The trans debate

[Rich Tea Wellin]

You definitely come across as someone who is open to being wrong. Good luck with finding what you want - of course, you don’t really want to find it…

[Long slender neck]

Are you going to add anything to this debate?

[CEB]

You definitely come across as someone who is open to being wrong. Good luck with finding what you want - of course, you don’t really want to find it…

I repeat my offer as made to Brendan - a good faith, open discussion about trans rights activism where we answer each other’s questions honestly and fully. We acknowledge where the other person makes a reasonable point, and we engage substantively with points raised before moving onto further questions.
I hope I *am* wrong about trans activism, because A: it isn’t actually much fun finding myself at odds with people who share most of my beliefs on a range of other subjects, and B: I think this country really, really needs a Labour government and I’d like to be able to support the Labour Party unequivocally.

For the record, the reason I find myself pretty well informed about this debate is because I tried really, really hard to find a way to support trans activism, but the more I looked at what trans activists (individuals and mainstream organisations) said, the more I found it to be sexist and regressive. The substantive answers you assert that I don’t actually want to find? If you have them, and they make sense, I’ll happily change tack.

I think that most right wing boarders on here would be surprised to see that other left wing boarders didn’t actually think my natural leaning towards progressive values was genuine, so I’d ask you first; on what basis are you assuming bad faith in my contributions on this issue?

[Currywurst and Chips]

"You're wrong" strikes me as rather tame in comparison to the "f*cking imbecile" "idiot bigot" or "c*nt" et al that passes as an acceptable reply on here, apparently

[CEB]

It’s interesting to me that the person taking most flak - or being most dismissed as posting in bad faith - on this thread from those on the left isn’t the guy who invented a fictional trans woman while doing a self-confessed WUM that adopted several trans activist positions for a laugh, but the guy who has taken the time to understand the issue and has some questions that literally *every* left wing boarder posting here has evaded answering.

[Long slender neck]

Who invented a fictional trans woman?

[CEB]

MB Gold’s postie was an invention for the purposes of a bizarre wind up where Max’yyyyy unwittingly characterised himself as a more moderate version of a typical trans “ally”

[CEB]

Are you going to add anything to this debate?

Turns out he wasn’t

[BoniO]

So, what's this all about then?

[CEB]

Its a complex issue which I have differing opinions on, depending on the element.

If it was my child I would do my absolutely very best to support them and help them into being themselves. But I'd also try to do the very hard job of convincing them to wait. Your body and your mind changes so much before and after puberty. The things I wanted at 10 were very different at 16, as were the things i wanted at 23 are different today, ten years later. It's hard to understand that when you are young though and ultimately it's very difficult for anyone if they cant be themselves, no matter what age. I think you need to balance listening, understanding and your responsibility as a guardian.

I re-read the first page of this thread, and thought this was relevant to your post in Woke Watch, and my reply.

This post is really interesting, because it demonstrates exactly what I mean about reasonable sounding ideas.

You say “ultimately it’s very difficult for anyone if they can’t be themselves, no matter what age”, and I, and most decent reasonable people, would agree - and then, by extension, assume that trans rights/advocacy organisations have the best answers and best practice.

But here’s the thing: let’s look at children, and what it means to “be themselves”.
What are the limits on a child’s ability to be themselves here? And what is the likely context of these limits?

At the risk of sounding facetious, we’re ruling out anything overly dangerous as a facet of being “oneself” that a child can be, so there *are* limits, and because we’re talking about the idea of transness, we’re talking about sex and gender, right?

So if we’re talking about a male child’s right to be themself, let’s unpack that.

I would hope we’re not agreeing that a male child’s body is wrong, and that we’re not saying that a small male child has the right to be supported in an assertion that instead of having a willy and balls, he should have the genitalia of a female child, right?

So what we are talking about when talking about childrens right to be themselves is about things the child *does*, *looks like*, and *thinks”

And there’s important context here. I’ve worked with enough children and parents in my time to know that many, many parents are uncomfortable with gender non conformity and will discourage children “being themselves” if it’s a boy being effeminate or a girl not being feminine enough.

A reasonable person would say - and I suspect you’d agree - that in such a case, the absolute first thing that needs to happen to support a child’s right to be themselves is for parents to be educated on the fact that children should not be limited by gendered stereotypes or expectations, right?

Except that what trans rights organisations like Stonewall say - and honestly, go to their website, look at what it says and doesn’t say, see what you conclude yourself - actively supports the parents regressive assertions; it, rightly, says the good bit: “children should be free to be whatever they want”. But where it goes wrong is that their implications from that is not “boys can do this too”, but “of course your child can play with barbies. She’s telling you who she is, and she’s a girl”


Edited to add:
The reason I’m not just “hmmm, stonewall seems a bit iffy now, but what do I know?” is because Stonewall, Mermaids et al - mainstream trans activism - is actually, demonstrably doing the first bit: supporting and encouraging a gender non-conforming child’s right to change sex on the basis that the opposite sex is more appropriate for their body.
Unpack the jargon, and it’s all there. There’s no extrapolation from me here - this is literally the pathway recommended by Mermaids and Stonewall and used by GIDS, but the clarity of language is mine.

1: a young child “presents” with either gender dysphoria or a belief that they’re actually a member of the opposite sex. This could be informed by parental responses to behaviour, parental explanation of the concepts and categories “boy” and “girl”. Eg “Well, (male child) a girl is someone who feels like a girl. Are you enjoying playing dress up in mummy’s clothes? Would you like that Barbie doll? Hmmmm, do you feel like a boy, or like a girl?”

2: mainstream trans activism recommends an “affirmation only” approach, and states that failure to affirm a child’s identity can lead to depression and suicide. In practice this means that the hypothetical child will have their assertion that they are likely to be a girl continually reinforced, since based on the description they’ve heard of “girl” they are one. This child is then in the system, and is effectively lovebombed and treated as special, and never encouraged to scrutinise what it means to be a male child who is a girl.
They may well get involved with Mermaids, where friends will be made and there’s a whole subculture of being part of the community, with rainbows and glitter and free from harm of those people who would DENY her identity

3: the child gets older. At this point, despite the fact that mainstream trans organisations describe gender identity as an innate sense of self, unrelated to sex, mainstream trans organisations advocate to “protect” a trans child from going through “the wrong puberty”. Because doing so will mean that their *sexed* body will not *pass* as being that of the opposite sex. To protect that child from that fate, however, they aren’t encouraged to learn to love their body and to be prepared for life as a gender non conforming male. No, trans activism at that stage advocates for (and has been doing this for years now) prescribing puberty blockers (which have a negative impact on brain development, bone strength, and aren’t fully reversible despite earlier claims) ostensibly so that the male child can wait until he is old enough before deciding on whether to have cross sex hormones and surgery.

4: however, in practice, and as has come to light in the last couple of years, puberty blockers lead to young people going onto cross sex hormones and life long medical treatment and infertility in virtually all instances. This could mean that those identifying gender dysphoria in young children have maybe the best diagnostic record in relation to psychological phenomena in history, or it could mean that if a child grows up in a context where their trans identity is affirmed, places them in a loving, welcoming community, is never examined, and THEN they start in medication which they are told they need to have until they’re old enough to be trans, they’re quite likely to follow through. Especially since, crucially, that child won’t have gone through puberty.

So, when we talk of a “trans child” and “being who they truly are”, remember you’re talking about putting a child on a pathway to infertility and irreversible changes to their bodies, on the basis that they need to have the *right* body to be the person they are.

It’s a f***ing scandal.

[CEB]

Moved from “woke watch” as my take on this isn’t about “wokeness” but is about - possibly well intentioned, but utterly misguided - ideologues and mainstream trans organisations with regressive ideas about sex and gender, piggybacking positive ideas about homosexuality (“don’t stop people being who they are”) but in the process medicalising/pathologising gender non-conformity. Here’s my relevant introductory post:

OK, I’m going to split this over a few posts and potentially discuss in the interim so it’s not just an essay. here’s an example of a recent “trans toolkit”, created in collaboration with mainstream trans rights/advocacy organisations.

https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/media/15892 ... idance.pdf

On page two, it acknowledges the organisations and documents it used in the creation of the “toolkit”; there’s the gender identity, research & education society http://www.gires.org.uk/e-learning, and links to a couple of other existing toolkits, which were created with reference to, and in collaboration with Mermaids, the leading charity for trans children, which itself has close links with Stonewall, who were the subject of the story the other day - so this isn’t an example where a school has asked a trans staff member to throw something together - this is a recent reflection of what mainstream organisations actually believe.
(As a side note, it’s also worth remembering that this is the stuff they think they can write openly and get away with. I personally am aware that the actual beliefs and practices go much further, but I’m going to focus on what I can *show*, not what I *believe*)

Assuming you’re still with me, when I highlight some of what’s said in this “toolkit”, consider the impact on a couple of hypothetical examples of children - each of these examples are based on children I’ve worked with over my career, who would undoubtedly be “on the radar” based on some of this - I’d invite you to think about what might be flagged about them

1: a ten year old female Somali child with a strong interest in playing football bordering on obsession, and she’s very skilled. Many of her peer group accidentally think she’s a boy when they first meet her, due to her short hair in corn rows and boisterous, confident personality. She is starting to tentatively have “crushes” on female actors, and some female adult role models. Her older siblings are openly homophobic, and her parents are religious.

2: a seven year old white male child who enjoys playing with feminine stereotyped toys, and does so at school because he isn’t allowed them at home. He has short hair but would like to have longer hair, but his parents won’t allow it

3: a similar male child to above, however, he has long hair, is mistaken for a girl but isn’t bothered by this. His parents are encouraging of his interests - they’re open minded and believe it to be a *good* thing that their son doesn’t feel restricted by gendered norms.

Any questions or comments so far? Or an example of a hypothetical child that you think might be worth including in that list?

Particularly interested in engaging with Brendan, if he’s actually open to hearing other viewpoints, and Apple Wumble who, despite some hostility that’s gone both ways, is clearly engaging in good faith, and oxo, with whom the conversations have been imteresting, even if we’re not on the same page, but open to discussing with anyone interested.
I’ll assume good faith in any replies, I’d hope anyone posting will do the same

[CEB]

From the glossary at the end of the toolkit. This is what I mean when I say that mainstream trans activism is demonstrably arguing for a self reported sense of “gender identity” to replace “sex”.
Their definition of “sex” doesn’t describe what sex actually *is* - it describes it only as a flawed hint towards someone’s gender identity.

It does this without having a description elsewhere in its glossary of what “man” or “woman” means - so a body is an imperfect hint at what a gender identity *might be*, but the words used to refer to the most common gender identities, do not have any description whatsoever.

Let’s assume a school adopts this definition of “sex” and asks its staff to recognise that children we’d previously thought of as unambiguously male or unambiguously female, actually just have bodies that staff might make damaging assumptions about.

How might that impact the children mentioned above?
And what criteria might a child, or staff, use in order to better understand whether a given child is a boy or girl? What information do those words contain? (Remembering that these are children who may be learning what *categories* are, and so their understanding of the concept “girl” relies on the definition they hear, just as they would believe “teapot” refers to “scissors” if that was the word they used for them)

[Orient till I die M]

This is a football forum any weird topics like this need to be binned

[CEB]

This is a football forum any weird topics like this need to be binned

Or ignored if you’re not interested

[Orient till I die M]

This is a football forum any weird topics like this need to be binned

Or ignored if you’re not interested

Before you get excited I wasn’t interested and didn’t read it but the fact your interested in trans kids is odd

[CEB]

*you’re, and yes, I can tell you didn’t read it. I admire the confidence of you for posting your take without having the first clue of what’s being discussed. Bye now

[Orient till I die M]

*you’re, and yes, I can tell you didn’t read it. I admire the confidence of you for posting your take without having the first clue of what’s being discussed. Bye now

Nonce

[Long slender neck]

Obsessed.

Could you stick to one thread?

[Orient till I die M]

This thread needs deleting honestly very very weird that a league two club fans are discussing trans kids on a football forum. Glad his last thread got deleted tho. Strange man

[Long slender neck]

You're going to get deleted in a minute

[CEB]

This thread needs deleting honestly very very weird that a league two club fans are discussing trans kids on a football forum. Glad his last thread got deleted tho. Strange man

Chuffed to bits to have been promoted from “nonce” to “strange man” in one post. At this rate I’ll be a top bloke in three posts time

[Orient till I die M]

You're going to get deleted in a minute

I’m shaking

[Orient till I die M]

This thread needs deleting honestly very very weird that a league two club fans are discussing trans kids on a football forum. Glad his last thread got deleted tho. Strange man

Chuffed to bits to have been promoted from “nonce” to “strange man” in one post. At this rate I’ll be a top bloke in three posts time

Your both there’s no promotion there

[CEB]

The Tavistock clinic is being shut down after an NHS review found it to be not safe.

Who would’ve thought it, aside from the people on this thread saying that giving kids puberty blockers and putting them on a path to infertility and life long medicalisation might be a bad idea?

[CEB]

https://archive.ph/2022.07.28-112541/ht ... -wpdx3v6nw

Non paywalled