What exactly has Andrew Neil done?

[RhymesWithOrange]

AN is acting churlish because women are not falling over themselves in gratitude for his support for women's rights in the face of gender self id.

Can someone tell me exactly what he's done bar send out a few tweets? Which are of course most welcome. But he's not exactly in Maya/Allison/Jo/Rosie/JK/Raquel/LGB Alliance territory, is he?

I've said upthread, I'd rather be annoyed and win.

Same. Irritated but victorious will do!

I also avoid Posie Parker's content as I don't particularly like what I know of the person

Maybe check out her content? You don't have to like her.

I’m not on Twitter so I probably miss stuff. Although my wtf are we doing dial is near limit anyway (societal we) and I don’t think I can’t take pics

If Andrew Neil’s ‘waking up’ to things, I’d quite like him to do it on climate change, but he’s still ignorantly banging on about ‘alarmism’ and how heatwaves are nothing to be worried about.

I mention this because PPs seemed to imply politicians have a greater responsibility to get their facts straight and act on them than high-profile journalists do. I think journalists have at least as great potential to do harm by spreading lies.

It really is one thing to hear second hand that maybe there are small numbers of people who regret transition and quite another to actually hear an articulate, brave young woman explicitly describing the irreversible damage done to her body and call it out as the medical scandal it is.

No fluffy euphamisms, no denying that at least this young person has been harmed.

I can see how hearing her speak for the first time would have an emotional gut punch that being generally aware of the controversy wouldn't match. I think many of us have had moments of finding ourselves a top of an even greater peak.

There's the moment you understand detransitioners exist, then the one you realise the full horror of what was done to them and how little safeguarding there is to ensure that it really was the right treatment for them, then the moment you realise they are not rare, the moment you realise that it isn't about people who aren't really trans getting caught up in medicalisation at all because some detransitioners are from the most classic presentations of trans: persistent cross sex identification with dysphoria not just the rapid onset group. The moment you realise that even for the small numbers who would have if left alone grown up and pursued trans surgeries that even for this group, medicalising them young results in poorer health and medical outcomes than leaving them to grow up and decide as adults.

The moment you realise the medical industry passes the buck between the surgeons, endocrinologists, psychologists with no one really taking responsibility for the diagnosis. The health "professionals" are trusting that they wouldn't be seeing the patients if they were not trans and the patients are trusting the HCP that they wouldn't treat them if they were not. And they are trusting the treatments are more effective and safe than they are. What a mess.

To get where we need to be to protect young people, we need more people to see this stuff. I appreciate the frustration of the women who have been begging for them to see it. But watching people gradually peak and encouraging them along is part of how we get there.

I do think AN .want what society was doing and he's right though I can understand women wanting to stand up and say "we objected" too

I think the most annoying thing about the golden bridge will be being forced to listen to them all loudly trumpeting yet more crappy takes as they march all the way back.

She has four children, and gets incandescent about how the ideology is affecting kids.

I understand people not being familiar with every aspect, including the heavily censored photos, but Andrew Neil is the chairman of the spectator. They have run gender critical content for years. Likewise GB news, which he was instrumental in setting up.

I do believe him, though. And yes, I agree with other posters that sometimes hearing the first hand experience brings it home, like nothing else.

AN referenced the clip of Chloe Cole speaking at a USA hearing. Her message is very much "don't let what happened to me happen to someone else". She is very articulate and measured, and determined to make the best of her life after what happened to hear. It is very clear from her speech that all that was needed between her gender distress as a young teen and her at 19 was puberty, time and compassion - not medical intervention and the horrendous side effects she will have to deal with for the rest of her life. Not a big ask - and what happened was that she got hijacked by the dead daughter/alive son gender ideology blackmail.

I think he meant "we" as in the decision makers behind all this, and to a lesser extent society in general - not the many feminists and allies protesting for so many years.

Bev's tweet is spot on in my opinion. Many of us didn't realise how harmful this gender ideology is until relatively late on, it was all being orchestrated behind closed doors. Let's not berate those for whom it's just clicked.

I posted a link a couple of posts above yours. No film footage though, so didn’t notice any wide eyes.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/helen-joyce-the-truth-about-trans-and-why-sex-matters/

I’d heard about the world-famous Tavistock years before the recent high profile of trans people, and knew the lengthy counselling their (relatively few) gender dysphoric patients/clients had to undergo, along with two years of “living as a woman” (or man, although that seemed much rarer back then).

So I can understand that people must have assumed that is still the case, that it wasn’t something undertaken lightly and every psychological avenue had been thoroughly explored, when in reality the newer, bigger GIDS either ignored non-gender issues or discharged those without dysphoria, without addressing anything else like autism, ADHD, eating disorders.

Local CAMHS will have assumed the kids they referred were receiving world-class psychological therapy rather than being placed on a medical transition pathway after two or three sessions. Endocrinologists prescribing blockers/cross-sex hormones may have assumed the diagnosis of gender dysphoria must be sound for the same reasons.

We knew on a broad level what was happening but assumed it must be legit, is what I’m trying to say. Detransitioners are key to “peaking” people, to opening complacent eyes.

I don't believe for a second that he wasn't aware of these issues before now. It's suddenly more acceptable to say something so he's jumping in now when he could have done so quite a while ago.

They'll all come crawling out of the woodwork soon enough and women will be castigated for not being sufficiently grateful. Yes the support will help to end this sooner, but we shouldn't be expected to grovel for it or stroke egos.

If they want to turn up and get stuck in great, but they seem to think there should be a red carpet while we all stop and admire them.

I understand the anger, I understand the frustration, I understand it's really bloody infuriating that women are invisible.
Shouting at him doesn't help. I want all this crap pushed back, I don't want him pushed away by women's righteous anger.
I'm not interested in being 'right' I'm interested in winning and for that we need more and more people on board.
And Andrew Neil is an important voice.

He's horrified by child "gender affirmation surgery" and he has a wide reach. Good. Sorry but I can't get the anger directed to him for peaking. Self-ID for adults most likely is not linked in people's minds with the horrors of medicating and operating on kids. I'd love to see him start asking politicians about GIDS. Send him info, lots of it!

He stepped down from that not longer after it began. He was then given his own show on Channel 4.

I imagine he may not have realised the Wild West nature of surgery for youngsters. And how they were funnelled along, encouraged by various people consumed by their own self interest.

I'm sure he has no trouble, perhaps less than most people, in immediately grasping the cynical nature of this weaponising of children's distress. Particularly if he is also seeing the sexual side of transgenderism. It's a lightbulb moment.

If he gets pushed away, he never cared.

You either care about this stuff or you dont.

If some angry women let off steam, so be it, if he decides some angry women aren't worth saying something towards stopping this shit, then ok, we never lost anything.
In fact he could maybe educate his self as we all had to, realise we've been saying this for actual decades, so how did he miss it, and decide despite our shrill* voices we are being more than reasonable for a section of society that is never ever listened to.

*yes we are not shrill, but I guarantee he will think it.

The only thing that's pissed me off is how he's made it into an "allyship" thing. And made out he 'must not be alienated' by women in order for him to engage, which is a bit meh. A tad "knight on horseback."

He's specifically commented on detransitioners. a description of medical mistake making of the highest order.

The group aren't just women, they're men and children.

It's medical negligence.

I don't especially care because the job needs doing, but I can absolutely see why some female journalists are pissed off with him. Especially those who lost jobs.

Agree @Ourladycheesusedatum and @WarriorN, you've expressed it very well.

I wasn't sure if I was.

In his subsequent tweets he's talking as if this is a "side" to take - and why I have always disliked the label of "GC feminists" that's become GCers aka terfs (though sometimes do refer to it for ease).

Which means I don't think he really gets it. He's being overly defensive.

But from the general public's pov it's splitting hairs and not worth yelling at him. It needs to become common knowledge that children are being severely damaged by this un evidenced moneymaking "health care."

I agree with your last two posts, @WarriorN

If he starts bringing it to a wider audience, great.

Looks like AN has unblocked Glinner ...?

https://twitter.com/glinner/status/1685797994979794944?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Not to blow @afneil's mind after he very graciously unblocked me, but this in my opinion is the worst story of the whole fight. It is the stuff of horror movies but I assure him it's all true. (Short thread)

He goes on to discuss WPATH and Genevieve Gluck's work on exposing the eunuch files and links to current WPATH guidelines

If AN is really reading and listening, he could definitely have clout here.,

Ah there we go.

He's got the memo

Frances is ace

@WarriorN this is great news! Unblocking Glinner and a beautifully articulated acknowledgement that he understands why there is anger (some of which is directed at his own prior ignorance). It sounds like he's got a determination kicking in.
Looking forward to seeing what difference he can make in the media to get this properly out in the open. When the public consciousnesses wakes up to the medical scandal this will be huge. More importantly, it will help those who would otherwise be swept up in it and get decent care for the detransitioners who have gone before them.