What do people think?

[TheTamingOfTheresa]

I’m in support of JK but came across this video dissecting her views. I’d be interested in what MN thinks

To the extent that Jamie has access to hormones and surgery to change Jamie’s appearance so that Jamie is perceived as male. This has nothing to do with Jamie’s gender identity.

But Jamie has done that as an outward expression of his gender identity.

Phew, they sure can talk! I have noticed that there is an increasing tendency on social media (and in real life, unfortunately), to repeat the same assertions over and over again to verbally "beat people into submission." I haven't watched the entire video but the parts I skimmed seemed rather simplistic.

I agree that the two presenters seem very likeable and are clearly convinced of the truth of their assertions, I wonder how they will feel in ten years' time?

I lasted about 5 minutes, patronising gits.

@TheTamingOfTheresa

@ EdgeOfACoin wow that’s brilliant; thank you

You're welcome, OP!

What I would say, from the bit I saw, every point that Jamie and Shaaba raise has been discussed in depth on this forum at some point. If there's something they say that you find especially interesting or troubling, it's worth doing a quick search for a thread about it.

Thanks Datun - I'm not familiar with all of the ins and outs of the Forstater case, so it's good to have that part clarified!

13:09 - Trans people have gone through all this pain... (Therefore we must budge up) No recognition of the pain of women?

18:08 - Cannot think of a single right of women's that gets removed by including transwomen as women. Gender critical people will now jump in at this point and say 'oooooooh what about women's only spaces'. So break it down and dismantle this. No??? Prisons, sports, swimming, hospitals, care homes, safety, dignity...No? Nothing?? (see 21:50 - they have a go at changing rooms and think it's all sorted. Simples)

20:00 If someone was gay and used this to transition to escape homophobia, they wouldn't be given the go ahead at a gender clinic. (Polly Carmichael anyone?? I remember her interview where she says there's almost no counselling before going ahead)

20:56 calling transwomen - "men who identify as women" is gaslighting. I thought that's literally what they are? Otherwise they wouldn't be trans. They would just be women.

21:11 - You can protect womens rights as well as trans rights simultaneously. HOW????? Details please!!

21:50 - M&S provide individual lockable cublicles All done. Go home everyone. Hmmm ... what about Primark with it's dodgy curtains? I'm sure there's a citation somewhere on number of voyeuristic instances going up in mixed sex changing rooms.

22:39 - There is no evidence of men pretending to be women unless they prey on women. Then they are Men pretending to be women. See 27:11

24:12 Terfs include transmen and Women - so if a transman with a beard, penis and balls can go into a women's toilet, how do you stop any men?... Was it Alex Desmond??? Transwoman with no chnages whatsoever fully expected to be allowed in the XX rooms. Isn't this why we need third spaces?? I think third spaces are a much better way to take care of everyone's problems. The only thing it does NOT provide is validation

25:37 - Bodyshop - It's bloody natural bag - bloody rude at the very least

25:58 - No one is saying transmen can actually grow a pair TW having periods?

26:23 TW need protection as women. Why as women? Why not as TW? Why not in men's spaces?

26:40 Basing the definition of women on gender identity instead of on biological sex doesn't erase the experiences of cis-women THIS here , with bells and whistles seems to be the crux of the argument. She has accepted that women is based on gender identity not biological sex and thinks the switch doesn't matter.

27:11 - Predators are not TW. Hmmm... So disown any TW that do prey on women. How can you tell them apart??

That's half an hour of my life I will never get back. Not as good an analysis as EdgeOfACoin - just my 2penny.

Most of these arguments come from women and transmen. TW just expect to get their way. In my view the female socialisation is showing in both Jamie and Shaaba.
They should have been are a sweet lesbian couple who need to read the break it down thread.

Just reading back... at one point she does say that changing rooms provide validation. (I cant go back and listen again!!)

So... (1) 'providing validation' is a reasonable function of a single gender space. (2) The label women (and men??) is based on gender identity and not Sex. They both laugh at us for saying biological sex is erased - but that's exactly what they have accepted.

If you believe (1) and (2) then of course TWAW and belong in women's spaces and biological sex has no place anywhere.

Cannot think of a single right of women's that gets removed by including transwomen as women. Gender critical people will now jump in at this point and say 'oooooooh what about women's only spaces'

With no definition of woman or trans all rights disappear for both groups. How can a group without any defined shared characteristics suffer discrimination or prejudice?

@Fieldofgreycorn

To the extent that Jamie has access to hormones and surgery to change Jamie’s appearance so that Jamie is perceived as male. This has nothing to do with Jamie’s gender identity.

But Jamie has done that as an outward expression of his gender identity.

Jamie’s gender identity is the motivation, but gender identity is not visible.

OP To the couple of people who responded to my merely looking to engage , by being critical and unpleasant, if I’d wanted to be treated like this I’d have stayed on Twitter

I believe on this board everyone has a right to express themselves in their way. It might seem strong if you're not used to this sort of debate but I think we reserve the right to discuss in whichever way suits us. If I considered someone was out of order I would tell them directly

I hope you get used to the 'rights of everyone here' to put forward their points of view in their own way.

Feminism is direct, we are not here to be trampled on and #bekind can be at odds with good debate

😊

In my view the female socialisation is showing in both Jamie and Shaaba.

Absolutely.

On the second attempt, I got as far as being told I was 'still a woman'. Well thank you for that, Shaaba.

I noticed they said they would present both sides of the argument. Did they do that?
It doesn't sound like they did over the Maya Forstater case, even though Maya's own story is easily found.

JD has spoken about people being able to have sexual preferences but also about transphobia around genital preference. It's always framed as being reasonable but the actual view is the same as all the others.

I've seen a few of JD's videos and apart from being annoyed by the "Hey Spuds" and general faux quirky presentation, like Pop n' Olly, the content is just JD's opinion and that is based on internalised misogyny and JD uses terms like cs and trf...I try to endure them from time to time to understand a bit about why someone does to their body what JD has done, but I never get more than about 5 mins in.

When Jamie appears in Shaaba's blogs, Jamie always seems withdrawn and moody. I really wish Jamie had been offered proper counselling for gender dysphoria instead of going on testosterone and having all that surgery. Surely that would have been the better option. The repeated bottom surgeries sound agonising, all for the appearance of having testicles.

You knew what was what and what the motivation was.

There's also Noah Finnce reacting to Posie:

I would say, if you have to take 58 minutes to attempt to "spin" JKR's words/views, then those 58 minutes will contain a lot of obfuscation. What JKR has said, is factual and biologically correct, both of which are seen as offensive by a certain group. If you are offended by facts and biology, then I would suggest that the problem does not lie with JKR.

I couldn't get past the first two minutes and the annoyingly glib explanation of cis.

My response to this part of the video would be something along the lines of...

I accept that you divide people into the categories of "trans" and "not trans" but can you accept that defining and describing groups of people in this way is neither universally agreed nor a better system than the one everyone else uses and has always used. Namely, the clear, simple, easily observable and biologically based "male" and "female"?

If you need words to differentiate between transwomen and women, how about... Hmmmm... Maybe "transwomen" and "women".

If someone was gay and used this to transition to escape homophobia, they wouldn't be given the go ahead at a gender clinic.

And yet this is what clinicians at the Tavistock say is actually happening to children.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/it-feels-like-conversion-therapy-for-gay-children-say-clinicians-pvsckdvq2

Of course it is. I am not gay and was a reasonable girly girl (did like Meccano and hate dollies though, good at the ‘boys’ athletics) but I felt ugly and gawkit. I was shy and insecure.

If someone had told me I could escape the catcalls from builders on my way to school (big boobed), idiotic sexist comments from teachers, crap for ‘being a girl’ and be absolutely untouchable I’d jump at the chance. Also get revenge on anyone who had bullied me - hell yeah!

Just call me Derek and give me a rangers T-shirt and I’d be good to go.

Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to do this, but I’ve watched the next 15 minutes of Jamie and Shaaba’s video and it made me so annoyed (because the arguments are so weak) that I decided to do a bit more of this.

Thank you to the previous posters who have already sat through this video and addressed the more egregious arguments so I don’t have to dwell on those.

Just as a point of note: I am fairly new to this debate and do not have the same level of knowledge as many of the other contributors on this board. There are things that J&S raise that I know have been discussed, but I can’t necessarily recall the specific counter-points. Hopefully, other people will be able to jump in.

16:13 - J&S discuss JKR’s support of Magdalen Berns. Point out that Magdalen was not a person with innocent harmless views. Put up a screenshot of one of Magdalen’s Tweets comparing transwomen with blackface actors and accusing them of being fetishists and perverts.

Have to say, I am not that familiar with Berns (haven’t seen her stuff - keep meaning to watch). I understand she was pretty robust in her views and I believe this Tweet was aimed at a particular group of transwomen following a huge amount of abuse, but I think other people on this board will have more background on this.

J&S also seem to ignore the inconvenient truth that there are some men in this world who get a thrill from dressing up as women. They do not address this issue.

16:48 - J&S agree that it is an exaggeration to accuse JKR of ‘literally killing people’.

16:58 - J&S claim that JKR’s essay is being used to justify a restriction of trans rights.

This is not really true. The TRAs are trying to claim that they already have certain rights, which they don’t. Enforcing the law as it stands is not restricting anyone’s rights. You can argue that transpeople’s legal rights need to be expanded, but their existing rights are not being rolled back.

17:06 - Rhetoric such as JKR’s and Berns’ is being used to harass transpeople in society. A citation shows up on the screen: Salentine, Hilt, Muehlenkamp and Ehlinger 2020.

Since this study appeared to be carried out in 2019, I am not entirely sure how JKR’s rhetoric could have been considered as part of this study. Perhaps Magdalen Berns was considered. I don’t know. J&S don’t explain.

17:18 - J&S run through JKR’s list of the types of people from whom she has received support. They want to know why JKR hasn’t provided names or citations. Jamie says that Jamie has studied this field (gender) and knows the literature quite well. Jamie wants to know where JKR is getting her support. Jamie notes that some people in the field can be transphobic - for instance, Ken Zucker advocates conversion therapy for transgender children and has compared transgrender children to dogs eating dog food.

I find this to be a disingenuous argument. Firstly, JKR does not need to provide citations - she is not writing an article or scientific report. Secondly, she makes it clear that the people who have contacted her are too scared to speak out publicly in case they lose their jobs. JKR is hardly going to publish the names of people who have approached her in confidence about this.

I don’t know anything about Ken Zucker. He could indeed be the most transphobic person on the planet, for all I know. However, the quote supplied is so bizarre that I can only assume that there is some other context here. As J&S have not provided any context, I cannot really comment on it. Furthermore, JKR did not mention Ken Zucker and there is no evidence that he has had any impact on her views.

18:05 - Shaaba asks ‘what are the dangers? What rights of women are being eroded?’ She can’t think of a single right.

Other PPs have already commented on this. Shows how little awareness that Shaaba actually has of the issues.

18:51 - J&S begin to run through studies showing that attitudes towards transpeople are more negative than LGB or ‘Cis’ people (Norton & Herek 2013), that transpeople are at increased risk of suicide and that referrals to gender clinics reduce this risk (Wiepjes et al 2020). Transpeople have poorer wellbeing compared to ‘cis’ people (Warren, Smalley and Barefoot 2016). Misgendering transpeople leads to depression and stigma (McLemore 2018).

Some points: J&S do not consider why there might be more negative attitudes to transpeople than there are towards the LGB community.

At least one study has needed to publish a correction in relation to its findings apparently showing that hormones and SRS reduced the risk of suicide in transpeople. The study did not show that hormones and SRS reduced the risk of suicide. However, I am not sure whether this study is the same as the Wiepjes study cited.

I would also say that these studies are not a reason in themselves for allowing transwomen into women’s sports, women’s refuges and women’s changing rooms.

19:24 - Shabaa notes that the Ickabog is a wonderful resource for children and at 19:33 denounces the hate that JKR has received.

19:48 - Jamie agrees that not all ‘trans-exclusionists’ are ‘radical feminists’ and states that ‘most people are just trans haters with no sensible agenda’.

Jamie is allowed to have that opinion. In fairness, given the messages that Jamie has received, I can understand why Jamie might feel that way. However, it is open to all people to read around this topic and decide for themselves if Jamie is correct on this point.

19:54 - J&S state that transitioning a gay child would not be given the go-ahead at a gender clinic. This has already been addressed by PPs.

Since transpeople are viewed more negatively than LGB people, J&S wonder why people would want to transition rather than come out as LGB. Says this does not match the research.

Are trans teenagers viewed negatively? At the moment, it seems that trans teenagers are automatically affirmed, treated as special and given lots of support. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that teenage girls do not feel comfortable coming out as lesbians.

That was 5 minutes. I will post the next ten (!) minutes later. I hope this is helpful. They certainly haven’t opened their video with any earth-shattering revelations, as far as I am concerned.

There is FAR more social capital in being trans for teenagers now than for being gay or lesbian

I believe the context and the quote from Kenneth Zucker was something like, "If your child tells you they are a dog you don't go out and buy them dog food"

According to the doctrine of transgenderism this makes him a conversion therapist.

Thanks, Thingybob, that makes sense.