly produces an unequal result and in the transsexual person’s case assumes they are not capable of their own autonomous decision making.

In de-pathologising cross dressing, any transvestite behaviour in itself is now harmless, so the first thing that needs to be arranged is a formal apology by the Swedish government to the many transvestites who have suffered inhuman treatments like aversion therapy, chemical castration and other bizarre medical regimes in the not too distant past. In the 1970s, Sweden was still sterilising the children of alcoholic parents using the theories of eugenics to justify their actions. As that was the case, I am sure they did not give cross dressing children a pat on the back of the hand. Compensation should also be considered for those people whose life chances have been damaged considerably by the ‘madness machine’.

Further, if cross dressing is now sane behaviour which needs no form of social intervention, the Swedish legislation must now urgently move to make transvestism a protected ground in the Swedish discrimination laws.

If cross-dressing is not in itself deviant or offensive, there must be a compelling and really serious reason for keeping some people under such a harmful psychiatric regime as described above. The seriously wrong thing must be a threat or danger to others. The thing that is seriously wrong, we can deduce is manifested through cross dressing, but it only comes into play if a cross dressing person also claims they are (in opposition to everybody else’s view) a man or a woman.

When this claim has been fulfilled, i.e. we have reached the endgame, in that other people now see them as the man or woman they say they are, and the individual is facilitated in achieving their new social role, clearly "the serious thing " disappears and we end their psychiatric supervision, because they are no longer dangerous. Rather than being sociopaths, they become pussycats.

Presumably, in Sweden, this very compelling and significant reason leading to the ongoing diagnosis of transsexual people with a mental health problem, must be such that it is worth the distress caused to transsexual people, and the severe impact on the individual’s life. Especially, when we take into consideration the risk of transphobic violence, prejudice and discrimination that comes with that diagnosis.

Is the very compelling and significant reason that many transsexual people try to commit suicide? Except of course it could not be, because otherwise, when we appear to recognise them as the person they say they are and are allowed to engage fully in their deviant behaviour, and we stopped forcing them to speak psychiatrists, the suicide attempt rate falls to what are close to normal figures. Some suggest they might even be lower than normal.

As a member of the general public, therefore I would really like to know what this compelling and really serious reason is, particularly as it is clearly dangerous. I think we need a national debate as to whether transsexual people should be put in locked units, until such time, it has been proven that they will not do this really serious thing – whatever it is. In fact, we could rehabilitate them through such units, making them undergo the full transition process, until they reach the end game and we know they are safe.

But, also, curiosity means, I just really would like to know what that one thing is. On one level it concerns me that I may have done it some time in my past. Fortunately my past is quite long way away now and there is a statute of limitations, unless of course it was something serious as murder.

De Pathologisation
I could go through a huge list of consequences to the state and the individual if we just imagine if it had not been a mental health disorder. I personally find that really difficult to imagine. It is as the Scots’ might say “Beyond my ken”. I still suffer from the shame, the blame, the fear of doctors, then feeling of vomit rising every time I have to tell someone new about my dark and dangerous past. I suppose I would feel none of those things - that would be a good start anyway.

Yet, I believe the mental health categorisation for transsexual people could disappear overnight, just as it has done for transvestism within Sweden. It has been done before over other similarly stigmatised behaviours and thoughts; the act of masturbation or the thoughts of romance when holding the wrong man’s hand, or getting pregnant when unmarried have all been de-pathologised.

Thankfully we no longer see young women locked away for 60+ years for such dangerous behaviours. In the 1980s we were all rightly ashamed of our society and our status as human beings, when we saw these women finally being released from the asylums into a sort of free life which had long been beyond their imaginations Similarly de-pathologised has been the act of sex with a partner of the same sex, and the thought of love with a lover of the same gender. And, now it has just now been done for transvestism. Surely, with evidence in existence from many, albeit mostly historical, societies where cross gendered living was not pathologised, that is proof enough that it can be done for those daring to think they might be transsexual.

I can see no reason for the mental health categorisation for transsexual people not to similarly disappear other than the purely practical problem of ensuring treatment, especially specialised liaison psychiatric services for those people who continue to need it, and will do so until the stigma vanishes. As the stigma slowly dissipates, we will see a new generation of mentally and physically healthy young trans people able to come out as children or teenagers, so avoiding much of the later surgery required, because of their current ongoing pubertal hormonal processes.

Indeed, the next generation of fathers and mothers may well realise that babies are not born boys or girls, rather they grow up into being boys or girls and the key indicator is not necessarily genital. They may well welcome the child they thought was the daughter when he announces he is the son. Similarly, they probably will also worry about the cost of the wedding when the child they thought was their son, announces she is their daughter. Hopefully we would see an end to the beating and throwing out of young people by their families.

Why would we not de-pathologise transsexualism, when we know that to do that will lead to those continuing health and social problems associated with stigma have a chance of falling away when the transsexual person is finally allowed to live in their preferred gender role, including wearing clothes whereby they can be identified, but which are also best suited for their circumstances.

De-pathologisation will only finally occur It when psychiatrists and psychologists agree with the viewpoint that the transsexual person is who they say they are; ie. they are the woman or man they say they are. What is it that really makes a woman or a man? As the ‘experts’ any non-trans woman or man they will say "I am a woman " or " I am a man .", and that is what makes them the person they say they are. So why can’t we transsexual people do the same.

What might be the consequent changes that will now come about, within Sweden, because transvestites are now fine and dandy citizens, with full human rights, and their behaviour is no longer mentally disordered. I recently had a conversation with a member of staff from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, in which she was telling me to explain the human rights of transvestites. I said transvestite people have no human rights, which she refused to believe. Of course, in principle, we all have human rights, but there has been a long history of refusing human rights to many people on arbitrary grounds. Cross dressers have been amongst those, along with transsexual people. AS the law stands, where there is no legislation or case law to support the human rights of anyone if they are a cross dresser, I argued that I did not feel able to advise a cross dresser that they would win the case in court, where their human rights had been contravened, because they were cross dresser. The EHRC member of staff was getting edgy about this; until I said to her; "the day the EHRC employs somebody called Robert to work on the reception desk, knowing Robert will comes into work wearing a skirt, blouse, tights and a wig - I will believe transvestites of human rights ". She quickly saw the veracity of my argument.

Finally: the compelling and really serious reason for pathologising transsexual people.
As I said earlier, there must be a compelling and significant reason to continue the diagnosis of transsexualism as a mental health disorder, otherwise physicians, who are otherwise well-educated, responsible, sane individuals would not take such a drastic step. There must be some really serious problem – but what is it?

Before Magnus Hirschfeld and Harry Benjamin came along, there was no treatment for people who we would now identify as transsexual, yet the historical record does not seem to be any record of any particular consistent insanity or criminal offence, other than that of being a cross dresser who wanted to change sex, that these people engaged in. Yet, there are in fact many historical records of trans people suffering the most dreadful punishments; being hanged, burnt, garrotted, or in some cases, being drowned. In 17th century Holland, they would drive the Urnings and Tribades– up to 200 people at a time, to the Amstel, and then the people of the city used sticks to hold them under the water until they drowned. A tribade was a woman convicted of using an artificial member to have sexual intercourse with another woman, undoubtedly, there were trans men included. Similarly urnings were men convicted of being passive sodomists, undoubtedly there were trans women included.

So therefore, perhaps we can reach a conclusion, the compelling and really serious dangerous thing must be having sex, not heterosexual, lesbian or gay sex - in Sweden that is not a mental health disorder. But it must involve having sex, whilst cross dressing and thinking , and then expressing the thought. So it seems that the compelling and really serious dangerous thing is in fact linked closely to the breaking of archaic, patriarchal, social rules and values as to how to men or women should behave in the bedroom. Biological males must not be ‘passive’, biological females must not be ‘active’, whatever that nonsense means. Clearly it is not just that you have done this before but that you have the potential for doing this in the future, otherwise they would not be trying to cure gender variant kids, who have not yet even thought of sex as an activity.

But this is nonsense. Nobody is any longer concerned with those archaic social standards in the bedroom. So long as we are all consenting, and are old enough to properly consent, and we are not breaching a position of trust, and are not too closely related by blood, then we can do what we like in the bedroom. It no longer matters, who is on top.

But that is Sweden for you. It is a large country with very few people in it, it is a very wealthy country where people still get full student grants, and they have very, very long winter nights in which to do their knitting or to rub their hands together, prying into other people’s affairs. I think they might find it more edifying to take up philately, playing bridge or alternatively, enjoy reading Carlos Castaneda vols 1 to 12 in hope for their own enlightenment, hopefully arriving with the spring.

There are two other possible explanations to this current move to de-pthologise transvestism. It could be that in Sweden there is so much transvestism that they worry they will not be able to afford the clinical services for addressing the problem. In this case, continuing to classify cross dressing as a mental health disorder is about to become a significant drain on the Swedish health services. Following a pathway similar to late 19th century homosexuality, as there is now less stigma associated with cross dressing behaviour, more transvestites are becoming brave enough to talk to their doctor and they want their doctors to provide a cure – because there is still stigma surrounding being a transvestite. The Swedish health authorities have made this change to close this loophole, as they are extremely concerned that outpatient’s clinics will be full to the brim of worried-well cross dressers, and schizophrenics, psychopaths, sociopaths and addicts would be left to roam the streets rather than taking part in their group therapy.

The other ‘far fetched’ possibility is that the Swedish health authority, the Parliamentary Cabinet the ICD committee, and the Department of Health in Sweden are full of transphobic cross dressers.

If you get to the end of this piece of missionary zeal, you will realise that all I am doing is pointing out the illogicality of a system which says one thing and yet does another. A system which clearly fails to understand the link between cross dressing and being transsexual, a system which fails to relalise that over 40% of cross dressers would, if possible prefer to live as a member of the opposite natal sex grouping. Transevstite, transgender, transsexual, trans-nonsensical, we are all trans-connected, different from each other, yet still more often the same.

Some days I love being a lawyer, it is like mathematics, a simple game of logic whereby you can assume the strangest mentalities and behaviours exist and using logic, prove that they probably do exist.

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copyright STWhittle 13 March 2010