Observer today re Keira Bell

[rogdmum]

There’s also two great stories in the Sunday Telegraph today which deserve their own thread (I’ll not hog all the thread starting) but here’s the Observer with quote from Bayswater Support Group:

“The Bayswater Support Group, which describes itself as supporting “the parents of children with adolescent-onset gender dysphoria” who want to “explore all options before resorting to irreversible medical treatments and surgery”, welcomed the ruling.

A spokesperson said the UK’s current approach affirming a child’s need to transition was embedded at an institutional level.

One mother belonging to the group said: “Nothing can describe the fear you feel as a parent when you realise that medical transition is the only solution presented to your child for distress around their gender identity. Given that institutions – from schools to government, charities to the NHS – have supported this route, we have felt powerless to intervene.”

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/06/keira-bell-lawyer-warns-on-internet-coverage-of-transgender-issues

I was very struck by the tone of the Observer editorial. It doesn't sound defensive at all and it doesn't read as if they're frightened of a reaction. That's something very new in left-wing publications - even when you get a half way supportive piece it tends to be hedged about with a lot of cringing. This isn't

The thing with being a weekly paper is that they have far more freedom than a daily to choose the subject of editorials. So much happens in a week that if a topic is tricky you can simply choose not to write an editorial about it at all. There was no need to write an editorial about the judgment. The choice to do so is in itself telling.

The Observer and Guardian are both owned by the Guardian Media Group which in turn is owned by The Scott Trust - is that correct?

If yes (Wikipedia says so), it does make me rethink some of my more tinfoil hatted ideas about the influence of the Scott Trust as it suggests the differences might be more down to good old fashioned editorial influence. Which in turn makes me wonder if I've been making too many excuses for Katharine Viner.

The Observer opinion piece, I can’t see who it is written by, which must be deliberate? Or am I blind?
I’ve noticed they mention a couple of times that they have previously reported on the Tavistock whistleblowers (Albeit a year ago) so I wonder if they are now covering themselves from the incoming storm.
My friends are all currently too busy being outraged on FB that anyone could object to the drag dancing on Strictly and boasting their kids want to do drag now to read this.

“Someone came in and stole our children whilst we slept.”

Apparently, for editorials The Observer doesn't include the name of the author.

Can anyone clarify something about this "blockers are reversible" line.

Do they mean that if a child went on blockers from 16-18, then stopped, they would go through a full puberty and have no negative physical side effects?

I posted about this above MondayYogurt. There's an argument now emerging by trans activists that "blockers are reversible" because a child can stop taking them at any time. They simply won't engage with whether a child stopping taking them could get back onto the development track they would have been on had they not taken them at all.

@nauticant

Apparently, for editorials The Observer doesn't include the name of the author.

I believe that newspaper editorials are always unsigned and are assumed to be the editor's opinion.

I've been trying to work out who wrote the editorial - Paul Webster is the Observer editor - but nothing to indicate in anything he's previously posted that he might have reservations about the TRA narrative. Unless this is the point he finally goes public after years of biting his tongue.

As I understand it, the editorials are normally penned by leader writers who don't put their own name to it because they're not expressing their own opinion. I think it's unlikely to be the editor himself but it's still very significant.

Juno Dawson, writer for the Young Adult market, stated that puberty blockers are NOT experimental and ARE reversible.

archive.vn/Sg8AV

What Dawson is saying there is that puberty blockers are reversible and then under their breath if used for precocious puberty. The words as used swerve around the issue of their non-licensed use for gender "development" treatment.

I'm amazed Dawson wasn't in court representing GIDs or maybe Mermaids or the Tavistock to put those Judges right. Amazing how all this evidence being shouted about was missing from that court case.

Yup. Probably why Dawson has said you don't need to read the actual article (which Dawson claims to know one of the writers of, even though no writers are named).

Given it takes over a year for children who are treated with PB for precocious puberty to begin puberty, which they generally are "allowed" to do at 11/12, I cant imagine they get to have much time for natural puberty.

It's more 1984 territory. A number of the articles of faith of the gender identity ideology have been found to be false so they either have to be made never to have been part of the narrative or need to be redefined to mean something else. So "born in the wrong body" turns out either never to have been said or to have been used as a metaphor. "Reversible" now means "not lifelong" and must be seen in the context of precocious puberty and not in the actual context being discussed.

Is this Dawson who writes about Lolitaesque fantasies aimed at the young adult market? Yeah.. nothing to see here..

Surely editorials are never by named writers? They are presumed to be the voice of the newspaper.

Juno Dawson also said this:

"I think there are a lot of gay men out there who are gay men as a consolation prize because they couldn’t be women."

Great message for young LGB people. Same-sex attraction is inferior to being the opposite 'gender'.

Oooh, great Observer piece on pink and blue stereotyped toys by let toys be toys too:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/dec/06/pink-and-blue-toys-colour-future-of-our-children-study-warns?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

[quote SunsetBeetch]Juno Dawson, writer for the Young Adult market, stated that puberty blockers are NOT experimental and ARE reversible.

archive.vn/Sg8AV[/quote]
Yes there's a lot of "but cis" arguments.

Sonia Sodha is the Observer's chief leader writer and I wonder if it's by her - she's taken a kind of middle path on the whole trans debate.

[quote SunsetBeetch]Juno Dawson, writer for the Young Adult market, stated that puberty blockers are NOT experimental and ARE reversible.

archive.vn/Sg8AV[/quote]
Juno used to go into schools fo promote Juno’s books, many of which are trans-themed, pre Covid.

Juno would be wise to start looking at slightly altered business model.

@MondayYogurt

Can anyone clarify something about this "blockers are reversible" line.

Do they mean that if a child went on blockers from 16-18, then stopped, they would go through a full puberty and have no negative physical side effects?

I think that’s what they are suggesting but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of this actually happening, as nearly all children on blockers proceed to cross-sex hormones.

The ‘waiting time’ is a rouse that they have come up with to make themselves seem less sinister. They also claim that only 1% of trans kids desists (bullshit) so the idea of needing thinking time is contradictory to that, as nobody changes their mind. They actually mean that they want to preserve the body in a childlike state so that the eventual results will be more ‘realistic’. They are having to overcome the slight snag that the law doesn’t allow CSH until 16, whereas they would ideally like to get them started ASAP on them. The blockers are presented as a benign way of helping children who are distressed but are actually fixing them to a lifetime of medicalisation.

Well done the Observer.

I doubt a child of 10 would be given a pb. We've had the odd child start puberty at primary then. It's usually reserved for extreme cases such as 6/7.

It also isn't proven to impact height in girls (they're still quite short as adults) so physical development of the body would be the only reason. (The research is only in girls that I saw, and this was just for PP, a meta analysis. Pertinent as even fewer reasons to give them for PP.)

I believe pbs stunt growth which has more negative implications for one of the sexes when used for GD? Iirc the F to M?

But it means that the reality of "resuming" puberty is that if you're male, you're shorter than average? Which would disuade you from resuming. And peer wise most boys who are late developers really don't fit in. Girls either.

Also, depending on the drug (some last two years from injection) it can take well over a year to resume puberty.

I would also imagine a yp would seek out others who are on pb and would therefore be encouraged to continue (peer pressure; Leo had a lot of publicity for example)

And leo had to ma ke a decision about freezing eggs for ivf iirc.

So there must be knowledge that this harms fertility.