So disgusted tonight

[Mollyollydolly]

Owen Jones and Pink News tweeted about the two Helens, Joyce and Staniland and their YouTube chat .. Jones taking what they said completely out of context it's resulted in some of the most vile abuse aimed at Helen Joyce in particular on twitter tonight. So many death threats.

I wish there was something we could do, it's so utterly vile, it's time they were held to account for their lies. It's really upsetting.

Owen Jones isn't fit to lace Helen's shoes, I cant believe The Guardian still employ him. I've seen threats to murder, throw napalm in their faces from Joss Prior and many many more. It's disgusting and all down to Owen.

How can this stand up to any level of journalistic ethics or integrity.

It's time we did something, some kind of collective action.

So glad I'm not the only one that feels queasy at that phrase. Some of us have memories of that phrase used in the situations we'd rather forget

Is it not quite an odd choice of quote to lead with?

I can only read it as mocking abuse victims. Is there another interpretation that I'm missing? That phrase is used by abusers; that's the joke, right?

Look what you made us do'

Owen's pinned tweet makes me feel ill every time I read it.

Agree, it's not "plucky marginalised people against the establishment speak", it's more like abuser speak.

He's been narcissistically raging about GC women for hours because he got told he wasn't an "ally" by extremist TRAs because of what they did. It's our fault, generally and the Helens' specifically.

Astute observation. Just taking out his rage on women.

Maybe they have a lot of unresolved anger they daren't aim directly at their parents. Jungian Psych 101.

They seek alternative parental and familial archetypes.

It's our fault, generally

Quite noticeable how Jones repeatedly frames the issues in terms of winning and losing. He keeps saying to people that they're going to lose.

What does this even mean? What would winning or losing look like in this context?

We're discussing legislation and policy. Specifically wrt the Helens' video, healthcare for children with dysphoria or gender incongruence. How to best support and treat them, find solutions and balance rights, how to protect people and help those with dysphoria. What on earth does 'winning' have to do with anything?

Is this just a game for him? At what point will he feel he's 'won'?

As absurd as the idea there will be a 'right side' of history. It posits some mythical utopian future where all is clear and the forces of evil have been defeated and the Righteous are triumphant.

Life isn't like that. Far messier and more uncertain. And if your goal is to 'win' some imagined battle instead of arriving at a.peaceful entente then you are not really helping anyone.

Is this just a game for him?
I think Twitter seems to make people pick a side on many issues.
There's a "right side" and a "wrong side".

It's very important not only to be on the "right side" but to be SEEN to be on it. Otherwise how would anyone know that you were thinking the correct thoughts?

What does this even mean? What would winning or losing look like in this context?

Whoever genocides the other side first wins?

Anyway, Owen's got a problem here. If it wasn't plotting "genocide", then what was it? What exactly was so "horrible" and "chilling"?

He's being very, very non-specific, presumably not wanting to do a Hines and make any sort of specific accusation that might invite legal action.

But it means he is reduced to incoherence - all he can do is say "it's very bad".

He thinks that some day everyone will accept that a man can be either someone with a penis or someone with a vagina.

Idk about reduced to incoherence; it's generally an improvement.

I've often wondered why on that day we would need that word or a word for women. All that those terms would then tell us is --- what?

That someone feels feminine or masculine (whatever that might be when not tied to sex at all)?

However hard I try, I can't find any reason for such terms to even exist once they are entirely decoupled from biological sex.

At best they would represent personality types, at worst they would work like a sex-based rigid caste system (if feminine is submissive, passive, emotional and nurturing and masculine is dominant, active, competitive and risk-taking). But it would pretend not to see sex, so how would discrimination be challenged?

A pertinent read

"An escalation in hyperbole: An Ideology still struggling with reality"

democracycoma.wordpress.com/2022/06/07/an-escalation-in-hyperbole/

Been out all day, cheered me up seeing Owen's twitter feed tonight. He's gone down the plughole of a purity spiral and sympathy have I none. He unleashed the dogs and now they've turned on him. Can't stop laughing.

Field, can you explain how, for instance, women are psychologically different to men? And socially? And occupationally and sexually? In the context of why a man would want to inhabit those roles? And how he could?

No I meant transsexuals who feel they have the body of the wrong sex and are therefore not functioning well in those areas of life because of the distress. In the same way that someone with depression or anxiety (or uncontrolled schizophrenia) might not function well in those domains of life until they are treated.

People who feel they have the wrong sexed body parts to the extent that the intense dysphoria means they can’t experience any intimacy. Medical/ surgical transition in those cases can lead to them feeling more whole, with the right body that feels more ‘like them’ enabling them to be more comfortable with themselves and other people. Therefore improved psychosocial functioning, relationships etc. Male to female or female to male.

Not a trick question. You obviously think that there are differences which are sufficiently unalike and unobtainable, that the only way to acquire them is to emulate the opposite sex.

The processes that affect sex differentiation during foetal development affect both the phenotype of the body and neurological development in the brain and there are crucial periods that are more sensitive to one or the other. I don’t just think that, it’s basic human embryology. I think within that there’s a plausible explanation for contributory biological factors to the development of transsexuality or cross sex identity. (And yes sexual orientation. But let’s not pretend the two are not in some ways connected).

So no description of how the sexes are psychologically, socially, and occupationally different? Just more of the born in the wrong body nonsense?

I never actually get to hear a list of attributes that are so very much wanted from the opposite sex.

I mean, I wouldn't mind so much, except thinking that women must be so very psychologically, socially and occupationally different to you (not you personally), that the only way for you to feel as though you can express yourself is to emulate one, is just rank sexism.

Not to mention that most of the transitioned males that I see I have no intention of inhabiting women's stereotypical roles.

No I meant transsexuals who feel they have the body of the wrong sex and are therefore not functioning well in those areas of life because of the distress. In the same way that someone with depression or anxiety (or uncontrolled schizophrenia) might not function well in those domains of life until they are treated.

I think we all understand that this is a psychological condition

People who feel they have the wrong sexed body parts to the extent that the intense dysphoria means they can’t experience any intimacy. Medical/ surgical transition in those cases can lead to them feeling more whole, with the right body that feels more ‘like them’ enabling them to be more comfortable with themselves and other people. Therefore improved psychosocial functioning, relationships etc. Male to female or female to male.

We don't offer surgical procedures for people with psychological conditions. Mainly because, as with transpeople, those surgeries don't, in the medium and ling term, offer any cessation of mental distress, including suicide ideation.

The processes that affect sex differentiation during foetal development affect both the phenotype of the body and neurological development in the brain and there are crucial periods that are more sensitive to one or the other. I don’t just think that, it’s basic human embryology. I think within that there’s a plausible explanation for contributory biological factors to the development of transsexuality or cross sex identity. (And yes sexual orientation. But let’s not pretend the two are not in some ways connected).

Basic human embriology? OK

There is some interesting nascent work on that, but it is so complicated, has so many confounding variables, that the very clever people who run the research programmes conclude that they can't even state any true correlations, let alone causality. A light touch conclusion is that, as with many other studies, there might be a predisposition. That it is not inevitable or global, needs to meet the correct societal/nurture factors, which are also not inevitable or global.

Put simply: there is a lot more work to be done, this could be something, it could be nothing. Work in progress.

This is really, really good.

The processes that affect sex differentiation during foetal development affect both the phenotype of the body and neurological development in the brain and there are crucial periods that are more sensitive to one or the other.

Sex differentiation in the brain which develops to be the opposite sex from the body? This sounds suspiciously like a belief in ladybrains. If some men have brains which in some way are more like a typical woman's brain, it just means that those attributes are also found in men's brains, not that he has a woman's brain in a man's body.

If some men have brains which in some way are more like a typical woman's brain, it just means that those attributes are also found in men's brains, not that he has a woman's brain in a man's body.

Indeed. We've managed to figure that out for the one thing that really fits that description - homosexuality. We don't say a gay man has a woman's brain in a man's body. And that's a clearly materially real phenomenon.

You don't get to play the ladybrain game for something unobservable in terms of behaviour while not using it for that.

In what ways exactly do sone men have brains like women’s brains ?

Having spent my life challenging society to accept that despite being a women I have a good technically capable scientific brain I do find the lady brain concept extremely insulting hurtful regressive and unproven

It's taken me 50+ years

I am considered a world expert in my field - something very few women before me had managed to achieve because of the idea that lady's brains are just different

>transsexuality or cross sex identity. (And yes sexual orientation. But let’s not pretend the two are not in some ways connected).

your post is alluding wordily to the evidence that homosexuality and hormone levels in the womb seem to be linked. Refreshingly, you’ve acknowledged for these purposes that there’s a link between homosexuality and “cross-sex identity”, because your evidence for “cross-sex identity” is in fact evidence for biological correlates of homosexuality.

So… you can acknowledge that lot of “trans kids” are actually “gay kids” then? Or at least, that based on the current state of knowledge, the two can’t be readily distinguished.

Bonus! Sterilising gay kids… good idea or bad idea?

Maybe the Helens have a point that we should be doing less of it?

maybe you could even say that sterilising “gay kids” is a bit more genocide-adjacent than not sterilising “trans kids”.

People who feel they have the wrong sexed body parts to the extent that the intense dysphoria means they can’t experience any intimacy.

So all the late transitioning males who have fathered children don't have a cross sex identity, so aren't really trans according to you? Same for all the TRAs who threaten rape using their 'girl dicks'. And the 90% + of 'transwomen' who have no intention of having genital surgery.