Trans Media Watch - Guidance for the Media

“It’s all very well for someone to say that they’re a woman, but they look like a bloke in a frock, and so they just are. It’s just pretence”.

For thousands of years, society divided the human race into male or female using one criterion only – genitalia. Babies were assigned a gender on these grounds, and these alone (and in a small but not insignificant number of births in which genitalia seemed ambiguous, a judgement would be made, or surgery offered to ‘place’ the child in one ‘category’ or the other).

Since the late nineteenth century discovery of chromosomes, and especially since the 1950s, medicine’s understanding of the nature of gender has evolved very significantly. Whilst the majority of the population carry either XX or XY configurations of sex chromosomes, it is now known that a wide variation is possible. This can have many consequences, including the development of physical sexual characteristics of one gender, and brain structures of the other. Equally, a variety of ‘mixtures’ of internal/external organs may be present. Sometimes, people can develop with intersex conditions. They may know of their condition, or be entirely unaware – struggling with problems they cannot understand but which are nonetheless entirely real.

In addition, emerging medical evidence is suggesting that the influence of hormones at key stages in foetal development can have a profound effect upon the development of parts of the brain connected with gender perception – or indeed create structures that more closely mirror those of the gender opposite to the one in which someone is initially raised.

Work is ongoing in this field, but enough has been done so far to make it very clear that a cursory look at a person’s physique or external genitals, whilst being a reasonable rule of thumb for most, is not an infallible way of determining their gender.

Historically, people born with trans or intersex conditions of this sort were left unsupported, coping with unexplained differences which brought on them anything from painful private confusion and misery, to condemnation from society, to murder or suicide.

Now we are starting to know more about how and why some people feel as they do, and to appreciate that there may be objective, medically identifiable reasons behind these feelings.

So don't make assumptions, or judgements, based on a shallow set of beliefs about what is ‘usually’ so.

For a fuller exploration of this area, go here http://www.gires.org.uk/dysphoria.php

Getting it right: best practice in representing trans people and their lives

Defining terms >

A brief glossary >

Derogatory, inappropriate or offensive terminology to avoid >

Approaches to avoid >

Why does any of this matter?

The dangers faced by trans people >

A right to be treated fairly >

Common misunderstandings

It's just pretence

Keira's Story >