Janice Turner's 2017 article

[ResisterRex]

I didn't read this at the time but Janice mentions it in her tweet about the piece in the Guardian.

In the comments - which are few - someone says they give it 10 years max before the lawsuits come.

She interviews "Dr K" as part of this, whose assessment of the problems was very clear, includes James Caspian whose attempt to research it was blocked, and sets out ROGD:

twitter.com/victoriapeckham/status/1595853640622907395?s=46&t=TgecXb3rFj6Ltb9RH6dJRw

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ff7f6d3e-c3a5-11e7-9914-a38dcc178fcd?shareToken=e3f31d1e1f996aa78ba87010be4cccfe

Janice was at the very first London We Need to Talk meeting, when TRAs attacked Maria Maclachlan at Speaker’s Corner. She’s known about all this right from the start.

That article would have hundreds, if not thousands, of comments if it were published now. We have come a long way since 2017. I recognize most of the ones who have commented and some of them are still regular contributors in Tol.

What happened to Alex Bertie? I remember the name from when I first joined here in 2018 but seems to have faded away. I hope Alex is happy now.

I was struck by Alex saying how all the girls at school seemed excited about their changing bodies at puberty. That was certainly not my experience at an all girls' school and I wonder if AB was looking at that in an unbiased way. I'd say not.

This is an outstanding article. I can't remember if I read it at the time.

So, being trans is seen as superior to being lesbian particularly a masculine/butch lesbian. Horrific homophobia.

I read the article at the time and was glad the MSM were covering the issue.

Alex Bertie still does Instagram and is living with their partner who is also a trans man. Hangs out a lot with Jamie Raines aka Jammie Dodger another successful Youtuber and trans man with a huge following. They definitely keep a much lower social media profile now but still post occasionally.

The last I saw, Alex was still spending lots of time gaming and doing live Twitch streams. They're also a full-time graphic designer. They've got a very luscious beard now - 'The Quest to Beard' was definitely accomplished! Recently they've been very open about being fitted for a hairpiece as they went bald on top and were never seen without a beanie hat as a result. The hairpiece is very convincing and they seem a lot more confident and happier in their photos as a result.

Their former boyfriend Jake now identifies as non-binary and had a stint at Mermaids providing digital content and conducting online video interviews for Mermaids Insta account. They also advertise period products for a company that's very trans friendly - 'it's not just women who have periods' slogans and the like. They were recently critical of how Mermaids handled the closure of their helplines and posted a couple of cryptic messages implying the whole situation hadn't been handled well by Mermaids.

I'd say Alex and Jake were hugely influential on a generation of young girls. Many aspired to have top surgery and T and be in a relationship like Alex and Jake. I remember they were my first introduction to how 'well' the MTF transition could 'look' (on video anyway where the often diminutive stature is not so apparent)

I, like many others I guess, were quite transfixed with the 'this is me 1 month on T, 2 months, 1year etc ...' videos. So I can imagine how appealing and addictive they would have been to any young girl terrified or repulsed by the idea of their own puberty. I know that if I'd seen these videos when I was 13/14 I would have been transfixed. Who knows how they would have fed into my own loathing of being born a girl?

Same Jake or different?

twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1171092409335386114?s=46&t=TgecXb3rFj6Ltb9RH6dJRw

Quite a few Twitter returns actually:

twitter.com/thompsonmeg26/status/1578781840143704065?s=46&t=TgecXb3rFj6Ltb9RH6dJRw

Yes Resister - the same Jake. The Mermaids gig was given to them on the back of their social media skills honed via their personal You tube channel and Instagram. Obviously their high profile amongst the intended target audience was an attractive feature too. I remember how that video about them talking 'frankly' about their sex life got taken down sharpish. As usual, Mermaids hadn't paid heed to their recent content before offering them the job of communicating with their young audience - familiar pattern?

Jake has recently spoken about how they've reflected back on some of the content they were putting out as a teenager. They seem to realise that it's perhaps not best for two young teenagers to be regaling their audience with intimate details. Of course anyone advising them about that at the time would have been given short shrift and been labelled a 'prude' or 'transphobic'.

I vaguely do remember that video, but there have been such a lot of incidents that you lose track.

So many failures with that organisation, so so many.

Again it's because they played with the wrong toys, liked the wrong colours, fancied the wrong sex, wore the wrong clothes.

There's nothing of substance to the reasons for such drastic changes to their body, medically, surgically.

This is why there should be intensive counselling to get to the route cause of what's going on.

Without a doubt there will be some people who transitioning is the right thing for them, but for most of these kids I don't think it is. Teaching them that they can't actually change sex and that you have to learn to live what you are born with, with a bloody large dose of "puberty is shit, school is shit, it gets better in a few years"

So many lives ruined and for what?

Id be really angry if I wasn't consumed by the current feeling of sadness at reading that article.