Civil servants oppose plans to end trans reassignment leave policy

What is your objection to people being allowed time off to recover from surgery?

Why does it matter if it's a fetish (I'm only discussing adults). They still need support to feel comfortable in their bodies. What is your solution for those men 'with fetishes'?

1. Why does it matter who is affected more? We need solutions for both.
2. Why are you changing the subject to how many people are impacted? Are you arguing it's not a real condition? You know it is because you just said it increased, not appeared.

Did you want to suggest your solution for the adults who genuinely are impacted by this? All I care about are solutions. That's it. What would you do for them, please? I won't respond further until you answer the original question. That has always been my only question. Not interested in a debate on irrelevant talking points that I never brought up.

Why does it matter if it's a fetish (I'm only discussing adults). They still need support to feel comfortable in their bodies. What is your solution for those men 'with fetishes'?

1. Why does it matter who is affected more? We need solutions for both.
2. Why are you changing the subject to how many people are impacted? Are you arguing it's not a real condition? You know it is because you just said it increased, not appeared.

Did you want to suggest your solution for the adults who genuinely are impacted by this? All I care about are solutions. That's it. What would you do for them, please? I won't respond further until you answer the original question. That has always been my only question. Not interested in a debate on irrelevant talking points that I never brought up.

Why does it matter if it's a fetish (I'm only discussing adults). They still need support to feel comfortable in their bodies. What is your solution for those men 'with fetishes'?

1. Evidence, please, that rates of self-harm are higher amongst those who identify as trans or non-binary, compared with a population who don't identify that way but have similar levels of mental health problems.
2. Please explain why there's been a huge increase in the number of people who feel this gender confusion in recent years if it's innate and nothing to do with social contagion. In particular I'd like to know why we've flipped from having at least twice as many males affected as females, to the present position of twice as many girls (known to be particularly susceptible to social contagion) as boys, but with a negligible number of women over 30 identifying as trans or non-binary. If the increase is due to reduced stigma, why aren't the older females transitioning?

Or the adult is autistic and still experiencing trauma from puberty.

Autism-specific counselling about female puberty and the consequent social changes would have been hugely helpful to me, had it been delivered between the ages of around eight and twelve, along with industrial strength pain relief and progesterone to suppress what I now know to be adenomyosis.

However, given the huge numbers of middle-aged men transitioning, it's probably a fetish in many cases.

The pp made clear that she would not respect a trans person in the workplace and would pit them against others.

Where did I say that? Evidence that assertion, or retract it. I have not mentioned at all how I would treat a trans-identifying person at work. You are fabricating opinions and ascribing them to me, I suspect in an attempt to poison the well through character assassination.

I thought I was being pretty clear that I consider trans-identifying people to have the same rights as others to time off work after surgery on the same terms as others. Not less than, not more than. The Sam and Eric/Erica fictional example was to illustrate how someone with clear disability was treated worse than someone who wanted a higher-pitched voice, hence the policy is unfair.

When I wrote "Disdain for a fictional trans-identifying person. Fictional, used to illustrate an example of a policy being unfair. I absolutely am going to be disdainful about that", I was mocking the idea that's its possible to be disdainful about someone who doesn't actually exist. The final word, "that", is an object pronoun, not a personal one. I am disdainful of the policy referred to at the end of the previous sentence. If I had meant Eric/Erica, I'd have written "him".

Not sure why you switched to children.. I am only talking about adults. If an adult reaches their 20s, 30s and older and still feels like the opposite gender, then they are transgender. You won't talk them out of it. Something more drastic is needed.

Or, maybe you disagree. Is that the solution? Force therapy until they change their minds or pretend they did. Okay, that's one way to go. Not sure it will help prevent suicide in that community.

I think it’s fair to treat people with respect, even if you don’t agree with their choices. I think it’s essential to treat them lawfully in the workplace. The pp made clear that she would not respect a trans person in the workplace and would pit them against others. Nothing to be proud of there and no benefit to anyone other than herself either.

Not sure why you switched to children.. I am only talking about adults. If an adult reaches their 20s, 30s and older and still feels like the opposite gender, then they are transgender. You won't talk them out of it. Something more drastic is needed.

Or, maybe you disagree. Is that the solution? Force therapy until they change their minds or pretend they did. Okay, that's one way to go. Not sure it will help prevent suicide in that community.

What is your objection to people being allowed time off to recover from surgery?

I think it’s ridiculous to continue pandering to your rubbish analogy, but I’ll have one more try.

It is not necessary to have disdain for anyone, it’s only necessary to have a lawful and appropriate policy that suits the workplace.

Until I see science indicating otherwise, and frankly, I don't care if it's biological or mental/thoughts only: if you 'feel' like (or believe) you are one gender: it's cruel to force someone to live their life as the other. Try it yourself. And I don't know if curing it ('changing' gender in their minds) is less horrific than changing their bodies. Lesser of two.

Or what is the solution to ease their suffering? Talking about it in therapy won't work.

Evidence that therapy won't work? Before the Dutch changed their treatment of children with gender issues to the affirmation model that's caused so much damage around the world since, the standard treatment for children and teenagers everywhere was 'watchful waiting', because research showed that the vast majority of those children came to terms with their natal sex once they were through puberty. Prior to that, therapy for the child and the whole family was important in making sure that other mental health issues were identified and treated and also in trying to help the whole family grasp that there is no right or wrong way to be a boy or to be a girl, you just are a boy or a girl because of your body type. Everything else is personality and stereotypes.

Exactly. This is why the Civil Service is getting rid of this policy because they have decided it is not lawful, not appropriate and doesn't suit the workplace.

Giving gender reassignment its own super-special and extremely generous policy is grossly unfair to everyone else.

Carers won't get 13 weeks per year every year. Jury service is a legal obligation, but even then, your employer has the right to stop paying you and you have to then claim back lost earnings from the courts service.

I think it’s fair to treat people with respect, even if you don’t agree with their choices. I think it’s essential to treat them lawfully in the workplace. The pp made clear that she would not respect a trans person in the workplace and would pit them against others. Nothing to be proud of there and no benefit to anyone other than herself either.

You literally said: Your attempts to demean ‘Erica’s’ choices as less valid than ‘Sam’s’ undermines any idea of fairness.

This is why trans people are losing support. Very few 'normies' are going to rate Erica's choice (to sound a bit more womanly) as equally valid to Sam's 'choice' (to try to regain some function that he lost in a stroke). You have a distorted idea of what is fair.

Stand by for a long detour but this is detail I know and I want it on the record because it matters to me. If you’re less interested, jump to the last paragraph.

Transgender voice work (and more recently, non binary voice work) is typically an aspect of speech and language therapy, done by qualified SALTs who have postgraduate training in voice. Speech therapy for stroke survivors is usually done by SALTs who specialise in neurology rehab, and the most likely cause of ‘not having a voice’ in that case will in fact be aphasia, or a problem using language. However, if the stroke affects the function of the voice box (which can sometimes happen) the survivor will probably be referred in to a SALT voice therapist or ideally into voice clinic (joint clinic between ENT and SALT).

Transgender voice is officially a core part of NHS commissioned services, and has been since about the early 2000s. In reality, a lot of NHS teams are closed to new referrals because there is minimal clinical risk to not doing the work (no symptoms likely to deteriorate, no additional cancer risk, no swallowing risk, the voice itself is unimpaired). Also there are increasing online resources, self-help voice networks, private SALT services and non-SALT voice therapists (may have a background in performance or singing for example). There certainly used to be SALTs attached to the regional gender clinics including the Charing Cross gender service which was the first in the UK, but I don’t know the current provision there.

Transgender voice, from a practical point of view, can be extremely hard work for the patient with lots of appointments, often group appointments, and if the person is motivated and has the mental resources to tackle it, it can be very effective. I would argue, however, that all that is nothing compared to the effort required by stroke survivors with aphasia, who often can and do go back to work because they need to, like anyone else, with a particularly complex new disability for which they may well require workplace adjustments, including reduced hours or periods of sick leave, for which they get less pay or sickness management, like anyone else…?

I think it’s ridiculous to continue pandering to your rubbish analogy, but I’ll have one more try.

It is not necessary to have disdain for anyone, it’s only necessary to have a lawful and appropriate policy that suits the workplace.

I think it’s ridiculous to continue pandering to your rubbish analogy, but I’ll have one more try.

It is not necessary to have disdain for anyone, it’s only necessary to have a lawful and appropriate policy that suits the workplace.