Interesting development IMO. The latest Dutch opinion poll has the governing VVP in first place on just 14%. In second place on 11.5% is the Farmer-Citizen Movement which polled 1% at the last election.
I don't think I've ever seen a national opinion poll with the leading party as low as 14%.
Dutch politics was always extremely fragmented, but this is ridiculous. It would be one thing if it were merely factional or ethnic like in Israel, because you could form a government with common policy ground, but the Dutch parties actually believe different things.
On the transgender issue, something I find interesting is how fevered and high profile the debate is here compared to other countries (apart from the increasingly crackpot USA).
Eg, with "self-id" - a reform that's been enacted in several places - I'd expect to have heard of big fights over that (in those places) and for there now to be intentions to reverse it if the evidence indicated some of the feared consequences were coming to pass.
Perhaps there were - and are - but I haven't been able to locate much.
Oh for goodness sake! Could the Tory leadership race get any dumber? It’s not the Equality Act that’s the problem! 🤦♀️ It acknowledges the biological reality of sex as Scotland’s Supreme Court held recently thanx to @ForWomenScot
Let's choose. He is either - a) an idiot b) badly informed c) well-informed but pandering to the gallery d) panicking e) using this issue to attack equalities law more generally.
The possibility of (e) worries me, especially given the nonsense Suella Braverman has been coming out with. Yet even now the Labour Party cannot be relied on to protect womens' rights or the rights of troubled children to have the best possible medical care.
Is it beyond them to get advice from well-informed equalities lawyers?
I did tell you that your anti-trans activism would rebound on you Cyclefree in exactly this way, with a rolling back of all the advances made for women and other minorities in the C20th but you wouldn’t have it.
What a pile of fat hairy bollocks
The truth is often unpalatable, I agree.
You’re literally claiming that the right to vote will be taken away from women. Get a grip
Well, I wouldn’t put that past some of the people involved, sure. But the most recent stuff will go first, if they get their way.
My personal belief is that Cyclefree et al have been used by people with a much wider agenda: They don’t give a stuff about trans people particularly, (I mean, they believe them to be degenerate perverts who have rejected God’s mercy, but they hardly limit that attitude to trans people...) they’re really after the unrolling of the liberal project. Gay rights, women’s rights, the whole lot.
I am quite certain that there are people with precisely that agenda. Especially in the US. And groups in Europe too.
But the problem we have - and I genuinely wish you would engage with it rather than dismissing it - is this: TRAs also have an agenda and it is very explicitly and openly to replace sex with gender and to limit or remove existing rights for women. Stonewall, for instance, has openly called for the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act to be removed, for the offence of rape by deception to be removed. These proposals and self-ID will diminish the position of women, not simply in relation to single sex spaces but in relation to equal pay (the use of a comparator is rendered meaningless if self-ID is permitted). Abolition of one of the crimes of rape is in no sense a progressive cause.
Your position seems to be that women should not campaign against this but accept it because otherwise they might possibly give succour to some right-wing groups. It assumes that Stonewall and others supporting their stance are progressive because they say they are. I judge them on what they advocate. And there is nothing progressive about what they are advocating.
So why should women not campaign against something that will harm them?That is an absurd and immoral view IMO. And, frankly, sexist because it is saying - whether you mean to or not - that women should never put their interests first.
My position is that you & people like you are taking sides in a culture war that will rebound on you in ways that you will find deeply unconfortable if you “win”.
Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it & more besides.
And that illustrates precisely your problem. you can't think with with any degree of discrimination at all, you can only pattern match to side A or B in a "culture war" in your head, just as some single celled organisms have light/dark discrimination, and you think trans means gay only even more so. And you are probably genuinely upset to learn that the natural outcome of this is ideologically driven, irreversible physical experimentation on (mainly gay) children, in the 21stC UK, of a kind of which Mengele would have been proud. With better anaesthetics to be fair.
Comparisons to Mengele don’t exactly suggest you are rising above the culture war rhetoric yourself.
Happy to adopt a more neutral parallel case of ideologically driven surgical experiments on children if you can point me to one.
We could start you off with Foucault’s “Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique”, I guess.
I don't do Foucault. That looks like Szasz, RD Laing type shit about madness being a social construct. It isn't. If your point is that transness is mischaracterised as madness, I agree. If your point is about physical interventions to cure madness, lobotomies and such, there are better and more scholarly studies than Foucault.
My point is that you complain about the culture war while throwing around comparisons to the Nazis. Mengele considered his "subjects" to be subhuman and did many things out of pure sadism. If you think that a sensible comparison, I don't know what to say.
If you actually have an interest in the history of medicine so that you can do better with your comparisons, then there are many places you can start. One is Foucault. Foucault is definitely not saying the same as RD Laing. Foucault is saying that how society treats madness has changed over time, with incommensurable underlying assumptions as to what madness is during different periods. One might find that helpful if you want to talk about ideology in medicine. One could then go on to consider specific case studies, like the history of trepanning and the history of frontal lobotomies.
I have a PhD in the history of medicine.
I have encountered Foucault in non medical, historical/classical contexts, and judged him to be an arse and a windbag.
Also, really quite suspect on adult-child sex
See this entire discussion
‘"The Danger of Child Sexuality", Foucault's dialogue with Guy Hocquenghem and Jean Danet, was produced by Roger Pillaudin and broadcast by France Culture on April 4, 1978. It was published as "La Loi de la pudeur" in RECHERCHES 37, April 1979. First published in English in Semiotext(e) Magazine (New York): Semiotext(e) Special Intervention Series 2: Loving Boys / Loving Children (Summer 1980), in a translation by Daniel Moshenberg.‘
One quote on adult-child sex:
‘And to assume that a child is incapable of explaining what happened and was incapable of giving his consent are two abuses that are intolerable, quite unacceptable."’
In this debate he seems to argue for the abolition of all age-of-consent laws. Given the multiple accusations against him, which have recently emerged, it’s difficult to conclude his intentions were noble and philosophical
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
I think you’ll agree with much of their analysis of the Tavistock, even if you don’t agree with much else!
Thanks. I prefer reading the judgments to be honest rather than simply an analysis by others. But will have a look.
I am surprised you are recommending them though. Gender GP are the Webberleys, are they not? Both of whom have been were suspended from practising in the U.K., no? For serious misconduct in the case of 3 young patients in the case of Helen Webberley. She was previously convicted of practising without the appropriate registration. They moved their practice to Spain and one of them recently said that no matter what the Cass Report says they will continue to prescribe hormones to children.
Like I said, I doubt you’ll agree with anything else about them. (Nor do I, necessarily, but I thought the analysis of the problems the Tavistock had created for themselves was worth the read.)
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Good for her, perhaps we will see some common sense on psychedelics breaking out.
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
Yes indeed. My excuse is that I turned away from this debate as it is so toxic. But now it is impacting friends and fam I can’t avert my gaze
I’m curious about apparently sensible people captured by this madness? Do they all sincerely believe it? Are they bullied into it? Is it a career move?
The Tavistock / GIDS was a law unto themselves that was widely disliked & distrusted by trans people in the UK as far as I can tell.
Their replacement by a new, larger service that a) might be able to cope with demand and b) will operate under more transparency & according to the norms of trans healthcare elsewhere in Europe is probably a good thing for everyone involved.
That’s the Pink News / Mermaids spin.
The “affirmative care” model pushed by Trans Activists and practiced by the Tavi is over. That’s why it was shut down. It was potentially harmful and bereft of supporting clinical data.
This is not “an expansion of the GIDS service” as practiced at Tavi. It’s being closed.
And replaced by a much more holistic approach looking at ALL factors and not simply saying “Yes you’re Trans, best get you on blockers”.
Here's a failure on my part - I work with someone who is trans, and I'm pretty sure I'm subconsciously avoiding conversations with them because I'm so scared of messing up the pro-nouns.
I really like them, excellent chat, great at their job - I'm doing it because I don't want to hurt them. I wonder if other Trans people have the same issue?
Mistakes are fine - they are unlikely to be offended unless you’re either doing it deliberately or just don’t care to make the effort.
Sorry. It's the easiest way of getting rid of saved drafts when you accidentally press quote, or think better of your nascent opinions. If anyone knows of a better way to stop them re-appearing I'd be grateful.
Thanks to Andy_JS for the Netherlands update. I hadn't realised that the pan-European Volt party had won seats in a national parliament. Essentially an identity party for very educated millennials, I met a lot of expat Italians around the time of migrant crisis who thought Volt was the future in their country, it wasn't but clearly it appeals to Dutch young people.
Here's a failure on my part - I work with someone who is trans, and I'm pretty sure I'm subconsciously avoiding conversations with them because I'm so scared of messing up the pro-nouns.
I really like them, excellent chat, great at their job - I'm doing it because I don't want to hurt them. I wonder if other Trans people have the same issue?
Shouldn't arise too much, at least in english, surely, about their *own* pronouns? The trick in my experience is to establish genders and pronouns for their partner if they have one, so if they say Sam went to the new Star Wars movie at the w/e you can cope with What did s/he/they think of it?
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
Yes indeed. My excuse is that I turned away from this debate as it is so toxic. But now it is impacting friends and fam I can’t avert my gaze
I’m curious about apparently sensible people captured by this madness? Do they all sincerely believe it? Are they bullied into it? Is it a career move?
The latest fashionable cause. And there's money in it. All those training courses.
That is why Garden Court Chambers courted Stonewall. They thought they'd get lots of cases. When they didn't they ignored them. But still got stung for a discrimination claim.
Here's a failure on my part - I work with someone who is trans, and I'm pretty sure I'm subconsciously avoiding conversations with them because I'm so scared of messing up the pro-nouns.
I really like them, excellent chat, great at their job - I'm doing it because I don't want to hurt them. I wonder if other Trans people have the same issue?
If you're talking to them why would you be using 3rd person pronouns? Use their name.
Sorry. It's the easiest way of getting rid of saved drafts when you accidentally press quote, or think better of your nascent opinions. If anyone knows of a better way to stop them re-appearing I'd be grateful.
Keep your dots in the draft, but delete them on your next comment. A lot of my comments have a random "A" at the start for this reason.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
Yes indeed. My excuse is that I turned away from this debate as it is so toxic. But now it is impacting friends and fam I can’t avert my gaze
I’m curious about apparently sensible people captured by this madness? Do they all sincerely believe it? Are they bullied into it? Is it a career move?
The Tavistock / GIDS was a law unto themselves that was widely disliked & distrusted by trans people in the UK as far as I can tell.
Their replacement by a new, larger service that a) might be able to cope with demand and b) will operate under more transparency & according to the norms of trans healthcare elsewhere in Europe is probably a good thing for everyone involved.
That’s the Pink News / Mermaids spin.
The “affirmative care” model pushed by Trans Activists and practiced by the Tavi is over. That’s why it was shut down. It was potentially harmful and bereft of supporting clinical data.
This is not “an expansion of the GIDS service” as practiced at Tavi. It’s being closed.
And replaced by a much more holistic approach looking at ALL factors and not simply saying “Yes you’re Trans, best get you on blockers”.
You seem to have this weird idea that trans people were just waltzing into the Tavistock & coming out with a pile of drugs.
As far as I’m aware, waiting lists were / are multiple years long. Time to treatment from the initial consultation was often another (sometimes equally long) wait, as patients were put through a variety of tests of committment defined by the GIDS in their own hermetic little bubble.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
Yes indeed. My excuse is that I turned away from this debate as it is so toxic. But now it is impacting friends and fam I can’t avert my gaze
I’m curious about apparently sensible people captured by this madness? Do they all sincerely believe it? Are they bullied into it? Is it a career move?
The Left is like a very, very primitive religion. It is not hard for most of us to grasp that there is nothing specifically wrong with racism or homophobia, say
-Gasps, cries of Stone him! Stone him!
-the rules against these things being merely instances of the overarching, and true, principle that everybody should be treated equally justly and kindly. muslim men and white women, transpeople and cis people. everybody.
The primitive cannot grasp general principles, only specific totems and taboos. Do not seethe the kid in its mother's milk/portray the Prophet/walk under ladders. So we get groups arbitrarily fetishised - black South Africans, Palestinians, trans persons - without any thought given either to equally oppressed but unfashionable groups, or to collateral damage caused by overprivileging the fetishized.
Oh for goodness sake! Could the Tory leadership race get any dumber? It’s not the Equality Act that’s the problem! 🤦♀️ It acknowledges the biological reality of sex as Scotland’s Supreme Court held recently thanx to @ForWomenScot
Let's choose. He is either - a) an idiot b) badly informed c) well-informed but pandering to the gallery d) panicking e) using this issue to attack equalities law more generally.
The possibility of (e) worries me, especially given the nonsense Suella Braverman has been coming out with. Yet even now the Labour Party cannot be relied on to protect womens' rights or the rights of troubled children to have the best possible medical care.
Is it beyond them to get advice from well-informed equalities lawyers?
I did tell you that your anti-trans activism would rebound on you Cyclefree in exactly this way, with a rolling back of all the advances made for women and other minorities in the C20th but you wouldn’t have it.
What a pile of fat hairy bollocks
The truth is often unpalatable, I agree.
You’re literally claiming that the right to vote will be taken away from women. Get a grip
Well, I wouldn’t put that past some of the people involved, sure. But the most recent stuff will go first, if they get their way.
My personal belief is that Cyclefree et al have been used by people with a much wider agenda: They don’t give a stuff about trans people particularly, (I mean, they believe them to be degenerate perverts who have rejected God’s mercy, but they hardly limit that attitude to trans people...) they’re really after the unrolling of the liberal project. Gay rights, women’s rights, the whole lot.
I am quite certain that there are people with precisely that agenda. Especially in the US. And groups in Europe too.
But the problem we have - and I genuinely wish you would engage with it rather than dismissing it - is this: TRAs also have an agenda and it is very explicitly and openly to replace sex with gender and to limit or remove existing rights for women. Stonewall, for instance, has openly called for the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act to be removed, for the offence of rape by deception to be removed. These proposals and self-ID will diminish the position of women, not simply in relation to single sex spaces but in relation to equal pay (the use of a comparator is rendered meaningless if self-ID is permitted). Abolition of one of the crimes of rape is in no sense a progressive cause.
Your position seems to be that women should not campaign against this but accept it because otherwise they might possibly give succour to some right-wing groups. It assumes that Stonewall and others supporting their stance are progressive because they say they are. I judge them on what they advocate. And there is nothing progressive about what they are advocating.
So why should women not campaign against something that will harm them?That is an absurd and immoral view IMO. And, frankly, sexist because it is saying - whether you mean to or not - that women should never put their interests first.
My position is that you & people like you are taking sides in a culture war that will rebound on you in ways that you will find deeply unconfortable if you “win”.
Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it & more besides.
And that illustrates precisely your problem. you can't think with with any degree of discrimination at all, you can only pattern match to side A or B in a "culture war" in your head, just as some single celled organisms have light/dark discrimination, and you think trans means gay only even more so. And you are probably genuinely upset to learn that the natural outcome of this is ideologically driven, irreversible physical experimentation on (mainly gay) children, in the 21stC UK, of a kind of which Mengele would have been proud. With better anaesthetics to be fair.
Comparisons to Mengele don’t exactly suggest you are rising above the culture war rhetoric yourself.
Happy to adopt a more neutral parallel case of ideologically driven surgical experiments on children if you can point me to one.
We could start you off with Foucault’s “Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique”, I guess.
I don't do Foucault. That looks like Szasz, RD Laing type shit about madness being a social construct. It isn't. If your point is that transness is mischaracterised as madness, I agree. If your point is about physical interventions to cure madness, lobotomies and such, there are better and more scholarly studies than Foucault.
My point is that you complain about the culture war while throwing around comparisons to the Nazis. Mengele considered his "subjects" to be subhuman and did many things out of pure sadism. If you think that a sensible comparison, I don't know what to say.
If you actually have an interest in the history of medicine so that you can do better with your comparisons, then there are many places you can start. One is Foucault. Foucault is definitely not saying the same as RD Laing. Foucault is saying that how society treats madness has changed over time, with incommensurable underlying assumptions as to what madness is during different periods. One might find that helpful if you want to talk about ideology in medicine. One could then go on to consider specific case studies, like the history of trepanning and the history of frontal lobotomies.
I have a PhD in the history of medicine.
I have encountered Foucault in non medical, historical/classical contexts, and judged him to be an arse and a windbag.
Great. Thanks for letting me know. I was giving you some benefit of the doubt, but your comparison to Mengele was not because you are ignorant about the history of medicine. Ergo, it must have been a deliberately provocative comment, demonstrating a certain hypocrisy at accusing another poster of being stuck in a culture war binary while yourself engaging in culture war hyperbole. I am glad we've cleared that up.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
I think you’ll agree with much of their analysis of the Tavistock, even if you don’t agree with much else!
Thanks. I prefer reading the judgments to be honest rather than simply an analysis by others. But will have a look.
I am surprised you are recommending them though. Gender GP are the Webberleys, are they not? Both of whom have been were suspended from practising in the U.K., no? For serious misconduct in the case of 3 young patients in the case of Helen Webberley. She was previously convicted of practising without the appropriate registration. They moved their practice to Spain and one of them recently said that no matter what the Cass Report says they will continue to prescribe hormones to children.
Like I said, I doubt you’ll agree with anything else about them. (Nor do I, necessarily, but I thought the analysis of the problems the Tavistock had created for themselves was worth the read.)
Thanks. I will read.
I have quite a few judgments to read. I know, I should get a life.
Sorry. It's the easiest way of getting rid of saved drafts when you accidentally press quote, or think better of your nascent opinions. If anyone knows of a better way to stop them re-appearing I'd be grateful.
Keep your dots in the draft, but delete them on your next comment. A lot of my comments have a random "A" at the start for this reason.
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
Yes indeed. My excuse is that I turned away from this debate as it is so toxic. But now it is impacting friends and fam I can’t avert my gaze
I’m curious about apparently sensible people captured by this madness? Do they all sincerely believe it? Are they bullied into it? Is it a career move?
The Tavistock / GIDS was a law unto themselves that was widely disliked & distrusted by trans people in the UK as far as I can tell.
Their replacement by a new, larger service that a) might be able to cope with demand and b) will operate under more transparency & according to the norms of trans healthcare elsewhere in Europe is probably a good thing for everyone involved.
That’s the Pink News / Mermaids spin.
The “affirmative care” model pushed by Trans Activists and practiced by the Tavi is over. That’s why it was shut down. It was potentially harmful and bereft of supporting clinical data.
This is not “an expansion of the GIDS service” as practiced at Tavi. It’s being closed.
And replaced by a much more holistic approach looking at ALL factors and not simply saying “Yes you’re Trans, best get you on blockers”.
You seem to have this weird idea that trans people were just waltzing into the Tavistock & coming out with a pile of drugs.
As far as I’m aware, waiting lists were / are multiple years long. Time to treatment from the initial consultation was often another (sometimes equally long) wait, as patients were put through a variety of tests of committment defined by the GIDS in their own hermetic little bubble.
Am I wrong?
If you haven’t I suggest you read the latest letter from Cass:
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions (or at least associate them with a left/right axis) the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Roy Brame, a self-declared member of the Turnip Taliban, had gone to the packed meeting convinced she should not stand in the safe seat at the next general election. But instead, he recalls Truss winning over a sceptical audience with a characteristic mix of charm and a thick skin.
He voted against her that evening, but Brame said he was impressed by her responses, telling reporters after the meeting: “We have just seen the new Thatcher.”
“People say that she’s not very good at presenting herself. But at that particular meeting, when well over 200 [people] were asking her some personal questions, and a lot about where she thought she wanted to go, she came over extremely well,” he said.
@Andy_JS I completely agree on trans issues. Nobody is being helped by this debate now and all it is doing is dividing people needlessly. We need some honour and decency back in politics and we need to stop using people as wedges in this way
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
My view on such matters is the classic "live and let live" - What people want to do, who they want to sleep with, what they want to identify as, is their own business.
I think there actually needs to be far less emphasis on sex, sexuality, gender-identification etc etc. It's become like an all consuming obsession for some people.
Your sexuality for example, is just one part of who you are but there is much more that goes into being a human than just their sexual preference.
I do say though that promotion of trans rights shouldn't set back a century of advancement of women's rights. If I was a woman I would be concerned to see some of the developments in the past years that seem to be starting to push back on the progress that's been made for women's rights since WWI.
It also shouldn't come at the expense of being anti-science... "Your" truth shouldn't come ahead of "The" truth when it becomes to biological sex at the chromosomal and cellular level... If it does we shall get ourselves into a terrible muddle (as certain Labour politicians already have...)
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
You’d be more persuasive if you emerged from your jungle and dispensed with relying upon the bottle for insight.
I’m sure Liz’s monarchy views will be broadcast daily like Corbyn’s were
She said it was a mistake and regretted it. Did Corbyn do the same?
What exactly does Liz believe in? She seems to have changed her views so many times. Corbyn’s views never changed that was part of the problem
I'm not sure. But on this issue she has said she was young and naive, and don't reflect her current views.
Okay but that doesn’t explain why her views have changed since then, more than once.
I genuinely don’t know what she believes in, I’m trying to understand it but she’s held so many contradictory positions
You make it sound like changing your views is a bad thing. Of course when you change your mind on something it can often end up being contradictory. It's far worse to never change your opinion, even when presented with new facts/information.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
No, it was always an issue. Just hidden in the questions. Eg people before 2016 WOULD often cite ‘immigration’ as a key issue. It actually topped some polls. That was really and largely about the EU
Note how migration has plunged down the list of concerns now we have Brexited
I’m sure Liz’s monarchy views will be broadcast daily like Corbyn’s were
She said it was a mistake and regretted it. Did Corbyn do the same?
What exactly does Liz believe in? She seems to have changed her views so many times. Corbyn’s views never changed that was part of the problem
I'm not sure. But on this issue she has said she was young and naive, and don't reflect her current views.
Okay but that doesn’t explain why her views have changed since then, more than once.
I genuinely don’t know what she believes in, I’m trying to understand it but she’s held so many contradictory positions
You make it sound like changing your views is a bad thing. Of course when you change your mind on something it can often end up being contradictory. It's far worse to never change your opinion, even when presented with new facts/information.
It’s okay to change your views when it is sincere but to me she seems to change them because it is politically convenient.
I refuse to believe she’s actually changed her mind on Brexit for example. Not with how it has gone.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
No, it was always an issue. Just hidden in the questions. Eg people before 2016 WOULD often cite ‘immigration’ as a key issue. It actually topped some polls. That was really and largely about the EU
Note how migration has plunged down the list of concerns now we have Brexited
It’s plunged down the issues list because we’ve stopped reporting it. Immigration is just as out of control as it was before.
I’m sure Liz’s monarchy views will be broadcast daily like Corbyn’s were
She said it was a mistake and regretted it. Did Corbyn do the same?
What exactly does Liz believe in? She seems to have changed her views so many times. Corbyn’s views never changed that was part of the problem
I'm not sure. But on this issue she has said she was young and naive, and don't reflect her current views.
Okay but that doesn’t explain why her views have changed since then, more than once.
I genuinely don’t know what she believes in, I’m trying to understand it but she’s held so many contradictory positions
You make it sound like changing your views is a bad thing. Of course when you change your mind on something it can often end up being contradictory. It's far worse to never change your opinion, even when presented with new facts/information.
It’s okay to change your views when it is sincere but to me she seems to change them because it is politically convenient.
I refuse to believe she’s actually changed her mind on Brexit for example. Not with how it has gone.
On the monarchy that was when she was 19, that's a long time for someone to change their views on something. I don't see any indication it was politically convenient. Of course it would be different had she been campaigning for the abolition up to a few years ago.
On Brexit, why do you refuse to believe that she changed her mind? At the very least she might just be wanting to get on with it.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
No, it was always an issue. Just hidden in the questions. Eg people before 2016 WOULD often cite ‘immigration’ as a key issue. It actually topped some polls. That was really and largely about the EU
Note how migration has plunged down the list of concerns now we have Brexited
The papers got what they really wanted.
Next time the moguls want to angry up the people, they'll run headlines about being swamped again.
For now, trans moral panic is working because a higher-income group at risk of voting Labour responds better to it than migration.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
That’s a misreading of the situation. There were many things people were concerned about that had an EU element. Immigration of course being the top one.
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that this is all a lot of hot air that isn’t going to affect votes at ballot boxes. On the specific niche issue of trans politics, maybe not, but the whole overall “culture war”? (a term I don’t really like). It connects deeply with senses of identity and being and post-Brexit I refuse to believe that these things don’t feed into peoples decisions.
In recent years we have seen that “it’s the economy stupid” no longer has the same weight as it once did. In my humble opinion, it is clear that we need to look beyond these matters when assessing political winners and losers.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Isn’t the concern about drag act story time that men who dress up as women do so for a sexual kick? Panto is a bit different because that’s actors playing a part in a play.
The funny thing is, if it was trans person story time, that would be much more appropriate as it would be getting kids used to the idea that some people present as a different gender.
Panto and drag are not necessarily the same thing. Some drag acts are for adults only and simply not suitable for children. The National Theatre recently apologised for having a drag act at a family show who talked about children "opening their legs".
My memory may be playing tricks, but 50 years ago wasn't Danny la Rue mainstream family entertainment on TV on weekend evenings?
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Yes it has as I keep posting. Australia! And they lost!
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
Isn’t the concern about drag act story time that men who dress up as women do so for a sexual kick? Panto is a bit different because that’s actors playing a part in a play.
The funny thing is, if it was trans person story time, that would be much more appropriate as it would be getting kids used to the idea that some people present as a different gender.
Panto and drag are not necessarily the same thing. Some drag acts are for adults only and simply not suitable for children. The National Theatre recently apologised for having a drag act at a family show who talked about children "opening their legs".
My memory may be playing tricks, but 50 years ago wasn't Danny la Rue mainstream family entertainment on TV on weekend evenings?
Cross-dressing was always a recurring theme in British light entertainment, in a way that it wasn’t in the US (with the notable exception of that Some Like It Hot).
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
Yes indeed. My excuse is that I turned away from this debate as it is so toxic. But now it is impacting friends and fam I can’t avert my gaze
I’m curious about apparently sensible people captured by this madness? Do they all sincerely believe it? Are they bullied into it? Is it a career move?
The Tavistock / GIDS was a law unto themselves that was widely disliked & distrusted by trans people in the UK as far as I can tell.
Their replacement by a new, larger service that a) might be able to cope with demand and b) will operate under more transparency & according to the norms of trans healthcare elsewhere in Europe is probably a good thing for everyone involved.
If the new service follows what is happening in France, Sweden and Finland, which have put a halt to the use of puberty blockers and look at the child holistically then that will be a good thing.
Whatever is done should be based on proper scientific research not on what lobby groups demand.
Medical matters should be based on the principle of best for the patient as agreed with their doctor in the relevant field. It seems the Tavistock sometimes departed from that. Ideology in the mix - which it shouldn't be - and also massive overdemand for its services.
There is a rational reason why a young person who is transgender might want puberty blockers and later on surgery as an adult - which is that their life will be easier if the divergence of their body from their lived-in gender is minimized.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
That’s a misreading of the situation. There were many things people were concerned about that had an EU element. Immigration of course being the top one.
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that this is all a lot of hot air that isn’t going to affect votes at ballot boxes. On the specific niche issue of trans politics, maybe not, but the whole overall “culture war”? (a term I don’t really like). It connects deeply with senses of identity and being and post-Brexit I refuse to believe that these things don’t feed into peoples decisions.
In recent years we have seen that “it’s the economy stupid” no longer has the same weight as it once did. In my humble opinion, it is clear that we need to look beyond these matters when assessing political winners and losers.
Yes, I think that's an interesting way of looking at it. So, people might not have been saying the EU was a top issue, but they were saying immigration was a top issue, and immigration was a major factor in how people decided to vote in a referendum on the EU. And, of course, as per Battery, holding a referendum on something will of course push an issue up the agenda.
I agree that trans issues are associated with a broader "culture war" that encompasses many other issues: gay rights and representation; abortion rights; views of history, the Empire and Commonwealth; statues; national identity etc. Although that association is closer with some parts of a broader "culture war" than others.
So, when we look at issues polling today, do we see something like immigration was for the EU? Is there a big topic in the polling that links across to trans issues? I'm not seeing anything.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
I agree everyone can, but moral panics about kids and marginal lifestyles often seem to target higher-income groups who fear more loss of social status than parents in sink estates for example.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Other topics that inspire heat here: how good is DALLE-2 at generating artificial images; various details of ancient Roman history; voting systems.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Famously, Critical Race Theory - or people's loathing of it in schools - won the Virginia gubernatorial race for the GOP
If it can happen in America it can certainly happen here. In many ways I'd rather it didn't, but the Woke will keep pushing their madness and that causes violent pushback, and on we go
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
I agree everyone can, but moral panics about kids and marginal lifestyles often seem to target higher-income groups who fear more loss of social status than parents in sink estates for example.
I’m still not buying it. Remember those mobs attacking a local paediatrician?
I would agree with you if you were talking about race, which is highly class-ed.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
It’s Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Same reason that all the climate activists and FBPE Twatterers, are from the classes who aren’t worrying about the price of heating their house this winter.
Isn’t the concern about drag act story time that men who dress up as women do so for a sexual kick? Panto is a bit different because that’s actors playing a part in a play.
The funny thing is, if it was trans person story time, that would be much more appropriate as it would be getting kids used to the idea that some people present as a different gender.
Panto and drag are not necessarily the same thing. Some drag acts are for adults only and simply not suitable for children. The National Theatre recently apologised for having a drag act at a family show who talked about children "opening their legs".
My memory may be playing tricks, but 50 years ago wasn't Danny la Rue mainstream family entertainment on TV on weekend evenings?
Cross-dressing was always a recurring theme in British light entertainment, in a way that it wasn’t in the US (with the notable exception of that Some Like It Hot).
... and M*A*S*H.
But, yes, which is why Queen's popularity in the US fell after the "I Want to Break Free" video, while the band's success continued to grow everywhere else.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Other topics that inspire heat here: how good is DALLE-2 at generating artificial images; various details of ancient Roman history; voting systems.
You forgot the ALIENS, and the rankings of English counties by pulchritude
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Progressive causes are always considered "suspicious". Perfect word in fact. Suspicious things pushed by suspect people.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
It’s Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Same reason that all the climate activists and FBPE Twatterers, are from the classes who aren’t worrying about the price of heating their house this winter.
And why the conservative right-wingers tend to kick down and not at people like themselves.
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
Yes indeed. My excuse is that I turned away from this debate as it is so toxic. But now it is impacting friends and fam I can’t avert my gaze
I’m curious about apparently sensible people captured by this madness? Do they all sincerely believe it? Are they bullied into it? Is it a career move?
The Tavistock / GIDS was a law unto themselves that was widely disliked & distrusted by trans people in the UK as far as I can tell.
Their replacement by a new, larger service that a) might be able to cope with demand and b) will operate under more transparency & according to the norms of trans healthcare elsewhere in Europe is probably a good thing for everyone involved.
If the new service follows what is happening in France, Sweden and Finland, which have put a halt to the use of puberty blockers and look at the child holistically then that will be a good thing.
Whatever is done should be based on proper scientific research not on what lobby groups demand.
Medical matters should be based on the principle of best for the patient as agreed with their doctor in the relevant field. It seems the Tavistock sometimes departed from that. Ideology in the mix - which it shouldn't be - and also massive overdemand for its services.
There is a rational reason why a young person who is transgender might want puberty blockers and later on surgery as an adult - which is that their life will be easier if the divergence of their body from their lived-in gender is minimized.
I suggest the healthcare professionals at the Tavistock still based their actions on what they thought was best for the patient. They may (or may not) have been mistaken as to what was best for the patient, but I don't believe they were deliberately doing things while thinking, "This is bad for my patient."
This is why a comparison with, say, Mengele is so ridiculous, not that I can imagine anyone ever making such a comparison except as a rhetorical flourish.
This [Sunak] betrays a misunderstanding of the Equality Act. It might not be perfect but if interpreted correctly (it isn’t always) it protects sex-based rights and provides a framework to balance conflicting rights.
The problem has been charities like Stonewall *misrepresenting* what the Equality Act says and thus paving the way for employers they advise to engage in unlawful discrimination, as found by the barrister/EHRC commissioner Akua Reindorf in her review for Essex University
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
I agree everyone can, but moral panics about kids and marginal lifestyles often seem to target higher-income groups who fear more loss of social status than parents in sink estates for example.
"Moral panic" is one for the banned list. WTF are you on about anyway? If I am opposed to the proliferation of child pornography on the internet does that make me a posho having a "moral panic about kids?" Where does loss of social status come in to it?
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
I agree everyone can, but moral panics about kids and marginal lifestyles often seem to target higher-income groups who fear more loss of social status than parents in sink estates for example.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
It doesn't seem to generate the same heat in other European countries.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
That’s a misreading of the situation. There were many things people were concerned about that had an EU element. Immigration of course being the top one.
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that this is all a lot of hot air that isn’t going to affect votes at ballot boxes. On the specific niche issue of trans politics, maybe not, but the whole overall “culture war”? (a term I don’t really like). It connects deeply with senses of identity and being and post-Brexit I refuse to believe that these things don’t feed into peoples decisions.
In recent years we have seen that “it’s the economy stupid” no longer has the same weight as it once did. In my humble opinion, it is clear that we need to look beyond these matters when assessing political winners and losers.
Yes, I think that's an interesting way of looking at it. So, people might not have been saying the EU was a top issue, but they were saying immigration was a top issue, and immigration was a major factor in how people decided to vote in a referendum on the EU. And, of course, as per Battery, holding a referendum on something will of course push an issue up the agenda.
I agree that trans issues are associated with a broader "culture war" that encompasses many other issues: gay rights and representation; abortion rights; views of history, the Empire and Commonwealth; statues; national identity etc. Although that association is closer with some parts of a broader "culture war" than others.
So, when we look at issues polling today, do we see something like immigration was for the EU? Is there a big topic in the polling that links across to trans issues? I'm not seeing anything.
It’s a good question.
My hypothesis on this, though admittedly untested, is that it’s quite hard to find a word to describe it as an “issue” and that the whole thing is largely unpollable.
“Culture war” and “woke issues” aren’t particularly useful terms because they mean whatever people want them to mean at any one time. Things like “identity” and “belonging” and “the overall direction of social change” are all vague concepts that it’s hard to pin down on a questionnaire or survey or poll.
Things like “trans issues” or “media/corporate agendas” etc are just too niche in and of themselves to really create a meaningful response.
Moreover I’m not sure if asked the question people will necessarily identify it as a top issue. But as a factor that could tie in to political identity and voting behaviours? I think there must be something in that.
I fully acknowledge that this is all a bit wooly at the moment, but I think there might be something in it.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
I agree everyone can, but moral panics about kids and marginal lifestyles often seem to target higher-income groups who fear more loss of social status than parents in sink estates for example.
"Moral panic" is one for the banned list. WTF are you on about anyway? If I am opposed to the proliferation of child pornography on the internet does that make me a posho having a "moral panic about kids?" Where does loss of social status come in to it?
Some friends of mine are really worried about their young daughter declaring she's trans, and demanding dangerous medication aged 15, and going to war with them about it when they object - by running away a lot, being picked up by police at 5am, and so on
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
Nor in my view is supernatural mythology, but I tolerate it within reason.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
The thing that is so baffling to me is that Starmer Labour seems to be perceived on here by some to be "ultra woke" even though it isn't.
I'd say it's actually slightly less "woke" than May's Government was - and nobody complained about that.
This issue has been weaponised and become so extreme that what would have been considered relatively centrist a few years ago is now apparently destroying the world.
It is literally the same as the gay rights agenda.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
Nor in my view is supernatural mythology, but I tolerate it within reason.
This deserves a longer response but I am packing the car to go on holiday.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
It doesn't seem to generate the same heat in other European countries.
The great Trans-Terf war actually started in Britain and was a largely British affair until very recently. We have now exported it successfully - yay go us - to the States, and we're trying to launch it in the Australian market. I strongly suspect the French are blocking this particular British Woke Insanity at Calais
I'm not quite sure WHY it is a distinctively British product
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Yes it has as I keep posting. Australia! And they lost!
Yep. For Starmer the Tories doing lots of Culture War is a case of "Go ahead make my day".
Change of mind from me here too. I used to think they could win a GE like that. Now I don't.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
I agree everyone can, but moral panics about kids and marginal lifestyles often seem to target higher-income groups who fear more loss of social status than parents in sink estates for example.
Exactly - there are counter examples, but it's a tendency, not an iron law. (That's why "soccer moms" / "security moms" is a US political demographic.) The point is not that a moral panic proves there is no argument to be had - any more than the WMD panic proved Saddam was a nice guy. But recognise Truss and Sunak aren't operating in a philosophy vacuum.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
It doesn't seem to generate the same heat in other European countries.
The great Trans-Terf war actually started in Britain and was a largely British affair until very recently. We have now exported it successfully - yay go us - to the States, and we're trying to launch it in the Australian market. I strongly suspect the French are blocking this particular British Woke Insanity at Calais
I'm not quite sure WHY it is a distinctively British product
It's like talking to a robot.
They tried it in Australia and they lost the election. I don't know why you can't accept that we have an objective example of this policy not working.
Don’t ever forget what the LGBTQ+ movement and the liberal left were trying to do by banning ‘trans conversion therapy’. It’s Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka meets Orwell, but I hope this short thread explains. And makes you angry.
And the real kicker? We were saved from this barbaric law at the eleventh hour by the Tory government of Boris Johnson which, venal and incompetent as it was, was able to spot a pig in a poke. What does that say about these clowns?
To my shame, I had no idea what ‘trans conversion therapy’ was. I too presumed it was something horrible like gay conversion therapy
That’s an eye opening thread. The entire trans activist sandcastle is crumbling
The Cass Interim Report spells it all out. As does the judgment in the Keira Bell case. As do the multiple whistleblowers at the Tavistock who were ignored. Or the parents who presented evidence about the harm and lack of evidence to the Chief Executive in 2018, which he ignored.
The scientific evidence for much of what the Tavistock did simply is not there. God knows how they can say they got informed consent for their treatment. The legal liability they now face is dreadful.
Yes indeed. My excuse is that I turned away from this debate as it is so toxic. But now it is impacting friends and fam I can’t avert my gaze
I’m curious about apparently sensible people captured by this madness? Do they all sincerely believe it? Are they bullied into it? Is it a career move?
The Tavistock / GIDS was a law unto themselves that was widely disliked & distrusted by trans people in the UK as far as I can tell.
Their replacement by a new, larger service that a) might be able to cope with demand and b) will operate under more transparency & according to the norms of trans healthcare elsewhere in Europe is probably a good thing for everyone involved.
If the new service follows what is happening in France, Sweden and Finland, which have put a halt to the use of puberty blockers and look at the child holistically then that will be a good thing.
Whatever is done should be based on proper scientific research not on what lobby groups demand.
Medical matters should be based on the principle of best for the patient as agreed with their doctor in the relevant field. It seems the Tavistock sometimes departed from that. Ideology in the mix - which it shouldn't be - and also massive overdemand for its services.
There is a rational reason why a young person who is transgender might want puberty blockers and later on surgery as an adult - which is that their life will be easier if the divergence of their body from their lived-in gender is minimized.
I suggest the healthcare professionals at the Tavistock still based their actions on what they thought was best for the patient. They may (or may not) have been mistaken as to what was best for the patient, but I don't believe they were deliberately doing things while thinking, "This is bad for my patient."
This is why a comparison with, say, Mengele is so ridiculous, not that I can imagine anyone ever making such a comparison except as a rhetorical flourish.
Lysenko would perhaps have been a better comparison had he been a doctor.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
That’s a misreading of the situation. There were many things people were concerned about that had an EU element. Immigration of course being the top one.
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that this is all a lot of hot air that isn’t going to affect votes at ballot boxes. On the specific niche issue of trans politics, maybe not, but the whole overall “culture war”? (a term I don’t really like). It connects deeply with senses of identity and being and post-Brexit I refuse to believe that these things don’t feed into peoples decisions.
In recent years we have seen that “it’s the economy stupid” no longer has the same weight as it once did. In my humble opinion, it is clear that we need to look beyond these matters when assessing political winners and losers.
Yes, I think that's an interesting way of looking at it. So, people might not have been saying the EU was a top issue, but they were saying immigration was a top issue, and immigration was a major factor in how people decided to vote in a referendum on the EU. And, of course, as per Battery, holding a referendum on something will of course push an issue up the agenda.
I agree that trans issues are associated with a broader "culture war" that encompasses many other issues: gay rights and representation; abortion rights; views of history, the Empire and Commonwealth; statues; national identity etc. Although that association is closer with some parts of a broader "culture war" than others.
So, when we look at issues polling today, do we see something like immigration was for the EU? Is there a big topic in the polling that links across to trans issues? I'm not seeing anything.
It’s a good question.
My hypothesis on this, though admittedly untested, is that it’s quite hard to find a word to describe it as an “issue” and that the whole thing is largely unpollable.
“Culture war” and “woke issues” aren’t particularly useful terms because they mean whatever people want them to mean at any one time. Things like “identity” and “belonging” and “the overall direction of social change” are all vague concepts that it’s hard to pin down on a questionnaire or survey or poll.
Moreover I’m not sure if asked the question people will necessarily identify it as a top issue. But a factor that could tie in to political identity? I think there must be something in that.
I fully acknowledge that this is all a bit wooly at the moment, but I think there might be something in it.
Fair enough. It is woolly, but I think there might be something in it as well! Identity is important in politics, no doubt. However, I suggest identity in terms of ethnicity and nation may be more potent psephologically speaking. Culture war arguments that are really about race seem to have been more effective in the US, but culture war arguments about transgender issues or about sexuality seem to have been less so.
In Oz they went to voters and said Labor was woke. People said why are you asking me this, I can't afford to eat.
Maybe culture wars could win an election in a good economic climate but in the current one, the Tories just look out of touch. Polling is very clear on this.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Yes it has as I keep posting. Australia! And they lost!
Yep. For Starmer the Tories doing lots of Culture War is a case of "Go ahead make my day".
Change of mind from me here too. I used to think they could win a GE like that. Now I don't.
A brief look at Mumsnet says you are wrong. The Kulturkrieg - in all its manifestations - really matters to a lot of vocal people, and it will eventually impact our politics, as it already has done in the USA. Sadly
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
Our Genial Host used to say exactly that about the EU
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Yes but he was right. It wasn’t an issue until Cameron’s stupid referendum made it one
That’s a misreading of the situation. There were many things people were concerned about that had an EU element. Immigration of course being the top one.
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that this is all a lot of hot air that isn’t going to affect votes at ballot boxes. On the specific niche issue of trans politics, maybe not, but the whole overall “culture war”? (a term I don’t really like). It connects deeply with senses of identity and being and post-Brexit I refuse to believe that these things don’t feed into peoples decisions.
In recent years we have seen that “it’s the economy stupid” no longer has the same weight as it once did. In my humble opinion, it is clear that we need to look beyond these matters when assessing political winners and losers.
Yes, I think that's an interesting way of looking at it. So, people might not have been saying the EU was a top issue, but they were saying immigration was a top issue, and immigration was a major factor in how people decided to vote in a referendum on the EU. And, of course, as per Battery, holding a referendum on something will of course push an issue up the agenda.
I agree that trans issues are associated with a broader "culture war" that encompasses many other issues: gay rights and representation; abortion rights; views of history, the Empire and Commonwealth; statues; national identity etc. Although that association is closer with some parts of a broader "culture war" than others.
So, when we look at issues polling today, do we see something like immigration was for the EU? Is there a big topic in the polling that links across to trans issues? I'm not seeing anything.
It’s a good question.
My hypothesis on this, though admittedly untested, is that it’s quite hard to find a word to describe it as an “issue” and that the whole thing is largely unpollable.
“Culture war” and “woke issues” aren’t particularly useful terms because they mean whatever people want them to mean at any one time. Things like “identity” and “belonging” and “the overall direction of social change” are all vague concepts that it’s hard to pin down on a questionnaire or survey or poll.
Moreover I’m not sure if asked the question people will necessarily identify it as a top issue. But a factor that could tie in to political identity? I think there must be something in that.
I fully acknowledge that this is all a bit wooly at the moment, but I think there might be something in it.
Fair enough. It is woolly, but I think there might be something in it as well! Identity is important in politics, no doubt. However, I suggest identity in terms of ethnicity and nation may be more potent psephologically speaking. Culture war arguments that are really about race seem to have been more effective in the US, but culture war arguments about transgender issues or about sexuality seem to have been less so.
The question in the US is what happens with abortion back on the ballot paper. Thank heavens that's not an issue in the UK.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
It doesn't seem to generate the same heat in other European countries.
The great Trans-Terf war actually started in Britain and was a largely British affair until very recently. We have now exported it successfully - yay go us - to the States, and we're trying to launch it in the Australian market. I strongly suspect the French are blocking this particular British Woke Insanity at Calais
I'm not quite sure WHY it is a distinctively British product
It's like talking to a robot.
They tried it in Australia and they lost the election. I don't know why you can't accept that we have an objective example of this policy not working.
Because this is Britain not America or Australia, and the trans issue is much more potent in the UK, as we are further advanced in this particular battle of the Culture War
Can it win an election by itself? Of course not. Might it matter in an election? Yes, absolutely. Imagine Sir Beer Korma squirming when he is unable to define a woman, with Liz Truss opposite him, glaring hard
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Yes it has as I keep posting. Australia! And they lost!
Yep. For Starmer the Tories doing lots of Culture War is a case of "Go ahead make my day".
Change of mind from me here too. I used to think they could win a GE like that. Now I don't.
A brief look at Mumsnet says you are wrong. The Kulturkrieg - in all its manifestations - really matters to a lot of vocal people, and it will eventually impact our politics, as it already has done in the USA. Sadly
But not in Oz where they lost an election. I give up, you've clearly decided it's important to you and therefore must be to everyone else. Nothing will change your mind.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
I agree everyone can, but moral panics about kids and marginal lifestyles often seem to target higher-income groups who fear more loss of social status than parents in sink estates for example.
Exactly - there are counter examples, but it's a tendency, not an iron law. (That's why "soccer moms" / "security moms" is a US political demographic.) The point is not that a moral panic proves there is no argument to be had - any more than the WMD panic proved Saddam was a nice guy. But recognise Truss and Sunak aren't operating in a philosophy vacuum.
Again what is this patronising concept of "moral panic"? Who is doing it? What does it look like?
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
Yes it has as I keep posting. Australia! And they lost!
Yep. For Starmer the Tories doing lots of Culture War is a case of "Go ahead make my day".
Change of mind from me here too. I used to think they could win a GE like that. Now I don't.
A brief look at Mumsnet says you are wrong. The Kulturkrieg - in all its manifestations - really matters to a lot of vocal people, and it will eventually impact our politics, as it already has done in the USA. Sadly
But not in Oz where they lost an election. I give up, you've clearly decided it's important to you and therefore must be to everyone else. Nothing will change your mind.
In Oz they went to voters and said Labor was woke. People said why are you asking me this, I can't afford to eat.
Maybe culture wars could win an election in a good economic climate but in the current one, the Tories just look out of touch. Polling is very clear on this.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
I don’t think so.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
It doesn't seem to generate the same heat in other European countries.
The great Trans-Terf war actually started in Britain and was a largely British affair until very recently. We have now exported it successfully - yay go us - to the States, and we're trying to launch it in the Australian market. I strongly suspect the French are blocking this particular British Woke Insanity at Calais
I'm not quite sure WHY it is a distinctively British product
Yes, odd. Here and the US, basically. Flopped in Oz as CHB was noting.
Several countries are more liberal than we are on transgender rights yet there isn't the fevered backlash against that Woke Insanity (you) or Reasonable Reforms (me) that we see here in the UK.
In Oz they went to voters and said Labor was woke. People said why are you asking me this, I can't afford to eat.
Maybe culture wars could win an election in a good economic climate but in the current one, the Tories just look out of touch. Polling is very clear on this.
It’s not “what is woke?”
It’s “what is a woman?”
But again, Starmer the other day said what a woman is, somebody with a vagina.
They tried that in Oz too and people said again, I can't afford to eat
Comments
Eg, with "self-id" - a reform that's been enacted in several places - I'd expect to have heard of big fights over that (in those places) and for there now to be intentions to reverse it if the evidence indicated some of the feared consequences were coming to pass.
Perhaps there were - and are - but I haven't been able to locate much.
See this entire discussion
‘"The Danger of Child Sexuality", Foucault's dialogue with Guy Hocquenghem and Jean Danet, was produced by Roger Pillaudin and broadcast by France Culture on April 4, 1978. It was published as "La Loi de la pudeur" in RECHERCHES 37, April 1979. First published in English in Semiotext(e) Magazine (New York): Semiotext(e) Special Intervention Series 2: Loving Boys / Loving Children (Summer 1980), in a translation by Daniel Moshenberg.‘
One quote on adult-child sex:
‘And to assume that a child is incapable of explaining what happened and was incapable of giving his consent are two abuses that are intolerable, quite unacceptable."’
https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/danger.htm
In this debate he seems to argue for the abolition of all age-of-consent laws. Given the multiple accusations against him, which have recently emerged, it’s difficult to conclude his intentions were noble and philosophical
The “affirmative care” model pushed by Trans Activists and practiced by the Tavi is over. That’s why it was shut down. It was potentially harmful and bereft of supporting clinical data.
This is not “an expansion of the GIDS service” as practiced at Tavi. It’s being closed.
And replaced by a much more holistic approach looking at ALL factors and not simply saying “Yes you’re Trans, best get you on blockers”.
Mort hurtful to be avoided, I’d imagine.
If anyone knows of a better way to stop them re-appearing I'd be grateful.
That is why Garden Court Chambers courted Stonewall. They thought they'd get lots of cases. When they didn't they ignored them. But still got stung for a discrimination claim. If you're talking to them why would you be using 3rd person pronouns? Use their name.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
As far as I’m aware, waiting lists were / are multiple years long. Time to treatment from the initial consultation was often another (sometimes equally long) wait, as patients were put through a variety of tests of committment defined by the GIDS in their own hermetic little bubble.
Am I wrong?
1) it wasn't a GMLRS rocket
2) it was a thermobaric weapon
3) russia staged it and did so (as usual) incompetently
Firstly: keeping POWs so close to the front violates Article 19 of the Third Geneva Convention making it a war crime.
1/n
https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1553346547739410432
-Gasps, cries of Stone him! Stone him!
-the rules against these things being merely instances of the overarching, and true, principle that everybody should be treated equally justly and kindly. muslim men and white women, transpeople and cis people. everybody.
The primitive cannot grasp general principles, only specific totems and taboos. Do not seethe the kid in its mother's milk/portray the Prophet/walk under ladders. So we get groups arbitrarily fetishised - black South Africans, Palestinians, trans persons - without any thought given either to equally oppressed but unfashionable groups, or to collateral damage caused by overprivileging the fetishized.
I have quite a few judgments to read. I know, I should get a life.
In her new journal entry, Hilary signposts her latest letter to NHS England and discusses how gaps in the evidence base should be addressed https://cass.independent-review.uk/entry-7-research/…
https://twitter.com/thecassreview/status/1552613523829800960
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions (or at least associate them with a left/right axis) the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
He voted against her that evening, but Brame said he was impressed by her responses, telling reporters after the meeting: “We have just seen the new Thatcher.”
“People say that she’s not very good at presenting herself. But at that particular meeting, when well over 200 [people] were asking her some personal questions, and a lot about where she thought she wanted to go, she came over extremely well,” he said.
‘It’s a nonissue, no one cares, look at the polls’
Is Suella likely to stay in a Truss Government? I am concerned Liz will keep the loons
I think there actually needs to be far less emphasis on sex, sexuality, gender-identification etc etc. It's become like an all consuming obsession for some people.
Your sexuality for example, is just one part of who you are but there is much more that goes into being a human than just their sexual preference.
I do say though that promotion of trans rights shouldn't set back a century of advancement of women's rights. If I was a woman I would be concerned to see some of the developments in the past years that seem to be starting to push back on the progress that's been made for women's rights since WWI.
It also shouldn't come at the expense of being anti-science... "Your" truth shouldn't come ahead of "The" truth when it becomes to biological sex at the chromosomal and cellular level... If it does we shall get ourselves into a terrible muddle (as certain Labour politicians already have...)
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
I genuinely don’t know what she believes in, I’m trying to understand it but she’s held so many contradictory positions
Note how migration has plunged down the list of concerns now we have Brexited
I refuse to believe she’s actually changed her mind on Brexit for example. Not with how it has gone.
On Brexit, why do you refuse to believe that she changed her mind? At the very least she might just be wanting to get on with it.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
Next time the moguls want to angry up the people, they'll run headlines about being swamped again.
For now, trans moral panic is working because a higher-income group at risk of voting Labour responds better to it than migration.
I don’t know why I keep having to post this, it’s already been tried and failed
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that this is all a lot of hot air that isn’t going to affect votes at ballot boxes. On the specific niche issue of trans politics, maybe not, but the whole overall “culture war”? (a term I don’t really like). It connects deeply with senses of identity and being and post-Brexit I refuse to believe that these things don’t feed into peoples decisions.
In recent years we have seen that “it’s the economy stupid” no longer has the same weight as it once did. In my humble opinion, it is clear that we need to look beyond these matters when assessing political winners and losers.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
There is a rational reason why a young person who is transgender might want puberty blockers and later on surgery as an adult - which is that their life will be easier if the divergence of their body from their lived-in gender is minimized.
I think gender identity is so primal than pretty much everyone can get worked up about it if they’re exposed to the “right” narrative.
I agree that trans issues are associated with a broader "culture war" that encompasses many other issues: gay rights and representation; abortion rights; views of history, the Empire and Commonwealth; statues; national identity etc. Although that association is closer with some parts of a broader "culture war" than others.
So, when we look at issues polling today, do we see something like immigration was for the EU? Is there a big topic in the polling that links across to trans issues? I'm not seeing anything.
If it can happen in America it can certainly happen here. In many ways I'd rather it didn't, but the Woke will keep pushing their madness and that causes violent pushback, and on we go
Remember those mobs attacking a local paediatrician?
I would agree with you if you were talking about race, which is highly class-ed.
Not so much sexual/gender stuff.
Same reason that all the climate activists and FBPE Twatterers, are from the classes who aren’t worrying about the price of heating their house this winter.
But, yes, which is why Queen's popularity in the US fell after the "I Want to Break Free" video, while the band's success continued to grow everywhere else.
Former Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch MP tells GB News using the word 'woke' can trivialise very serious issues.
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1553320568602202113
This is why a comparison with, say, Mengele is so ridiculous, not that I can imagine anyone ever making such a comparison except as a rhetorical flourish.
The problem has been charities like Stonewall *misrepresenting* what the Equality Act says and thus paving the way for employers they advise to engage in unlawful discrimination, as found by the barrister/EHRC commissioner Akua Reindorf in her review for Essex University
https://twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1553370220584108034?s=20&t=4bHoXxtqDe77Jo-9sQrlLg
My hypothesis on this, though admittedly untested, is that it’s quite hard to find a word to describe it as an “issue” and that the whole thing is largely unpollable.
“Culture war” and “woke issues” aren’t particularly useful terms because they mean whatever people want them to mean at any one time. Things like “identity” and “belonging” and “the overall direction of social change” are all vague concepts that it’s hard to pin down on a questionnaire or survey or poll.
Things like “trans issues” or “media/corporate agendas” etc are just too niche in and of themselves to really create a meaningful response.
Moreover I’m not sure if asked the question people will necessarily identify it as a top issue. But as a factor that could tie in to political identity and voting behaviours? I think there must be something in that.
I fully acknowledge that this is all a bit wooly at the moment, but I think there might be something in it.
Perhaps they too are in a silly "moral panic"
I'd say it's actually slightly less "woke" than May's Government was - and nobody complained about that.
This issue has been weaponised and become so extreme that what would have been considered relatively centrist a few years ago is now apparently destroying the world.
It is literally the same as the gay rights agenda.
I'm not quite sure WHY it is a distinctively British product
Change of mind from me here too. I used to think they could win a GE like that. Now I don't.
They tried it in Australia and they lost the election. I don't know why you can't accept that we have an objective example of this policy not working.
Maybe culture wars could win an election in a good economic climate but in the current one, the Tories just look out of touch. Polling is very clear on this.
Can it win an election by itself? Of course not. Might it matter in an election? Yes, absolutely. Imagine Sir Beer Korma squirming when he is unable to define a woman, with Liz Truss opposite him, glaring hard
Good day
It’s “what is a woman?”
Several countries are more liberal than we are on transgender rights yet there isn't the fevered backlash against that Woke Insanity (you) or Reasonable Reforms (me) that we see here in the UK.
They tried that in Oz too and people said again, I can't afford to eat
Campaign for everybody to cancel their fuel direct debits on 1 October
Interesting