At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
"Hormone treatment" related to gender identity at that age would literally just be a puberty blocker - something many cis girls take because they have early onset puberty anyway. Puberty blockers do what they say on the tin, block puberty from happening at that point, allowing a typical puberty to occur later if desired, or to have hormone replacement treatment later on if they want a puberty that is in line with their gender identity later on.
Whilst I know people like to think this stuff is all brand new, it has been going on for literally thousands of years, we are just coming out of a very repressive era regarding gender and sexuality, and have modern media to highlight all these things and create moral panics.
Never read such ill informed garbage in my life, the guy seems to be making a claim to be a classicist, and can't put herodotus in the right century
Also
"Although I wouldn't call it a disease, my experience of being trans is something that is so deep and wondrous, and fills me with such a sense of awe at life and its mysteries, that, if I were a 4th c. BC nomad, I would certainly consider it something divine."
Do you detect not the faintest hint of narcissistic wankerdom there? Look at me, I'm interesting.
I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.
They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ? TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.
I'd probably buy at 8s or above.
Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
It’s utterly over. Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.
If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
I don’t think critics of Liz have fully figured her out yet, she clearly is capable of surprises.
Yet a goodly proposition of her colleagues are happy to brief that she is more crackers than Lewes town centre on Bonfire Night, and this will surely out sooner or later.
The 20% cut in crime figures is a lovely hostage to fortune that will be used against her at the next election....
Heck it's possible to do so now - so you want the police to attend all burglaries. What should they stop doing to provide the time to do that.
That one is easy for Liz. Stop investigating Tory PMs!
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.
They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ? TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.
I'd probably buy at 8s or above.
Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
It’s utterly over. Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.
If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
I don’t think critics of Liz have fully figured her out yet, she clearly is capable of surprises.
Yet a goodly proposition of her colleagues are happy to brief that she is more crackers than Lewes town centre on Bonfire Night, and this will surely out sooner or later.
The 20% cut in crime figures is a lovely hostage to fortune that will be used against her at the next election....
Heck it's possible to do so now - so you want the police to attend all burglaries. What should they stop doing to provide the time to do that.
Should not be a problem with 20 000 extra police officers we were all promised should it?
By March 2021 10,000 of them had been recruited so most of them will already be doing full time jobs.
And the extra 20,000 only take police numbers back to their 2010 levels.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
But you've just said - and I agree - that if we'd voted No to Leave there's no way we Brits would have been agitating for EU Referendums on a regular basis thereafter to keep having another bash.
Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.
Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."
See? It's irrational, inconsistent and jaundiced.
The second EU referendum in 2016 was 41 years after the first EEC referendum in 1975, not just 8 years
Election campaign in its phoney war stage where possible electoral list partners size each other up suspiciously and engage in brinksmanship. All lists have to be confirmed second weekend in August, when the campaign proper tries to begin even with everyone on holiday
Every twist and turn is just too tiresome to follow, and I'll probably not return to this before the cards are marked, but highlights are:
- Meloni pushing to be pre-selected PM candidate for the "centre right" coalition and threatening to go it alone. Rather than the long standing, "largest party of the coalition gets the PM" understanding of the centre right.
Although I'll not put my hat up for consumption on this, I'm putting it in the "not going to happen" bucket. But, if it did, the whole complexion of the campaign transforms.
- M5S to stand alone, having been put in the naughty corner
- PD, the main centre left party, trying to herd the cats of numerous Centrist and Leftist parties into alliance. The Centrists are all personal vehicles of big beasts, some don't like the other Centrists (Di Maio was rude about them all in his M5S days basically), some can't work with Leftists etc.
They were a big part of the old parliament, at least 100 MPs had defected from their originally elected parties, and a steady stream of Forza MPs have joined them since Forza's abstention in the confidence vote, but in terms of polling sit around 8% combined. Tbc.
Polling average, which looks steady even after the election was called:
Centre right: Lega 15 FdI 23 Forza 8 Combined = 47
Possible centre left: PD (polling includes small social drmocrat parties) 23 Leftists/Greens 3 Centrists 7 Combined = up to 33
M5S 11
Others 9 (communists, Italians abroad, regional parties, civic & residents lists, Italexits, far right splinters)
How the centre-left lists come together now don't influence the result too greatly, with an expected centre right majority up to 80 (/400 seats in lower house).
Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".
The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.
That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
Judging by Garden Court Chambers' statement, you would think they had won the case, rather than having £22,000 damages awarded against them.
The Observer’s chief leader writer:
It’s simply amazing that a chambers full of leading QCs specialising in human rights law did not stay on the right side of equalities law. It shows the extent to which institutions can be captured by false claims of transphobia to try and silence women’s free speech.
Actually, it's not amazing. So many organisations operate on the basis that "to the pure all things are pure." Because their motives are pure, they are not obliged to adhere to the law.
I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.
I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
Many of them were also involved in the coup against Johnson.
Portillo was probably right that they weren't thinking clearly about what would come next.
Or they were, and it’s why it took them so long.
Although at the very highest level it seems obvious with hindsight that Sunak and Truss would be the “final two”, I don’t think that was actually obvious to us on here or the “most sophisticated electorate in the world”.
There were ?11 candidates FFS, and several viables that ruled themselves out.
And it seems like the best one of those candidates is going to win.
The most sophisticated electorate in the world has done its job.
I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.
They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ? TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.
I'd probably buy at 8s or above.
Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
It’s utterly over. Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.
If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
I don’t think critics of Liz have fully figured her out yet, she clearly is capable of surprises.
Yet a goodly proposition of her colleagues are happy to brief that she is more crackers than Lewes town centre on Bonfire Night, and this will surely out sooner or later.
The 20% cut in crime figures is a lovely hostage to fortune that will be used against her at the next election....
Heck it's possible to do so now - so you want the police to attend all burglaries. What should they stop doing to provide the time to do that.
That one is easy for Liz. Stop investigating Tory PMs!
Round here the police could have visited 100* burglaries but instead had to waste that time triple checking if SKS having a takeaway meal after working all day was a crime
* I'm guessing 150 man hours were wasted on the investigation - I'm probably out by a factor of 2 or 3.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.
They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ? TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.
I'd probably buy at 8s or above.
Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
It’s utterly over. Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.
If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
I don’t think critics of Liz have fully figured her out yet, she clearly is capable of surprises.
Yet a goodly proposition of her colleagues are happy to brief that she is more crackers than Lewes town centre on Bonfire Night, and this will surely out sooner or later.
The 20% cut in crime figures is a lovely hostage to fortune that will be used against her at the next election....
Heck it's possible to do so now - so you want the police to attend all burglaries. What should they stop doing to provide the time to do that.
Should not be a problem with 20 000 extra police officers we were all promised should it?
By March 2021 10,000 of them had been recruited so most of them will already be doing full time jobs.
And the extra 20,000 only take police numbers back to their 2010 levels.
I never realised TMay's love for the old bill had such a dramatic impact! So you say they recruited 10000 in 3 months, have they stopped releasing updates on the next 10000?
Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.
Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter
See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe
It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
One of the problems with teaching about this so prominently is that it forces children to treat it as an important question in how they define themselves. You end up with a generation of children who don't dream of growing up to be a nurse or a fireman, but to be non-binary or gender-queer.
I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity
And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail
Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
The scary thing is how mutually reinforcing the two sides are.
The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.
They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ? TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.
I'd probably buy at 8s or above.
Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
It’s utterly over. Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.
If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
I don’t think critics of Liz have fully figured her out yet, she clearly is capable of surprises.
Yet a goodly proposition of her colleagues are happy to brief that she is more crackers than Lewes town centre on Bonfire Night, and this will surely out sooner or later.
The 20% cut in crime figures is a lovely hostage to fortune that will be used against her at the next election....
Heck it's possible to do so now - so you want the police to attend all burglaries. What should they stop doing to provide the time to do that.
Should not be a problem with 20 000 extra police officers we were all promised should it?
By March 2021 10,000 of them had been recruited so most of them will already be doing full time jobs.
And the extra 20,000 only take police numbers back to their 2010 levels.
I never realised TMay's love for the old bill had such a dramatic impact! So you say they recruited 10000 in 3 months, have they stopped releasing updates on the next 10000?
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
I would never identify as "Cis" as I think the term is rubbish in any case.
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Why can you and ilk only muster concern for capitalist exploitation when there's a racial angle to mine?
Why does the left ignore capitalist exploitation why there's a racial angle?
Same reason it ignored trafficking in Rochdale, Telford, and a dozen other English towns, I guess.
It does not suit the left's narrative that the white hetero man is the exploiter and the abuser. And everybody else is a victim.
You can ask that question if you pop along to the picket line at the next strike for groups of underpaid workers of all creeds and colours. There'll be pretty much all from the left there. You'd bring some welcome political diversity to the struggle in fact. Which would be great.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Why can you and ilk only muster concern for capitalist exploitation when there's a racial angle to mine?
Why does the left ignore capitalist exploitation why there's a racial angle?
Same reason it ignored trafficking in Rochdale, Telford, and a dozen other English towns, I guess.
It does not suit the left's narrative that the white hetero man is the exploiter and the abuser. And everybody else is a victim.
You can ask that question if you pop along to the picket line at the next strike for groups of underpaid workers of all creeds and colours. There'll be pretty much all from the left there. You'd bring some welcome political diversity to the struggle in fact. Which would be great.
Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
I would never identify as "Cis" as I think the term is rubbish in any case.
It's a bizarre term.
What's wrong with "real"?
Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Unions protect the interests of their members. If people in these sectors can't or won't join a union, then the unions won't do much for them. Unionisation rates in the UK private sector are tiny anyway, thanks in part to decades of Tory anti-union legislation, so I don't know why you would expect these workers to be unionised.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
Chemical?
I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
I would never identify as "Cis" as I think the term is rubbish in any case.
It's a bizarre term.
What's wrong with "real"?
Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
Transphobic fail there, Bart, suggesting the lived experience of the transwoman is in some way inauthentic.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
But the majority of those identifying as something other than cis won’t get anywhere near medical intervention. When I was younger I came out as gay to everyone, thinking about it now it would have been more accurate to say I was bisexual. Doubtless if I were doing it again today I’d select something else. It doesn’t really matter though because I know what I am.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
Or it might just mean a bunch of 13-year-old girls don't fancy the boys in their class.
Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.
Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter
See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe
It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
One of the problems with teaching about this so prominently is that it forces children to treat it as an important question in how they define themselves. You end up with a generation of children who don't dream of growing up to be a nurse or a fireman, but to be non-binary or gender-queer.
I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity
And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail
Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
The scary thing is how mutually reinforcing the two sides are.
The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
Yes, as I've said before, it's a classic pre-civil-war scenario, when both sides have extremes which are full of righteous anger, which feed off the horribleness of their perceived enemies
For every Roe v Wade reversal there are "largely peaceful" BLM riots sweeping the country. For every rightwing loon on Fox there is some ghastly video on LibsofTikTok
Yeats, again, is so prescient:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
He wrote that in 1919. By 1922 Ireland was engulfed in Civil War
I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.
I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
Many of them were also involved in the coup against Johnson.
Portillo was probably right that they weren't thinking clearly about what would come next.
Or they were, and it’s why it took them so long.
Although at the very highest level it seems obvious with hindsight that Sunak and Truss would be the “final two”, I don’t think that was actually obvious to us on here or the “most sophisticated electorate in the world”.
There were ?11 candidates FFS, and several viables that ruled themselves out.
And it seems like the best one of those candidates is going to win.
The most sophisticated electorate in the world has done its job.
You think she is best because she lies with the ease and alacrity of Boris Johnson. You think that is a strength not a weakness.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
There are some decent points in there. But the recreation of strongly defined gender stereotypes seems to me to have been a feature of the period from c.1995 to around 2015. Compare and contrast fashion before that period, and afterwards for example. The growth of plastic surgery, shaved eyebrows and false lashes. Couldn't it be argued the defeat of feminism happened then, not now?
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Unions protect the interests of their members. If people in these sectors can't or won't join a union, then the unions won't do much for them. Unionisation rates in the UK private sector are tiny anyway, thanks in part to decades of Tory anti-union legislation, so I don't know why you would expect these workers to be unionised.
Is that a direct quite from 'I'm Alright Jack?'
Unions are prepared to prognosticate on any topic they like but aren't prepared to lift a finger to assist the most abused workers in Britain? on a technicality?
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
My daughter has a friend who came out as trans a year ago (aged 13), and made a big fuss over pronouns and using her new male name.
For about nine months she battled her parents over them recognizing her new gender identity.
And eventually, about four or five months ago ago, they relented.
Said child (now 14), seems to have now forgotten the trans thing. Once her parents stopped arguing with her, it suddenly became a whole lot less important than other things.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
But the majority of those identifying as something other than cis won’t get anywhere near medical intervention. When I was younger I came out as gay to everyone, thinking about it now it would have been more accurate to say I was bisexual. Doubtless if I were doing it again today I’d select something else. It doesn’t really matter though because I know what I am.
I'd have come out as bisexual had I heard of the term. It didn't exist in Wigan in the 80's. Being able to put a name to myself was a boon.
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Why can you and ilk only muster concern for capitalist exploitation when there's a racial angle to mine?
Why does the left ignore capitalist exploitation why there's a racial angle?
Same reason it ignored trafficking in Rochdale, Telford, and a dozen other English towns, I guess.
It does not suit the left's narrative that the white hetero man is the exploiter and the abuser. And everybody else is a victim.
You can ask that question if you pop along to the picket line at the next strike for groups of underpaid workers of all creeds and colours. There'll be pretty much all from the left there. You'd bring some welcome political diversity to the struggle in fact. Which would be great.
Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?
FFS.
Of course the sweatshop workers should be unionised. After all, the train drivers are only on 50 grand because they are. Which of the Thatcher era union laws are you going to repeal to make it easier and more worthwhile for people to join a union?
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
Chemical?
I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
There's a Transylvania, but no Cis-sylvania.
In Austro-Hungarian times, you had Cis-Leithania (Austria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Galicia and Bukovina) and Trans-Leithania (Hungary, Slovakia, Transylvania, Croatia).
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
Or it might just mean a bunch of 13-year-old girls don't fancy the boys in their class.
Except the ideology is to medicalise those feelings and prevent the trans children from experiencing the trauma of undergoing puberty in the "wrong" gender. And opposing that makes you a fascist transphobe.
The idea that it might simply be a "phase" children are going through is explicitly identified as transphobic.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
But the majority of those identifying as something other than cis won’t get anywhere near medical intervention. When I was younger I came out as gay to everyone, thinking about it now it would have been more accurate to say I was bisexual. Doubtless if I were doing it again today I’d select something else. It doesn’t really matter though because I know what I am.
I'd have come out as bisexual had I heard of the term. It didn't exist in Wigan in the 80's.
Bisexuality amongst men is probably now the least-recognised and least-accepted sexual orientation (or whatever the approved term is this week). Turning LGB into LGBT, let alone the rest of the alphabet soup, has been pretty damaging to bisexual men.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
Chemical?
I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
Transalpine is an Austro Swiss train service. You've got some Gaul! Chemical nomenclature concedes to no one!
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Why can you and ilk only muster concern for capitalist exploitation when there's a racial angle to mine?
Why does the left ignore capitalist exploitation why there's a racial angle?
Same reason it ignored trafficking in Rochdale, Telford, and a dozen other English towns, I guess.
It does not suit the left's narrative that the white hetero man is the exploiter and the abuser. And everybody else is a victim.
You can ask that question if you pop along to the picket line at the next strike for groups of underpaid workers of all creeds and colours. There'll be pretty much all from the left there. You'd bring some welcome political diversity to the struggle in fact. Which would be great.
Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?
FFS.
You know the reason why a train driver is on £50k
It's because it was cheaper to pay the driver more money than the compensation needed if the driver doesn't turn up.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
Chemical?
I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
Transalpine is an Austro Swiss train service. You've got some Gaul! Chemical nomenclature concedes to no one!
There are orthodox things but no metadox things, which I've always seen as a bit of a paradox.
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Unions protect the interests of their members. If people in these sectors can't or won't join a union, then the unions won't do much for them. Unionisation rates in the UK private sector are tiny anyway, thanks in part to decades of Tory anti-union legislation, so I don't know why you would expect these workers to be unionised.
Is that a direct quite from 'I'm Alright Jack?'
Unions are prepared to prognosticate on any topic they like but aren't prepared to lift a finger to assist the most abused workers in Britain? on a technicality?
Seriously do me a favour.
It's not a technicality. Unions protect their members. That is the entire concept of a union. If people can't or won't join a union, then they won't be protected by a union. And decades of deliberate Tory policy have made it harder and less worthwhile to join a union. So if you want to change that, you need to start by changing the law to make it easier for unions to organise. Right now, the government is talking about making it harder.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
My daughter has a friend who came out as trans a year ago (aged 13), and made a big fuss over pronouns and using her new male name.
For about nine months she battled her parents over them recognizing her new gender identity.
And eventually, about four or five months ago ago, they relented.
Said child (now 14), seems to have now forgotten the trans thing. Once her parents stopped arguing with her, it suddenly became a whole lot less important than other things.
Like vaping.
That's a happier story. Some are less happy
One of my older daughter's friends has moved from being a Mia to being a Freddy. Wears boys clothes and wants total boy status. Her parents reluctantly agreed but then Freddy demanded medication (age 15) and the parents said No. Now the family is at war and Freddy runs away all night and gets picked up by police all over the place
Might Freddy have run off the rails anyway? Perhaps. These kids are teens. But this isn't like smoking weed or liking drill or even getting a tattoo. The kids want lifechanging drugs and surgery, and - as @Gardenwalker notes - they often have the full support of the school and a whole ready-to-go ideology to back them up, and you are an evil transphobe if you demur
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Why can you and ilk only muster concern for capitalist exploitation when there's a racial angle to mine?
Why does the left ignore capitalist exploitation why there's a racial angle?
Same reason it ignored trafficking in Rochdale, Telford, and a dozen other English towns, I guess.
It does not suit the left's narrative that the white hetero man is the exploiter and the abuser. And everybody else is a victim.
You can ask that question if you pop along to the picket line at the next strike for groups of underpaid workers of all creeds and colours. There'll be pretty much all from the left there. You'd bring some welcome political diversity to the struggle in fact. Which would be great.
Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?
FFS.
Of course the sweatshop workers should be unionised. After all, the train drivers are only on 50 grand because they are. Which of the Thatcher era union laws are you going to repeal to make it easier and more worthwhile for people to join a union?
Are you seriously telling me unions could not isolate where the sweatshops are and set up pickets within current laws? (Up to six?) couldn't make court representations on behalf of the workers from existing funds? Couldn't distribute leaflets in different languages in those area to encourage unionisation? could not lobby MPs in the constituencies concerned? Could not sue the employers concerned for human rights breaches?
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
There are some decent points in there. But the recreation of strongly defined gender stereotypes seems to me to have been a feature of the period from c.1995 to around 2015. Compare and contrast fashion before that period, and afterwards for example. The growth of plastic surgery, shaved eyebrows and false lashes. Couldn't it be argued the defeat of feminism happened then, not now?
Yes, you could argue that, for example, the spice girls were a defeat for feminism, because they were about reinforcing gender stereotypes. And the same with the push to normalise plastic surgery on a pro-choice basis.
It seems to me that feminism is still the way forward, and the ideology around trans is about accommodating to the stereotypes rather than defying them.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
Chemical?
I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
There's a Transylvania, but no Cis-sylvania.
In Austro-Hungarian times, you had Cis-Leithania (Austria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Galicia and Bukovina) and Trans-Leithania (Hungary, Slovakia, Transylvania, Croatia).
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
Chemical?
I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
Transalpine is an Austro Swiss train service. You've got some Gaul! Chemical nomenclature concedes to no one!
There are orthodox things but no metadox things, which I've always seen as a bit of a paradox.
When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.
So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.
(There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Unions protect the interests of their members. If people in these sectors can't or won't join a union, then the unions won't do much for them. Unionisation rates in the UK private sector are tiny anyway, thanks in part to decades of Tory anti-union legislation, so I don't know why you would expect these workers to be unionised.
Is that a direct quite from 'I'm Alright Jack?'
Unions are prepared to prognosticate on any topic they like but aren't prepared to lift a finger to assist the most abused workers in Britain? on a technicality?
Seriously do me a favour.
It's not a technicality. Unions protect their members. That is the entire concept of a union. If people can't or won't join a union, then they won't be protected by a union. And decades of deliberate Tory policy have made it harder and less worthwhile to join a union. So if you want to change that, you need to start by changing the law to make it easier for unions to organise. Right now, the government is talking about making it harder.
I'm sure if you went to TUC headquarters (if it still exists), you would see campaigns on everything under the sun that had sod all to do with 'protecting members'.
Sweatshop workers? silence. The conduct of companies like Amazon? nary a dicky bird.
The former doesn't suit the narrative. The latter funds some causes the bosses like.
When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.
So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.
(There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)
These days, probably bought as such. The marketers call them "distressed jeans"...
Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.
Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter
See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe
It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
One of the problems with teaching about this so prominently is that it forces children to treat it as an important question in how they define themselves. You end up with a generation of children who don't dream of growing up to be a nurse or a fireman, but to be non-binary or gender-queer.
I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity
And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail
Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
The scary thing is how mutually reinforcing the two sides are.
The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
You and Leon are quite mutually reinforcing too.
Take a tiktok or two, add a touch of twitter and anecdote, stir in a soupcon of lurid hyperbole, false equivalence, supposition, some "kids of today" and mind-reading of "the woke left" - and lo and behold, before we know it we have a hell of a thesis on the table!
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
There are some decent points in there. But the recreation of strongly defined gender stereotypes seems to me to have been a feature of the period from c.1995 to around 2015. Compare and contrast fashion before that period, and afterwards for example. The growth of plastic surgery, shaved eyebrows and false lashes. Couldn't it be argued the defeat of feminism happened then, not now?
Yes, you could argue that, for example, the spice girls were a defeat for feminism, because they were about reinforcing gender stereotypes. And the same with the push to normalise plastic surgery on a pro-choice basis.
It seems to me that feminism is still the way forward, and the ideology around trans is about accommodating to the stereotypes rather than defying them.
But. A large part of any teenage rebellion is against your parents. The parents are the generation with the profoundly rigid gender conformity. Look at the contrast with the Eighties. Annie Lennox, KD Lang wore suits. Boy George and Marilyn dresses. Before that it was denim and similar hair. The culture of the noughties was buff, shaved male. Very short hair. Overmade up, probably surgeried female. Big hair. Reality TV. That's what's being rebelled against.
Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.
Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter
See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe
It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
One of the problems with teaching about this so prominently is that it forces children to treat it as an important question in how they define themselves. You end up with a generation of children who don't dream of growing up to be a nurse or a fireman, but to be non-binary or gender-queer.
I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity
And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail
Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
The scary thing is how mutually reinforcing the two sides are.
The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
You and Leon are quite mutually reinforcing too.
Take a tiktok or two, add a touch of twitter and anecdote, stir in a bit of lurid hyperbole, false equivalence, supposition, some "kids of today" and mind-reading of "the left" - and lo and behold, afore we know it we have a hell of a thesis on the table!
Except, I am talking about MY KIDS, not "kids of today"
I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.
I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
Many of them were also involved in the coup against Johnson.
Portillo was probably right that they weren't thinking clearly about what would come next.
Or they were, and it’s why it took them so long.
Although at the very highest level it seems obvious with hindsight that Sunak and Truss would be the “final two”, I don’t think that was actually obvious to us on here or the “most sophisticated electorate in the world”.
There were ?11 candidates FFS, and several viables that ruled themselves out.
And it seems like the best one of those candidates is going to win.
The most sophisticated electorate in the world has done its job.
You think she is best because she lies with the ease and alacrity of Boris Johnson. You think that is a strength not a weakness.
Unlike Starmer whom it seems to be universally accepted lied to win the membership, I don't think I've ever heard anyone accuse Liz of lying.
Of course to someone as thick as you who can't comprehend the concept of change, I can well understand why you think someone whose views have evolved must be lying instead.
I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.
I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
Many of them were also involved in the coup against Johnson.
Portillo was probably right that they weren't thinking clearly about what would come next.
Or they were, and it’s why it took them so long.
Although at the very highest level it seems obvious with hindsight that Sunak and Truss would be the “final two”, I don’t think that was actually obvious to us on here or the “most sophisticated electorate in the world”.
There were ?11 candidates FFS, and several viables that ruled themselves out.
And it seems like the best one of those candidates is going to win.
The most sophisticated electorate in the world has done its job.
You think she is best because she lies with the ease and alacrity of Boris Johnson. You think that is a strength not a weakness.
Do you still have a vote? Why don't you go to one of the hustings and see what you think of her in person?
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
There are some decent points in there. But the recreation of strongly defined gender stereotypes seems to me to have been a feature of the period from c.1995 to around 2015. Compare and contrast fashion before that period, and afterwards for example. The growth of plastic surgery, shaved eyebrows and false lashes. Couldn't it be argued the defeat of feminism happened then, not now?
Yes, you could argue that, for example, the spice girls were a defeat for feminism, because they were about reinforcing gender stereotypes. And the same with the push to normalise plastic surgery on a pro-choice basis.
It seems to me that feminism is still the way forward, and the ideology around trans is about accommodating to the stereotypes rather than defying them.
But. A large part of any teenage rebellion is against your parents. The parents are the generation with the profoundly rigid gender conformity. Look at the contrast with the Eighties. Annie Lennox, KD Lang wore suits. Boy George and Marilyn dresses. Before that it was denim and similar hair. The culture of the noughties was buff, shaved male. Very short hair. Overmade up, probably surgeried female. Big hair. That's what's being rebelled against.
If the worst that came of it was some tattoos, body piercings and embarrassing clothes then it wouldn't really be an issue. The medical interventions are more difficult to grow out of.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
I would never identify as "Cis" as I think the term is rubbish in any case.
It's a bizarre term.
What's wrong with "real"?
Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
Transphobic fail there, Bart, suggesting the lived experience of the transwoman is in some way inauthentic.
I'm sure the lived experience of the transwomen is authentic and they are authentic transwomen, but they are not authentic women.
When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.
So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.
(There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)
These days, probably bought as such. The marketers call them "distressed jeans"...
These days being at least the last 25 years or so! Edit - a quick google suggests the last 50 years.....
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
There are some decent points in there. But the recreation of strongly defined gender stereotypes seems to me to have been a feature of the period from c.1995 to around 2015. Compare and contrast fashion before that period, and afterwards for example. The growth of plastic surgery, shaved eyebrows and false lashes. Couldn't it be argued the defeat of feminism happened then, not now?
Yes, you could argue that, for example, the spice girls were a defeat for feminism, because they were about reinforcing gender stereotypes. And the same with the push to normalise plastic surgery on a pro-choice basis.
It seems to me that feminism is still the way forward, and the ideology around trans is about accommodating to the stereotypes rather than defying them.
But. A large part of any teenage rebellion is against your parents. The parents are the generation with the profoundly rigid gender conformity. Look at the contrast with the Eighties. Annie Lennox, KD Lang wore suits. Boy George and Marilyn dresses. Before that it was denim and similar hair. The culture of the noughties was buff, shaved male. Very short hair. Overmade up, probably surgeried female. Big hair. That's what's being rebelled against.
If the worst that came of it was some tattoos, body piercings and embarrassing clothes then it wouldn't really be an issue. The medical interventions are more difficult to grow out of.
When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.
So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.
(There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)
These days, probably bought as such. The marketers call them "distressed jeans"...
These days being at least the last 25 years or so!
Possibly. 25 years ago is about the time I would have grown out of the fad had I ever been into it...
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
I would never identify as "Cis" as I think the term is rubbish in any case.
It's a bizarre term.
What's wrong with "real"?
Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
But "real" has the opposite of "fake". Cis is better and it just means gender is the same as birth sex.
I agree it sounds a bit odd - since it applies to 99% of people - but I don't see the big objection to it.
Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".
The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.
That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
Judging by Garden Court Chambers' statement, you would think they had won the case, rather than having £22,000 damages awarded against them.
The Observer’s chief leader writer:
It’s simply amazing that a chambers full of leading QCs specialising in human rights law did not stay on the right side of equalities law. It shows the extent to which institutions can be captured by false claims of transphobia to try and silence women’s free speech.
Actually, it's not amazing. So many organisations operate on the basis that "to the pure all things are pure." Because their motives are pure, they are not obliged to adhere to the law.
Indeed - a relative in the US does pro-bono work for the NAACP. He has a fair bit of work with Title XI university "tribunals".
The mental process that seems to occur is
- I am a Professor - Therefore I am kin to Plato - Therefore I am a perfectly unbiased Guardian of Truth - Therefore whatever I do is perfectly just
When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.
So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.
(There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)
These days, probably bought as such. The marketers call them "distressed jeans"...
Around 40 years ago younger son, who was a bit of a fashionista, and attended the local sixth form college turned up in a pair of distressed jeans. His older brother who was not at all fashion conscious, and who was nearly at the end of industrial apprenticeship, offered to give him his old workwear jeans. For of course a substantial consideration!
Anyone who thinks that a referendum, any referendum, automatically settles an issue for any length of time needs to have their head examined. It rarely happens, and when it does it’s only when it’s a constitutional formality needed to reflect well established opinion anyway - for example the repeal of the 8th in Ireland (and even that might get tested) or the many and varied Swiss votes.
1999 didn’t kill Republicanism in Australia. In the U.K. we’re still talking about AV. If they had lost Brexiteers would have behaved in exactly the same way as every other side in every referendum that’s ever happened. Indeed a Remain win could well have turbo boosted UKIP in the same way as the No win led did the SNP.
The fact that Cameron believed plebiscites could settle disputes shows how idiotic he was.
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Why can you and ilk only muster concern for capitalist exploitation when there's a racial angle to mine?
Why does the left ignore capitalist exploitation why there's a racial angle?
Same reason it ignored trafficking in Rochdale, Telford, and a dozen other English towns, I guess.
It does not suit the left's narrative that the white hetero man is the exploiter and the abuser. And everybody else is a victim.
You can ask that question if you pop along to the picket line at the next strike for groups of underpaid workers of all creeds and colours. There'll be pretty much all from the left there. You'd bring some welcome political diversity to the struggle in fact. Which would be great.
Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?
FFS.
Who mentioned train drivers? I was more thinking of stuff like the (recent) campaign for better pay and conditions for college cleaners.
Plenty of people from the left active in that. Precisely zero from where you reside politically.
On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.
This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.
Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.
Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?
Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?
The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
Unions protect the interests of their members. If people in these sectors can't or won't join a union, then the unions won't do much for them. Unionisation rates in the UK private sector are tiny anyway, thanks in part to decades of Tory anti-union legislation, so I don't know why you would expect these workers to be unionised.
Is that a direct quite from 'I'm Alright Jack?'
Unions are prepared to prognosticate on any topic they like but aren't prepared to lift a finger to assist the most abused workers in Britain? on a technicality?
Seriously do me a favour.
It's not a technicality. Unions protect their members. That is the entire concept of a union. If people can't or won't join a union, then they won't be protected by a union. And decades of deliberate Tory policy have made it harder and less worthwhile to join a union. So if you want to change that, you need to start by changing the law to make it easier for unions to organise. Right now, the government is talking about making it harder.
I'm sure if you went to TUC headquarters (if it still exists), you would see campaigns on everything under the sun that had sod all to do with 'protecting members'.
Sweatshop workers? silence. The conduct of companies like Amazon? nary a dicky bird.
The former doesn't suit the narrative. The latter funds some causes the bosses like.
The TUC wrote an entire report on challenging Amazon.
But unions' ability to organise is seriously constrained by our labour laws, which are among the most anti-union among the major economies. This is where you should be directing your ire.
Anyone who thinks that a referendum, any referendum, automatically settles an issue for any length of time needs to have their head examined. It rarely happens, and when it does it’s only when it’s a constitutional formality needed to reflect well established opinion anyway - for example the repeal of the 8th in Ireland (and even that might get tested) or the many and varied Swiss votes.
1999 didn’t kill Republicanism in Australia. In the U.K. we’re still talking about AV. If they had lost Brexiteers would have behaved in exactly the same way as every other side in every referendum that’s ever happened. Indeed a Remain win could well have turbo boosted UKIP in the same way as the No win led did the SNP.
The fact that Cameron believed plebiscites could settle disputes shows how idiotic he was.
Anyone who thinks that a referendum, any referendum, automatically settles an issue for any length of time needs to have their head examined. It rarely happens, and when it does it’s only when it’s a constitutional formality needed to reflect well established opinion anyway - for example the repeal of the 8th in Ireland (and even that might get tested) or the many and varied Swiss votes.
1999 didn’t kill Republicanism in Australia. In the U.K. we’re still talking about AV. If they had lost Brexiteers would have behaved in exactly the same way as every other side in every referendum that’s ever happened. Indeed a Remain win could well have turbo boosted UKIP in the same way as the No win led did the SNP.
The fact that Cameron believed plebiscites could settle disputes shows how idiotic he was.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
I would never identify as "Cis" as I think the term is rubbish in any case.
It's a bizarre term.
What's wrong with "real"?
Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
But "real" has the opposite of "fake". Cis is better and it just means gender is the same as birth sex.
I agree it sounds a bit odd - since it applies to 99% of people - but I don't see the big objection to it.
How about man, transman, transperson, transwoman, woman? Does that not cover everyone without questioning their authenticity? Probably not but seems fine to me!
Keir Starmer has sacked shadow minister Sam Tarry.
Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.
When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.
So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.
(There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)
I agree about para 1 (and one still sees name plates in blocks of apartments with initials only, to discourage strangers from thinking "aha, a lone woman"). I'm a bit puzzled by paras 2 and 3. I've never heard of your interpretation of people who want to be trans. The cases I know were done after much agonising about how they felt naturally. In general it's still seen as difficult and likely to cause obstacles and prejudice rather than an easier life. The whole trans movement is about making it less hard. And ripped jeans for any gender have been a thing for years, at least in the UK - showing deliberate casualness. Not my scene either, but it's a harmless affectation.
Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.
Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter
See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe
It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
One of the problems with teaching about this so prominently is that it forces children to treat it as an important question in how they define themselves. You end up with a generation of children who don't dream of growing up to be a nurse or a fireman, but to be non-binary or gender-queer.
I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity
And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail
Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
The scary thing is how mutually reinforcing the two sides are.
The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
You and Leon are quite mutually reinforcing too.
Take a tiktok or two, add a touch of twitter and anecdote, stir in a bit of lurid hyperbole, false equivalence, supposition, some "kids of today" and mind-reading of "the left" - and lo and behold, afore we know it we have a hell of a thesis on the table!
Except, I am talking about MY KIDS, not "kids of today"
But, you do you
I will. But I'm short of time, have to grill some pork chops, it being Wednesday, so sadly/thankfully (delete to taste) I'll have to leave you guys to your transwittering for today.
Are you seriously telling me unions could not isolate where the sweatshops are and set up pickets within current laws? (Up to six?) couldn't make court representations on behalf of the workers from existing funds? Couldn't distribute leaflets in different languages in those area to encourage unionisation? could not lobby MPs in the constituencies concerned? Could not sue the employers concerned for human rights breaches?
Do me an effing favour. Seriously.
I agree with you that it'd be good if Amazon et al were unionised, and the unions are working on it, against entrenched company opposition:
Your view that they're deliberately not unionising them is ill-informed, and perhaps prompted by a dislike of unions more generally? I've never met a union organiser who didn't want basically to recruit everyone.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
The whole thing is grotesque
Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged
Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
Absolutely.
But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
I would never identify as "Cis" as I think the term is rubbish in any case.
It's a bizarre term.
What's wrong with "real"?
Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
But "real" has the opposite of "fake". Cis is better and it just means gender is the same as birth sex.
I agree it sounds a bit odd - since it applies to 99% of people - but I don't see the big objection to it.
How about man, transman, transperson, transwoman, woman? Does that not cover everyone without questioning their authenticity? Probably not but seems fine to me!
I'd say that scores over "real" - but anyway. Chops!
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
"Hormone treatment" related to gender identity at that age would literally just be a puberty blocker - something many cis girls take because they have early onset puberty anyway. Puberty blockers do what they say on the tin, block puberty from happening at that point, allowing a typical puberty to occur later if desired, or to have hormone replacement treatment later on if they want a puberty that is in line with their gender identity later on.
Whilst I know people like to think this stuff is all brand new, it has been going on for literally thousands of years, we are just coming out of a very repressive era regarding gender and sexuality, and have modern media to highlight all these things and create moral panics.
Did it happen before? Sure. Did it happen at such scale? No.
I’ll repeat (and perhaps correct) the stat.
Only 4 in 16 identified as cis and straight.
The plural of anecdote, alas, is not data.
For the last 4-5 years I've worked at a university in outreach, working with dozens of schools across all age ranges; literally thousands of young people between the ages of about 10 - 18 have interacted with the team I'm in. We have spoken to 1 student who has identified themselves as trans.
Young people are in the process of coming to terms with their identity - they will explore different things and consider what is available to them. We live in a society that is somewhat less strict in our acceptance and understanding of gender and sexuality than when even I was in school 15-20 odd years ago. So, yes, children will consider their identity. Some may socially transition, others may try puberty blockers. Some of those will decide they don't want to transition because, actually, that time of interest and self discovery showed them they are comfortable identifying with their assigned gender. That's fine - when I was 10 I knew I fancied girls, when I was 14 I was sure I was gay, when I was 16 I learned bisexuals existed and understood myself better.
The moral panic, specifically around children, regarding transgender people is exactly the same as the ones against gays and lesbians in the 70s and 80s - painting people as deviant predators out to harm your children, or turn them gay as part of a gay agenda.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
It's entirely logical.
Young children and teenagers have worked out they might be adversely judged or even disadvantaged through intersectionality if they are straight or "cis" so they are covering themselves with some wokescreening.
In 99+% of cases it will be complete nonsense but nonsense breeds nonsense in turn.
At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.
One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
Where is this?
UK Home Counties
Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.
It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.
I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.
I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.
Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter
See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe
It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
One of the problems with teaching about this so prominently is that it forces children to treat it as an important question in how they define themselves. You end up with a generation of children who don't dream of growing up to be a nurse or a fireman, but to be non-binary or gender-queer.
I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity
And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail
Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
Keir Starmer has sacked shadow minister Sam Tarry.
Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
Referendum allowed, no possible legal effect from said referendum ?
Not really satisfactory as that would then be asking councils to spend money on something that had no legal force. What if one of them refused to comply?
AFAIK, the Scottish Government pays for the expense of conducting the Referendum. As it is a legal duty under the Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020 for LAs to raise awareness and encourage people to vote, councillors refusing to cooperate could probably be suspended if they refuse to do so.
Comments
Also
"Although I wouldn't call it a disease, my experience of being trans is something that is so deep and wondrous, and fills me with such a sense of awe at life and its mysteries, that, if I were a 4th c. BC nomad, I would certainly consider it something divine."
Do you detect not the faintest hint of narcissistic wankerdom there? Look at me, I'm interesting.
And he claims to be trans but Lesbian. LOL.
Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?
And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit
It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
And the extra 20,000 only take police numbers back to their 2010 levels.
Centre right:
Lega 15
FdI 23
Forza 8
Combined = 47
Possible centre left:
PD (polling includes small social drmocrat parties) 23
Leftists/Greens 3
Centrists 7
Combined = up to 33
M5S 11
Others 9 (communists, Italians abroad, regional parties, civic & residents lists, Italexits, far right splinters)
How the centre-left lists come together now don't influence the result too greatly, with an expected centre right majority up to 80 (/400 seats in lower house).
The most sophisticated electorate in the world has done its job.
* I'm guessing 150 man hours were wasted on the investigation - I'm probably out by a factor of 2 or 3.
The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
Hope he was wearing earplugs.
https://twitter.com/GalileoArms/status/1552282596549312514
They are horrendous for the government.
Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.
So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.
One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.
This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.
This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
FFS.
What's wrong with "real"?
Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
For every Roe v Wade reversal there are "largely peaceful" BLM riots sweeping the country. For every rightwing loon on Fox there is some ghastly video on LibsofTikTok
Yeats, again, is so prescient:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
He wrote that in 1919. By 1922 Ireland was engulfed in Civil War
Compare and contrast fashion before that period, and afterwards for example. The growth of plastic surgery, shaved eyebrows and false lashes.
Couldn't it be argued the defeat of feminism happened then, not now?
Unions are prepared to prognosticate on any topic they like but aren't prepared to lift a finger to assist the most abused workers in Britain? on a technicality?
Seriously do me a favour.
For about nine months she battled her parents over them recognizing her new gender identity.
And eventually, about four or five months ago ago, they relented.
Said child (now 14), seems to have now forgotten the trans thing. Once her parents stopped arguing with her, it suddenly became a whole lot less important than other things.
Like vaping.
Showing my age, and no doubt it's phobic-something, but it's one advantage of being over seventy, I don't care.
In Austro-Hungarian times, you had Cis-Leithania (Austria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Galicia and Bukovina) and Trans-Leithania (Hungary, Slovakia, Transylvania, Croatia).
The idea that it might simply be a "phase" children are going through is explicitly identified as transphobic.
It's because it was cheaper to pay the driver more money than the compensation needed if the driver doesn't turn up.
One of my older daughter's friends has moved from being a Mia to being a Freddy. Wears boys clothes and wants total boy status. Her parents reluctantly agreed but then Freddy demanded medication (age 15) and the parents said No. Now the family is at war and Freddy runs away all night and gets picked up by police all over the place
Might Freddy have run off the rails anyway? Perhaps. These kids are teens. But this isn't like smoking weed or liking drill or even getting a tattoo. The kids want lifechanging drugs and surgery, and - as @Gardenwalker notes - they often have the full support of the school and a whole ready-to-go ideology to back them up, and you are an evil transphobe if you demur
Do me an effing favour. Seriously.
It seems to me that feminism is still the way forward, and the ideology around trans is about accommodating to the stereotypes rather than defying them.
So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.
(There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)
I'm sure if you went to TUC headquarters (if it still exists), you would see campaigns on everything under the sun that had sod all to do with 'protecting members'.
Sweatshop workers? silence. The conduct of companies like Amazon? nary a dicky bird.
The former doesn't suit the narrative. The latter funds some causes the bosses like.
Take a tiktok or two, add a touch of twitter and anecdote, stir in a soupcon of lurid hyperbole, false equivalence, supposition, some "kids of today" and mind-reading of "the woke left" - and lo and behold, before we know it we have a hell of a thesis on the table!
The parents are the generation with the profoundly rigid gender conformity.
Look at the contrast with the Eighties. Annie Lennox, KD Lang wore suits. Boy George and Marilyn dresses. Before that it was denim and similar hair.
The culture of the noughties was buff, shaved male. Very short hair. Overmade up, probably surgeried female. Big hair.
Reality TV.
That's what's being rebelled against.
But, you do you
Of course to someone as thick as you who can't comprehend the concept of change, I can well understand why you think someone whose views have evolved must be lying instead.
I agree it sounds a bit odd - since it applies to 99% of people - but I don't see the big objection to it.
The mental process that seems to occur is
- I am a Professor
- Therefore I am kin to Plato
- Therefore I am a perfectly unbiased Guardian of Truth
- Therefore whatever I do is perfectly just
For of course a substantial consideration!
1999 didn’t kill Republicanism in Australia. In the U.K. we’re still talking about AV. If they had lost Brexiteers would have behaved in exactly the same way as every other side in every referendum that’s ever happened. Indeed a Remain win could well have turbo boosted UKIP in the same way as the No win led did the SNP.
The fact that Cameron believed plebiscites could settle disputes shows how idiotic he was.
Plenty of people from the left active in that. Precisely zero from where you reside politically.
https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/challenging-amazon-report
The TUC criticised Leicester sweatshops and argued for unionisation of the sector over a decade ago.
https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/safety-alert-britains-unseen-sweatshops
But unions' ability to organise is seriously constrained by our labour laws, which are among the most anti-union among the major economies. This is where you should be directing your ire.
I have Next PM betting profits but that's only because of laying Corbyn ages ago pre GE19 and my hunch 66s on Mordaunt.
Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.
https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1552326078458380288?s=20&t=3SuGEi6DsYQ39rLoSrPqNw
NEW THREAD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_worker_organization
Your view that they're deliberately not unionising them is ill-informed, and perhaps prompted by a dislike of unions more generally? I've never met a union organiser who didn't want basically to recruit everyone.
For the last 4-5 years I've worked at a university in outreach, working with dozens of schools across all age ranges; literally thousands of young people between the ages of about 10 - 18 have interacted with the team I'm in. We have spoken to 1 student who has identified themselves as trans.
Young people are in the process of coming to terms with their identity - they will explore different things and consider what is available to them. We live in a society that is somewhat less strict in our acceptance and understanding of gender and sexuality than when even I was in school 15-20 odd years ago. So, yes, children will consider their identity. Some may socially transition, others may try puberty blockers. Some of those will decide they don't want to transition because, actually, that time of interest and self discovery showed them they are comfortable identifying with their assigned gender. That's fine - when I was 10 I knew I fancied girls, when I was 14 I was sure I was gay, when I was 16 I learned bisexuals existed and understood myself better.
The moral panic, specifically around children, regarding transgender people is exactly the same as the ones against gays and lesbians in the 70s and 80s - painting people as deviant predators out to harm your children, or turn them gay as part of a gay agenda.
Young children and teenagers have worked out they might be adversely judged or even disadvantaged through intersectionality if they are straight or "cis" so they are covering themselves with some wokescreening.
In 99+% of cases it will be complete nonsense but nonsense breeds nonsense in turn.
The Elizabeth Line serves Sam Tarry's Ilford South, but NOT Wes Streeting's Ilford North!