Cass report and men...

Thank you. Plans are very much afoot to kick off.

A couple of years ago our Local Authority revised some of their schools' policies to include updated guidance around trans-gender children.

A male Councillor brought a motion to the Full Council meeting to ask they consider Safeguarding very carefully in connection with the proposed policy changes. The Labour-led administration, with Leader and Deputy Leader both being women, refused to even allow his motion to be debated, because they put party politics ahead of the Safeguarding of children and young people. The Councillor who raised the motion being Conservative. Particularly disgraceful given they all have a duty of care to be Corporate parents.

I have been talking about this too with my family and friends but unfortunately lots of them just couldn't see it at the time.

The lack of safeguarding of children is everyone's issue!

I argued with a female friend on SM who was posting about "what a brave woman Eddie Izzard is".....she has daughters FFS!

DW was worried for a while that I might lose my job as I refused to put pronouns in my email signature (despite having a unisex name and am frequently addressed as miss/mrs) and was sending links that were posted here to anyone and everyone in my workplace.

I have also been dismissed from a venue I worked at for years, after a stand up arguement with the name venue manager who insisted a man in a dress, with a very visible bulge, should be entitled to use the female toilets, after I had refused him.

DC is a teen and is very firmly GC as are others his age, they can see through the bullshit as well.

I hope the tide is well and truly turning.

It affects how I talk about the issue too:

With men: put my strongest case for the absurdity and harm of TWAW in about four sentences, with an air of authority but levity, then shut up. Median response: "yup". I just want to normalise that as a speakable, obvious, position. Main risk to avoid is being written off as a weirdo.

With women: ask questions, only, to plant seeds. Main risk to avoid is being written off as a heretic. (Or I get an instant GC ally!)

@Bobbotgegrinch I hadn't thought of it like that but I think you're right.

I'm a man and talk about the issue quite a bit. In my experience, women care a lot more about the issue, but about 50% are vehemently TWAW, whereas men about 80% think it's obvious nonsense, with an eye roll.

I think that's mainly about women being the main enforcers of social rules, and men looking for an easy life.

I also think that from men there's a bit of: well, "they" (meaning women, or even children) go along with this stuff, so on their own heads be it.

My DH is loudly vocal about the issue and has been from the start and he doesn't care who he talks to about it or how they react. It's nearly always him who brings up the subject but I join in too. Many times I've listened to him talk about 'the biggest attack on women's rights we've ever seen' and I'm glad he's so angry about what's been happening. In some cases we've changed minds but others refuse to listen.

To be honest, I think the reason men are less vocal about this is because they don't really believe it's really happening.

Unlike women, we've not been brought up to be kind, to be the the least important people in the room. There are loads and loads of women who have fully bought into the narrative, that are proper trans "allies". Whereas you talk to most men about it, and the usual response is "Well they're blokes in a frock aren't they, but you can't call them that because you lose your job", so they put their pronouns in their emails, cause it'll keep certain people quiet, and roll their eyes at the whole thing.

And because they think the whole thing is ridiculous, they think everyone else really thinks that behind the performative TWAW. And so they don't think that anything bad is actually happening, because who'd let a bloke into female weightlifting, or a women's prison. That would be daft.

The way to convince a man that the world has gone mad is through examples. This is why Isla Bryant cut through. You can point to it and go, "See, this is what's actually happening, this is the endgame of putting your pronouns in your email.". Suddenly a whole load of men sat up and thought "What the fuck, I can see his dick through those leggings, why is he being placed with women!"

The tide is turning at the moment, and things like the Cass report are helping it turn. The news has been full of stuff rover the last few days that will have been making men thing "Huh, I didn't know that was happening"

And as the tide turns, most men will shrug, think "That was weird, thank fuck that's over", and take their pronouns out of their emails.

The ones that will struggle, that will have to be dragged back over the golden bridge kicking and screaming, are the female "allies". The ones who bought into the delusion, who willingly subsumed their rights, who sat in a room that was burning and said "This is fine".

That is horrendous. I would be fuming too.

The Cass report has been near the top of both the Unitedkingdom and UKpolitics subreddits over the last few days, both massively male dominated spaces, and most of the upvoted comments there have been of the gender critical variety.

So I don't think there's a dearth of men discussing it particularly.

Edited to delete too! 🤣

Misposted! Edited to delete

Based on nothing but my own life and experience I do think that women tend to the more proactive in social and family spheres and that will go in both directions, the vicious campaigning and support for transing their child or threatening schools with legal action for changing their child's pronouns without permission. Men in my experience tend to take the path of least resistance socially. Namalt of course and it isn't really a bad trait as such, it might cause less drama in their relationships but also might be attributed to men being more lonely and less connected? I'm rambling I know.

I suspect the idea of pp that men default to children-as-extension-to-women is right to some degree and this isn't surprising as we make the transition from full time mother (even if only for a few weeks) to often part time roles. My husband is a good egg and does his share but because I'm part time and took three years out to have kids, he does turn to me about school stuff, emails, pick up times, applications, permission slips etc. he absolutely would and could do it if I was incapacitated but these are the roles we have fallen into, he does other things like our finances which again he took on when I was too exhausted and distracted.

“people are steering clear of it as it gets so heated”

My adult sons won’t talk about it, think I’m obsessed.

It’s funny how combative men can be about some things, but not others. I saw my brother get into a dick swinging match about his company car, my BiL will swear up is down for a good argument, but no one wants to talk about this one.

Well, this. I'm right in the Red Wall, and folk round here don't have any doubt about what a woman is. And when I've pointed out to friends the fragrant Isla, and DQST and so on, they are WTAF. But this isn't going away. There's going to be more and more talk and publicity.

It’s discussed on PistonHeads here

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=2068005

there was a very, very long thread on PH about trans issues but it was closed a little while back. Too toxic apparently.

Single Track World is a site for middle aged men who used to cycle. There have been a couple of threads that discuss trans activism and women’s rights.

There are only a couple of women involved, and I think one trans person and one parent who believes his daughter is now his son. Of those involved in the argument I’d guess a small majority are GC, but the TRAs are a lot louder, more strident, more insulting, and more prone to hissy fits and flounces when others disagree with their unevidenced nonsense.

There hasn’t been a discussion about Cass, or any other trans issue, for a few months. I think people are steering clear of it as it gets so heated.

There is a very pro-TRA editor. She’s female.

Not surprisingly - most on here with that view point are female (I am male) so seeing the responses to the Cass report on here today I went onto Pistonheads (a very male forum) to compare the reaction - zero discussion or response.

There are a fair few threads on Datalounge. Example: https://www.datalounge.com/thread/34225006-uk-to-ban-transitioning-to-25#34225870

Safeguarding is everyone’s business.

One thing that gives me hope is reading comments in the Times and Telegraph. I now see so many men incandescent at what's happened to children - and women's rights.
Many of them speak as fathers, some as gay men and often their direct language and pertinent comments would get them banned on here. But they all hold the government and captured organisations responsible for this. Most of them don't make a right wing / left wing point - they see it as a child grooming and safeguarding issue.
As I watch so many left wing men and women twisting and turning in order to undermine Cass and ignore the harm done to children it gives me hope that there's a majority who will stand up and protect the young.

People losing jobs is needed because the McCarthyist witch hunter generals are still in the workplace scaring people (see Jo Ps tribunal tweets for examples). Only when people lose jobs for going along with this anti-science anti- safeguarding, anti-data anti-free discussion ideology will the fear of the witch hunts abate.

My DH is quite head in sand. He doesn't think men can become women but he doesn't see the wider safeguarding issues (deliberately imo as his workplace is full on twaw and it would be an uncomfortable place to be - yes I am disappointed in him)

There need to be people losing their jobs for it to turn around imo. For a start the head of each adult gender clinic that denied Cass data. They are public servants, this was a government investigation by a medic with unimpeachable credentials. If you're not going to hand over data in that situation then you are unable to fulfill your duty to the public in any situation and need to go.

I think on the whole men are not as clued in to safeguarding or thinking about child development as women are unless they have a career in a related area or other personal reason to do so. E.g. I don't think your average male mechanic or engineer is paying a lot of attention.

I also think there's something in 'trans kids' having been othered even though it's been done in a these kids are super special and brave way. So they are set apart from other children as not quite children or not children like your children.

Someone mentioned on here yesterday about them being a cohort of children that have been adultified. Probably some parallels there with how black children can also be adultified in the media and the eyes of other adults.

As a generalisation I think women can see past this a bit easier. Indeed much of the campaigning that has resulted in the final Cass report is because people, largely women, could see these children were not afforded the due diligence and standards of care other children get.

I'm also male. I'm not on any other SM anymore, so dont have a sense of whether its being widely talked about on more male dominated forums, but can quite believe you that it's not. I used to argue with people about gender in the guardian comments but they kicked me off. I can well imagine how a conversation would go there if they allowed one.