Scots feel shut out of gender debate, says Kate Forbes

[Igneococcus]

Yes, Kate, that's quite true:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4a88cfc8-785b-11ec-a9ac-7b4ca33c4cb4?shareToken=6259ca0b88c292d7f417ee9df44f488d

@PenStation

Quite, what exactly is driving this?

Money IMO, someone has a lot of it maybe the pharma companies and it would help with reducing the population if you can brainwash kids into sterilizing themselves.

still its interesting that this ideology has 2 fronts that as a whole create an oxymoron, one front says you are what you say you are sex doesnt matter only gender and you can be gender fluid too so any man should be allowed into womens spaces because he wants to be in them. the other front says kids should be able to take puberty blockers to prevent them going thru the "horror" of puberty and then be able to swiftly and without challenge or any mental help be able to permanently damage their bodies because they feel they are the other gender.

I am surprised with that level of confused claptrap that this ideology has even got off the ground but maybe the lack of logic is precisely why it has gained such traction. it takes advantage of confused children, it serves intact misogynists and those with religious sensibilities all at the same time (as in they can kid themselves they are not gay but in the wrong body)

@Linguini

A lot of it is down to NS wanting to be distinctively different to the UK, but in a way that's very administratively easy. She can claim "progressive/LGBTQ+/Stonewall" rainbow points without doing much, and put herself apart from the rest of the UK. She doesn't care that this position harms Scottish women and girls. She just want to look more rainbowy. Like Canada.

Canada is terrible.

I have relatives there my grandparents came from there I used to want to live there rather then here, now no way.

@Linguini

A lot of it is down to NS wanting to be distinctively different to the UK, but in a way that's very administratively easy. She can claim "progressive/LGBTQ+/Stonewall" rainbow points without doing much, and put herself apart from the rest of the UK. She doesn't care that this position harms Scottish women and girls. She just want to look more rainbowy. Like Canada.

Its this. I lived in Scotland for 30 years. The SNP are branding experts and have a very clear mission to market Scotland, under Nicola Sturgeon, as a progressive, left wing country. Joanna Cherry used to be my SNP MP and I wrote to her about all this, before she was GC. The reply from her office was that Scotland was determined to be the most progressive country in the world. That's a direct quote. That's their mission. They just do whatever is seen as progressive because that fits their brand - not because they have thought through that policy. They are a brand led party.

The second clear branding exercise is to market Scotland as a positive, capable country and people.

On the latter point, Wales could learn a lot. Wales is marketing itself as progressive too, but without the positivity and capability. The difference in hearing Plaid Cymru talking about Wales (its pretty shit here, so we may as well go independent to see if we could do better, we sure couldn't do worse) and the SNP talking about Scotland (Scotland the Brave!) is marked.

Canada is terrible. I have relatives there my grandparents came from there I used to want to live there rather then here, now no way

My thoughts exactly.

I’ve thought about pharma companies having a stake but do the numbers really stack up @VelvetChairGirl ? The patent rights on common puberty blockers have expired so I’m theory they must be available fairly cheaply. US healthcare companies having skin in the game is more plausible - think of all those profitable consultations and surgeries.

Interesting comments under that article that confirm KF's views are widespread. As is apparent to most (other than our own male supremacist advocates) the population generally are horrified at what they are now discovering is happening. And presumably the timing coincides with the revelations of the dodgy groups and individuals openly pushing for children as young as 12 year to be allowed to legally change their sex?

An empathic desire to make the lives of a marginalised group easier perhaps?

Practically, how does it make lives easier?

@334bu

*An empathic desire to make the lives of a marginalised group easier perhaps?*

Pity it doesn't extend to the marginalised women in Scottish Prisons forced to share showers with male sex offenders and female rape victims denied counselling because they can't be guaranteed a female counsellor.

Or street homeless women who are abused and assaulted by men in hostels.

Or women from traditional religions who cannot do sports because their changing areas and bathrooms can be used by men.

Or young lesbians in school or college who cannot have their own social or support group.

It’s odd that Nicola et don’t care about these groups. On the face of it they are so different , I don’t know what it is that unites them, the one thing they have in common ……..I just can’t put my finger on it ….

Here's the Holyrood article:

www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,kate-forbes-tolerance-can-only-exist-between-people-who-fundamentally-disagree

“Tolerance can only exist between people who fundamentally disagree with each other,” she says.

“To preach tolerance means you must be willing to speak to and be open to the views you do not share. Tolerance cannot exist when everyone agrees, so if anyone cares about tolerance in the Scotland of 2022, then we need to be more comfortable debating and discussing challenging issues with people who fundamentally disagree with us.”

Aargh. I do not know how Holyrood magzine does it, but there is ALWAYS a comma in the link that means you can't bloody click it.

www.holyrood.com/inside-politics.htm

Go here, and the story is the main one.

@ArabellaScott

Yes, latest wave in past few days is 'paranoid' and 'tinfoil' and other variants casting aspersions on women's mental health.

Plus ca change, pals.

Dont forget some very nasty 'no one likes you' 'everyone hates you'

Personally I find those very hurtful, I think I might cry...

I guess its lucky Im a grown up.

@ArabellaScott

Aargh. I do not know how Holyrood magzine does it, but there is ALWAYS a comma in the link that means you can't bloody click it.

www.holyrood.com/inside-politics.htm

Go here, and the story is the main one.

If you put double square brackets round the link it should work.

www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,kate-forbes-tolerance-can-only-exist-between-people-who-fundamentally-disagree

It's not like financial irregularities and corruption are things that never happen in politics, is it?

www.scotsman.com/news/politics/police-investigating-12-new-fraud-complaints-over-snp-missing-cash-3312588

Aha, thanks OldCrone! That works!

An empathic desire to make the lives of a marginalised group easier perhaps?

So here is what they should do then. Disabled people make up one of the most marginalised groups in society, and there are a lot of them. At the moment, claiming personal independence payments (PIP) is a long and bureaucratic process that usually involves a medical assessment.

To make the lives of disabled people easier, do away with all that. Allow people to fill in a form declaring themselves disabled so they can immediately start claiming PIP or any other allowance they're entitled to.

Can anyone see any flaws at all in that plan?

There are several examples of the SNP going against expert advice when forming policy (eg named persons).

It seems to be a combination of NS wanting to appear as far removed from Westminster policy as possible, and appealing to the youth vote (hence voting rights for 16 year olds) and push independence.

The poll conducted a few months ago which seemed to suggest Scots were pro gender recognition legislation until the ramifications were explained in detail when I think 85% were then against self id shows that the SNP are again, attempting to get the legislation through by stealth, no debate, nothing to see here. Dissenters are eased out of Stepford SNP.

I have emailed my MPs and MSPs with my concerns. Radio silence from the SNP.

The SNP are all about spin and style, not substance. Hence the jumping on any trendy bandwagon, promoting themselves as “progressive”, while lacking any credible economic policies or even a basic blueprint for their ridiculous independence aspirations.
It is unfortunate that so many Scots equate supporting the SNP with being a patriotic Scot - even after ten years of failure in office, they have not seen through them.

@PenStation

I’ve thought about pharma companies having a stake but do the numbers really stack up *@VelvetChairGirl* ? The patent rights on common puberty blockers have expired so I’m theory they must be available fairly cheaply. US healthcare companies having skin in the game is more plausible - think of all those profitable consultations and surgeries.

Its all part of the same circle

Scott Newgent (US transman) said surgeries and lifelong medications were going to be in the region of around $1.4 million, iirc? That's a lot of money for procedures which one could argue have all been damaging, not to mention unnecessary, on a previously healthy body.

@RoyalCorgi

An empathic desire to make the lives of a marginalised group easier perhaps?

So here is what they should do then. Disabled people make up one of the most marginalised groups in society, and there are a lot of them. At the moment, claiming personal independence payments (PIP) is a long and bureaucratic process that usually involves a medical assessment.

To make the lives of disabled people easier, do away with all that. Allow people to fill in a form declaring themselves disabled so they can immediately start claiming PIP or any other allowance they're entitled to.

Can anyone see any flaws at all in that plan?

No flaws at all.

Nobody would go through that process of becoming disabled with all the difficulties that entails just in order to claim a benefit.

I actually saw an argument just like that in response to one of the GRA consultations - that nobody would go through the lengthy process of transition if they were not really trans, therefore self-ID was a good idea. Completely missing the point that if any actual process of transition was removed as a requirement (as it would be for self-ID) then they wouldn't have to go through any process. They were actually making a good argument for keeping the GRA in its present form.

@OvaHere

It's very seductive to believe in malign actors secretly controlling events behind the scenes but that's not how the world works as I'm sure you as one of the more thoughtful posters on here knows if you are honest with yourself.

Except that's exactly how lobbying works. It's what Stonewall have been doing, hence why so many organisations and gov depts that need to retain a degree of impartiality have been leaving their schemes.

Whether one thinks Stonewall was doing it with malign intention depends on your POV. However there's no question they have done a lot of behind the scenes manoeuvring. This has been exposed on numerous occasions. The best current example being Alison Bailey who will face them in court soon.

So sometimes the world does work like that. Nothing as exciting as a cabal of super villains James bond style, just wealthy and self interested individuals/organisations who want things weighted in their favour and policy that benefits their goals. Individuals and organisations who don't care what the collateral damage looks like.

Agree, its not some evil conspiracy but I do think self-interested organisations/groups have been promoting these policy changes.

I'm far from a conspiracy theorist but I am reading Empire of Pain about the marketing of OxyContin in the US and the damage it caused through addiction. It is an absolute shocker and shows how well funded groups/corprations can cause absolute mayhem not because they are "evil" but because they are solely focussed on profit or are so convinced they are on the side of right that they are blind to opposing evidence/the bigger picture.

In 10 years time I am imagine someone will be writing a similar book about this situation.

@ArabellaScott

crankery.

Interesting word fact of the day: 'crank' is in fact a sexed insult. Who knew?

'Crank n Old English cranc, implied in crancstæf "a weaver's instrument," crencestre "female weaver, spinster," from Proto-Germanic base krank-, and related to crincan "to bend, yield" (see crinkle, cringe ). English retains the literal sense of the ancient root, while German and Dutch krank "sick," formerly "weak, small," is a figurative use. '

Lady Eve Balfour's response to such putdowns was the observation that a crank was a small and useful, inexpensive instrument that causes revolutions.

Lady Balfour!