What this academic gets wrong about trans rights in Britain (spectator)

[Winesalot]

www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-this-academic-gets-wrong-about-trans-rights-in-britain

Debbie Hayton in the spectator today.

^It was clear that Lavery’s research had been limited. For example, GIDS does not typically use Lupron to block puberty – as Lavery appears to suggest – but triptorelin, a different drug. It is also deeply irresponsible for a professor of English to repeat the claim that the effects of puberty blockers are reversible. As a teacher of physics, I defer to the NHS who explain

that 'little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.'^

Perhaps the real reason for Lavery’s concern is that the progress made in the UK to protect children from making life-changing decisions before they are old enough to understand the consequences might be picked up in the USA?

I have noticed in the past month Lavery has become the go-to for commentary on the UK medical treatments, court cases and on British feminists. Not sure why, maybe it is the Berkeley effects. However, they hardly come over as having any balance or being capable of empathy. (And surely, if you are going to make yourself a spokesperson and submitting articles you would check the facts.)

Thank you Debbie for your efforts. I might not agree with everything you publish or publicly say, but I think having your opposing voice in this instance is appropriated.

[quote MisfitRightIn]It also concerns me that Grace’s husband is transman Daniel M Lavery, who has a rather large audience as the current “Dear Prudence” in Slate. They have been Prudence since pre-transition.

The advice being given out here on Slate by them is often controversial (I’d say something stronger but it will cause a problem), and very much in following with their “religion”, for want of a better word.

slate.com/human-interest/dear-prudence

twitter.com/daniel_m_lavery[/quote]
I stopped reading Dear Prudence shortly after Mallory Ortberg (later known as Daniel) took over. It became more about getting clicks than giving a thoughtful response.

It's possible it is an article GL.wrote months and months ago and couldn't sell, that was hastily given a new paint job to capitalise on Kiera Bell's case being in the news.

I cannot get over the laziness of this. Like a lot of other women here, and apparently unlike Lavery, I read the judgement. This is despite the fact that no one is paying me money for my opinions on it. It's not long and it's clearly written. It's certainly not something that someone who is a professor of English at a top university should struggle with. Why not just read your source material and write something that's relevant to it? How the hell is this person a professor of English?

I read somewhere (whether accurate or not) that the idea of puberty blockers being "reversible" is based on their use in precocious puberty, where kids are taken off them, in time to go through a normal puberty.

Obviously, that's a completely different situation to where you prevent someone having years of their normal puberty.

Why think the body can "catch up" from that?

GL was unimpressed with my piece.
twitter.com/graceelavery/status/1340329377511444481?s=19
I sent my thanks for drawing it to the attention of GL's gazillions of followers.

@DebbieInBirmingham

GL was unimpressed with my piece. twitter.com/graceelavery/status/1340329377511444481?s=19 I sent my thanks for drawing it to the attention of GL's gazillions of followers.

Unimpressed indeed.

Seems Lavery does like to cloud their arguments in a haze of their brand of feminism. I found the reference to ‘sexual minorities’ very telling. We are told constantly this is not a ‘sexual’ issue. Yet, these drugs have the potential to limit the sexual experience of these future adults. Hmmm self determinism.... . It is like the whole point of the judgement about ability to know the effect is those decisions passed Lavery by or they simply don’t care what the reported effects are.

Thank you though for persisting on this particular issue.

If anyone is not familiar with Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog, I highly recommend their podcast Blocked and Reported. They're both very funny and spend about an hour each episode ripping apart the hypocrisy and lunacy on either end of the political spectrum. I like how they are merciless in pointing out so much useless virtue signaling on the left that does nothing to fix real issues of social exclusion and inequity.

The title of the podcast refers to how they were both 'canceled' for writing about trans issues. Both wrote well-researched balanced pieces that examined issues relating to detransitioners but were excoriated for it by GL and other orthodox thinkers of the left.