What do I stand for?
Crikey News' claimed that I'm a member of an international anti-trans organisation. Am I?
Posted on Twitter here.
Today, Crikey News published an article with my name and face that described me as “a member of an international anti-trans organisation” [1]. Crikey editors would not concede the the obvious implication that I am anti-trans, or part of an anti-trans agenda, and refused to issue a correction [2]. The author stood by it after being challenged: evidently, archived screenshots taken out of context and shared by anonymous trolls pass for a journalistic source.
This claim has been repeated many times, though originally it took the form that I work for a transphobic hate group. This was started by an anonymous Twitter account nominally owned by a trans woman in Queensland. At some point it was modified to is feeding information to a transphobic hate group after I corrected it. Various other individuals - previously all anonymous - have carried the torch on social media. If you’re reading this, you can probably imagine the online harassment that has come my way - but you might not know about the real-life stalking.
Much of the dust settled some months ago, but the sharp eyes in Australian independent digital media set their sights on the issue today after the conservative organisation Binary used my face, name and a quote in campaign materials (without my permission or knowledge - a fact missed by Crikey). I hold no view on that campaign or the legislation being debated, because I haven’t followed it. As I understand it, Binary are a rebranding of Marriage Alliance, which was formed to campaign against the same-sex marriage plebiscite. It should be obvious that I’m not politically affiliated with them.
Let me be very clear:
I have never called for, and do not support, a ban on HRT for trans people.
I do not blame trans people, as a group, for what happened to me, nor for any other issues.
With the exception of family and true friends, most individuals or institutions who previously supported me as a trans person [3] either refuse to engage on the subject entirely or quietly distances themselves from me. I’ve lost count of the number of people who aren’t trans, and don’t even know the basics of HRT, who’ve tried to tell me I’m wrong on basic facts - all in the name of apparently defending trans people.I have bene in situations where people who proudly announce the new name, pronouns or identity of people they know - yet keenly avoid the subject when it comes to me.
Until the articles about Jay Langadinos and I were published in the same week (a strange and happy coincidence), many trans and LGBTQIA+ organisations in Australia would not acknowledge that detransitioners and transition regret exist - and are a direct consequences of gender affirming care. Several organisations under that umbrella - who incorporate asexuals and kink into their umbrella - maintain that they have no interest in detransitioners or transition regret, nor the perplexing issue of childhood transition.
The past two years have presented some immense challenges. Transition was a cake-walk in comparison - and yet I have no doubt about my decision. Having said that, I regularly question whether I can keep going with the public work. To be mischaracterised in this way by people who are entirely ignorant of my life, and of the issue at large, is simply exhausting. It is not sustainable.
I will address the supposed basis of the claim itself in due course. First of all, note the following:
I am not a member of the organisation that the article was referring to.
A simple search reveals that it is not a membership organisation. I could never have been a member.
In 2015, I concluded and announced that I was a trans woman. I had no prior history of gender dysphoria. I transitioned openly, including in the workplace. I have nursed trans people through the recovery from top surgery and SRS. I have good working relationships with trans people. I am close with trans people.
I am speaking out first and foremost about negligent medical practitioners who I now realised hid information from me, and in some cases lied. These people combined have hundreds of patients - perhaps thousands over the course of their careers. One of them has had complaints against him upheld by AHPRA and now operates under the supervision of a professional mentor. Some of their complainants still identify as trans, and are happy to do so. This issue affects trans people.
I’ll be following this with the text of an article by Natasha Robinson published in The Australian. Some have questioned my decision to feature in this piece, and the implications of it. I stand by it fully.
Ollie
[1] The name used was Oliver Davies. I used this name for a while. Henceforth I will be known as Oliver Hassett.
[2] Crikey did edit in some newsworthy information that I inadvertently fed them, without clarification, and silently changed what was a broad and un-cited characterisation of me into a long and complicated sentence about something I apparently once tweeted.
[3] Clearly some people put the emphasise on trans, not person, when it comes to their support.
Crikey are disgrace. Much of Aus media is utterly useless on these issues. You spoke out at great personal cost and that's brave. Keep going xo
You will be vindicated. Much like the smoke and mirrors upon which trans activists (many are enablers rather than trans themselves) rely, they also rely on smoke and mirrors to obfuscate and defame the desisted and de-transitioned men and women, boys and girls, who were ACONned into this faith-based belief.
This will be the 21st Century’s first major medical scandal on a scale larger than the 20th Century’s lobotomies where they also believed, with no evidence at all that operating on the human body would alter the mind. In retrospect, it is far worse as we have failed once again to learn from history.