Sinéad Watson didn’t mean to become an activist for vulnerable women

Sinéad Watson didn’t mean to become an activist for vulnerable women. At the age of 20, she began to identify as a man, binding her breasts and using the name Sean. But at 27, after four-and-a-half years on testosterone, she returned to living as a woman, realising that she had been incorrectly diagnosed as trans. Now 31, Watson has consulted lawyers about taking action against the Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow, which sanctioned her transition. “For me, the damage is done,” she tells me. “But I want to stop this happening to other girls and young women.”
As a result of being repeatedly sexually assaulted in her teens, Watson began to feel hatred towards her female body. She was spending a lot of time on the internet, and began following a number of young trans men who were speaking positively, “if not euphorically”, about their transition. “I feel like I was groomed online,” says Watson. “According to Tumblr and YouTube, becoming a trans man would be the answer to all my problems.”
Watson’s testimony echoes the experiences of many. The controversy surrounding the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London, which is to be closed following a review by Dr Hilary Cass OBE, has led to a number of young women speaking out about their deep regret at medical transition.
Watson self-referred to the Sandyford in 2014, having spent time in a psychiatric unit following a severe mental breakdown. “I burned my house down while trying to kill myself,” she says, “and made out to the doctor it was because I was really a trans man and needed to transition. That was bullshit.” Watson was suffering from depression, dependent on alcohol, and struggling to accept that she was a lesbian.
Almost a year later, she was finally given an appointment at the Sandyford. “I walked up to reception and said my name is Sean Watson and I’m here to see a gender therapist.” She explains how the clinician put her at ease, immediately confirming her trans status and using “he/him” pronouns for her, all of which put Watson “on a high” of validation. “I thought: ‘These are professionals, if I wasn’t trans they would tell me, so the fact that they are affirming me means that I am trans.’”
“They must have looked at my GP records which showed a very long history of mental illness and trauma,” says Watson. “They didn’t once say to me, ‘We can see that there’s been some sexual abuse in your past, I wonder if that might have impacted on how uncomfortable you feel being a woman’.”
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