New statesman article: I once agreed with J.K. Rowling

[KookaburraSits]

Sorry if this has already been posted. It's embarrassingly bad.

www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/03/as-a-victim-of-abuse-i-once-agreed-with-jk-rowling

Highlights of idiocy include:

"It is true that there are no meaningful statistics to suggest transgender women pose a threat to cis women like me. The argument is theoretical — hypothetical even."

"What I did know was that most of the politicians and commentators that I agreed with on every other issue were fighting hard for trans rights. So I understood that I must be missing some piece of the moral puzzle"

"Then I saw how profoundly misdirected her fear was. Because trans women are not the perpetrators but the victims of violence: last year an estimated 375 trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming peoplewere killed across the world."

"They say that sex matters for gender and you cannot call yourself a woman if you haven’t had periods, for example."

@Sophoclesthefox

I don’t tend to agree that people blithely talking in ways that we know are likely increase suicidality in young people are “a breath of fresh air”, Robin, but perhaps you and I have very different definitions of that.

Personally I think sterilising kids that don't conform to gender based stereotypes is eveil, not a breath of fresh air but Robin I am sure will tell us otherwise.

Thankfully suicides of children are really quite rare, and always have been. They tend to be multifactorial but there are some antecedents which are more common. Mental illness, bereavement, including suicide bereavement (social contagion effect) and "suicide related internet use", obviously also making children vulnerable to social contagion.

“Hasselhoffsheadband

mudgetastic
We also know that when children were not given the option to be trans , they tended not to commit suicide at any higher rates than they do today

Bluntly ... at a society level there is no reduction in child suicides associated with increasing levels of transgender affirmation
This is a very good point actually, and one that needs re-emphasising. How come this 'epidemic/genocide' etc of trans kids apparently killing themselves wasn't happening 30 years ago when the idea of kids taking hormone blockers and getting healthy body parts chopped off would have just been batshir crazy?“

Apart from these points,
Dr David Bell, who used to work at the Tavistock Clinic, points out in the Noland Podcast that there are co-morbidities with children who come to him feeling they are trans gender. If they are feeling suicidal the cause may be rooted in one of these factors.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/nolan-investigates/id1590366486?i=1000538591893

The Cass report also stresses the need to look into other underlying issues that may be affecting the child and points out how previous trauma, sexual abuse, autism and being in the care system are disproportionate among these children.

cass.independent-review.uk/publications/interim-report/

Feelings of wanting to commit suicide therefore do not necessarily truly arise from their feeling they are in the wrong body.

There is also the effect of trans presenting children picking ideas up from their peers and the internet. One idea of which is that trans people are more likely to be suicidal. This is why it is dangerous to keep repeating it as a mantra.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Admit it. You've been had. You have no actual argument. Time to pop off and bake a cake?

Good call. Didn't take long!

I sensed a movement in the force.

My point was that you suggested that the terms were interchangeable. When the link you shared had separate definitions for both terms.

Loool at the article in the OP.
Has anyone on these boards ever, ever, said "sex matters for gender"? or "you cannot call yourself a woman if you haven’t had periods"?

If the writer thought those were the claims, I'm embarrassed for her.

Oh I learned something Elaine, but not what you'd hope. Shame that.

What an embarrassment.

@bishophaha

Loool at the article in the OP. Has anyone on these boards ever, ever, said "sex matters for gender"? or "you cannot call yourself a woman if you haven’t had periods"?

If the writer thought those were the claims, I'm embarrassed for her.

No, I have never thought those things because my brain aches trying to get around the contorted thinking.

Perhaps it’s better to leave decisions relating to women’s lives to them as well, hmm? It is not men’s place to decide that males who feel uncomfortable as men should have access to women’s spaces. How about leaving that decision to women?

And as for men getting better healthcare than women, you’ve rather proved my point. Identifying as a man did not improve that female person’s healthcare.

Perhaps it’s better to leave decisions relating to women’s lives to them as well, hmm? It is not men’s place to decide that males who feel uncomfortable as men should have access to women’s spaces. How about leaving that decision to women?

Quite. It's not men's place to decide what a woman is either and then decide that they are one because of whatever bullshit they come up with.

I'm not going to claim that you hate children, because you may have good intentions, but I will say that your actions are hurting trans children and trans adults. It's not possible to make a trans kid cis, but it is possible to make a trans kid sad.

Following on from my attempt to explain that other children are capable of feeling distress, and being sad, I wonder what Elaine thinks of these exchanges on twitter.

"Ahhh, see you're wrong, they don't rape women, only children" is... quite an argument. (Regardless of whether any parts of it are true)

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

I'm not going to claim that you hate children, because you may have good intentions, but I will say that your actions are hurting trans children and trans adults. It's not possible to make a trans kid cis, but it is possible to make a trans kid sad.

Following on from my attempt to explain that other children are capable of feeling distress, and being sad, I wonder what Elaine thinks of these exchanges on twitter.

Who is “Rachel”?

“Honestly, the pedo [sic] cases are horrible but super rare.” The flippant tone used here by “Rachel” beggars belief.

I’m referring to the screenshots above

'Rachel' is a straight man and trans activist, who posed as a radical feminist on twitter for a few days, until the strain of feigning concern for women and children got too much for him.

Text of screenshot 1 for those using screenreaders!

Poster 1: I propose that the TRAs leave their front doors unlocked at all times so that strangers can use their gender neutral bathroom. Yes, it's fraught with danger but really what does that matter when it comes to the call of nature?

Poster 2: 'Rachel': There have been literally zero cases of a trans woman raping an adult cis woman in a public restroom. It's not "fraught with danger". It's just transphobia, plain and simple.

Poster 3: Odd way you specified "adult cis woman" there. So, you're saying teenage girls and female children don't matter?

Or is it that the safety of female humans never matters, whatever their age, if they also suffer gender dysphoria? You saying it's okay if female enbies are raped?
[Tweet ends with a gif captioned Honestly, Probably Both ]

Poster 2, 'Rachel': There was zero cases of a trans woman raping an adult cis woman in a woman's restroom and one or two (very rare) cases of a trans woman raping a little girl in a woman's restroom. The little girl cases are horrible acts of pedophilia. The two options would be for trans woman to -

Poster 2, 'Rachel': - use the women's restroom or the men's restroom. If they use the women's restroom, they might be a pedo and rape a little girl, which has happened before. If they use the men's restroom, they might get raped by men. Honestly, the pedo cases are horrible but super rare.

Text of screenshot 2

'Rachel', Tweet 1: First, I'm a straight man.
Second, that's not the definition at [urban dictionary link]
Third, even if I was trans, what the fuck did trans women do to you? Your notion that trans women rape cis women in women's bathrooms is totally made up. There are more trans women assaulted -

'Rachel', Tweet 2: by cis women in women's bathrooms than there are cis women assaulted by trans women. Seriously - try to find one case of a trans woman raping an adult cis woman in a public woman's restroom. There are none. Y'all are just a hate group.

This straight man going by 'Rachel' seems to really hate children, tbh. Or at least think their emotions and feelings are worthless.

Yes there are a lot of false flaggers in this debate, aren't there?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Yes there are a lot of false flaggers in this debate, aren't there?

There certainly are.

Everywhere.

*is totally made up. There are more trans women assaulted -

'Rachel', Tweet 2: by cis women in women's bathrooms than there are cis women assaulted by trans women*

I’d be interested to see where “rachel’s” stats on women assaulting women in bathrooms comes from.

Because they wouldn’t have made it up and not be able to back their statement up now, would they?

Well, if it's an issue, I want to know why transitioned males want to use women's toilets and changing rooms then. Why not demand additional single-occupancy toilets, for their own safety?

“In your last paragraph you hit on a really important point. In many ways society is completely hung-up on gender stereotypes, so much so that, like you say, you could never pursuade people otherwise. For some trans people this can be a huge source of pain”

I find this incredibly patronising. We are gender critical feminists, ffs. Of course we bloody know that sex stereotypes (which, let’s be honest, is synonymous with genders) are damaging.

The fact that I am physically weaker than most men because I am a woman is NOT a stereotype. It’s undefeatable biology. It has very little to do with my personality, which is the important thing.

Argh, this one again??

Why is it silly for women to mind about the risk of being raped by all male people having free access to female spaces, while at the same time demanding those same women care about the risk of male people being raped by male people in male spaces?

What's that about?

And why is it that lists of names of women and girls who have suffered sexual assault as a result are easily found and many of us know names off the tops of our heads and these are only the ones that managed to make it to the press and courts, but no one not even Stonewall seems to be able to evidence a case of a TW suffering harm in a male space? Considering lesbians being harassed on a bus made national news I struggle to believe that TQ people being raped in male spaces would go unnoticed, not least that these cases would prove Stonewall's case that these people need other spaces?

That still doesn't mean they should be given female spaces though.

If they use the women's restroom, they might be a pedo and rape a little girl, which has happened before. If they use the men's restroom, they might get raped by men. Honestly, the pedo cases are horrible but super rare.

That tosser really does believe that women are merely semi-sentient service-humans. 🤮