The Guardian misusing statistics again

[Heliotroper]

Less than half in Britain back gender-affirming care for trans teenagers

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/08/less-than-half-in-britain-back-gender-affirming-care-for-trans-teenagers

Their definition of gender affirming care is 'counselling and hormone treatment' but that is absurd, one is talking, the other is a life changing decision.

Are they really so stupid they do not see the difference?

The problem seems to be more with the idiotic nature of the polling question than with the Guardian's reporting of it.

Obviously counselling and hormone treatment are two completely different things. In fact, you could argue that they are diametrically opposed. People who support counselling tend to be opposed to a rush to hormone treatment, while those peddling hormone treatment are skipping over the need to offer counselling.

What I find interesting is that the UK was third from bottom in positive responses to the question "With parental consent, transgender teens should be allowed to receive gender-affirming care." The bottom two were the US and Hungary. Isn't it astonishing that the US, where trans ideology appears most prevalent, should be expressing most hostility towards it?

The question is fine, it’s clear they mean that youth should get BOTH counselling and hormone treatment. That’s why the question has an “AND” in it, and not an “OR.”

As pointed out, hormones really should not even be an option until counselling has been offered prior to or alongside.

God they are slow, this poll was our last week. Do they now only cover stuff if Pink News do first?

Less than half in Britain think traumatised autistic 13 year old girls should be medically sterilised

There. Fixed that for you. HTH.

As far as I can tell, the polling question leaves it ambiguous whether it means counselling, social transition, hormone blockers, or even surgery.

So the question has limited value and a different poll could give quite a different result.

The fact that people in other countries were more likely to vote in favour of 'trans affirming care' suggests to me that they had a different understanding of the question.

The Guardian seems now to be routinely using the phrase "trans people cannot expect all rights afforded by biological sex" to characterise the gender critical position (eg in recent coverage of Kathleen Stock.

I'm guessing it is a phrase they have thrashed out in editorial meetings to find something they can all agree on, but it is profoundly inaccurate and feeds the narrative that trans people have "fewer rights" than others.

The reality is that trans people, like everyone else, have full protection under the Equality Act against discrimination on the grounds of biological sex. For example, if an employer insisted that a trans-identifying male came to work with short hair and no make-up and didn't make the same requirement of female employees, that the trans person could bring a case of discrimination on the grounds of sex.

The protected category of gender reassignment is in addition to protection against discrimination on the grounds of sex. The gender critical position is not that trans-people lose sex-based protections. It is simply that protections associated with gender reassignment do not place people into the opposite-sex category for the purposes of the protected category of sex: trans people have protection on the basis of their own sex category.

It makes me so angry that a paper I have trusted all my life stoops to such misrepresentation.

Who cares what half of Britain think? It is not their issue. Leave it to the medical people who actually know this stuff.

Half of Britain also think Brexit was a good idea.....

I totally agree, Brexit and giving hormones to teens are both fucking disasters. Glad you finally came to your senses.

As I say always, write to the Guardian letters page/readers editor If they think enough of their readers disagree with their phrasing then it will be at least queried

I don't fully agree, as it is sometimes a political question to intervene in medical matters if they are doing something too crazy.

Also, one of the questions was about access to facilities, and that is a question for the British public.

I didn't want to start a new thread for this but the Guardian is going after some of the Doctors who have spoken out and testified against this stuff. Some of them are Catholic <gasp> or <swoon> anti-abortion. I'm neither but they're not extraordinary positions in the US (where I assume this article is aimed), or even in this country. I know nothing about these people. It's possible the Guardian has cherry picked them because they bad. They don't seem that bad to me.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/09/doctor-republican-trans-gender-affirming-minor-healthcare-lgbtq-rights

Love the emotive picture, subtlety thy name is not Guardian.