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Transgender London |
Those Who Attack UsI am constantly amazed by the doggedness, and often the vehemence of many people in the world of academia who attack the transgendered population. I have to say that while these are few in number they are also very vocal and prominent. However, one must consider what they are saying in its entirety as well as examine the methodologies used to arrive at the conclusions they are making. I would not want to even entertain the possible motivations they might have. What is clear is that their influence is far reaching and as a result, the devastation being created within the transgender community is deep and continuing. As I said, these people are prominent academics and one cannot question their credentials. However one can question the credibility of their "research" and their seemingly unqualified support for one another. I can see this as a failure of adequate and in depth peer review of academic publication. I am sure many others hold the same point of view as I. My personal feelings are of pity for these people. They have used their "academic freedom" as an excuse for expressing what largely amounts to opinion, and often done so in the shadow of their credentials and as scientific researchers. It can easily be seen as abuse of their positions of influence in order to forward personal agendas, however, as one who is not of their ranks, this opinion is exactly that, personal opinion. To the knowledge of this writer, the information being presented is not generally representative of the transgender community. I base this statement upon my personal involvement as a member of the community. My personal opinions are supported by academics such as Dr. Lynn Conway et. al. who are confronting these attacks as academic equals. For this, they are in return being attacked personally and legally. It can be seen as no less than academic war. One could ask how so few could have such influence and it would be a valid question. Again, the academic prominence these people hold has placed them in very influential positions within their respective fields. These have often been within the mental health governing bodies and associated publications. Even medical textbooks are influenced and if the information presented is bad, then so too will be treatment protocols. As such, the extension of the ideas of these academics is far reaching. To the medical or mental health practitioner who has not the time to indulge in questioning these studies, their publication is easily accepted. In this manner it is quickly adopted to the mainstream. Changing these is far more difficult. Why should changing protocols for mental health treatment be difficult? In my opinion it comes down to human nature. As beings with faults of our own, each of us has our own prejudices based on our feelings and fears. No person is exempt. Transgender is an easy one to target because as I have said before, it goes directly to our own sense of sex and gender. Transgender is foreign to the population at large and consequently it is misunderstood and therefore seen as something to fear. The discrimination that follows is of course a natural consequence. It would be unreasonable that anyone, therapist or otherwise is exempt. This doesn't mean they are incapable of separating their professional and personal lives, only that no matter how professional they are, those feelings will always be present. Still, academic expression should remain as a forum for debate, but debate should remain as such and not be brought to the mainstream as fact until wide peer acceptance is achieved. Today, this should be almost global in nature. This removes the review of work by closely knit scholars and places it on a larger scale. The self policing nature of peer review is faulted in this instance and for that the transgender population is the one suffering. I can only ask this: Is academic prestige of such importance that the suffering of other human beings is justified? In my opinion, it is not. Kimberley March 2009 |
This site was last updated 08/11/10