War over trans lobby is manna for the right - Matthew Parris

[Igneococcus]

Matthew Parris really has only the most superficial understanding of what the issue is. Women's concerns don't seem to matter to him.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e1a55002-0176-11ee-a364-04e704863f75?shareToken=8726c8ee9cc9f1b6b564f26d97b17a88

Thanks so much for the share token, @Igneococcus .

I wish we could see the comments (share tokens are articles only) but I'm pleased to hear they are predominantly gender critical.

I quite like Matthew Parris and find him frequently insightful on some topics, but whenever an issue affects women you children his attitude is almost always "that doesn't affect men like me so I will pretend it isn't there."

He's also disingenuous about gay men not wanting to be women. Rupert Evert was vocal about how he would have bought into transitioning as a teen if trans ideology had been around then, and how grateful he was to avoid that and just be happy as a gay man.

The high percentage of young people who desist and become content gay or lesbian adults shows that yes, for a chunk of gay and lesbians going through puberty, 'becoming' the opposite sex is an appeasling prospect for a time.

“It doesn’t affect anyone” - there speaks a gay man with no wife or children to be affected. Way to go to show your lack of vision and empathy you prat.

Sorry that wasn’t a direct quote, just an exasperated summary!

ZuttZeVootEeeVo · Today 13:22

The hostile environmental is driven by TRA not getting the policies they demanded. The policies came first, not women asking questions.

Well, precisely! It would have been quite illogical if women asked questions and complained, then the policies followed!

It's an entirely understandable reaction to a series of poor (closely linked) situations, isn't it?

I thought it wasn’t bad until the victim category was introduced with the egregious omission of children; people, including those in universities of all places, as well as in schools, the NHS, and the Civil Service who dare not speak up for fear of their jobs ( see another current thread to see the vast extent of this complete censorship); women who are disabled but cannot be sure of same sex care; women in prisons who are undeemed worthy of the respect of their sex; lesbian and gay people who are expected to forget sex based attraction infavour of a gender reassignment based one; and last but not least our very language, especially anything describing women, even in a clinical setting where lack of accurate language is absurd.

If Kier Starmer knows the truth but will not clearly state it, which he could do alongside proposing help for transpeople which does not compromise others’ needs, then he is not someone to be seen as a victim as suggested.

Obviously not the gay ally you want in this fight.

Basically he's already looking to a post-2024 Starmer govt where so-called trans conversion ban and stringent anti-LGBTQ hate laws are in operation, and the Tories need to frame their policy.

And he wants the party to be on TRSOH, effectively indistinguishable from the Left. And to take no part in the culture war.

We're reaching a point with politicians and commentators where they cannot justify why, how or when some men are women. But they dont have the stomach to talk about the current laws, and what that means for women and children.

So they are saying that everything is fine now, and the best way forward is ignore the TRA, let them demand the impossible, and lets get on with living in a world where we know what a man and a women is. (Just dont talk about how men get to have female passports and birth certificates.)

We're back to 2017, before the consultation on self id. Only more people know the political class think theres nothing wrong with men in womens single sex spaces.

Zutt, cowardice in not speaking out is now endemic, and goes back longer than we think.

In 1989, Salman Rushdie had the fatwa bestowed in him, a threat to execute a British citizen for exercising his free speech in writing The Satanic Verses.

Two senior politicians of many told him to shut up and not have the book published, because of the fear of reprisals and that free speech was optional.

Guess who? Some cowardly intersectional leftist or religious apologist?

No, Margaret Thatcher PM and her attack dog Norman Tebbitt.

To expect Matthew Parris, a mediocre politician and even more mediocre commentator, to have any balls and take the side that he knows is morally and scientifically in the right, is asking too much.

My point is that sticking up for those saying the right thing has been minimising for decades now.

I think Matthew is pretty bright and a very good writer. Though I will caveat that by saying he has what you might call an intelligent layman's understanding of an issue - he doesn't seem to bother to research a subject in detail before sharing his opinion. (I was surprised to find that he actually employs a researcher.)

I don't think he understands this particular issue. Of course it ought to be a trivial issue of interest to only a few people. But he hasn't grasped that all our major institutions (BBC, NHS, universities, civil service, charity sector etc etc ad nauseam) have been captured by this ideology, with the consequence that people are losing their jobs if they share the wrong opinion, and many others are frightened of speaking out as a result. Rewriting the law, or public understanding of the law, so that any man can claim to be a woman and be treated as such has very far-reaching consequences.