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A 33% return in just under two and a half years? – politicalbetting.com

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  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    148grss said:

    "Hormone treatment" related to gender identity at that age would literally just be a puberty blocker - something many cis girls take because they have early onset puberty anyway. Puberty blockers do what they say on the tin, block puberty from happening at that point, allowing a typical puberty to occur later if desired, or to have hormone replacement treatment later on if they want a puberty that is in line with their gender identity later on.

    Whilst I know people like to think this stuff is all brand new, it has been going on for literally thousands of years, we are just coming out of a very repressive era regarding gender and sexuality, and have modern media to highlight all these things and create moral panics.

    https://twitter.com/lae_laeta/status/1228982475004817408
    Never read such ill informed garbage in my life, the guy seems to be making a claim to be a classicist, and can't put herodotus in the right century

    Also

    "Although I wouldn't call it a disease, my experience of being trans is something that is so deep and wondrous, and fills me with such a sense of awe at life and its mysteries, that, if I were a 4th c. BC nomad, I would certainly consider it something divine."

    Do you detect not the faintest hint of narcissistic wankerdom there? Look at me, I'm interesting.

    And he claims to be trans but Lesbian. LOL.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,280
    eek said:

    The 20% cut in crime figures is a lovely hostage to fortune that will be used against her at the next election....

    Heck it's possible to do so now - so you want the police to attend all burglaries. What should they stop doing to provide the time to do that.
    That one is easy for Liz. Stop investigating Tory PMs!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 59,827
    edited July 2022

    Absolutely.

    But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
    The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different

    Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?

    And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit

    It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,567

    Joanna Cherry QC, MP tweets:

    Lots of ill informed twitter commentary

    https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1552309691111428097

    Next tweet - many bears shit in woods.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739

    Should not be a problem with 20 000 extra police officers we were all promised should it?
    By March 2021 10,000 of them had been recruited so most of them will already be doing full time jobs.

    And the extra 20,000 only take police numbers back to their 2010 levels.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 53,685
    HYUFD said:

    The second EU referendum in 2016 was 41 years after the first EEC referendum in 1975, not just 8 years
    But you wanted the UK to stay in the EU.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,568
    edited July 2022
    Pro_Rata said:

    Italy update:

    Election campaign in its phoney war stage where possible electoral list partners size each other up suspiciously and engage in brinksmanship. All lists have to be confirmed second weekend in August, when the campaign proper tries to begin even with everyone on holiday

    Every twist and turn is just too tiresome to follow, and I'll probably not return to this before the cards are marked, but highlights are:

    - Meloni pushing to be pre-selected PM candidate for the "centre right" coalition and threatening to go it alone. Rather than the long standing, "largest party of the coalition gets the PM" understanding of the centre right.

    Although I'll not put my hat up for consumption on this, I'm putting it in the "not going to happen" bucket. But, if it did, the whole complexion of the campaign transforms.

    - M5S to stand alone, having been put in the naughty corner

    - PD, the main centre left party, trying to herd the cats of numerous Centrist and Leftist parties into alliance. The Centrists are all personal vehicles of big beasts, some don't like the other Centrists (Di Maio was rude about them all in his M5S days basically), some can't work with Leftists etc.

    They were a big part of the old parliament, at least 100 MPs had defected from their originally elected parties, and a steady stream of Forza MPs have joined them since Forza's abstention in the confidence vote, but in terms of polling sit around 8% combined. Tbc.

    Polling average, which looks steady even after the election was called:

    Centre right:
    Lega 15
    FdI 23
    Forza 8
    Combined = 47

    Possible centre left:
    PD (polling includes small social drmocrat parties) 23
    Leftists/Greens 3
    Centrists 7
    Combined = up to 33

    M5S 11

    Others 9 (communists, Italians abroad, regional parties, civic & residents lists, Italexits, far right splinters)

    How the centre-left lists come together now don't influence the result too greatly, with an expected centre right majority up to 80 (/400 seats in lower house).
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    Just squeezes into the Run Off but wins easily - interesting outcome.
    I think it was predicted? - not by me - and Sunak could sooo easily have forestalled it. A big call he failed to get right.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 38,518


    The Observer’s chief leader writer:

    It’s simply amazing that a chambers full of leading QCs specialising in human rights law did not stay on the right side of equalities law. It shows the extent to which institutions can be captured by false claims of transphobia to try and silence women’s free speech.

    https://twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1552253718334214145
    Actually, it's not amazing. So many organisations operate on the basis that "to the pure all things are pure." Because their motives are pure, they are not obliged to adhere to the law.
  • Or they were, and it’s why it took them so long.

    Although at the very highest level it seems obvious with hindsight that Sunak and Truss would be the “final two”, I don’t think that was actually obvious to us on here or the “most sophisticated electorate in the world”.

    There were ?11 candidates FFS, and several viables that ruled themselves out.
    And it seems like the best one of those candidates is going to win.

    The most sophisticated electorate in the world has done its job.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739

    That one is easy for Liz. Stop investigating Tory PMs!
    Round here the police could have visited 100* burglaries but instead had to waste that time triple checking if SKS having a takeaway meal after working all day was a crime

    * I'm guessing 150 man hours were wasted on the investigation - I'm probably out by a factor of 2 or 3.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,576
    AlistairM said:

    My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
    Deleted; thought better of it!
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244
    eek said:

    By March 2021 10,000 of them had been recruited so most of them will already be doing full time jobs.

    And the extra 20,000 only take police numbers back to their 2010 levels.
    I never realised TMay's love for the old bill had such a dramatic impact! So you say they recruited 10000 in 3 months, have they stopped releasing updates on the next 10000?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,856
    Leon said:

    I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity

    And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail

    Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
    The scary thing is how mutually reinforcing the two sides are.

    The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739

    I never realised TMay's love for the old bill had such a dramatic impact! So you say they recruited 10000 in 3 months, have they stopped releasing updates on the next 10000?
    I think the Government / Home Office are just crap at collecting and publishing figures https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2021/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2021
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,782
    Journalist discovers what a muzzle brake does.
    Hope he was wearing earplugs.
    https://twitter.com/GalileoArms/status/1552282596549312514
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,945
    Just seen the Ipsos right/wrong direction figures. A metric I like, as it allows you to cross Party lines.
    They are horrendous for the government.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,812
    MISTY said:

    Why does the left ignore capitalist exploitation why there's a racial angle?

    Same reason it ignored trafficking in Rochdale, Telford, and a dozen other English towns, I guess.

    It does not suit the left's narrative that the white hetero man is the exploiter and the abuser. And everybody else is a victim.
    You can ask that question if you pop along to the picket line at the next strike for groups of underpaid workers of all creeds and colours. There'll be pretty much all from the left there. You'd bring some welcome political diversity to the struggle in fact. Which would be great.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163
    edited July 2022

    Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.

    It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.

    I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.

    I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
    I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.

    Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.

    So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.

    One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.

    This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.

    This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    kinabalu said:

    You can ask that question if you pop along to the picket line at the next strike for groups of underpaid workers of all creeds and colours. There'll be pretty much all from the left there. You'd bring some welcome political diversity to the struggle in fact. Which would be great.
    Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?

    FFS.
  • Sean_F said:

    I would never identify as "Cis" as I think the term is rubbish in any case.
    It's a bizarre term.

    What's wrong with "real"?

    Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244
    Leon said:

    it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged

    Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
    No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,405
    MISTY said:


    It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.

    Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?

    Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?

    The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.


    Unions protect the interests of their members. If people in these sectors can't or won't join a union, then the unions won't do much for them. Unionisation rates in the UK private sector are tiny anyway, thanks in part to decades of Tory anti-union legislation, so I don't know why you would expect these workers to be unionised.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    No its everywhere. I appreciate the freedom of gender but the use of chemical terms cis and trans is slightly misguided. Which side of a double bond your functional groups are is certainly a personal matter!
    Chemical?

    I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    It's a bizarre term.

    What's wrong with "real"?

    Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
    Transphobic fail there, Bart, suggesting the lived experience of the transwoman is in some way inauthentic.
  • StereodogStereodog Posts: 857
    Leon said:

    The stats in my kids' schools are probably not that different

    Very few children now identify as "cis". It's boring, vanilla, and probably reactionary. Who would be that at the age of 15?

    And then there is a significant minority who now take it much further, adding in chosen pronouns and genderfluid clothes, and then if their parents get worried the kids rebel into total trans-whatever, and ask for medicines and surgery. Then what do you do? And the kids are often abetted by the schools, who are either confused or terrified or they actually believe this Woke bullshit

    It is an unfolding catastrophe for a lot of kids
    But the majority of those identifying as something other than cis won’t get anywhere near medical intervention. When I was younger I came out as gay to everyone, thinking about it now it would have been more accurate to say I was bisexual. Doubtless if I were doing it again today I’d select something else. It doesn’t really matter though because I know what I am.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,209

    I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.

    Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.

    So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.

    One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.

    This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.

    This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
    Or it might just mean a bunch of 13-year-old girls don't fancy the boys in their class.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 59,827

    The scary thing is how mutually reinforcing the two sides are.

    The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
    Yes, as I've said before, it's a classic pre-civil-war scenario, when both sides have extremes which are full of righteous anger, which feed off the horribleness of their perceived enemies

    For every Roe v Wade reversal there are "largely peaceful" BLM riots sweeping the country. For every rightwing loon on Fox there is some ghastly video on LibsofTikTok


    Yeats, again, is so prescient:


    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again; but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?



    He wrote that in 1919. By 1922 Ireland was engulfed in Civil War
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,792

    And it seems like the best one of those candidates is going to win.

    The most sophisticated electorate in the world has done its job.
    You think she is best because she lies with the ease and alacrity of Boris Johnson. You think that is a strength not a weakness.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,945

    I think the reason that trans now seems to be more prevalent among girls in younger people is because it's effectively an anti-feminism ideology.

    Feminism told girls that they could be, and do, whatever they liked as women. If they wanted to play chess or spot trains, or grow armpit hair - those are all things they could do. The trans ideology labels certain behaviours and activities as male and female again, and tells young people that if they don't conform to their gender stereotype it's because they're not actually of that gender, not that the stereotype is wrong, or too restrictive.

    So girls who don't want to conform to the female gender stereotype are now told that if they want to be different they have to say they aren't girls.

    One of my friends basically made this argument recently when she came out as non-binary (though she doesn't care about pronouns). She said she was tired of not fitting in to the expectations on women to wear makeup, and to drink prosecco instead of beer, etc, and so she wanted to say that she wasn't a woman anymore to escape those expectations.

    This is why I see trans ideology as the defeat of feminism. It's recreating all the old sex-based restrictions on behaviour and then telling people they have to hate their body and want to slice it up in order to escape those restrictions.

    This doesn't really affect boys that much because gender stereotypes generally place fewer restrictions and expectations on men anyway.
    There are some decent points in there. But the recreation of strongly defined gender stereotypes seems to me to have been a feature of the period from c.1995 to around 2015.
    Compare and contrast fashion before that period, and afterwards for example. The growth of plastic surgery, shaved eyebrows and false lashes.
    Couldn't it be argued the defeat of feminism happened then, not now?
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    Unions protect the interests of their members. If people in these sectors can't or won't join a union, then the unions won't do much for them. Unionisation rates in the UK private sector are tiny anyway, thanks in part to decades of Tory anti-union legislation, so I don't know why you would expect these workers to be unionised.
    Is that a direct quite from 'I'm Alright Jack?'

    Unions are prepared to prognosticate on any topic they like but aren't prepared to lift a finger to assist the most abused workers in Britain? on a technicality?

    Seriously do me a favour.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,945
    edited July 2022
    Stereodog said:

    But the majority of those identifying as something other than cis won’t get anywhere near medical intervention. When I was younger I came out as gay to everyone, thinking about it now it would have been more accurate to say I was bisexual. Doubtless if I were doing it again today I’d select something else. It doesn’t really matter though because I know what I am.
    I'd have come out as bisexual had I heard of the term. It didn't exist in Wigan in the 80's. Being able to put a name to myself was a boon.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,405
    MISTY said:

    Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?

    FFS.
    Of course the sweatshop workers should be unionised. After all, the train drivers are only on 50 grand because they are. Which of the Thatcher era union laws are you going to repeal to make it easier and more worthwhile for people to join a union?
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,378
    Doesn't 'cis' sound like 'sissy'?

    Showing my age, and no doubt it's phobic-something, but it's one advantage of being over seventy, I don't care.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 53,685
    IshmaelZ said:

    Chemical?

    I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
    There's a Transylvania, but no Cis-sylvania.

    In Austro-Hungarian times, you had Cis-Leithania (Austria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Galicia and Bukovina) and Trans-Leithania (Hungary, Slovakia, Transylvania, Croatia).
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163

    Or it might just mean a bunch of 13-year-old girls don't fancy the boys in their class.
    Except the ideology is to medicalise those feelings and prevent the trans children from experiencing the trauma of undergoing puberty in the "wrong" gender. And opposing that makes you a fascist transphobe.

    The idea that it might simply be a "phase" children are going through is explicitly identified as transphobic.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 5,560
    dixiedean said:

    I'd have come out as bisexual had I heard of the term. It didn't exist in Wigan in the 80's.
    Bisexuality amongst men is probably now the least-recognised and least-accepted sexual orientation (or whatever the approved term is this week). Turning LGB into LGBT, let alone the rest of the alphabet soup, has been pretty damaging to bisexual men.
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244
    IshmaelZ said:

    Chemical?

    I think Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul predate alchemy, never mind chemistry.
    Transalpine is an Austro Swiss train service. You've got some Gaul! Chemical nomenclature concedes to no one!
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739
    MISTY said:

    Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?

    FFS.
    You know the reason why a train driver is on £50k

    It's because it was cheaper to pay the driver more money than the compensation needed if the driver doesn't turn up.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 5,560

    Transalpine is an Austro Swiss train service. You've got some Gaul! Chemical nomenclature concedes to no one!
    There are orthodox things but no metadox things, which I've always seen as a bit of a paradox.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,405
    MISTY said:

    Is that a direct quite from 'I'm Alright Jack?'

    Unions are prepared to prognosticate on any topic they like but aren't prepared to lift a finger to assist the most abused workers in Britain? on a technicality?

    Seriously do me a favour.
    It's not a technicality. Unions protect their members. That is the entire concept of a union. If people can't or won't join a union, then they won't be protected by a union. And decades of deliberate Tory policy have made it harder and less worthwhile to join a union. So if you want to change that, you need to start by changing the law to make it easier for unions to organise. Right now, the government is talking about making it harder.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 59,827
    edited July 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    My daughter has a friend who came out as trans a year ago (aged 13), and made a big fuss over pronouns and using her new male name.

    For about nine months she battled her parents over them recognizing her new gender identity.

    And eventually, about four or five months ago ago, they relented.

    Said child (now 14), seems to have now forgotten the trans thing. Once her parents stopped arguing with her, it suddenly became a whole lot less important than other things.

    Like vaping.

    That's a happier story. Some are less happy

    One of my older daughter's friends has moved from being a Mia to being a Freddy. Wears boys clothes and wants total boy status. Her parents reluctantly agreed but then Freddy demanded medication (age 15) and the parents said No. Now the family is at war and Freddy runs away all night and gets picked up by police all over the place

    Might Freddy have run off the rails anyway? Perhaps. These kids are teens. But this isn't like smoking weed or liking drill or even getting a tattoo. The kids want lifechanging drugs and surgery, and - as @Gardenwalker notes - they often have the full support of the school and a whole ready-to-go ideology to back them up, and you are an evil transphobe if you demur
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    Of course the sweatshop workers should be unionised. After all, the train drivers are only on 50 grand because they are. Which of the Thatcher era union laws are you going to repeal to make it easier and more worthwhile for people to join a union?
    Are you seriously telling me unions could not isolate where the sweatshops are and set up pickets within current laws? (Up to six?) couldn't make court representations on behalf of the workers from existing funds? Couldn't distribute leaflets in different languages in those area to encourage unionisation? could not lobby MPs in the constituencies concerned? Could not sue the employers concerned for human rights breaches?

    Do me an effing favour. Seriously.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163
    dixiedean said:

    There are some decent points in there. But the recreation of strongly defined gender stereotypes seems to me to have been a feature of the period from c.1995 to around 2015.
    Compare and contrast fashion before that period, and afterwards for example. The growth of plastic surgery, shaved eyebrows and false lashes.
    Couldn't it be argued the defeat of feminism happened then, not now?
    Yes, you could argue that, for example, the spice girls were a defeat for feminism, because they were about reinforcing gender stereotypes. And the same with the push to normalise plastic surgery on a pro-choice basis.

    It seems to me that feminism is still the way forward, and the ideology around trans is about accommodating to the stereotypes rather than defying them.
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244

    There's a Transylvania, but no Cis-sylvania.

    In Austro-Hungarian times, you had Cis-Leithania (Austria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Galicia and Bukovina) and Trans-Leithania (Hungary, Slovakia, Transylvania, Croatia).
    Don't let Viktor hear you say that!
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,945
    Driver said:

    There are orthodox things but no metadox things, which I've always seen as a bit of a paradox.
    I admire your heterodoxy.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 3,266
    When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.

    So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.

    (There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    It's not a technicality. Unions protect their members. That is the entire concept of a union. If people can't or won't join a union, then they won't be protected by a union. And decades of deliberate Tory policy have made it harder and less worthwhile to join a union. So if you want to change that, you need to start by changing the law to make it easier for unions to organise. Right now, the government is talking about making it harder.

    I'm sure if you went to TUC headquarters (if it still exists), you would see campaigns on everything under the sun that had sod all to do with 'protecting members'.

    Sweatshop workers? silence. The conduct of companies like Amazon? nary a dicky bird.

    The former doesn't suit the narrative. The latter funds some causes the bosses like.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 5,560

    When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.

    So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.

    (There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)

    These days, probably bought as such. The marketers call them "distressed jeans"...
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 53,685
    And who can forget "Trans-Manche Link", the company who built the Channel Tunnel?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,812
    edited July 2022

    The scary thing is how mutually reinforcing the two sides are.

    The anti-fascists are convinced that not buying into trans ideology is a hallmark of fascism, so they double down on it and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with them, even if they happen to be a left-wing feminist.
    You and Leon are quite mutually reinforcing too.

    Take a tiktok or two, add a touch of twitter and anecdote, stir in a soupcon of lurid hyperbole, false equivalence, supposition, some "kids of today" and mind-reading of "the woke left" - and lo and behold, before we know it we have a hell of a thesis on the table!
  • DriverDriver Posts: 5,560

    And who can forget "Trans-Manche Link", the company who built the Channel Tunnel?

    Presumably a flight within Europe or to Asia or Africa is cisatlantic.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,945
    edited July 2022

    Yes, you could argue that, for example, the spice girls were a defeat for feminism, because they were about reinforcing gender stereotypes. And the same with the push to normalise plastic surgery on a pro-choice basis.

    It seems to me that feminism is still the way forward, and the ideology around trans is about accommodating to the stereotypes rather than defying them.
    But. A large part of any teenage rebellion is against your parents.
    The parents are the generation with the profoundly rigid gender conformity.
    Look at the contrast with the Eighties. Annie Lennox, KD Lang wore suits. Boy George and Marilyn dresses. Before that it was denim and similar hair.
    The culture of the noughties was buff, shaved male. Very short hair. Overmade up, probably surgeried female. Big hair.
    Reality TV.
    That's what's being rebelled against.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 59,827
    kinabalu said:

    You and Leon are quite mutually reinforcing too.

    Take a tiktok or two, add a touch of twitter and anecdote, stir in a bit of lurid hyperbole, false equivalence, supposition, some "kids of today" and mind-reading of "the left" - and lo and behold, afore we know it we have a hell of a thesis on the table!
    Except, I am talking about MY KIDS, not "kids of today"

    But, you do you
  • You think she is best because she lies with the ease and alacrity of Boris Johnson. You think that is a strength not a weakness.
    Unlike Starmer whom it seems to be universally accepted lied to win the membership, I don't think I've ever heard anyone accuse Liz of lying.

    Of course to someone as thick as you who can't comprehend the concept of change, I can well understand why you think someone whose views have evolved must be lying instead.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,856

    You think she is best because she lies with the ease and alacrity of Boris Johnson. You think that is a strength not a weakness.
    Do you still have a vote? Why don't you go to one of the hustings and see what you think of her in person?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163
    dixiedean said:

    But. A large part of any teenage rebellion is against your parents.
    The parents are the generation with the profoundly rigid gender conformity.
    Look at the contrast with the Eighties. Annie Lennox, KD Lang wore suits. Boy George and Marilyn dresses. Before that it was denim and similar hair.
    The culture of the noughties was buff, shaved male. Very short hair. Overmade up, probably surgeried female. Big hair.
    That's what's being rebelled against.
    If the worst that came of it was some tattoos, body piercings and embarrassing clothes then it wouldn't really be an issue. The medical interventions are more difficult to grow out of.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 3,266
    Driver - Thanks. So deliberately added by the manufacturers, not the girls. That makes sense.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Transphobic fail there, Bart, suggesting the lived experience of the transwoman is in some way inauthentic.
    I'm sure the lived experience of the transwomen is authentic and they are authentic transwomen, but they are not authentic women.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,280
    edited July 2022
    Driver said:

    These days, probably bought as such. The marketers call them "distressed jeans"...
    These days being at least the last 25 years or so! Edit - a quick google suggests the last 50 years.....
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,945

    If the worst that came of it was some tattoos, body piercings and embarrassing clothes then it wouldn't really be an issue. The medical interventions are more difficult to grow out of.
    Indeed.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 5,560
    edited July 2022

    These days being at least the last 25 years or so!
    Possibly. 25 years ago is about the time I would have grown out of the fad had I ever been into it...
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,812

    It's a bizarre term.

    What's wrong with "real"?

    Eg transwomen should be treated with respect as much we possible, so long as it doesn't endanger or unfairly (eg sport) affect real women.
    But "real" has the opposite of "fake". Cis is better and it just means gender is the same as birth sex.

    I agree it sounds a bit odd - since it applies to 99% of people - but I don't see the big objection to it.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,233
    Sean_F said:

    Actually, it's not amazing. So many organisations operate on the basis that "to the pure all things are pure." Because their motives are pure, they are not obliged to adhere to the law.
    Indeed - a relative in the US does pro-bono work for the NAACP. He has a fair bit of work with Title XI university "tribunals".

    The mental process that seems to occur is

    - I am a Professor
    - Therefore I am kin to Plato
    - Therefore I am a perfectly unbiased Guardian of Truth
    - Therefore whatever I do is perfectly just
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,576
    Driver said:

    These days, probably bought as such. The marketers call them "distressed jeans"...
    Around 40 years ago younger son, who was a bit of a fashionista, and attended the local sixth form college turned up in a pair of distressed jeans. His older brother who was not at all fashion conscious, and who was nearly at the end of industrial apprenticeship, offered to give him his old workwear jeans.
    For of course a substantial consideration!
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,746
    Anyone who thinks that a referendum, any referendum, automatically settles an issue for any length of time needs to have their head examined. It rarely happens, and when it does it’s only when it’s a constitutional formality needed to reflect well established opinion anyway - for example the repeal of the 8th in Ireland (and even that might get tested) or the many and varied Swiss votes.

    1999 didn’t kill Republicanism in Australia. In the U.K. we’re still talking about AV. If they had lost Brexiteers would have behaved in exactly the same way as every other side in every referendum that’s ever happened. Indeed a Remain win could well have turbo boosted UKIP in the same way as the No win led did the SNP.

    The fact that Cameron believed plebiscites could settle disputes shows how idiotic he was.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,812
    MISTY said:

    Are you so blinkered you cannot see the difference between a train driver on fifty grand and a sweatshop worker on three quid an hour?

    FFS.
    Who mentioned train drivers? I was more thinking of stuff like the (recent) campaign for better pay and conditions for college cleaners.

    Plenty of people from the left active in that. Precisely zero from where you reside politically.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 5,560
    DougSeal said:

    Anyone who thinks that a referendum, any referendum, automatically settles an issue for any length of time needs to have their head examined. It rarely happens, and when it does it’s only when it’s a constitutional formality needed to reflect well established opinion anyway - for example the repeal of the 8th in Ireland (and even that might get tested) or the many and varied Swiss votes.

    1999 didn’t kill Republicanism in Australia. In the U.K. we’re still talking about AV. If they had lost Brexiteers would have behaved in exactly the same way as every other side in every referendum that’s ever happened. Indeed a Remain win could well have turbo boosted UKIP in the same way as the No win led did the SNP.

    The fact that Cameron believed plebiscites could settle disputes shows how idiotic he was.

    Well, TSE is... :)
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,746
    Driver said:

    Well, TSE is... :)
    Fair.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,280
    kinabalu said:

    But "real" has the opposite of "fake". Cis is better and it just means gender is the same as birth sex.

    I agree it sounds a bit odd - since it applies to 99% of people - but I don't see the big objection to it.
    How about man, transman, transperson, transwoman, woman? Does that not cover everyone without questioning their authenticity? Probably not but seems fine to me!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,812
    edited July 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    I think it was predicted? - not by me - and Sunak could sooo easily have forestalled it. A big call he failed to get right.
    Not by me either, I thought the Run Off would be close and Sunak would likely win in the end.

    I have Next PM betting profits but that's only because of laying Corbyn ages ago pre GE19 and my hunch 66s on Mordaunt.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,422
    Keir Starmer has sacked shadow minister Sam Tarry.

    Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.


    https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1552326078458380288?s=20&t=3SuGEi6DsYQ39rLoSrPqNw
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,677

    When I was growing up in the United States, a person who decided to "pass", to change their official identity, was usually a "Negro", or a "colored person", to use the words common then, who decided they would be better off as white. And they were generally right about that. A little later, in the late 1960s, I knew a woman working for an insurance company, who signed her letters with initials, letting readers think she was a man, if they wanted to.

    So, changes in identity then were mostly people who thought they would improve their lives by doing so. And I think the same is often true today, at least here in the United States. It is my impression that the "trans" movement began with boys recognizing that it was better to be a girl, and then girls seeing that it was even better to be "trans" than a girl. And that second phase has been strengthened by girls' greater vulnerability to fads.

    (There is an amusing example of that vulnerability in this area. I often see girls wearing jeans, which have holes in them, not from wear, but deliberated added -- I think. So far, I have stifled my impulse to take up a collection for such girls, so they can have jeans without holes in them.)

    I agree about para 1 (and one still sees name plates in blocks of apartments with initials only, to discourage strangers from thinking "aha, a lone woman"). I'm a bit puzzled by paras 2 and 3. I've never heard of your interpretation of people who want to be trans. The cases I know were done after much agonising about how they felt naturally. In general it's still seen as difficult and likely to cause obstacles and prejudice rather than an easier life. The whole trans movement is about making it less hard. And ripped jeans for any gender have been a thing for years, at least in the UK - showing deliberate casualness. Not my scene either, but it's a harmless affectation.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 121,686

    NEW THREAD

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,812
    Leon said:

    Except, I am talking about MY KIDS, not "kids of today"

    But, you do you
    I will. But I'm short of time, have to grill some pork chops, it being Wednesday, so sadly/thankfully (delete to taste) I'll have to leave you guys to your transwittering for today.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,677
    MISTY said:



    Are you seriously telling me unions could not isolate where the sweatshops are and set up pickets within current laws? (Up to six?) couldn't make court representations on behalf of the workers from existing funds? Couldn't distribute leaflets in different languages in those area to encourage unionisation? could not lobby MPs in the constituencies concerned? Could not sue the employers concerned for human rights breaches?

    Do me an effing favour. Seriously.

    I agree with you that it'd be good if Amazon et al were unionised, and the unions are working on it, against entrenched company opposition:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_worker_organization

    Your view that they're deliberately not unionising them is ill-informed, and perhaps prompted by a dislike of unions more generally? I've never met a union organiser who didn't want basically to recruit everyone.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,812

    How about man, transman, transperson, transwoman, woman? Does that not cover everyone without questioning their authenticity? Probably not but seems fine to me!
    I'd say that scores over "real" - but anyway. Chops!
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155

    Did it happen before? Sure.
    Did it happen at such scale? No.

    I’ll repeat (and perhaps correct) the stat.

    Only 4 in 16 identified as cis and straight.

    The plural of anecdote, alas, is not data.

    For the last 4-5 years I've worked at a university in outreach, working with dozens of schools across all age ranges; literally thousands of young people between the ages of about 10 - 18 have interacted with the team I'm in. We have spoken to 1 student who has identified themselves as trans.

    Young people are in the process of coming to terms with their identity - they will explore different things and consider what is available to them. We live in a society that is somewhat less strict in our acceptance and understanding of gender and sexuality than when even I was in school 15-20 odd years ago. So, yes, children will consider their identity. Some may socially transition, others may try puberty blockers. Some of those will decide they don't want to transition because, actually, that time of interest and self discovery showed them they are comfortable identifying with their assigned gender. That's fine - when I was 10 I knew I fancied girls, when I was 14 I was sure I was gay, when I was 16 I learned bisexuals existed and understood myself better.

    The moral panic, specifically around children, regarding transgender people is exactly the same as the ones against gays and lesbians in the 70s and 80s - painting people as deviant predators out to harm your children, or turn them gay as part of a gay agenda.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 62,357
    AlistairM said:

    My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
    It's entirely logical.

    Young children and teenagers have worked out they might be adversely judged or even disadvantaged through intersectionality if they are straight or "cis" so they are covering themselves with some wokescreening.

    In 99+% of cases it will be complete nonsense but nonsense breeds nonsense in turn.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 62,357

    Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.

    It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.

    I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.

    I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
    It's good you have your own mind on the subject.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 62,357
    Leon said:

    I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity

    And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail

    Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
    Yes, that's also my concern.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 53,685

    Keir Starmer has sacked shadow minister Sam Tarry.

    Labour spox: “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.


    https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1552326078458380288?s=20&t=3SuGEi6DsYQ39rLoSrPqNw

    How's this for Corbynista bias?

    The Elizabeth Line serves Sam Tarry's Ilford South, but NOT Wes Streeting's Ilford North!
  • sarissasarissa Posts: 2,108
    ydoethur said:

    Not really satisfactory as that would then be asking councils to spend money on something that had no legal force. What if one of them refused to comply?
    AFAIK, the Scottish Government pays for the expense of conducting the Referendum. As it is a legal duty under the Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020 for LAs to raise awareness and encourage people to vote, councillors refusing to cooperate could probably be suspended if they refuse to do so.
This discussion has been closed.