Hadley Freeman Article About Graham LInehan

[Igneococcus]

Not actually read it yet but here for anybody who'd like to read:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6f23ce7c-596a-11ee-a62b-d21c2c8f0b9b?shareToken=3adab3e87e06a1d37788d0b2482f02b6

I don't think anyone on this side of the debate is saying that what is happening to trans kids is not awful. What I am saying is that to compare the actions of the doctors involved to Mengele and the Nazis is inaccurate and unhelpful. They can be bad /unethical/ whatever without being actual Nazis. This distinction is surely not too hard to see.

There’s no such thing as trans children so essentially these doctors are experimenting on young people with mental health issues.

Its not a comparison I’ll make myself but it’s not that far off.

Unethical doesn’t go far enough in my view.

Are people being so delicate for fear of offending the Nazis?

I think the problem is the term nazi was brought into the arena by TRAs.

It's perhaps hard to hear a term being used so inaccurately and not retaliate.

I echo above thoughts. Whilst I wouldn't necessarily make the Nazi comparison myself, unethical is too mild a term. Some doctors are acting without or against evidence, based upon their own prejudices. On children.

So we are looking at a spectrum of how unethical the treatment of children who are 'gender diverse' is, and different observers have different references and ways they'd frame it, from the low end of 'unevidenced, hasty, and potentially extremely harmful treatment administered in good faith but with poor reasoning' rising to 'a captured health service has allowed activists to push for the mutilation and sterilisation of children with previously healthy bodies' right through 'cruel experimentation', 'NHS Scotland publishes guidelines that advocate that children can have eunuch gender identity', and at the far end probably sits 'Mengelian'.

I personally probably wouldn't draw the Mengelian comparison, fwiw.

But everything else there seems fairly unarguable to me.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10922531/Eunuch-recognised-gender-according-Scottish-NHS-removed-document.html

'NHS Forth Valley follows the guidance set out in the Gender Reassignment Protocol for Scotland. This protocol incorporates recommendations from the 7th edition of The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care, September 2011.'

To be fair 7th edition hadn't quite got up to speed with Eunuch Gender.

But clearly NHS Scotland are still using recommendations from this highly dubious and imo dangerous organisation as the basis for treating children and young people.

https://nhsforthvalley.com/health-services/az-of-services/transexual-and-sex-change/

No, it’s a Jewish journalist who lost family in the Holocaust (her book about her family history, House Of Glass, is excellent) objecting to anyone on “our side” using Nazi comparisons.

Totally get this and agree I wouldn’t use it myself BUT Glinner has been treated abominably and Hadley’s digs against his marriage and his friends (her hint of his lack of them) just seemed so Unnecessary and below the belt. She could just say she disagrees with him using Nazi comparisons and leave it at that.

I know we aren’t all going to agree about everything but I really hate any infighting on our side of the debate as we need a United front against this plague.

Comparing to the Nazis is never a good look, but it's hard to avoid feeling that people are looking for a stick to beat GL with, and this comes in very handy. And what those doctors were doing to children is disgraceful.

Hardly anyone here is willing to tackle the fact that these patients have made it very clear that they desire the treatment. It's easy to say that it's unethical to do it ("Do no harm" as Hippocrates said), but maybe not so easy to say that the doctors should refuse the patient's wishes, perhaps with an added suggestion that there's a mental health issue that should be addressed instead.

I don't think it's fair just to blame the doctors. Mengele's victims were helpless prisoners, but now it's a case of people freely choosing something, or choosing it on behalf of their children. There's a responsibility on that side too.

These people are mentally unwell and their parents are deluded/have munchausens by proxy.

The young people are victims

Yea it is unethical to sterilise children. And it is easy to see this and to say so.

Medics understand very well that they can't unquestioningly 'affirm' a patient's wishes.

I absolutely respect everything Glinner has done in this fight.

For a completely out of left field quote/reference. I always think the quote below from Due South (90s crime drama) sums up Glinner's style. Fraser is the only person to stand up to a local mob boss when everyone else, including the police and legal system, are too scared and he's isolated from his friends in his stubbornness not to back down against a clear abuse of power.

Fraser: You think I'm being selfish and single-minded?
Fraser's dad: Oh, you're more than that son. You're obsessive, overbearing, possibly even arrogant.
Fraser: Well, thanks a lot Dad. That makes me feel a whole lot better.
Fraser's dad: But you've been right.

And Glinner is right.

Only about 18 months ago I'd have agreed with Hadley about her assessment of Glinner.

But now I feel grateful for him and also KJK. As others have said, you need people like this in this debate, completely 'no shits' people - just leave them be to do their thing.

I agree with her it's easy to get fixated on this. But why wouldn't you? That would be really interesting to explore.

I'm also of the view that it's fixated people that actually drive things forward in life. Look at KJK for example.

I am not sure how to phrase this, but I think it’s probably very difficult to go up against an extreme movement without matching them at some level. I don’t mean in bad behavior, but perhaps in fervor and vigorous commitment.

I think, without people willing to put in that much effort at one end of the spectrum, it makes it harder for more moderate people to move the dial alone. So while I don’t always agree with everything he says (not sure there’s a person I’ve ever met with whom I agree with everything, given we’re all individuals), I can certainly appreciate what he’s done and be glad for people that are almost fearless, or who have that fear but do it anyway!

On a separate point, I realized I’m not following him on Twitter. When I search for him, it brings up all of the parody accounts. Even when I actually type his username @glinner, I can only find him by him being mentioned by somebody else in an actual post and clicking on the link. I don’t have that problem with other people I don’t follow, so that’s a little strange. I’ve followed him now, but odd. For example, I can easily find Russell Brand in a username search!

Does the same happen for anyone else?

Stare into the abyss, etc.

I think that’s very true @DogsAkimbo

in the early days when the TRA momentum seemed unstoppable, when jkr had made her first foray and then retreated for a while to do some more research (and then obviously came back swinging!) when it seemed every profile on Twitter was announcing their pronouns, Glinner was standing firm with only a handful of others and taking the fight to TRA.

it made a huge difference as far as I’m concerned

@HermioneKipper - I didn’t read it as a dig. Hadley seems surprised Glinner’s taken it as a dig, which makes me think it was not her intention (because she’s been a pretty decent person thus far so I give her some credit.)

I took it as “look at all he’s given up or had stripped away! I could easily have gone down that route myself, and I’m glad friends pulled me back. Where he’s ended up is a tragedy, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

Yes, Glinner’s reputation here and in some GC circles is great, but his professional reputation has been ruined, the bulk of the (totally captured) creative world won’t touch him with a barge pole, people he worked with for years hung him out to dry and he’s skint.

He’s been great at supporting some GC women and pretty horrible to others. God knows his heart is in the right place m, while his manner and tactics sometimes very much are not.

I can see that in his current mindset he feels attacked and belittled but that’s not what I think HF was aiming at. And when you’ve been through what he has, I expect anything other than a ringing endorsement feels hurtful.

Yep, you’re not wrong.

Also imagining the last boat to the elven (terven!) unforgotten lands when all this is done (will it ever all be done?).

I've tried in my own way to say this, you've got it across way better than me.

I also see her as a decent person which is why I found it unexpected. I think her tone is off on this one (even if unintended). Because I think she’s decent, brave and I generally like her writing - I would generally view her positively - so the fact I’m still scratching my head makes me think it does come across somewhat negatively. I think perhaps because it sounds a little personally insulting vs objective criticism.

It's quite possible she did not mean to be so rude.