Best Of

Whodathunk it

1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
 
(h/t @FIRE data in particular)

2/ Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.

Gay and lesbian are stable while heterosexuality has rebounded by around 10 points since 2023.


https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

Now weep for the young people mutilated - because a bunch of creeps hijacked teenage angst, and a lot of lefties and politicians who should know better supported this madness

Which means that the panic was massively overblown? And the centrist dads were right?

What an utterly ridiculous take. The centrist dads went along with all this. It’s what they do. Now - as I predict - when it all turns out to be madness they will claim “oh we never believed it anyway”

No, the centrist dads - like me - said this was all going to blow over.

Basically, our take on most things is "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", and you do more damage by reflexive behaviours than by just ignoring it, and waiting until it goes away.

My view has always been - and I've repeated it 100x on here - use whatever pronouns you like (i.e. be polite to people and treat them as they would like to be treated), but no sport and no access to single sex spaces. I would, however, make accomodartions in terms of creation of gender neutral bathrooms.

That is literally the most centrist dad take you can have.

And guess what? It was the right take, and didn't involve being a total cock to people.

But it didn't just "blow over" it took court cases and a Trump victory to end the nonsense. The idea that it just went away by itself is for the birds. Without the effort of the women and women's rights activists, the American right and the LGB alliance the situation would be far worse than before because the trans activists were getting zero pushback from "centrist dads" telling us all it costs nothing to be polite when in reality they were telling us to appease the nonsense and knuckle under because they were afraid of being cancelled.

Sorry

You think young people have stopped identifying as trans since January, as a result of a Trump victory?

It's very easy to see whether this is just typical fads that come from teenagers not feeling like they belong. Just look at self reported rates of trans by State and by country.

Yes, it was the Trump victory that allowed parents to start pushing back against the insanity.

The Cass Report (April 2024) was the key moment the weather changed.

Whodathunk it

1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
 
(h/t @FIRE data in particular)

2/ Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.

Gay and lesbian are stable while heterosexuality has rebounded by around 10 points since 2023.


https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

Now weep for the young people mutilated - because a bunch of creeps hijacked teenage angst, and a lot of lefties and politicians who should know better supported this madness

Which means that the panic was massively overblown? And the centrist dads were right?

What an utterly ridiculous take. The centrist dads went along with all this. It’s what they do. Now - as I predict - when it all turns out to be madness they will claim “oh we never believed it anyway”

No, the centrist dads - like me - said this was all going to blow over.

Basically, our take on most things is "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", and you do more damage by reflexive behaviours than by just ignoring it, and waiting until it goes away.

My view has always been - and I've repeated it 100x on here - use whatever pronouns you like (i.e. be polite to people and treat them as they would like to be treated), but no sport and no access to single sex spaces. I would, however, make accomodartions in terms of creation of gender neutral bathrooms.

That is literally the most centrist dad take you can have.

And guess what? It was the right take, and didn't involve being a total cock to people.

No. Less damage would have been done if children hadn’t received hideous treatment at the tax payers expense. It’s the “be kind” attitude which enabled that.

I don’t know if you are a parent, but “kind but firm” is a pretty standard MO.

When my sister was about 10 she liked to dress as a guy and insisted on being called Kevin (we negotiated her down to “Jason”).

After a couple of years she grew out of it and is now a happy & fulfilled mother of 3.

You can be kind and respectful without facilitating life changing surgery or medication

Today her teachers would have pushed her into gender affirming "care" and ended up at the Tavistock without your parent's knowledge where who knows what would have happened.

Parents were (and still are) being forced to accept this nonsense and kids are still being brainwashed by NHS trans activists and unionised teachers.

I'm glad to see the trend is reversing but there is a long way to go and God help those kids who were mutilated during this craze who, unlike your sister, didn't get a chance to grow out of it.

I had lunch today with a former colleague from my government days who now works for the Treasury. He doesn't work directly on the Budget but obviously picks up news and gossip from colleagues. He is a fairly apolitical centrist managerial type - certainly not partisan, and weighs his words carefully before speaking, which is doubtless how he got to his present, fairly senior position.. Most of our conversation was about a DSGE model I'm working with, but obviously I asked him about how things were going at HMT. So take the following for what it's worth.

He surprised me by saying without me prompting that most of HMT is now disillusioned with this current government, having welcomed them after several years of decay under the Conservatives. He said that Reeves and her team has virtually been sidelined, or sidelined themselves, and that most of the work is being done by Torsten Bell and his RF cronies, who never listen to official advice and have, even for Think-Tankers, completely exaggerated ideas of their own intelligence. And he claimed that Reeves is like a rabbit in headlights on growth, not having the faintest idea how to stimulate it. He maintains that she's well-meaning, but doesn't have any idea what she's doing.

That last point, anyway, I'd come to realise myself after about a week of watching her, but I thought his other comments were interesting. The choice between Reeves and Bell is basically one between incompetence and disaster.

Whodathunk it

1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
 
(h/t @FIRE data in particular)

2/ Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.

Gay and lesbian are stable while heterosexuality has rebounded by around 10 points since 2023.


https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

Now weep for the young people mutilated - because a bunch of creeps hijacked teenage angst, and a lot of lefties and politicians who should know better supported this madness

Which means that the panic was massively overblown? And the centrist dads were right?

What an utterly ridiculous take. The centrist dads went along with all this. It’s what they do. Now - as I predict - when it all turns out to be madness they will claim “oh we never believed it anyway”

No, the centrist dads - like me - said this was all going to blow over.

Basically, our take on most things is "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", and you do more damage by reflexive behaviours than by just ignoring it, and waiting until it goes away.

My view has always been - and I've repeated it 100x on here - use whatever pronouns you like (i.e. be polite to people and treat them as they would like to be treated), but no sport and no access to single sex spaces. I would, however, make accomodartions in terms of creation of gender neutral bathrooms.

That is literally the most centrist dad take you can have.

And guess what? It was the right take, and didn't involve being a total cock to people.

No. Less damage would have been done if children hadn’t received hideous treatment at the tax payers expense. It’s the “be kind” attitude which enabled that.

A young person very close to me went through a phase of being genderfluid. It got as bad as asking quite persistently for pills - puberty blockers

Thank God her mum is sensible and said No. Not a thing until you’re 18. Pronouns fine, surgery no bloody way. Kind but firm as @StillWaters puts it

She’s now forgotten the whole trans thing and is happily female, wears dresses, and is voluptuously in love with some young Brazilian guy - who loves her right back. Yay

But I feel for those families where it didn’t turn out this way

Whodathunk it

1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
 
(h/t @FIRE data in particular)

2/ Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.

Gay and lesbian are stable while heterosexuality has rebounded by around 10 points since 2023.


https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

Now weep for the young people mutilated - because a bunch of creeps hijacked teenage angst, and a lot of lefties and politicians who should know better supported this madness

Which means that the panic was massively overblown? And the centrist dads were right?

What an utterly ridiculous take. The centrist dads went along with all this. It’s what they do. Now - as I predict - when it all turns out to be madness they will claim “oh we never believed it anyway”

No, the centrist dads - like me - said this was all going to blow over.

Basically, our take on most things is "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", and you do more damage by reflexive behaviours than by just ignoring it, and waiting until it goes away.

My view has always been - and I've repeated it 100x on here - use whatever pronouns you like (i.e. be polite to people and treat them as they would like to be treated), but no sport and no access to single sex spaces. I would, however, make accomodartions in terms of creation of gender neutral bathrooms.

That is literally the most centrist dad take you can have.

And guess what? It was the right take, and didn't involve being a total cock to people.

But it didn't just "blow over" it took court cases and a Trump victory to end the nonsense. The idea that it just went away by itself is for the birds. Without the effort of the women and women's rights activists, the American right and the LGB alliance the situation would be far worse than before because the trans activists were getting zero pushback from "centrist dads" telling us all it costs nothing to be polite when in reality they were telling us to appease the nonsense and knuckle under because they were afraid of being cancelled.