“Glamour” magazine: lies, damn lies, & no statistics…

[NitroNine]

CW: suicide & rape (no description/details of either event)

A trans woman columnist at Glamour has produced an article in the wake of claims the transgender community were “outraged” at Adele’s talking about how she loves being a woman, the subheading of which asks Why are we talking about this, and not the fact that literal children are killing themselves because of transphobia?

www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/transgender-adele-comments-reaction

The writer is recently bereaved, but I would hope that, given she is 23, the friend she lost to suicide was not “a literal child”. I really am incredibly sorry for her loss, however old Shay was: being bereaved by suicide is a unique kind of loss.

The article, however, is massively problematic & alarmist. The central claim of trans children committing (& attempting) suicide is completely unevidenced. Not only are there no numbers given & no mention of whether they have increased; there is no contextualisation by providing the general/full rates of suicide amongst the age group - let alone overlapping precipitating causes (where known). There cannot be any question but that there IS this enormous number & it is provoked ONLY by transphobia. Which may be why there is no mention of whether any of the attempts fall into the category of deliberate self harm rather than the result of genuine response to suicidal ideation; but equally the author simply may not be aware of that phenomenon.

The rise in hate crimes against trans people is trotted out (no mention that these are, in fact, mostly non-crime “hate incidents” people have been actively encouraged to report to deliberately give this appearance & of course no mention that women aren’t offered this protection nor comparison with, say, the rate of disability hate crime, which is known to be underreported) ditto the rising murder rate (failing to mention how very VERY safe trans women in the UK are; & just why it is trans women in Brazil are murdered at such a rate). There is that same blind insistence that TWAW & Just The Same As You. No understanding that we don’t think all trans women are “bad men” - but we don’t think all men are “bad men”, safeguarding works by excluding ALL potential threats. Which means excluding lots of people who are no threat at all.

As for the waffling on about Mr Potato Head - that was a year ago now, and lots of the responses were of the “PC gorn mad” variety more generally; but the Hasbro press release on it seemed to be leaning heavily into the T & NB. Referring to “non-traditional families” made no sense when you’d had to buy Mr & Mrs Potato Head separately since they came into being in the 1950s. Lots of the media response was about The Win For Acceptance (with a bit of Right Wing Snowflakes Cannot Cope) - but with a retraction coming within the hour, it was a bit of a complicated picture: initial celebrations of the change (mostly) got deleted & there was a refocus onto it being Hasbro cynically weaponising [right-wing] transphobes as a publicity stunt. Spun as “transphobia means we can’t have a non-binary potato head” essentially.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56200811.amp

If you’re having to drag up something from a year ago to make your point it in fact rather undermines it. Nobody’s talking about Mr Potato Head - the [flawed stats making] claims trans youth are at massive risk of taking their lives appear in the media at such regularity we’ve reached the point of them appearing in Boots’ free in-store magazine. (Though of course the article was then pulled from the online version for using those stats.) The author has a platform in ”Glamour” magazine which she apparently uses to focus on trans issues - if she’s prioritising potatoes, that’s on her.

The target audience of the magazine are “established and upmarket women in their 30s” - one of whose main interests is health. No mention of whether or not they [are likely to] have children, but with that readership children will generally be young. There might be older step-children. Readers without children are likely to at least have friends, if not family with children. “Trans children” is thus personal/close in the “that could be my…” with great immediacy - it’s a deliberately emotive phrase; whether it was a deliberate attempt at manipulation only the author can answer. The most recent circulation numbers I could find (without a huge hunt, my life is too short) are September 2017’s: 157,000 visitors to the site. It doesn’t come into the top 10 women’s online magazines for 2020, but if its circulation statistics remain similar it has a pretty good reach ie a significant number of people being exposed to this article that fails to offer any evidence at all for what is meant to be its central theme; & fails, for all it claims TWAW to show any understanding at all of women, let alone to have the decency to mention the 3 women in the UK killed by current or former partners every week.

www.statista.com/statistics/410530/glamour-magazine-website-visitors-uk/
www.statista.com/statistics/246085/reach-of-selected-womens-magazines-in-the-uk/

I can only think that Adele - & indeed Emma Thompson - get a pass because they, unlike JK Rowling, talked about a womanhood TRAs could imagine themselves into.

www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/i-exist-between-them-emma-thompson-on-living-with-her-mother-and-daughter-1.4798738

I found this article via Twitter; & the same user had RTd a trans woman’s complaint that the app her GP uses surgery requests “biological sex (sex assigned at birth)” on signing up. This is described as transphobic (suspicion of a database being compiled with nefarious intent expressed); NHS accused of REPEATEDLY attacking trans people; & most worryingly of all, more than one trans woman confidently asserts that she is now biologically a woman because of the hormones she is on. That complete lack of understanding alone demonstrates the desperate need for better trans healthcare frankly (including ensuring people cannot self-medicate). Anyone who believes they have changed sex needs extensive MH support to come to terms with the fact they have not & cannot; & it is vital that not only do they not disseminate this information but HCPs ensure all patients identifying as trans understand this, because it cannot be assumed. I’ve seen the same assertions elsewhere; including in discussions about blood transfusion. In one case the pile-on was a spectacular “you can’t even biology” with a side of “even if it WERE true, I’m a woman now, so I’m not at risk”. (As a bonus, there were some odd diversions into women can’t donate to the father of their child after giving birth - & vice versa - nor either parent to the child, nor child to either parent… all of these ideas found people willing to agree with them & nobody to dissent, or even ask how on earth that would work )

It is appalling that the author has been raped & I very much hope she was able to access support services afterwards. That experience does not, however, make her a woman. Moreover, it is a fact that rape crisis services across the country are amongst the groups & services that are no longer accessible to many girls women because of how they have been reorganised to accommodate the desires of trans women. WRT rape crisis services, meeting NEEDS - as is incredibly important - means providing a group for trans people, or even one for trans women & one for trans men. Facilitating trans women’s desire to be allowed into women’s sessions is failing the women - who, let’s not forget, are the majority of their service users.

Mentioning street harassment as a means of propping up the argument TWAW is perhaps unwise, too: women are - generally - too polite (sometimes too fearful) to comment on TW [not] passing. So there’s a “really?!” reflex; plus of course women are only too aware of the men who “Pig Hunt” - even if trans women are, would they quash any fear or self-doubt in favour of the validation being catcalled offered? Because there’s the key. There are a vanishingly few women who say being catcalled is a compliment/flattering & they like it. Most women, however, abhor it - it begins with grown men preying on barely pubescent girls (you know, literal children) & complete strangers feeling free to comment on our appearance & demeanour is apparently life-long: demanding nonagenarians smile on the command of The Mighty Male is considered perfectly reasonable by those who engage in street harassment. Trans women so delight in being catcalled they post about it excitedly on social media. Which of course marks them out as trans women. Again (as with the healthcare app, albeit with less worrisome beliefs) there is no magic way in to womanhood.* And somehow, almost a quarter of the way through the C21, there is a need to explain that to a not-inconsiderable number of people; many of whom will require mental health support to come to terms with said reality.

• Other than being observed female at birth; not turning out to have an unsuspected VSD; & growing up from girl to woman. Which is not terribly magical.

I don't like this narrative that's arisen that trans people were not criticising Adele and that it has been fabricated by the "right-wing" media.

Most feminists who are against this current trend are left-wing and are amazed at how mainstream left-wing organisations have bought into it.

There were comments from trans people on Twitter about Adele and they quickly deleted them, this is where the whole debate came from. Stop the gas-lighting that it never happened.

What annoys be is that as soon as someone says the magical word "woman" Twitter instantly thinks of trans rights.

I'm surprised that Charlie has gone into print stating that Shay took their own life. There has been a lot of sadness on Instagram about Shay who by all accounts was a well-loved highly regarded advocate for young Trans rights particularly within their own community. They were also very open about their own significant struggles with both physical and mental health issues. Till I clicked on this link I didn't know how Shay died and I certainly hope the writer of this piece got express permission to state their cause of death. I think it quite distasteful to write such an article so soon after Shay passed.

And on the issue of Adele - I agree to an extent that it's ridiculous what a fuss has been made about someone on TV saying out loud that they love being a woman. What kind of fucked up world are we living in where it's a cause for big-breath-out mega rejoicing that someone has said such a simple sentence out loud WITHOUT ANY CAVEATS of 'whether you're trans or cis etc ..' The incredulity and sneering going on by Transwomen saying 'we don't mind Adele saying that, we agree' just shows how blind they are to the societal silencing of women that's going on.

I doubt there will ever be a helpful piece about mental health for young people because of the inappropriate use of statistics in this context.

We all know how the surveys and numbers have been distorted to the point of disinformation. Posters on FWR are aware of the use of inappropriate comparators. However, outside of this board, the public discourse is entirely framed by disinformation and misinformation which is even promoted within the NHS.

I used to be optimistic that the Cass Review would clear up some matters and make for a more evidence-based public discourse. I'm rapidly losing that optimism but the longer it takes to publish, the more that people are managing to have so filled the gap with their own narrative that the non-evidence-based commentators completely control it and will retain that control even if the Cass Review doesn't support them.

I hate the use of the word literal and literally..

''womens rights matter too''
''OMFG you are literally killing trans people by saying that''

It's like the have to use the word literally when they are being completely un-literal.

It's absolutely despicable the way TRAs do this. Telling vulnerable children with mental health issues that if they are trans they are at a high suicide risk is wrong in lots of ways. And it's not very far from saying that to be really trans you should be suicidal.

I really wish the Samaritans would grow a pair and publicly remind people that saying things like this is actually dangerous.

And it's not very far from saying that to be really trans you should be suicidal.

A fair amount of reporting from support groups would assert that young people are coached to use this dramatic emotional lever in order to coerce persuade their parents into approaching GPs and obtaining referrals and bridging treatment.

There's a thread of complaints about Adele's comment (that didn't happen). twitter.com/blablafishcakes/status/1492562480341651456?s=21

Alison Moyet tweeted 'Women's Rights are Human Rights' today and has been told in no uncertain terms that women aren't human unless she includes men. I expect that's not happening either. twitter.com/alisonmoyet/status/1492461279805644803?s=21

If you ever see an MRA claiming something didn't happen it's pretty much a guarantee it did.

Alison Moyer’s deleted her tweet, poor love.

@BootsAndRoots
I missed the entire thing TBH & constructing my OP left me in no mind to investigate - but funnily enough I believe you, because we’ve seen it over & over again.
The whole “right-wing” thing is such an absolute nonsense too: we KNOW it’s a dog-whistle for Nazi (these days popularly used as a synonym for “someone I don’t like &/or of whom I disapprove” ); & it is consistently being applied to not only women from across the mainstream British political spectrum, where even the right isn’t right of the US’s left* but also to those far-Left groupings, like the British Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) that absolutely & comprehensively reject not only the idea that TWAW but are also pushing back against the idea trans people are a vulnerable marginalised & powerless minority. The author of this examination of “transphobia in the left” does appear to have experienced genuinely transphobic comments from members of BCPML - but I should note I’ve only read that landing page, because while reading demands to be centred in socialism makes a change from reading demands to be centred in feminism, it’s really NOT sufficiently diverting to slog through something like that.

@Humstead
I didn’t like to search for Shay in any way as it seemed hugely disrespectful - do you know if Shay was an adult though? The slant of the article suggests not, or at least ties Shay to those “literal children”. I’m very sorry if Shay’s death’s impacted more directly on [someone] you [know] & hope you weren’t upset by the article. Absolutely agree it would be awful if the article had been written without the consent of Shay’s family &/or partner (as relevant/depending on circumstances) - & true consent, not a hint of coercion, which could come in multiple guises. There’s certainly scope for addressing issues around the suicide of a friend in an article: well-researched & well-written it could stand as a loving farewell & even a lasting (thanks to the internet) memorial. Instead Shay got what reads as weaponisation of their death; & the world at large got another unhelpful article built of all the usual inaccuracies.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus
When I was 4 I wanted - very much - to be either an author or The Worst Witch. My 4yo self might be mollified by my having had odds & ends published in my teens & the fact I have TWO cats now - but really, both she & I would be quite happy to wrest the means of assorted media production away from their current controllers & to write many MANY helpful & informative things (& of course wield the red editor’s pen when GenderWoo is being written, be that for school curricula, scripts, social media for brands/companies, sports policies or anything else at all ever). I could offer companies stickers for complying & everything. Suspect that there would be plenty of volunteers available from here to assist if only the universe would please provide the opportunity for eradication of GenderWoo, too. Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for us to demand, in fact. How do we go about getting our turn at controlling things I wonder?

@sacredfeminina
But-but-but… language EVOLVES.
And thus, as we all know, words have become so fantastically powerful they are capable of doing LITERAL violence rather than the mere onomatopoeic assaults of the past ( moist not.envy.) & the constructed brutalities of tongue-twisters. People with low literacy levels, people with dyslexia, people with learning difficulties & learning disabilities involving language & those of us with speech impediments &/or selective mutism have, of course, been as Cassandra to the heedless mass of humanity who uncritically PRAISED the evolution of language, refusing ever to consider language, biding its time, enduring each abuse (& surely pushed to this aggression by txt spk?) would one day come for THEM with its “literal violence”. OH. THE. HUMANITY.
(Honestly, we’ve had Ovid’s “barbarus hic ego sum quia non intellegor ulli” knocking about for ACTUAL literal centuries, right there & perfectly available for discussion of isolation, language & culture - & instead we get this “literal violence” nonsense.)

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine
YES! To all the things.
As EmbarrassingHadrosaurus says, there have been reports of people of all ages - including children - being told to tell their GP they’re suicidal to get fast-tracked. Can you imagine that approach working with anything else? We’d have an opiate crisis that makes America’s look like nothing just to start with - pain clinics routinely take years to screen patients once they’re referred & then there’s a further wait for actual treatment; & people sit (literally, usually) on ortho lists for years before reaching the ortho surgery list which has a similarly glacial progression. I’m not sure there would suddenly be some kind of fentanyl free-for-all though - I suspect “I’m in so much pain I want to kill myself” would in fact see your supply of painkillers limited to prevent overdose & nudge to IAPT (or similar) with the suggestion of trying antidepressants (plus reminders about diet, exercise & sleep, obviously).
The endless ENDLESS retelling of what has now been repeatedly demonstrated to (mercifully!) be a lie is so utterly shameless - & could not make clearer that the people pushing it have no interest at all in the well-being of any young people, however they identify. Ugh. Weaponising the mental health of children & young people is reprehensible - it’s interesting only one side are “allowed” to worry, too. The much-debunked stats are a crisis that we should all act on (as told, obviously no independent thought tyvm); but worries about, for example, puberty blockers, that are rooted in fact, are derided as “pearl clutching” transphobia. There are so many people willing to insist that the grass is indeed blue & the sky green that it’s really quite disconcerting.

Thanks @Tiphaine - that thread of Tweets That Never Happened has some quite remarkable efforts. Self-ID somehow stretching out in the way we see illustrated in this discussion (& in links mentioned in my OP) into self-IDing as being part of the most vulnerable, marginalised & disadvantaged group in the UK (despite ample evidence being widely available that said group is none of those things much less all of them ) does at least allow for easy identification of people who make Narcissus look, if anything, positively over-invested in other people; worryingly prone to neglecting his own needs & desires; & deeply insecure about his appearance.

Such a foul response to Alison Moyer’s tweet in those screen caps - the utter nonsense of TWAW simply revealed through the lens of the nature of the responses to the tweet. There is a consistent pattern whereby members of both sexes will “correct”, will state - & restate - that TWAW, will exhort “sinner” to Educate Themselves & Do Better & may be abrupt/curt &/or use language like TERF & cis even if it is objected to. Misogyny (including the use of slurs either typically reserved for women or those relating to the female anatomy); general threats of violence (up to & including death threats); the highly-specific threats of sexual violence; the DARVO-ing… we’ve seen time & again those come from trans women. Despite those occasional claims that GC Women Do It Too, we’re never provided with any evidence of this. There are doubtless GC women who are rude to TRAs on social media. There’s quite the gap between hurtful comments & threats to hurt to someone though - perhaps the total unwillingness to accept that is because of the seemingly unshakeable belief in the “literal violence” of [women’s] words

• I keep feeling an urge to make flashcards before remembering the target audience probably lack required skills to engage & learn using them