Another Mermaid statement: about Good Morning Britain and Caroline Farrow

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Apparently Farrow will be on GMB tomorrow.

There are some interesting bits in this statement:

Jackie is, of course, deeply upset by the reference to her as being mutilated, castrated and sterilised.

Jackie is also distressed at the assertion that this was something that was somehow done ‘to her’. The only people deliberately doing anything 'to her' are the online trolls using the most abusive language about her. She would like the online abuse to stop.

At 16, she undertook extensive psychological assessment from independent experts before she was cleared for, and undertook, gender reassignment surgery. Her competency and full knowledge of all the implications was clear.

At 25 she still considers that surgery, for her, was lifesaving, and is distressed at the implication that she was not capable and mature enough to make this decision.

Many of us appreciate R0wantrees' contextual posts.

Just skim past them if they don't interest you.

"Can the discussion about trans children please now become less toxic and abusive"

Sure! But what makes a "trans child"? Is it a the scorn of homophobic parent, or pressure from an overly-woke parent? What about parents who are transing their children to fufill their own psychological need? What about ROGD, a rise in the number of girls identifying as boys. Then there's the problem of giving offlabel meds to minors, irreparable physical damage caused by binders and surgeries. Not to mention the impact of all this on other children, who are losing access to single sex spaces and being told up means down. We're here, waiting patiently for a civilised talk about trans children. Are you ready to join us at the table?

Everything is a loaded term. The issue is whether castration is a clarifying term or a obfuscating term.

Of course it's loaded, this is just silly.

Caroline is a journalist. She used a brutal term that comes loaded with connotations of lack of consent because she thinks it is a brutal act and one that a 15 year old can't consent to. That's the point! If she didn't think that, she wouldn't have been worrying about exposing it, she'd be writing about Brexit or whatever.

This is why we use the term "mutilation" instead of "cutting". We use a brutal term because we expose a brutal act. We don't pretend it's neutral.

language is not neutral

nauticant said it a lot more succinctly than me....

I think we understand each other now.

Of course it's loaded, this is just silly.

Can you explain why you think it's a loaded term? The dictionary definition has already been posted in this thread. I can't see what is 'loaded' about using a word to mean its correct dictionary definition.

Alan Turing consented to Castration rather than imprisonment

Its not consent if its under duress and threat...

The issue is whether castration is a clarifying term or a obfuscating term.

I absolutely love it when a few words assist people to think clearly about a complex issue.

The above post is a good example.

The reason Susie Green doesn't like the word castration is because the whole world knows it means cutting your genitals off. It will make men everywhere wince.

Because it's extreme. It's not the word, it's the action!

And when Susie Green, on record, has a litany of the reasons, you realise why it's absolutely necessary to highlight.

Susie greens reasons are, clothes, dolls, hair, beauty pageants.

What would be the most commonly used term for surgical removal of your bollocks that most people would understand without further need for explanation?

Is it simple English to get to the point so the maximum number of people understand or is it deliberately loading language?

To suggest that all the alternatives are not as loaded is bizarre to me.

It's by far the most neutral term because its universally understood. Which is precisely why anyone trying to hide from the reality of it, wants to hide behind euphemisms or suggesting that a common usage term is somehow being deliberately loaded.

Even if we all were to give Susie green the benefit of the doubt and accept her word that things have turned out well for Jackie. She still took a huge gamble.
There's no way that this should set a precedent for how to respond to gender disphoria.

I have wondered if at any point the Plain English Campaign will challenge any of the language used by / insisted on by some TRAs.

Their focus is accessibility of course rather than 'inclusivity'

This is why we use the term "mutilation" instead of "cutting". We use a brutal term because we expose a brutal act. We don't pretend it's neutral.

Excellent point.

Amoregentlemanlikemanner

"She used a brutal term that comes loaded with connotations of lack of consent because she thinks it is a brutal act and one that a 15 year old can't consent to."

The law in UK also agrees that a 15 year old cannot consent to this, which is why it is illegal until a person achieves the age of 18 years here.

By the way, check the dictionary definition, wherein you will see there are no connotations.

Well nobody can accuse us of being an echo chamber tonight !

Personally I think castration is the correct term when referring to humans. For animals we can say neuter. Both mean to remove sex organs and to render someone or something incapable of reproducing.

What PP said, it was a pretty big risk SG took with her child's future and fertility.

Even if we all were to give Susie green the benefit of the doubt and accept her word that things have turned out well for Jackie. She still took a huge gamble.

Well, unless she can prove to me that Jackie has lost no cognitive ability, and her IQ hasn't dropped by eight points, I don't see how anyone can judge how well it turned out.

I've said it before, the transmen, particularly, I have seen all have a childlike innocence to them.

Not being outraged could just as easily be a result of lack of mental maturation.

Surely whether its child abuse is subjective isnt it?

Im just looking at my boys playing with the cat, they hold her and cuddle her like a baby because that's what they've seen their mother and father doing. You have to wonder what kind of environment Jackie Green was born into where seeing a toddler doing something so entirely normal with their cuddly toys, for a boy or girl, was seen as so unusual, exceptional and alien that it was taken as a sign that she was "wrong". So weird and messed up.

Did Jackie Green really need to be told about those tweets? The only reason JG was told about them is because SG went looking for them and took them to West Yorkshire Police to try out for this compelled speech test case. SG then had to tell JG what she was going to do. That was cruel to drag JG into it.

Not being outraged could just as easily be a result of lack of mental maturation.

I agree. It's like Jazz Jennings.

Most people go through a massive psychological shift when they are about 30 and the necessary beliefs they'd lived by, especially about their own parents and childhood, are re-framed - and the fury kicks in. I wonder if messing up the endocrine system continues to scupper those natural process too, or whether JG is going to flip out in 3-7 years time?