Well, from the guy I knew that's *really* wrong, and a bit insulting.
I think it's just a bit rude in general to tell anyone what they are to think or be, whether somebody is trans or not is sort of irrelevant to how I see this.
If you want to be called HosiasHessop and I keep calling you the other name, I'd think it a bit rude and frankly would show that you don't have much attention to detail. Maybe I think it's a very silly name, or why on Earth would you do that but it doesn't impact my life at all.
Frankly the amount of attention trans people get is BIZARRE to me. Your odds of meeting one even in London are virtually nil.
It depends where you go.
I was out in Ventnor last week and our waitress was Trans. Nobody seemed to notice, all very British.
I honestly think as I said about First Dates, people will have seen trans people without "noticing" it.
As an LGBT+ person with a non-binary adult offspring, the whole debate just depresses me. Rowling needs to shut up. Hate - whether spoken or physical - for people is one thing when its genuine. But this is *performative* hate. Baiting the other side to stir up a reaction in others to further *their* side.
Please let it stop.
Her books are unnecessarily wordy too.
I gave up at book 4. She needed a good editor.
She is often too wordy when limited to 140 characters.
I think people are blind if some of the stuff that comes out from fans of JK Rowling isn't pretty vile and ghastly, just as what comes out from the nuttiest part of the pro-trans communist is also pretty vile and ghastly.
I think to treat one side as saintly though which is what a few people do, is a recipe for disaster.
Neither side is saintly, especially when bigots latch on to both sides as an excuse to bash others.
However nothing Rowling herself said is ghastly, it was entirely measured.
What's been said to Rowling by some is ghastly. That she doesn't respond in kind, is a credit to her, don't you agree?
On this, she hasn't. But some of the stuff she has said before and commented/liked/re-shared has been.
So I don't fully agree she always responds in kind, no. Of course, the people saying stuff to her are equally vile and unkind.
What has she ever said that's been ghastly? Genuine question, I've never seen anything.
Simply holding an opinion others dislike isn't ghastly.
Personally I think this is pretty ghastly. The stuff said to her is worse but I think this is awful. This is a human being she is talking about.
I agree, it is ghastly. Its cruel and dismissive of another person's lived experience. It seems to me something she has said to be provocative on the day this legislation came into force to try and make a point. That in itself shows a lack of compassion or care about the person she is speaking about. Its frankly rude.
The question is whether it should be criminal. I think she wants to test that.
Unless it’s from the future, she tweeted it last month (US format) so not making a point on the day the legislation came into force. More part of her general cruel and dismissive output in that case.
I thought that she had tweeted this (possibly retweeted?) today. I may be wrong, I am not on Twitter or TwiX or whatever it is called these days.
The posting format formerly known as tweets are date stamped m’lud, 3/4/24 in this case.
I'm more impressed by the Tardis of whoever took that image than anything else then.
US date format: mm/dd/yy. NATO standard is yyyy-mm-dd to reconcile usage. It's also Japanese standard iirc.
I think people are blind if some of the stuff that comes out from fans of JK Rowling isn't pretty vile and ghastly, just as what comes out from the nuttiest part of the pro-trans communist is also pretty vile and ghastly.
I think to treat one side as saintly though which is what a few people do, is a recipe for disaster.
Neither side is saintly, especially when bigots latch on to both sides as an excuse to bash others.
However nothing Rowling herself said is ghastly, it was entirely measured.
What's been said to Rowling by some is ghastly. That she doesn't respond in kind, is a credit to her, don't you agree?
On this, she hasn't. But some of the stuff she has said before and commented/liked/re-shared has been.
So I don't fully agree she always responds in kind, no. Of course, the people saying stuff to her are equally vile and unkind.
What has she ever said that's been ghastly? Genuine question, I've never seen anything.
Simply holding an opinion others dislike isn't ghastly.
Personally I think this is pretty ghastly. The stuff said to her is worse but I think this is awful. This is a human being she is talking about.
I agree, it is ghastly. Its cruel and dismissive of another person's lived experience. It seems to me something she has said to be provocative on the day this legislation came into force to try and make a point. That in itself shows a lack of compassion or care about the person she is speaking about. Its frankly rude.
The question is whether it should be criminal. I think she wants to test that.
Unless it’s from the future, she tweeted it last month (US format) so not making a point on the day the legislation came into force. More part of her general cruel and dismissive output in that case.
I thought that she had tweeted this (possibly retweeted?) today. I may be wrong, I am not on Twitter or TwiX or whatever it is called these days.
The posting format formerly known as tweets are date stamped m’lud, 3/4/24 in this case.
I'm more impressed by the Tardis of whoever took that image than anything else then.
US date format: mm/dd/yy. NATO standard is yyyy-mm-dd to reconcile usage. It's also Japanese standard iirc.
Now try me on national naming conventions... 😃
Yes, I was joking, I did know that, thanks.
Canada also uses YYYY/MM/DD.
It is a far superior date format in every way. The only one that follows the numerical rules about larger values going on the left and smaller values on the right.
As an LGBT+ person with a non-binary adult offspring, the whole debate just depresses me. Rowling needs to shut up. Hate - whether spoken or physical - for people is one thing when its genuine. But this is *performative* hate. Baiting the other side to stir up a reaction in others to further *their* side.
Please let it stop.
Your overall position on these questions strikes me as being quite misogynistic. Women with contrary views are always being told to “shut up”.
JK Rowling can air whatever views she wants. Nobody here has said otherwise.
I just said that I find them offensive and rude. And that sometimes, the right to speak is also the right not to. That is not telling her to "shut up".
Implying Rochdale is misogynistic is lunacy, he is probably the least misogynistic man I've ever spoken to on this board.
'Bill Cash, an MP who often has tea and scones in the House of Commons, opined to the paper: “It makes me wonder what will happen next – will they stop selling madeira cake because of historical events in Madeira? There’s far too much wokery going on at the National Trust; this is just the latest example.”.
But 'A National Trust spokesperson said that, while some of its published recipes may differ, the plain and fruit scones in its tearooms have been dairy-free for years.
They added: “National Trust cafes serve millions of customers a year and we work hard to accommodate dietary needs and allergies.'.
I imagine that rule would also preclude dairy butter - taken together, I believe that would make an inferior scone, both in taste and nutritional value. It would also probably save the caterers a lot of money because margarine is cheap shit. That does matter to me, and I don't think it's a positive development.
The problem with such fruit scones is they're an unsuccessful attempt at raisin the tenor of a debate.
(Which frankly we could do with on here, since we seem to be back on transgender culture wars.)
I am sure all those on here complaining about Rowling's tweet will be just as busy tut-tutting at the masked men with coshes calling themselves trans activists who tried to break into a medical conference in London a couple of weeks ago and were being pretty violent about it. There were women speakers there and the conference was looking at the right way of treating children with gender dysphoria.
At two feminist conferences I have been to there have been similar threats of and actual violence by male trans activists.
God knows what these activists think they are doing behaving in this way. This sort of violence is exactly why many women do not want to have male to female trans people in their spaces. Understandably.
Whatever they are doing they are not helping one little bit those like @Foxy's friend who genuinely do have dysphoria. Or my friend who has lived with his dysphoria for years and is the gentlest person you could meet. He loathes the activists.
In my view there are two groups: people with dysphoria who need the right sort of help. And others who have jumped on the trans cause to push back on women's rights, their right to have boundaries, to have these respected and to have their bodily and mental dignity respected and safeguarded. I have no issue with the former. Am utterly opposed to the latter. A great pity politicians - and others - cannot see the distinction.
As an LGBT+ person with a non-binary adult offspring, the whole debate just depresses me. Rowling needs to shut up. Hate - whether spoken or physical - for people is one thing when its genuine. But this is *performative* hate. Baiting the other side to stir up a reaction in others to further *their* side.
Please let it stop.
Your overall position on these questions strikes me as being quite misogynistic. Women with contrary views are always being told to “shut up”.
FFS. Shut up yourself. I have a wife and a daughter. I don't want the latter to grow up in a world where she can't be who she wants to be. My dislike of what Rowling is saying is what she is saying. Not her gender. As is blindingly obvious to anyone who isn't baiting to stir up a reaction...
I have two daughters, I want them to be whatever they want to be.
But if they're ever in a position where they need safeguarding, then I hope their safeguarding is not violated.
Levi Belfield or John Warboys didn't dress up as women. A dangerous **** is a dangerous **** however they wish to be addressed.
As an LGBT+ person with a non-binary adult offspring, the whole debate just depresses me. Rowling needs to shut up. Hate - whether spoken or physical - for people is one thing when its genuine. But this is *performative* hate. Baiting the other side to stir up a reaction in others to further *their* side.
Please let it stop.
Her books are unnecessarily wordy too.
I gave up at book 4. She needed a good editor.
She is often too wordy when limited to 140 characters.
Anyone see the hilarious tirade from Anne Rice?
Someone posted a review suggesting that her books needed an editor. Her response was going full postal on the idea that a word of her beloved treasures could be touched…
I am sure all those on here complaining about Rowling's tweet will be just as busy tut-tutting at the masked men with coshes calling themselves trans activists who tried to break into a medical conference in London a couple of weeks ago and were being pretty violent about it. There were women speakers there and the conference was looking at the right way of treating children with gender dysphoria.
At two feminist conferences I have been to there have been similar threats of and actual violence by male trans activists.
God knows what these activists think they are doing behaving in this way. This sort of violence is exactly why many women do not want to have male to female trans people in their spaces. Understandably.
Whatever they are doing they are not helping one little bit those like @Foxy's friend who genuinely do have dysphoria. Or my friend who has lived with his dysphoria for years and is the gentlest person you could meet. He loathes the activists.
In my view there are two groups: people with dysphoria who need the right sort of help. And others who have jumped on the trans cause to push back on women's rights, their right to have boundaries, to have these respected and to have their bodily and mental dignity respected and safeguarded. I have no issue with the former. Am utterly opposed to the latter. A great pity politicians - and others - cannot see the distinction.
I am happy to address your post but would like your honest views: do you think Rowling's Tweet was A ) offensive and rude; B ) counter-intuitive?
In short, these people sound like scum.
And others who have jumped on the trans cause to push back on women's rights, their right to have boundaries, to have these respected and to have their bodily and mental dignity respected and safeguarded.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Anyway, I will leave you with this. I do not know the date but given the financial shenanigans the Irish establishment has been involved in over decades it doesn't surprise me one bit.
As an LGBT+ person with a non-binary adult offspring, the whole debate just depresses me. Rowling needs to shut up. Hate - whether spoken or physical - for people is one thing when its genuine. But this is *performative* hate. Baiting the other side to stir up a reaction in others to further *their* side.
Please let it stop.
Your overall position on these questions strikes me as being quite misogynistic. Women with contrary views are always being told to “shut up”.
JK Rowling can air whatever views she wants. Nobody here has said otherwise.
I just said that I find them offensive and rude. And that sometimes, the right to speak is also the right not to. That is not telling her to "shut up".
Implying Rochdale is misogynistic is lunacy, he is probably the least misogynistic man I've ever spoken to on this board.
The comment I was replying to literally says, "Rowling needs to shut up."
In the past @RochdalePioneers has also made dismissive comments about women whose husbands went on to transition.
I think people are blind if some of the stuff that comes out from fans of JK Rowling isn't pretty vile and ghastly, just as what comes out from the nuttiest part of the pro-trans communist is also pretty vile and ghastly.
I think to treat one side as saintly though which is what a few people do, is a recipe for disaster.
Neither side is saintly, especially when bigots latch on to both sides as an excuse to bash others.
However nothing Rowling herself said is ghastly, it was entirely measured.
What's been said to Rowling by some is ghastly. That she doesn't respond in kind, is a credit to her, don't you agree?
On this, she hasn't. But some of the stuff she has said before and commented/liked/re-shared has been.
So I don't fully agree she always responds in kind, no. Of course, the people saying stuff to her are equally vile and unkind.
What has she ever said that's been ghastly? Genuine question, I've never seen anything.
Simply holding an opinion others dislike isn't ghastly.
Personally I think this is pretty ghastly. The stuff said to her is worse but I think this is awful. This is a human being she is talking about.
I agree, it is ghastly. Its cruel and dismissive of another person's lived experience. It seems to me something she has said to be provocative on the day this legislation came into force to try and make a point. That in itself shows a lack of compassion or care about the person she is speaking about. Its frankly rude.
The question is whether it should be criminal. I think she wants to test that.
Unless it’s from the future, she tweeted it last month (US format) so not making a point on the day the legislation came into force. More part of her general cruel and dismissive output in that case.
I thought that she had tweeted this (possibly retweeted?) today. I may be wrong, I am not on Twitter or TwiX or whatever it is called these days.
The posting format formerly known as tweets are date stamped m’lud, 3/4/24 in this case.
I'm more impressed by the Tardis of whoever took that image than anything else then.
US date format: mm/dd/yy. NATO standard is yyyy-mm-dd to reconcile usage. It's also Japanese standard iirc.
Now try me on national naming conventions... 😃
US football format: they play with their hands!
Oh, and they also drive on the wrong side of the road!
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
As an LGBT+ person with a non-binary adult offspring, the whole debate just depresses me. Rowling needs to shut up. Hate - whether spoken or physical - for people is one thing when its genuine. But this is *performative* hate. Baiting the other side to stir up a reaction in others to further *their* side.
Please let it stop.
Your overall position on these questions strikes me as being quite misogynistic. Women with contrary views are always being told to “shut up”.
JK Rowling can air whatever views she wants. Nobody here has said otherwise.
I just said that I find them offensive and rude. And that sometimes, the right to speak is also the right not to. That is not telling her to "shut up".
Implying Rochdale is misogynistic is lunacy, he is probably the least misogynistic man I've ever spoken to on this board.
The comment I was replying to literally says, "Rowling needs to shut up."
In the past @RochdalePioneers has also made dismissive comments about women whose husbands went on to transition.
You really do need to get a hold of yourself. She does need to shut up about Trans stuff. Denzel Washington needs to shut up about politics - I have consistently said that the big mistake that celebs make is assuming that their fame means we care what they think on subject x. Do your sport or art or music or whatever it is. Talk about that, because far too many make utter tits of themselves.
What does gender have to do with it? I am criticising an author for sounding off, not a woman for having an opinion.
Do have to applaud you though for displaying performative baiting as an example.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Did I say I disagreed with anything about safeguarding? I just disagreed with the way JK Rowling articulated her case and have done for years. She doesn't help the cause, neither do these ultra-trans nutjobs.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
No.
Who said anything about half of trans activists? Half didn't appear in either my post, or the quote I responded to.
Too many men do want to abuse women. Far too many men do. Women need safeguarding and safeguarding needs to be set with the worst of humanity in mind, not its best.
But the response to my posts about JK Rowling's post as "tut tutting" by Cyclefree are precisely why I have avoided conversing with her on this. She never acknowledges that maybe, just maybe, JK Rowling might be a bit of a tosser. Why?
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
No.
Who said anything about half of trans activists? Half didn't appear in either my post, or the quote I responded to.
Too many men do want to abuse women. Far too many men do. Women need safeguarding and safeguarding needs to be set with the worst of humanity in mind, not its best.
A lot of men want to abuse women. But the amount of people becoming women to do it, is vanishingly small. That's not a reason not to have safeguards, of course.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Trans activists? Or trans people? Not necessarily the same thing. Look, universal rights are only universal when they don't trample on other people's rights.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Trans activists? Or trans people? Not necessarily the same thing. Look, universal rights are only universal when they don't trample on other people's rights.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
It's bizarre to have Bart liking this post when he agrees with JK Rowling's post on India.
I agree with everything you said. The extremist nutters are bad for everyone, whatever side they sit on. I think that the majority of trans people and to be honest even activists, agree with what you said too. The nutters are the problem.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
No.
Who said anything about half of trans activists? Half didn't appear in either my post, or the quote I responded to.
Too many men do want to abuse women. Far too many men do. Women need safeguarding and safeguarding needs to be set with the worst of humanity in mind, not its best.
Perhaps the unscrupulous do look for an accessible route to easily attack women. Some may dress up as women. Wayne Couzens dressed up as a Policeman.
Which somewhat refutes the idea that immigration suppresses per capita GDP by bumping up the denominator.
Japan's economic problems could also be read as an indictment of the zero interest rate policy that was copied by the West after the financial crisis.
The zero interest rate policy was more a symptom than a cause of the malaise. At root: an export-oriented economic model in a globalising world where other countries to its South (Korea and China, largely) played and beat it at its game, combined with an ageing and shrinking population. And a population allergic to consumption and addicted to saving. And no natural resources for when the Chinese boom started demanding more and more of them.
There’s plenty for us in Europe to be wary of from the Japanese experience. In a few years’ time our populations will be as old, and our couple of years of inflation might come to be seen as a golden era before deflation properly took hold.
Deflation would be a good thing. We should welcome it and see the reduction in the cost of living as a primary mechanism for reducing inequality.
Historically low inflation and deflation have tended to increase inequality. Inflation is a leveller (but only intrinsic inflation, not extrinsic ie commodity price related).
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Trans activists? Or trans people? Not necessarily the same thing. Look, universal rights are only universal when they don't trample on other people's rights.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
It's bizarre to have Bart liking this post when he agrees with JK Rowling's post on India.
I agree with everything you said. The extremist nutters are bad for everyone, whatever side they sit on. I think that the majority of trans people and to be honest even activists, agree with what you said too. The nutters are the problem.
I don't take sides on this because I agree with BOTH sides. Women are under direct threat from men and we really need to tackle toxic masculinity which rapidly spills into misogyny. Of course victims of male violence are deeply concerned about biological males in their spaces. But genuine trans people are people as well and suffer their own abuse.
This is 2024. We can find a way through this issue to both give rights to trans women which doesn't remove the rights of cis women to feel safe. But we can't do that with absolutism.
I have said my piece, I am quitting the trans debate for the evening as I am exhausted.
I have brought your good self and @BartholomewRoberts's good self together in both liking the same post I made.
See. We all just need to be able to talk with respect and understanding for each other. And the issue can then be resolved to the agreement of the majority and we can move on.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Trans activists? Or trans people? Not necessarily the same thing. Look, universal rights are only universal when they don't trample on other people's rights.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
It's bizarre to have Bart liking this post when he agrees with JK Rowling's post on India.
I agree with everything you said. The extremist nutters are bad for everyone, whatever side they sit on. I think that the majority of trans people and to be honest even activists, agree with what you said too. The nutters are the problem.
I don't take sides on this because I agree with BOTH sides. Women are under direct threat from men and we really need to tackle toxic masculinity which rapidly spills into misogyny. Of course victims of male violence are deeply concerned about biological males in their spaces. But genuine trans people are people as well and suffer their own abuse.
This is 2024. We can find a way through this issue to both give rights to trans women which doesn't remove the rights of cis women to feel safe. But we can't do that with absolutism.
I think the followers of Andrew Tate are both far more numerous and far more dangerous to women than Trans people. Hopefully Scotlands anti-misogyny laws are better drafted.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Trans activists? Or trans people? Not necessarily the same thing. Look, universal rights are only universal when they don't trample on other people's rights.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
It's bizarre to have Bart liking this post when he agrees with JK Rowling's post on India.
I agree with everything you said. The extremist nutters are bad for everyone, whatever side they sit on. I think that the majority of trans people and to be honest even activists, agree with what you said too. The nutters are the problem.
I don't take sides on this because I agree with BOTH sides. Women are under direct threat from men and we really need to tackle toxic masculinity which rapidly spills into misogyny. Of course victims of male violence are deeply concerned about biological males in their spaces. But genuine trans people are people as well and suffer their own abuse.
This is 2024. We can find a way through this issue to both give rights to trans women which doesn't remove the rights of cis women to feel safe. But we can't do that with absolutism.
I think the followers of Andrew Tate are both far more numerous and far more dangerous to women than Trans people. Hopefully Scotlands ant-misogyny laws are better drafted.
And dangerous to trans people as well. There should be some solidarity here.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Trans activists? Or trans people? Not necessarily the same thing. Look, universal rights are only universal when they don't trample on other people's rights.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
It's bizarre to have Bart liking this post when he agrees with JK Rowling's post on India.
I agree with everything you said. The extremist nutters are bad for everyone, whatever side they sit on. I think that the majority of trans people and to be honest even activists, agree with what you said too. The nutters are the problem.
I don't take sides on this because I agree with BOTH sides. Women are under direct threat from men and we really need to tackle toxic masculinity which rapidly spills into misogyny. Of course victims of male violence are deeply concerned about biological males in their spaces. But genuine trans people are people as well and suffer their own abuse.
This is 2024. We can find a way through this issue to both give rights to trans women which doesn't remove the rights of cis women to feel safe. But we can't do that with absolutism.
I think the followers of Andrew Tate are both far more numerous and far more dangerous to women than Trans people. Hopefully Scotlands anti-misogyny laws are better drafted.
Good luck with that he won't get extradited as being fed on haggis tatties and neeps will be seen as cruel and unusual punishment
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Trans activists? Or trans people? Not necessarily the same thing. Look, universal rights are only universal when they don't trample on other people's rights.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
It's bizarre to have Bart liking this post when he agrees with JK Rowling's post on India.
I agree with everything you said. The extremist nutters are bad for everyone, whatever side they sit on. I think that the majority of trans people and to be honest even activists, agree with what you said too. The nutters are the problem.
I don't take sides on this because I agree with BOTH sides. Women are under direct threat from men and we really need to tackle toxic masculinity which rapidly spills into misogyny. Of course victims of male violence are deeply concerned about biological males in their spaces. But genuine trans people are people as well and suffer their own abuse.
This is 2024. We can find a way through this issue to both give rights to trans women which doesn't remove the rights of cis women to feel safe. But we can't do that with absolutism.
When ruthless Politicians weaponise the notion, for example "Starmer can't define a woman" it is a cheap, easy hit and does nothing for the wider debate.
I have said my piece, I am quitting the trans debate for the evening as I am exhausted.
Best way to quit the trans debate is never to get into it. It’s completely deranged, and dominated by a small number of obsessive people shouting at each other about bugger all.
Until a scant few years ago everyone accepted that some people are different, and got on with life. Now thanks to social media it’s become a “debate”.
And we can’t even blame the Americans. This one’s a peculiarly British / Scottish affliction.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Those people are far too common, yes.
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
You honestly think half of trans activists want to push back women's rights? Really?
Trans activists? Or trans people? Not necessarily the same thing. Look, universal rights are only universal when they don't trample on other people's rights.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
It's bizarre to have Bart liking this post when he agrees with JK Rowling's post on India.
I agree with everything you said. The extremist nutters are bad for everyone, whatever side they sit on. I think that the majority of trans people and to be honest even activists, agree with what you said too. The nutters are the problem.
I don't take sides on this because I agree with BOTH sides. Women are under direct threat from men and we really need to tackle toxic masculinity which rapidly spills into misogyny. Of course victims of male violence are deeply concerned about biological males in their spaces. But genuine trans people are people as well and suffer their own abuse.
This is 2024. We can find a way through this issue to both give rights to trans women which doesn't remove the rights of cis women to feel safe. But we can't do that with absolutism.
When ruthless Politicians weaponise the notion, for example "Starmer can't define a woman" is a cheap, easy hit and does nothing for the wider debate.
In any political debate these days there are extremists on both sides, the middle ends up going count me out this debate is to inflammatory
Here's a question for Cyclefree: Amazon US refuses to sell "When Harry Became Sally", which argues that people claiming to be "trans" need psychiatric help, not surgery. Amazon has every legal right to do that, of course, but were they right to do so?
Amazon does sell Abigail Shrier's "Irreversible Damage", which makes a similar argument, but refused to allow the publisher to advertise on the site.
(Full disclosure: I don't like censorship, so I stopped buying books from Amazon.
BREAKING: On Easter Sunday, Donald Trump attempts to recite the Lord’s Prayer without teleprompter. Either Trump is losing his cognitive abilities or he was never religious at all and is a faker. Retweet to ensure all Americans see.
But the response to my posts about JK Rowling's post as "tut tutting" by Cyclefree are precisely why I have avoided conversing with her on this. She never acknowledges that maybe, just maybe, JK Rowling might be a bit of a tosser. Why?
BREAKING: On Easter Sunday, Donald Trump attempts to recite the Lord’s Prayer without teleprompter. Either Trump is losing his cognitive abilities or he was never religious at all and is a faker. Retweet to ensure all Americans see.
In other good news the fall in DJT today, which had a closing price of $48.66, meant that Trump was worth roughly $1bn less than when I got up this morning. So it hasn't been a completely wasted day after all.
I am sure all those on here complaining about Rowling's tweet will be just as busy tut-tutting at the masked men with coshes calling themselves trans activists who tried to break into a medical conference in London a couple of weeks ago and were being pretty violent about it. There were women speakers there and the conference was looking at the right way of treating children with gender dysphoria.
At two feminist conferences I have been to there have been similar threats of and actual violence by male trans activists.
God knows what these activists think they are doing behaving in this way. This sort of violence is exactly why many women do not want to have male to female trans people in their spaces. Understandably.
Whatever they are doing they are not helping one little bit those like @Foxy's friend who genuinely do have dysphoria. Or my friend who has lived with his dysphoria for years and is the gentlest person you could meet. He loathes the activists.
In my view there are two groups: people with dysphoria who need the right sort of help. And others who have jumped on the trans cause to push back on women's rights, their right to have boundaries, to have these respected and to have their bodily and mental dignity respected and safeguarded. I have no issue with the former. Am utterly opposed to the latter. A great pity politicians - and others - cannot see the distinction.
I think J K Rowling feels that, as a woman uniquely protected by her celebrity, wealth, and way with words, that she is in a pretty good position to take on the "progressive" establishment in Scotland which has gone down this trans cul de sac, at the expense of womens' rights. She simply won't be bullied, or closed down. Good on her, I say.
Here's a question for Cyclefree: Amazon US refuses to sell "When Harry Became Sally", which argues that people claiming to be "trans" need psychiatric help, not surgery. Amazon has every legal right to do that, of course, but were they right to do so?
Amazon does sell Abigail Shrier's "Irreversible Damage", which makes a similar argument, but refused to allow the publisher to advertise on the site.
(Full disclosure: I don't like censorship, so I stopped buying books from Amazon.
Not cyclefree but my answer would be yes both should be allowed which is not to say either is right.
I think there are indeed people who genuinely have gender dysmorphia that are best treated by surgery, there are also people who have mental issues, or are sexually confused that are best at first treated with psychiatric help and some will be found to have dysmorphia and some wont and both should be funneled to the best treatment for them.
I do have an issue with the approach to pre adults for affirmation rather than probing. I have certainly heard of cases where someone is actually gay or lesbian but because young are confused and affirmation techniques pushing them towards they are trans rather than what they actually are. How common that is no idea but I am sure it happens.
Teenagers need to be free to work out who they are and not pushed in any direction whether hetero, gay or trans
I am sure all those on here complaining about Rowling's tweet will be just as busy tut-tutting at the masked men with coshes calling themselves trans activists who tried to break into a medical conference in London a couple of weeks ago and were being pretty violent about it. There were women speakers there and the conference was looking at the right way of treating children with gender dysphoria.
At two feminist conferences I have been to there have been similar threats of and actual violence by male trans activists.
God knows what these activists think they are doing behaving in this way. This sort of violence is exactly why many women do not want to have male to female trans people in their spaces. Understandably.
Whatever they are doing they are not helping one little bit those like @Foxy's friend who genuinely do have dysphoria. Or my friend who has lived with his dysphoria for years and is the gentlest person you could meet. He loathes the activists.
In my view there are two groups: people with dysphoria who need the right sort of help. And others who have jumped on the trans cause to push back on women's rights, their right to have boundaries, to have these respected and to have their bodily and mental dignity respected and safeguarded. I have no issue with the former. Am utterly opposed to the latter. A great pity politicians - and others - cannot see the distinction.
I am happy to address your post but would like your honest views: do you think Rowling's Tweet was A ) offensive and rude; B ) counter-intuitive?
In short, these people sound like scum.
And others who have jumped on the trans cause to push back on women's rights, their right to have boundaries, to have these respected and to have their bodily and mental dignity respected and safeguarded.
These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
Stonewall's official position since 2015 has been to remove all single and separate sex spaces, services and associations from the Equality Act. They said as much to a Parliamentary Select Committee. I have made this point several times on here.
This means the removal of existing rights for women.
I can quote you other transactivists who have said girls in schools should be forced to share loos with boys claiming to be girls, even though this is contrary to regulations applying to schools. The ONS has recently issued a policy which says that women objecting to having men in loos or changing rooms could face disciplinary action. The Scottish government's win in the FWS action - now being appealed to the Supreme Court - means that in Scotland lesbian-only associations can only legally have 24 members or less. Above that number they cannot exclude a man with a GRC. That is a loss of a right they had before.
The College of Policing had a draft policy - now withdrawn after it was challenged - saying that in order to attract trans people to the force it would allow trans officers to carry out intimate body searches on the opposite sex. So a man would be allowed to do so even though PACE says such a search must be done by someone of the same sex.
There are any number of court cases being won by women when faced with some really unpleasant action to limit what they can do and say. I note that some of the recent ones have not even been mentioned or discussed on here. But just because you do not know about it does not mean that it is not happening.
I could go on. I won't. But there is a determined campaign by some to reduce, eliminate or limit the ability of women to maintain their dignity, privacy and safety, needed because of their sex. I know a lot of the lawyers working on the legal cases arising.
As I say, none of this activism helps people who genuinely have dysphoria.
As for Rowling's tweet, she is entitled to comment particularly as Willoughby has been very nasty to her and others, from what I have seen. What I will say is this: womanhood is not a costume or make up. It is offensive to and contemptuous of women to pretend that make up, dresses and some cosmetic surgery turns you into a woman. Women are born not made. Womanhood is not a feeling in a man's head. When someone like Willoughby claims to be a biological woman or a better woman than Rowling or any other woman, he is behaving like every mansplaining man throughout the ages who thinks he has the right to boss women around.
Here's a problem that deserves more attention than it is receiving: "In Sudan’s post-apocalyptic cities, in the desert battlegrounds of Darfur and even in the war-ravaged farmlands of the south, families are beginning to starve.
It has been nearly a year since fighting broke out between the military, headed by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), headed by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, universally referred to Hemedti. The war plunged the nation of 49 million people into chaos, forcing more than 8 million from their homes.
The United Nations’ World Food Program says roots of the hunger problem are twofold: access and funding. Within Sudan, WFP trucks have been blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted and detained. Outside Sudan, makeshift camps are swollen with hungry and sick arrivals — but there’s no money to feed them." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/01/sudan-hunger-war/
The Post deserves credit for this article, as does the lead reporter, photojournalist Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi.
In other good news the fall in DJT today, which had a closing price of $48.66, meant that Trump was worth roughly $1bn less than when I got up this morning. So it hasn't been a completely wasted day after all.
Maybe he will start a trend for all politicians to have stock listings.
"Shares in SKS rose today on stronger than expected survey data, but analysts warned that the revenue model is still not clear."
Cosplaying is a more accurate description of India than claiming she is a woman.
People have a right to cosplay if they want to, but it doesn't change their sex which is real.
I don't care what India is.
India is a country?
I think the proper procedure is to puff out ones chest in the manner of a defiant pigeon and say "India is *the* country". Unless "Goodness Gracious Me" lied to me... 😃
Cosplaying is a more accurate description of India than claiming she is a woman.
People have a right to cosplay if they want to, but it doesn't change their sex which is real.
I don't care what India is.
India is a country?
I think the proper procedure is to puff out ones chest in the manner of a defiant pigeon and say "India is *the* country". Unless "Goodness Gracious Me" lied to me... 😃
In other good news the fall in DJT today, which had a closing price of $48.66, meant that Trump was worth roughly $1bn less than when I got up this morning. So it hasn't been a completely wasted day after all.
Well said ! Let’s hope the stock completely implodes . I have zero sympathy for those investing in Truth Social .
Cosplaying is a more accurate description of India than claiming she is a woman.
People have a right to cosplay if they want to, but it doesn't change their sex which is real.
I don't care what India is.
India is a country?
I think the proper procedure is to puff out ones chest in the manner of a defiant pigeon and say "India is *the* country". Unless "Goodness Gracious Me" lied to me... 😃
Anyway, I will leave you with this. I do not know the date but given the financial shenanigans the Irish establishment has been involved in over decades it doesn't surprise me one bit.
That’s an old old story.
But very typical of a part of the Irish establishment.
Cosplaying is a more accurate description of India than claiming she is a woman.
People have a right to cosplay if they want to, but it doesn't change their sex which is real.
I don't care what India is.
India is a country?
I think the proper procedure is to puff out ones chest in the manner of a defiant pigeon and say "India is *the* country". Unless "Goodness Gracious Me" lied to me... 😃
In other good news the fall in DJT today, which had a closing price of $48.66, meant that Trump was worth roughly $1bn less than when I got up this morning. So it hasn't been a completely wasted day after all.
Maybe he will start a trend for all politicians to have stock listings.
"Shares in SKS rose today on stronger than expected survey data, but analysts warned that the revenue model is still not clear."
I normally find your digs at political opponents tiresome, but actually that is rather clever.
Anyway, I will leave you with this. I do not know the date but given the financial shenanigans the Irish establishment has been involved in over decades it doesn't surprise me one bit.
That’s an old old story.
But very typical of a part of the Irish establishment.
The finance minister of Ireland was paid cash-in-hand?
In other good news the fall in DJT today, which had a closing price of $48.66, meant that Trump was worth roughly $1bn less than when I got up this morning. So it hasn't been a completely wasted day after all.
Maybe he will start a trend for all politicians to have stock listings.
"Shares in SKS rose today on stronger than expected survey data, but analysts warned that the revenue model is still not clear."
“The market capitalisation of Sunak Inc. shrank a further 3% today, a new low.”
Cosplaying is a more accurate description of India than claiming she is a woman.
People have a right to cosplay if they want to, but it doesn't change their sex which is real.
I don't care what India is.
India is a country?
I think the proper procedure is to puff out ones chest in the manner of a defiant pigeon and say "India is *the* country". Unless "Goodness Gracious Me" lied to me... 😃
[Windsor Davies voice] "Shuddup!"
What do you think about calling it Bharat?
I've never been an Indian citizen, but it is already called Bharat in Hindi.
Here's a problem that deserves more attention than it is receiving: "In Sudan’s post-apocalyptic cities, in the desert battlegrounds of Darfur and even in the war-ravaged farmlands of the south, families are beginning to starve.
It has been nearly a year since fighting broke out between the military, headed by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), headed by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, universally referred to Hemedti. The war plunged the nation of 49 million people into chaos, forcing more than 8 million from their homes.
The United Nations’ World Food Program says roots of the hunger problem are twofold: access and funding. Within Sudan, WFP trucks have been blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted and detained. Outside Sudan, makeshift camps are swollen with hungry and sick arrivals — but there’s no money to feed them." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/01/sudan-hunger-war/
The Post deserves credit for this article, as does the lead reporter, photojournalist Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi.
If the 1980s are anything to go by the world will more strenuously ignore Sudan than just about any other conflict. Another invisible tragedy.
This hate law is a good opportunity for the Scottish Tories I'd say - Labour is unlikely to mount a full-throated campaign against this abomination of a law, so that leaves the Tories mopping up anyone who doesn't want to live in a George Orwell book.
A further SNP outrage: prescribing puberty blockers is now illegal in England - but not in Scotland.
(A pedant writes: puberty blockers are not "illegal" in England. They are not prescribed by NHS England. No law forbids them. As has been often observed, the English look to their government and institutions for guidance and interpret such guidance as law, despite the two being conceptually different)
Indeed, puberty blockers are still being prescribed to aspiring gymnasts in the UK. But that's another story.
I've never heard of that outside the Soviet bloc, Rumania , East Germany, Russia and rumours about China. I am shocked and appalled that that is happening here.
Pushy parents and private doctors. It's more common than you think.
That's private medicine for you. Where there is demand there is a prescriber and a grey market.
There are a million taking anabolic steroids for non-medical purposes in the country.
But sure, puberty blockers being prescribed 5 times in Glasgow in a year is the real problem.
Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if there were more puberty blockers prescribed out of parental desire for sporting glory than for for body dysmorphia. (Albeit my knowledge is entirely pushy North London parents.)
Pause
Pause
How many pushy North London parents do you know who are obtaining prescriptions for puberty blockers for their pubertal children so those children can compete in sport? And when did they tell you this?
Hampstead drunken dinner party discussion. One set of parents were doing it, another talked of one of their daughter's friends.
I don't go to dinner parties but I do go to various conferences courtesy of a portfolio career. On those occasions where I have to socialise with the rich, an inherent shyness means I have to get drunk first and then leave before I vom. Given that the conversation of the wealthy tends to revolve around material things this is not a problem for me (and hopefully not for them either). I would never in a thousand years imagine that the rich would give little Tamsin blockers so boobs would not get in the way of gymnastics, and even less that they would let that slip whilst drunk. We mix in different worlds... ☹️
You have to understand that most of the parents at pushy Hampstead private schools are crazy workaholics, who have risen to senior positions at Goldman or who run their own hedge funds, etc. They are uber uber-competitive. And if little Tamsin shows even the slightest aptitude for gymnastics - and especially if the school gym teacher says she is talented - then they will do everything in their power to enable Tamsin to reach her potential, even if it means stuffing her full of drugs.
And, by the way, the schools often (quietly / tacitly) condone this. When new parents come around, pointing out that two members of the Commonwealth gymnastics team are sixth formers at the school is an excellent selling point.
Anyway, I will leave you with this. I do not know the date but given the financial shenanigans the Irish establishment has been involved in over decades it doesn't surprise me one bit.
That’s an old old story.
But very typical of a part of the Irish establishment.
The finance minister of Ireland was paid cash-in-hand?
IIRC, it was claimed that he was paid by cheque, and that a civil servant then took the cheques to a cheque cashing outfit and returned with a bag of money….
Anyway, I will leave you with this. I do not know the date but given the financial shenanigans the Irish establishment has been involved in over decades it doesn't surprise me one bit.
That’s an old old story.
But very typical of a part of the Irish establishment.
Somewhat off-topic, but this show about Charlie Haughey is worth a shot (the section in France is especially.... grim) :
Here's a problem that deserves more attention than it is receiving: "In Sudan’s post-apocalyptic cities, in the desert battlegrounds of Darfur and even in the war-ravaged farmlands of the south, families are beginning to starve.
It has been nearly a year since fighting broke out between the military, headed by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), headed by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, universally referred to Hemedti. The war plunged the nation of 49 million people into chaos, forcing more than 8 million from their homes.
The United Nations’ World Food Program says roots of the hunger problem are twofold: access and funding. Within Sudan, WFP trucks have been blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted and detained. Outside Sudan, makeshift camps are swollen with hungry and sick arrivals — but there’s no money to feed them." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/01/sudan-hunger-war/
The Post deserves credit for this article, as does the lead reporter, photojournalist Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi.
If the 1980s are anything to go by the world will more strenuously ignore Sudan than just about any other conflict. Another invisible tragedy.
Sudan was the smaller oft-forgotten island off the coast of Atlantis, right? Had the bay of Myanmar and not much else?
Anyway, I will leave you with this. I do not know the date but given the financial shenanigans the Irish establishment has been involved in over decades it doesn't surprise me one bit.
Bertie Ahern is trying to make a comeback now. There's some notion doing the rounds that he fancies a go at being President.
I think my three-year wait for citizenship will be either one month too late, or one month just in time, for the next Irish Presidential election. If he does make a run for it that would provide an extra incentive to have all my paperwork sorted out in time to vote against him.
Which somewhat refutes the idea that immigration suppresses per capita GDP by bumping up the denominator.
Japan's economic problems could also be read as an indictment of the zero interest rate policy that was copied by the West after the financial crisis.
The zero interest rate policy was more a symptom than a cause of the malaise. At root: an export-oriented economic model in a globalising world where other countries to its South (Korea and China, largely) played and beat it at its game, combined with an ageing and shrinking population. And a population allergic to consumption and addicted to saving. And no natural resources for when the Chinese boom started demanding more and more of them.
There’s plenty for us in Europe to be wary of from the Japanese experience. In a few years’ time our populations will be as old, and our couple of years of inflation might come to be seen as a golden era before deflation properly took hold.
Deflation would be a good thing. We should welcome it and see the reduction in the cost of living as a primary mechanism for reducing inequality.
Historically low inflation and deflation have tended to increase inequality. Inflation is a leveller (but only intrinsic inflation, not extrinsic ie commodity price related).
As you say, usually inflation helps those with debt and hits those with assets. Whereas deflation is the reverse, hence it benefits those with assets, who are the older and better off.
What is unusual about the situation, at least before the recent inflation spurt, is the hidden inflation in asset prices, due to QE, for all those years when recorded consumer inflation had almost disappeared. That’s where the inequity and unfairness has come from, and no-one in politics has a clue as to the antidote.
As an LGBT+ person with a non-binary adult offspring, the whole debate just depresses me. Rowling needs to shut up. Hate - whether spoken or physical - for people is one thing when its genuine. But this is *performative* hate. Baiting the other side to stir up a reaction in others to further *their* side.
Please let it stop.
Your overall position on these questions strikes me as being quite misogynistic. Women with contrary views are always being told to “shut up”.
JK Rowling can air whatever views she wants. Nobody here has said otherwise.
I just said that I find them offensive and rude. And that sometimes, the right to speak is also the right not to. That is not telling her to "shut up".
Implying Rochdale is misogynistic is lunacy, he is probably the least misogynistic man I've ever spoken to on this board.
The comment I was replying to literally says, "Rowling needs to shut up."
In the past @RochdalePioneers has also made dismissive comments about women whose husbands went on to transition.
You really do need to get a hold of yourself. She does need to shut up about Trans stuff. Denzel Washington needs to shut up about politics - I have consistently said that the big mistake that celebs make is assuming that their fame means we care what they think on subject x. Do your sport or art or music or whatever it is. Talk about that, because far too many make utter tits of themselves.
What does gender have to do with it? I am criticising an author for sounding off, not a woman for having an opinion.
Do have to applaud you though for displaying performative baiting as an example.
Trickier with authors though, given quite often the subjects of their art is political. Notable that Rowling has become more vocal on this issue in part because she's skirted related topics in her Strike books and then been attacked over people's interpretations those allusions.
She's had protesters outside her home. It's also worth noting that when she first gave tentative, oblique and extremely mild opinions on the topic there were plenty of people demanding she be harmed professionally - not that they've managed to.
Should we expect her to read endless interpretations of her views (she no doubt would say are wrong) without responding? You could argue what we've seen is someone who started out by keeping their thoughts to themselves, only liking the odd tweet or donating to private causes. But intense scrutiny of those has led her to lean into sharing them, as if people are going to talk about what you think and call you things then you might as well say your piece and be damned for saying it rather than let others damn you anyway.
As we have had extensive discussion of matters trans today, it reminds me that @CarlottaVance is still AWOL. This is worrying as they were last seen in China. Anybody got an update?
...and to round off the evening here are the twitter accounts of both India Willoughby and JK Rowling. Please peruse them with the careful studious attention for which PB is justly famed
...and to round off the evening here are the twitter accounts of both India Willoughby and JK Rowling. Please peruse them with the careful studious attention for which PB is justly famed
Fun Fact: The last time “DJT” was on the stock exchange it was “Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts” — and it lost money every single year of its existence before filing for bankruptcy in 2004. https://twitter.com/MaryLTrump/status/1774868281913958804
...and to round off the evening here are the twitter accounts of both India Willoughby and JK Rowling. Please peruse them with the careful studious attention for which PB is justly famed
Why would anyone who isn't already an avid follower of their arguments want to do that ?
I have my own views on the matter, and long since decided that neither had much that's particularly useful to say - and an immense amount that isn't.
Honestly? Reasons are:
I) I provide sources compulsively Ii) we constantly discuss third-party opinions or even provide them, but rarely inspect the sources Iii) ones argument is usually improved by inspection of both sides Iv) as today seems to be Designated Trans Discussion Day (for this week 😃), I thought I'd slip one in before midnight
Good article - I always think that folk writing or voting on legislation should spend a moment to consider “what could my worst enemy do with this law?” If they think all is fine feel free to prance down the aye lobby.
Also, without denigrating the article, there tends to be a lot of hyperbole about such initiatives. Daft and wrong as they maybe (I remember Rowan Atkinson and various others protesting about something in England and Wales back in the day) it doesn’t necessarily add that much to existing powers.
The police have shown on many occasions that they don’t need an excuse to (mis)use their existing powers to investigate things they don’t like. They can show remarkable flexibility with existing law if suitably motivated. I suspect this piece of legislation will just be another bit of law they cite when going after things that probably don’t strike you or I as the number one priority for law enforcement.
Good article - I always think that folk writing or voting on legislation should spend a moment to consider “what could my worst enemy do with this law?” If they think all is fine feel free to prance down the aye lobby.
Also, without denigrating the article, there tends to be a lot of hyperbole about such initiatives. Daft and wrong as they maybe (I remember Rowan Atkinson and various others protesting about something in England and Wales back in the day) it doesn’t necessarily add that much to existing powers.
The police have shown on many occasions that they don’t need an excuse to (mis)use their existing powers to investigate things they don’t like. They can show remarkable flexibility with existing law if suitably motivated. I suspect this piece of legislation will just be another bit of law they cite when going after things that probably don’t strike you or I as the number one priority for law enforcement.
As you have now delurked, doesn't that make you just @Jim ?
Anyway, I will leave you with this. I do not know the date but given the financial shenanigans the Irish establishment has been involved in over decades it doesn't surprise me one bit.
Bertie Ahern is trying to make a comeback now. There's some notion doing the rounds that he fancies a go at being President.
I think my three-year wait for citizenship will be either one month too late, or one month just in time, for the next Irish Presidential election. If he does make a run for it that would provide an extra incentive to have all my paperwork sorted out in time to vote against him.
Reckon that Fungi the Dingle Dolphin dead, has more chance of residing at The Park, than Bertie Ahern alive.
The stink of his financial finagling still lingers. He was NOT helped by fact that he's a freaking accountant!
Ahern not only torpedoed his own political career, but deep-sixed his party. Which has yet to recover, despite making it back into government, in coalition with it's past - and future - hated rival.
BTW (also FYI) yours truly is one of a very few PBers who has actually seen Bertie Ahern in the flesh (thankfully clothed). This was at an election count for his Dublin Central constituency, back when he was Minister of Finance, surrounded by his entourage.
They used to weigh the votes for "Our Bertie" back then in Dublin Central. Day after the count, was hanging out at my humble lodgings at the youth hostel, when suddenly a voice broke though the North Dublin murk blasting from a sound car cruising the constituency:
"Dis is Ber-tee Ah-hern, to dtank you for yer vote and support!"
Might have been a recording . . . but am close to 99.47% sure it was Himself . . .
Good article - I always think that folk writing or voting on legislation should spend a moment to consider “what could my worst enemy do with this law?” If they think all is fine feel free to prance down the aye lobby.
Also, without denigrating the article, there tends to be a lot of hyperbole about such initiatives. Daft and wrong as they maybe (I remember Rowan Atkinson and various others protesting about something in England and Wales back in the day) it doesn’t necessarily add that much to existing powers.
The police have shown on many occasions that they don’t need an excuse to (mis)use their existing powers to investigate things they don’t like. They can show remarkable flexibility with existing law if suitably motivated. I suspect this piece of legislation will just be another bit of law they cite when going after things that probably don’t strike you or I as the number one priority for law enforcement.
As you have now delurked, doesn't that make you just @Jim ?
Fun Fact: The last time “DJT” was on the stock exchange it was “Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts” — and it lost money every single year of its existence before filing for bankruptcy in 2004. https://twitter.com/MaryLTrump/status/1774868281913958804
Fool me once...
Was in Atlantic City (on business NOT pleasure) when Trump was just staring his Casino empire.
Fucked over a LOT of people with that con-job, most especially the people of Atlantic City.
You know, I hate this. I really wish it wasn't happening. But what do you do when Hamas using its governing power to integrate all of its defence structures into the key infrastructure of their people knowing it is a win win for them. If Israel leaves these bases intact that's a win and if they don't, that's a win too. Because, let's face it Hamas doesn't give a flying f*** about its own people.
Do you really think this is still a military operation?
Seems clear to me the goal is a) revenge on all Palestinians (hence no food aid) and b) to expel the Palestinians from Gaza.
Its both. There are 2 intact Hamas battalions in Rafah. Israel wants to destroy them but they are hiding amongst the best part of a million refugees. There are undoubtedly tunnels under these hospitals and the University. The claims that there weren't have been proved false time and again. But there are also lots of highly vulnerable people on top of them and the future of a micro state to think about. There are no easy or simplistic answers to this. There just aren't.
Agree there are no easy answers. But I worry we are going to let a genocide happen because of an awful terrorist attack.
And there are some easy decisions - letting in food aid is an obvious one.
Oh I agree that Israel's hand must be forced on aid. And the UK voted for a ceasefire so it could be delivered. That was right too. But should the war be stopped with Hamas units intact? That's a lot harder.
Its not that hard: no.
The destruction of Hamas must proceed at pace, as should ensuring food reaches those who are hungry.
Stalling and starving everyone is not an alternative to destroying Hamas.
Razing every building that Hamas have built tunnels under and destroying those tunnels is entirely legitimate. If that means razing every government or public building in Gaza then that's Hamas' fault.
Could you explain why razing the buildings is preferred to destroying the ventilation systems and watching everyone spill out, then picking them off? Even if there are significant inaccuracies and resulting civilian casualties, these would surely be orders of magnitude fewer than from razing the buildings.
If it was as easy as you make it sound then they surely would have taken the easy cheap option. There will not be big signs flashing "ventilation system "
As an LGBT+ person with a non-binary adult offspring, the whole debate just depresses me. Rowling needs to shut up. Hate - whether spoken or physical - for people is one thing when its genuine. But this is *performative* hate. Baiting the other side to stir up a reaction in others to further *their* side.
Please let it stop.
Her books are unnecessarily wordy too.
I gave up at book 4. She needed a good editor.
She is often too wordy when limited to 140 characters.
Not as wordy as many of the trans stirring up all the brouha, why don't they just get on with their kives instead of insulting people , especially women and talking absolute rot about biology. Put yourself in the hot seat and you will feel the heat.
Which somewhat refutes the idea that immigration suppresses per capita GDP by bumping up the denominator.
Japan's economic problems could also be read as an indictment of the zero interest rate policy that was copied by the West after the financial crisis.
The zero interest rate policy was more a symptom than a cause of the malaise. At root: an export-oriented economic model in a globalising world where other countries to its South (Korea and China, largely) played and beat it at its game, combined with an ageing and shrinking population. And a population allergic to consumption and addicted to saving. And no natural resources for when the Chinese boom started demanding more and more of them.
There’s plenty for us in Europe to be wary of from the Japanese experience. In a few years’ time our populations will be as old, and our couple of years of inflation might come to be seen as a golden era before deflation properly took hold.
Deflation would be a good thing. We should welcome it and see the reduction in the cost of living as a primary mechanism for reducing inequality.
Historically low inflation and deflation have tended to increase inequality. Inflation is a leveller (but only intrinsic inflation, not extrinsic ie commodity price related).
As you say, usually inflation helps those with debt and hits those with assets. Whereas deflation is the reverse, hence it benefits those with assets, who are the older and better off.
What is unusual about the situation, at least before the recent inflation spurt, is the hidden inflation in asset prices, due to QE, for all those years when recorded consumer inflation had almost disappeared. That’s where the inequity and unfairness has come from, and no-one in politics has a clue as to the antidote.
It’s pretty simple - the problem is property prices. Fortunately we have lots of land and can print as many properties as we feel like.
The next problem is what happens when the hot money realises that property is no longer a one way bet.
As we have had extensive discussion of matters trans today, it reminds me that @CarlottaVance is still AWOL. This is worrying as they were last seen in China. Anybody got an update?
No, I sent her a PM about three weeks ago but got no response.
As we have had extensive discussion of matters trans today, it reminds me that @CarlottaVance is still AWOL. This is worrying as they were last seen in China. Anybody got an update?
No, I sent her a PM about three weeks ago but got no response.
Hmm. Her last post was from China whilst on a China Eastern flight. No crash in that time period is listed on Wiki. So I assume she's still alive, but the China thing is worrying me.
Comments
Why can’t everyone just use that?
Canada also uses YYYY/MM/DD.
It is a far superior date format in every way. The only one that follows the numerical rules about larger values going on the left and smaller values on the right.
I just said that I find them offensive and rude. And that sometimes, the right to speak is also the right not to. That is not telling her to "shut up".
Implying Rochdale is misogynistic is lunacy, he is probably the least misogynistic man I've ever spoken to on this board.
At two feminist conferences I have been to there have been similar threats of and actual violence by male trans activists.
God knows what these activists think they are doing behaving in this way. This sort of violence is exactly why many women do not want to have male to female trans people in their spaces. Understandably.
Whatever they are doing they are not helping one little bit those like @Foxy's friend who genuinely do have dysphoria. Or my friend who has lived with his dysphoria for years and is the gentlest person you could meet. He loathes the activists.
In my view there are two groups: people with dysphoria who need the right sort of help. And others who have jumped on the trans cause to push back on women's rights, their right to have boundaries, to have these respected and to have their bodily and mental dignity respected and safeguarded. I have no issue with the former. Am utterly opposed to the latter. A great pity politicians - and others - cannot see the distinction.
Someone posted a review suggesting that her books needed an editor. Her response was going full postal on the idea that a word of her beloved treasures could be touched…
No paragraphs and long, long sentences.
In short, these people sound like scum. These people sound like scum - but do you honestly think this is what even 1% of 1% actually think? I have never heard this view articulated once within my circles. But I am happy to be ignorant.
In the past @RochdalePioneers has also made dismissive comments about women whose husbands went on to transition.
Oh, and they also drive on the wrong side of the road!
And the law, and safeguarding, needs to be set accordingly.
Safeguarding doesn't exist based on how people behave as we'd want them to behave. Safeguarding exists precisely to deal with things we'd rather not have to think about, or not have happen at all, most of the time. That's precisely why it exists.
What does gender have to do with it? I am criticising an author for sounding off, not a woman for having an opinion.
Do have to applaud you though for displaying performative baiting as an example.
Did I say I disagreed with anything about safeguarding? I just disagreed with the way JK Rowling articulated her case and have done for years. She doesn't help the cause, neither do these ultra-trans nutjobs.
Who said anything about half of trans activists? Half didn't appear in either my post, or the quote I responded to.
Too many men do want to abuse women. Far too many men do. Women need safeguarding and safeguarding needs to be set with the worst of humanity in mind, not its best.
My friend's rights as a trans woman does not give her the right to make other women feel unsafe or uncomfortable - not that she ever would put anyone in that position.
Personal rights work when they are respectful of others. The problem with this debate is that the extremes at both sides are deliberately and explicitly disrespectful.
I agree with everything you said. The extremist nutters are bad for everyone, whatever side they sit on. I think that the majority of trans people and to be honest even activists, agree with what you said too. The nutters are the problem.
This is 2024. We can find a way through this issue to both give rights to trans women which doesn't remove the rights of cis women to feel safe. But we can't do that with absolutism.
See. We all just need to be able to talk with respect and understanding for each other. And the issue can then be resolved to the agreement of the majority and we can move on.
Trans, ARGH!!!
***Runs away***
Until a scant few years ago everyone accepted that some people are different, and got on with life. Now thanks to social media it’s become a “debate”.
And we can’t even blame the Americans. This one’s a peculiarly British / Scottish affliction.
Amazon does sell Abigail Shrier's "Irreversible Damage", which makes a similar argument, but refused to allow the publisher to advertise on the site.
(Full disclosure: I don't like censorship, so I stopped buying books from Amazon.
https://x.com/BidensWins/status/1774543842370265592
I think there are indeed people who genuinely have gender dysmorphia that are best treated by surgery, there are also people who have mental issues, or are sexually confused that are best at first treated with psychiatric help and some will be found to have dysmorphia and some wont and both should be funneled to the best treatment for them.
I do have an issue with the approach to pre adults for affirmation rather than probing. I have certainly heard of cases where someone is actually gay or lesbian but because young are confused and affirmation techniques pushing them towards they are trans rather than what they actually are. How common that is no idea but I am sure it happens.
Teenagers need to be free to work out who they are and not pushed in any direction whether hetero, gay or trans
Stonewall's official position since 2015 has been to remove all single and separate sex spaces, services and associations from the Equality Act. They said as much to a Parliamentary Select Committee. I have made this point several times on here.
This means the removal of existing rights for women.
I can quote you other transactivists who have said girls in schools should be forced to share loos with boys claiming to be girls, even though this is contrary to regulations applying to schools. The ONS has recently issued a policy which says that women objecting to having men in loos or changing rooms could face disciplinary action. The Scottish government's win in the FWS action - now being appealed to the Supreme Court - means that in Scotland lesbian-only associations can only legally have 24 members or less. Above that number they cannot exclude a man with a GRC. That is a loss of a right they had before.
The College of Policing had a draft policy - now withdrawn after it was challenged - saying that in order to attract trans people to the force it would allow trans officers to carry out intimate body searches on the opposite sex. So a man would be allowed to do so even though PACE says such a search must be done by someone of the same sex.
There are any number of court cases being won by women when faced with some really unpleasant action to limit what they can do and say. I note that some of the recent ones have not even been mentioned or discussed on here. But just because you do not know about it does not mean that it is not happening.
I could go on. I won't. But there is a determined campaign by some to reduce, eliminate or limit the ability of women to maintain their dignity, privacy and safety, needed because of their sex. I know a lot of the lawyers working on the legal cases arising.
As I say, none of this activism helps people who genuinely have dysphoria.
As for Rowling's tweet, she is entitled to comment particularly as Willoughby has been very nasty to her and others, from what I have seen. What I will say is this: womanhood is not a costume or make up. It is offensive to and contemptuous of women to pretend that make up, dresses and some cosmetic surgery turns you into a woman. Women are born not made. Womanhood is not a feeling in a man's head. When someone like Willoughby claims to be a biological woman or a better woman than Rowling or any other woman, he is behaving like every mansplaining man throughout the ages who thinks he has the right to boss women around.
"In Sudan’s post-apocalyptic cities, in the desert battlegrounds of Darfur and even in the war-ravaged farmlands of the south, families are beginning to starve.
It has been nearly a year since fighting broke out between the military, headed by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), headed by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, universally referred to Hemedti. The war plunged the nation of 49 million people into chaos, forcing more than 8 million from their homes.
The United Nations’ World Food Program says roots of the hunger problem are twofold: access and funding. Within Sudan, WFP trucks have been blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted and detained. Outside Sudan, makeshift camps are swollen with hungry and sick arrivals — but there’s no money to feed them."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/01/sudan-hunger-war/
The Post deserves credit for this article, as does the lead reporter, photojournalist Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi.
Sweet dreams.
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Hold your head up
Keep your head up (Movin' on)
Hold your head up (Movin' on)
Keep your head up (Movin' on)
Hold your head up (Movin' on)
Keep your head up (Movin' on)
Hold your head up (Movin' on)
Keep your head up
"Shares in SKS rose today on stronger than expected survey data, but analysts warned that the revenue model is still not clear."
But very typical of a part of the Irish establishment.
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/india-change-country-name-bharat-b2410382.html
https://x.com/profchalmers/status/1774897682751877203?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
And, by the way, the schools often (quietly / tacitly) condone this. When new parents come around, pointing out that two members of the Commonwealth gymnastics team are sixth formers at the school is an excellent selling point.
I would be interested to see who the big players are in that market.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/01/suella-braverman-israel-october-7-hamas/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3176254/
The emergence of modern Ireland through the mesmeric figure of Charles J Haughey and his pursuit of power, wealth and glamour.
I think my three-year wait for citizenship will be either one month too late, or one month just in time, for the next Irish Presidential election. If he does make a run for it that would provide an extra incentive to have all my paperwork sorted out in time to vote against him.
What is unusual about the situation, at least before the recent inflation spurt, is the hidden inflation in asset prices, due to QE, for all those years when recorded consumer inflation had almost disappeared. That’s where the inequity and unfairness has come from, and no-one in politics has a clue as to the antidote.
Perfect vehicle for political money laundering.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/01/florida-supreme-court-abortion-ruling-00150006
She's had protesters outside her home. It's also worth noting that when she first gave tentative, oblique and extremely mild opinions on the topic there were plenty of people demanding she be harmed professionally - not that they've managed to.
Should we expect her to read endless interpretations of her views (she no doubt would say are wrong) without responding? You could argue what we've seen is someone who started out by keeping their thoughts to themselves, only liking the odd tweet or donating to private causes. But intense scrutiny of those has led her to lean into sharing them, as if people are going to talk about what you think and call you things then you might as well say your piece and be damned for saying it rather than let others damn you anyway.
The issue is that it is a meme stock. Fundamental analysis is worthless.
It will be worth a lot until, one day, the crowds decide Trump is last year’s news
https://twitter.com/indiawilloughby
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling
I have my own views on the matter, and long since decided that neither had much that's particularly useful to say - and an immense amount that isn't.
https://twitter.com/MaryLTrump/status/1774868281913958804
Fool me once...
I) I provide sources compulsively
Ii) we constantly discuss third-party opinions or even provide them, but rarely inspect the sources
Iii) ones argument is usually improved by inspection of both sides
Iv) as today seems to be Designated Trans Discussion Day (for this week 😃), I thought I'd slip one in before midnight
https://x.com/ChrisHazzardSF/status/1774927466747806191?s=20
Also, without denigrating the article, there tends to be a lot of hyperbole about such initiatives. Daft and wrong as they maybe (I remember Rowan Atkinson and various others protesting about something in England and Wales back in the day) it doesn’t necessarily add that much to existing powers.
The police have shown on many occasions that they don’t need an excuse to (mis)use their existing powers to investigate things they don’t like. They can show remarkable flexibility with existing law if suitably motivated. I suspect this piece of legislation will just be another bit of law they cite when going after things that probably don’t strike you or I as the number one priority for law enforcement.
(ducks)
The stink of his financial finagling still lingers. He was NOT helped by fact that he's a freaking accountant!
Ahern not only torpedoed his own political career, but deep-sixed his party. Which has yet to recover, despite making it back into government, in coalition with it's past - and future - hated rival.
BTW (also FYI) yours truly is one of a very few PBers who has actually seen Bertie Ahern in the flesh (thankfully clothed). This was at an election count for his Dublin Central constituency, back when he was Minister of Finance, surrounded by his entourage.
They used to weigh the votes for "Our Bertie" back then in Dublin Central. Day after the count, was hanging out at my humble lodgings at the youth hostel, when suddenly a voice broke though the North Dublin murk blasting from a sound car cruising the constituency:
"Dis is Ber-tee Ah-hern, to dtank you for yer vote and support!"
Might have been a recording . . . but am close to 99.47% sure it was Himself . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertie_Ahern
My name is Jim . . . Blazing Saddles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm6NygR95MA
BlackBeltBarrister"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJbdxp1T4Qg
Fucked over a LOT of people with that con-job, most especially the people of Atlantic City.
The next problem is what happens when the hot money realises that property is no longer a one way bet.