Liz Truss reveals ‘shocking’ plan to remove healthcare for trans youth, slammed as an ‘extraordinary’ attack on equality - the backlash begins

Superb points @Michelleoftheresistance

This has fuck all to do with Gillick or reproductive rights. What transactivists are doing is sleight-of-hand trickery, coopting other struggles to mask the reality of their position.

Exactly - transwomen and immigrants, transwomen and women of colour, transwomen and girls who need abortions now. Always have to co-opt someone else's struggle.

I read on here ages ago the point with abortion is it is the action that keeps things the same - it's the choice with the small impact vs. pregnancy which is the choice with the big impact.

Puberty blockers is the exact opposite way around. They are in no way comparable.

If transgender is a thing, then transage, transabled, transrace and transspecies are a thing. Either you stuff into law that someone's subjective inner sense of self and expression is Real and they must be treated in all ways as if they had that objectively ascertainable aspect, plus be provided with all the same resources that those with objectively ascertainable aspects have - or you put down boundaries that you can express yourself however you like but there are lines you cannot cross in order to protect the rights and needs of others.

If you can use female single sex spaces by choice, and funded female only provision by choice, then by natural extension you should be able to access disability benefits and a carer by choice, or attend your local preschool by choice. It isn't logical or arguable that one aspect of identity should be treated as fact but others not.

Fetish will play an inevitable role in all the above with consideration having to be raised about to what extent someone should be able to involve non consenting others in their sexual expression; the impact on those who cannot identify out of the group being identified into will always be considerable; there will be issues about how society funds resources for those with objective need when those resources and those funds are now being spread over those who have the need and those who identify as having that need.

I pointed this out to my MP several years ago. This way madness lies.

OldCrone

That clip is hilarious, every time. Fae has nothing, absolutely nothing. Everything Fae says applies to themself. And Fae is reduced to the highly transphobic assertion that trans is a medical condition. (And even then the guy subsequently mentions Peter Pan syndrome.)

Blistering and at one point, actually struggles to speak. Because, no words!

Absolutely, lamahaha
And I would argue that unlike the other examples, it’s possible to have a recollection of what it was actually like to be 10 years younger (you have the lived experience of being a teenager, for example), so in some ways it’s the most plausible one of the lot!

Thanks @witchesaremysisters

I guess another - less extreme -version of “trans-ableism” - would be claiming to identify as disabled without actually being so and then getting one of those parking passes and using it to deprive a genuinely disabled person of their parking space...

I remember reading about someone who wanted to have a leg amputated so much. It was sad and worrying at the same time.

Also the white man who decided that he was actually a Thai woman. That was just bonkers.

I also wandered into a cul de sac on twitter yesterday of men who wanted to become ‘Muslim wives’ and sad a newspaper report of one who did that and got married (as a second wife) to someone they met online (who had no idea until the wedding day). They were most put out because their local mosque wouldn’t let them into the women’s section. It was an old newspaper report so I did wonder how things planned out.

This man took his case to court to argue that he should be able to legally change his age.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46425774

Here he is explaining to Jane Fae how being transage is just like being transgender.

Thanks GCGayDad

Trans-ableism is wanting to amputate a healthy limb(s):
www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/obsession_script.shtml

Trans-ageism is what a person in the Netherlands tried to do (he felt a couple of decades younger):
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46133262

Both are not really considered “acceptable” by the medical community or society, yet arguably touch on similar themes of “I sincerely identify this way.”

But can you clarify what you mean about the potential parallels with “trans-ableism” and “trans-ageism”, which we are also not allowed to consider? Sorry, I’m feeling a bit dopey this morning!

Funnily enough, "trans-ageism* is the superficially most rationally convincing of all these trans-situations. We all know cases of people in their 60's looking 20 years younger, people in their 40's looking 10 years older. In many cases it's easy to deceive others as to our age, if only by a few years. Old people can feel young, young people can feel old, and we can all "get" that and sympathise.

Yet we still don't make such cases official. We don't change birth certificates to an older or younger age. We don't allow 40-year-olds to get their pension, no matter how old they feel. I have a photo of myself aged 25, and everyone says I look like 15. I still wouldn't be allowed to get certain youth discounts back then. And a man still can't have sex with a 14 year old girl who looks (and feels) 20.

Love your post @witchesaremysisters.

And totally see your point about the out-of-bounds “transracial” analogy, in that we are not allowed to point out that if, say, a white personal identifies as black, she would be viewed as delusional. And that if a whole group of white people did this and claimed they were black people when they’re not, this would be deeply offensive and harmful to a group that has a long history of oppression and maltreatment at the hands of the other group.

But can you clarify what you mean about the potential parallels with “trans-ableism” and “trans-ageism”, which we are also not allowed to consider? Sorry, I’m feeling a bit dopey this morning!

This has fuck all to do with Gillick or reproductive rights. What transactivists are doing is sleight-of-hand trickery, coopting other struggles to mask the reality of their position.

Which is the main tactic they employ in everything.

Agree 100%

Gender ideologues have to keep making false analogies and distract us by unpicking them.

The truth is their demands are not “similar” to other situations.

There is no other group that demands we create a complicated legal mechanism to falsify birth certificates retrospectively in order to validate their subjective sense of identity. There is no other group that demands we suspend our belief in reality. There is no other group demanding people (many whom they themselves say have serious issues like depression or suicidal ideation) be put on life-altering cosmetic hormonal/surgical pathways to make them look a bit more like a member of the opposite sex.

A young woman who needs an abortion because she was raped is not the same, EVER, as a male who declares he feels like a woman demanding facial hair removal on the NHS.

A young woman taking hormonal contraception (so she can have sex with her boyfriend) is not the same as a child going on experimental treatment that can make them infertile and a medical patient for life, in a situation where the evidence suggests that if you do nothing 80% of cases will resolve by themselves.

This has fuck all to do with Gillick or reproductive rights. What transactivists are doing is sleight-of-hand trickery, coopting other struggles to mask the reality of their position.

What’s also interesting is that the most intellectually honest analogies, such as with “trans-racialism,” “trans-ableism” and “trans-ageism” are being barred from proper scrutiny. You’re immediately labelled transphobic if you bring up the real & philosophical questions at hand of how offensive some of these ideas are around stereotypes, how someone can claim to identify as what they are objectively not and why some “internal essences” are labelled “more real” than others.

You don't need to worry about Gillick competence when it comes to gender identity issues Apollo
The wishes of the child override the wishes of the parent/guardian whether the child is Gillick competent or not

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/11/nhs-staff-advised-ignore-parents-wishes-children-self-declare/

One argument the TRAs have got is that if we don't let kids take puberty blockers etc, the next step will be refusing to let young people have abortions

I read this and assumed they are trying once again to pretend that those of us who protest against the unsafe medicalisation of a mental health condition are actually far-right Conservative Christians.

I disagree that children will ever be able to demonstrate Gillick competence in making decisions over puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, no matter how much research is done. They simply have no idea or experience in what they are sacrificing and simply cannot consent to not developing sexually or sterility. Gillick competency simply does not apply to this area.

We need the TRAs to start disruptive protests and make outrageous demands. Let this happen as soon as possible. Watched by a public having real issues on their minds.

Agree. Sunlight.

The problem with conflating puberty blockers and cross sex hormones with contraception and abortion is one of evidence base. There is a wealth of data on the long-term impact of taking hormonal contraceptives and having an abortion. This means children can be fully informed and potentially enabled to consent to these treatments. There is no robust evidence on the impact of taking puberty blockers and cross sex hormones - indeed these treatments have such a paucity of evidence that there is no licence for their use in this area. This means that it is not possible for children be fully informed enough to consent to take these drugs and thereby demonstrate Gillick competence to make that choice. Unless and until there are robust long-term studies in this area, the NHS should not be funding this treatment. And there should be questions raised as to the ethics of doing this in the private sector in the absence of evidence. The TRAs can gnash their teeth but it is their failure to allow genuine research to take place that has led to this inability to demonstrate medical benefit. I hope this review finally puts a stop to this dangerous treatment protocol.

One argument the TRAs have got is that if we don't let kids take puberty blockers etc, the next step will be refusing to let young people have abortions. But the point is protecting kids. You don't protect a girl by forcing her to go through pregnancy and childbirth against her will. You do protect her by not allowing her to get hormone treatment or surgery until she's mature enough to really know what she wants.

It's not necessarily wrong to look at some other issue that hinges on similar arguments and see if they are consistent, but it's usually complex unless it's a straight out logical comparison.

But even if you decide they are very comparable, it's always possible that it's the thing you are comparing to that is problematic and which needs to be re-examined. The question of minors and abortion or access to birth control has always been a difficult one where none of the answers seems really great.

Anyone trying to claim that accepting x means accepting y should realise that can go both ways. It's not some kind of terminal argument.

Hardly surprising that people in a movement that insists they are the centre of their own created universe would compare themselves to the Messiah.

Is that the same Rev who writes pervy poetry about teenage girls ? Just what we all need

Rev Canon Rachel Mann took a similar position in the R4 Lent lecture.

Thank you for the links! Should’ve seen that comparison coming.

Am I reading this right? Is a vicar saying that being trans is a bit like... being Jesus now?

Rev Canon Rachel Mann took a similar position in the R4 Lent lecture.

Mann reiterated & explained this on Feedback at the weekend
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000h947

Rachel Mann was also recently on The Moral Maze with Jane Fae & Graham Linehan:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3833217-Lent-Talk-to-be-given-by-Rachel-Mann-on-Radio-4-on-Trans-Identity

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3827771-Moral-Maze-Radio-4-8pm-19-Feb-Transcript

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3826996-Moral-Maze-Radio-4-8pm-19-Feb-Transgender-Rights

20 years ago Mumsnet only had about 6 members and a pot plant, to be fair...