I am Janice Turner's No 1 fan - another excellent article

[Stopmakingsense]

This one picks up in particular the huge rise in women identifying as men, and the increasing inability of anyone being able to question it:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/even-asking-questions-is-now-transphobic-ztk3rlrfk?shareToken=1f64a5116171eb54a9a866590e6432ec

[Igneococcus]

I know arbitrary I come across it in homeopathy discussions and the like all the time too.
Something as big as "male and female brain cells differ on a cellular level" or "water has memory" or whatever with some real, testable data behind it would be all over the media, badly presented most likely, but it would be out in the public and certainly would be big headlines in the big science journals, and it just isn't.

[theendisnotnigh]

Yay - the Times today - 2 articles .
"Trans group condones punching feminists' - excellent clear concise article.
One about the head of a private girls school who has said 'my girls are not girls.'

Both with interesting below the line comments.

[NoLoveofMine]

One about the head of a private girls school who has said 'my girls are not girls.'

I'll read this with interest (or perhaps trepidation) when my parents get it later but have looked online and this is visible:

She said: “I try not to say ‘girls’, [but] when you have been teaching for 20 years it is very hard not to say ‘girls’.” Instead, she tries to use the term “pupils” and the pronoun “they”— in place of “she”— to be sensitive to the feelings of transgender students.

I just think as I've said in this thread the denial that girls are girls is very regressive.

[Igneococcus]

I could share the articles but I haven't quite figured out how to do it. It only gives me the option for sharing on FB, twitter and by email.
Need to find errol's thread where it's explained.

[Igneococcus]

Ok, fingers crossed this works


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-group-ath-condones-punching-feminists-n6mz06pj3?shareToken=77931e855851117ee3a9d7101c050ae8

[Igneococcus]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-girls-are-not-girls-says-leading-private-school-head-07zbrdddv?shareToken=5869c3f7bd713dc615cf12134561aaf7

[Datun]

Igneococcus

Me too. I can't see the icon she was talking about. They only let me email it to someone or share on Twitter or Facebook.

They are identifying the woman (man) who works for action for trans-health and saying that the group were instrumental in advising the government. Despite now advocating violence.

The below the line comments are largely very sensible.

[NoLoveofMine]

Thanks for that Igneococcus. I've only got to this point but am already exasperated:

Pupils are allowed to wear ­trousers, cut their hair short

Why is this considered either notable or that it suggests these pupils aren't girls? Plus I've never heard of a school requiring girls to have long hair

[Datun]

Igneococcus

How did you do it?

[Igneococcus]

Datun
I clicked on share by email, it then opened a new mail in my gmail account and there was the link in the body of the mail. I assume it works with any other email provider as well.

[Ktown]

Even if male and female brains are different at a cellular level, your brain isn't seperate from the rest of your body. So if you a male and have a female brain, your male body wouldn't impact on that.
The whole argument is a nonsense. Females are females because of biological characteristics. That's it.

[Datun]

This is JAGS? I wonder if the boys' school she is referring to is Dulwich College?

Completely agree nolove. Utterly ridiculous.

Although, I don't blame people for not understanding this issue. You only have to look at people on mumsnet, struggling to get their head around it.

[Datun]

Ktown

I completely agree. I couldn't care less about what someone's brain consisted of. Because that's not the definition of sex.

[BMacklin]

Excellent. Thanks for this. Will catch up properly later.

[NoLoveofMine]

That's true Datun and I'm sure the Head, as with at St Paul's Girls' School, means well. It's such a shame though that girls' schools are perpetuating these ideas of gender when my experience has been of mine being quite freeing from that kind of thing. As they start endorsing views such as those (suggesting having short hair or wearing trousers makes girls "trans") then it's so potentially damaging and such a shame.

[borntobequiet]

Haven't read the full thread yet but though I cannot condone in any way the madness that is trans activism or any of the frankly deluded thinking that goes with it, I do have sympathy with girls and young women who see transitioning as a way out of the nightmare that puberty and adolescence can be for some.
I would have jumped at the chance to escape horrendous periods and PMS/PMDD that just got worse and worse leaving me depressed and suicidal by transitioning. I went from a gifted athlete and high achieving academic to someone who rarely left her room and cried most of the time. Happily I started sleeping with my boyfriend, necessitating going on the Pill in its early days which made me feel much better...of course I thought it was the boyfriend (well, it was a bit).
My point is that if young women are showing such signs of distress, there are better interpretations of the cause than gender dysphoria, which is indeed a cultural phenomenon and a fad.

[Terfing]

If trans women have female brains, then why do they need to take female hormones?

[SeaRabbit]

I saw mention in The Times of a "new feminist group" Woman's Place UK. Does anyone know anything about it?

[retreatwhispering]

I have experience of a large city girls' school elsewhere in Europe. There are plenty of masculine girls. But nobody cares because uniform isn't a requirement. As far as I know there isn't a single trans pupil at the school. Certainly trans isn't a 'thing'. Not on anybody's radar, not something discussed amongst the teens. Just like a PP said about their pupils of immigrant background. We are certainly talking about a cultural phenomena here.

Accepting that somebody is a boy and then allowing them to stay at a girls' school implies that you don't believe them, surely?

[Datun]

Igneococcus

Okay thanks. I'll try that next time.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Igneo, datun After I've hit the times share link/icon I see various options inc FB etc but one is just Copy - it just puts the link into the clipboard so it can then be pasted. I was assuming the apps worked the same for everyone.

[Igneococcus]

I'm on a desktop computer at the moment errol and there is no copy option (that i can see) and I just checked on my tablet (android) and there isn't a copy option either.

[Datun]

Me neither.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Did you know that the average pre-menopausal woman has more testosterone in her bloodstream than oestrogen?

No, I didn't...er, so what? How much she has compared to a man might possibly be relevant to the discussion. But AFAIK I'm not aware that middle aged women are deciding their peri-meno symptoms make them feel like a man ... very much the opposite.