Sky News 'The Pledge' 13/2/20

[Mockersisrightasusual]

A civilised discussion on children transitioning and detransioning with nobody getting punched.

Wokey Blokey has a trans friend who says it's Gillick Competence and all cool. Maajid Nawaz said we need to look at this. Carole Malone was scathing about the damage done by Tavistock etc. Rachel the Corbyn Groupie says kids aged 12 always know their own mind.

Can't see any way to watch it on catch up unless you have Sky, but it's on Sky News tonight repeated at 9.00pm. It's the last item.

I spotted this was on and recorded it, going to watch later.

I am very disappointed in Femi. He doesn't see the nuance at all here, and the person he consulted and quoted is a TRA. Rest of the conversation was actually robust apart from Rachel who rolled out the usual rubbish stats and studies. Definitely worth watching if you have sky, I was impressed by the actual homework Carole and Maajid had done which is what we should expect of journos and commentators. The GIDS quotes were bullshit

Everyone can watch Sky News on Freeview 233 and online.

I agree with the above posters. Maajid was so impressive and his arguments were well researched. As was Carole ( who I don’t always agree with!)
Maajid managed to get a lot of great safeguarding points across.
Rachel Shabi was totally useless as usual and waffled without really showing any understanding of the issues. Fami... well just hopelessly out of his depth. And of course they both have trans friends blah blah...Disappointed with Nick Ferrari however- he just sat on the fence and nervously quoted from GIDS. (The usual rubbish)
But.. a debate ..and a civilised one! It is possible! By the way Sky News is on freeview. Watch tonight at 9pm. The Pledge is usually a great programme and tackles a lot of controversial issues.

Femi

It is here;

m.youtube.com/watch?v=_tG6SPmqVUw

That was very interesting. Maajid was great, as always. Femi.... sigh.

What wasn’t mentioned was the fact that the process is slow because the waiting list for initial consultation at the Tavi is very long. Meanwhile the child ends up attending ‘support’ groups outside the NHS which do absolutely nothing other than affirm the child’s preferred gender.

Really interesting, reminds me of a few weeks ago. Was looking at old family photos with my son and he was joking he should have reported me to SS for some of the hairstyles I let him choose.
Makes you think doesn't it.

• Knock knock
• Who's there?
• The Fashion Police

I know it sounds superficial but thats kind of my point. My son was mortified that 6 years ago he needed elaborate designs shaved into the back of his head to "make his life complete" but his hair grew out.
Its beyond my imagination that qualified healthcare professionals are telling parents that their pubescent and sometimes younger children are capable of making such life changing choices without knowing the full consequences.

@MrsDoylesTeaBags

My bad, I was basically agreeing with you. If Harry Miller is getting visited at work then you can expect a knock on the door should you clothe your child in polka dots and plaid (the current madness is just killing whimsical humour).

Its a scary thought Freespeacher we can no longer just let children be. We have to pathologise rather than cherish the quirks and idiosyncrasies they happen to develop.
This movement call themselves progressive but I see them as the complete opposite.

Femi starts by quoting Tara Hewitt an influential trans rights activist especially in NHS & Social Care
Tara Hewitt was co-founder of TELI with Jess Bradley & Michelle Hudson.

October 2018 James Kirkup Spectator lead article
'Trans Rights Have Gone Wrong'
(extract)
"What explains the disproportionate number of girls (child ‘assigned female at birth’, to use the approved term) who are starting a journey that can lead to hormone treatment, then binding and ultimately removing their breasts? Is it possible that this is simply part of a wider crisis of mental health among girls?

I don’t know, and neither do the doctors and scientists who study this issue. If you talk to the clinicians at the Tavistock Clinic in London, the NHS centre for the treatment of gender-variant children, they’ll tell you that all the factors I mentioned may be at work, but the evidence base is still incomplete, that they need more time and data before offering explanations. (They’ll also tell you that quite a lot of the children referred to them as ‘transgender’ will in time ‘desist’ and decide to live in their original gender.)

The government now intends to commission research into all this. You might think that sounds sensible and mundane. You would be wrong.

According to Tara Hewitt, founder of the Trans Equality Legal Initiative (TELI), prominent campaigner for transgender rights and an adviser to numerous public bodies including the NHS, the proposed research is ‘absurd and offensive’. The project should be ‘dropped in the bin — it’s simply not an inquiry that needs to happen,’ Hewitt reckons.

This is the quintessential trans-rights response to scrutiny: even looking for facts about children’s welfare is transphobic. Just accept that trans girls are girls and trans women are women. End of debate.

If you haven’t heard that mantra ‘trans women are women’, you will soon, for it is the orthodoxy of the moment, a phrase even politicians are expected to repeat as proof of their embrace of trans-equality. And woe betide anyone who suggests that donning a dress and a new name doesn’t magically render a male body female. Biology is transphobic too." (continues)
www.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/trans-rights-have-gone-wrong/

Tara Hewitt training for health care professionals:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD3RfsVu73Q

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3385533-Prominant-campaigning-role-of-Tara-Hewitt-NHS-TELI-Social-work-universities-etc

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3374926-What-influence-does-TELI-have-on-government-public-services-and-charities-policies-Co-founders-include-Jess-Bradley-Tara-Hewitt-and-Michelle-Hudson

I am troubled by the application of Gillick competence to children accessing, not contraception, but synthetic hormones to postpone puberty.

If you look at the wording of Gillick competence, it refers to avoiding greater harm to children (i.e. underage pregnancy) when their parents don't approve. I don't see how the natural hormonal processes and bodily changes accompanying a healthy child's journey through puberty to maturity can possibly be viewed as a greater harm than bombarding their system with opposite sex hormones to upset the natural balance.

And that's before we get anywhere near the surgeon's scalpel.

Posted a thread about how disappointing it was to see Femi_Sorry abandon his sphere of knowledge and competence and rush in where angels fear to tread. All without the courtesy of spending 5mins googling a counter-factual.

No - nobody's perfect but I'd so admired him for his willingness to hold difficult conversations with people who disagreed with him that this felt like he'd let himself down badly.

Well, sad to see but Femi_Sorry has become so self-regarding it's as if he's become a parody:

twitter.com/Femi_Sorry/status/1229402258963603456