Douglas Murray in the Times

Yeah, I guess he's right wing though I think traditional conservative might be more accurate. But racist?

Eh? Douglas Murray is moderate right- wing. I'm so fed up of this "left- wing- good, right- wing , bad" mindset.

As for "racist"? Where on earth are you getting that from?

Someone in the comments (possibly a Mumsnetter) recommended a youtube video, featuring Caityln Jenner, on the . It was an interesting clip which I hadn't seen before, just adding it to this thread in case anyone else is interested.

I get that you don't have to agree with every opinion someone holds, but it's so bloody disheartening to me, as a socialist, when it's yet another right-wing/racist who speaks out on this topic.

He was absolutely withering about the Starbucks cookie....

Yes - his anger at the harm Mermaids via Starbucks et al is doing to children was palpable. Can’t remember what clip it came from.

I don’t agree with everything DM says - you don’t have to - but I am pleased with his input on this.

He’s been good recently on the hypocrisy of Ben & Jerry’s too.

Trans kids are an adult experiment.

Rowling also supports conversion therapy for trans kids.

As opposed to conversion therapy for gay kids - mainly lesbians, because that’s just fine.

Go JK.

Well over 700 comments!

Some clueless men saying "what's the big deal?" and "nobody cares" but mostly excellent well thought through points.

Oh never mind, some kind soul has posted the content in the comments.

There's a comment on that article about a Janice Turner article about the impact of TW in sport which has apparently been removed from The Times website. Does anyone have a copy of this article please? The sport issue is the one that raised my awareness and I suspect has been and will in the long term be the most valuable tool tor raising awareness.

No it's SilverLady on the Times who is also good. Thank you both.

Yup. I signed up to the Times for this very reason.

There's always an incredible number of comments on pieces on women's rights. There must be a heck of a lot of women who have signed up because of The Times' great writing on this.

Agree. Love Jo March. There’s another Times poster called Timelady or something who is also on it

I notice JoMarch is often prominent in the Times comments - Jo, I suspect you are a mumsnetter so if you're here, thanks for all the great comments on this topic recently!

That's interesting butterer

Interesting also that they had all the surgeries (unlike most men who only bother with the facial bit). Do you know their ideas behind their transition?

The greater the number of journalists critically looking at the trans debate, the better. I am just amazed it took so long, Lesbians have been badly affected for some time. I have been extremely sad about some of these women's posts on here. Good for Douglas though, he writes a good piece

The Graun wont be on board until the US does a complete flip

Trans issues are one area where I agree wholeheartedly with Douglas Murray. The part of his ‘Madness of Crowds’ book that deals with it is fair, rational and clear-sighted. I appreciate also that, as a gay man, he is genuinely concerned for the welfare of young gay people who are pushed down a trans path instead of learning to love and accept their sexuality.

I interpreted the quotation marks around "social construct" to symbolize sarcasm, not an actual quotation.

You might be right. I am trying (and failing) to remember what he said in the Madness of Crowds on this subject. There were definitely a lot of parts that I strongly disagreed with, even though I found it a really engaging read.

Personally, I'm actually a bit agnostic about gender being a purely social construct. It might be that there are some behaviour differences between the sexes although I think it's frankly impossible to tell in our society what, if anything, is driven by biology rather than pink/blue drivel and pressure on women to behave in a certain way.

But what annoys me is that even if gender were socially constructed, it does not make it legitimate to opt in to the gender trappings associated with the opposite sex. To use an analogy, there are a lot of socially constructed behaviours around race (Ie a shared ethnic culture including music, food, language/slang etc), but that doesn't mean that as a white person I can opt into them and claim to be of that race. "It's a social construct" shouldn't provide an entitlement to declare yourself to be something other than what you are.

And to be clear, I also think it's a good piece. I just remember how much I was disappointed in his chapter on feminism in The Madness of Crowds.