If there's a change at the Home Office I hope Kemi Badenoch gets the job.
Is it her hairstyle that attracts you? I've never heard her say anything which could be described as interesting or impressive. I read about some of her anti wokishness but that's surely not enough for one of the four biggest offices of state.
Her anti-wokeness is what attracts me.
What I don't understand about the anti woke is not that they are anti woke, but why do you ignore her complete failure to resolve any of the issues?
All she does is get angry about the issues and diminish our institutions. She does not offer any solutions that are workable or legal. It is all most unconservative.
This is precisely the problem with the Conservative Party and why they lost my vote some time back.
Like the far left, they are against a lot of things but not *for* much that you can actually do anything about in the real world.
Until they get themselves back onto pragmatic ground there's going to be a lot of shouting at PMQs, and complaining about what other people say (and, very occasionally, what other people actually *do*), but not a lot of change.
"Executive style homes" are better than no homes at all. And complaining about building homes "in the wrong location" (ie where people want to buy them, near communities and where jobs etc are) while ranting about new towns that nobody has been able to get going in decades.
Get some new towns built, solve the housing crisis, then talk about further liberating migration, but your opposition to "executive style" homes while free movement because you don't want to pay more is pure hypocrisy.
Executive houses are not better than no houses at all: apart from the issue of putting housing outside the price range of people who want/need smaller houses, they use up land that could be used for a wider variety of housing: monoculture is not good. Every strategic housing assessment always identifies a need for a mix of housing: social, affordable, flats, small houses, larger houses. And every government policy then guts the ability to provide this by removing the ability of councils to insist on it, enforce alternatives like financial contributions, or put other pressures on developers. Labour 1997-2010 weren't much good, but the absolute chaos and crisis in housing in this country is mostly directly attributable to Conservative policy up to 1997, and after 2010. As a party they've been absolutely bought (at a national level) by the large developers.
Because that's what EVERY single development looks like these days - moderately specced, small detached or semis with practically no garden and lots of cgi imagery put up by Gleeson, Barratt, Persimmon, Avant or Redrow. They're all pretty much the same, executive is just marketing spin. This is pretty much every single new build in the UK.
It would be impossible practically to boost the budget by 30%+ in one year and spend that effectively in any case, without wasting a lot of that increase - given how defence spending works. It has to ramp gradually.
Rishi (hey - we have another first name PM!) will have to show that there will be a gradual increase, and that whatever the stepping up programme is will be supported. As the official number is currently 2.3% including Ukraine spending, I'd say we will see a pathway to 2.5% in 2026 laid out.
Just to note that Ukraine spending, among all of the allies but especially the US, has mostly been academic up until now.
The actual spending, rather than the donation of existing military assets valued at their development cost, has been in the millions rather than the billions.
Now, we need to see wartime production lines running for weapons, which will cost actual money, we are starting to see more scepticism from the politicians.
The intelligence operation, on the other hand, has been the best that the world has ever seen, and needs to be kept running at all costs.
Intelligence/special forces, training, tech - these would seem to be the unique strengths of the British Armed forces, and should be funded to the hilt. "Some boats, planes and anti-drone/missile systems that can dissuade our enemies" would also seem a sensible use of resources.
The training role of the British in Ukraine, over the last eight years, went pretty much un-noticed.
The effect of that training, however, has been astonishing. Persuading the Ukranian officers to abandon their Soviet military doctrine, in favour of established NATO doctrine, would have been a huge change for them - a change which has paid off in the current war, when they have NATO radios and support from all angles.
The one I still laugh about, was the airfield in Crimea that was blown up a couple of months ago. Within hours, the US had provided satellite photos of the day before and the day after the attack. That the “day before” photo existed, would have scared the sh!t out of the Russians, and let them know exactly what they were up against.
I don't understand why that is shocking?
I would have thought with modern satellite telemetry there'd be "day before" photos available for almost any target nowadays?
Because they didn't realise that Ukraine command was that well integrated with NATO intelligence.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
That Scottish Labour supports the legislation suggests that English Labour might be supportive too?
They are but it's such a hot spud in our culture war divide that I don't think they'll risk pushing it. Maybe in the future.
Shows how times have changed. The very outre and woke - not! - Mrs May wanted to do this a few short years ago.
Mr. Sandpit, got to say I remain opposed to W Series. If one were seeking to design a means of implying women can't compete with men on equal footing without saying (indeed, saying the opposite), the W Series would be the perfect expression of such a thought.
I’ve gone on a journey with W Series, from thinking of it as sexist, to thinking it’s a good way to achieve equality, to now thinking it’s pointless because they can’t graduate drivers to the F1 feeder series.
Yes, Jamie Chadwick has managed to earn $1.5m in prize money - but that money should have been spent buying her an F2 drive, rather than an apartment in London.
£8bn profits in just 13 weeks. A profit rate of £3.7 million every hour.
#enoughisenough
On oil and gas extracted in the UK they will have already have paid 60% on that by duty and CT. Do we want to discourage further investment in the UK by raising it further? On the balance earned elsewhere they are paying CT on those profits here. Would we rather they organised their affairs so they paid that to the Dutch treasury instead?
Mr. Sandpit, got to say I remain opposed to W Series. If one were seeking to design a means of implying women can't compete with men on equal footing without saying (indeed, saying the opposite), the W Series would be the perfect expression of such a thought.
The thing with snooker (a sport I follow very closely) is that it has been shown that women can't compete with men on an equal footing - or, at least, not yet. So when someone like Jamie Hunter comes along, it inevitably causes problems.
£8bn profits in just 13 weeks. A profit rate of £3.7 million every hour.
#enoughisenough
I am hearing whisperings from your favoured party that Mr Hunt is considering windfall taxes on energy giant profits. Any opposition party worth its salt would already have thought of that revenue source as an option.
I havent decided which Party is my favourite yet this morning (still 12 mins to decide) but Windfall Taxes are a complete no brainer
Because that's what EVERY single development looks like these days - moderately specced, small detached or semis with practically no garden and lots of cgi imagery put up by Gleeson, Barratt, Persimmon, Avant or Redrow. They're all pretty much the same, executive is just marketing spin. This is pretty much every single new build in the UK.
Can't help noticing btw that the share price of that lot are all down 50% ish. DYOR, but housebuilding is not about to grind to a stop...
It would be impossible practically to boost the budget by 30%+ in one year and spend that effectively in any case, without wasting a lot of that increase - given how defence spending works. It has to ramp gradually.
Rishi (hey - we have another first name PM!) will have to show that there will be a gradual increase, and that whatever the stepping up programme is will be supported. As the official number is currently 2.3% including Ukraine spending, I'd say we will see a pathway to 2.5% in 2026 laid out.
Just to note that Ukraine spending, among all of the allies but especially the US, has mostly been academic up until now.
The actual spending, rather than the donation of existing military assets valued at their development cost, has been in the millions rather than the billions.
Now, we need to see wartime production lines running for weapons, which will cost actual money, we are starting to see more scepticism from the politicians.
The intelligence operation, on the other hand, has been the best that the world has ever seen, and needs to be kept running at all costs.
Intelligence/special forces, training, tech - these would seem to be the unique strengths of the British Armed forces, and should be funded to the hilt. "Some boats, planes and anti-drone/missile systems that can dissuade our enemies" would also seem a sensible use of resources.
The training role of the British in Ukraine, over the last eight years, went pretty much un-noticed.
The effect of that training, however, has been astonishing. Persuading the Ukranian officers to abandon their Soviet military doctrine, in favour of established NATO doctrine, would have been a huge change for them - a change which has paid off in the current war, when they have NATO radios and support from all angles.
The one I still laugh about, was the airfield in Crimea that was blown up a couple of months ago. Within hours, the US had provided satellite photos of the day before and the day after the attack. That the “day before” photo existed, would have scared the sh!t out of the Russians, and let them know exactly what they were up against.
Maybe there’s some UK and US special forces there, or maybe they’re standing back and advising - but the Russians know they’re up against the best that NATO can support.
Mr. Sandpit, wait a minute, they can't even go from W Series to F2?
That's just a cul-de-sac for careers, no?
Mr. Driver, I'm fine with a sport either being segregated along sex lines or allowing both sexes to compete in the same league/tournament etc. I suppose if you have a rare exception case that's tricky to resolve. Perhaps a general segregation with specific exemptions?
It would be impossible practically to boost the budget by 30%+ in one year and spend that effectively in any case, without wasting a lot of that increase - given how defence spending works. It has to ramp gradually.
Rishi (hey - we have another first name PM!) will have to show that there will be a gradual increase, and that whatever the stepping up programme is will be supported. As the official number is currently 2.3% including Ukraine spending, I'd say we will see a pathway to 2.5% in 2026 laid out.
Just to note that Ukraine spending, among all of the allies but especially the US, has mostly been academic up until now.
The actual spending, rather than the donation of existing military assets valued at their development cost, has been in the millions rather than the billions.
Now, we need to see wartime production lines running for weapons, which will cost actual money, we are starting to see more scepticism from the politicians.
The intelligence operation, on the other hand, has been the best that the world has ever seen, and needs to be kept running at all costs.
Intelligence/special forces, training, tech - these would seem to be the unique strengths of the British Armed forces, and should be funded to the hilt. "Some boats, planes and anti-drone/missile systems that can dissuade our enemies" would also seem a sensible use of resources.
The training role of the British in Ukraine, over the last eight years, went pretty much un-noticed.
The effect of that training, however, has been astonishing. Persuading the Ukranian officers to abandon their Soviet military doctrine, in favour of established NATO doctrine, would have been a huge change for them - a change which has paid off in the current war, when they have NATO radios and support from all angles.
The one I still laugh about, was the airfield in Crimea that was blown up a couple of months ago. Within hours, the US had provided satellite photos of the day before and the day after the attack. That the “day before” photo existed, would have scared the sh!t out of the Russians, and let them know exactly what they were up against.
I don't understand why that is shocking?
I would have thought with modern satellite telemetry there'd be "day before" photos available for almost any target nowadays?
The Russians had no idea that Crimea was ‘in play’ at that point, and definitely weren’t expecting that the US/NATO would be assisting them in target mapping, what they consider to be established Russian territory.
"Executive style homes" are better than no homes at all. And complaining about building homes "in the wrong location" (ie where people want to buy them, near communities and where jobs etc are) while ranting about new towns that nobody has been able to get going in decades.
Get some new towns built, solve the housing crisis, then talk about further liberating migration, but your opposition to "executive style" homes while free movement because you don't want to pay more is pure hypocrisy.
Executive houses are not better than no houses at all: apart from the issue of putting housing outside the price range of people who want/need smaller houses, they use up land that could be used for a wider variety of housing: monoculture is not good. Every strategic housing assessment always identifies a need for a mix of housing: social, affordable, flats, small houses, larger houses. And every government policy then guts the ability to provide this by removing the ability of councils to insist on it, enforce alternatives like financial contributions, or put other pressures on developers. Labour 1997-2010 weren't much good, but the absolute chaos and crisis in housing in this country is mostly directly attributable to Conservative policy up to 1997, and after 2010. As a party they've been absolutely bought (at a national level) by the large developers.
£8bn profits in just 13 weeks. A profit rate of £3.7 million every hour.
#enoughisenough
I am hearing whisperings from your favoured party that Mr Hunt is considering windfall taxes on energy giant profits. Any opposition party worth its salt would already have thought of that revenue source as an option.
Good morning
I have predicted that ever since Truss went and indeed not just on oil and energy but also windfall bank profits
It should be remembered that Rishi did impose a windfall tax this year, before the conservative party last its marbles
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Sure, but as a man I am assumed to be a risk, and excluded from certain places/roles as a risk reduction measure, not because of a personal judgement about my propensity for criminality.
I don't see in what sense a GRC changes the assessment of risk that leads to my exclusion.
Because you are seeing a trans woman as a man. If you see them as a woman then the dynamics of the objection are perhaps clearer.
I believe when this issue started festering on PB and elsewhere, someone (Bev?) asked how the changing room warriors would feel if trans men continued to use women's changing rooms and toilets. I've never really seen a satisfactory answer to that question.
No one gives a ****. Biology matters. Sex is real. Those with male anatomy behave - or, as @DavidL says - have the potential to behave in a way that those without male anatomy cannot.
Cool, glad to hear that society would be totes relaxed about this person rocking up to the M&S women's changing rooms to try on his boxers. I'm sure there wouldn't be any screeching about hairy blokes who self identify as women for dubious reasons.
I'd suggest they don't try it for obvious reasons. But the reason no one gives as a **** about that is that biological women are far far less likely to be scumbags than biological men.
Have their been cases of women transitioning to men to then behave in a way that is threatening to women?
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
"Executive style homes" are better than no homes at all. And complaining about building homes "in the wrong location" (ie where people want to buy them, near communities and where jobs etc are) while ranting about new towns that nobody has been able to get going in decades.
Get some new towns built, solve the housing crisis, then talk about further liberating migration, but your opposition to "executive style" homes while free movement because you don't want to pay more is pure hypocrisy.
Executive houses are not better than no houses at all: apart from the issue of putting housing outside the price range of people who want/need smaller houses, they use up land that could be used for a wider variety of housing: monoculture is not good. Every strategic housing assessment always identifies a need for a mix of housing: social, affordable, flats, small houses, larger houses. And every government policy then guts the ability to provide this by removing the ability of councils to insist on it, enforce alternatives like financial contributions, or put other pressures on developers. Labour 1997-2010 weren't much good, but the absolute chaos and crisis in housing in this country is mostly directly attributable to Conservative policy up to 1997, and after 2010. As a party they've been absolutely bought (at a national level) by the large developers.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
I think any women's sports where size, physical strength etc play a role are never going to be right to accept trans athletes. There is simply too much advantage through puberty growing as a male, no matter how much hormone suppressing agents you take when 'competing'.
Mr. Sandpit, wait a minute, they can't even go from W Series to F2?
That's just a cul-de-sac for careers, no?
Mr. Driver, I'm fine with a sport either being segregated along sex lines or allowing both sexes to compete in the same league/tournament etc. I suppose if you have a rare exception case that's tricky to resolve. Perhaps a general segregation with specific exemptions?
They ‘can’ go from WS to F2, but F2 costs about $4m a season.
That WS - which is very unusually free to enter - lets the winner return to compete again, is the problem.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
It would be impossible practically to boost the budget by 30%+ in one year and spend that effectively in any case, without wasting a lot of that increase - given how defence spending works. It has to ramp gradually.
Rishi (hey - we have another first name PM!) will have to show that there will be a gradual increase, and that whatever the stepping up programme is will be supported. As the official number is currently 2.3% including Ukraine spending, I'd say we will see a pathway to 2.5% in 2026 laid out.
Just to note that Ukraine spending, among all of the allies but especially the US, has mostly been academic up until now.
The actual spending, rather than the donation of existing military assets valued at their development cost, has been in the millions rather than the billions.
Now, we need to see wartime production lines running for weapons, which will cost actual money, we are starting to see more scepticism from the politicians.
The intelligence operation, on the other hand, has been the best that the world has ever seen, and needs to be kept running at all costs.
Intelligence/special forces, training, tech - these would seem to be the unique strengths of the British Armed forces, and should be funded to the hilt. "Some boats, planes and anti-drone/missile systems that can dissuade our enemies" would also seem a sensible use of resources.
The training role of the British in Ukraine, over the last eight years, went pretty much un-noticed.
The effect of that training, however, has been astonishing. Persuading the Ukranian officers to abandon their Soviet military doctrine, in favour of established NATO doctrine, would have been a huge change for them - a change which has paid off in the current war, when they have NATO radios and support from all angles.
The one I still laugh about, was the airfield in Crimea that was blown up a couple of months ago. Within hours, the US had provided satellite photos of the day before and the day after the attack. That the “day before” photo existed, would have scared the sh!t out of the Russians, and let them know exactly what they were up against.
I don't understand why that is shocking?
I would have thought with modern satellite telemetry there'd be "day before" photos available for almost any target nowadays?
You would have to buy satellite imagery for a specific time and location. The coverage, commercially, is fairly universal. The issue would be how often a pass over a given location happens.
More than one commercial operator is offering software searches of images to find things that have changed/moved.
The sanctions on Russia have cut them off from the commercial imagery market.
If there's a change at the Home Office I hope Kemi Badenoch gets the job.
Is it her hairstyle that attracts you? I've never heard her say anything which could be described as interesting or impressive. I read about some of her anti wokishness but that's surely not enough for one of the four biggest offices of state.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
I don't think it's tricky at all, in sport fairness trumps inclusion very very heavily.
"Executive style homes" are better than no homes at all. And complaining about building homes "in the wrong location" (ie where people want to buy them, near communities and where jobs etc are) while ranting about new towns that nobody has been able to get going in decades.
Get some new towns built, solve the housing crisis, then talk about further liberating migration, but your opposition to "executive style" homes while free movement because you don't want to pay more is pure hypocrisy.
Executive houses are not better than no houses at all: apart from the issue of putting housing outside the price range of people who want/need smaller houses, they use up land that could be used for a wider variety of housing: monoculture is not good. Every strategic housing assessment always identifies a need for a mix of housing: social, affordable, flats, small houses, larger houses. And every government policy then guts the ability to provide this by removing the ability of councils to insist on it, enforce alternatives like financial contributions, or put other pressures on developers. Labour 1997-2010 weren't much good, but the absolute chaos and crisis in housing in this country is mostly directly attributable to Conservative policy up to 1997, and after 2010. As a party they've been absolutely bought (at a national level) by the large developers.
When the executives move into their executive houses, what happens to the sub-executive houses they moved out of? Do they just set fire to them or something?
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Sure, but as a man I am assumed to be a risk, and excluded from certain places/roles as a risk reduction measure, not because of a personal judgement about my propensity for criminality.
I don't see in what sense a GRC changes the assessment of risk that leads to my exclusion.
You will have lived 3 months as a woman and made a solemn legal declaration that you intend to so live the rest of your life.
It'll be a criminal offence to do this frivolously or with malign intent.
Could I not make a solemn legal declaration that I intend to live peaceably, after having done so for three months, and then not be considered a violent threat to women?
Obviously, it'll be a criminal offence to do this frivolously or with malign intent
Not sure what you're driving at. My sense is you view the whole concept of gender - and by logical inference "transgender" - as a bit of a nonsense.
But in practice there ARE such people and so the questions are -
Should they be legally recognized as such? What should the process be? Should some things still be determined by sex not gender?
To which we have -
Yes, say England and Scotland. Very hard says England, not so hard says Scotland. Yes, say England and Scotland. If there's a good reason for it.
I think of my thinking as being old-fashioned feminism.
As I understand the concept of gender, as a separate thing to sex, is to argue that gender is a social construct, and so many of the things that are thought of as inherent differences between the sexes - girls liking pink, women not understanding computers, men not being caring, etc - are in fact products of our society and can be changed, and the residual differences between women and men - average height, average body fat percentage, average muscle mass - are relatively minor and have no bearing on whether women can be lawyers, or men can be nurses.
My understanding of the ideology of transgenderism is to turn this on its head. It's to say that gender is a fixed inherent identity that is more fundamental than physical sex. Rather than it being a social construct that we can transcend, it's a more important determinant of who you are. It exaggerates the importance of the gender differences that feminism earlier sought to minimise, even to the extent of making them more important than the biological differences.
As an ideology I can't see it as anything other than a postmodernist catastrophe. On an individual level, because I don't see gender differences as that important it simply doesn't make any difference to me what gender identity someone has.
As a man who has often felt uncomfortable with society's idea of what being a man represents the logic of the ideology is also a bit threatening. The implication is that if I don't fit into the gender stereotypes of what it means to be a man, then this implies I'm not a man, I'm something else. A woman, or someone without a gender, or a new gender altogether.
I'd rather think that being a man can involve a wide variety of different behaviours, and behaving differently to the male stereotype doesn't make you any less a man. The transgender ideology says I'm not a real man.
Edit: So I can't understand what you would mean to have someone's gender legally recognised. What possible legal effect could it have? The vast majority of the time it shouldn't matter, and when it matters it's sex that matters, not gender.
If there's a change at the Home Office I hope Kemi Badenoch gets the job.
Is it her hairstyle that attracts you? I've never heard her say anything which could be described as interesting or impressive. I read about some of her anti wokishness but that's surely not enough for one of the four biggest offices of state.
“The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”
This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale
And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming
The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.
Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?
Are they claiming to be from Albania? I thought the game was to dump all paperwork and claim to be Syrian?
That seems implausible. It would take a couple of minutes to establish whether they are fluent in Levantine Arabic or not.
Fine, so on what grounds are Albanians being accepted at rate of 95%? Are they claiming to be homosexual and persecuted?
They’re not being accepted at a rate of 95%. Where are you getting this nonsense from?
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Sure, but as a man I am assumed to be a risk, and excluded from certain places/roles as a risk reduction measure, not because of a personal judgement about my propensity for criminality.
I don't see in what sense a GRC changes the assessment of risk that leads to my exclusion.
You will have lived 3 months as a woman and made a solemn legal declaration that you intend to so live the rest of your life.
It'll be a criminal offence to do this frivolously or with malign intent.
Could I not make a solemn legal declaration that I intend to live peaceably, after having done so for three months, and then not be considered a violent threat to women?
Obviously, it'll be a criminal offence to do this frivolously or with malign intent
Not sure what you're driving at. My sense is you view the whole concept of gender - and by logical inference "transgender" - as a bit of a nonsense.
But in practice there ARE such people and so the questions are -
Should they be legally recognized as such? What should the process be? Should some things still be determined by sex not gender?
To which we have -
Yes, say England and Scotland. Very hard says England, not so hard says Scotland. Yes, say England and Scotland. If there's a good reason for it.
I think of my thinking as being old-fashioned feminism.
As I understand the concept of gender, as a separate thing to sex, is to argue that gender is a social construct, and so many of the things that are thought of as inherent differences between the sexes - girls liking pink, women not understanding computers, men not being caring, etc - are in fact products of our society and can be changed, and the residual differences between women and men - average height, average body fat percentage, average muscle mass - are relatively minor and have no bearing on whether women can be lawyers, or men can be nurses.
My understanding of the ideology of transgenderism is to turn this on its head. It's to say that gender is a fixed inherent identity that is more fundamental than physical sex. Rather than it being a social construct that we can transcend, it's a more important determinant of who you are. It exaggerates the importance of the gender differences that feminism earlier sought to minimise, even to the extent of making them more important than the biological differences.
As an ideology I can't see it as anything other than a postmodernist catastrophe. On an individual level, because I don't see gender differences as that important it simply doesn't make any difference to me what gender identity someone has.
As a man who has often felt uncomfortable with society's idea of what being a man represents the logic of the ideology is also a bit threatening. The implication is that if I don't fit into the gender stereotypes of what it means to be a man, then this implies I'm not a man, I'm something else. A woman, or someone without a gender, or a new gender altogether.
I'd rather think that being a man can involve a wide variety of different behaviours, and behaving differently to the male stereotype doesn't make you any less a man. The transgender ideology says I'm not a real man.
Edit: So I can't understand what you would mean to have someone's gender legally recognised. What possible legal effect could it have? The vast majority of the time it shouldn't matter, and when it matters it's sex that matters, not gender.
I agree with most of that. The old-fashioned feminism to which you refer is liberalism. And you alight at the nub of the problem: postmodernism. Once the primacy of reason over belief is reversed (as identity politics does) then you have an illiberal narrative which is the opposite of progress.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
I don't think it's tricky at all, in sport fairness trumps inclusion very very heavily.
And how that maps to the precise rules in each sport will vary.
“The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”
This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale
And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming
Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".
It's a massive gaping loophole.
The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.
“the solution is to process asylum claims promptly”
They all dump their documents. There is no way of sorting them “promptly” that does not involve simply accepting their claims to asylum. Your proposal therefore = “let them all in quickly”. Thus inviting millions more
You are a cretin
Take a hair sample and DNA it.
You can probably get down to which Albanian town they came from. Can also check if they have close relatives on the police database. Have a working assumption that anybody who has thrown all their papers away is not a legitimate asylum seeker. Anyone who has some (non-forged) papers to show where the have come from has the assumption reversed - they are legitimate asylum seekers.
The assumed not legitimate asylum seekers should be treated in a way that shows how much contempt we hold them in for debasing the asylum system. Put them in basic wooden shacks on the Isle of Sheppey. Really bad English food. A TV in each shack, only showing the Parliament channel. No opportunity for working. No books to read. No radios. A really dull, dull, dull life looking out over Kent mudflats.
Give Nigel Farage the job of overseeing these shacks. He'd relish making their life awful. Plenty of visits by Nigel Farage should ensure that.
And a big red buzzer to press, to say you want to go back home please. It will get plenty of use after a visit by the Kommandant.
*MM rocks up in Tirana and demands access to the rozzer database, DNA records, and so on ...*
We had an office in Tirana. I was an absolute hero there, because I procured them a signed photo with a message dedicated to the staff, from Sir Norman Wisdom. It took pride of place.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
An obvious reason for sports to decide at the sporting level is international competition. If the UK decides one thing, France another, Japan a third route and so on it will be a nightmare. So let the sports decide based on the science, as they are doing.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
Well, I know which trumps which in this context
What pisses me off is the conversion of edge cases into battlegrounds. Say I establish a fund whose sole purpose is to be equally distributed to every person in the country whose childhood nickname was Twinky. I estimate that the payout will be about £1m per head. What happens next? Well, it's an easy claim to make and not easy to refute, and the payout is worth having even these days, so I immediately need a huge authentication and security op to expose and where appropriate prosecute false Twinky claimants. And this in the eyes of the woke makes me a rabid twinkyphobe, whereas everything I have done is hugely to the benefit of Twinkies.
Because that's what EVERY single development looks like these days - moderately specced, small detached or semis with practically no garden and lots of cgi imagery put up by Gleeson, Barratt, Persimmon, Avant or Redrow. They're all pretty much the same, executive is just marketing spin. This is pretty much every single new build in the UK.
Can't help noticing btw that the share price of that lot are all down 50% ish. DYOR, but housebuilding is not about to grind to a stop...
I have Executive down as starting with 23 year old used car salesman, since about 1985.
That development is interesting as it is presumably in principle what complainers want - brownfield site (pit spoil tip), lowish density of 333 homes in 42 acres = 8 per acre (= 20 per Hectare) across the site (or do we want high density?), open space will be 4 acres at least, mix of 2 bed, 3 bed, 4 bed including bungalows.
It will be sustainable (ie close to services etc), as these are basics.
The one possible downside afaics is that PP has been obtained before Building Regs were further upgraded in Jun 2022 wrt insulation etc.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
An obvious reason for sports to decide at the sporting level is international competition. If the UK decides one thing, France another, Japan a third route and so on it will be a nightmare. So let the sports decide based on the science, as they are doing.
Ther Science is a nebulous concept. Which branch of science are you referring to?
Hey lads, now Putey has let the anti-woke side down, a new hero for you. It does beg the question which toilets does the teak-headed one think he won’t be following Eddie into though.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
An obvious reason for sports to decide at the sporting level is international competition. If the UK decides one thing, France another, Japan a third route and so on it will be a nightmare. So let the sports decide based on the science, as they are doing.
Ther Science is a nebulous concept. Which branch of science are you referring to?
Up to the sports to decide which scientists to follow. If I were in charge of a biggish sport I would commission a few scientists to investigate the advantages as they impact that particular sport and then to suggest best options available to implement. But I am not, and it should be up to them, not the UK government.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Sure, but as a man I am assumed to be a risk, and excluded from certain places/roles as a risk reduction measure, not because of a personal judgement about my propensity for criminality.
I don't see in what sense a GRC changes the assessment of risk that leads to my exclusion.
Because you are seeing a trans woman as a man. If you see them as a woman then the dynamics of the objection are perhaps clearer.
I believe when this issue started festering on PB and elsewhere, someone (Bev?) asked how the changing room warriors would feel if trans men continued to use women's changing rooms and toilets. I've never really seen a satisfactory answer to that question.
No one gives a ****. Biology matters. Sex is real. Those with male anatomy behave - or, as @DavidL says - have the potential to behave in a way that those without male anatomy cannot.
Cool, glad to hear that society would be totes relaxed about this person rocking up to the M&S women's changing rooms to try on his boxers. I'm sure there wouldn't be any screeching about hairy blokes who self identify as women for dubious reasons.
I'd suggest they don't try it for obvious reasons. But the reason no one gives as a **** about that is that biological women are far far less likely to be scumbags than biological men.
Have their been cases of women transitioning to men to then behave in a way that is threatening to women?
La! La! La! We can’t hear you!
Scotland has not got an equivalent of the Cass review. It is unclear to me how its findings will be used, and given the changes the GRA proposes, it seems premature not to wait for the final report, or at least specifically respond to the concerns it raises for the GRA.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
An obvious reason for sports to decide at the sporting level is international competition. If the UK decides one thing, France another, Japan a third route and so on it will be a nightmare. So let the sports decide based on the science, as they are doing.
Ther Science is a nebulous concept. Which branch of science are you referring to?
The science of picking whatever data supports the position you intend to take.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Sure, but as a man I am assumed to be a risk, and excluded from certain places/roles as a risk reduction measure, not because of a personal judgement about my propensity for criminality.
I don't see in what sense a GRC changes the assessment of risk that leads to my exclusion.
You will have lived 3 months as a woman and made a solemn legal declaration that you intend to so live the rest of your life.
It'll be a criminal offence to do this frivolously or with malign intent.
Could I not make a solemn legal declaration that I intend to live peaceably, after having done so for three months, and then not be considered a violent threat to women?
Obviously, it'll be a criminal offence to do this frivolously or with malign intent
Not sure what you're driving at. My sense is you view the whole concept of gender - and by logical inference "transgender" - as a bit of a nonsense.
But in practice there ARE such people and so the questions are -
Should they be legally recognized as such? What should the process be? Should some things still be determined by sex not gender?
To which we have -
Yes, say England and Scotland. Very hard says England, not so hard says Scotland. Yes, say England and Scotland. If there's a good reason for it.
I think of my thinking as being old-fashioned feminism.
As I understand the concept of gender, as a separate thing to sex, is to argue that gender is a social construct, and so many of the things that are thought of as inherent differences between the sexes - girls liking pink, women not understanding computers, men not being caring, etc - are in fact products of our society and can be changed, and the residual differences between women and men - average height, average body fat percentage, average muscle mass - are relatively minor and have no bearing on whether women can be lawyers, or men can be nurses.
My understanding of the ideology of transgenderism is to turn this on its head. It's to say that gender is a fixed inherent identity that is more fundamental than physical sex. Rather than it being a social construct that we can transcend, it's a more important determinant of who you are. It exaggerates the importance of the gender differences that feminism earlier sought to minimise, even to the extent of making them more important than the biological differences.
As an ideology I can't see it as anything other than a postmodernist catastrophe. On an individual level, because I don't see gender differences as that important it simply doesn't make any difference to me what gender identity someone has.
As a man who has often felt uncomfortable with society's idea of what being a man represents the logic of the ideology is also a bit threatening. The implication is that if I don't fit into the gender stereotypes of what it means to be a man, then this implies I'm not a man, I'm something else. A woman, or someone without a gender, or a new gender altogether.
I'd rather think that being a man can involve a wide variety of different behaviours, and behaving differently to the male stereotype doesn't make you any less a man. The transgender ideology says I'm not a real man.
Edit: So I can't understand what you would mean to have someone's gender legally recognised. What possible legal effect could it have? The vast majority of the time it shouldn't matter, and when it matters it's sex that matters, not gender.
Yes, that's what I thought your view was. Very clear. Agree with some of it. So where does that lead you on this? In theory it means you don't recognize "transgender" as being a meaningful thing and so there shouldn't be a transition process to go through at all. Would that be right? You'd like to see your view legislated into practice, ie so there's no such thing as "changing gender"?
If so, what about the people who identify as such? What are you going to tell them?
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
An obvious reason for sports to decide at the sporting level is international competition. If the UK decides one thing, France another, Japan a third route and so on it will be a nightmare. So let the sports decide based on the science, as they are doing.
Ther Science is a nebulous concept. Which branch of science are you referring to?
Up to the sports to decide which scientists to follow. If I were in charge of a biggish sport I would commission a few scientists to investigate the advantages as they impact that particular sport and then to suggest best options available to implement. But I am not, and it should be up to them, not the UK government.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
An obvious reason for sports to decide at the sporting level is international competition. If the UK decides one thing, France another, Japan a third route and so on it will be a nightmare. So let the sports decide based on the science, as they are doing.
Ther Science is a nebulous concept. Which branch of science are you referring to?
Up to the sports to decide which scientists to follow. If I were in charge of a biggish sport I would commission a few scientists to investigate the advantages as they impact that particular sport and then to suggest best options available to implement. But I am not, and it should be up to them, not the UK government.
I think FINA have struck the right balance tbh.
If it's "not tricky at all" iyo why do we need a balance?
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
I don't think it's tricky at all, in sport fairness trumps inclusion very very heavily.
And how that maps to the precise rules in each sport will vary.
Always with the edge cases.
If you were explaining the world to a artian visitor and he asked what sport meant, and you said Thing at which birth men tend to routinely outperform birth women, he would have a pretty good grasp of the extension of the term.
The DUP can’t stand the fact they don’t have the first minister role and so are hoping that the Unionist vote will corral around them when new elections are called .
George Osborne arrives in Downing Street no doubt to input advice to Sunak and Hunt
How quickly things change
Glad to see that. His expertise should not go to waste. Plus it will piss off Mrs May, which is always a good thing.
Honestly, you Tories! More interested in pissing off you own side than in good governance. Says it all, really.
No, I think I was clear that I think that Osborne has a lot to offer in terms of achieving good governance. Pissing off Mrs May is just an added bonus.
The DUP can’t stand the fact they don’t have the first minister role and so are hoping that the Unionist vote will corral around them when new elections are called .
Facebook shares pre-market going for $100, compared with $345 one year ago. Not sure anyone except Zuckerburg thinks spendings billions on the metaverse will pay off.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
An obvious reason for sports to decide at the sporting level is international competition. If the UK decides one thing, France another, Japan a third route and so on it will be a nightmare. So let the sports decide based on the science, as they are doing.
Ther Science is a nebulous concept. Which branch of science are you referring to?
Up to the sports to decide which scientists to follow. If I were in charge of a biggish sport I would commission a few scientists to investigate the advantages as they impact that particular sport and then to suggest best options available to implement. But I am not, and it should be up to them, not the UK government.
And if I were asked whether elephants on average weigh more than mice I would assemble a crack multi disciplinary team of biologists and physicists to investigate.
"England's first Prime Minister" in the first 5 seconds. Duh.
It's not as if nobody in the UK ever does this. I've lost count of the times that I've heard English people refer to the UK as "England".
It has to be admitted that members of the Scottish Government party love referring to the UK Govt as "English" .
Can you give some examples of that?
TBH no I can't - it was a mistake to make it a direct quote.
No mistake, very useful in revealing what you want to believe.
The reality is that Sturgeon and co tend to use "Westminster" as a dog-whistle for "England".
One of the mysteries of the modern world is why the English are so insecure. It is hard to pinpoint when the process started.
Probably when Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were allowed their own parliaments and governments and England wasn't.
Who’s not allowing you an English parliament? Is it them pesky English voters who back those parties who depend on their votes to win elections? Bastards!
Facebook shares pre-market going for $100, compared with $345 one year ago. Not sure anyone except Zuckerburg thinks spendings billions on the metaverse will pay off.
Gillian Keegan might be the first out. Always some incoming hoo har over schools.
Surely health is the ultimate hospital pass right now?
You think people are going to be able to get into hospitals, pass or no pass?
Dear, sweet child.
(In general, lack of people willing to work for the available rates in schools, hospitals, social care, anything state funded really, is a dog that's clearing its throat right now, and has been for a while.)
The DUP can’t stand the fact they don’t have the first minister role and so are hoping that the Unionist vote will corral around them when new elections are called .
Gillian Keegan might be the first out. Always some incoming hoo har over schools.
You could be right. Not so long ago Keegan was a Minister of State with responsibility for apprenticeships and skills. Nobody noticed, except those who thought she was very poor. It's a big step up for her.
George Osborne arrives in Downing Street no doubt to input advice to Sunak and Hunt
How quickly things change
Glad to see that. His expertise should not go to waste. Plus it will piss off Mrs May, which is always a good thing.
Honestly, you Tories! More interested in pissing off you own side than in good governance. Says it all, really.
No, I think I was clear that I think that Osborne has a lot to offer in terms of achieving good governance. Pissing off Mrs May is just an added bonus.
The DUP can’t stand the fact they don’t have the first minister role and so are hoping that the Unionist vote will corral around them when new elections are called .
The DUP can’t stand the fact they don’t have the first minister role and so are hoping that the Unionist vote will corral around them when new elections are called .
They always were dumb as rocks.
By the way, I did have a chuckle this morning on hearing that your all-time super hero, Nick Gibb, was reappointed for the 15th time as Schools Minister. I knew you'd be ecastatic and was duly vindicated.
However, Robert Halfon has also become a Minister of State in the same Department. I think you rate him rather more highly?
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
Well, I know which trumps which in this context
What pisses me off is the conversion of edge cases into battlegrounds. Say I establish a fund whose sole purpose is to be equally distributed to every person in the country whose childhood nickname was Twinky. I estimate that the payout will be about £1m per head. What happens next? Well, it's an easy claim to make and not easy to refute, and the payout is worth having even these days, so I immediately need a huge authentication and security op to expose and where appropriate prosecute false Twinky claimants. And this in the eyes of the woke makes me a rabid twinkyphobe, whereas everything I have done is hugely to the benefit of Twinkies.
Agree on edge cases. Not a good basis for argument or for law-making.
But as a matter of interest - Sports - which way do you jump then if you find it clearcut and not tricky?
You ban by law trans women from all women's sport? Or you force by law all women's sport to include trans women?
In the utter charmlessness of NI politics there is a certain grim humour in listening to Sinn Fein folks objecting to other people (but not themselves) declining to participate in the political process, and apparently saying it without irony and a straight face.
The DUP can’t stand the fact they don’t have the first minister role and so are hoping that the Unionist vote will corral around them when new elections are called .
The DUP can’t stand the fact they don’t have the first minister role and so are hoping that the Unionist vote will corral around them when new elections are called .
They always were dumb as rocks.
By the way, I did have a chuckle this morning on hearing that your all-time super hero, Nick Gibb, was reappointed for the 15th time as Schools Minister. I knew you'd be ecastatic and was duly vindicated.
However, Robert Halfon has also become a Minister of State in the same Department. I think you rate him rather more highly?
Well, yes.
In the sense that he's only wrong 75% of the time, I agree.
The DUP can’t stand the fact they don’t have the first minister role and so are hoping that the Unionist vote will corral around them when new elections are called .
They lost a chunk of votes to the more hardline TUV, but the TUV didn’t manage to gain any seats, so I wonder whether those voters will come back to the DUP? But that won’t put the DUP back into first place as Sinn Féin will probably continue to do well at consolidating a lot of the nationalist/anti-DUP vote. I expect SF to remain on top.
Meanwhile, will the UUP and SDLP continue to be squeezed, by the DUP/SF respectively on one side and the Alliance on the other?
Mr. Carnforth, I can see why big business likes the metaverse. Taking a slice of transactions, selling virtual tat for a fortune etc.
But it doesn't offer anything the regular internet cannot do. It's actually an intriguing case of whether big business can push this through or whether consumers can succeed in telling them to piss off.
Hey lads, now Putey has let the anti-woke side down, a new hero for you. It does beg the question which toilets does the teak-headed one think he won’t be following Eddie into though.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
Well, I know which trumps which in this context
What pisses me off is the conversion of edge cases into battlegrounds. Say I establish a fund whose sole purpose is to be equally distributed to every person in the country whose childhood nickname was Twinky. I estimate that the payout will be about £1m per head. What happens next? Well, it's an easy claim to make and not easy to refute, and the payout is worth having even these days, so I immediately need a huge authentication and security op to expose and where appropriate prosecute false Twinky claimants. And this in the eyes of the woke makes me a rabid twinkyphobe, whereas everything I have done is hugely to the benefit of Twinkies.
Agree on edge cases. Not a good basis for argument or for law-making.
But as a matter of interest - Sports - which way do you jump then if you find it clearcut and not tricky?
You ban by law trans women from all women's sport? Or you force by law all women's sport to include trans women?
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
I don't think it's tricky at all, in sport fairness trumps inclusion very very heavily.
And how that maps to the precise rules in each sport will vary.
Always with the edge cases.
If you were explaining the world to a artian visitor and he asked what sport meant, and you said Thing at which birth men tend to routinely outperform birth women, he would have a pretty good grasp of the extension of the term.
Gillian Keegan might be the first out. Always some incoming hoo har over schools.
Surely health is the ultimate hospital pass right now?
You think people are going to be able to get into hospitals, pass or no pass?
Dear, sweet child.
(In general, lack of people willing to work for the available rates in schools, hospitals, social care, anything state funded really, is a dog that's clearing its throat right now, and has been for a while.)
Shapps, Gove, Mercer, Raab and Barclay have each received £16,876 redundancy payments for their dismissal by Ms Truss. Despite being back in government six weeks later they remain entitled to the money. In all fairness to Shapps he is donating half to charity, while Gove and Raab would like to pay half back when they can afford to.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
You do not understand the proposed law I am afraid.
The changes are not limited to people who have gender dysphoria. They allow anyone at all over the age of 16 to get a GRC. There is no check on their reasons for doing so. That creates a huge loophole which will be exploited, as all loopholes are. The Scottish government was specifically asked to legislate to prevent English sex offenders who have to register on the sex offenders register from using this legislation to change their identity but declined to do so. There are significant cross-border consequences of this legislation which simply have not been addressed. Do some research on how DBS checks work in the case of those with a GRC to understand how dangerous such a loophole is. You might want to do some research on how trans identified men have the same pattern of offending as men. Self-ID does not change that. You might want to ask yourself whether it is wise to allow such men into womens' spaces without women being able to challenge that and wonder whether your claim that this change will not damage anyone else is justifiable.
You might also want to do some research on how equal pay claims work and the use of comparators to understand why self-ID will undermine equal pay claims and the ability of women to take effective action against sex-based discrimination. Or you might listen to a former Chair of the EHRC, Trevor Phillips, on how self-ID for one protected characteristic will necessarily undermine the others. If a legal category can be opted into and out of at will with no independent verification then the legal rights dependent on that categorisation will necessarily be undermined and effectively eliminated. Self-ID for men is a sexist's dream as it will make it so much harder to deal with sex-based discrimination. The real question is why Sturgeon is pushing it despite all the polls in Scotland showing there is no support for its 3 main provisions and the fact that this legislation as crafted was not in her manifesto.
Worst of all this legislation does nothing to address the main issue faced by people with gender dysphoria: the lack of high quality medical care and the delays in getting it. That would involve resources and hard work.
The DUP can’t seem to get it through their thick bigoted heads .
Actions have consequences . They backed a hard Brexit knowing the damage it would do . And when they had influence over the Tories they continued to back that .
"Executive style homes" are better than no homes at all. And complaining about building homes "in the wrong location" (ie where people want to buy them, near communities and where jobs etc are) while ranting about new towns that nobody has been able to get going in decades.
Get some new towns built, solve the housing crisis, then talk about further liberating migration, but your opposition to "executive style" homes while free movement because you don't want to pay more is pure hypocrisy.
Executive houses are not better than no houses at all: apart from the issue of putting housing outside the price range of people who want/need smaller houses, they use up land that could be used for a wider variety of housing: monoculture is not good. Every strategic housing assessment always identifies a need for a mix of housing: social, affordable, flats, small houses, larger houses. And every government policy then guts the ability to provide this by removing the ability of councils to insist on it, enforce alternatives like financial contributions, or put other pressures on developers. Labour 1997-2010 weren't much good, but the absolute chaos and crisis in housing in this country is mostly directly attributable to Conservative policy up to 1997, and after 2010. As a party they've been absolutely bought (at a national level) by the large developers.
If you want more homes of more variety then use up more land. But to say no development is better than any is preposterous.
Besides which, there is a further fallacy in @RochdalePioneers logic of "we need more immigration to fill jobs, but don't build houses except in new towns". If people move to live in new towns, then there would need to be jobs in those new towns for them to work and they won't be available to work to fill vacancies that are extant in existing towns.
If you want more people to fill jobs in existing towns, then you need more homes in those towns. Or the employer needs to pay a good enough wage to attract labour from the homes that are already available there. Saying "I need you to work here, but don't think about living here, go live somewhere else" is not a solution.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
Well, I know which trumps which in this context
What pisses me off is the conversion of edge cases into battlegrounds. Say I establish a fund whose sole purpose is to be equally distributed to every person in the country whose childhood nickname was Twinky. I estimate that the payout will be about £1m per head. What happens next? Well, it's an easy claim to make and not easy to refute, and the payout is worth having even these days, so I immediately need a huge authentication and security op to expose and where appropriate prosecute false Twinky claimants. And this in the eyes of the woke makes me a rabid twinkyphobe, whereas everything I have done is hugely to the benefit of Twinkies.
Agree on edge cases. Not a good basis for argument or for law-making.
But as a matter of interest - Sports - which way do you jump then if you find it clearcut and not tricky?
You ban by law trans women from all women's sport? Or you force by law all women's sport to include trans women?
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Sure, but as a man I am assumed to be a risk, and excluded from certain places/roles as a risk reduction measure, not because of a personal judgement about my propensity for criminality.
I don't see in what sense a GRC changes the assessment of risk that leads to my exclusion.
You will have lived 3 months as a woman and made a solemn legal declaration that you intend to so live the rest of your life.
It'll be a criminal offence to do this frivolously or with malign intent.
Could I not make a solemn legal declaration that I intend to live peaceably, after having done so for three months, and then not be considered a violent threat to women?
Obviously, it'll be a criminal offence to do this frivolously or with malign intent
Not sure what you're driving at. My sense is you view the whole concept of gender - and by logical inference "transgender" - as a bit of a nonsense.
But in practice there ARE such people and so the questions are -
Should they be legally recognized as such? What should the process be? Should some things still be determined by sex not gender?
To which we have -
Yes, say England and Scotland. Very hard says England, not so hard says Scotland. Yes, say England and Scotland. If there's a good reason for it.
I think of my thinking as being old-fashioned feminism.
As I understand the concept of gender, as a separate thing to sex, is to argue that gender is a social construct, and so many of the things that are thought of as inherent differences between the sexes - girls liking pink, women not understanding computers, men not being caring, etc - are in fact products of our society and can be changed, and the residual differences between women and men - average height, average body fat percentage, average muscle mass - are relatively minor and have no bearing on whether women can be lawyers, or men can be nurses.
My understanding of the ideology of transgenderism is to turn this on its head. It's to say that gender is a fixed inherent identity that is more fundamental than physical sex. Rather than it being a social construct that we can transcend, it's a more important determinant of who you are. It exaggerates the importance of the gender differences that feminism earlier sought to minimise, even to the extent of making them more important than the biological differences.
As an ideology I can't see it as anything other than a postmodernist catastrophe. On an individual level, because I don't see gender differences as that important it simply doesn't make any difference to me what gender identity someone has.
As a man who has often felt uncomfortable with society's idea of what being a man represents the logic of the ideology is also a bit threatening. The implication is that if I don't fit into the gender stereotypes of what it means to be a man, then this implies I'm not a man, I'm something else. A woman, or someone without a gender, or a new gender altogether.
I'd rather think that being a man can involve a wide variety of different behaviours, and behaving differently to the male stereotype doesn't make you any less a man. The transgender ideology says I'm not a real man.
Edit: So I can't understand what you would mean to have someone's gender legally recognised. What possible legal effect could it have? The vast majority of the time it shouldn't matter, and when it matters it's sex that matters, not gender.
Yes, that's what I thought your view was. Very clear. Agree with some of it. So where does that lead you on this? In theory it means you don't recognize "transgender" as being a meaningful thing and so there shouldn't be a transition process to go through at all. Would that be right? You'd like to see your view legislated into practice, ie so there's no such thing as "changing gender"?
If so, what about the people who identify as such? What are you going to tell them?
What I would make clear in legislation is that a record of someone's sex should refer to their biological sex, and this should only be compulsory where it is necessary (which is very rarely). I don't see any need for there to be a legal status of gender, so then there's no need to have a legal process for changing it. People should be free to act and present as whatever gender they choose.
If a Daniel wants to become a Daniella, or a Mary become a Mark, then it makes no odds to me.
Now, when it comes to people who are having hormone treatment, or surgery to modify their body, it all gets a lot more complicated and like Theseus's ship. And in to this category you have the set of people whose biology doesn't fit the XX and XY divide that applies to most people. Perhaps the best approach is to have a greater number of categories to reflect the full range of nuances involved. Not sure. If it matters then probably all the detail matters.
But I think it's best to be clearer that this is a question of transsexualism and not transgenderism. The thoughts and ideas in people's head have no business having legal effect. We do not make windows into people's souls.
Insofar as we give a damn, what we give a damn about is the physical reality.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
I don't think it's tricky at all, in sport fairness trumps inclusion very very heavily.
And how that maps to the precise rules in each sport will vary.
Always with the edge cases.
If you were explaining the world to a artian visitor and he asked what sport meant, and you said Thing at which birth men tend to routinely outperform birth women, he would have a pretty good grasp of the extension of the term.
Is Holly Doyle an edge case?
Tend to routinely outperform: see jockey stats overall.
Actually all disciplines which involve sitting on a horse are exceptions to the rule.
Mr. Password, there's a relatively large number of extra chromosomal possibilities. Often that's just a hyper-masculine or feminine aspect. Being truly intersex is incredibly rare, by contrast.
I agree that gender is a far inferior concept (and perhaps entirely unnecessary) compared to sex.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
Well, I know which trumps which in this context
What pisses me off is the conversion of edge cases into battlegrounds. Say I establish a fund whose sole purpose is to be equally distributed to every person in the country whose childhood nickname was Twinky. I estimate that the payout will be about £1m per head. What happens next? Well, it's an easy claim to make and not easy to refute, and the payout is worth having even these days, so I immediately need a huge authentication and security op to expose and where appropriate prosecute false Twinky claimants. And this in the eyes of the woke makes me a rabid twinkyphobe, whereas everything I have done is hugely to the benefit of Twinkies.
Agree on edge cases. Not a good basis for argument or for law-making.
But as a matter of interest - Sports - which way do you jump then if you find it clearcut and not tricky?
You ban by law trans women from all women's sport? Or you force by law all women's sport to include trans women?
I don't think you ban or force, but you make a very clear exception for sports in recognition legislation and hope any governing body trying to allow trans women in women's sport gets judicially reviewed.
Today the first stage of the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill comes to the Scottish parliament. Three changes are proposed. 1) removes medical/panel process for approval 2) people have to 'live in acquired gender' for 3m rather than 2y, and 3) age change from 18 to 16.…
….have no doubt that many people have very good intentions with this Bill and want to help people suffering from gender dysphoria. However medical history shows that good intentions often do harm, especially when we do not interrogate the evidence, and look for unintended harms.…
The question is whether the SNP are willing to allow a free vote on this. My expectation is no. For whatever reason this is a flagship policy for Nicola and she will want to drive it through, despite (or even because of) the handbrake turn recently undertaken by NHS England.
Its a dangerous, stupid policy. I don't even know whose virtue they are signalling to.
This seems to be a PB consensus but I don't agree. The reform makes the process to obtain a GRC less lengthy and harrowing but doesn't stop things being determined by sex rather than gender if there's a good reason for that. The effect imo will be to make the lives of transgender people easier without damaging anybody else. I support the policy and I'd hope that England will one day follow suit.
The point of a GRC is that you are "officially" a member of the sex that you have chosen. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with the basket of rights that come with such official recognition, especially if it puts other vulnerable people at risk.
I think you need to be clear that simply having a GRC doesn't automatically make you a threat to any group, vulnerable or not. You need to have a GRC and be criminally-minded. Just the same as any person of whatever gender, and whenever it was assigned.
Certainly, I completely agree. The few people I have come across who have been transgender have been law abiding and not a threat to anyone. But it does create a loophole for those who are criminally minded and that has to be borne in mind. It may be that @kinabalu's suggestion of sex rather than gender being the determinant in such situations is the beginnings of an answer.
As I understand it there are transgender wings in prisons (how many no idea) and we are seeing how sports are coming to terms with the challenges of accommodating transgender athletes.
I mention (again) these two areas because they are the ones that catch the public (and PB's) attention.
As for changing rooms and loos I have to believe that the "problem" such as it may be is vanishingly small in terms of a) transgender people; and b) transgender people who are criminally-intentioned.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the move towards gender free toilets. It's not the trans community that bothers my wife, it's the half cut pack of rugby playing lads that she gets faced with in the toilets on a night out!
It does seem like for some people the way of dealing with trans issues is to remove a gender divide completely. Problems with trans inclusion in women sports, simple, remove womens sports, and have it open for all genders...
Very few people wish to eliminate women's sport. I think how it is now - each sport finding its way to its own rules around this - is ok.
No it simply isn't, because you can bet your house that a "sport" overall finding its way to its own rules will be a gross injustice to a very large minority or a majority of participants in that sport.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
It's impossible to please everybody on this tricky issue - but each sport is different so they need to look at it and come to their own view imo. I think that's better than something imposed.
It's impossible to please everybody on the tricky issue whether homosexuality should be a crime. Each sport is not materially different for these purposes, that's like saying different rules should govern criminal liability for stealing Rugby club funds, and cricket club funds.
That's not a tricky issue though. This one is because 2 things are in play and potentially at odds. The principles of Inclusion and Fairness.
I don't think it's tricky at all, in sport fairness trumps inclusion very very heavily.
And how that maps to the precise rules in each sport will vary.
Always with the edge cases.
If you were explaining the world to a artian visitor and he asked what sport meant, and you said Thing at which birth men tend to routinely outperform birth women, he would have a pretty good grasp of the extension of the term.
Is Holly Doyle an edge case?
Or Piggy French, for something closer, I imagine, to @Ishmael_Z's heart.
"Executive style homes" are better than no homes at all. And complaining about building homes "in the wrong location" (ie where people want to buy them, near communities and where jobs etc are) while ranting about new towns that nobody has been able to get going in decades.
Get some new towns built, solve the housing crisis, then talk about further liberating migration, but your opposition to "executive style" homes while free movement because you don't want to pay more is pure hypocrisy.
Executive houses are not better than no houses at all: apart from the issue of putting housing outside the price range of people who want/need smaller houses, they use up land that could be used for a wider variety of housing: monoculture is not good. Every strategic housing assessment always identifies a need for a mix of housing: social, affordable, flats, small houses, larger houses. And every government policy then guts the ability to provide this by removing the ability of councils to insist on it, enforce alternatives like financial contributions, or put other pressures on developers. Labour 1997-2010 weren't much good, but the absolute chaos and crisis in housing in this country is mostly directly attributable to Conservative policy up to 1997, and after 2010. As a party they've been absolutely bought (at a national level) by the large developers.
I'm not absolutely clear whether that is required, or imposable by an LPA.
If it counts as Building Regs, there are also differences on which version of Building Regs applies to a Planning Permission obtained at a particular date dependent on which of the 4 UK Govts you are talking about.
We have a real and pressing need for labour. We have a real and pressing crisis of willing and able young men wanting to come here and work. Clearly the solution is to send all of the workers away...
We have a real and pressing need for housing. We have a real and pressing crisis of willing and able young men wanting to come here and place further pressure on the system. Clearly the solution is to welcome all comers...
Ad hominem points are sometimes valid. Why have you not changed your username to WhiteFlight?
Huh? Who said welcome all-comers? We're supposed to have a needs-based migration system post-Brexit, but in practice the need is there and nobody is allowed to come to fill the jobs. Which shrinks the economy, tax revenues, drives spending cuts etc etc.
The current policy is making us poorer.
"Nobody is allowed to come"? Have you not seen the immigration statistics?
Apologies. You are right. We have filled all the vacancies and we don't have a stack of industries screaming for more labour and being told "no".
You can join Leon on the smart step. Meanwhile in the real world we need to find solutions that work.
Go back 20 years and start building enough houses?
We are where we are. I'm an advocate for new towns and whole community developments as most of the house building seems to be crowding in "executive style homes" that are the wrong design in the wrong location. No consideration for how people move about with roads at crush capacity and no space / money to expand them. Same with hospitals and schools. So build new. There is plenty of room out there to do so, despite the England Britain is full lie.
"Executive style homes" are better than no homes at all. And complaining about building homes "in the wrong location" (ie where people want to buy them, near communities and where jobs etc are) while ranting about new towns that nobody has been able to get going in decades.
Get some new towns built, solve the housing crisis, then talk about further liberating migration, but your opposition to "executive style" homes while supporting free movement because you don't want to pay more is pure hypocrisy.
New towns aren't being built? My mate lives in the Hamptons, thats a whole southern section of Peterborough that didn't exist. New houses, roads, shops, schools, medical, the whole smash.
Not your preferred solution of build homes on every field and park where everyone has to crush along the same already full roads and there are no new schools or hospitals.
Comments
Like the far left, they are against a lot of things but not *for* much that you can actually do anything about in the real world.
Until they get themselves back onto pragmatic ground there's going to be a lot of shouting at PMQs, and complaining about what other people say (and, very occasionally, what other people actually *do*), but not a lot of change.
Every strategic housing assessment always identifies a need for a mix of housing: social, affordable, flats, small houses, larger houses. And every government policy then guts the ability to provide this by removing the ability of councils to insist on it, enforce alternatives like financial contributions, or put other pressures on developers.
Labour 1997-2010 weren't much good, but the absolute chaos and crisis in housing in this country is mostly directly attributable to Conservative policy up to 1997, and after 2010. As a party they've been absolutely bought (at a national level) by the large developers.
Because that's what EVERY single development looks like these days - moderately specced, small detached or semis with practically no garden and lots of cgi imagery put up by Gleeson, Barratt, Persimmon, Avant or Redrow. They're all pretty much the same, executive is just marketing spin.
This is pretty much every single new build in the UK.
Edit: Here's a Redrow Taunton development - another developer, miles away https://www.dwh.co.uk/new-homes/dev002403-nerrols-grange/ similar stuff.
This is quantifiable. I predict that no sport will vote for trans = real women by a majority greater than 55-45.
Shows how times have changed. The very outre and woke - not! - Mrs May wanted to do this a few short years ago.
Yes, Jamie Chadwick has managed to earn $1.5m in prize money - but that money should have been spent buying her an F2 drive, rather than an apartment in London.
That's just a cul-de-sac for careers, no?
Mr. Driver, I'm fine with a sport either being segregated along sex lines or allowing both sexes to compete in the same league/tournament etc. I suppose if you have a rare exception case that's tricky to resolve. Perhaps a general segregation with specific exemptions?
#i'mnotlongrdsb
I have predicted that ever since Truss went and indeed not just on oil and energy but also windfall bank profits
It should be remembered that Rishi did impose a windfall tax this year, before the conservative party last its marbles
Have their been cases of women transitioning to men to then behave in a way that is threatening to women?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/02/rabbit-hutch-homes-should-be-thing-of-the-past-say-architects
These new builds really aren't "big houses"
That WS - which is very unusually free to enter - lets the winner return to compete again, is the problem.
(apart from laying Johnson)
Lula 1.49
Bolsonaro 3.15
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.180434883
More than one commercial operator is offering software searches of images to find things that have changed/moved.
The sanctions on Russia have cut them off from the commercial imagery market.
As I understand the concept of gender, as a separate thing to sex, is to argue that gender is a social construct, and so many of the things that are thought of as inherent differences between the sexes - girls liking pink, women not understanding computers, men not being caring, etc - are in fact products of our society and can be changed, and the residual differences between women and men - average height, average body fat percentage, average muscle mass - are relatively minor and have no bearing on whether women can be lawyers, or men can be nurses.
My understanding of the ideology of transgenderism is to turn this on its head. It's to say that gender is a fixed inherent identity that is more fundamental than physical sex. Rather than it being a social construct that we can transcend, it's a more important determinant of who you are. It exaggerates the importance of the gender differences that feminism earlier sought to minimise, even to the extent of making them more important than the biological differences.
As an ideology I can't see it as anything other than a postmodernist catastrophe. On an individual level, because I don't see gender differences as that important it simply doesn't make any difference to me what gender identity someone has.
As a man who has often felt uncomfortable with society's idea of what being a man represents the logic of the ideology is also a bit threatening. The implication is that if I don't fit into the gender stereotypes of what it means to be a man, then this implies I'm not a man, I'm something else. A woman, or someone without a gender, or a new gender altogether.
I'd rather think that being a man can involve a wide variety of different behaviours, and behaving differently to the male stereotype doesn't make you any less a man. The transgender ideology says I'm not a real man.
Edit: So I can't understand what you would mean to have someone's gender legally recognised. What possible legal effect could it have? The vast majority of the time it shouldn't matter, and when it matters it's sex that matters, not gender.
How quickly things change
SKS and the lettuce have brought it back.
Today I have been mainly supporting TUSC
He really was that revered there.
What pisses me off is the conversion of edge cases into battlegrounds. Say I establish a fund whose sole purpose is to be equally distributed to every person in the country whose childhood nickname was Twinky. I estimate that the payout will be about £1m per head. What happens next? Well, it's an easy claim to make and not easy to refute, and the payout is worth having even these days, so I immediately need a huge authentication and security op to expose and where appropriate prosecute false Twinky claimants. And this in the eyes of the woke makes me a rabid twinkyphobe, whereas everything I have done is hugely to the benefit of Twinkies.
That development is interesting as it is presumably in principle what complainers want - brownfield site (pit spoil tip), lowish density of 333 homes in 42 acres = 8 per acre (= 20 per Hectare) across the site (or do we want high density?), open space will be 4 acres at least, mix of 2 bed, 3 bed, 4 bed including bungalows.
It will be sustainable (ie close to services etc), as these are basics.
The one possible downside afaics is that PP has been obtained before Building Regs were further upgraded in Jun 2022 wrt insulation etc.
It does beg the question which toilets does the teak-headed one think he won’t be following Eddie into though.
Scotland has not got an equivalent of the Cass review. It is unclear to me how its findings will be used, and given the changes the GRA proposes, it seems premature not to wait for the final report, or at least specifically respond to the concerns it raises for the GRA.
https://twitter.com/mgtmccartney/status/1585531842496716800
If so, what about the people who identify as such? What are you going to tell them?
If you were explaining the world to a artian visitor and he asked what sport meant, and you said Thing at which birth men tend to routinely outperform birth women, he would have a pretty good grasp of the extension of the term.
More interested in pissing off you own side than in good governance.
Says it all, really.
Dear, sweet child.
(In general, lack of people willing to work for the available rates in schools, hospitals, social care, anything state funded really, is a dog that's clearing its throat right now, and has been for a while.)
However, Robert Halfon has also become a Minister of State in the same Department. I think you rate him rather more highly?
But as a matter of interest - Sports - which way do you jump then if you find it clearcut and not tricky?
You ban by law trans women from all women's sport? Or you force by law all women's sport to include trans women?
In the sense that he's only wrong 75% of the time, I agree.
Meanwhile, will the UUP and SDLP continue to be squeezed, by the DUP/SF respectively on one side and the Alliance on the other?
But it doesn't offer anything the regular internet cannot do. It's actually an intriguing case of whether big business can push this through or whether consumers can succeed in telling them to piss off.
"Really, is that what's coming to Parliament... ?"
https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1585567926878408707
Tory party id.
https://resources.fina.org/fina/document/2022/06/19/525de003-51f4-47d3-8d5a-716dac5f77c7/FINA-INCLUSION-POLICY-AND-APPENDICES-FINAL-.pdf
Have we done this yet?
Shapps, Gove, Mercer, Raab and Barclay have each received £16,876 redundancy payments for their dismissal by Ms Truss. Despite being back in government six weeks later they remain entitled to the money. In all fairness to Shapps he is donating half to charity, while Gove and Raab would like to pay half back when they can afford to.
Nice work boys!
The changes are not limited to people who have gender dysphoria. They allow anyone at all over the age of 16 to get a GRC. There is no check on their reasons for doing so. That creates a huge loophole which will be exploited, as all loopholes are. The Scottish government was specifically asked to legislate to prevent English sex offenders who have to register on the sex offenders register from using this legislation to change their identity but declined to do so. There are significant cross-border consequences of this legislation which simply have not been addressed. Do some research on how DBS checks work in the case of those with a GRC to understand how dangerous such a loophole is. You might want to do some research on how trans identified men have the same pattern of offending as men. Self-ID does not change that. You might want to ask yourself whether it is wise to allow such men into womens' spaces without women being able to challenge that and wonder whether your claim that this change will not damage anyone else is justifiable.
You might also want to do some research on how equal pay claims work and the use of comparators to understand why self-ID will undermine equal pay claims and the ability of women to take effective action against sex-based discrimination. Or you might listen to a former Chair of the EHRC, Trevor Phillips, on how self-ID for one protected characteristic will necessarily undermine the others. If a legal category can be opted into and out of at will with no independent verification then the legal rights dependent on that categorisation will necessarily be undermined and effectively eliminated. Self-ID for men is a sexist's dream as it will make it so much harder to deal with sex-based discrimination. The real question is why Sturgeon is pushing it despite all the polls in Scotland showing there is no support for its 3 main provisions and the fact that this legislation as crafted was not in her manifesto.
Worst of all this legislation does nothing to address the main issue faced by people with gender dysphoria: the lack of high quality medical care and the delays in getting it. That would involve resources and hard work.
Actions have consequences . They backed a hard Brexit knowing the damage it would do . And when they had influence over the Tories they continued to back that .
So they can fxck right off !
Besides which, there is a further fallacy in @RochdalePioneers logic of "we need more immigration to fill jobs, but don't build houses except in new towns". If people move to live in new towns, then there would need to be jobs in those new towns for them to work and they won't be available to work to fill vacancies that are extant in existing towns.
If you want more people to fill jobs in existing towns, then you need more homes in those towns. Or the employer needs to pay a good enough wage to attract labour from the homes that are already available there. Saying "I need you to work here, but don't think about living here, go live somewhere else" is not a solution.
If a Daniel wants to become a Daniella, or a Mary become a Mark, then it makes no odds to me.
Now, when it comes to people who are having hormone treatment, or surgery to modify their body, it all gets a lot more complicated and like Theseus's ship. And in to this category you have the set of people whose biology doesn't fit the XX and XY divide that applies to most people. Perhaps the best approach is to have a greater number of categories to reflect the full range of nuances involved. Not sure. If it matters then probably all the detail matters.
But I think it's best to be clearer that this is a question of transsexualism and not transgenderism. The thoughts and ideas in people's head have no business having legal effect. We do not make windows into people's souls.
Insofar as we give a damn, what we give a damn about is the physical reality.
Actually all disciplines which involve sitting on a horse are exceptions to the rule.
I agree that gender is a far inferior concept (and perhaps entirely unnecessary) compared to sex.
AIUI we (England - I believe the issue is devolved) now have recommended space standards which start at 84sqm for a 3 bed 2 story house. Came in in 2015.
https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Technical_housing_standards_-_nationally_described_space_standard
I'm not absolutely clear whether that is required, or imposable by an LPA.
If it counts as Building Regs, there are also differences on which version of Building Regs applies to a Planning Permission obtained at a particular date dependent on which of the 4 UK Govts you are talking about.
Not your preferred solution of build homes on every field and park where everyone has to crush along the same already full roads and there are no new schools or hospitals.