So, what has suddenly happened for the tide to change?

[rabbitwoman]

So, I have spent a while reading through the twitter replies to Stonewall, Michael cashman and mermaids.

There is NO support for them. Really, none. All the @ s are damning - and along with recent events and all the organisations leaving Stonewall's diversity champion scheme, the tide really does seem to have suddenly turned. I am looking for the people supporting Stonewall et al but supportive tweets are few and, quite honestly, not very coherent.

It seems so different to just a few short months ago when no one would say anything.

What I don't understand is how come now? Stonewall have been doing this for a really long time, we have been pointing it out for years, not just months, so what has suddenly happened that decision makers have suddenly noticed and decided to do something?

I feel a bit wary. Also, angry that so many people have suffered, lost jobs and work, and there will probably be no recourse for them - no one will ever apologise to Glinner, will they? Will Daniel Radcliffe, Emily Watson and Rupert Grint and Eddie redmayne ever apologise to jkr?

Surely, if anyone with any sense at Stonewall wants a way out of this, the best thing to do would be to say, you know what? We were wrong. We got this wrong. So what can we do, how can we solve it, we are sorry and ready to listen?

I've long wondered what will happen when the first major celeb faced with a trans identifying child makes a stand against the gender identity ideology.

Along similar lines I was interested to read this in today's Sunday Times about St Paul's Girls' School:

archive.fo/YCRvI

Although I'll add in the interests of being transparent (DYSWIDT?) the most recent comment claims the following:

As a mother of a girl at the school and who attended the talk this is a totally untrue and misleading article. The talk, like many others by the science department, was simply two researchers talking in a non-biased way about scientific research they had done, the largest study of its kind. The school have a huge variety of talks from experts with a broad range of opinions on many topics and to suggest this optional talk was ‘encouraging’ sex change is absurd.

From the article:

Olson said that puberty blockers were “reversible”

That is rubbish for a start. There are no studies to show that the effects are reversible, and there is plenty of evidence to show that there is a long term impact on bone density.

I hope that the other talks are of a better standard. SPGS isn't cheap.

It's also covered in the DM. Assuming this bit is correct:

The largest study of its kind? 300 children.
Ages 3 - 12 years
Led by Professor Olson.

Glad I wasn't paying for that.

Kollamoolitumarellipawkyrollo
I’m in several social media groups linked to PSHE and general education. I would say 90%+ of the teachers posting recommend stonewall and only ever use the term gender.
I find this very worrying, does anyone try to correct them when they should be using ‘sex’

Never.

www.tes.com/news/why-we-now-share-our-gender-pronouns

@HelenHywater

I would love to be optimistic about this too. But I'm not sure the tide really has turned - sure all our friends (middle aged women like us) agree, but the teens still call me a terf. My sector is still into its pronouns, unisex loos and TWAW ideology. I had to correct my head of HR who was talking about a gender discrimination claim the other day. I have 2 friends whose daughters have become sons, one of whom has now had their breasts removed.

I hope things are changing and maybe they are, but I still feel it's too soon to be celebrating.

I think this might be the next hurdle.

It's not been possible to challenge the ideology in a very public way, the argument is always around, this is bigoted, so there was no possibility to engage.

It's become increasingly possible to engage, but there is still this entire cohort of kids who have been indoctrinated and damaged. Addressing them in going to be necessary.

At least in the UK. Here in Canada, like NZ, we are well behind.

I also meant to say - what worries me about trying to engage with that group of young people is that their education has been so compromised that it will be difficult to find a way to do it.

@HelenHywater

I would love to be optimistic about this too. But I'm not sure the tide really has turned - sure all our friends (middle aged women like us) agree, but the teens still call me a terf. My sector is still into its pronouns, unisex loos and TWAW ideology. I had to correct my head of HR who was talking about a gender discrimination claim the other day. I have 2 friends whose daughters have become sons, one of whom has now had their breasts removed.

I hope things are changing and maybe they are, but I still feel it's too soon to be celebrating.

I feel cautiously optimistic, partly because the army of middle aged women who realised that someone is selling a lie tend, on the whole to stick at things and see them through, we aren’t going to let this drop, we aren’t going to sit back and say we’re done. Many of us pushed through the seventies and eighties by nibbling away at male privilege and demanding equality, we remember what things used to be like.

The younger teen and twenty generation who are still tangled up in their pronouns haven’t by and large met the big bad outside world and realised how biased it (still) is against women. They have in a lot of ways been protected by the equality laws that us oldies pushed for, it might take them a while to realise that the T debate as proposed by Stonewall is as significant a threat to their future well-being as sex based discrimination in the workplace and courtroom was. I hope they find the courage to become the strong people they deserve to be without feeling they have to change their identities , I hope they begin to read, to reflect and to realise that their kindness and consideration is being exploited by the very people they are being kind and considerate to.

I am pretty sure Stonewall will retire, lick their wounds and then regroup, so we need to keep the momentum going, to challenge badly worded documentation, kick back against woke idiocy in the workplace, protect our spaces, expose sports cheats who steal from our female athletes and most of all support our sisters who are standing at the front line and taking so much of the shit.

Liz Truss is the catalyst she has the power to speak up and does so in such a reasoned, calm manner its allowed the flood to break the dam. The twatterati have just changed bandwagon.

Some younger women who bought into this in their teens and twenties may have had children and realised what nonsense it all was, especially the current ridiculousness around alternative terms for mother.

Generation Z and Generation Alpha will grow up surrounded by trans peers a handful of whom will be gender dyshoric while the majority will have other motivations which will manifest in various ways. I have confidence that these younger people will end up having not that much time for those manifestations that are in the form of narcissism and attention seeking.

I think it has been all the legal cases, in particular Alison Bailey as that has grabbed the attention of other lawyers. Money goes along way in the perpetually impoverised universities and the third sector, Big Pharma and their allies were able to fund charities and research to push this bullshit ideology. It is always easy to buy the media too.

The law was always going to be tougher nut to crack and it now apparent to all and sundry that Stonewall et al's arguments do not add up.

It is collapsing suddenly as it was always a bubble built on false premises, people only believed nonsense like TWAW as other people did, not becuse they truly won over by arguments. No wonder it is going down like a failed ponzi scheme.

I'm still concerned that the underlying drivers of misogyny (and I think backlash against feminism), will not just just disappear, the energy will morph into something else...more hidden and insidious, they have shown themeselves to be very skilled at language manipulation and gaslighting. I'm not sure what shape it will take yet and I think it will take a while to recognise it....just like this one.

I think the key has been the number of gay people now speaking out.

The line has always been "if you oppose what we say then you're homophobic". That's now beginning to look very silly.

Also the decision by Stonewall to not support the rugby decision. At that point many (like me) realised even our necks and spines would be sacrificed to the ideology. After that there was no choice but to fight head-on.

Interesting thread:

twitter.com/AdrianYalland/status/1401659744813715462

Shocking if you read right to the end.

I think the key has been the number of gay people now speaking out.

I have just been looking at the Instagram of a gay man I know slightly. He has just had a rant about pride and stated he does not identify as gay due to associations if the word. There are 34 comments and counting from other gay men complaining about pride, queer, identity policies, the rainbow etc. They are all sick if it.

@FannyCann 'There are 34 comments and counting from other gay men complaining about pride, queer, identity policies, the rainbow etc. They are all sick if it.'

Marc Almond came out on Twitter back in 2019 and said much the same thing, and was promptly pounced on and called 'transphobic'. I think he retreated from social media after that.

I do wonder if one of the factors in all this has been that so many gay men of his generation were lost to AIDS, and that organisations and the community more widely have lost the 'elder statesmen' whose wisdom and life experience they could have drawn on.

The younger teen and twenty generation who are still tangled up in their pronouns haven’t by and large met the big bad outside world and realised how biased it (still) is against women. They have in a lot of ways been protected by the equality laws that us oldies pushed for, it might take them a while to realise that the T debate as proposed by Stonewall is as significant a threat to their future well-being as sex based discrimination in the workplace and courtroom was. I hope they find the courage to become the strong people they deserve to be without feeling they have to change their identities

I'm just not sure it will be this simple.

I've had ongoing debates recently with my teen daughter who wants a binder, who decided for a while she wanted to be a boy, etc.

The things I am coming up against are so insidious. The idea that if someone wants to change their body, that is a healthy thing, taking charge. An inability to sort good sources of information from bad ones. So much investment in identity issues, not just about gender but sexuality and race and everything else.

This despite frequent information and modelling on good relationships and acceptance of our bodies from me and others in their lives, and better than average access to education. But it's all been undermined by the education system on so many levels, including trust of their parents as teachers of values.

(Clarification - Marc Almond commented on the identity politics aspect - "I just said I didn’t like all the many labels because I believe in total equality. I think too many labels are confusing separatist, tribal and in my opinion not progressive but regressive.Just my valid opinion. Suddenly you’re Transphobic.")

@AfternoonToffee

A lot has come from central government, I wonder if the growing number of JR's, court cases and general rumblings has made someone suddenly start joining the dots.

I agree. Also the courts ruled against Freddy McConnell's case and concluded that the legal definition of 'mother' stands and a child has the right to know his or her parentage. It would be very rare that a UK court didn't priorise the child's interests as paramount. The same happened in the Bell/Mrs A Case.

I think the pushback against cancel culture is waking a few people up to what's happening, too.

The establishment are clearly taking the side of women and children in this. Not really quite sure how I feel about this, being now politically 'homeless' since the Tories are now the only party claiming to know what a woman is. I don't kid myself for one minute that they're on the side of women, though. And with people like Piers Morgan, Sarah Vine and the rest of the merry band at the Daily Mail onside, well I'm not sure that's doing the GC cause any favours either. With friends like those, who needs enemies?

Nutella, yes that was a bombshell that's making me question everything, tbh.

What kind of monsters are we aligning ourselves with?

Adrian Yalland (see the twitter thread linked by HPFA) is responsible for some extraordinary stories in the media:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2567688/Former-Tory-arrested-biting-Fathers4Justice-founder-tried-serve-legal-papers.html

IF YOU SCROLL DOWN THE DM ARTICLE YOU'LL SEE A PHOTO OF A PHYSICAL INJURY

@nauticant

I've long wondered what will happen when the first major celeb faced with a trans identifying child makes a stand against the gender identity ideology.

Along similar lines I was interested to read this in today's Sunday Times about St Paul's Girls' School:

archive.fo/YCRvI

Although I'll add in the interests of being transparent (DYSWIDT?) the most recent comment claims the following:

As a mother of a girl at the school and who attended the talk this is a totally untrue and misleading article. The talk, like many others by the science department, was simply two researchers talking in a non-biased way about scientific research they had done, the largest study of its kind. The school have a huge variety of talks from experts with a broad range of opinions on many topics and to suggest this optional talk was ‘encouraging’ sex change is absurd.

I think for some people, they think that "encouraging" means saying "Oh, yes, all you girls should be doing this!"

That's not the reality of how these things work, though. It's more about promoting a generalised perspective about sex, gender, and bodies, taht is deeply problematic to many parents.

The science society I suppose was bamboozled, though they should know better, but based on my own experiences I increasingly think the LGBTQ+ societies in schools are dangerous, they operate almost like radicalisation groups, promoting particular approaches not only on LGB issues but all these other questions, plus stuff like dating, deciding when to have sex, etc. Without any kind of responsibility to the parents or their values.

@AffronttoPronouns

I'm still concerned that the underlying drivers of misogyny (and I think backlash against feminism), will not just just disappear, the energy will morph into something else...more hidden and insidious, they have shown themeselves to be very skilled at language manipulation and gaslighting. I'm not sure what shape it will take yet and I think it will take a while to recognise it....just like this one.

I do. The lowering of age consent of sexual intercourse. It's already underway.

based on my own experiences I increasingly think the LGBTQ+ societies in schools are dangerous

When I hear a young female scientist in the media communicating about their subject I'm now in the habit of having a quick look at their twitter to see if they've talked about gender. Pronoun declarations in their bios are standard and the number coming out with TWAW, sex being a spectrum, GC is hate speech, agree with the ideology or be a bigot, is frankly alarming. I've done the same for young male scientists and although there are some adherents, they're often not playing the game.