Every few days a happy clappy ideologue is born, and first on their to-do list appears to be immediately heading over to my mentions, shrieking 'there have always been trans people!', frequently accompanied with an offensive revision on the life of someone famous - Kurt Cobain, Joan of Arc, maybe even a pharaoh. It's tedious as fuck, but did inspire me to have a dig through the archives and see for myself. Some of it was interesting.
The stuff I'll cover here is classic tabloid fodder, published over the last 25 years:
'Tranny Rammy' 'Thong Side Of The Law!' 'Not Just Any Transvestite... This is A Transvestite Fetish Man' 'Sex-Swap Child Perv' - all appearing in headlines in British tabloids this century, along with words like burly, gruff-voiced, weirdo, etc. Meanwhile, in Ireland of all places was a remarkably sympathetic report on two trans prisoners. In one story I'm putting in a future piece, one child's parents are memorably described as 'a druggie jailbird [and] an 18-stone man/woman who he thinks is mum'.
It's quite a contrast to the kid-glove treatment today. To illustrate, just consider this:
A man, DB, has been locked up for at least thirty years, oscillating between psychiatric hospitals and jail, after committing a string of arsons.
What he wants, more than anything, is to free the woman inside of him, the man in high security hospital for the criminally insane.
Obviously, to do this he needs that most rudimentary asset all women have in common: bras, tights and skirts.
He pleads with the authorities to allow him to dress as he wishes. He has a psychiatrist who says this is the very least they can do, this is a 'true transsexual' and the clothes make no difference to anyone else. But the hospital is having none of it, saying the agreement he can wear his bra and knickers, if he stays in his room, is sufficient. Bad hospital.
Then it emerges this man is only 46. He must have been a child when he was locked up. And, the appeal was declined!
The reaction today would surely be blind, pant-shitting rage; nonce defenders Sisters Uncut would take to social media to the public for multi packs of Y-fronts (and some nice knickers for show) to stand a hope of repairing the damage, and I dread to think what would happen to the steps out front of the EHRC.
This wouldn't change when the other side of the story emerged: DB was a diagnosed psychopath, and had been extensively evaluated by a psychiatrist acting as his responsible medical officer.
This doctor said DB was no true transsexual, just a fetishist who was also likely playing the long game – he wanted to enter the women's estate. This was of great concern, as the psychiatrist said he had already displayed inappropriate and worrying behaviour towards female staff, and despite many opportunities, every attempt at release or lowered category of security detention had been scuppered by this inappropriate sexual behaviour, which had frightened female staff. New information was still coming to light, he explained, with examples of sexual advances on nurses, who he had 'abnormal beliefs' about, and patterns of behaviour described as stalking.
Previously, DB had wrongly inferred from staff he had a chance of wearing whatever he wanted, which led to him becoming "intensely preoccupied with this issue to the exclusion of all others and culminated in him actively planning to escape". This, the psychiatrist contended, was due to frustrated sexual arousal (Full summing up at Casemine).
In the event this was in the news now, to help cope with the after effects, Sisters Uncut could do worse than speak to David O'Connell.
David O'Connell was arrested having stolen dresses, skirts and tops from a Marks and Spencer's store. This lead to the police searching his home were they discovered 6,400 items of stolen lingerie, with a sale value of £119,871.47.
The man's house was 'an Alladin's cave' of lifted lingerie and his loft was stuffed to the gills with matching bra and knicker sets in every colour and size.
O'Connell freely accepted he had a fetish (or, even, 'sexual fetish') for women's underwear and obtained sexual gratification from putting them on.
While he had previous for shoplifting, this had been many years before, and he'd clearly made a go at improving his life, becoming a valuable member of his community - he was an accountant, for goodness sake! A finance manager on a good wage.
However, it emerged also he'd not long since been released from jail for stealing £100,000 from another accountancy firm, and three months after his arrest for this haul, he was caught trying to restart his collection from a different Marks and Spencer's store.
Trans mitigation is nothing that new, either, with O'Connell's brief constructing the most fascinating hierarchy of needs I've ever heard, one which has pretty much blown my mind: "If he had stolen these items for financial gain or greed then he must go to prison, but this was not the case" because, with searing insight, he postulates a greater validity and legitimacy to crime in pursuit of of wank, than crime in pursuit of mere cash - it's almost transcendental in its perspective switch.
Beyond a Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, on to Brelow's - Jacob Breslow.
And he goes on: "He has a fundamental problem that can be dealt with" - which is true, and which we as a society have attended to, restructuring and changing norms and laws to benefit men just like O'Connell. A trans trailblazer.
As for M&S, keen to minimise their losses they reclaimed "every last item" of nicked knickers, and were reported to be selling the stock back to their own staff at discount prices. What an offer that is!
"This is not just lingerie, it's discount, pre-loved, M&S lingerie". I'd just be worried some of the 'trans joy' was left on it somewhere...
1998 and on to Ireland's curious delicacy when reporting on transsexuals:
Gary Browne (for whom I can find no pseudonym) and Peter 'Petra' McCullough had carried out a series of robberies across Ireland.
Speaking on his harrowing three days in voluntary lockdown at Magheraberry jail before their hotshot lawyer got them bail, we're told they were likely to spend three months inside. This was such a shock, Petra is reported to have fainted (or "nearly" fainted, depending on who you believe).
This judge, in Derry, is the bad guy of the tale, although he did instate a special order to ensure post-op Petra - "a shapely blonde" -
would be held in the women's estate, where he had a grand time and everyone was very nice and accommodating.
Poor old Gary still had that penis of his, and was left in his cell with it, all alone. Lord knows how he coped: "I had received hormone treatment and had taken the shape of a woman. I had breasts and was due to get the full gender-changing operation" says Browne, with the journo piping up in support: "he was already well on the way to becoming a woman."
Ha, they said "he".
The crime they were up for was a robbery at a meat processing plant, which I'm struggling to understand, but an "elaborate hoax" and "bungled robbery of £14,000 worth of computer parts" are also mentioned.
This was, again, for genuine, justifiable reasons. It was all "a desperate bid to escape cruel taunts from bigots in the town" explains the reporter, with yet more valuable ethics to impart on the plebs.
And from robbers to cops, the first of a trans tribunal double!
Tony Ashton, police firearms officer, made headlines when he regenerated, like Dr Who, into Claire.
His employers though were less pliable, and in a move which would today undoubtedly be dubbed a chilling new dawn of the trans genocide, he was moved to a desk job, and then rejected even further!
Hauled up on a disciplinary hearing for sexual harassment, he took his force to tribunal claiming sexism and transphobia.
I don't know about the latter, but the sexism charge could be persuasive. This, I contend, is down to the toxic work environment that any women working there were subjected to: endless "giz a snog" repartee and banter that must have been uncomfortable and exhausting. And poor Tony Claire Ashton was never included.
Even when he tried, this elicited such heinous workplace horror it forced a colleague to leave the room, blushing.
It was all down to the other officers' inability to see Ashton as a woman, argued his brief (with staggering insight). Towards the end, it got so bad, Ashton was "even banned from using the ladies' toilet".
Unbelievable. Here was me thinking Life On Mars, or even the Irving Welsh novel, Pigs, was overblown fiction.
Now, Nicky-Sinéad
What a charming double-barrelled-lady-name. Maybe it doesn't flow as smooth as Ann-Marie, Jean-Paul or Sarah Jane, but that's probably 'cos heteronormative conditioning, isn't it.
Poor Nicky-Sinead Gardner was a professor at Stirling university who quit on the eve of a disciplinary hearing having been accused of bullying and harassment.
It's said in the article he was "too demanding" of his colleagues, but they do not expand upon that, aside from that he turned up at a work mate's house, uninvited, after a hostile exchange.
Apart from this, all the complaint hinged on was the words of numerous co-workers and the letter of one man, who Gardner had never met.
This was triggered when someone working alongside Gardner went to the doctor to complain of insomnia and anxiety, explaining the situation at work. The doctor signed her off work with stress and wrote to the university, outlining his legitimate concerns. This began the investigation which Gardner ultimately ducked out of. Obviously a set up, isn't it? The old visit your doctor to grass someone up so they'll intervene and force your boss to harass the victim out of their job. Classic.
The transphobia on our society is an unrelenting, vicious beast.
Not enough to satiate those remaining at Stirling, one former colleague / lynch mob attendee said: "For once, the university authorities did everything right. The evidence against her was damning. We were heartily relieved when she quit".
In "Tranny Rammy" and "Thong Side Of The Law" we learn about 'burly' Alexander 'Alexis' Lang, who had kneed a woman police officer after she attended an incident where he completely lost his shit, screaming obscenities at two female neighbours.
The disapproval is clear; they scare quote "Miss" Lang, write that he had "answered gruffly to the name Alexis" and we're treated to a dress description, which is helpful, as I often wished in these archived reports the original photos were viewable, but the descriptions fill in gaps:
"Alexander Lang, 35, wore lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, a gemstone pendant and hooped ear-rings" complimented by a "black handbag ... a ladies' trouser suit" and a sparkly polo neck - bling b-ling and fancy!
His defence accused the women of having provoked him (which is original 🙄) and the the prosecution was stopped and reprimanded more than once by Sheriff Iain Inglis, demanding Lang be referred to as "she" and not "he".
Sadly, this final case is so grim the trivial nature of wasting print on skirt length is difficult to tolerate.
It's 2004, and Brian 'call me Briony' O'Neill was 43, and in a long skirt, crop top and leather mules, apparently.
Brian is referred to as both a transsexual and a cross dresser, but he probably best fits the former as apparently he had taken cross sex hormones for six years at this stage.
Brian was terrified over his upcoming imprisonment, as he was going to a notoriously tough, men's jail.
Cue "me, with my dresses and lady feelings and sensibilities, with those ruffians!" wailing.
"Dressed in a turquoise checked dress and black leather mules, and wearing heavy make-up, O'Neill told how he has tried in vain to be accepted by his neighbours in Dunfermline, Fife" - okay so, prepare yourself for violins and emotional turmoil:
He said: 'Sometimes I wouldn't wear any make-up and put on a baseball cap and men's clothes.
'But it's absolute hell. I get shouted at in the street and people laugh at me and call me 'tranny freak' and 'nonce' - see, horrible, isn't it? Poor Brian 'call me Briony' only wants to live his life, goddammit. And see the archetypal transphobic trope; because Brian wants to be Briony, he must be a nonce. Evil.
'But it's absolute hell. I get shouted at in the street and people laugh at me and call me 'tranny freak' and 'nonce' - see, horrible, isn't it? Poor Brian 'call me Briony' only wants to live his life, goddammit. And see the archetypal transphobic trope; because Brian wants to be Briony, he must be a nonce. Evil.
If his struggles are so intense and still he persists, wouldn't that tell you he was the real deal - a true transsexual; vulnerable, sensitive, marginalised and worthy of respect? If you're a woman, try to imagine how hard it would be - sometimes not wearing makeup, putting on a baseball cap, and men's clothes?!
Poor 'call me Briony' was a husband before wife Lorraine walked out on their 11 year marriage, taking the two kids after she "guessed that he was a transsexual". I would love to hear her side of things.
So, why, I hear you ask, was 'call me Briony' Brian O'Neill, of Dunfermlin, Fife, 43 in 2004, looking at jail time?
Well unfortunately Brian is a paedophile. He was convicted of molesting two, very young children. He denied it, which forced his victims, aged 6 and 9 at the time of the trial, to give evidence.
The older child, a little boy, had being assaulted on multiple occasions, leading to his change of behaviour being noted in school and causing significant concern – so much so, that they organised a therapist. Still, the grand total punishment O'Neill faced was a pathetic three months in jail and five years on the sex offenders' register. Which means Brian should have a clean record now, as long as he hasn't been caught for assaulting children since.
Typically for a sex offender, O'Neill took zero responsibility for his crimes and was pinning his woes (social ostracism, going from a professional to unemployment etc) on his being trans.
Typically for a sex offender, O'Neill took zero responsibility for his crimes and was pinning his woes (social ostracism, going from a professional to unemployment etc) on his being trans.
"I am an embarrassment to my friends and family" he whines, accurately. It's impossible to know for sure, but in the unlikely event you're reading this now, Brian, I can almost with 100% certainty assure you that of all your sexual behaviours, you noncing up children is of greater concern than your wearing hilariously inappropriate clothing.
Still, Brian was positively shitting himself over the prospect of Saughton Jail: "I'd rather kill myself" he told the judge. And anyone else.
In a beautiful bit of tabloid gratuity, the paper brought in the speculation of a previous inmate, who surmised the risk of violence to Brian was about equal to the risk of rape:
"The other cons will either want to kick his head in or have sex. Possibly both" - a worthy commentator!
Screaming his suicidal threats from tabloids, it's difficult not to wonder about his two victims, and two children, if they're not the same. I hope we never see a return to this grotesque form of public emotional blackmail.
"I have always felt different. I have tried to reject this but it's who I am" he sighs, still talking about being trans: "I am a dad and I am a woman - something happened to my brain in the womb. I need to stand up and be counted as a transsexual" - Brian, if only you knew then just how forward-thinking this particular brand of trans complaint is.
The "18-stone man/woman who he thinks is mum" and the two, entirely separate Irish Buffalo Bills will be coming up sometime soon, along with many others.
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