Any chance of being tipped off beforehand then. I read my post several times to try and work out what I said to offend you. The biggest criticism I could think of was that it was bland, which in fairness I could see might irritate you.
Leon is drunk and being the sad little lonely man he is, has come to get a reaction. Just ignore him and he will go away.
This is why the Right is winning across Europe. Look at this extroardinary report from Sweden. 13 year old migrant children executing men in the street
No one is going to take this kind of shit, forever. In the end people will vote Nazi if needs be. And Swedes really really really are not Nazis
Curious thing I have noted while watching Nordic noir series is how often the criminality at the heart of the plots is associated with immigrant communities. It's really quite a thing. Must reflect a commonly held attitude.
I know quite a few Scandis and whilst they certainly aren;'t Nazis, they aren't particularly liberal either. My sense is that there is a fair amount of chauvinism lurking under the surface.
The culture wars are things like making a massive deal out of "wokeness": changing the England flag on the England kit despite it having been done in 2012 and nobody batting an eyelid. And then having Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer pathetically jumping in to bash it.
That is what I think of when I talk about "culture wars". The public are fed up with it all, they just want the economy and the NHS to improve, the polling is quite clear on this.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
Culture War might win the POTUS elex for Trump, and the "populist right" is on the ascent across Europe
The trend is to the right, all over the West, indeed towards the hard right. I sense we are at a tipping point over migration, for instance, when the natives are about to rebel. Britain is an outlier here, but we will likely catch up
Is it? In some nations like Sweden and Italy and the Netherlands and France to the harder right maybe (albeit Macron and his party remains in power in France) and to the centre right in NZ and Canada (albeit again with Trudeau in power in the latter for now). However Spain and Germany and Australia have the left in power, even if the rightist opposition is gaining ground there and the UK is heading left and it looks like Ireland is too.
It is a more mixed picture and only in Italy and the Netherlands is the hard right leading the government or has it won most seats. The US looks neck and neck between Biden and Trump and the GOP and Dems at the moment
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
What culture war?
Most I've seen is people saying well done to Rowling etc.
After the Cass review, surely anyone who doesn't is the one furthering the culture war?
Accept that Rowling etc were right all along, move on, and no culture war. Surely you'd be happy with that if you don't want a culture war?
The culture war thankfully remains a minor scuffle on the sidelines on this side of the Atlantic. Long may it continue.
We do, though, seem to have a new political alignment across the West, and the hard right is definitely in the ascendant.
It was previously centre left vs centre right, with occasional mini-triumphs of the far left and far right in places like Austria and Greece.
Now it’s largely the populist hard right vs the internationalist liberals. The Brexit divide writ large across the West. With the centre ground on economics having shifted a little to the left in the Anglo Saxon world and a little to the right in the corporatist European world.
I do not get involved in the gender debate usually but the Cass report seems to have emboldened J K Rowling, Julie Bindel, Judy Murray and others and caused real issues for labour with Wes Steeting making a fulsome apology for his previous comments and then coming under attack from some of his colleagues
Furthermore if this report from Guido is true then Sky seem to have real internal problems with this subject
Cass was highly critical about the toxicity of the debate, the vilification and bullying on social media, and so forth. I don't think Rowling, Bindel and Murray are doing anything to defuse that toxicity.
Given that they have been proved right they are bloody well entitled to say "I told you so". It is not them making the debate toxic but those who tried to shut down and abused all those from Tavistock whistleblowers on who raised concerns, concerns it now turns out were well-founded.
Streeting himself was one of those who treated Bindel appallingly - for which he should apologise.
Yes. Why on earth should Rowling or Bindel rein in their anger? People tried to end their careers (and in the case of Bindel they partly succeeded). Why are they now meant to be magnanimous, now they they have been totally vindicated?
These women were brave, they stood up to the bullies (and lots of hideous abuse: rape threats, death threats etc) they are entitled to vent their righteous spleen
Rowling has basically been made a pariah in her own franchise...
Doesn't stop people consuming what she produces for it, or which uses it as a spin off. So not sure to what extent it is true (though I do know one person who says they cannot enjoy it anymore as Rowling is 'problematic'. They also won't rewatch Friends anymore, despite loving it less than 5 years ago).
Isn't she banned by the Studio from attending the conventions?
IIRC they made an anniversary documentary about the Harry Potter phenomenon and they managed not to mention her or picture her
Also, the ONLY reason she managed to avoid being cancelled by young Red Guards sorry Woke editors at her publishers is because she's J K Rowling. They really tried, and they came close. Any less successful author would have been toast
While I admire Rowling, Bindel, and the rest, for me, they have focused on the third most important issue in the trans debacle. I fully agree that men masquerading as women in some cases pose a danger to actual women, and that that is an important issue. But I'm puzzled it's that issue which got the traction, rather than i)why are we allowing people to talk vulnerable children into being mutilated, and ii)why are we comfortable allowing people to say reality is other than it very obviously is? I'd like to blame religion, on the grounds that it's given humanity plenty of practice in saying reality is other than it very obviously is. But perhaps that's going about it the wrong way: perhaps humans have a need to believe in areality, and in the absence of formalised religion, they start believing in anything.
I agree. I've been pondering how this insanity began. I mean: cui bono? Is it really some doctors grifting for money? Can it really just be a handful of crazy activists that took over society?
For me it is a classic madness of crowds. Like the witch craze, or "Satantic pedo cults". Humanity seems prone to manias, and we are periodicaly capable of believing the most ludicrous things
It's nothing like a Marian apparition or mania. Nobody in the bulk of society believes any of this trans shit, any more than anyone in the ruling class believes it.
Ask cui bono indeed.
1. It whips up the gauleiters like nobody's business. They absolutely love it. But it's never the gauleiters who call the shots. See 2.
2. It scares the proletariat into not saying in public what they really think. That's why it's big in schools - because that's where most people get crushed and scared in that way and internalise their conditioning. They don't get scared to the extent that they believe all this shit, in other words that they when they see a bloke in a frock they will really truly believe 2 + 2 = 5 he's a woman. Leave that to the schoolteachers and social workers - see 1 above. They just get into a state in which they're as tired as hell and they're ready - they're ready to be phlegmatic, to lie down and take whatever's coming to them when the ratchet is given its next twist.
Indeed
The way this crazy trans shit has been drilled into children is scary. I have personally witnessed this. It's like we suddenly decided to bring up a whole generation as particularly extreme Mormons, with quite bizarro beliefs
God knows how it will play out, down the line
It's definitely technology - bad ideas can circulate, and become widespread and accepted far faster now. With little control over where they end up.
You see it happen in all corners of the political spectrum where people will believe mad things if it fits their priors and has a superficial attractiveness to them as an idea.
In this case what were some fairly niche applications of certain philosophical theories have spread like wildfire as they provide answers some - particularly in influential circles - desperate to hear. The internet has made us all far more suggestable and worse at critical assessment by bombarding us with lots of low quality information.
Bad ideas have always circulated. (Not to this extent, granted.) What's different recently is that the grown-ups abrogated responsibility for tempering them - so you get schools telling kids that there are 63 genders and that they can identify as cats and so on. This sounds like I am exaggerating. I am honestly not.
Well I’ve just shoved a pointless tenner on Hall in the London race, 29 on BX is the ultimate value loser. Given I’d happily pay a tenner for her to lose, seemed like decent insurance.
Quite like Khan. Not particularly inspiring and he should probably stand down midterm (assuming he wins). But he has a good cv: Ulez and Ulex work well. Night Tube, Crossrail (yes, I know, I know), 5G and Cycle Superhighways.
But a diligent manager rather than a charismatic spearhead in the Ken vein.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
What culture war?
Most I've seen is people saying well done to Rowling etc.
After the Cass review, surely anyone who doesn't is the one furthering the culture war?
Accept that Rowling etc were right all along, move on, and no culture war. Surely you'd be happy with that if you don't want a culture war?
The culture war thankfully remains a minor scuffle on the sidelines on this side of the Atlantic. Long may it continue.
We do, though, seem to have a new political alignment across the West, and the hard right is definitely in the ascendant.
It was previously centre left vs centre right, with occasional mini-triumphs of the far left and far right in places like Austria and Greece.
Now it’s largely the populist hard right vs the internationalist liberals. The Brexit divide writ large across the West. With the centre ground on economics having shifted a little to the left in the Anglo Saxon world and a little to the right in the corporatist European world.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
I do not get involved in the gender debate usually but the Cass report seems to have emboldened J K Rowling, Julie Bindel, Judy Murray and others and caused real issues for labour with Wes Steeting making a fulsome apology for his previous comments and then coming under attack from some of his colleagues
Furthermore if this report from Guido is true then Sky seem to have real internal problems with this subject
Cass was highly critical about the toxicity of the debate, the vilification and bullying on social media, and so forth. I don't think Rowling, Bindel and Murray are doing anything to defuse that toxicity.
Given that they have been proved right they are bloody well entitled to say "I told you so". It is not them making the debate toxic but those who tried to shut down and abused all those from Tavistock whistleblowers on who raised concerns, concerns it now turns out were well-founded.
Streeting himself was one of those who treated Bindel appallingly - for which he should apologise.
Yes. Why on earth should Rowling or Bindel rein in their anger? People tried to end their careers (and in the case of Bindel they partly succeeded). Why are they now meant to be magnanimous, now they they have been totally vindicated?
These women were brave, they stood up to the bullies (and lots of hideous abuse: rape threats, death threats etc) they are entitled to vent their righteous spleen
Rowling has basically been made a pariah in her own franchise...
Doesn't stop people consuming what she produces for it, or which uses it as a spin off. So not sure to what extent it is true (though I do know one person who says they cannot enjoy it anymore as Rowling is 'problematic'. They also won't rewatch Friends anymore, despite loving it less than 5 years ago).
Isn't she banned by the Studio from attending the conventions?
IIRC they made an anniversary documentary about the Harry Potter phenomenon and they managed not to mention her or picture her
Also, the ONLY reason she managed to avoid being cancelled by young Red Guards sorry Woke editors at her publishers is because she's J K Rowling. They really tried, and they came close. Any less successful author would have been toast
While I admire Rowling, Bindel, and the rest, for me, they have focused on the third most important issue in the trans debacle. I fully agree that men masquerading as women in some cases pose a danger to actual women, and that that is an important issue. But I'm puzzled it's that issue which got the traction, rather than i)why are we allowing people to talk vulnerable children into being mutilated, and ii)why are we comfortable allowing people to say reality is other than it very obviously is? I'd like to blame religion, on the grounds that it's given humanity plenty of practice in saying reality is other than it very obviously is. But perhaps that's going about it the wrong way: perhaps humans have a need to believe in areality, and in the absence of formalised religion, they start believing in anything.
I agree. I've been pondering how this insanity began. I mean: cui bono? Is it really some doctors grifting for money? Can it really just be a handful of crazy activists that took over society?
For me it is a classic madness of crowds. Like the witch craze, or "Satantic pedo cults". Humanity seems prone to manias, and we are periodicaly capable of believing the most ludicrous things
It's nothing like a Marian apparition or mania. Nobody in the bulk of society believes any of this trans shit, any more than anyone in the ruling class believes it.
Ask cui bono indeed.
1. It whips up the gauleiters like nobody's business. They absolutely love it. But it's never the gauleiters who call the shots. See 2.
2. It scares the proletariat into not saying in public what they really think. That's why it's big in schools - because that's where most people get crushed and scared in that way and internalise their conditioning. They don't get scared to the extent that they believe all this shit, in other words that they when they see a bloke in a frock they will really truly believe 2 + 2 = 5 he's a woman. Leave that to the schoolteachers and social workers - see 1 above. They just get into a state in which they're as tired as hell and they're ready - they're ready to be phlegmatic, to lie down and take whatever's coming to them when the ratchet is given its next twist.
Indeed
The way this crazy trans shit has been drilled into children is scary. I have personally witnessed this. It's like we suddenly decided to bring up a whole generation as particularly extreme Mormons, with quite bizarro beliefs
God knows how it will play out, down the line
It's definitely technology - bad ideas can circulate, and become widespread and accepted far faster now. With little control over where they end up.
You see it happen in all corners of the political spectrum where people will believe mad things if it fits their priors and has a superficial attractiveness to them as an idea.
In this case what were some fairly niche applications of certain philosophical theories have spread like wildfire as they provide answers some - particularly in influential circles - desperate to hear. The internet has made us all far more suggestable and worse at critical assessment by bombarding us with lots of low quality information.
Bad ideas have always circulated. (Not to this extent, granted.) What's different recently is that the grown-ups abrogated responsibility for tempering them - so you get schools telling kids that there are 63 genders and that they can identify as cats and so on. This sounds like I am exaggerating. I am honestly not.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
Anyway back to more hospital tests tomorrow with appointments next week with my haematology and cardiology consultants , but hopeful to be passed for the next 6 months with my pacemaker, but likely to have to take apixiban for life
However, for all the criticism of the NHS my cardiologist was clear that without my pacemaker I was unlikely to see beyond the summer so his operating skills puts everything else into context
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
Culture War might win the POTUS elex for Trump, and the "populist right" is on the ascent across Europe
The trend is to the right, all over the West, indeed towards the hard right. I sense we are at a tipping point over migration, for instance, when the natives are about to rebel. Britain is an outlier here, but we will likely catch up
Is it? In some nations like Sweden and Italy and the Netherlands and France to the harder right maybe (albeit Macron remains in power there) and to the centre right in NZ and Canada (albeit again with Trudeau in power in the latter). However Spain and Germany and Australia have the left in power, even if the rightist opposition is gaining ground there and the UK is heading left and it looks like Ireland is too.
It is a more mixed picture and only in Italy and the Netherlands is the hard right leading the government or has it won most seats. The US looks neck and neck between Biden and Trump and the GOP and Dems at the moment
Yes, it really is
Trump is the obvious example. He is clearly a populist Right wing demagogue, and surely - at least in rhetoric - the most rightwing US president and GOP candidate since WW2. He has a good chance of winning again in 2024
Look at the other rmajor western nations. France - Le Pen is seriously close to being president. Italy already has Meloni. The AfD are on the march in Germany. Netherlands just gave Wilders a plurality of votes. Eastern Europe is rightwing everywhere, they don't want the migrant experience of western Europe. The Nordic nations trend right
The only reason Britain hasn't followed is because we vented some populist/nationalist spleen with Brexit (and many regret this) and because a particularly mediocre rightwing government has been in power for 14 years, mainly inflicting inept left wing policies on the country (and incredible levels of migration). So in desperation - not adoration - we will all vote for Sir Kir Royale. But we won't be an outlier forever
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Rishi Sunak's comments during the recent Brianna Ghey trial were 100% throwing trans people under the bus. That is what I meant.
What you are saying I don't disagree with at all, a lot of people did get it wrong but that is very different to using trans people to fight a culture war which some/many Tories/other people do do.
As I said, the debate here has been sensible and certainly has changed my mind in certain areas. But I still believe there are people out there who use this issue in a very cynical way.
On JK Rowling, my issue is not with what she thinks (as I have said on many occasions, I think the crux of what she says is write), it is the way she uses social media and the hatred she has amplified, if unintentionally.
Just look at the things some of the people she he has retweeted say about trans people. It is disgusting.
Now to be clear, the abuse JK Rowling receives is also equally disgusting. And the most nutty pro trans people are just as bad as the Tories/others whipping this up.
I sit firmly in the middle on this.
To their credit, a lot of Tories don't do this and a lot have stayed out. But some are using this issue to electoral advantage in a very cynical way. I am sure people on the Labour side do just the same, for what it's worth.
I find this entire debate incredibly ugly - but I find little to disagree with in the Cass report.
Anyway back to more hospital tests tomorrow with appointments next week with my haematology and cardiology consultants , but hopeful to be passed for the next 6 months with my pacemaker, but likely to have to take apixiban for life
However, for all the criticism of the NHS my cardiologist was clear that without my pacemaker I was unlikely to see beyond the summer so his operating skills puts everything else into context
All the very best Big G. I am on Apixiban for life too. It makes me feel tired at times but the alternatives are rather more severe!
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
Anyway back to more hospital tests tomorrow with appointments next week with my haematology and cardiology consultants , but hopeful to be passed for the next 6 months with my pacemaker, but likely to have to take apixiban for life
However, for all the criticism of the NHS my cardiologist was clear that without my pacemaker I was unlikely to see beyond the summer so his operating skills puts everything else into context
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
Culture War might win the POTUS elex for Trump, and the "populist right" is on the ascent across Europe
The trend is to the right, all over the West, indeed towards the hard right. I sense we are at a tipping point over migration, for instance, when the natives are about to rebel. Britain is an outlier here, but we will likely catch up
Is it? In some nations like Sweden and Italy and the Netherlands and France to the harder right maybe (albeit Macron remains in power there) and to the centre right in NZ and Canada (albeit again with Trudeau in power in the latter). However Spain and Germany and Australia have the left in power, even if the rightist opposition is gaining ground there and the UK is heading left and it looks like Ireland is too.
It is a more mixed picture and only in Italy and the Netherlands is the hard right leading the government or has it won most seats. The US looks neck and neck between Biden and Trump and the GOP and Dems at the moment
Yes, it really is
Trump is the obvious example. He is clearly a populist Right wing demagogue, and surely - at least in rhetoric - the most rightwing US president and GOP candidate since WW2. He has a good chance of winning again in 2024
Look at the other rmajor western nations. France - Le Pen is seriously close to being president. Italy already has Meloni. The AfD are on the march in Germany. Netherlands just gave Wilders a plurality of votes. Eastern Europe is rightwing everywhere, they don't want the migrant experience of western Europe. The Nordic nations trend right
The only reason Britain hasn't followed is because we vented some populist/nationalist spleen with Brexit (and many regret this) and because a particularly mediocre rightwing government has been in power for 14 years, mainly inflicting inept left wing policies on the country (and incredible levels of migration). So in desperation - not adoration - we will all vote for Sir Kir Royale. But we won't be an outlier forever
Economically Reagan and Goldwater and arguably Romney were right of Trump, Trump is the most protectionist, pro tariff, isolationist and anti immigration GOP candidate since WW2 yes agreed (while also enabling a cutting back on abortion via the SC reversal of Roe v Wade). At the moment he is about 50:50 v Biden, how his criminal trials go will be key and whether swing pro choice voters desert him for Biden to keep abortion legal.
Le Pen is closer than ever before to being President of France but I suspect the candidate from Macron's party will edge her in the runoff again. The AfD are getting protest votes but only second and toxic as coalition partners to other parties. Wilders did get most votes but again other parties are trying to form a government excluding him.
Poland has shifted from nationalist right back to centre right, Ukraine is liberal, Russia is nationalist of course but does its own thing. The Nordic nations are shifting centre right but the centre left are still in power in Norway and Denmark.
Yes time for change will see Labour in here but I agree there will soon be a protest back to the right here as well once it is the right in opposition and Starmer controlling immigration and responsible for the economy and likely raising tax to fund his state sector client base
Anyway back to more hospital tests tomorrow with appointments next week with my haematology and cardiology consultants , but hopeful to be passed for the next 6 months with my pacemaker, but likely to have to take apixiban for life
However, for all the criticism of the NHS my cardiologist was clear that without my pacemaker I was unlikely to see beyond the summer so his operating skills puts everything else into context
All the very best Big G. I am on Apixiban for life too. It makes me feel tired at times but the alternatives are rather more severe!
Thanks and I expect a maintenance dose for life having experienced a massive 'unprovoked' DVT in my upper left thigh in October
The irony is my haematologist insisted on multiple tests which concluded in my cardiologist phoning immediately after Christmas confirming I needed an urgent and immediate pacemaker
Without the DVT the heart block may not have been found in time !!!
In what it selects to report on, how it headlines it, how it frames it, who it quotes and how it attempts to show "balance" in writing it the BBC News website is the Wokiest of the Woke.
And it genuinely believes its objective and neutral. Lol.
Reminds me of someone who claims to be "the most objective poster on here" but who clearly isn't. Lol.
What the fuck do you know with your 300 comments and utterly unmemorable existence on PB?
@Casino_Royale has a temper, we all know that, but he is also a cogent and valued contributor. You are not
When you next regenerate you will start at one post. Does that make your new identify and less awesome and insightful than @Leon ?
@The_Woodpecker 's 300 posts might be awesome. I have written nearly 25,000 utter bollocks posts. Quantity should not be mistaken for quality.
@The_Woodpecker has been around for years and regularly likes posts so I assume is lurking a lot. A limited number of posts can be more valuable than thousands of drivel, although if we all did it the forum would be a bit limited.
Have you considered "limiting" your already paltry commentary? Might be good for you, mentally, and also for the site, so we don't have to read your tedious midwitted ramblings. Think of it like refusing to orgasm during sex, thus preserving "Qi"
Good grief, what on earth caused that reaction? Are you ok? I haven't been rude to you or criticised you or anything. I just made a pleasant observation. A massive over reaction even for you @Leon . Are you reading something in my post that isn't there?
No, I just missed insulting people during my absence. Don't take it personally. It's just me going into pre-season training
Any chance of being tipped off beforehand then. I read my post several times to try and work out what I said to offend you. The biggest criticism I could think of was that it was bland, which in fairness I could see might irritate you.
Chill. It really was just me limbering up. Doing stretches, jogging on the side of the pitch, etc
I'm actually quite fond of you in a "fond of Radio 4 comedy" kind of way, I hope that is returned
Yes, we're quite fond of you too, in a 'fond of the embarrassing old uncle' kind of way.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens. A friend of mine is a senior leader in a sixth form college, where it happens. Another friend is a governor at a high school where it happens. I'm not saying they have litter trays. But they have to make 'reasonable provision' for them (which is largely allowing them to come in in fancy dress).
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I am almost certainly oversimplifying it but instinctively think these choices should be something made in adulthood, not childhood.
I feel similarly about religion: the idea of a Christian child or a Muslim child seems to me to paradoxical, because no child is born religious.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens.
Could you provide a citation?
There is some literally batty stuff that does happen but this specific example I am sure was proven to be a myth.
In what it selects to report on, how it headlines it, how it frames it, who it quotes and how it attempts to show "balance" in writing it the BBC News website is the Wokiest of the Woke.
And it genuinely believes its objective and neutral. Lol.
Reminds me of someone who claims to be "the most objective poster on here" but who clearly isn't. Lol.
What the fuck do you know with your 300 comments and utterly unmemorable existence on PB?
@Casino_Royale has a temper, we all know that, but he is also a cogent and valued contributor. You are not
When you next regenerate you will start at one post. Does that make your new identify and less awesome and insightful than @Leon ?
@The_Woodpecker 's 300 posts might be awesome. I have written nearly 25,000 utter bollocks posts. Quantity should not be mistaken for quality.
@The_Woodpecker has been around for years and regularly likes posts so I assume is lurking a lot. A limited number of posts can be more valuable than thousands of drivel, although if we all did it the forum would be a bit limited.
Have you considered "limiting" your already paltry commentary? Might be good for you, mentally, and also for the site, so we don't have to read your tedious midwitted ramblings. Think of it like refusing to orgasm during sex, thus preserving "Qi"
Good grief, what on earth caused that reaction? Are you ok? I haven't been rude to you or criticised you or anything. I just made a pleasant observation. A massive over reaction even for you @Leon . Are you reading something in my post that isn't there?
No, I just missed insulting people during my absence. Don't take it personally. It's just me going into pre-season training
Any chance of being tipped off beforehand then. I read my post several times to try and work out what I said to offend you. The biggest criticism I could think of was that it was bland, which in fairness I could see might irritate you.
Chill. It really was just me limbering up. Doing stretches, jogging on the side of the pitch, etc
I'm actually quite fond of you in a "fond of Radio 4 comedy" kind of way, I hope that is returned
Yes, we're quite fond of you too, in a 'fond of the embarrassing old uncle' kind of way.
Don’t upset him, we’ve managed an entire evening without AI spam. Prod the bear and the incessant shit will surely follow.
The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate now he tries to pretend he wasn't.
I have never been aggressively pro the mad trans debate at all. I said the entire debate is toxic (which it is) and that these are human beings who deserve to be treated with kindness.
I said the way JK Rowling and to some others (here and elsewhere), refer to trans people isn't helpful, even if what they say is correct.
I've actually been remarkably consistent on this.
But what do I expect from a person that shouts about AI AND ALIENS and then runs off when it's challenged.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens. A friend of mine is a senior leader in a sixth form college, where it happens. Another friend is a governor at a high school where it happens. I'm not saying they have litter trays. But they have to make 'reasonable provision' for them (which is largely allowing them to come in in fancy dress).
I can't dispute your lived experience other than to say that is batty.
I did get wrong which I said so at the time and happy to repeat again for what it is worth, was self ID. My mind changed.
But that's the thing, I change my mind, I own up to it. Leon is happy to attack others yet never gets held to account for anything they say. They are a massive hypocrite.
I've waded into a discussion I really didn't want to have tonight so will leave it there. Good evening.
Anyway back to more hospital tests tomorrow with appointments next week with my haematology and cardiology consultants , but hopeful to be passed for the next 6 months with my pacemaker, but likely to have to take apixiban for life
However, for all the criticism of the NHS my cardiologist was clear that without my pacemaker I was unlikely to see beyond the summer so his operating skills puts everything else into context
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Rishi Sunak's comments during the recent Brianna Ghey trial were 100% throwing trans people under the bus. That is what I meant.
What you are saying I don't disagree with at all, a lot of people did get it wrong but that is very different to using trans people to fight a culture war which some/many Tories/other people do do.
As I said, the debate here has been sensible and certainly has changed my mind in certain areas. But I still believe there are people out there who use this issue in a very cynical way.
On JK Rowling, my issue is not with what she thinks (as I have said on many occasions, I think the crux of what she says is write), it is the way she uses social media and the hatred she has amplified, if unintentionally.
Just look at the things some of the people she he has retweeted say about trans people. It is disgusting.
Now to be clear, the abuse JK Rowling receives is also equally disgusting. And the most nutty pro trans people are just as bad as the Tories/others whipping this up.
I sit firmly in the middle on this.
To their credit, a lot of Tories don't do this and a lot have stayed out. But some are using this issue to electoral advantage in a very cynical way. I am sure people on the Labour side do just the same, for what it's worth.
I find this entire debate incredibly ugly - but I find little to disagree with in the Cass report.
I think the sensible position adopted by Starmer and Streeting means that this is not really a political or electoral issue at all in England. It may be in Scotland because of the extreme approach still being maintained by the SNP/Green government.
I also think that the conclusion in the Brianna Ghey case was that these were 2 sadistic murderers similar in some ways to Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Like them they picked someone who was vulnerable and defenceless. The fact that her vulnerability came from being transgender did not ultimately form a significant part of the case.
I would agree that everyone in this debate needs to watch their language and be respectful of other peoples' sensitivities. But that is different from calling out those still using medicine to experiment on the weak and defenceless without a proper basis. That is absolutely the right thing to do both sides of the border. It needs to stop.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens.
Could you provide a citation?
There is some literally batty stuff that does happen but this specific example I am sure was proven to be a myth.
I would agree that everyone in this debate needs to watch their language and be respectful of other peoples' sensitivities. But that is different from calling out those still using medicine to experiment on the weak and defenceless without a proper basis. That is absolutely the right thing to do both sides of the border. It needs to stop.
I have not disagreed with anything you've said on this. Just that the debate has is and is toxic around the trans issue. Unfortunately that has in many ways for me covered up the legitimate issues you raise here. Which I agree with.
As I said, Rowling's analysis has been correct in many ways, it is the way she has gone about it that I have found self-defeating. I am very much on her side in the "crux" of what she says.
I don't disagree with anything in the report today, the medicine issue is sick and a real scandal.
Glad to find some level of agreement even if we have come from different points of view (although not sure if we have).
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens. A friend of mine is a senior leader in a sixth form college, where it happens. Another friend is a governor at a high school where it happens. I'm not saying they have litter trays. But they have to make 'reasonable provision' for them (which is largely allowing them to come in in fancy dress).
Could you provide some evidence of a school being required to make reasonable provision for a child identifying as a cat?
In what it selects to report on, how it headlines it, how it frames it, who it quotes and how it attempts to show "balance" in writing it the BBC News website is the Wokiest of the Woke.
And it genuinely believes its objective and neutral. Lol.
Reminds me of someone who claims to be "the most objective poster on here" but who clearly isn't. Lol.
What the fuck do you know with your 300 comments and utterly unmemorable existence on PB?
@Casino_Royale has a temper, we all know that, but he is also a cogent and valued contributor. You are not
When you next regenerate you will start at one post. Does that make your new identify and less awesome and insightful than @Leon ?
@The_Woodpecker 's 300 posts might be awesome. I have written nearly 25,000 utter bollocks posts. Quantity should not be mistaken for quality.
@The_Woodpecker has been around for years and regularly likes posts so I assume is lurking a lot. A limited number of posts can be more valuable than thousands of drivel, although if we all did it the forum would be a bit limited.
Have you considered "limiting" your already paltry commentary? Might be good for you, mentally, and also for the site, so we don't have to read your tedious midwitted ramblings. Think of it like refusing to orgasm during sex, thus preserving "Qi"
Good grief, what on earth caused that reaction? Are you ok? I haven't been rude to you or criticised you or anything. I just made a pleasant observation. A massive over reaction even for you @Leon . Are you reading something in my post that isn't there?
No, I just missed insulting people during my absence. Don't take it personally. It's just me going into pre-season training
Any chance of being tipped off beforehand then. I read my post several times to try and work out what I said to offend you. The biggest criticism I could think of was that it was bland, which in fairness I could see might irritate you.
Chill. It really was just me limbering up. Doing stretches, jogging on the side of the pitch, etc
I'm actually quite fond of you in a "fond of Radio 4 comedy" kind of way, I hope that is returned
Yes, we're quite fond of you too, in a 'fond of the embarrassing old uncle' kind of way.
Don’t upset him, we’ve managed an entire evening without AI spam. Prod the bear and the incessant shit will surely follow.
No, it won't, I will only mention AI if someone else does, and even then I will be restrained if I mention it at all. Mr @rcs1000 has spoken to me after school, and I am not intending to annoy The Beak
I personally think it is the most important AND interesting thing happening in the world right now, but I accept that most people do not. Even my friends have taken to telling me, "Leon, shut the fuck up about AI", so I shall STFU on PB on this topic
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
To be fair I’ve never said much about it here, or on social media. I have always had the fixed position that it is total madness, and didn’t really bother having the argument. Only in the last few months did it really dawn on me how serious it was getting (probably because I have two young boys, one of whom is starting school soon.)
I saw this clip from Hollyoaks on X, and it was like being woken up from a bad dream. I said to my Mum (who thinks that anyone who thinks they’re really the opposite sex should be locked up in s mental institution) that I couldn’t really believe this was happening. That if someone told me it was all a wind up, or had been a bad dream, that would make more sense than the reality
This is an important conversation to have #Hollyoaks
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
I don't think that is a very accurate summary of the Cass report, which is far more interesting and nuanced than the reporting in both Mainstream Press and Social Media are presenting. I think you have your prosecutor's hat on rather than a judge's.
In particular saying "Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct" is a very misleading statement. The absence of good studies of interventions for Gender Incongruity*, covers both hormonal and psychosocial interventions. Absence of evidence is not evidence of harm, nor of bad intent.
People are not interested in nuance though, much more interested in polarising argument than in the mental health of the youngsters involved.
* The preferred term in the Cass report, in alignment with the ICD 11 classification of disorders.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens. A friend of mine is a senior leader in a sixth form college, where it happens. Another friend is a governor at a high school where it happens. I'm not saying they have litter trays. But they have to make 'reasonable provision' for them (which is largely allowing them to come in in fancy dress).
Kids wearing cat ears & telling the teachers they identify as a cat now for the lols is not exactly a crisis though, is it?
I do not get involved in the gender debate usually but the Cass report seems to have emboldened J K Rowling, Julie Bindel, Judy Murray and others and caused real issues for labour with Wes Steeting making a fulsome apology for his previous comments and then coming under attack from some of his colleagues
Furthermore if this report from Guido is true then Sky seem to have real internal problems with this subject
Cass was highly critical about the toxicity of the debate, the vilification and bullying on social media, and so forth. I don't think Rowling, Bindel and Murray are doing anything to defuse that toxicity.
Given that they have been proved right they are bloody well entitled to say "I told you so". It is not them making the debate toxic but those who tried to shut down and abused all those from Tavistock whistleblowers on who raised concerns, concerns it now turns out were well-founded.
Streeting himself was one of those who treated Bindel appallingly - for which he should apologise.
Yes. Why on earth should Rowling or Bindel rein in their anger? People tried to end their careers (and in the case of Bindel they partly succeeded). Why are they now meant to be magnanimous, now they they have been totally vindicated?
These women were brave, they stood up to the bullies (and lots of hideous abuse: rape threats, death threats etc) they are entitled to vent their righteous spleen
Rowling has basically been made a pariah in her own franchise...
Doesn't stop people consuming what she produces for it, or which uses it as a spin off. So not sure to what extent it is true (though I do know one person who says they cannot enjoy it anymore as Rowling is 'problematic'. They also won't rewatch Friends anymore, despite loving it less than 5 years ago).
Isn't she banned by the Studio from attending the conventions?
IIRC they made an anniversary documentary about the Harry Potter phenomenon and they managed not to mention her or picture her
Also, the ONLY reason she managed to avoid being cancelled by young Red Guards sorry Woke editors at her publishers is because she's J K Rowling. They really tried, and they came close. Any less successful author would have been toast
While I admire Rowling, Bindel, and the rest, for me, they have focused on the third most important issue in the trans debacle. I fully agree that men masquerading as women in some cases pose a danger to actual women, and that that is an important issue. But I'm puzzled it's that issue which got the traction, rather than i)why are we allowing people to talk vulnerable children into being mutilated, and ii)why are we comfortable allowing people to say reality is other than it very obviously is? I'd like to blame religion, on the grounds that it's given humanity plenty of practice in saying reality is other than it very obviously is. But perhaps that's going about it the wrong way: perhaps humans have a need to believe in areality, and in the absence of formalised religion, they start believing in anything.
I agree. I've been pondering how this insanity began. I mean: cui bono? Is it really some doctors grifting for money? Can it really just be a handful of crazy activists that took over society?
For me it is a classic madness of crowds. Like the witch craze, or "Satantic pedo cults". Humanity seems prone to manias, and we are periodicaly capable of believing the most ludicrous things
It's nothing like a Marian apparition or mania. Nobody in the bulk of society believes any of this trans shit, any more than anyone in the ruling class believes it.
Ask cui bono indeed.
1. It whips up the gauleiters like nobody's business. They absolutely love it. But it's never the gauleiters who call the shots. See 2.
2. It scares the proletariat into not saying in public what they really think. That's why it's big in schools - because that's where most people get crushed and scared in that way and internalise their conditioning. They don't get scared to the extent that they believe all this shit, in other words that they when they see a bloke in a frock they will really truly believe 2 + 2 = 5 he's a woman. Leave that to the schoolteachers and social workers - see 1 above. They just get into a state in which they're as tired as hell and they're ready - they're ready to be phlegmatic, to lie down and take whatever's coming to them when the ratchet is given its next twist.
Indeed
The way this crazy trans shit has been drilled into children is scary. I have personally witnessed this. It's like we suddenly decided to bring up a whole generation as particularly extreme Mormons, with quite bizarro beliefs
God knows how it will play out, down the line
It's definitely technology - bad ideas can circulate, and become widespread and accepted far faster now. With little control over where they end up.
You see it happen in all corners of the political spectrum where people will believe mad things if it fits their priors and has a superficial attractiveness to them as an idea.
In this case what were some fairly niche applications of certain philosophical theories have spread like wildfire as they provide answers some - particularly in influential circles - desperate to hear. The internet has made us all far more suggestable and worse at critical assessment by bombarding us with lots of low quality information.
Bad ideas have always circulated. (Not to this extent, granted.) What's different recently is that the grown-ups abrogated responsibility for tempering them - so you get schools telling kids that there are 63 genders and that they can identify as cats and so on. This sounds like I am exaggerating. I am honestly not.
They have of course, but generally not with as much speed, and complexity. Or at least not since the last major communications breakthrough in terms of TV and radio that people have not entirely adjusted to. Nor in ways that silos people off from challenges.
If you were someone of a broadly blamelessly liberal bent but not particularly knowledgeable wanting to know about transgender issues back in, say, 2014, and you Googled it. You'd come across a deluge of articles putting forward some pretty radical positions that had previously been contested in humanities departments forward as fact. If you were on Twitter or Facebook you'd see peers and influential people sharing those takes and information when they did so.
As to why that happened. You'd say it was because as theory it's very appealing to a certain kind of American liberal arts graduate in a way that postmodernist takes are. You can create your own identity from scratch. Nothing is out of bounds. Plus it also fits existing priors and framings about minority rights and fighting for the perceived underdog. So it spreads and spreads because it's a strong meme that's popular with people who are disproportionately influential online and in media. Until loads of people just accept it as fact. The right side of history.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
In what it selects to report on, how it headlines it, how it frames it, who it quotes and how it attempts to show "balance" in writing it the BBC News website is the Wokiest of the Woke.
And it genuinely believes its objective and neutral. Lol.
Reminds me of someone who claims to be "the most objective poster on here" but who clearly isn't. Lol.
What the fuck do you know with your 300 comments and utterly unmemorable existence on PB?
@Casino_Royale has a temper, we all know that, but he is also a cogent and valued contributor. You are not
When you next regenerate you will start at one post. Does that make your new identify and less awesome and insightful than @Leon ?
@The_Woodpecker 's 300 posts might be awesome. I have written nearly 25,000 utter bollocks posts. Quantity should not be mistaken for quality.
@The_Woodpecker has been around for years and regularly likes posts so I assume is lurking a lot. A limited number of posts can be more valuable than thousands of drivel, although if we all did it the forum would be a bit limited.
Have you considered "limiting" your already paltry commentary? Might be good for you, mentally, and also for the site, so we don't have to read your tedious midwitted ramblings. Think of it like refusing to orgasm during sex, thus preserving "Qi"
Good grief, what on earth caused that reaction? Are you ok? I haven't been rude to you or criticised you or anything. I just made a pleasant observation. A massive over reaction even for you @Leon . Are you reading something in my post that isn't there?
No, I just missed insulting people during my absence. Don't take it personally. It's just me going into pre-season training
Any chance of being tipped off beforehand then. I read my post several times to try and work out what I said to offend you. The biggest criticism I could think of was that it was bland, which in fairness I could see might irritate you.
Chill. It really was just me limbering up. Doing stretches, jogging on the side of the pitch, etc
I'm actually quite fond of you in a "fond of Radio 4 comedy" kind of way, I hope that is returned
Yes, we're quite fond of you too, in a 'fond of the embarrassing old uncle' kind of way.
Don’t upset him, we’ve managed an entire evening without AI spam. Prod the bear and the incessant shit will surely follow.
No, it won't, I will only mention AI if someone else does, and even then I will be restrained if I mention it at all. Mr @rcs1000 has spoken to me after school, and I am not intending to annoy The Beak
I personally think it is the most important AND interesting thing happening in the world right now, but I accept that most people do not. Even my friends have taken to telling me, "Leon, shut the fuck up about AI", so I shall STFU on PB on this topic
Fair enough. I have done similarly on cashlessness. You might find certain obsessives on here deliberately bring it up then blame *you* for bringing it up, but one of those people will not be me. Consider me a brother-in-arms on this particular matter.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens. A friend of mine is a senior leader in a sixth form college, where it happens. Another friend is a governor at a high school where it happens. I'm not saying they have litter trays. But they have to make 'reasonable provision' for them (which is largely allowing them to come in in fancy dress).
Could you provide some evidence of a school being required to make reasonable provision for a child identifying as a cat?
Well a quick Google on 'Furries in schools gives this article, among others, for one (doesn't appear to be paywalled). https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-should-schools-handle-furries/ As I say, the reasaonable provision I'm aware of doesn't amount to much, aside from displaying the patience of a saint to deal with them. But there are furries at at least two schools I know of - amd I don't know of that many schools. I think kids coming in wearing a tail or cat ears or drawn on whiskers get a blind eye wearily turned.
In what it selects to report on, how it headlines it, how it frames it, who it quotes and how it attempts to show "balance" in writing it the BBC News website is the Wokiest of the Woke.
And it genuinely believes its objective and neutral. Lol.
Reminds me of someone who claims to be "the most objective poster on here" but who clearly isn't. Lol.
What the fuck do you know with your 300 comments and utterly unmemorable existence on PB?
@Casino_Royale has a temper, we all know that, but he is also a cogent and valued contributor. You are not
When you next regenerate you will start at one post. Does that make your new identify and less awesome and insightful than @Leon ?
@The_Woodpecker 's 300 posts might be awesome. I have written nearly 25,000 utter bollocks posts. Quantity should not be mistaken for quality.
@The_Woodpecker has been around for years and regularly likes posts so I assume is lurking a lot. A limited number of posts can be more valuable than thousands of drivel, although if we all did it the forum would be a bit limited.
Have you considered "limiting" your already paltry commentary? Might be good for you, mentally, and also for the site, so we don't have to read your tedious midwitted ramblings. Think of it like refusing to orgasm during sex, thus preserving "Qi"
Good grief, what on earth caused that reaction? Are you ok? I haven't been rude to you or criticised you or anything. I just made a pleasant observation. A massive over reaction even for you @Leon . Are you reading something in my post that isn't there?
No, I just missed insulting people during my absence. Don't take it personally. It's just me going into pre-season training
Any chance of being tipped off beforehand then. I read my post several times to try and work out what I said to offend you. The biggest criticism I could think of was that it was bland, which in fairness I could see might irritate you.
Chill. It really was just me limbering up. Doing stretches, jogging on the side of the pitch, etc
I'm actually quite fond of you in a "fond of Radio 4 comedy" kind of way, I hope that is returned
Yes, we're quite fond of you too, in a 'fond of the embarrassing old uncle' kind of way.
Don’t upset him, we’ve managed an entire evening without AI spam. Prod the bear and the incessant shit will surely follow.
No, it won't, I will only mention AI if someone else does, and even then I will be restrained if I mention it at all. Mr @rcs1000 has spoken to me after school, and I am not intending to annoy The Beak
I personally think it is the most important AND interesting thing happening in the world right now, but I accept that most people do not. Even my friends have taken to telling me, "Leon, shut the fuck up about AI", so I shall STFU on PB on this topic
Fair enough. I have done similarly on cashlessness. You might find certain obsessives on here deliberately bring it up then blame *you* for bringing it up, but one of those people will not be me. Consider me a brother-in-arms on this particular matter.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Rishi Sunak's comments during the recent Brianna Ghey trial were 100% throwing trans people under the bus. That is what I meant.
What you are saying I don't disagree with at all, a lot of people did get it wrong but that is very different to using trans people to fight a culture war which some/many Tories/other people do do.
As I said, the debate here has been sensible and certainly has changed my mind in certain areas. But I still believe there are people out there who use this issue in a very cynical way.
On JK Rowling, my issue is not with what she thinks (as I have said on many occasions, I think the crux of what she says is write), it is the way she uses social media and the hatred she has amplified, if unintentionally.
Just look at the things some of the people she he has retweeted say about trans people. It is disgusting.
Now to be clear, the abuse JK Rowling receives is also equally disgusting. And the most nutty pro trans people are just as bad as the Tories/others whipping this up.
I sit firmly in the middle on this.
To their credit, a lot of Tories don't do this and a lot have stayed out. But some are using this issue to electoral advantage in a very cynical way. I am sure people on the Labour side do just the same, for what it's worth.
I find this entire debate incredibly ugly - but I find little to disagree with in the Cass report.
I think the sensible position adopted by Starmer and Streeting means that this is not really a political or electoral issue at all in England. It may be in Scotland because of the extreme approach still being maintained by the SNP/Green government.
I also think that the conclusion in the Brianna Ghey case was that these were 2 sadistic murderers similar in some ways to Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Like them they picked someone who was vulnerable and defenceless. The fact that her vulnerability came from being transgender did not ultimately form a significant part of the case.
I would agree that everyone in this debate needs to watch their language and be respectful of other peoples' sensitivities. But that is different from calling out those still using medicine to experiment on the weak and defenceless without a proper basis. That is absolutely the right thing to do both sides of the border. It needs to stop.
Sunak just showed his almost alien lack of basic judgment there. Don't make a jibe or try and do a gotcha that relates to a prominent characteristic of a dead teenager in front of their grieving parents.
Doubt he even meant to 'throw trans people under a bus' just so tin eared.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The trans/gender thing does seem to have permeated corporate culture, in quite surprising ways.
For instance: earlier today I was travelling on an LNER train to Edinburgh. There was a poster in the carriage that announced how proud LNER was that this was a "proud" train, and the poster displayed the colours of the lesbian flag. (Interesting: I for one didn't know there was a lesbian flag) However, the final sentence struck me as extraordinary. It explained, in a regretful tone, that the lesbian flag was associated with a "femme" form of lesbianism, and LNER acknowledged those identifying with the masculine form of lesbianism may feel a bit excluded (or words to that effect).
I mean, really. I think I would rather have seen something extolling the delights of Skegness.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens. A friend of mine is a senior leader in a sixth form college, where it happens. Another friend is a governor at a high school where it happens. I'm not saying they have litter trays. But they have to make 'reasonable provision' for them (which is largely allowing them to come in in fancy dress).
Kids wearing cat ears & telling the teachers they identify as a cat now for the lols is not exactly a crisis though, is it?
It is if we are talking about a six form college and not 7 year olds!!!
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
J K Rowling herself isn't exactly a righty. You can tell that from her portrayal of the Dursleys. Indeed, I think she is a friend of Gordon Brown. Although given Scottish Labour's less than heroic approach to these issues I suspect she may have cooled a bit on them a bit.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
As far as I am aware, the cats thing was a myth and never happened.
It happens. A friend of mine is a senior leader in a sixth form college, where it happens. Another friend is a governor at a high school where it happens. I'm not saying they have litter trays. But they have to make 'reasonable provision' for them (which is largely allowing them to come in in fancy dress).
Kids wearing cat ears & telling the teachers they identify as a cat now for the lols is not exactly a crisis though, is it?
No, but to go back to the original point, it's a sign that the grown-ups are now scared to tell the kids to stop being so bloody stupid. You are right however that it is a far more minor issue, both in extent and importance.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Well yes, but it occurred to me that it is lefties who get it most in the neck from the trans lobby. The sight of a lefty saying that a man has a penis seems to infuriate them to far greater feats of fury than, say, Boris Johnson saying the same thing.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
J K Rowling herself isn't exactly a righty. You can tell that from her portrayal of the Dursleys. Indeed, I think she is a friend of Gordon Brown. Although given Scottish Labour's less than heroic approach to these issues I suspect she may have cooled a bit on them a bit.
She is a long-term card-carrying member of the Labour Party, which again rather makes my point.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
J K Rowling herself isn't exactly a righty. You can tell that from her portrayal of the Dursleys. Indeed, I think she is a friend of Gordon Brown. Although given Scottish Labour's less than heroic approach to these issues I suspect she may have cooled a bit on them a bit.
I liked HP1, but I did find JKR's politics shone through a bit much: suburban private sector BAD landed gentry BAD public sector types GOOD. How innocuous, in retrospect, those politics all seem now. But I read no further than that at the time.
Daughters #1 and #3 however, got hugely into HP, and through ozmosis I am getting to grips with HPs 2-7. I'll happily concede that it does all get much more nuanced about who is good and who is bad. The Durselys retain their comedy awfulness but even there some sympathy is brought in and they are in any case not actually baddies narrative-wise, just awful people. The whole canon is a marvel of plotting and nuance. Which are much, much more difficult things to do than simply stringing some sentences satisfyingly together. JKR is a genius.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
It's uncannily like Brexit and "euroscepticism" on the Right. Mostly the Left did not engage in this endless and neurotic debate, or lefties felt it was peripheral and less important. Or they simply didn't - and don't - understand it, from the terminology to the ferocity. The nuances were and are beyond them. It was the Tory party which rent itself asunder over Brexit (and indeed may now die as a result of it)
"Unlike some high profile candidates I was able to fill in the nomination forms. It is this kind of attention to detail that I will bring to City Hall."
Masterclass.
Count Binface @CountBinface · 5h Here it is: my one-minute pitch to be Mayor of London, as broadcast on BBC One. Yes, this is real. #VoteBinface
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
It's uncannily like Brexit and "euroscepticism" on the Right. Mostly the Left did not engage in this endless and neurotic debate, or lefties felt it was peripheral and less important. Or they simply didn't - and don't - understand it, from the terminology to the ferocity. The nuances were and are beyond them. It was the Tory party which rent itself asunder over Brexit (and indeed may now die as a result of it)
A weird parallel
Interesting analogy. The right tears itself apart over whether free trade within a bloc is better than free trade without it; whether and to what extent sovereignty trumps economy or vice versa, whether democracy can function successfully in a polyglot polity - the left tears itself apart over whether a woman can have a penis.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
It's uncannily like Brexit and "euroscepticism" on the Right. Mostly the Left did not engage in this endless and neurotic debate, or lefties felt it was peripheral and less important. Or they simply didn't - and don't - understand it, from the terminology to the ferocity. The nuances were and are beyond them. It was the Tory party which rent itself asunder over Brexit (and indeed may now die as a result of it)
A weird parallel
Interesting analogy. The right tears itself apart over whether free trade within a bloc is better than free trade without it; whether and to what extent sovereignty trumps economy or vice versa, whether democracy can function successfully in a polyglot polity - the left tears itself apart over whether a woman can have a penis.
It's because both arguments collide with perceived common sense - on either side
For the Left, "working together with Europe" and overcoming nationalism is simply "common sense". How can you not agree with this good thing? After two world wars? Stop moaning about democracy and sovereignty, it's weird and trivial in this context
For the Right, "men have penises and women don't" is simply and obviously "common sense" and anyone that argues with this is a lunatic, and any debate about it is bizarre, and utterly incomprehensible. As indeed the trans argument is to me, largely
For MJW and others: A little evidence on when ideas about "trans" issues began spilling out from academia: Gregory Benford's "Across the Sea of Suns" begins with a "Nigel" (sorry, Nigelb) in a stable relationship with two women. At some point in their journey though the galaxy, one of the women has a sex-change operation. But the three continue in a stable relationship.
For the record: I don't like his books as well as those by the other two "Bs", Greg Bear and David Brin. Mostly because he is so relentlessly negative, unlike Bear and Brin.)
For MJW and others: A little evidence on when ideas about "trans" issues began spilling out from academia: Gregory Benford's "Across the Sea of Suns" begins with a "Nigel" (sorry, Nigelb) in a stable relationship with two women. At some point in their journey though the galaxy, one of the women has a sex-change operation. But the three continue in a stable relationship.
For the record: I don't like his books as well as those by the other two "Bs", Greg Bear and David Brin. Mostly because he is so relentlessly negative, unlike Bear and Brin.)
I think the Rocky Horror Show predates that by about a decade.
For MJW and others: A little evidence on when ideas about "trans" issues began spilling out from academia: Gregory Benford's "Across the Sea of Suns" begins with a "Nigel" (sorry, Nigelb) in a stable relationship with two women. At some point in their journey though the galaxy, one of the women has a sex-change operation. But the three continue in a stable relationship.
For the record: I don't like his books as well as those by the other two "Bs", Greg Bear and David Brin. Mostly because he is so relentlessly negative, unlike Bear and Brin.)
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
I suspect the idea of maintaining a nuclear deterrent is viewed more positively after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine . It’s still quite a shock to see Starmer writing for the Daily Mail .
I suspect the idea of maintaining a nuclear deterrent is viewed more positively after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine . It’s still quite a shock to see Starmer writing for the Daily Mail .
Seems to be defence day on Lab grid:
Allie Hodgkins-Brown @AllieHBNews · 3h Friday’s i - “Starmer: Labour will hike UK defence spending amid threat from China and Russia” #TomorrowsPapersToday
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
No, I don't. My good friend Julia (once Julian) had to go through a painstaking process of living as a woman for two years, with lots of procedures, then he/she had the operation (I went to see her in Charing X hospital as she recovered), now she has lived relatively happily as a transitioned woman for three decades. We are still friends. She does not have a penis, she is not meaningfully a man any more, she is no threat, she is sweet and quite bitchy
She thinks everyone should have to do what she did, to become "a woman", and I agree. If anyone persecuted her for being a trans woman I would angrily and violently defend her. But no one should be allowed to simply say "I am a woman" while having literally no surgery at all and owning a penis. Self ID is insane. This is obvious
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
It's almost like somebody wrote an article about classification
No, I don't. My good friend Julia (once Julian) had to go through a painstaking process of living as a woman for two years, with lots of procedures, then he/she had the operation (I went to see her in Charing X hospital as she recovered), now she has lived relatively happily as a transitioned woman for three decades. We are still friends. She does not have a penis, she is not meaningfully a man any more, she is no threat, she is sweet and quite bitchy
She thinks everyone should have to do what she did, to become "a woman", and I agree. If anyone persecuted her for being a trans woman I would angrily and violently defend her. But no one should be allowed to simply say "I am a woman" while having literally no surgery at all and owning a penis. Self ID is insane. This is obvious
Now you've calmed down I will engage with you on this.
Some people would say that your friend is still a man because you cannot change your sex and so you will never truly be a woman. JK Rowling believes this - what people then say is that JK Rowling is being transphobic. I don't agree with that because JK Rowling is not saying trans people don't exist, rather that they don't "become women". They are trans women, not women. But they are fundamentally still men.
So there are certainly complexities - and you've alluded to some already. It's a complex issue. Sadly the issue is that we can't have reasonable discussions like this because nutjobs on both sides weaponise this for their own ends (e.g. Ava Santina above who is on the nutty pro trans wing).
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
See I stand in the middle ground.
Someone who 'transitions' is not a real man/woman, only those who actually are, are real ones.
But if someone wants to be called by a different name/pronoun, then that harms nobody and should be respected.
If someone tells me they want to be called by their middle name instead of their first name, I respect that. If someone tells me they want to be called a new name, I respect that. So if someone tells me they have a new name of the opposite gender, or new pronouns etc, why should I not respect that.
When it comes to breaching safeguarding, then we have a problem.
Someone who 'transitions' is not a real man/woman, only those who actually are, are real ones.
But if someone wants to be called by a different name/pronoun, then that harms nobody and should be respected.
If someone tells me they want to be called by their middle name instead of their first name, I respect that. If someone tells me they want to be called a new name, I respect that. So if someone tells me they have a new name of the opposite gender, or new pronouns etc, why should I not respect that.
When it comes to breaching safeguarding, then we have a problem.
I'm sort of with you on this. But my question would be, if a person born as the male sex at birth (a man) transitions, they're still the male sex but what if they don't feel like a woman either? There are supposedly many genders, or performs you don't conform at all. Are they then just a trans person?
I think as far as I can see, your sex can't be changed. Male sex = penis, female sex = vagina. Intersex exists but is incredibly small so in effect it's male/female. Anyone arguing against that is arguing against science.
But gender seems more complicated and is something I guess we've only really started to think about more recently. I suppose there has always really been more or less male or female. Like that there are really masculine men or less masculine men. We've started to classify these things but I think people/I find it harder to get heads around the other genders than male or female thing, I think that's the thing I haven't quite got to grips with.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
See I stand in the middle ground.
Someone who 'transitions' is not a real man/woman, only those who actually are, are real ones.
But if someone wants to be called by a different name/pronoun, then that harms nobody and should be respected.
If someone tells me they want to be called by their middle name instead of their first name, I respect that. If someone tells me they want to be called a new name, I respect that. So if someone tells me they have a new name of the opposite gender, or new pronouns etc, why should I not respect that.
What if they wanted you to treat like them a dog? Or kept barking until you called them Fido?
The point being that insane people don't have the right to expect sane people to treat their insanity as sane. They do have the right to be safe and, if they seek help, to be helped at public expense.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
No, I don't. My good friend Julia (once Julian) had to go through a painstaking process of living as a woman for two years, with lots of procedures, then he/she had the operation (I went to see her in Charing X hospital as she recovered), now she has lived relatively happily as a transitioned woman for three decades. We are still friends. She does not have a penis, she is not meaningfully a man any more, she is no threat, she is sweet and quite bitchy
She thinks everyone should have to do what she did, to become "a woman", and I agree. If anyone persecuted her for being a trans woman I would angrily and violently defend her. But no one should be allowed to simply say "I am a woman" while having literally no surgery at all and owning a penis. Self ID is insane. This is obvious
But are we still talking about self-ID now? For most people the trans debate is about whether a man *can* become a woman full stop, with many saying they cannot under any circumstances. Your stance is that they can under a defined process (live as woman for two years then have penis cut off). I don't have a problem with your stance as it meets my criteria: that there be a recognised process and there be a point at which transition is achieved (you may recall my "Viewcode's Three Questions" in my backstage years). But others would not and insist that your friend should use male toilets, be referred to as "he", etc etc.
Like I keep saying, everything boils down to that.
He is asked about using pronouns and immediately jumps into rapists and how that would mean he shouldn't call Eddie Izzard by their pronouns. Clearly the rapist is an awful human being but what's that got to do with Eddie Izzard or most trans people? This is where the debate for me gets quite ugly and I start to feel like he's losing me.
Feel free to interpret his words in a different way but that's what I heard and there he lost me. Up until then I did not disagree with much of what he was saying. But if somebody wants to be called X or Y then what is the problem?
What if they wanted you to treat like them a dog? Or kept barking until you called them Fido?
The point being that insane people don't have the right to expect sane people to treat their insanity as sane. They do have the right to be safe and, if they seek help, to be helped at public expense.
I don't know, where do we draw the line? I am honest, I really don't know.
But do you think people that really feel they are women are "insane"/mentally ill? Do you really think that is the case?
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
See I stand in the middle ground.
Someone who 'transitions' is not a real man/woman, only those who actually are, are real ones.
But if someone wants to be called by a different name/pronoun, then that harms nobody and should be respected.
If someone tells me they want to be called by their middle name instead of their first name, I respect that. If someone tells me they want to be called a new name, I respect that. So if someone tells me they have a new name of the opposite gender, or new pronouns etc, why should I not respect that.
What if they wanted you to treat like them a dog? Or kept barking until you called them Fido?
The point being that insane people don't have the right to expect sane people to treat their insanity as sane. They do have the right to be safe and, if they seek help, to be helped at public expense.
If someone wants to be called Fido, I'll call them Fido. Who does that hurt?
If they wanted me to take them on walks and then bag up their shit for them, then I'm not going to play along with that.
Does anyone else get hurt is the simple test for most things. If not, let people do whatever they want, if yes (or maybe re:safeguarding) then stop and have a good think.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
No, I don't. My good friend Julia (once Julian) had to go through a painstaking process of living as a woman for two years, with lots of procedures, then he/she had the operation (I went to see her in Charing X hospital as she recovered), now she has lived relatively happily as a transitioned woman for three decades. We are still friends. She does not have a penis, she is not meaningfully a man any more, she is no threat, she is sweet and quite bitchy
She thinks everyone should have to do what she did, to become "a woman", and I agree. If anyone persecuted her for being a trans woman I would angrily and violently defend her. But no one should be allowed to simply say "I am a woman" while having literally no surgery at all and owning a penis. Self ID is insane. This is obvious
But are we still talking about self-ID now? For most people the trans debate is about whether a man *can* become a woman full stop, with many saying they cannot under any circumstances. Your stance is that they can under a defined process (live as woman for two years then have penis cut off). I don't have a problem with your stance as it meets my criteria: that there be a recognised process and there be a point at which transition is achieved (you may recall my "Viewcode's Three Questions" in my backstage years). But others would not and insist that your friend should use male toilets, be referred to as "he", etc etc.
Like I keep saying, everything boils down to that.
I don't know anyone that would insist my post-op trans female friend, who literally has no penis any more, should use a male toilet, or a male changing room. She is to all intents and purposes a woman now, She cannot rape any one. She has had serious hormonal work, and drastic surgery, but to get that - on the NHS, for free - she had to show commitment to the life and a serious determination. And given that we all paid for her to do this, that is fair
We had a system that worked, and was accepted by most people as both humane and reasonable. Then along came a bunch of nutters who declared "if I say I am a woman, despite being physically a man with a dick, I am a woman", and suddenly anyone that objected to this nonsense was a bigot or a transphobe??
I don't know anyone that would insist my post-op trans female friend, who literally has no penis any more, should use a male toilet, or a male changing room. She is to all intents and purposes a woman now, She cannot rape any one. She has had serious hormonal work, and drastic surgery, but to get that - on the NHS, for free - she had to show commitment to the life and a serious determination. And given that we all paid for her to do this, that is fair
We had a system that worked, and was accepted by most people as both humane and reasonable. Then along came a bunch of nutters who declared "if I say I am a woman, despite being physically a man with a dick, I am a woman", and suddenly anyone that objected to this nonsense was a bigot or a transphobe??
The whole debate is insane
I totally agree with you 100% but believe me, there are many people who would say they should not be able to use a female loo or compete in female sports. I don't want to put words in his mouth but Bart would not consider your friend a woman.
If someone wants to be called Fido, I'll call them Fido. Who does that hurt?
If they wanted me to take them on walks and then bag up their shit for them, then I'm not going to play along with that.
Does anyone else get hurt is the simple test for most things. If not, let people do whatever they want, if yes (or maybe re:safeguarding) then stop and have a good think.
So the limit is that they can't identify as another animal, or what if they think they are a dog but they just ask you to call them a dog? Do we then refer them for mental health support?
I guess my point, is what is this the line. I am not sure we know, or can come to consensus on it.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
See I stand in the middle ground.
Someone who 'transitions' is not a real man/woman, only those who actually are, are real ones.
But if someone wants to be called by a different name/pronoun, then that harms nobody and should be respected.
If someone tells me they want to be called by their middle name instead of their first name, I respect that. If someone tells me they want to be called a new name, I respect that. So if someone tells me they have a new name of the opposite gender, or new pronouns etc, why should I not respect that.
When it comes to breaching safeguarding, then we have a problem.
A person either is or is not a woman. Using the pronoun "she" to refer to a man has obvious problems.
I keep coming back to this: the importance of, and difficulty of, classification. Currently there are only two options - male and female - and that's not going to change any time soon. So there's a distinct cutoff. But we keep blurring the edges. Arguably this entire situation was caused by the blurring of the edges between man and woman and between child and adult.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
J K Rowling herself isn't exactly a righty. You can tell that from her portrayal of the Dursleys. Indeed, I think she is a friend of Gordon Brown. Although given Scottish Labour's less than heroic approach to these issues I suspect she may have cooled a bit on them a bit.
I liked HP1, but I did find JKR's politics shone through a bit much: suburban private sector BAD landed gentry BAD public sector types GOOD. How innocuous, in retrospect, those politics all seem now. But I read no further than that at the time.
Daughters #1 and #3 however, got hugely into HP, and through ozmosis I am getting to grips with HPs 2-7. I'll happily concede that it does all get much more nuanced about who is good and who is bad. The Durselys retain their comedy awfulness but even there some sympathy is brought in and they are in any case not actually baddies narrative-wise, just awful people. The whole canon is a marvel of plotting and nuance. Which are much, much more difficult things to do than simply stringing some sentences satisfyingly together. JKR is a genius.
Public sector: The Ministry of Magic is portrayed as a useless bunch of charlatans, subverted by the far-right to impose martial law (Umbridge is also an government authoritarian figure in this vein) Private sector: The whole thing is set in a private school that fights interference from the state (the Weasleys are on a bursary). Harry's story is only possible because of massive inherited wealth The prison system is Rory Stewart's worst nightmare
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The essential point however is whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. If you believe that your friend has factually transitioned into a woman, then all else flows from that: the legal protection, the free speech inhibition, the toilet issue and so on. If you believe that your friend has *not* factually transitioned into a woman, then you should refer to them as "he", prevent their use of female pronouns and woman's toilets, and so on.
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
No, I don't. My good friend Julia (once Julian) had to go through a painstaking process of living as a woman for two years, with lots of procedures, then he/she had the operation (I went to see her in Charing X hospital as she recovered), now she has lived relatively happily as a transitioned woman for three decades. We are still friends. She does not have a penis, she is not meaningfully a man any more, she is no threat, she is sweet and quite bitchy
She thinks everyone should have to do what she did, to become "a woman", and I agree. If anyone persecuted her for being a trans woman I would angrily and violently defend her. But no one should be allowed to simply say "I am a woman" while having literally no surgery at all and owning a penis. Self ID is insane. This is obvious
But are we still talking about self-ID now? For most people the trans debate is about whether a man *can* become a woman full stop, with many saying they cannot under any circumstances. Your stance is that they can under a defined process (live as woman for two years then have penis cut off). I don't have a problem with your stance as it meets my criteria: that there be a recognised process and there be a point at which transition is achieved (you may recall my "Viewcode's Three Questions" in my backstage years). But others would not and insist that your friend should use male toilets, be referred to as "he", etc etc.
Like I keep saying, everything boils down to that.
I don't know anyone that would insist my post-op trans female friend, who literally has no penis any more, should use a male toilet, or a male changing room. She is to all intents and purposes a woman now, She cannot rape any one. She has had serious hormonal work, and drastic surgery, but to get that - on the NHS, for free - she had to show commitment to the life and a serious determination. And given that we all paid for her to do this, that is fair
We had a system that worked, and was accepted by most people as both humane and reasonable. Then along came a bunch of nutters who declared "if I say I am a woman, despite being physically a man with a dick, I am a woman", and suddenly anyone that objected to this nonsense was a bigot or a transphobe??
The whole debate is insane
I agree with you. Many do not. It would not be difficult to go back thru the PB comments of the past week or so to identify those who would not. But who would that convince?
I mentioned an article a few days ago about using the history of gambling legislation to illustrate how Britain deals with difficult social issues, which includes trans but also drugs and homosexuality. As having experience in at least two of these, I'll ask you to read the first pass and comment backstage.
I do not get involved in the gender debate usually but the Cass report seems to have emboldened J K Rowling, Julie Bindel, Judy Murray and others and caused real issues for labour with Wes Steeting making a fulsome apology for his previous comments and then coming under attack from some of his colleagues
Furthermore if this report from Guido is true then Sky seem to have real internal problems with this subject
Cass was highly critical about the toxicity of the debate, the vilification and bullying on social media, and so forth. I don't think Rowling, Bindel and Murray are doing anything to defuse that toxicity.
...Tavistock whistleblowers on who raised concerns, concerns it now turns out were well-founded....
This raises an interesting question. Much of the discussion about the Tavistock revolves around the number of children (and young adults?) who were *referred* to it. But little has been discussed about the number that were *treated* whilst children (if any?). I'm not even sure if that number is available: see my and Selebian's disquiet about the paucity of data. We should have RollsRoyce data but given the prediction of trans people to demand deletion of their data, and the resistance of the clinics to supply it, we are groping in the dark. It is ironic that Americans can reduce the number of CYAs who were treating by backtracking the insurance claims and scrips, but the Brits who have a NHS can only go "um".
As you know, I am a professional investigator. So partly because of that and partly because I am genuinely interested (and partly, I suppose, because I'm a sad nerdy sort of lawyer) I read all the reports on the now innumerable scandals this country throws up and I listen to the evidence and then I try and write illuminating articles about this here and on my website and elsewhere.
So to have the Post Office Inquiry restart and the Cass Review (which I will get round to reading in full) in the same week is a glut of riches (really a glut of shame and embarrassment and fury) but also a lot of work.
Plus I Oh Godam doing an investigation in a large Asian country and oh dear the evidence is pointing to a lot of naughtiness so that's taking a bit of time too.
Still, this all takes my mind off the fact that it has now rained solidly for what must be longer than 40 days and 40 nights, it is still bloody raining and the garden has had quite enough - as have I - and that, shortly, I shall probably be afloat in the Irish Sea wondering where everyone is.
Oh and the sun. I remember seeing it once.
Sun came out for about an hour today, and I remembered what English springs used to be like
Nor are we imagining it, Britain has just experienced the wettest 18 months since records began, in 1836. It is quite remarkable, and awful for farmers
Which is why people who bemoan that we should be self-sufficient in food are utterly ridiculous.
Not only are we then subject to the seasonal problems that many months a year are not good for fresh harvest, or that we can't even grow certain food in this country, but then we are greater subject to the variances of nature.
Farmers in this country may be suffering due to the weather, but at least for our food supply we import a lot of our food which is less affected.
Diversity is important for minimising risk. Putting all your eggs in one basket, even your own basket, is rarely a good idea.
We have excellent weather for growing and rearing a huge variety food in the UK - there are few better climates for it. We need well-drained fields, well-maintained rivers, and up to date water infrastructure that (shock horror) manages to store water when it rains for use when it doesn't, rather than the current farce of veering from flood to drought and wondering what to do about it. Countries with actually problematical weather must think we're a bunch of utterly useless tosspots.
No. They all have their own problems with water: either too much, too little, or both. The idea that the UK is some utterly fuckwittedly country to a unique level just does not pass muster.
Take river pollution: Paris is about to hold the Olympics, and this involved the triathlon swimming in the river. Except loads of swimmers got ill during the warm-up event last year; and there are significant doubts about the actual event this summer, despite over a billion having been spent cleaning up the water.
Whichever scandal you look at - even the Post Office - you will find similar scandals, if not identical, in other 'civilised' countries. Take Wirecard of DB in the German finance sector; or political scandals... well, everywhere.
That does not mean we shouldn't be better. But the idea we are somehow unique in these problems is idiotic.
Good examples, but note that these countries are all under the EU's waterways directive and other directives which effectively ban new water infrastructure in favour of usage restrictions, as well as de facto banning the dredging of river beds. Water crises of various types are a inevitable under such a system and could be described as a feature not a bug. It's taking something we are blessed to have in abundance, and confecting a crisis out of it by legislation. It is loony, and even loonier that we've stuck with it after leaving.
It's f-all to do with the EU.
Seriously. It's also little to do with dredging. It's to do with a complex multi-factorial combination of factors, including things like expanding populations, improved water quality regulations, increased cost of improvements, climate change / changing weather patterns, bureaucratic indifference/inertia, water usage requirements, changing land usage patterns (including development), environmental regulations, etc, etc.
You contradict yourself in the one paragraph. You cite environmental regulations and it's precisely those regulations that I am holding responsible. I appreciate that you feel very firmly that you're right and I'm on a hobby horse, but I've read the legislation, and I have seen it in effect, as have other PBers. Ask Malmesbury how easy or otherwise it is even to fill a gravel pit with water to turn it into a useful mere in the UK these days. Ask anyone how many hoops you have to jump through just to dredge a river.
The point is that yes, environmental legislation may be *part* of the issue; one of the factors. And EU membership might have had a part to play in that legislation.
But you miss what I said: the regulations are just a part of what is a complex issue. Pretending that removal of legislation will lead to a quick fix to all these problems is stupid - and may even make things worse. It also ignores that some of that legislation might have had good intent, or even good effect, and the consequences of their removal.
So, no contradiction. I'm saying it's a massively more complex issue than you pretend.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Rishi Sunak's comments during the recent Brianna Ghey trial were 100% throwing trans people under the bus. That is what I meant.
What you are saying I don't disagree with at all, a lot of people did get it wrong but that is very different to using trans people to fight a culture war which some/many Tories/other people do do.
As I said, the debate here has been sensible and certainly has changed my mind in certain areas. But I still believe there are people out there who use this issue in a very cynical way.
On JK Rowling, my issue is not with what she thinks (as I have said on many occasions, I think the crux of what she says is write), it is the way she uses social media and the hatred she has amplified, if unintentionally.
Just look at the things some of the people she he has retweeted say about trans people. It is disgusting.
Now to be clear, the abuse JK Rowling receives is also equally disgusting. And the most nutty pro trans people are just as bad as the Tories/others whipping this up.
I sit firmly in the middle on this.
To their credit, a lot of Tories don't do this and a lot have stayed out. But some are using this issue to electoral advantage in a very cynical way. I am sure people on the Labour side do just the same, for what it's worth.
I find this entire debate incredibly ugly - but I find little to disagree with in the Cass report.
I think the sensible position adopted by Starmer and Streeting means that this is not really a political or electoral issue at all in England. It may be in Scotland because of the extreme approach still being maintained by the SNP/Green government.
I also think that the conclusion in the Brianna Ghey case was that these were 2 sadistic murderers similar in some ways to Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Like them they picked someone who was vulnerable and defenceless. The fact that her vulnerability came from being transgender did not ultimately form a significant part of the case.
I would agree that everyone in this debate needs to watch their language and be respectful of other peoples' sensitivities. But that is different from calling out those still using medicine to experiment on the weak and defenceless without a proper basis. That is absolutely the right thing to do both sides of the border. It needs to stop.
Starmer and Streeting have only adopted such a position, though, because the Conservatives have and they want to close down a threat to their flank.
At present, Sunak and his government operate a strong gravitational pull on them because the Tedious Tactical Triangulator must triangulate.
I don't know anyone that would insist my post-op trans female friend, who literally has no penis any more, should use a male toilet, or a male changing room. She is to all intents and purposes a woman now, She cannot rape any one. She has had serious hormonal work, and drastic surgery, but to get that - on the NHS, for free - she had to show commitment to the life and a serious determination. And given that we all paid for her to do this, that is fair
We had a system that worked, and was accepted by most people as both humane and reasonable. Then along came a bunch of nutters who declared "if I say I am a woman, despite being physically a man with a dick, I am a woman", and suddenly anyone that objected to this nonsense was a bigot or a transphobe??
The whole debate is insane
I totally agree with you 100% but believe me, there are many people who would say they should not be able to use a female loo or compete in female sports. I don't want to put words in his mouth but Bart would not consider your friend a woman.
Poster: I wish people would stop igniting the Culture Wars. No-one cares.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Graham Linehan said that everyone likes to think that they’d have stood up to the Nazi’s had they been around, and here was their chance to prove it… lots of people decided they didn’t want to
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were compelling arguments from both sides
I'll own up
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
The trans/gender thing does seem to have permeated corporate culture, in quite surprising ways.
For instance: earlier today I was travelling on an LNER train to Edinburgh. There was a poster in the carriage that announced how proud LNER was that this was a "proud" train, and the poster displayed the colours of the lesbian flag. (Interesting: I for one didn't know there was a lesbian flag) However, the final sentence struck me as extraordinary. It explained, in a regretful tone, that the lesbian flag was associated with a "femme" form of lesbianism, and LNER acknowledged those identifying with the masculine form of lesbianism may feel a bit excluded (or words to that effect).
I mean, really. I think I would rather have seen something extolling the delights of Skegness.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
J K Rowling herself isn't exactly a righty. You can tell that from her portrayal of the Dursleys. Indeed, I think she is a friend of Gordon Brown. Although given Scottish Labour's less than heroic approach to these issues I suspect she may have cooled a bit on them a bit.
J K Rowling is a traditional Labour lefty. Maybe centre-lefty. But she's certainly not a right-winger in any sense.
The only thing vaguely off beam of that is she's outspoken on gender identity.
Whilst I agree with the crux of what Rowling says, I do think the way she goes about it utterly shoots herself in the foot.
If she wants to build consensus which I think most do, she goes about it in a really baffling way. She looks to have been proven to be correct - but she's gone about it in such a difficult way that she really hasn't helped herself at all.
She certainly has amplified hateful people and liked ("accidentally") hateful things. I do not think she is hateful herself at all - but she has given air to extremists on the anti-trans side. There are those just as bad who give air to the pro-trans side and they are just as bonkers. I think Rowling actually sits very much in the middle, so that's why her actions baffle me.
The way Sonia Sodha has gone about things is so much better.
I think the thing with Rowling is she stopped caring having decided she'd be damned anyway, whatever she said, having attracted some pretty vicious opprobrium when she tried to talk with nuance. Worth remembering she wrote an essay that was thousands of words long that was at pains to set out concerns while being respectful of others.
She got called a bigot for that and people proceeded to attack her over any perceived transgression. So I think she now deliberately carves out a more strident position in the knowledge that she is one of the few people on the planet who maybe immune to unpleasant publicity and denunciation an can say things some others hold back from because not worth the hassle.
Sodha is obviously an Observer columnist so presumably is bound by their rules on social media behaviour.
Yes that's precisely right. She tried to be balanced and got dozens of rape threats
At that point one can understand a self-made woman billionaire thinking "fuck this for a game of non-binary soldiers" and going on the offensive
As the evidence from the Cass report filters into the public and media consciousness it is not clear to me that we need to keep pretending that there are 2 reasonable and differing viewpoints on this. There simply isn't. The fact that she is also at the same time proving that Scotland's Hate Act is a toothless joke is just an added bonus.
Exactly. I think a lot of the people who bought into this nonsense were the types who just hate the people who called it out from the start because a lot of them supported Brexit, and they couldn’t stand to be seen agreeing with those nincompoops.
The Cass report was well written and well received. Now to suggest people diametrically opposed to your brand of Conservatism must be pro-Trans and anti- Harry Potter.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
Can't find too much to disagree with there. But I think Isam was right that a lot of people who supported the trans lobby did so based on the 'my enemy's enemy' approach.
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
“otherwise” leftwing? Trans ID is not a left-right issue. One big clue is in the acronym TERF.
Indeed. The most TERFy person in my social circle is a Corbynite Irish-British feminist: she is ferocious
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
Yes, I think that’s right. There have been a few minor forays on the right, e.g. Penny Mordaunt. But the war is on the left.
J K Rowling herself isn't exactly a righty. You can tell that from her portrayal of the Dursleys. Indeed, I think she is a friend of Gordon Brown. Although given Scottish Labour's less than heroic approach to these issues I suspect she may have cooled a bit on them a bit.
J K Rowling is a traditional Labour lefty. Maybe centre-lefty. But she's certainly not a right-winger in any sense.
The only thing vaguely off beam of that is she's outspoken on gender identity.
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
What culture war?
Most I've seen is people saying well done to Rowling etc.
After the Cass review, surely anyone who doesn't is the one furthering the culture war?
Accept that Rowling etc were right all along, move on, and no culture war. Surely you'd be happy with that if you don't want a culture war?
The culture war thankfully remains a minor scuffle on the sidelines on this side of the Atlantic. Long may it continue.
We do, though, seem to have a new political alignment across the West, and the hard right is definitely in the ascendant.
It was previously centre left vs centre right, with occasional mini-triumphs of the far left and far right in places like Austria and Greece.
Now it’s largely the populist hard right vs the internationalist liberals. The Brexit divide writ large across the West. With the centre ground on economics having shifted a little to the left in the Anglo Saxon world and a little to the right in the corporatist European world.
Where's the space for nationalist liberals?
Asking for a friend.
But are you a National Liberal or a Liberal Unionist?
Well I’ve just shoved a pointless tenner on Hall in the London race, 29 on BX is the ultimate value loser. Given I’d happily pay a tenner for her to lose, seemed like decent insurance.
Quite like Khan. Not particularly inspiring and he should probably stand down midterm (assuming he wins). But he has a good cv: Ulez and Ulex work well. Night Tube, Crossrail (yes, I know, I know), 5G and Cycle Superhighways.
But a diligent manager rather than a charismatic spearhead in the Ken vein.
And taxes have been going up 9% a year since he was elected
I do not get involved in the gender debate usually but the Cass report seems to have emboldened J K Rowling, Julie Bindel, Judy Murray and others and caused real issues for labour with Wes Steeting making a fulsome apology for his previous comments and then coming under attack from some of his colleagues
Furthermore if this report from Guido is true then Sky seem to have real internal problems with this subject
Cass was highly critical about the toxicity of the debate, the vilification and bullying on social media, and so forth. I don't think Rowling, Bindel and Murray are doing anything to defuse that toxicity.
Given that they have been proved right they are bloody well entitled to say "I told you so". It is not them making the debate toxic but those who tried to shut down and abused all those from Tavistock whistleblowers on who raised concerns, concerns it now turns out were well-founded.
Streeting himself was one of those who treated Bindel appallingly - for which he should apologise.
Yes. Why on earth should Rowling or Bindel rein in their anger? People tried to end their careers (and in the case of Bindel they partly succeeded). Why are they now meant to be magnanimous, now they they have been totally vindicated?
These women were brave, they stood up to the bullies (and lots of hideous abuse: rape threats, death threats etc) they are entitled to vent their righteous spleen
Rowling has basically been made a pariah in her own franchise...
Doesn't stop people consuming what she produces for it, or which uses it as a spin off. So not sure to what extent it is true (though I do know one person who says they cannot enjoy it anymore as Rowling is 'problematic'. They also won't rewatch Friends anymore, despite loving it less than 5 years ago).
Isn't she banned by the Studio from attending the conventions?
IIRC they made an anniversary documentary about the Harry Potter phenomenon and they managed not to mention her or picture her
Also, the ONLY reason she managed to avoid being cancelled by young Red Guards sorry Woke editors at her publishers is because she's J K Rowling. They really tried, and they came close. Any less successful author would have been toast
While I admire Rowling, Bindel, and the rest, for me, they have focused on the third most important issue in the trans debacle. I fully agree that men masquerading as women in some cases pose a danger to actual women, and that that is an important issue. But I'm puzzled it's that issue which got the traction, rather than i)why are we allowing people to talk vulnerable children into being mutilated, and ii)why are we comfortable allowing people to say reality is other than it very obviously is? I'd like to blame religion, on the grounds that it's given humanity plenty of practice in saying reality is other than it very obviously is. But perhaps that's going about it the wrong way: perhaps humans have a need to believe in areality, and in the absence of formalised religion, they start believing in anything.
I agree. I've been pondering how this insanity began. I mean: cui bono? Is it really some doctors grifting for money? Can it really just be a handful of crazy activists that took over society?
For me it is a classic madness of crowds. Like the witch craze, or "Satantic pedo cults". Humanity seems prone to manias, and we are periodicaly capable of believing the most ludicrous things
It's nothing like a Marian apparition or mania. Nobody in the bulk of society believes any of this trans shit, any more than anyone in the ruling class believes it.
Ask cui bono indeed.
1. It whips up the gauleiters like nobody's business. They absolutely love it. But it's never the gauleiters who call the shots. See 2.
2. It scares the proletariat into not saying in public what they really think. That's why it's big in schools - because that's where most people get crushed and scared in that way and internalise their conditioning. They don't get scared to the extent that they believe all this shit, in other words that they when they see a bloke in a frock they will really truly believe 2 + 2 = 5 he's a woman. Leave that to the schoolteachers and social workers - see 1 above. They just get into a state in which they're as tired as hell and they're ready - they're ready to be phlegmatic, to lie down and take whatever's coming to them when the ratchet is given its next twist.
Indeed
The way this crazy trans shit has been drilled into children is scary. I have personally witnessed this. It's like we suddenly decided to bring up a whole generation as particularly extreme Mormons, with quite bizarro beliefs
God knows how it will play out, down the line
It's definitely technology - bad ideas can circulate, and become widespread and accepted far faster now. With little control over where they end up.
You see it happen in all corners of the political spectrum where people will believe mad things if it fits their priors and has a superficial attractiveness to them as an idea.
In this case what were some fairly niche applications of certain philosophical theories have spread like wildfire as they provide answers some - particularly in influential circles - desperate to hear. The internet has made us all far more suggestable and worse at critical assessment by bombarding us with lots of low quality information.
Bad ideas have always circulated. (Not to this extent, granted.) What's different recently is that the grown-ups abrogated responsibility for tempering them - so you get schools telling kids that there are 63 genders and that they can identify as cats and so on. This sounds like I am exaggerating. I am honestly not.
Kids identifying as cats is the classic example used of something that is made up, with the whole providing litter trays story. The myth that it is a thing is the bad idea that circulates.
I was having dinner with a friend a few weeks ago. Her son is in middle school in Kansas City - being totally disrupted by two people who identify as cats and spend the entire class meowing loudly at each other and hissing. The teachers don’t know how to discipline them - they tried to tell them to be quiet and the parents complained they weren’t respecting their kids’ right to be cats…
They insist on eating their meals on the floor as well.
My friend’s solution was to accept all that… but to say that if they were cats they should eat cat food…
(The issue is really with parents indulging the kids’ BS)
Oh great the Tories are jumping on the Cass review to further the culture war.
Of course they are. Culture War is all the Tories have left.
It's only something they have because so many with influence on the left ate fighting it. Accusing the right of fighting a culture war is like accusing the French of fighting a war in 1940 - flashes of half-hearted defence against a war which the other side started. Most of us on the right were reasonably happy with culture back around 2010. It's the left who have been driving the cultural change.
There was a massive culture war around gay marriage. It only got through because the Lib Dems and Labour voted for it.
Labour has got to from what I can see, reasonable position on the issue now and isn't throwing trans people under the bus like the Tories do at every turn. When I say they are fighting a culture war, that is what I mean.
I am not saying you or anyone here is fighting a culture war. The debate here is remarkably sensible.
The people who are throwing children who are typically autistic and gay under the bus are those who think the solution to these "problems" is giving them horrifically powerful drugs and surgery which will impact on the remainder of their lives with no evidential basis that this is in their interests. The Tories have been instinctively hostile to this and they, along with the likes of Rowling, have been proven right.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given. https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
I don't think that is a very accurate summary of the Cass report, which is far more interesting and nuanced than the reporting in both Mainstream Press and Social Media are presenting. I think you have your prosecutor's hat on rather than a judge's.
In particular saying "Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct" is a very misleading statement. The absence of good studies of interventions for Gender Incongruity*, covers both hormonal and psychosocial interventions. Absence of evidence is not evidence of harm, nor of bad intent.
People are not interested in nuance though, much more interested in polarising argument than in the mental health of the youngsters involved.
* The preferred term in the Cass report, in alignment with the ICD 11 classification of disorders.
Surely pushing any medical intervention, in the absence of good evidence that the benefits outweighs the costs, is wrong?
Evil is a strong word, and I’m unconvinced that it is the right one, but there is a case that pushing an unproven medical intervention on vulnerable children in pursuit of a political agenda approaches that territory
Comments
I know quite a few Scandis and whilst they certainly aren;'t Nazis, they aren't particularly liberal either. My sense is that there is a fair amount of chauvinism lurking under the surface.
That is what I think of when I talk about "culture wars". The public are fed up with it all, they just want the economy and the NHS to improve, the polling is quite clear on this.
It is a more mixed picture and only in Italy and the Netherlands is the hard right leading the government or has it won most seats. The US looks neck and neck between Biden and Trump and the GOP and Dems at the moment
Asking for a friend.
This sounds like I am exaggerating. I am honestly not.
Quite like Khan. Not particularly inspiring and he should probably stand down midterm (assuming he wins). But he has a good cv: Ulez and Ulex work well. Night Tube, Crossrail (yes, I know, I know), 5G and Cycle Superhighways.
But a diligent manager rather than a charismatic spearhead in the Ken vein.
Starmer and Streeting have acknowledged it as well and have made clear that they are accepting Cass's work and recommendations. The best summary I have seen of the Cass report on this is actually on Wings over Scotland which quotes paragraph after paragraph of her report stating that there is simply no evidence or a weak evidence base for the treatment already given.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-simple-question-for-humza-yousaf/
I genuinely think you need to think about this. Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct. Those who wanted to use those vulnerable children to make some point about the prevalence of gender dysphoria have been proved wrong. Who was (and still is in Scotland) throwing those poor children under the bus? It was not the wicked Tories after all but trans activists trying to make unsubstantiated points. They should be ashamed.
Now that's not true for me, and I daresay there are a few more like-minded. I am nervous when Joanne Rowling bangs on about trans people, but I am equally nervous, as the report suggests, for particularly, autistic people or those experiencing a mental health crisis to be encouraged to transition by zealots. I also see the difficulty in breaching safe spaces for women by bad actors purporting to be trans, although I suspect this concern is more one of genuine female fear than reality, although we have had a few frauds and one is too many. I also agree with the concerns over men transitioning to women participating in female sports, they shouldn't, it is not fair.
Other than that if one genuinely wants to transition, and doesn't impact on my statutory rights, or the rights of my family, good luck to them.
Bloody woke centrists, huh?
However, for all the criticism of the NHS my cardiologist was clear that without my pacemaker I was unlikely to see beyond the summer so his operating skills puts everything else into context
Trump is the obvious example. He is clearly a populist Right wing demagogue, and surely - at least in rhetoric - the most rightwing US president and GOP candidate since WW2. He has a good chance of winning again in 2024
Look at the other rmajor western nations. France - Le Pen is seriously close to being president. Italy already has Meloni. The AfD are on the march in Germany. Netherlands just gave Wilders a plurality of votes. Eastern Europe is rightwing everywhere, they don't want the migrant experience of western Europe. The Nordic nations trend right
The only reason Britain hasn't followed is because we vented some populist/nationalist spleen with Brexit (and many regret this) and because a particularly mediocre rightwing government has been in power for 14 years, mainly inflicting inept left wing policies on the country (and incredible levels of migration). So in desperation - not adoration - we will all vote for Sir Kir Royale. But we won't be an outlier forever
What you are saying I don't disagree with at all, a lot of people did get it wrong but that is very different to using trans people to fight a culture war which some/many Tories/other people do do.
As I said, the debate here has been sensible and certainly has changed my mind in certain areas. But I still believe there are people out there who use this issue in a very cynical way.
On JK Rowling, my issue is not with what she thinks (as I have said on many occasions, I think the crux of what she says is write), it is the way she uses social media and the hatred she has amplified, if unintentionally.
Just look at the things some of the people she he has retweeted say about trans people. It is disgusting.
Now to be clear, the abuse JK Rowling receives is also equally disgusting. And the most nutty pro trans people are just as bad as the Tories/others whipping this up.
I sit firmly in the middle on this.
To their credit, a lot of Tories don't do this and a lot have stayed out. But some are using this issue to electoral advantage in a very cynical way. I am sure people on the Labour side do just the same, for what it's worth.
I find this entire debate incredibly ugly - but I find little to disagree with in the Cass report.
Something seemingly absolutely ludicrous, not to mention cruel, was being tried on young, impressionable, vulnerable children, and supposedly sensible people thought there were
compelling arguments from both sides
Maybe you remain Bigly with us, for many years
Le Pen is closer than ever before to being President of France but I suspect the candidate from Macron's party will edge her in the runoff again. The AfD are getting protest votes but only second and toxic as coalition partners to other parties. Wilders did get most votes but again other parties are trying to form a government excluding him.
Poland has shifted from nationalist right back to centre right, Ukraine is liberal, Russia is nationalist of course but does its own thing. The Nordic nations are shifting centre right but the centre left are still in power in Norway and Denmark.
Yes time for change will see Labour in here but I agree there will soon be a protest back to the right here as well once it is the right in opposition and Starmer controlling immigration and responsible for the economy and likely raising tax to fund his state sector client base
The irony is my haematologist insisted on multiple tests which concluded in my cardiologist phoning immediately after Christmas confirming I needed an urgent and immediate pacemaker
Without the DVT the heart block may not have been found in time !!!
I'm not saying they have litter trays. But they have to make 'reasonable provision' for them (which is largely allowing them to come in in fancy dress).
I feel similarly about religion: the idea of a Christian child or a Muslim child seems to me to paradoxical, because no child is born
religious.
I kept my head down on this debate, partly because I didn't understand it. Even now I am not quite precisely sure what a trans woman is, or a trans man, let alone "genderqueer", "non-binary", "xe/xim" - all the madness. And one of my best friends is a man who transitioned to woman many years ago (and, btw, she is utterly skeptical of the recent craziness)
So, even though I could see this insanity impacting my own kids and certainly their friends, and destroying families, I stayed quiet. For fear of damaging my flint career and also because - as I say- it was all so bizarre and the terminology so confusing: I feared saying something simultaneously stupid and self harming. And the trans activists are so brutally aggressive, and mendacious, and will totally destroy anyone they can. The simpering nonsense from @BatteryCorrectHorse is an example, he was aggressively pro the mad trans debate - now he tries to pretend he wasn't. Obnoxious twaddle
But I am also guilty, as I say. I should have been braver and pointed out the total insanity. I did not. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
There is some literally batty stuff that does happen but this specific example I am sure was proven to be a myth.
https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1778351713205796922
Also whilst we're at it.
Top tip: Read the Cass report and look at what it says, rather than listening to TERFs and hacks reinterpreting it.
She clearly didn't read the report either, she's just as bad from the other side
I said the way JK Rowling and to some others (here and elsewhere), refer to trans people isn't helpful, even if what they say is correct.
I've actually been remarkably consistent on this.
But what do I expect from a person that shouts about AI AND ALIENS and then runs off when it's challenged.
Kindly sod off.
But that's the thing, I change my mind, I own up to it. Leon is happy to attack others yet never gets held to account for anything they say. They are a massive hypocrite.
I've waded into a discussion I really didn't want to have tonight so will leave it there. Good evening.
I also think that the conclusion in the Brianna Ghey case was that these were 2 sadistic murderers similar in some ways to Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Like them they picked someone who was vulnerable and defenceless. The fact that her vulnerability came from being transgender did not ultimately form a significant part of the case.
I would agree that everyone in this debate needs to watch their language and be respectful of other peoples' sensitivities. But that is different from calling out those still using medicine to experiment on the weak and defenceless without a proper basis. That is absolutely the right thing to do both sides of the border. It needs to stop.
As I said, Rowling's analysis has been correct in many ways, it is the way she has gone about it that I have found self-defeating. I am very much on her side in the "crux" of what she says.
I don't disagree with anything in the report today, the medicine issue is sick and a real scandal.
Glad to find some level of agreement even if we have come from different points of view (although not sure if we have).
But as you highlight, most people, right, left or centre, are not on board with the excesses of the trans lobby. I've always said 90% of people basically agree with JKR, and I still think this is true. Obviously people largely want to be nice, and there is a fear of castigating individuals or groups unwarrantedly. But even so, almost no-one thinks a man is a woman just because he declares himself so. It's just that a weird minority got itself into a position of power and influence and made life hell for anyone high profile who went against the creed (especially anyone who was otherwise left wing - see Rowling, Bindel, Linehan, Stock, etc.).
I personally think it is the most important AND interesting thing happening in the world right now, but I accept that most people do not. Even my friends have taken to telling me, "Leon, shut the fuck up about AI", so I shall STFU on PB on this topic
I saw this clip from Hollyoaks on X, and it was like being woken up from a bad dream. I said to my Mum (who thinks that anyone who thinks they’re really the opposite sex should be locked up in s mental institution) that I couldn’t really believe this was happening. That if someone told me it was all a wind up, or had been a bad dream, that would make more sense than the reality
This is an important conversation to have #Hollyoaks
https://x.com/hollyoaks/status/1764734808595341591?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
In particular saying "Those who were saying this was wrong, bordering on evil, have been proven correct" is a very misleading statement. The absence of good studies of interventions for Gender Incongruity*, covers both hormonal and psychosocial interventions. Absence of evidence is not evidence of harm, nor of bad intent.
People are not interested in nuance though, much more interested in polarising argument than in the mental health of the youngsters involved.
* The preferred term in the Cass report, in alignment with the ICD 11 classification of disorders.
If you were someone of a broadly blamelessly liberal bent but not particularly knowledgeable wanting to know about transgender issues back in, say, 2014, and you Googled it. You'd come across a deluge of articles putting forward some pretty radical positions that had previously been contested in humanities departments forward as fact. If you were on Twitter or Facebook you'd see peers and influential people sharing those takes and information when they did so.
As to why that happened. You'd say it was because as theory it's very appealing to a certain kind of American liberal arts graduate in a way that postmodernist takes are. You can create your own identity from scratch. Nothing is out of bounds. Plus it also fits existing priors and framings about minority rights and fighting for the perceived underdog. So it spreads and spreads because it's a strong meme that's popular with people who are disproportionately influential online and in media. Until loads of people just accept it as fact. The right side of history.
If anything I'd say the trans debate is an internecine leftist war. The right just looks on in uncertain and nervous bemusement (as I do). We simply don't get it. Mainly it has been lefties tearing each other apart
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-should-schools-handle-furries/
As I say, the reasaonable provision I'm aware of doesn't amount to much, aside from displaying the patience of a saint to deal with them. But there are furries at at least two schools I know of - amd I don't know of that many schools. I think kids coming in wearing a tail or cat ears or drawn on whiskers get a blind eye wearily turned.
I'm right about the bad weather tho
Doubt he even meant to 'throw trans people under a bus' just so tin eared.
@AllieHBNews
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1h
Friday’s Daily MAIL: “Starmer: UK Nuclear Deterrent Is Safe In My Hands” #TomorrowsPapersToday
https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews
Wow. Has the Mail accepted the reality of the next GE? Amazing positive coverage for Labour.
WTF??
For instance: earlier today I was travelling on an LNER train to Edinburgh. There was a poster in the carriage that announced how proud LNER was that this was a "proud" train, and the poster displayed the colours of the lesbian flag. (Interesting: I for one didn't know there was a lesbian flag) However, the final sentence struck me as extraordinary. It explained, in a regretful tone, that the lesbian flag was associated with a "femme" form of lesbianism, and LNER acknowledged those identifying with the masculine form of lesbianism may feel a bit excluded (or words to that effect).
I mean, really. I think I would rather have seen something extolling the delights of Skegness.
I ticked 'very badly'.
You are right however that it is a far more minor issue, both in extent and importance.
But I read no further than that at the time.
Daughters #1 and #3 however, got hugely into HP, and through ozmosis I am getting to grips with HPs 2-7. I'll happily concede that it does all get much more nuanced about who is good and who is bad. The Durselys retain their comedy awfulness but even there some sympathy is brought in and they are in any case not actually baddies narrative-wise, just awful people.
The whole canon is a marvel of plotting and nuance. Which are much, much more difficult things to do than simply stringing some sentences satisfyingly together. JKR is a genius.
A weird parallel
Masterclass.
Count Binface
@CountBinface
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5h
Here it is: my one-minute pitch to be Mayor of London, as broadcast on BBC One. Yes, this is real. #VoteBinface
https://twitter.com/CountBinface/status/1778482505097621687
For the Left, "working together with Europe" and overcoming nationalism is simply "common sense". How can you not agree with this good thing? After two world wars? Stop moaning about democracy and sovereignty, it's weird and trivial in this context
For the Right, "men have penises and women don't" is simply and obviously "common sense" and anyone that argues with this is a lunatic, and any debate about it is bizarre, and utterly incomprehensible. As indeed the trans argument is to me, largely
The book was published in 1984.
(Benford is an astrophysicist as well as a science fiction writer. He has lived most of his life in California academia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford
For the record: I don't like his books as well as those by the other two "Bs", Greg Bear and David Brin. Mostly because he is so relentlessly negative, unlike Bear and Brin.)
You have to pick one. But by refusing to do so you open the door to the current situation. A person either is or is not a woman, but by allowing the possibility of a change you start the first domino. You say you should have pointed out the insanity. But you were one of its perpetrators.
(resurrects zombie survival plan in head)
Allie Hodgkins-Brown
@AllieHBNews
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3h
Friday’s i - “Starmer: Labour will hike UK defence spending amid threat from China and Russia” #TomorrowsPapersToday
She thinks everyone should have to do what she did, to become "a woman", and I agree. If anyone persecuted her for being a trans woman I would angrily and violently defend her. But no one should be allowed to simply say "I am a woman" while having literally no surgery at all and owning a penis. Self ID is insane. This is obvious
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/07/classification/ (the multiple axes part)
Christopher Hope📝
@christopherhope
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4h
NEW Tories warned 10 MPs will defect to Reform UK if Nigel Farage takes over as leader
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1778508516304486607
Some people would say that your friend is still a man because you cannot change your sex and so you will never truly be a woman. JK Rowling believes this - what people then say is that JK Rowling is being transphobic. I don't agree with that because JK Rowling is not saying trans people don't exist, rather that they don't "become women". They are trans women, not women. But they are fundamentally still men.
So there are certainly complexities - and you've alluded to some already. It's a complex issue. Sadly the issue is that we can't have reasonable discussions like this because nutjobs on both sides weaponise this for their own ends (e.g. Ava Santina above who is on the nutty pro trans wing).
Someone who 'transitions' is not a real man/woman, only those who actually are, are real ones.
But if someone wants to be called by a different name/pronoun, then that harms nobody and should be respected.
If someone tells me they want to be called by their middle name instead of their first name, I respect that.
If someone tells me they want to be called a new name, I respect that.
So if someone tells me they have a new name of the opposite gender, or new pronouns etc, why should I not respect that.
When it comes to breaching safeguarding, then we have a problem.
I think as far as I can see, your sex can't be changed. Male sex = penis, female sex = vagina. Intersex exists but is incredibly small so in effect it's male/female. Anyone arguing against that is arguing against science.
But gender seems more complicated and is something I guess we've only really started to think about more recently. I suppose there has always really been more or less male or female. Like that there are really masculine men or less masculine men. We've started to classify these things but I think people/I find it harder to get heads around the other genders than male or female thing, I think that's the thing I haven't quite got to grips with.
I do think it's complicated.
The point being that insane people don't have the right to expect sane people to treat their insanity as sane. They do have the right to be safe and, if they seek help, to be helped at public expense.
Like I keep saying, everything boils down to that.
https://youtu.be/rKBc-PTpLuU?t=349
He is asked about using pronouns and immediately jumps into rapists and how that would mean he shouldn't call Eddie Izzard by their pronouns. Clearly the rapist is an awful human being but what's that got to do with Eddie Izzard or most trans people? This is where the debate for me gets quite ugly and I start to feel like he's losing me.
Feel free to interpret his words in a different way but that's what I heard and there he lost me. Up until then I did not disagree with much of what he was saying. But if somebody wants to be called X or Y then what is the problem?
But do you think people that really feel they are women are "insane"/mentally ill? Do you really think that is the case?
If they wanted me to take them on walks and then bag up their shit for them, then I'm not going to play along with that.
Does anyone else get hurt is the simple test for most things. If not, let people do whatever they want, if yes (or maybe re:safeguarding) then stop and have a good think.
We had a system that worked, and was accepted by most people as both humane and reasonable. Then along came a bunch of nutters who declared "if I say I am a woman, despite being physically a man with a dick, I am a woman", and suddenly anyone that objected to this nonsense was a bigot or a transphobe??
The whole debate is insane
I guess my point, is what is this the line. I am not sure we know, or can come to consensus on it.
I keep coming back to this: the importance of, and difficulty of, classification. Currently there are only two options - male and female - and that's not going to change any time soon. So there's a distinct cutoff. But we keep blurring the edges. Arguably this entire situation was caused by the blurring of the edges between man and woman and between child and adult.
Public sector: The Ministry of Magic is portrayed as a useless bunch of charlatans, subverted by the far-right to impose martial law (Umbridge is also an government authoritarian figure in this vein)
Private sector: The whole thing is set in a private school that fights interference from the state (the Weasleys are on a bursary).
Harry's story is only possible because of massive inherited wealth
The prison system is Rory Stewart's worst nightmare
I mentioned an article a few days ago about using the history of gambling legislation to illustrate how Britain deals with difficult social issues, which includes trans but also drugs and homosexuality. As having experience in at least two of these, I'll ask you to read the first pass and comment backstage.
https://nitter.poast.org/pic/orig/media/GK5kLBubMAAiMGG.jpg
Will tabulate the figures when time permits
But you miss what I said: the regulations are just a part of what is a complex issue. Pretending that removal of legislation will lead to a quick fix to all these problems is stupid - and may even make things worse. It also ignores that some of that legislation might have had good intent, or even good effect, and the consequences of their removal.
So, no contradiction. I'm saying it's a massively more complex issue than you pretend.
At present, Sunak and his government operate a strong gravitational pull on them because the Tedious Tactical Triangulator must triangulate.
Also Poster: Let's talk about Trans again!
The only thing vaguely off beam of that is she's outspoken on gender identity.
That's it.
They insist on eating their meals on the floor as well.
My friend’s solution was to accept all that… but to say that if they were cats they should eat cat food…
(The issue is really with parents indulging the kids’ BS)
Evil is a strong word, and I’m unconvinced that it is the right one, but there is a case that pushing an unproven medical intervention on vulnerable children in pursuit of a political agenda approaches that territory