'He has a point, but he's too blunt.' JKR

OK, I almost never do this (comment before reading the whole thread), but WTF
.

Just to add, I’ve seen Prof Winston’s opinion on sex chromosomes dismissed because ‘he trained as a doctor decades ago and the science has changed since’ !! 😵‍💫

Oh, hello mate. Trans Reddit quiet at the mo, is it?

Thank you - yes, I bought his recent book and it is excellent. I am truly a fan. Love Black Books and the IT crowd. As does my DD, funnily, who still has trans friends and prefers mens clothes to girls… but she is at uni studying classics and started rereading JKR books recently as she was interested in how JKR (and Tolkien) draw on classical myths and legends in their story creation.

The trans period will always hang over us and we worry all the time that she may get drawn back in as her ND means she is vulnerable - Her new best uni-friend is a Canadian trans man - the sweetest, petite-est, long blonde-haired soul but whose voice suggests they are taking T and whose stature suggests they’ve possibly had the breast surgery too, as those are all deemed fine in Canada. So yes, still crapping myself daily.

I’m not sure the ‘fight’ will ever be truly over - as the govts willingness to conduct a study on PBs in children show, not just despite the Cass Report but as a result of it. It will need loud and highly engaged people to get us over the line to a world where children and autistic YPs are protected - and louder, passionate people to keep watch when we make it there.

I feel on some level that part of the power of TRAs has been our complacency. I felt once LGB rights were protected and enshrined in law, so that they had equal rights in family courts and the work place, our job was done. I thought women’s rights were a done deal that might just need tweaking as society evolved. Now it is painfully obvious that it wasn’t.

We needed watchers to ensure those rights remained in tact and were not eroded. I think in the rise in girls identifying as trans is in direct response to the erosion of those protections - they don’t have the safety and protection we thought we had secured. I feel bloody mad with myself for not engaging - so we DO need the Glinners of this world, if only to wake us all up our complacency.

But as Glinner points out in his article, he’s not upset with them for not putting their head above the parapet, he’s upset with them for condemning him without have any clue what he’d been through and why.

It would be one thing if he’d actually engaged with the substance and come out the other side with a different view. What I can’t respect is the refusal to look

I think that’s a bit different to criticising people for staying neutral or taking a position for self preservation.

Thank you Cautious Lurker . A very good and thoughtful post. I hope your situation - and that of DH - improves in the fullness of time.

I love Linehans writing and even bought a few copies of his book as Christmas presents last year. But he seems to be one of life's extremists in all he does. Anyone not with me is against me sort of thing. A mental block of some kind which must make other people's behavior difficult for him to fathom at times.

I am a little ambivalent about GL. I think it was amazing that he stood up for women and girls and has been a vocal male ally in all of this. I would have loved more people - male or female - to have stood by him or followed suit. I’ve met him and chatted at an event where he is pretty much the same outspoken, bitter-sweet, funny man you see in interviews. I thank him for his support.

And I do feel it is heinous that he suffered such a negative impact to his career and his marriage.

However, my issue - and I look to the recent article about Ardal - is that he has conflated his campaign for Women's rights/against medicalisation of children with a parallel crusade about his personal betrayal. That article is not about WR/PBs it is about the people who did not stand by his side. Who did not immediately understand the implications of the TRA movement and risk their careers along side him. It feels on some level like he is trying to bully everyone to take a vocal visible stand and you don’t win hearts and minds by being a bully - by being as abusive and abrasive as the other side.

My DH obvious shares my perspective on the GI stuff. He has sat and sobbed along side me many a time over the last 8+years and broke down in some measure of joy when the Cass Report came out. He has continually thanked me for the work I had done with my MP, writing letters/petitions via Bayswater, talking to people highly involved in some of the high profile cases, for writing about it (albeit anonymously because I can’t risk alienating my child or negatively impacting dh’s career). Because he can’t do any of those things.

So at work he remains neutral. His career and his ability to pay for the care my DD has needed [CAMHS never helped, we had to pay for everything, every step of the way] all depended upon his keeping his job. His company was a fully paid up Stonewall Champion for many years and a very very well known TRA was one of his reportees for a few years when he/they (a TW) reported to my DH. So my husband has publicly remained non-partisan, excused himself from LGBTQ!+ training due to ‘conflicting work commitments’, gone to make a call or changed the subject if raised at work.

I don’t resent him, I don’t accuse him of moral cowardice, I don’t expect him to sacrifice our family’s security because of what we believe - no, what we KNOW -to be true. I lost pretty much most of my ‘mummy’ friends during this period partly because a minority disagreed with me [do kinders with no understanding of the wider issues] but mainly because people did not want to get involved in something that, from their perspective, didn’t directly impact them and was already perceived as toxic and painful. We were investigated by Social Services twice - something that was emotionally traumatic for us both but also had the risk of impacting my DH’s job had they been contacted.

So I understand the apparent moral cowardice of people not standing up and shouting their support - they have mortgages and families. I am sure Ardal does do. They exist in a peculiar industry bubble where public mood can turn on a dime.

I admire and respect GL’s position and passion - but I also understand why people are not allowed to place their heads above the parapet. Some of these people could be powerful allies, however, if they could be coaxed into behind the scenes activism or simply demanding ‘neutrality’ in the work place. There are many ways to fight this and we don’t all need to be Glinners to affect change.

What an informative and wise post Thank you Cautious

I am a little ambivalent about GL. I think it was amazing that he stood up for women and girls and has been a vocal male ally in all of this. I would have loved more people - male or female - to have stood by him or followed suit. I’ve met him and chatted at an event where he is pretty much the same outspoken, bitter-sweet, funny man you see in interviews. I thank him for his support.

And I do feel it is heinous that he suffered such a negative impact to his career and his marriage.

However, my issue - and I look to the recent article about Ardal - is that he has conflated his campaign for Women's rights/against medicalisation of children with a parallel crusade about his personal betrayal. That article is not about WR/PBs it is about the people who did not stand by his side. Who did not immediately understand the implications of the TRA movement and risk their careers along side him. It feels on some level like he is trying to bully everyone to take a vocal visible stand and you don’t win hearts and minds by being a bully - by being as abusive and abrasive as the other side.

My DH obvious shares my perspective on the GI stuff. He has sat and sobbed along side me many a time over the last 8+years and broke down in some measure of joy when the Cass Report came out. He has continually thanked me for the work I had done with my MP, writing letters/petitions via Bayswater, talking to people highly involved in some of the high profile cases, for writing about it (albeit anonymously because I can’t risk alienating my child or negatively impacting dh’s career). Because he can’t do any of those things.

So at work he remains neutral. His career and his ability to pay for the care my DD has needed [CAMHS never helped, we had to pay for everything, every step of the way] all depended upon his keeping his job. His company was a fully paid up Stonewall Champion for many years and a very very well known TRA was one of his reportees for a few years when he/they (a TW) reported to my DH. So my husband has publicly remained non-partisan, excused himself from LGBTQ!+ training due to ‘conflicting work commitments’, gone to make a call or changed the subject if raised at work.

I don’t resent him, I don’t accuse him of moral cowardice, I don’t expect him to sacrifice our family’s security because of what we believe - no, what we KNOW -to be true. I lost pretty much most of my ‘mummy’ friends during this period partly because a minority disagreed with me [do kinders with no understanding of the wider issues] but mainly because people did not want to get involved in something that, from their perspective, didn’t directly impact them and was already perceived as toxic and painful. We were investigated by Social Services twice - something that was emotionally traumatic for us both but also had the risk of impacting my DH’s job had they been contacted.

So I understand the apparent moral cowardice of people not standing up and shouting their support - they have mortgages and families. I am sure Ardal does do. They exist in a peculiar industry bubble where public mood can turn on a dime.

I admire and respect GL’s position and passion - but I also understand why people are not allowed to place their heads above the parapet. Some of these people could be powerful allies, however, if they could be coaxed into behind the scenes activism or simply demanding ‘neutrality’ in the work place. There are many ways to fight this and we don’t all need to be Glinners to affect change.

Quite! Im sure suggestions would regard Portugal ,with some of the most liberal laws in the world around drugs, assisted dying & LGBTQ, as eminently sensible has self ID. It resulted in this

reduxx.info/prison-guards-in-portugal-force-transfer-of-violent-transgender-inmate-from-womens-prison-after-threatening-to-strike/

What is it about these eminently sensible countries that make you think their populations are prone to such whimsy?

They're obviously not sensible since they've passed laws which say that everyone can choose their sex. Which is clearly insane.

So you think that huge swathes, maybe 20% - 30% ?? of these populations who have M on their birth certificates are now randomly putting F on their tax returns, employment docs, GP registrations etc? For shits and giggles presumably? What is it about these eminently sensible countries that make you think their populations are prone to such whimsy?

You know that the percentage of trans people is reliably around 1% or less in populations don't you?

And you know that transwomen score poorly across the board in terms of health and well-being, education, employment, income, political representation - the measures being assessed in these studies? Which would bring down the overall performance of the countries where they are being recorded in the female demographic, which should lower their position on these international tables?

And yet they are still at the top of these international tables for women's safety and wellbeing, and have been for years since implementing their gender self ID policies.