Fresh horrors for Scotland

It needs to be challenged in court, the same way as Named Persons. It's effectively an extension of that.

I'm thinking of the furrowed brows and indignation and the sour faced response to Reem Asalem's very measured, informed and eloquent answers to why the reforms were fucking dangerous.

<frown not listening>
<smirk they're just waffling>
<how dare they not agree when I keep repeating my trite wee mantra>

Yes, I believe I've watched that play out in real time while observing the GRR consultation and debate.

I watched them too, and yes it played out. All those lovely clear presentations, and all dismissed because of how uncomfortable it would have been to take them seriously.

And as CS Lewis said, the trouble with trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you quite often succeed.

Yes, I believe I've watched that play out in real time while observing the GRR consultation and debate.

I don't know if it's about being thick, so much as lacking critical thinking skills.

Plus the element of believing what you want to believe and the things that fit with what you already believe, and dismissing all the rest. Sometimes you have to make yourself very stupid so as not to see that some of your existing beliefs were mistaken.

And as CS Lewis said, the trouble with trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you quite often succeed.

I don't know if it's about being thick, so much as lacking critical thinking skills. One can be clever and highly educated and still have huge gaps in ability to see the overall picture and make connections and draw inferences.

davidrobson.me/books/the-intelligence-trap/

*“Convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community,”

That’s in the preamble.

I’m not convinced that the Scottish government are on board with that.*

To be fair, I have noticed in the past couple of years schools started talking about how parents are a child's 1st and most important teachers, which is something I hadn't heard before.

I also think that the term ‘rights’ functions largely to prevent or impede discussion in most arenas. It’s a rhetorical move to position something as unquestionable.

People are wary of denying basic rights, so they don’t want to look too closely. And mistrust those who are cast as doing so.

That’s why the Scottish government are so keen on using the uncrc as a retest for al sorts of stuff. And why they steer any discussion of gender ideology on to ‘rights’.

How many people have actually read the UNCRC? How many students with childhood studies degrees do you think actually bother to read the document? Depressingly few. Same with key developmental texts. Indeed, university leadership will tell you off for any expectation that final year undergraduates who are waxing lyrical about children’s rights or child development should be expected to have read the texts they’re writing essays about. Apparently it’s unreasonable to expect someone whose entire essay is based on ‘vygotsky states’ to have actually read any of what vygotsky wrote. Or an argument all about children’s rights premised on the utterly unquestionable UNCRC (which, like all such documents, is deeply flawed and full of difficult compromises) should be made by people who’ve actually read it.

Nope. Just take other people’s word for it. And, as the reports of it get ever further away from people who’ve read it, see how it flexes to be whatever you need it to be.

In this thread’s example, we find that children’s participation and self expression rights (proponents of this stuff love to lump articles 12 and 13 together) become the central focus of the UNCRC. And it’s is vital to remove children from families who do not properly affirm gender expression. Meanwhile, the very carefully worded preamble’s positioning of the family as especially important gets forgotten. That’s not what the UNCRC is about!

I’m actually tempted to say that it’s a very interesting example of how the framing around an international agreement can quite easily be shifted such that it significantly differs from the intentions of the states that agreed it, but in such a way that they don’t notice because - crucially - no one has sought to look again at the agreement itself.

The environment in which you put a picture can fundamentally shift the colour people perceive it as…

Also I think they a lot of them have fallen for the "this is gay marriage mark II" line and don't want to be seen to be "on the wrong side of history"

Sadly they are not bright enough to see that it's the opposite.

I would also like to have seen hi Labour voted unwhipped.

The SNP have such a dearth of talent as the power switched from Labour to them so quickly. Essentially anyone with a yellow rosette was elected not in their own merits.

As for the rest? Why anyone would want to be a politician is beyond me. The abuse they get these days is awful. Anyone with half a brain should be staying well away.

The promotion of participation to a core tenant of the uncrc in the last decade is interesting and important because the act document this statement is describing and to which almost all states agreed has not changed. I doing all states were consulted on the promotion of participation to this extent.

I note that in the last few years (it’s pretty recent) UNICEF have promoted participation to a core UNCRC principle.

However, the actual convention is pretty heavily caveated about how participation intersects with development and capacity, and strongly affords adults the right to act on behalf of the child.

The actual international agreement is a long way from the version that has been promoted by activists and academics.

Also a direct quote of relevance for this thread:
“Convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community,”

That’s in the preamble.

I’m not convinced that the Scottish government are on board with that.

I just think most MSPs and people in the Scottihsh Government are thick as mince.

You have some definite zealots who are able to control things. Can't actually make up my mind if Sturgeon is one, or just a dictator who has figured that using these zealots will help her get her independence.

I don't actually get why these people are so thick. Many are a similar age to me so they were educated before the SNP destroyed the education system. They have had the access to a better education than most of those who grew up on other parts of the UK. Many of them would have went to 'better' school than I did.

I just think the sensible people already had jobs, and the fall in the fortunes on Labour have allowed some really thick people to become SNP MSPs (And MPs too). But that doesn't explain the Labour MSPs who voted for Self ID and will no doubt agree with this too.

Even the pronoun/name change thing, which seems fairly harmless is actually problematic in schools, I work in a large and fairly sensible secondary, I do lots of educational assessments and several times a referral has come in, and I don’t understand why I’ve missed this kid, can’t find any history, turns out I do know them, but they’ve changed name and often pronouns and it’s so confusing and time consuming and has resulted in delays to support as as far as I can see one child vanishes from reporting and another appears. We used to get one surname change in a year maybe, now it’s half a dozen first name and pronoun changes a term. This must also be an issue for social services and medical care.

This is a really good point, @wonderstuff. The flipside of the problem we already know about with DBS where a change of name and pronouns is obfuscating whether someone has a criminal record.

I'm really glad you posted that about the UNCRC, onyttig. I knew this was the case but hadn't the full timeline to hand. It's so frustrating to see this being used, or, picked up and put down in favour of the next thing they think will drive a wedge for independence.

Can we make it clear this is SNP and not ‘Scotland’. We need a new government who actually trusts people and in particular, parents!

Remember this whole debacle/waste of money:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-49757890

I don’t see how it can be in a child’s interests to have them changing their name repeatedly.

In DS’s school, an extremely troubled young person (background: parents in and out of prison/drug and alcohol addicted, public violence, prostitution from a caravan on their driveway, parents somehow involved with a high profile murder with shocking court accounts of children’s exposure to drugs and sexual practices) who is now trans and seems to change name all the time. It all sounds like the child is screaming for help and support but the adults around them are not just ignoring it but celebrating and affirming this stuff.

I’m amazed by the multiple safeguarding failures, first by leaving the child to grow up in an environment that was visibly problematic to the whole community (and the dysfunction outlined in the paper from
court proceedings!) and then by celebrating the effects of this.

The child’s mother is loving the new attention. Of course.

The lack of curiosity is baffling. No attempt to understand why gender identity is now such a widespread issue when just 15 years ago it was a problem for a tiny minority. No attempts to understand how changes with how we view sex in medical situations will impact healthcare, when we have so much hard evidence to demonstrate that sex has a significant impact on so much of medicine. No curiosity about the interaction between gender identity and sexuality when we know the huge stigma attached to minority sexual orientation. None of this stands up to any scrutiny or critical thought. It’s like none of these people have ever studied any history of sociology or psychology both of which are littered with the poor treatment of women and minorities which at the time seemed entirely reasonable to those in power.

You look back at PIE for example and think how on earth was that ever OK and then you see this and think we never learn from history at all.

Even the pronoun/name change thing, which seems fairly harmless is actually problematic in schools, I work in a large and fairly sensible secondary, I do lots of educational assessments and several times a referral has come in, and I don’t understand why I’ve missed this kid, can’t find any history, turns out I do know them, but they’ve changed name and often pronouns and it’s so confusing and time consuming and has resulted in delays to support as as far as I can see one child vanishes from reporting and another appears. We used to get one surname change in a year maybe, now it’s half a dozen first name and pronoun changes a term. This must also be an issue for social services and medical care.

Thanks, onyttig, the whole affair seems slightly baffling and pointless as far as I can see.

It’s entirely disingenuous to pretend that the UNCRC is not already built in to UK and specifically Scots law.

The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 ‘enshrined’ the key principles of the UNCRC in law. Note there are 3 overriding principles in the UNCRC - not 4 as the Scottish Government are desperate to claim. Article 12 simply does not have the special status they want to claim it has. They might want to try reading the actual UNCRC.

It was updated in 2000. Then revised as the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act in 2014. Note how this is described in relation to the UNCRC and the horror that is GIRFEC in the screenshot attached. I actually interviewed the Scottish children’s commissioner in the run up to this and it was all about participation even then.

Note the religious terminology that reoccurs when talking about ‘enshirining’ an international legal document in law.

Also noteworthy that the UK was a key proponent in the measures around child soldiers and child marriage optional within the UNCRC. Both of which the SNP snd Greens seem to be very positive about - regardless of broad international consensus that both should be outlawed everywhere.

But the main point is that it is completely bullshit that Scotland only legally adopted the UNCRC in 2021 and has been thwarted by nasty Westminster. Westminster actually implemented the UNCRC in the Children Act 1989. None of this fits with the Scottish Government’s chosen rhetoric.

There is a whole section on sex recording, which claims at the start:

'This recommendation is not about removing sex from medical records. Indeed, it is important that this sex is recorded relevantly in health information, and that trans and non-binary people continue to be able to update their records to reflect their lives.'

This suggests, though, that when they say 'sex' they mean 'gender', as they say that people should be able to change this information. Concluding para:

'The CHI number system should be reviewed, and sex should no longer be hard-coded within patient numbers. Instead, sex should simply be included on medical records, should continue to be updateable by trans and non-binary people, and should include an option to record patients as non-binary. The sex on a medical record should not then place limitations on how individual patients are able to interact with healthcare services due to this being hard-coded into IT systems and patient markers, nor should changing the sex on a medical record require the creation of a new CHI number for a patient.'

All good points!

Just realised I'm at risk of derailing the conversion therapy thread with the non-binary working group recs - which are related, but not the subject of the OP.

I haven't even got half way through the report, yet ...

'Medical records should also be able to describe patients as non-binary. Being recorded as male or female can create barriers to accessing all forms of healthcare for non-binary people....
The CHI number system should be reviewed, and sex should no longer be hard-coded within patient numbers.'
'
OK, I haven't read any of the material linked, just the quotes here, but this is batshit. The massive barrier to accessing effective, safe healthcare is refusing to tell health professionals what sex you are!

How can non-binary people have transition needs? What are these people who, by definition, are not binary transitioning from and to?

What specific healthcare needs are there for people who identify as non-binary? Nothing in that document gives any indication of what the transition needs of non-binary people might actually be.

Yet another government policy with a yawning chasm at the heart of it. You simply cannot make public policy without defining key terms and outlining actual needs in a way that can be operationalised and assessed.

How many MSPs are going to be all for this but totally unable and unwilling to explain what the heath are needs actually are, and how this differs from anyone else in the population?

More controversially, I think a proper conversation about trans ‘healthcare’ and fertility is long overdue. You can see so many issues that MSPs are unwilling to even acknowledge exist, despite making policy to promote ‘healthcare’ practices that will render people infertile alongside demands that the direct results of these policies must be compensated for.

This is not life/saving cancer treatment. It’s completely undefined medical and surgical ‘needs’ aligned to a completely undefined concept of ‘gender identity’ that will intentionally produce infertility. Indeed, one where the basis for medical intervention should preclude the need for fertility at all. Yet, the demands for hormones and surgery come with the requirement to shield the recipients from the consequences of that and a determination to treat mental health completely separately. Transition healthcare should be as fully integrated as possible, but mental healthcare must be firewalled as much as possible.

A discussion about whether we simply tell people that rendering yourself infertile for gender identity reasons is a choice. There’s nothing physically life threatening going on (so it’s a choice rather than a need - and I don’t care that saying so is controversial), and mental health support is the appropriate avenue for suicidal feelings. If you’d like to stay open to the possibility of having children in the future, then it’s best not to take action that will
intentionally damage your reproductive system. Indeed, proper counselling to help young people to recognise that feeling absolutely adamant that you don’t have children is very common in your 20s, but that many people do find that the feel differently in their 30s and even 40s might be in order. But, no, that’s all conversion therapy and a hate crime, isn’t it?

And there’s no second chamber to scrutinise this stuff in Scotland. To ask the questions like ’what are the specific healthcare needs of non-binary people?’

Or to ask important questions around the extent to which this stuff is trying to position surrogacy as a healthcare need and (further) legitimise profitable interests in the international baby trade.

Who is actually benefitting seems to be an inconvenient question. Because it doesn’t seem to be the people who will be receiving all this ‘healthcare’. Or society at large. Does it?