Sinéad Watson didn’t mean to become an activist for vulnerable women
Sinéad Watson didn’t mean to become an activist for vulnerable women. At the age of 20, she began to identify as a man, binding her breasts and using the name Sean. But at 27, after four-and-a-half years on testosterone, she returned to living as a woman, realising that she had been incorrectly diagnosed as trans. Now 31, Watson has consulted lawyers about taking action against the Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow, which sanctioned her transition. “For me, the damage is done,” she tells me. “But I want to stop this happening to other girls and young women.”
As a result of being repeatedly sexually assaulted in her teens, Watson began to feel hatred towards her female body. She was spending a lot of time on the internet, and began following a number of young trans men who were speaking positively, “if not euphorically”, about their transition. “I feel like I was groomed online,” says Watson. “According to Tumblr and YouTube, becoming a trans man would be the answer to all my problems.”
Watson’s testimony echoes the experiences of many. The controversy surrounding the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London, which is to be closed following a review by Dr Hilary Cass OBE, has led to a number of young women speaking out about their deep regret at medical transition.
Watson self-referred to the Sandyford in 2014, having spent time in a psychiatric unit following a severe mental breakdown. “I burned my house down while trying to kill myself,” she says, “and made out to the doctor it was because I was really a trans man and needed to transition. That was bullshit.” Watson was suffering from depression, dependent on alcohol, and struggling to accept that she was a lesbian.
Almost a year later, she was finally given an appointment at the Sandyford. “I walked up to reception and said my name is Sean Watson and I’m here to see a gender therapist.” She explains how the clinician put her at ease, immediately confirming her trans status and using “he/him” pronouns for her, all of which put Watson “on a high” of validation. “I thought: ‘These are professionals, if I wasn’t trans they would tell me, so the fact that they are affirming me means that I am trans.’”
“They must have looked at my GP records which showed a very long history of mental illness and trauma,” says Watson. “They didn’t once say to me, ‘We can see that there’s been some sexual abuse in your past, I wonder if that might have impacted on how uncomfortable you feel being a woman’.”
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SubscribeTransitioning is not possible. It is to the 21st century what alchemy was to the 15th century. Vulnerable people, particularly children must be granted the protection of the state from the charlatans who claim otherwise.
*children must be granted the protection of the state from the sadistic paedophiles who claim otherwise.
Calling medical professionals “sadistic paedophiles” is just plain silly.
Really? What else do you propose to call medical professionals who mutilate healthy children?
Agreed. Paedophilia is something different. Maybe just sadist is more appropriate.
are you saying the medical professionals get sexual pleasure from helping people to transition? Now who’s sick?
But, wasn’t Tavistock sanctioned by your NIH? I’m not intimately familiar with your healthcare system but I believe it is essentially run by the national government and Tavistock was supported by the NIH if not actually created by it. So, the hypothetical protectors you speak of were funding the charlatans you speak of.
Sex change is impossible, of course, but transitioning from presenting as female to presenting as male, and vice versa, certainly is.
The word “transitioning” means different things to different people. Trans opponents assume the impossible definition because it suits their narrative of opposition, even when they have no personal involvement.
We’re not trans opponents, we’re trans-activism opponents and trans-ideology opponents, and we only assume the impossible definition because trans-activists insist upon it.
Brilliant! The activists have no argument to support their novel, and horrid, ideology. All they can do is scream insults at us, of which ‘transphobe’ is the obvious one. But it is they who are transphobic, as they delight in ruining as many confused children as they can (they also do the confusing, of course). So any of us who are neither scared, malign or imbeciles, respond by saying, as I do, that we are not transphobic but we most certainly are transactivist-phobic.
Every female has a personal involvement. And every child. Only men are unharmed by it. If you don’t understand why it matters that men can legally impersonate women, I can’t help you.
90% of these men have no surgery, all have upper body strength, most are heterosexual & they commit sexual crimes against women & children at male not female rates.
The article describes the regrets of a young woman who no longer wanted to present as female. This person now wants financial compensation because of what she claims to be a lack of due diligence and oversight on the part of the medical profession. Ms Bindle’s main point is that the lies told by this person in order to get what she wanted would have been detected if more emphasis had been placed on psychiatric evaluation prior to chemical intervention.
Your comment expressing anger against men who choose to present as female has little to nothing to do with the article and you make wild and exaggerated claims about the rate of sexual crimes against women and children for which you cannot possibly have supporting knowledge or data.
I suggest a more reasonable, and in your case more relevant appraisal of the article and subject in general would be better if a consensus is to be reached.
There are no wild or unsupported claims in her comment.
“All of these men have upper body strength”. How do you know? Don’t women have upper body strength? If you don’t like my questions, please bear in mind that feminism spent years telling us we couldn’t make blanket statements about men that put them in a superior light to women.
Although it is rarer, there are men who have been harmed by the delusion that they “are women”. There are downsides to men taking oestrogen, even as there for to women taking testostrone. Likewise full male to female “transition” involves castration and vaginoplasty, a surgical procedure of dubious safety in view of the frequency of fistula developing in its wake.
Men are unharmed by it? Tell it to the male-to-female medicalized transitioners who regret their transition every bit as much as this women does hers.
You have acknowledged in you first sentence that the “impossible definition” is true. It is the unwillingness or inability of many trans-identified males to acknowledge that they have not actually changed sex that causes trans activists to come into conflict with the rights and safety with gay men and lesbians, and all women and girls. Olympian Caitlyn Jenner does not think that men and women should compete in sports, but that does not prevent her from enjoying her transitioned life. But most trans women cannot live comfortably with the idea that they are not biologically female.
*Olympian Caitlyn Jenner does not think that men and women should compete in sports, but that does not prevent him from enjoying his transitioned life.
You have acknowledged in you first sentence that the “impossible definition” is actually true. It is the unwillingness or inability of many trans-identified males to acknowledge that they have not actually changed sex that causes the demands of trans activists to clash with the rights and safety of gays, lesbians, and women of all sorts. Caitlyn Jenner doesn’t believe that men and women should compete in sports, but that doesn’t keep her from enjoying her transitioned life. But it seems that most m to f transitioners can’t live their lives and acknowledge reality at the same time.
so is conversion therapy like alchemy? A lot of people think you can change your sexuality. Now we know you can’t, but transitioning is relatively recent.
The T is utterly distinct from the LGB. Many LGB people object strongly to the forced teaming undertaken by Stonewall when gay marriage was finally allowed. In fact many view “transitioning “ as gay conversion therapy!!!!
This is a great rebuttal to people who say that woke ideology is only an issue in the humanities and not the hard sciences. It is so disturbing to see those pictures of young people with the mastectomy scars. There was one circulating just last week and the young ‘man’ didn’t appear to be any older than 15. I truly believe that in 5 years you won’t be able to find one person who will admit to having supported this.
I suspect it will take a little longer than five years but, yes, I agree.
I think it may well take a lot longer. There are so manly professionals in many disciplines who have built careers on this who will double down. The alternative for them is to admit that their entire career is junk, and all the work they’ve produced is deluded trash.
I can hear the disavowals now from the experts: “Mistakes were made. Lessons have been learned.” Oh, and some lawyers have been enriched at the expense of taxpayers.
And maybe a press officer will utter a ‘most sincere’ apology
“It is so disturbing to see those pictures of young people with the mastectomy scars.”
*It is so disturbing to see those pictures of children mutilated by sadistic paedophiles.
*The young woman. It is impossible for any mammal or bird to change sex. Even at the cellular level there are important differences between XX bearing cells and XY bearing cells. The attempts to trick the body with cross-sex hormones invariably lead to poor health outcomes even disregarding the surgeries.
What does “diagnosed as trans” even mean? Gender dysphoria is a symptom, gender reassignment is a decision. A clinician saying to a patient “I think you are trans” is just saying I think you would be happier if you take steps to look like the opposite sex to the one you were born with. A guess, at best. The suicide rate before and after transition are the same.
A very good point, I’d not considered this before. It’s rather like going to a doctor with a pain in your head and being diagnosed with a head-ache (or even worse that you are a “head-ache person”). What you want to know is what is causing the head-ache – a tumour, an aneurism, migraine?
Your comment reminds me of the time I visited the doctor because of a sore jaw. He diagnosed “temporal mandibular joint dysfunction”, to which I replied “isn’t that just a posh way of saying I’ve got a sore jaw?” He rather sniffily said “see the dentist”.
Likewise I had a sore back a while ago that lasted long enough for me to go to a doctor.
“You have lumbago”.
I went back and searched for” lumbago”, which basically told me I have back pain. So he told me what I had told him, but using more obscure terminology.
There seems to be a theme developing here.
Actually, no it isn’t. The temporal mandibular joint is a very complex system hat involves many parts in a sliding, rotating, translating motion and saying ‘“temporal mandibular joint dysfunction” means that there isn’t a break, an infection, a tumor or any other external cause but that the mechanism is not functioning correctly and different treatment is needed from all those others.
For some reason we seem to go through these periods of madness, and looking back all we see is the destruction in peoples lives. There’s probably a clue somewhere as to how this happens. It’s not always the left, or progressives, but it’s definitely the extreme of ideology. Something, or someone, is accountable for this. There are those that push it and those who embrace it. The ones who embrace it need to be identified. Without there support the idiocy would wither away.
I had a friend complain about one of the sex abuse scandals from the past asking ‘how did we let this happen’ and my response was that at least it was a secret that was denied. What is happening to ‘trans’ youth is public and is being openly celebrated.
“Within five months of her first appointment Watson was given her first dose of testosterone”
That’s actually quite a long period of evaluation today. My understanding is that it’s more like 50 minutes in most American clinics.
The Planned Parenthood site I just looked at advertises a 1 hour consultation and same-day hormone prescription right on the website (https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-western-pennsylvania/patients/introducing-hormone-therapy/preparing-your-hormone-therapy-visit). With “informed consent” of course — yeah, right.
She was 23 or 24 years old when she started on testosterone… hardly an innocent child with no agency.
Men of that age are always held accountable for their actions. I believe women should also.
It is not just children who need safeguarding. She was a vulnerable woman with severe mental health issues. According to mental health legislation in Scotland, she was not capable of giving consent to treatment. What was done to her, no matter her age, was abuse of power by those in Sandford.
When health professionals ignore the legislation put in place to keep people safe, they need to be removed from position. We have a number of pieces of legislation in place that should have been applied before testosterone was ever put on the table.
In a few short years the Sandyford, like the Tavistock, will be wiped out with lawsuits.
“I never thought I was a man, I just didn’t want to be a woman. They should never have affirmed me.” – that probably summarises the issue.
Thanks
Until we acknowledge that what you think or feel has nothing at all to do with your sex, this madness will continue. It’s a biological fact; you’re XX or XY (outside a tiny fraction of people with chromosomal disorders). That defines your sex. Gender doesn’t exist.
The statement “I don’t feel like a man/woman” is irrational. None of us knows what it feels like to be a man/woman, even if we are one. We have no idea what the 4 billion other men or women feel like. We only know what it feels like to be ourselves, and some stereotypical ideas about what men and women should be.
“Finally, she is optimistic that the transing of swathes of gender non-conforming and traumatised females will be recognised for what it is: the biggest medical scandal since Thalidomide.”
So call it what it is: sadistic paedophilia.
Given the relatively small number of people affected by transgendersism, I would say that the covid respone – house arrest for everyone followed by coercion to take an mostly untested, ineffective “vaccine”, is a far bigger scandal. It will have killed far more people.
I agree that the state’s response to Wuhan Flu was an outrage, but I was under the impression that the castration and mastectomy of healthy children was never going to be allowed to happen again after Auschwitz.
Destabilizing the family is always the first step of the Marxist take over. Trans rights are all about confusing the masses as to gender to make a us more controllable.
Marxism is a materialist philosophy and therefore prioritises the reality of the body over thoughts and feelings. Gender confusion and trans ideology express a form of profound alienation from simple bodily reality, caused by the totalising commodification of human nature by hyperliberal capitalism. Marxism is not the enemy here.
Marxism is all about emotion and feelings. Its supporters will do literally anything to disrupt the old order so they can have a taste of the mythical success they crave when the revolution comes.
So right! I wish more emphasis would be put on the political motives of these critical theorists (race and gender plus a few more). They seek to destabilise society and then take it over. That is why the trans activists are in no way helpful to trans people, nor the academics in any way helpful to students (save in helping them to be weak and frightened victims). The race lunatics are another example: destroy our history and our institutions — the best way to destroy a people, we are told!
I love the way Julie says it is important to protect young women and girls, instead of saying young people and children.
She is another one of these feminists who derides identity politics yet lives and breathes it.
It’s interesting that she admits that she was groomed online by Youtube and Tumbler, yet there are no calls to shut either of those sites down. Instead they focus on 4chan who are the only ones pointing out the insanity of this trend, albeit rude in politically incorrect language.
In Scotland this is just one more once-trendy, now rapidly turning toxic, area that Nicola Sturgeon simply ignores. Having never shut up about her GRA act she now just never discusses any of it at all other than in the most perfunctory way when she can’t ignore it.
Scotland is now riddled with the effects of her desire to hop on any bandwagon for perceived short term political advantage in trying to pursue the only aim that keeps her in power.
I wouldn’t hold my breath on anything significant happening soon in respect of the Sandyford.
The question of women’s agency is here once again put in focus: The subject was an adult in her 20’s when she took the decision to transition. To convince doctors I told them “I was a trans man and needed to transition. That was bull shit!” And so she deceived the experts to obtain what she wanted.. Whatever the merits of the advice she received at the clinic, the decision ultimately was hers alone.
But now, full of regret, she embraces the victimhood offered to her by media and the lawyers whose fees will be paid presumably by taxpayers. Would the same indulgence be offered to a young man regretting transition? I suspect not. More likely, he would be told to “man up,” and accept the consequences of his decision.
M to f detransitioners are much less willing to talk about it. As I understand it, AGP m to f transitioners rarely get surgery on their genitalia these days. It is true that many female transitioners are adults when they get their surgeries. Unfortunately, adolescent anxiety and adolescent confusion doesn’t magically vanish when teenagers turn 18, or even when they turn 21. But the institutions that offer these surgeries have been up until now, predominantly staffed by people who believe passionately in gender ideology and “gender-affirming care.” Does it have to be that way? Wouldn’t be better for these young women to be seen by therapists who are at least neutral towards gender ideology, rather than activists themselves? The surgeons who operate on these young people are also making a living. Gender surgeons are really a very specialized kind of plastic surgeon, and, just as there are some unscrupulous plastic surgeons, there will be some unscrupulous gender surgeons. So the question is, how should this industry be regulated?
We have confused “activists” with “experts” in this field.
The M to F to M person would be derided as a pervert, while this person is lauded as Stunning and Brave because she is a woman.
The culture treats women like children and men like criminals.
No she isn’t stunning but she is brave. It takes a whole lot of courage to say publicly, I got it wrong. We feel for her as she should never have been put through what she was. If her mental health issues had been properly addressed, she would still have her breasts, no beard and no deep voice. The medical profession failed her completely.
Whatever you might think of her, which doesn’t seem to be much, her actions are more likely to help other young women more than those who “helped” her.
“she deceived the experts”
Obviously not very hard to do. Some experts.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest …
I would recommend that any man who wants to become a woman go and live in Afghanistan or Iran for a year.
I occasionally indulge in reading horror fiction.
This essay is one of the most terrifying and disturbing things I have ever read.
Bravo to Sinead and Julie for writing it and to Unherd for publishing it. I don’t know that it would have been published in the US considering the current climate. I think we are slowly stepping away from the trans-gender witch hunting phase, but so much damage has already been done. We are not on the other side yet.
I occasionally indulge in reading horror fiction.
This essay is one of the most terrifying and disturbing things I have ever read.
Bravo to Sinead and Julie for writing it and to Unherd for publishing it. I don’t know that it would have been published in the US considering the current climate. I think we are slowly stepping away from the trans-gender witch hunting phase, but so much damage has already been done. We are not on the other side yet.
So if they didn’t even start the process until they were 20, are they now saying that nobody is really trans? I can understand stopping 12 year olds from taking irrevocable steps, but are we now saying nobody should consider transitioning until, what, 25? 30? For male to female that means essentially that they will never pass as a woman, because it’s so much harder to alter your appearance once you have reached maturity.
The fact is only 1% of transitioners who have gender affirming surgery regret it so individual anecdotal testimonials particularly whose claims can’t or won’t be verified can be very misleading. That’s not to say such accounts shouldn’t be reported on but rather should be done so reflecting their proportionate reality if they are to be taken without prejudice.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8099405/
It’s very tricky to estimate the number who regret it. As Michelle Alleva points out: “Studies of regret were primarily conducted before the rapid increase in the number of trans-identifying individuals, which makes it hard to draw conclusions about pediatric transition. Getting estimates on this population are difficult because so many who detransition do not tell their clinicians, and many studies have short follow-up times or a high loss to follow-up.” I’m not saying that you’re wrong, mind you: just that we can’t be certain of the numbers who regret their transition.
One can also assume that the studies which asked patients how they felt did not actually communicate with those who’d committed suicide. I may be too cynical here, though; I haven’t looked at the meta-studies, so the suicide rate may have been taken into account.
Whilst certainly total numbers of regret are impossible to ascertain, pediatric cases are irrelevant given its usually illegal to obtain gender surgery under the age of 18. With medical gate keeping & holistic care increasing, increased trans numbers won’t necessarily cause an increase in surgery regret. And let’s not forget those hugely increased numbers aren’t usually interested in surgery as they are mostly identifying as non binary.
In any case, almost 8000 individuals from 27 studies & 14 different countries if not fool proof gives a fairly good indication of ball park regret rates being very low.
Research into suicide risk factors amongst trans doesn’t indicate post surgery regret being included either.
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8xg8061f
Detransitioners are extremely reluctant to go back to the clinics who transitioned them, understandably. There is no excuse for the lack of follow up by the Tavistock as was pointed out by the judges in the Keira Bell case. At least in the NHS we have the ability to follow up patients not so in the USA!!
But it’s not necessarily required for detransitioners to return to clinics to ascertain their satisfaction rates as surveys can also provide this information of which a large scale analysis h/u doesn’t implicate surgery regret.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8213007/
1%? A handy fiction, and typical of the utterances of the activists
Sorry, we are all responsible for our actions and she is the one responsible for hers. Expecting a payout to compensate for your own mistake is an attempt to avoid accountability.
There’s a famous quote:
”Never underestimate a woman’s ability to rationalise bad decisions to avoid being accountable for her actions.”
Yes and no. If you are particularly vulnerable you may be unable to make certain decision and it is up to the professionals not to pander, but to assist.
Try walking in her shoes for a day. Your view is frighteningly simplistic. What we see here is a medical malpractice of frightening proportion.
I would say that it was patient malpractice!
Surely some responsibility lies with those she consulted.
Yes and no. One thing I’ve learned about transitioners is that there’s no talking them out of it. They believe their online ‘friends’ are their community and use them as affirmation while dumbly believing that those who oppose their transition are ‘transphobes’. They have an almost fanatical belief that they can become the opposite sex. It’s similar to the mindset of a suicide cult that believes they will wake up in heaven when they kill themselves.
This does seem to be the case in many cases, and while I’m all for adults learning the hard way from stupid decisions, the fact that this is sweeping children along, is far more worrying for me.
Clearly the trans community care only for numbers and swelling them with mentally ill men, women and children doesn’t seem to phase them. Says more about them than us.
In my job there are many occasions where we see a safeguarding issue, we warn, we advise but beyond that, all we can do is report that we warned and we advised so their actions/determination doesn’t bite us. Can these clinics say the same?
It’s called brainwashing of vulnerable people. The youth cults before social media encouraged young people to use glue or aerosols to get high because alcohol damages your liver. Once high they were then encouraged to sell harm by cutting themselves. Now the cult is trans…
She trusted the doctors and psychiatrists at the clinic, and to say they let her down is an understatement. So, yes, we do have to take rersponsibility for our actions, but only if we are truely aware of the consequences.
Partially disagree. We have to take responsibility for our actions even if we aren’t fully aware of the consequences as if we don’t investigate our choices enough then that is a risk we take. HOWEVER if we are misled by professionals that we consult then they have breached their duty of care/profession/duty and are liable for their failures.
She LIED to them and admits it!
Do you know anything about sexual abuse abd mental health issues? If not, don’t be so judgemental.
Is that the greater crime here?
Men do it too William!
But I agree this person is totally responsible for their own actions & current situation. First, the internet was consulted when her own GP should have been the first point of call. The GP would have known the history & would have been able to refer her to an appropriate specialist. Second, she lied to a doctor who was treating her after she tried to kill herself (by setting her own house on fire) then lied again to the consultant at Sandyford (after self-referring herself).by saying she had lived as a man for longer than she had.She accepted the possible outcomes & now, when she has changed her mind, she thinks she should be entitled to a payout! She stopped treatment without discussing it with any medical person & then, when her GP reported it correctly to Sandyford, she refused to discuss it with them. I might not like what Sandyford do, I might (& do) believe that they need far tighter regulation as to when & who can decide what is appropriate for whom (The customer is NOT always right) but, if they acted in accordance with the rules of their profession & the law, I don’t see how it would be fair to punish them because the woman lied!
“if they acted in accordance with the rules of their profession & the law,”
”To refrain from causing harm or hurt.”
How could someone not see a troubled person?
She was severely mentally ill. She burnt down her own home during a suicide attempt. And you’re indulging in apologetics on behalf of the sadistic perverts who subsequently mutilated her. Christ it must be weird inside your head.
Exactly. This “personal responsibility” is nonsense when applied to someone who is clearly mentally unstable and suicidal. Do we also assign personal responsibility to schizophrenics and people with bipolar disorder? Her mental condition at the time of her transition seems to be just as bad, or worse.
What’s the point of having medical experts gatekeeping surgery and medicines if the patient can walk in and demand they have a particular ailment and require a particular treatment and get it! If I was to go to the Dr and say I’ve Googled my symptoms and I think I have this, I would hope he’d do his own evaluation!
”Never underestimate a woman’s ability to rationalise bad decisions to avoid being accountable for her actions.”
I suggest the following instead
”Never underestimate our ability to rationalise bad decisions to avoid being accountable for our actions.”
The majority of people who transition to present as the opposite sex are happy with their decision. Reading UnHerd you only hear about the few with regrets. The bias fits a narrative, especially for this author.
Nope. Middle-aged men rarely regret it. That’s all. And none of them present as the opposite sex. You are confusing sex stereotypes with sex.
The argument that “gender-affirming care” prevents suicides has been much put forward, even though that claim is a controversial interpretation of the actual data. What is less spoken about, is that individuals who have transitioned surgically have a very high suicide rate.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21364939/
I don’t think that’s what is beginning to come out. And using “majority” to back up your position is a little disingenuous: 51% would be a majority. And then saying we only hear about a “few” regrets is equally disingenuous. There may be many people on the way to regretting their decision. In time the real damage will be revealed.