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 I agree with the previous poster that the vulnerability of the original transsexual group is being hijacked by late transitioning men with a fetish.

Absolutely, but the movement, if we can call it that, hasn't been hijacked. The late-transitioners have always been involved in the activism, and on the other hand the changes that are now turning out to be harmful to the HSTS types (like replacing TS & TV with 'transgender') are the work of the likes of Stephen Whittle. If SW isn't an 'original transsexual', I don't know who is.

There’s also no question that the rules can often add to the misery of those suffering from gender dysphoria by obliging them to submit to years of rigorous and bureaucratic tests to establish what they believe to be their genuine identity.

This needs challenging too.

They need to submit 5-6 documents in their new name and gender to cover a 2 year period. This can be passports, driving licence etc. but also DWP letters, payslips, gas bills etc.

They need two medical reports, one confirming a diagnosis of gender dysphoria (soon to be replaced with 'gender incongruence'), the other detailing any treatment they have had and if they have not had surgery what the reason is ('I did not consider it appropriate for me' will do). The second report can be from their GP. The first will be from some sort of 'gender specialist' who has sat kindly nodding along to everything they say over a couple of sessions because 'affirmative care'.

They need to sign a statutory declaration (£50 fixed fee for the notary to witness)

They need to pay £140 application fee unless they are on a low income when this can be reduced or waived. The fee has not risen since the GRA came into law.

If they make a mistake on their application or do not send the correct evidence then a dedicated team of civil servants gets in touch and helps them get their application just right before it's submitted to the panel.

So yes there is some admin to do but this does not amount to 'years of rigorous and bureaucratic tests'.

It's a walk in the park compared with, for example, applying for disability benefits or a family visa. And these things need doing again and again unlike applying for a GRC which theoretically will only be done once.

Kittens Do you mean Kay Brown, the TS who wrote about their experiences with predatory AGP types?

Hijacked isn't how I'd put it. The fetishists have always been there, and have always used dysphoric gay males as both human shields and a source to study in order to figure out what they need to say to doctors to get what they want. Many in the fetish group are also attracted to those in the dysphoric gay male group, which is particularly worrying in mixed groups given the age difference in average age of transition. No support group should mix teenagers and middle aged people, as a general rule, especially not when the people involved are male.

No, the person I'm thinking of was Korean American, though iirc Kay seems to have had similar experiences.

Sorry got you. Glanced in a rush earlier

Bovary I didn’t see where the quote you mentioned came from:

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

I would only agree with you only partly that the GRA succeeded in those aims - the GRA succeeded within its own terms by providing a new legal fiction of ‘legal sex’ which could be changed by an adult individual. But overall the GRA has not successfully displaced sex in the law, the relevance or power of the GRC is not entirely clear cut in every situation (where the GRA exemptions have not been stated), hence legal doubts and legal cases.
So I wouldn’t call that a success. I think the GRA is outdated now, society has moved on and as the law has become less homophobic by allowing same sex marriages and pension ages have been equalised, the GRA has now served its stated purpose so it should be scrapped.

There was a really clever and interesting young American transwoman who was bullied off the internet who made a point about that, which was that one of the most dangerous aspects of this ideology is that it groups the most vulnerable (young, homosexual) together with the most potentially dangerous (older, physically stronger, more social status, fetish driven) and pretends that they're the same, or even that it's the former that's a threat to the latter. That individual said that they'd never known a young gay transwoman who hadn't been sexually harassed to the point of deep discomfort as a result of participating in groups for trans people as a whole. Young transmen often report the same.

Hijacked isn't how I'd put it. The fetishists have always been there, and have always used dysphoric gay males as both human shields and a source to study in order to figure out what they need to say to doctors to get what they want. Many in the fetish group are also attracted to those in the dysphoric gay male group, which is particularly worrying in mixed groups given the age difference in average age of transition. No support group should mix teenagers and middle aged people, as a general rule, especially not when the people involved are male.

Overslept so Kittens has already said what I wanted to say!

Also agree with the bait and switch point.

Safeguarding does not mix vulnerable homosexual teenagers with non-vulnerable adult heterosexual men. I mean, it's obvious when you say it, isn't it?

Who wrote it? Or has that been hidden to avoid abuse?

midcenturylegs - it's a leader/editorial. That means it's the view of the newspaper as a whole, not an individual, so there's no byline. It's important and significant that the Times gave a leader to this issue.

Safeguarding does not mix vulnerable homosexual teenagers with non-vulnerable adult heterosexual men. I mean, it's obvious when you say it, isn't it?

Hence the attempts to manipulate language to make it impossible to say at all.

When people say trans people are discriminated against, without offering evidence, I just think of the Green Party activist who called the police on feminists at the conference in 2018, who said the same thing. And when people looked through his Twitter timeline they found several messages mocking transwomen - it's the only time I've ever seen posts that I would describe as 'transphobic'.

I think when people say trans people face discrimination what they mean is 'I instinctively want to mock them so YOU must feel the same way as well'.

The only evidence I've ever seen claimed to support this theory is that hate crime is on the rise. But what they mean is the reports of hate incidences are on the rise - and these include non-crimes. We've seen hate investigations on trans porn stars who weren't offered roles, bogus knife attacks and on someone who shouted at a transwoman for behaving strangely around their child, and despite this hate crimes are still extraordinarily low and lower for trans than any other category

And yes, having the Times, which I'd argue is the UKs newspaper of record, run this as a leader is huge. This is the effort everyone has made over the past few years paying off. It's pretty much a shot across the bows of every political party or organization uncritically promoting the TRA party line.

Chattylion,
I disagree. Maya Forstater lost her job for asserting her belief in biological sex. Harry the Owl was visited by the police. Jo Swinson disputes its existence a couple of days before she expects voters to put her in Downing Street. This ideology has colonized every party except the Conservatives. When asserting a belief in biological sex exposes people to vitriolic abuse and intimidation? I would suggest the explicit aim of the GRA to permanently displace it from discourse has been achieved. The quote is by one of the leading proponents of the ideology behind the GRA

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3764045-Why-biological-sex-was-silenced

I really like the article but have grown weary of reading and hearing the two automatically trotted out mantras.

There is no question that trans people are some of the most vulnerable and discriminated against in our society.

Really? More vulnerable that my youngest (24) who has autism and SN, was financially, physicality, emotionally and more, abused. Who has been mocked by strangers because of how she looks, short changed in shops because she doesn’t understand money and is at risk of sexual abuse because of her vulnerability. Really? More vulnerable than her, simply because of her sex? Really? Is this the mantra that needs thrown out there to prevent yourself being called a bigot or being told to be ‘nice’? No, I’m sorry, although I agree with most of the article, I’m sick of hearing this mantra that is not based on any evidence whatsoever, other than “transwomen are most at risk bla bla being trotted out to shut down any conversation regarding women’s rights. Show me the actual evidence that shows they’re more at risk of being brutalised or murdered by men, over two women a week, then I will publicly apologise on here. And no, don’t try to get round it by quoting the numbers of those poor trans sex workers in developing countries, unless you’re also going to quote the numbers of female sex workers murdered.

There’s also no question that the rules can often add to the misery of those suffering from gender dysphoria by obliging them to submit to years of rigorous and bureaucratic tests to establish what they believe to be their genuine identity.

Rigorous and bureaucratic tests? Like those than women have to go for YEARS (10 in my case) to have a hysterectomy, because it’s automatically assumed that we don’t really mean it when we say we don’t want children? Because of course we’re only silly women that might change our minds. Even when a woman is suffering from endometriosis (again me) that leaves her in excruciating pain, nausea, distress every month to the point of fainting, she’s told that having a baby might help, even if she doesn’t bloody want any. Then she has to submit to the indignity of MORE internal examinations just so those in medicine see what they have already seen before. If it’s really as bad as that, then I might cry me a river, but if they can’t deal with anything close to that, they might consider whether they do actually know what it’s like to be a ‘woman’.

And don’t bloody get me started on the fact that woman have had to secretly go to England from NI in order to have an abortion and only if she had the financial means to do so! Where was the outpouring of concern for those vulnerable women from those that are now calling themselves the most vulnerable in society.

So pleased to read this. Well done The Times for being on the right side of history - democracy, free speech and safeguarding children and the vulnerable.
The comments are going up.

Evidence starting to emerge from detransitioners suggests that the medical and psychological evaluations aren't rigorous enough. If stonewall, the Lib Dems or whoever wanted to campaign for more funding for counsellors etc to properly help dysphoric and 'gender confused' individuals (not just 'affirmation') that'd be fine. And they might try listening to the transwomen who know they're not women too.

And yes, having the Times, which I'd argue is the UKs newspaper of record, run this as a leader is huge. This is the effort everyone has made over the past few years paying off. It's pretty much a shot across the bows of every political party or organization uncritically promoting the TRA party line.

Exactly. It's a leader not an opinion column.

And also widely read by the judiciary, I would suggest. No excuse for any judge not to be up to speed with this.

It's an enormous positive that the Times has endorsed the views of its writers like Janice Turner in a Leader. This means it will have been discussed at editorial meetings and an official stance taken. When you think how much is going on in the news at the moment running up to the election, the fact that the paper has devoted a chunk of its Leader column to it, is a massive step forward.

I don't think the timing of this so close to the election is an accident. Like I said, shot across the bows.

timelady I was thinking that earlier. I imagine some of the Times writers may move in the same circles as judiciary members

There needs to be separation of the two distinct groups.

The very vulnerable and easily led teens falling for the social grooming into believing they must self harm to be accepted, and the heterosexual adult males with an agenda to push.

How anyone can believe these two groups have anything in common is beyond me.

There needs to be separation of the two distinct groups

The obvious distinction is Male and Female people?

But yes I take your point that age is also a factor as well as biological sex so think there are at least 6 distinct groups. The cognitive processes, the role of others and the pathway to trans status is completely different depending on age. A 5 year old trans person has bugger all in common to a ROGD 15 year old who again is nothing like a 50 year.

I've just read some of the comments under that Times article.

Prize for Missing the Point goes to the one saying 'Transgender girls in girls school toilets, why is that really a problem? Most trans girls would give part of their anatomy to suffer the pain and inconvenience of the monthly.'

(a) The point isn't that the transgirls wouldn't mind having periods, it's that the girls would mostly prefer to deal with their periods minus the non-period-type-of-person, thanks.
(b) Betcha they'd mind if they did have to deal with the pain. Unless they are masochists.