To only now realise that Pride is very anti-women - not just anti-lesbian - but misogynistic and male-orientated

[loveyouradvice]

I had no idea....

prideinlondon.org

Of the TWELVE photos that welcome you to their website ONLY ONE is of women .... and to compound the irony that one is of Stewards, i.e. women helping Pride happen, rather than celebrating and enjoying Pride as an active participant

I am really shocked that in this day and age ANY organisation that claims to represent WOMEN AND MEN can be so foolish as to show that they don't think women are important on the first page of their website.....

Just read the action for trans health manifesto as a starter. That’s fairly bracing.

Or the material from Mermaids (who are advising schools, the NHS and the police among others.)

Take home is that they both think that adults should be allowed to self ID with no medical gatekeeping, and children should be on affirmative treatment/blockers/cross sex hormones from a very young age.

I cannot accept that. It goes against all child safeguarding procedures, and medical ethics.

Yes we have drifted a bit. The problem is that once you start looking at the issue, you kind of see some fairly dark stuff. Lesbians being told to accept penises or else. Children having drugs and surgery promoted to them - it’s aspects of the same push, which seems often focused on breaking down the boundaries that keep women and children safe.

Make of that what you will. 18% are in favour of it anyway.

To be fair I don't think anyone takes the Action for Trans Health Manifesto seriously. Mermaids, on the other hand....

The Mermaids.gender spectrum thing, with a pink barbie at one end is a particular favourite of mine.

Well, the action for trans health manifesto isn't in the consultation, nor is the mermaids material, and neither is mentioned in the questions in the survey, so the content of those things isn't relevant to the survey results.

Like I said, the 18 for is only useful if you also know the 54 against and 23 don't knows.

Otherwise it could be (e.g.) 18 for, 10 against and 72 don't knows, which is an entirely different picture. The 18 in isolation is without context and therefore meaningless in terms of comparing for and against.

I'm not planning to go hunting around in the dark corners, any more than I'd go hunting for racism or antisemitism or people being vile about public figures etc. I'm aware it exists on the extreme edges. True of pretty much any contentious or emotive issue.

The Mermaids material is widely used in schools and public services. Hardly "dark corner" stuff.

Yeah ATH is nuts. I think it should be published though - all out in the open is a good thing ... right?

But mermaids- It’s not dark web stuff - it’s the people training the police. And the nhs. And advocating confidential disclosure. And briefing the BBC who now have medically inaccurate information on puberty blockers on their website. These groups have access and that’s worrying if the information they’re pushing is wrong, inaccurate or biased.

I’m fairly aware of how stats work ;) as a scientist and clinical trial person I work with them daily.

Well, objectively, yes. It was a list compiled of extremely serious, extremely painful and extremely gross side effects. It was designed to put people off

Have you ever seen or heard an advert for a pharmaceutical product in the US? By law they are obliged to include the possible side effects, along with the promotion of the medicine. So you get a picture of an older couple (he is grey haired, she is obviously not as old as he is), who are all smiley now that his erectile dysfunction is sorted because he is taking Viagra, but the small print at the bottom of the screen and the very-fast-talking-voice-over says that common side effects may include nausea, headaches and problems with vision, other complications may include heart attacks, strokes "or death" (!!). For example, see the list here

It's irresponsible for any discussion of drug therapy to gloss over the side-effects, even if the risk of them is low

Do they know what the side effects are if children take them.
Forgive me if this is well known, but how can they know what the side effects will be?
Surely people haven't been taking them for long enough to find out what they will do for children?
How do they test this stuff? They can't have tested them on children?

No, they don’t know the long term side effects. But it is transphobic to say that. Children are being shown how to buy these drugs over the internet if their transphobic parents are reluctant. It is fucking shocking,

Like I said, the 18 for is only useful if you also know the 54 against and 23 don't knows.

No, because as I said earlier, it is rare for the don't knows in a poll to break in different proportions to the yeses and the nos.

Lang, without knowing the other numbers you don't have a ratio of yes to no to use the proportion to apply it to the don't knows.

So yes, one would expect the don't knows to mirror the ratio of the ones who did have an opinion, but if you only know the number for one of the responses that's not a ratio.

18:53 (the actual ratio) is a very different to 18:82 (the made up one)

This is exactly the sort of essential mathematical comprehension that is so lacking in media reporting, and winds up with lots of poeple being very misled by figures that are not wrong per se, but which without sufficient context are not painting the real picture at all.

I can do you a full worked example if you want, if you still can't see why the survey results show a significantly different ratio to the one initially stated by Prawn upthread.

Bert, why on earth do you think this is a transphobic thing to say? I don't get it

No, they don’t know the long term side effects. But it is transphobic to say that.

Intercontinental-any suggestion that "blockers" might pose any threat is automatically considered transphobic. Parents querying giving their children these drugs are regarded as obstructive.

Think it's futile, do you? And yet 82% of British people oppose Self-ID, which very strongly suggests that they don't share your opinion, Rosesandflowers. I'd guess most ordinary people think that lesbians = female homosexuals is pretty much a given too

So you are misleading people with figures? I suppose that you must have a binary way of thinking - if 18% are for self ID without a doctor's opinion, then that must mean 82% are against.

Will you continue to use this statistic - even though you've been told it's incorrect?

I mean -it's a great statistic, isn't it. So many people opposed to it so I can see why you would continue to use it.

Intercontinental-any suggestion that "blockers" might pose any threat is automatically considered transphobic

I would hope that any parent who gives these blockers to their kids does so with full awareness of the side effects - and that any parent who doesn't give them to their kids because they are concerned about the side effects is not considered transphobic.

Are parents who don't give them to their children because they are concerned about the side effects considered transphobic?

You probably missed the threads a couple of years ago in which a mum talked about her gender non conforming child and how she'd left Mermaids because the parents spent their time discussing which websites and private doctors were good sources for the drugs the NHS wouldn't prescribe, Yetanothertranswoman.

She'd done her research into the drugs and was totally certain her child shouldn't be taking them. She was also disturbed by the undercurrent of homophobia she observed, not among all the parents but some.

So she left Mermaids but they weren't happy about her decision. They pursued her with messages telling her that her DC would kill herself and it would be the mother's fault.

Then, after she'd shared her views on Mumsnet, the FWR board was inundated with newly registered Mermaids members telling us what a bunch of bigoted transphobes she and the other regular posters were. It's all fun and games over on FWR

I should have added that the mother concerned said the best and most useful support she and her child received during this time was from the regulars on FWR. Gender critical feminism helped them analyse and deconstruct trans claims and ideology. We also found her lots of appropriate links to share with her child.

That's appalling.No parent should be harassed and accused of transphobia if they refuse to give their child such powerful drugs.

Any comments on the 82% statistic which seems to be incorrect?

Don't forget that the one mermaids poster also named the woman (and yes, it's was the right name) on the thread. If you find the thread, obviously the naming post has been deleted, but it's quite clear from the responses that still stand what the poster had said.

I think the stat got mis-phrased somewhere btw. I imagine it (accurately) started as "82% of people don't support self ID" and then someone misinterpreted "don't support" as "are against". Nothing sinister imo.

AND (memo to self: don't hit "Post' until you've finished what you want to say) what totally freaks me out are all those Mermaids members eagerly seeking out medical transition for their minor children. That's truly terrible parenting. So reckless and irresponsible.

I mean, each to their own and all that, but giving your DC drugs with the effects and side effects detailed upthread goes against everything a parent is supposed to do for their DC. Shocking.

No, it was stated as ... 82% are opposed to ... which is completely and irrefutably wrong. No misinterpretation of a post, but in fact the post quoted a wrong figure. The actual figure from the you-gov survey is 53%.

I'm pretty sure it was Prawn of the patriarchy wot said it in this thread. To be fair I've got a feeling I've seen that number used in that context in other threads, so maybe Prawn is taking it as fact from someone else's posting.

I do wish, in a general sort of a way, that statistics were better understood. When something as mathematically simple as this one is being so readily misused it's quite worrying.

Repeated, it can have huge knock on effects in social and political terms as it spreads and gains ground as an accepted stat that people keep reusing on social media, even though it's wrong.

I've seen false stats used in both corners on this topic, and no one ever seems to come back and say, oh, sorry, correction to that one, it's meant to be x not y.

Actually I'd still be arguing the toss if it had been stated as "do not support" because that would also be a misleading stat, implying as it does a binary question, where in fact the respondents had three options, yes to doctor approval, no to doctor approval, don't know

When 25% of repondents select don't know they are a significant proportion of the responses, so they should be acknowledged when the stats are used, even if it's in a footnote, it shoul be there somewhere.

You can't be fudging language to suit your agenda when it comes to quoting survey stats, and just bundle the don't knows in with the category you want to win to make them look more numerous than they really are. It's misleading at best, dishonest at worst.

any suggestion that "blockers" might pose any threat is automatically considered transphobic. Parents querying giving their children these drugs are regarded as obstructive.
Yikes! By whom Bertrand? Not the NHS because they do watch and wait.

I do wish everyone would be kinder to parents of children who are going through this. It must add a huge layer of hurt to have people you don't know and who don't know you or your child judging you and your actions so harshly whichever way you turn.

Like you and your kid being thrown into a pool with a big hungry shark at either end, a media spotlight overhead, and you trying to keeping your kid's head above water while activists at either end throw chum in the water and wave flags to attract more and more spectators. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I think almost all parents are just trying to navigate unknown waters on this. They, as we all do want the best for their kids. I have a lot of sympathy for them. It’s something they’ve probably never encountered before, it’s all new and they hear things like suicide stats and bobparwnt wants that even to be a thought.

Very few people have the medical or scientific background to make a critical appraisal of a drug’s risks/benefits and so they turn to outside sources of information.

The problem comes when those sources are not impartial, or are pushing drugs. The NHS advocates watch and wait, which is great - however as we’ve seen here there are other lobby groups with mainstream reach who are pushing for earlier treatment and drug access.

I do not envy parents going through this one bit. It must be extremely hard for them.

've seen false stats used in both corners on this topic, and no one ever seems to come back and say, oh, sorry, correction to that one, it's meant to be x not y

Indeed. And even when disproved, I bet this one will come alive again.

Zombie stats.