Andrew Doyle

If we're told that all transwomen are AGP then that effectively means all transwomen being barred from teaching.

I don't think the public will remotely understand why that is not transphobic. I certainly don't.

Nothing.

Which brings me to my point which is that there are many agents provocateur on X/Twitter, and not only when it comes to this particular topic, and it makes sense to treat things with some skepticism.

Yes! I don't know how people on TwiX navigate the bots, TwiXers looking for a fight, and the evil algorithms.

It's like expecting someone to wonder into [insert any punitive scene in Saw] and emerge unscathed. In security terms, I'd try to box TweXs into something as air-gapped as possible from my understanding of the rest of my life. I realise that's largely unrealistic for prominent people and those with a job that requires media presence.

And people who would like nothing more than to discredit the gender critical viewpoint, by aligning it with far right attitudes.

I mean wasnt billy bragg involved in showing something to Andrew Doyle? Right there is your total lack of credibility.

I regularly read the X posts of several of the people under discussion here, and I have never before seen that 'Waldo' in any of them. Doesn't mean that the person or bot wouldn't have been commenting earlier, but I never saw evidence of that. I often look at the profiles of people posting nasty comments when I am bored, to learn how to place them into the ideological map in my mind (are the MRAs, extremist religious conservatives, trad wives, feminists of various sorts, various types of activists, possibly teens liking to cause havoc etc.). So I think I would have checked on homophobic opinions, too.

Which brings me to my point which is that there are many agents provocateur on X/Twitter, and not only when it comes to this particular topic, and it makes sense to treat things with some skepticism.

What, precisely, do you think should happen to teacher who admits to a public 'sissy fetish' that he practices in school?

Do you think the kids should just get on with it?

What is the point of discussing whether a teacher should be sacked from a teaching job effectively because they are trans?

Nobody should be sacked for being trans. However if they're insisting that children or teenagers participate in their fetish, they need retraining about safeguarding and the boundaries of their role.

They're not wanting someone not to teach if they're trans, they wanting someone not to teach if they're practising their fetish in school.

If trans means 'I have a public sexual fetish', then absolutely it must be addressed.

This is the beginning of the conversation. It's not the end.

What is the point of discussing whether a teacher should be sacked from a teaching job effectively because they are trans?

There is not the remotest scintilla of a microscopic chance of that ever becoming lawful in any future time that we can see. And yet on Twitter right now I'm seeing people wasting time on this and berating anyone who disagrees.

Of course Andrew Doyle can have pronoun usage to come under the free-speech banner. I'm sure it does, currently.

So I don't really understand the issue.

Have at it.

And people can respond by pointing out that she pronouns for AGP men is part of the fetish, and you are participating in it. Possibly unwittingly, but it can't be unwitting for long, when everyone keeps pointing it out.

And we can take it from there.

Let's talk about whether you agree. Let's talk about whether you recognise it as a fetish that requires public participation. Let's talk about whether boundary violation is part of it. Let's talk about the safeguarding issue.

This is the beginning of the chapter. It's not the end of the book.

The thing that makes me both sad and angry about all this is that DH must be absolutely loving it. No wonder Tinsel is so blunt speaking. Why can I see what intelligent people like Doyle cant. The manipulation actually makes me feel ill.

And the irony is not lost on me that I'm considering people's free expression rights to use wrong-sex pronouns when we don't have the free-expression right to use correct-sex pronouns

So many people need to put safeguarding first and 'children aren't adults' first.

I suppose just as no one is a free speech absolutist when it comes to it, no one is a safeguarding absolutist either. Eg just banning men from working in schools.

Zutt I know what you mean, this is very difficult.

The converse is that women's free speech is sometimes very pro-safeguarding. I'm thinking Savile, Rotherham etc - those who want to restrict women's freedom to say certain things are very much anti-safeguarding. So there's no blanket answer.

Men tend to want it all - eg let's say you're a boundary pushing cabaret artist who has nudity in his performance and sexual content. That's fine. But you should accept you can't have a side gig doing Shakespeare in schools or whatever.

That's a brilliant interview with Peter Boghossian RethinkingLife

Ive had an uneasy feeling about this for a while.

Free speech is extremely important, but safeguarding is the priority. Not one of the priorities, the priority.

Does anyone right to free speech override their duty to safeguarding?

If someone's knows that a situation is wrong, and it leads to children and vulnerable adults being hurt, do they still have a right to obscure this with their right to free speech?

If i know that a situation is wrong, am i complicity when i say its a free speech issue, allow others to obscure the truth and just agree to disagree?

Im not saying anyone mentioned here is doing that, but it i think too much emphasis has been placed on individuals rights to say what they want in a safeguarding situation.

Is it possible to call someone with AGP she at the same time as acknowledging that AGP in the classroom has safeguarding implication. Im not sure it is.

It may be freedom of expression when a man lies and says ‘I am a woman ‘ but it is very definitely NOT freedom of expression when others are required to go along with that lie.

Yes and then they will have to cope with the aftermath like the girls in the school reported on recently where it was kept secret that their classmate was a boy.

I think there's the freedom of expression first worldview and the child safeguarding first worldview.

Both are very important and they will inevitably clash.

I think men are broadly more likely to be in the freedom of expression camp and women in the child safeguarding camp as women are the ones who are involved much more practically with children while it's more theoretical for men.

One of the biggest thing that a lot of adults seem to need to re-learn is 'children are not adults'. We restrict both our own expression and that of children when parenting/working in education.

In order for there to be future functioning adults in society capable of making their own free decisions on how to express themselves whilst understanding reality, there have to be restrictions when it comes to children.

Doyle seems to be saying that everyone can merrily go around exercising their freedom to call anyone of either sex 'he' or 'she' and it's ok because everyone knows sex exists really.

Children know there are boys and girls. However,. If they are told that they can literally change from a boy into a girl or vice versa they will believe it if a trusted adult (like a teacher) is telling them. They will probably feel some level of discomfort as they get older and the facts of their eyes and ears don't match what they've been told. But they will believe it to start with.

This is why there is a whole bit in Keeping Children Safe in education (the statutory safeguarding guidance for school) about emotional abuse including introducing developmentally inappropriate concepts (like talking about sex and porn, or gender ideology that doesn't even make sense to adults).

I personally think forcing kids to use wrong sex pronouns for someone like Hayton who is obviously male bodied is emotional abuse. It's not a free choice, it's grooming them into denying the reality of what they see and feel because an adult wants them to.

Re Hayton - a teacher is in the national press talking in detail about his sex life.

All you need to know.

Saffron not sure if you're disagreeing with me or with Doyle there - I made the same point as you that language does alter reality. That's how the TRA movement was so successful. 'He needs to be in the women's changing room' would never have got anywhere.

Doyle seems to be saying that everyone can merrily go around exercising their freedom to call anyone of either sex 'he' or 'she' and it's ok because everyone knows sex exists really.

But everything you lay out has indeed happened - in reality - for women.

Doyle's making a freedom of expression argument - which I theoretically support - but theoretical is all it is. There's no real freedom of expression until the day when no woman suffers any negative consequence for referring to a man as 'he'.

https://unherd.com/2024/02/caught-up-in-the-gender-critical-civil-war/

Both GC people and TRAs know that language does alter reality.

It's a form of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis in ideologies and cultures. As ever, it exists in strong and weak forms but, despite controversies, it's an hypothesis that persists albeit in new grounds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

AD frames 'extremist GCs' as a mirror image of TRAs, insistent as they are that language alters reality.

Both GC people and TRAs know that language does alter reality. That is why both sides are fighting over it. By using language that applies to one category (females) for another catergory (males) you have destroyed in reality the ability to support women; single sex spaces are destroyed in reality, sex specific crimes figures are destroyed in reality, women’s sports are destroyed in reality, public health messaging aimed at saving women’s lives are destroyed in reality, data relating to women’s lives and the decisions that flow from it to support women is destroyed in reality… how can any of that be protected when the category ‘women and girls’ no longer refers to women?

You must be very comfortable to be able to pretend otherwise.

Apologies if this has already been posted (or if the link is behind a paywall):

unherd.com/2024/02/caught-up-in-the-gender-critical-civil-war/

(Article by Andrew Doyle about recent events.)

I'll have a chance for a better go later, right back to the furore close to real time, but the attached is what we are saying here, from the start.