Being triggered

How can we talk to each other, when the most neutral expression one side can manage can trigger the other?

Someone says she has “concerns” about trans. That word could make the speaker feel she is being entirely reasonable, but the word triggers me. Arguments flood my mind.

Someone might be concerned about young women having healthy breasts removed, and regretting it afterwards. This is an emotive subject. I have heard cis women’s distress at the thought of chest masculinisation. Breasts are beautiful. Breasts are objectified, and part of the objectification of women. Breasts suckle babies. Breasts give sexual pleasure to the women themselves. Breasts and nipples are sensitive.

So someone might be triggered by the thought of chest masculinisation. In the anti-trans echo chambers, the operation scars are compared to “axe-wounds”: the triggering is orders of magnitude greater as people share their revulsion.

However a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, with a sample size of 139 people undergoing surgery between 1990 and 2020, found statistically zero regret.

There are studies cited by both sides, and it is difficult for lay people to form a clear view. The original paper suggesting social pressure caused transition, naming it “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” described ROGD as a “hypothesis” needing further investigation, but it is treated as proven fact.

I’ve heard puberty blockers for trans children compared to the Thalidomide scandal. Thalidomide caused 4000 neonatal deaths and affected 6000 other newborns, yet it was used for four years for morning sickness. In 2019, probably the year when most children were referred for blockers, fewer than 150 children discharged by the gender identity development service had been referred. If my voice had not broken and my figure had developed in puberty in a female way, my life would be a great deal easier. I would be infertile, and I am childless so that might not have made things much worse.

Here, I am getting into detail, and that is part of the problem. The anti-trans campaigners assemble a great deal of detail. It can be answered, but it is impossible for one layperson to have all the answers to hand. So, read what trans people write. Trans is just how we are.

If the thought of trans surgery makes you feel squeamish, work for nonbinary recognition and the acceptance of trans people without surgery. Challenge anyone who talks about “genuine” trans people and means those who have surgery or hormones. Trans is so vilified and ridiculed that there is great social pressure against transition, and we may agonise about the decision to transition for years; but once we decide, we are pressured into hormones and surgery. And some young people are simply themselves, expressing themselves, making their own decisions.

Or, what about “concerns” about sexual predators in women’s loos? That thought can trigger someone. It has been expressed in the most triggering way: “Self ID gives predators the green light”, printed in a newspaper. Since regulations in 2008, trans women have been entitled to use women’s services from the moment we decide to transition, whenever expressing ourselves female. Some trans people are criminals, and some Scots are criminals, and some left-handed people are criminals. I am a left-handed Scot. You would see that campaigning against Scots, or left-handers, because of alleged criminal propensities would be ridiculous, but mention of a trans criminal triggers anti-trans campaigners, and because they are triggered they become more hostile to all trans people. Layla Moran MP refuted the idea of that newspaper slogan in 2018, but the alleged threat continues to trigger people.

So, the mere mention of “concerns” triggers me. I could start ranting. You don’t have concerns, you have objections. If you had concerns, you would consider the issues with an open mind, then support trans rights. That is me expressing my response in the most reasonable terms I can imagine. I hear the word “concerns” and I go into fight or flight mode: my sympathetic nervous system is activated, physiological changes enabling physical action take place, and so sitting still, let alone speaking from the Light, becomes difficult.

If I exclude myself from the discussion to avoid being triggered and triggering others, it is deprived of a great deal of knowledge and personal experience. What am I to do? The longer this goes on, the more triggering it gets for me. Merely thinking about it stresses me and can set me off ranting in my mind.

BRIGHTON SISTERS IS A FUCKING HATE GROUP! This is not hyperbole, it is just expressed in a distressed way. Then my distress becomes the issue, and a problem.

Fight or flight evolved for physical action. It is not constructive in debate. It leads to black and white thinking rather than nuance, as in a physical flight situation I need to act decisively.

I habitually suppress fight-or-flight responses. This is called “Freeze”. But suppression exacerbates the stress. I follow Iain McGilchrist in seeing the left brain as tool-using, and the right brain as managing awareness of the whole surroundings. My left-brain, managing understanding and planning action, imagines gentling my own fight-flight response like a terrified horse or dog. I imagine a cornered dog, a huge horse. My right-brain would perceive everything about that dog, its eyes, its muscles, as I approach it. Suppression does not value or understand the fight-flight response. Gentling, which comes from the True Self, or the Inner Loving Parent, or the Light, loves and values the fear and anger, calming it.

I am working on this. It is difficult. Someone utters the word “concerns”, and I am triggered. I automatically suppress, and my distress may burst out, surprising me. I want to gentle my inner terrified animal into calmness, see the whole situation, see nuance and speak in Love. I pray I will manage it. I pray I will see if others are triggered, especially if they imagine they are being rational, and be gentle.

Bism allah alrahman alrahim. In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful.