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.
I’m sorry, but that is deeply, incredibly offensive
To say that someone is not a “real” man/woman is to dehumanise them.
It’s fine to say that they are a man/woman until a certain point is reached (and I thin self ID is ridiculous) but to say that they have transitioned but are not “real” is not on:
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.
Sorry @Foxy I went to bed. I respectfully disagree. The first priority of medicine is to do no harm. Those that want to intervene with these children, give them drugs and surgery carry the onus of showing that their actions do good. And they can’t.
I agree that the Cass report simply says that there is an absence of evidence one way or another. Putting aside who has contributed to that lack of evidence ( and the refusal of the clinics to prove that information until ordered to do so by the Health Secretary is a disgrace) that is conclusive that what has been done to these children ought not to have been done. There was no proper basis for the intervention.
Those responsible should never have children in their care again.
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.
I’m sorry, but that is deeply, incredibly offensive
To say that someone is not a “real” man/woman is to dehumanise them.
It’s fine to say that they are a man/woman until a certain point is reached (and I thin self ID is ridiculous) but to say that they have transitioned but are not “real” is not on:
I'm not sure where I stand on this - but I'd point out that 'deeply offensive' <> 'not true'. We can't be having these conversations on the basis of whether people are offended.
Instinctively I would define a man/woman by genitalia - so if you've had the op and appear to be a woman, you're a woman - but by what you were born also strikes me as coherent. One problem with my definition is women's sports - it strikes me as not really on to have women who used to be men playing sport against women who've always been women.
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.
Comments
To say that someone is not a “real” man/woman is to dehumanise them.
It’s fine to say that they are a man/woman until a certain point is reached (and I thin self ID is ridiculous) but to say that they have transitioned but are not “real” is not on:
I respectfully disagree. The first priority of medicine is to do no harm. Those that want to intervene with these children, give them drugs and surgery carry the onus of showing that their actions do good. And they can’t.
I agree that the Cass report simply says that there is an absence of evidence one way or another. Putting aside who has contributed to that lack of evidence ( and the refusal of the clinics to prove that information until ordered to do so by the Health Secretary is a disgrace) that is conclusive that what has been done to these children ought not to have been done. There was no proper basis for the intervention.
Those responsible should never have children in their care again.
Instinctively I would define a man/woman by genitalia - so if you've had the op and appear to be a woman, you're a woman - but by what you were born also strikes me as coherent. One problem with my definition is women's sports - it strikes me as not really on to have women who used to be men playing sport against women who've always been women.