Coming Out and Facing It

Many of us gender heretics - those who believe that biological sex is real and that no one is born in the wrong body - struggle with the question of if or when to “come out” about our position.

Is it better to work quietly behind the scenes or take a public stance that will inevitably result in the condemnation of ill-informed family, friends and colleagues?

This dilemma is intensified if your politics have always been left-wing. To reveal your views can mean the complete annihilation personal and professional relationships1.

To have to “come out” in support of material reality and first principals in healthcare, is absolutely absurd, but here we are.

Until recently, I’ve hidden my words, activities and beliefs behind an avatar on X. I’m not proud of it. But it was the only way I felt able to engage. And I know I’m not alone in this.

My actual face, when it comes to working on this issue, had only ever been seen in private video calls with various organisations that are fighting back. Or, in person at my local women’s group, filled with lesbian and feminist activists who’ve been tossed out of their former tribes for knowing what a woman is.

The community groups and movements to which we used to belong have capitulated to the authoritarian dictates of gender ideology. A dogma that denies sex-based rights for women and obfuscates the harms of so-called “gender affirming care”.

I’ve finally reached the point where I do not want nor need to hide my face anymore.

This arrival might be met with a hard eye roll by those who’ve been public for a while, or would have never dreamed of doing otherwise. “About bloody time” they might mutter with scorn under their breath.

To the eye rollers I simply say: You know little of the life circumstances that make “coming out” such a difficult issue for myself and others. And I’m not prepared to lay bare all my particulars for your appeasement.

Until six years ago, I was a committed Greens voter. In my 20s I helped out at election time with leafleting and distributing how to vote cards on election day. I was also active in the student union movement, holding elected office and working as an advocate. Later, I founded a feminist writers group and edited assorted publications.

Accusations that we who question gender ideology are all right-wing, religious, ultra-conservative nutjobs is ludicrous to anyone who is actually involved in this movement.

Most of the people I’ve collaborated with are old lefties like me. Many are ex-Green. Plenty are die-hard Labor members, desperately hoping their party will some day return to sanity. A large number have already abandoned their beloved party, evacuating what they believe is an unsavable sinking ship. They call us “leftugees”. Still left at heart (maybe?) but without a recognisable homeland to return to2.

The sense of betrayal is palpable. The left is supposed to care about gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Yet it openly supports a treatment protocol (puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones) that is obviously harmful to gender-nonconforming LGB youth3.

The left is supposed to stand for women’s rights. Yet it implemented and supports a change in the Sex Discrimination Act that now prioritises self declared gender identity over sex. Women seemingly no longer exist as a distinct sex class under Australian law. How on earth can this be progressive?4

These are pretty serious issues, and I would hope that the clear moral and ethical imperatives they raise would be sufficient to propel myself and others into speaking publicly about them. But sadly this is not so easily the case.

We see the reprisals that await those who speak. I know women in Australia who’ve lost jobs, friends, reputation and family. I know many more who stay silent for fear of being next.

These repercussions, in addition to being misguided, create a climate of silence and fear. Fear of loosing one’s job, income and ability to take care of oneself or family, is especially immobilising. To speak out goes against one’s self-preservation instinct.

We all have one. And some people have a more hyperactive self-preservation instinct than others. There are complex reasons for this that often reside in early childhood experiences, but I don’t have the space to go into all of that here.

The prospect of going against your group, be it familial, friendship, workplace or political, also violates our social instinct. To stay in alignment with our group ensures our security and survival. It is ingrained into our very being.

When the impulse to adhere to these natural instincts goes against our value system, against what we know to be just and true, this can produce deep inner conflicts.

The situation is especially confounding when, not so long ago, discussion on difficult subjects was encouraged rather than quashed. The quiet creep of controlled speech is a big shock to the human system where such a virus is foreign.

The groups to which we belonged, formed identities upon and centred our lives around, are now stuck in a cycle of projectile vomiting smug, virtue signalling insults couched in reality denying nonsense. WTAF?

Back in the day, I felt more or less free to speak my mind. It was normal to have differences of opinion within one’s tribe. You argued it out, voted, then meet at the pub afterwards. It was unusual for your character or integrity to be questioned for a well reasoned point of view. And comrades didn’t try and silence you for it.

How times have changed. Drew Hutton, a founding member of the Australian Greens, was suspended from the party for daring to ask legitimate questions about women’s rights. What happened to Drew, and other ex-Green members who have spoken up on this issue, exemplifies all that is wrong with the left’s attitude towards respectful debate. He recently joined Woman Up QLD’s Speakers Corner to share his story.

Today, if you believe in biological reality and that people with gender-related distress should have access to ethical, evidence based healthcare, you’re a bigot. And probably racist. And most definitely support Trump. FASCIST!

Hey, you’re the one applauding people getting arrested for “misgendering” someone in a tweet.

As journalist Suzanne Moore recently commented after the UK supreme court ruling on sex:

“Organic ,grassroots feminism wins. Those who call themselves 'left' have exhibited no understanding of socialist, women's or gay history. Often ignoring or simply rewriting it. They need to ask themselves some serious questions.”

I couldn’t agree more.

When I first got involved in this issue I was advised not to speak publicly. I took this advice. A year later I was again given the same advice. And once again I took it. Over the course of the past few months however my dreams have revealed that this is advice I can no longer heed (yes, I’m about to get a bit Jungian, strap yourself in).

I am in my house. I am wearing a white hazmat suit. I begin to walk through the house to go outside. I feel like I’m suffocating. I turn around and undo the suit so I can breathe.

Clothes represent persona. I’ve put on a hazmat suit on to protect myself from the “toxic” atmosphere outside my house (gender debate). The suit is white, because it represents the purity of my public-image; the persona I want to project into the world to keep me safe. But as I’m about to go outside, I find that the suit is suffocating me.

It’s difficult to wade into the toxic waters of the gender issue without tarnishing your image. How people perceive you will change. There’s risk involved. How risk tolerant are you? This dream showed me I was more concerned with how I was perceived than I realised. Embarrassing to admit, but there it was. That’s what our dreams are for.

A previous dream pointed to where this subconscious attitude may have come from:

My grandmother is helping me choose some shoes to wear. But none of them quite fit.

My grandmother was inclined to keep her own council and recoiled from making a fuss (despite her views often being silently relayed by irrepressible raised eyebrows). That way of walking in the world was no longer a good “fit”. My feet wanted a different stance to stand in.

To be involved in the “gender wars” you have to be prepared, mentally speaking, to give up the white suit, find new shoes and choose a different outfit to wear. While I’ve been in involved in heated political issues before, none of them involved being flung with false accusations of hate and bigotry. This is a whole new situation to “dress” for.

For some of us, it is not our role to speak out. It is our role to help parents quietly when they come into our office at the hospital or medical practice; to give them the relevant information and resources that they didn’t receive at the gender clinic.

For some of us our role is simply to prioritise the health of our child, and guide them through their confusion and distress with compassion and dignity.

For some of us it is not just our role to speak out, but a responsibility. Some of us hold positions of authority, within a political party, a professional health organisation or in a workplace where the malpractice that is “gender affirming care” is occurring.

For some of us it is our role to support others who are bearing the burden of speaking publicly. To support their efforts behind the scenes, practically and/or personally.

Many of us though are individuals who don’t hold any particular professional role or responsibility. The responsibility we have is simply to our own values; a sense of duty to our community; or to the task or will within us that wants to come forward and do something. It often takes some time to figure out what that something is.

To know what this is, can help inform whether or not you should go public.

In the process of pondering what my role was, I had the following dream:

I am at a university, driving around, wondering where I am allowed to park my car. I find a park. I am now inside one of the buildings. I’m contemplating which part of the university I should be in. The law department? A man approaches me and says “you already know where you should be”. I then ascend the stairs of the media and communications faculty.

Our dreams use a symbolic language to communicate the content of our unconscious. Elongated arms may indicate that you are keeping something at arms length. A missed train might warn of a missed opportunity on your life’s journey if you don’t act.

The unconscious mind contains parts of ourselves that the waking ego does not want to know about. Such as an alternative point of view that differs from the conscious attitude; aspects of self (good and bad) that have been repressed or rejected; and unflattering behaviour in ourselves or others that we ignore and dismiss.

If these things are not brought into the light of awareness and given recognition, they can create unconscious inner conflicts. We may experience them as unexplained depression, indecision or feeling restless (in my case it was writers block).

We will also experience these conflicts in our dreams. The characters you encounter, for example, might represent an uncomfortable truth about yourself, an unresolved trauma, or an abandoned creative instinct or inner talent that has been ignored.

Despite the clear message of the university dream mentioned previously, and others which suggested the specific nature of my communications role ought to be in writing, my conscious mind continued to resist. And so I received this dream:

I am walking around a refugee town in Sydney. There are no fences or barriers. People can come and go as they please. I visit journalist Bernard Lane, who lives in the town. He is sitting in an armchair, feet up, looking a little dishevelled, watching TV, with an empty potato chip packet on the floor. I leave him some food by the front door.

My psyche chose Bernard to represent the part of myself that wants to write about the gender issue, but who had been cast out like a refugee, idle, isolated and underfed.

Our dreams will repeat to us the same message over and over again, in different ways, until we wake up, understand and act upon them.

Eventually, my inner conflicts around instincts, values, and persona, came to a resolution in the following dream:

I am in a house. I go to walk upstairs. My friend L is standing at the top of the stairs. She floats down the stairs to greet me. I am very glad to see her. We embrace, warmly.

L is a friend who is very outspoken and doesn’t care what people think. She is on the second floor of my house (a higher place in my psyche). She comes down to the ground level. We hug, which represents acceptance and integration of this part of myself into my everyday consciousness.

On the same night, I also dreamt that a free speech bill had been prepared to resolve tension within a planning committee that was organising a reunion. The reunion symbolically represented the coming together of the conflicted parts of myself that had been separated. The free speech bill was the lysis of the dream, the resolution, showing me where my energy wants to go. Clearly my energy wanted to speak freely.

When I woke up from these dreams I knew immediately what I needed to do. I would put a face to my X and other profiles and join the Free Speech Union.

Now, these are not actions that are going to have any impact on the gender medicine debate in Australia. So if you feel underwhelmed by this resolution, fair enough.

I could carry on doing the work I’m doing without showing myself publicly. The work that I do does not necessitate it. But there are forces within myself that have other ideas. My role, apparently, is not just to write and help behind the scenes, but to be visible. I need to breathe. Even if it’s only within my own miniscule corner of the universe. Even if it’s just for my own psychological wellbeing.

As I indicated at the start of this piece. I’m not going to get into all the details of why speaking freely was an issue for me. I will say that it stretches back to early childhood experiences and the adaptation my little self made in order to be more safe and secure.

To overcome this early programming requires some effort. Fortunately engaging with our dreams can help facilitate the process.

I am greatly relieved this inner conflict has finally reached a resolution. Whatever the issues that hindered ‘L’ from being bought into my waking attitude, they nonetheless have been worked out in my psyche. Not entirely, I’m sure, but sufficiently enough to produce a shift in attitude and behaviour.

It’s a mysterious process. I literally just woke up one morning, and that was it. No longer felt the need to hide. No longer worried about what I might say, when people I know discover what I’m up to. No longer conflicted. No longer afraid.

I was able to come to this place when I was ready. Which feels inconvenient given the urgency of the issues we face. But one can’t simply resolve inner conflicts, traumas, and complexes in an instant. I appreciate my comrades being patient with me, while my psyche worked through what it needed to in order for me to get here.

To all in this movement who grapple with similar issues, who also feel the acute tension between wanting to act publicly and the need to preserve and protect their families, and thus feel torn about what to do, I simply ask: what have you been dreaming of? There, you just might mind find the answers you are looking for.

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