Guardian on 'Toxic Trans Debate'

The Guardian bleating about the ‘toxic’ trans debate is like BP crying over oil-drenched cormorants.

We don't need gender, sex is sufficient. Live as you wish, dress as you wish, don't startle the horses: don't confuse inclusion, intrusion, and invasion.

I love this place.

That their readers disagree with their woke bro editorial policy.

The Guardian does, however, allow comments on Halloween costumes.

What is the Guardian afraid of?
Reality

The Guardian doesn't encourage comments, on either side of the debate, from readers.

What is the Guardian afraid of?

Whittle wants sex as a category to be abandoned. This would eradicate the pesky problem of the EA exceptions and suggestions that TWANW etc.

But if we abandon sex as a category, we no longer have men and women, just people. So TWAW becomes meaningless, because the category 'women' no longer exists. We just have people, and transpeople are the same as all other people, because there is no longer a category to transition from and to.

So the eradication of sex as a category also eradicates transgenderism, doesn't it? Or is there some nuance of #translogic that I've missed?

Oh, The Guardian is all about identity politics these days, meaning that it can be independent of critical thought.

It's all very well for the Guardian to report on the "debate", but it never addresses the reasons why people want a debate: the absurdity of self-ID when transgender includes crossdressers, the warped message that gender nonconformity means being born in the wrong body, etc. People who only read the Guardian aren't given the full story.
Have they ever mentioned Pippa/Philip Bunce?
I wonder how independent Guardian's journalism is these days.

Eh. Tatchell and Whittle are rent-a-gobs on transideology issues. I suspect that Harrop would love to join them in this but his personality keeps getting in the way.

Isn't there a fair amount of social psychology research that mentions people are overwhelmed by choices and appreciate having some of this narrowed down - so they are better off satisficing rather than optimising every possible choice?

Also, Parenting 101! We learn as soon as our kids start speaking that you don't say "What would you like to wear today?" because they say "my swimming costume" when it's snowing. You say, "Would you like to wear the red jumper or the green jumper?"

I cannot believe that the Guardian have quoted Wittle again after his hugely-irresponsible comments on suicide.

By challenging the gender binary, Facebook will finally allow thousands of people to describe themselves as they are now and it will allow future generation of kids to become truly comfortable in their own skins."

Isn't there a fair amount of social psychology research that mentions people are overwhelmed by choices and appreciate having some of this narrowed down - so they are better off satisficing rather than optimising every possible choice? I realise this is typically applied to economics but I can't avoid the sense that this pervades every aspect of this, to some extent - that and political/social subjugation.

blog.shrm.org/blog/satisficing-versus-optimizing-making-your-choice

We don't need gender, sex is sufficient. Live as you wish, dress as you wish, don't startle the horses: don't confuse inclusion, intrusion, and invasion.

.....spouting that sex is nebulous and do difficult to pin down that it is not a valid category!

Whittle wants sex as a category to be abandoned. This would eradicate the pesky problem of the EA exceptions and suggestions that TWANW etc.
He has been handed his arse on a plate a couple of times on MN spouting that s

The Guardian bleating about the ‘toxic’ trans debate is like BP crying over oil-drenched cormorants.

The reason the article is in the Education section is that the editor of that section has a good deal of independence and can commission topics she’s interested in.

article Tue 15 May 2018
'Schools pulled into row over helping transgender children'
(extract)
"[Stephanie] Davies-Arai [Transgender Trend] says she took an interest in the subject because as a child she had felt herself to be a boy, and she didn’t think it was a good idea to label children like her as transgender because she believes that in some cases, these feelings resolve naturally by the end of adolescence.

While the Allsorts advice states that “trans pupils or students should have access to the changing room that corresponds to their gender identity” and that in PE lessons, students “should be enabled to participate in the activity which corresponds to their gender identity if this is what they request”, Davies-Arai argues that shared changing rooms present difficulties for some girls. Few teenage girls will be willing to admit that they feel uncomfortable sharing a changing room with a biologically male student, she says.

She points out that the technical guidance on the Equality Act for schools suggests offering students “private changing facilities, such as the staff changing room or another suitable space” – the approach taken at Miles’s school.

Susie Green, CEO of the charity Mermaids, disagrees, saying the debate about single-sex toilets seems “engineered to whip up fear” and is equivalent to “arguing people of colour shouldn’t be allowed to use the same toilets as white people in case they make them dirty”.(continues)

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/may/15/transgender-row-teachers-afraid-challenge-breast-binding

Prioritisation of 'gender identity' over 'sex'

Telegraph 27 Jun 2014
'Facebook's 71 gender options come to UK users'
(extract)
Facebook worked with UK groups Press for Change and Gendered Intelligence to add 21 new options to ensure the list best reflected the ways UK users may choose to describe themselves.

"Gender identities are complex and for many people, describing themselves as just a man or just a woman has always been inadequate," said Professor Stephen Whittle, vice-president at Press for Change. The European Court of Human Rights has upheld the right to develop our gender identity, as key to our personal autonomy.

"By challenging the gender binary, Facebook will finally allow thousands of people to describe themselves as they are now and it will allow future generation of kids to become truly comfortable in their own skins."

Ensuring users feel comfortable being their true selves while using the network is a priority, said Simon Milner, Policy Director, UK Middle East & Africa at Facebook.

"An important part of this is the expression of gender especially when it extends beyond the definitions of just ‘male’ or ‘female.’ (continues)

www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10930654/Facebooks-71-gender-options-come-to-UK-users.html

I stopped my membership to the guardian over this. And I won’t buy it again - although I do read the on line version.
I don’t understand why gender and sex aren’t seperated so there is no confusion.
I feel we are becoming an increasingly religious and belief led society. Science is ignored.
Do you want laws based on facts or opinions?

The Guardian nailed its colours to the mast a long time ago. That article is a bit of a sop thrown to the GC but does not change the fundamental nature of that rag's editorial policy.

The Guardian cannot die a horrible painful flaming financial death - taking the journalistic career of Wee Owen with it - soon enough.

What I don't understand is why people like Whittle are siding with the self-id transactivists rather than the fully transitioned transsexuals.

Prioritisation of 'gender identity' over 'sex'

The likes of Whittle are far more canny and always knew the score. They created the smoke and mirrors.

What I don't understand is why people like Whittle are siding with the self-id transactivists rather than the fully transitioned transsexuals.

The reason the article is in the Education section is that the editor of that section has a good deal of independence and can commission topics she’s interested in.

I thought it was good to see so many gender-critical voices in the piece, but it would have seemed confusing to people who weren’t already aware of the debate.

Lovely bit of DARVO there from our friend Stephen Whittle:-

“Trans academics have mostly tried really hard not to accuse, and certainly not to ‘no platform’ anybody. Yet these voices are making trans people look like the extremists. Sadly, it will have the effect of shutting down the debate.”

And I know, there’s someone out there reading this thinking, “well I can’t be anti-trans, I support trans men because they’re female and therefore women, and I’m pro-women!” This is also an anti-trans statement to make because you’re denying the lived trans experience of that person.

And yet they can't see how anti-women it is to say that men can be women if they say they are. To say that men can be women is to deny the lived experience of women.

The likes of Whittle are far more canny and always knew the score. They created the smoke and mirrors. They will be regrouping to create a new narrative that may wash better with the public.

I absolutely agree with this.

I expect to see lots of in fighting and factionalism occurring amounts TRAs

Me too. And the canny ones, such as Whittle above, will have no hesitation in jettisoning the liabilities. They were only ever cannon fodder after all.

I thought the article was great; TRAs stating that they weren't extremists...followed by numerous examples of their extremist and misogynist behaviour.

And examples of feminist abusive behaviour towards trans people was notable by its absence.