Times leader: The Gender Trap

[Burru]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-the-risks-of-gender-self-identification-the-gender-trap-bmb3r00vn?shareToken=3eb564c267dc646c823cbcadc74c2462

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And it's been a long time since I heard the threat phrase 'wrong side of history.'

So true.

TRAs got them sacked from their job (working for an agency that helped actually vulnerable trans people!)

It's quite unbelievable and horrible chilling that this has happened so much. Thank God for Maya.

I've said this before but when I thought sharing spaces meant sharing them with people like Blair White I was fine with that. I suspect that's where many women who're vaguely pro TWAW are in terms of their assumptions, thinking that it's only a few people and they're all gay and physically unthreatening anyway. It only takes one Karen White or Jessica Yaniv or Hannah Mouncey to trigger a reevaluation.

Unfortunately, the war is really around the definition of gender identity.

If a tribunal should accept that male and female exist within one body - be that body male or female - and it is the inner gender identity that determines if the sexed body is male or female then this means that if a person feels like a woman then a penis is the outward expression of femaleness and if a person feels like a man then a vagina is the outward expression of maleness. Gender identity and sex become synonymous. There is no need for any surgery or hormone treatment.

There is then no need to live as the 'opposite sex' as this term becomes essentially meaningless.

All a person has to do is convince a tribunal that they feel like the sex with which they internally identify. There is no way to objectively show that this is the case and we have no reliable form of psychological assessment to show that this is the case.

Thus the tribunal becomes increasingly meaningless and the pressure for self-id will never go away whilst this idea of sex is in the ascendency in the powerful circles that are determined that this re-definition of sex will go ahead.

This is what is effectively happening already and the ideological basis for this approach is set out in the paper by Stephen Whittle (who has been an influential government advisor) posted by TimeLady

www.socresonline.org.uk/12/1/whittle.html

The person I'm thinking of honestly seemed lovely, Datun, intelligent and self aware and very much wanting to act in solidarity with women. And again, if women are assuming that's who they'd hypothetically be likely to encounter in the toilets then why would they be scared? There's been a massive bait and switch campaign, and the people used as bait have not been treated kindly by those using them as a battering ram.

Can anyone see any comments on the Times article? My comment (not at all inflammatory) has been pending approval for more than 1 hour. Very disappointing.
To whoever asked, I should think the Leader was written by Janice Turner.

Doesn't sound like Turner. Not sure who else it might have been though.

That's one strong message. Well done The Times.

There's been a massive bait and switch campaign, and the people used as bait have not been treated kindly by those using them as a battering ram.

That's exactly what it is, kittens, you're right. And I'm going to start deploying this phrase.

It's instantly understandable and a very effective description of what is happening.

I'd be surprised if it was Turner.

The charity's policies go far beyond equality law, critics say

This is an example of getting ahead of the government agenda. A tactic identified in the Denton report.

Bohemond I think comments on Times articles don't usually come up until 11am ish

I thought the article sounded in parts like Douglas Murray and at other times (ie trans people are vulnerable) someone else a little less fearless

Murray would have been less conciliatory, I think. Though possibly not if he's trying to be strategic.

Thanks Mid. Will keep an eye on it.

Ibloodylovewomen I don't have a link to what kittens mentioned, but it rang a bell with me as I have heard similar said by Ben at GNC central in a youtube interview with Benjamin Boyce.

'Coercion & Abuse in the Gender ID Community | with ⚢ GNC-Centric ⚢' if you'd rather search than click the link

I think there was a little strategy to this - the vulnerability bit didn't seem in line with other bits such as "by stealth" and "delusional", as well as the safe-guarding of children shows me this author knows what is going on

I do wish people would stop saying ‘getting ahead of’ the law and say the truth; ‘in breach of’ the law or ‘against’ the law.

There's a video where Blair talks about their early experiences with their local trans community and it's pretty much the same, with the addition of a whole lot of "you should do sex work". Which is not something I'd be happy for any teenager I care about to find themselves swimming in when they went out looking for a peer group to belong to.

Excellent to see this acknowledged:

this debate has to be conducted in the open. Too often trans rights activists have tried to advance their cause by stealth. Meanwhile anyone who has attempted to question the push to strip the law of any legal recognition of biological sex, including Times writers, has been subjected to sustained abuse.

Hope they cover stumbledin’s thread because the atmosphere they describe is affecting general elections:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3764889-Election-2019-Twenty-one-candidates-seeking-election-call-women-terfs

Meanwhile anyone who has attempted to question the push to strip the law of any legal recognition of biological sex, including Times writers, has been subjected to sustained abuse

Permanently displacing biological sex was an aim of the GRA. It was successfully achieved. Here’s a quote

Sex is preceded and exceeded by gender by the terms of the GRA. Sex is determined by gender identity...For the GRA, the body is irrelevant

What would make my week would be on HIGNFY a question on The LD and Jo Swinson with a clip from the Radio 5 interview given to Ian Hislop’s team for comment.

Please could I have an early Christmas present. Please....

I think the issue of vulnerability is a bit mixed. I cannot see vulnerability in the middle aged man who transitions but his children will be. Also the young people who are caught up in this ideology who feel they need affirmation and multiple surgeries no drugs to deal with it. There are so manY young people with so many problems and there are not the mental health services to help them. Young people who have grown up with my children have been given antidepressants, one committed suicide, and several spend their time cut off in their bedroom. It is heartbreaking and I see the vulnerability as part of the wider issue of the health care system at the moment.

Is that the wring link?
The third link is to the whole letters page, you can't choose individual items, hence the title, you need to scroll down.

‘Vulnerability’ as a state of being has been fetishised. It’s another part of the feminine cocktail of passivity, weakness that certain people adopt to be ‘alluring’ or ‘inviting’. I think it must be seen as quite affirming for some trans women to be described as a vulnerable. Buys right into a certain gender stereotype.