Feel sad that more people in the media don’t speak up

I have already elevated it to number 1 in my reading list. I'll start it as soon as I've finished my current book.

I get your point but seeing him behave like the people around Trafford rather than Trafford himself (am trying to be vague enough not to plot spoil) is a complete let-down.

I also recommend The Echo Chamber, which I suspect was informed by JB getting an awful lot of stick from TRAs over My Brother's Name is Jessica (which I haven't read). IIRC he left Twitter over the harassment.

Identity politics by Ben Elton is totally Gc imo @BonfireLady and @knittin just because he once said his pronouns under we don’t know what circumstances doesn’t mean a lot. His books are consistently calling out woke culture

This is amazing. What a fantastic rant that cuts straight to the heart of the issue that I personally care about the most in all of this sorry mess. How can anyone endorse removing children from parents' custody so that their body parts can be removed in accordance with their (learned) belief that they have a gender identity that differs from their sex? Eff you indeed. I feel just as angry about it as Megyn Kelly expresses here, even though I am no fan of Trump.

“Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris, why would anyone listen to a billionaire, medicare singer with extremely limited life experience, no children, basic education, appears to have arrested emotional development”

Possibly because many of the American public are also mediocre people with limited life experience and basic education and it’s inspiring to see someone like them do well for themselves. And having children, or not, wouldn't make me anymore or less inclined to listen to anyone if I thought what they had to say was worth listening to.

”The same with the old bully, Ricky Gervais, the trans issue has zero impact on him, so why does his word carry any weight?”

The trans issue affects everyone to different degrees. Women are obviously at the sharp end of it all in terms of men taking our spaces, opportunities, language etc. but it is also freedom of speech issue and men (even very rich men like RG) will be affected if hate speech laws are brought in that target performances etc.

Regardless of your answer, how would you feel about laws being put in place to accommodate a* Christian...

I really wish the edit button feature lasted longer 🤦‍♀️

Anyway, hopefully those questions make sense ElleWoods15

*who fight against the laws

Changing this as that was a poor choice of words on my part. Fighting against the laws is fighting against the imposition of the belief as fact, not actually fighting against the belief.

@ElleWoods15 are you a Christian (or a Muslim or a holder of any other religious faith)? If you're in the UK or US and the answer is no, why are you not?

Christianity is still the default assumed belief of both of these countries - you have to opt out of it by actively saying you're an atheist. Or that you hold a different faith. Less so these days in the UK but very much so in the US.

Regardless of your answer, how would you feel about laws being put in place to accommodate your Christian (or other religious) belief as truth and to legally allow those who fight against the belief to be punished?

Obviously we had this in the past in the UK and the punishment (for declaring non-belief or the "wrong kind" of belief re Catholic vs Protestant) was being burned alive, or another form of torture and death. Today's equivalent punishment would be being arrested for hate crimes, losing your job etc.

And Afghanistan has laws predicated on Muslim beliefs today.

To add...

For example, it is my viewpoint that the big bang created the earth (not god) and that Mary's son Jesus (of whom historical records exist - he was real) was conceived in the same way as every other human.

In Islam, Jesus is a prophet. So presumably Muslims would share my viewpoint about how he was conceived.

Who are the bigots here?

Instead of wasting time trying to figure that out, in secular society we've all accepted that we never will because none of us will share the same truth. While I may have this particular point in common with Islamic faith, there are plenty of other things that Muslims believe that I don't. Our shared viewpoint here is based simply on observable science: to conceive a human, egg and sperm are both necessary. If the explanation from Christians is that Jesus wasn't a human but was in fact a semi-deity, proven by his rising from inside the stone tomb after crucifixion, I'm happy to accept this as their belief (and that they accept that it's not mine).

I can see where you're coming from here if I substitute in another belief.

For example, it is my viewpoint that the big bang created the earth (not god) and that Mary's son Jesus (of whom historical records exist - he was real) was conceived in the same way as every other human.

To a Christian, my viewpoint might well come across as bigoted.

Obviously I don't need to share my viewpoint in public (and am only doing so here to illustrate my point) because Christians aren't demanding that my children are taught creationism or the exceptions of conception without sperm in science, or that healthcare is bent out of shape to accommodate the latter etc.

However, TRAs are demanding exactly this about the tenets of gender identity belief - and more.

I can understand that from their viewpoint, I'm a bigot (and a heretic, just as I might be to Christians for the above comment) but from my viewpoint, the TRAs are the bigots - for forcing their belief on to me and others. Especially so for the antagonistic way that this plays out regarding women being attacked for defending their rights.

If I look at the dictionary definition, I feel I can confidently say that me saying "no" to gender identity belief being forced on to society, and giving examples of the impact of doing so (for me, the worst of everything is the medical scandal, impacting thousands of children and vulnerable adults) is not me being antagonistic. It's just me standing up against something that I believe to be wrong and harmful. I'm certainly not attacking trans (-identified) people in doing so, even if I name individuals to illustrate my point - like JKR has done.

I know Megyn Kelly isn't to everyone's taste around here, but I did enjoy her response to Taylor Swift.

Marian Keyes is a terrible, insipid, boring writer and it's bizarre that her views would count for anything. I actually find people setting store by what vacuous celebs/entertainers say, more concerning at the moment than anything else. Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris, why would anyone listen to a billionaire, medicare singer with extremely limited life experience, no children, basic education, appears to have arrested emotional development and for whom the current status quo works for utterly and who is 100% cushioned from any governmental changes and their resulting societal effects?
The same with the old bully, Ricky Gervais, the trans issue has zero impact on him, so why does he word carry any weight? We live in a society where the famous are worshipped.

This ⬆️⬆️⬆️

There's so much about @TempestTost 's post that is brilliantly written, @WarriorN. In addition to what you've picked up, I also want to look back to this bit:

They've been told for years, for example, that it is objectively understood that homosexuality is innate and unchangeable and that this is the basis for many gay rights questions - in reality the scientific evidence of that is very scant indeed, it's more at the level of reasonable opinion.

This is such a key observation. What is observable true and undisputed is that some people are attracted to those of the opposite sex, some to those of the same sex and some to both. I'm definitely heterosexual but it took time to settle during my teens. It was always boys who I fancied (and always unrequited, as I was an awkward geek 😁) but I distinctly remember having to fight an urge to kiss my (girl) friend when we were playing a game of cards together. Plus I had a crush on Nicole Kidman in the same way as I did for male actors (I remember fancying her and Tom Cruise equally in Days of Thunder and had a poster of the film on my bedroom wall). I still find her attractive in that way in Moulin Rouge, but not these days with the physical effects of her battle against ageing 😁

However, gay rights are very important because it's about recognising that it's perfectly normal to have a gay relationship. Any mutually consenting union, from a one-night stand to a marriage, between two people at this most basic level is perfectly normal and should be treated as such in law (assuming above age of consent etc). Obviously what couples get up to may veer into the atypical and possibly dangerous, but that has nothing to do with hetero-, homo- or bi-sexuality and is covered in other laws.

But is it unchangeable? This is definitely opinion territory, not fact, as you say Tempest. And it really doesn't matter either way when it comes to gay rights IMO: my above point about fairness and equality in law still stands. The key difference between this and "trans rights" is that gay rights don't affect anyone else. Yes, some people are offended by gay people having rights because of their own homophobia and/or because it clashes with their religious beliefs but that's as far as it goes. Whereas "trans rights" - where a gender identity is valued more than someone's sex in law - obviously take rights away from others e.g. women's rights to single sex sports and spaces.

Edited to include WarriorN as my comment follows on from that one.

I think with Atwood it's also that she's highly conscious of her status as an icon of nice liberal Canadians, and nice liberal Canadians know there are things you just don't say.

She probably also assumes trans is a subset of gay. That's where a lot of us started out. I certainly knew a couple of old-school TW who were clearly on the HSTS side of the Blanchard typology. It wasn't until much later that I learned about AGP, but when you see it you really start to notice it.

Sometimes I wonder if someone like Atwood could learn a thing or two from reading trans memoirs. There are a few fascinating ones out there, but I suppose it depends on what priors you approach them with.

It seems obvious to me from Christine Jorgensen's memoir that Jorgensen was a gay man with such a profound sense of self-loathing that he could only be comfortable in his own skin by living full-time in a female persona.

It seems obvious to me from Jan Morris' memoir that Morris was an early, maybe prototypical AGP.

I can't read Elliot Page's memoir without feeling a lot of compassion for Page and hoping Page ends up in a happy place, but Page's story to me sounds very like a maladaptive response to trauma.

Of course a true believer in gender identity would read all three stories and think they're describing the same thing. When if you don't have that strong belief it seems obvious they're very different.

@TempestTost your post is a more eloquent way to describe what I was trying to say wrt Margaret Atwood upthread.

What makes her different is that's she's clearly also saying that I'm open to discussing this and that Orwell matters - it's just that, as you say, the "truth" places like Canada are receiving and perpetuating is severely twisted with biased science, media and politics.

Unlike others who wont engage in anything at all, denounce JK or yell at women on Twitter or give sneery interviews and use the work queer left right and centre.

Or maybe better to say, are not the sex they appear.

But there is a large group, and I think this is very very common in places like Canada, who really believe this is a scientific thing.

Your whole post makes a lot of sense. I've grabbed these bits because I realise that they describe where I was before I started looking in to all of it with more scrutiny.

I was aware that I was forcing my brain to make the leap in the first sentence but I was happy to do it because a) it was kind and I didn't think it affected anyone else (obviously I know different now) b) of the second part.

I had seen a documentary ages ago which left me thinking that a trans person's brain was physically closer to the brain of someone of the opposite sex. I can't quite remember the details now but 4 brains of gay people (the documentary muddled up trans and gay) who dedicated their bodies to science were examined and there were some parts of the brain that apparently proved something. The only other things I remember about it is that they also spoke about David Reimer, how he knew he was a boy, and (separately) the brains of psychopaths.
It convinced me at the time that there was a scientific difference.

I'd love to see it again now and see if my takeaway was different. I very much think it would be.

For example, the only science I would now consider to be linked to the David Reimer case is to do with testosterone. We know that testosterone is linked to aggression and libido (Helena and Sinead, the detransitioners, talk about their experiences of this) and we know that boys get testosterone in the womb as well as at puberty. David's body would have had his first dose of testosterone in the womb but I suspect most of David's childhood unease when he was "living as a girl" was related to the years of sexual abuse e.g. the sexualised photos that he and his twin brother had to pose for. Presumably his unease and likely trauma-influenced behaviour, due to the abuse, led his parents to think that the problem lay in the fact that he "knew" he was a boy.

But I now fully understand that I was wrong in what I thought to be scientifically correct. This would have described me...

Very few people will be able to talk in a knowledgeable way about genetics, black holes, or cell division. So they aren't all that put out that they can't explain gender and sex.

... and the first part still does. My scientific understanding is still limited but I know enough to be confident to say that the amount of testosterone in someone's body varies - there is a male range and a female range - but this does not link in any way to a male gender identity and a female gender identity. Instead, it's probably what's behind the fact that the vast majority of violent and sex crime is done by men (aggression and libido). A man with lots of testosterone isn't "more of a man" than a man with less. Also it's not the only hormone responsible for mood, so violence and horniness aren't solely linked to this. Plus of course it's perfectly possible to have levels of testosterone in the male range and not commit violent and/or sex crimes. However, the animal world shows us what it can look like when there aren't laws to stop males from acting on these urges. Our laws have influenced our culture, which influences how men and women behave.

Hopefully not healthcare.

It's a fact

You're treating it like a view point which how religion works. You're entitled to your view. But it doesn't mean this fact also becomes a view point.

Exactly. You would have thought that a wholesale new thing of "gender identity" which is different from your biological sex would need its own words. Instead we are expected to pretend that the sex of women and men isn't significant and replace it with a self-chosen identity of woman or man or even non-binary.

Such a huge illogical cultural shift should have required much open discussion and initially much ridicule. Yet somehow people were coerced into pretending they believed it and by the time most of us noticed we were fearful of losing our jobs or being ostracised if we spoke out.

At least this whole situation has opened my eyes to how manipulation works on a large scale. I will never wonder how nazi-ism or other totalitarian states were created again.

Woman's Hour is a great disappointment. Only Jenni Murray has been in full support of sex reality. Emma Barnett just tinkers around the edges.

Interesting that it's only ever put the one way. I don't think I can remember someone coming here and saying it's only your opinion that you need a Y chromosome to be a man.

It's almost as if there's a difference between the sexes.

just saying stuff does not make it true. If you can provide evidence of anyone, anywhere, anytime, ever changing sex I am all ears. I can wait.

It’s a fact.

All the points of view in the world won’t make anyone without two X chromosomes female.