Cass report and men...

[akkakk]

I have posted a fair bit on this part of Mumsnet recently - supporting a GC response and understanding of the trans-ideology challenges we are seeing in society...

Not surprisingly - most on here with that view point are female (I am male) so seeing the responses to the Cass report on here today I went onto Pistonheads (a very male forum) to compare the reaction - zero discussion or response.

I appreciate that there is drive for women to not allow men to take over their spaces / sports / very definition, and so there is perhaps a logic that fewer men are involved in the necessary push-back against the trans-ideology movement... but the Cass Report is not about women's spaces, it is not about toilets and sports etc. (despite those being hugely important topics), instead, at its heart, it is a response to what will no doubt be seen as one of the biggest safeguarding scandals to hit our country - where adults experimented on children who had no capacity to make those decisions by themselves and relied on the adults to protect them - where mental health issues were swept under the carpet in an ideological fantasy world that surgery would somehow work, whereas it was only ever a validation of a skewed adult perspective, not a solution for children crying out for help...

So, the Cass report is as relevant to men as women - we all as adults carry a duty of care and safeguarding towards the children in our society... it is so superb that Dr Cass has stood quietly and firmly as a rock against what sometimes appeared to be a dominant incoming tide - hopefully it will be a huge catalyst for change... but that needs all adults to take responsibility - for what society has done, and for what we do going forward to sort out this mess.

So, in asking who is standing up to support this and help work towards bringing back a balanced society which actually cares for our children - I have to ask, where are the men? Sure, a few have been vocal publicly but very few... it will be interesting to see how this now plays out - this part of the story is not just a woman's story or campaign (and I really am not devaluing the other elements where I have been a very vocal supporter), this is a society issue that needs resolving and if we don't have the engagement of all parties it won't happen.

Yeah, I agree. Mind you, my limited travels around the internet have shown that many of the places where this was being discussed are absolutely silent on this issue. I think it's hard for people who were in favour of transing children - they are waiting for how to discredit it. But for men who didn't bother getting involved (even if they didn't think it was a great idea), they still probably think it's a middle aged women's thing and they aren't arsed.

That's just speculation though. But most of the men I know personally were all be kind women, it doesn't affect you, marginalised minority if they had to say anything and you could see they didn't bother considering it any further.

I can’t tell you the answer to that but I would say I have enthusiastically welcomed and encouraged every man who does express a view. I have also made sure that my husband and two adult sons were kept fully informed of the damage that was being done to children and the erosion of women’s rights. FWIW my 2 sons (in their 20s) are GC and so are all their friends.

DH has been more vocal on social media (especially around sport) than I ever have - I think he feels a protection from “cancellation” as a man that I didn’t as a woman. Plus he’s probably less “be kind” conditioned than I am. But I don’t think he is quite as engaged with the child protection side of things as he is with the sport side.

I'm male, I have a daughter (so it matters for safety) and I have a son who has autism and instead was told by a local trans charity he might be trans because he felt like he was different and not part of the gang at school.

I am fucking fuming about this and will tell anyone I can at any opportunity what a shit show this is of everyone involved

It does feel a bit as if it is women who need to speak up, and that when they do, things change.

Dr Polly Carmichael, Ruth Hunt and Susie Green have been three of the most influential people in making the medical transition of children appear normal in the UK. When court cases appear showing conflict between parents on transitioning a child, it does seem to be more likely that the mother will be the one who is pro-transition (I don't have any figures on that one though). Conversely, some of the most important whistleblowers at GIDS in my view have been women. I know that David Bell and Marcus Evans are men! But reading Time to Think you can see who from the therapists' team challenged the leadership most.

I hope men do speak up. But it is truly odd to me that so many women thought (and continue to think) that socially and medically transitioning children is OK. I also think that bullying of girls by other girls is underreported and undermanaged in schools, and that it is a factor in girls transitioning.

@PermanentTemporary you make some good points - do you think that this is simply a societal norm that men don't consider children to be 'their issue'?

I feel quite strongly that it is helpful to look at a lot of this from a safeguarding perspective - i.e. as adults our job is to help children make decisions that grow them into the adults they deserve to be, i.e. safeguarding is focused on benefitting the child but with an adult knowledge and experience - we don't let children play with fire, we teach them road safety, we don't let them put marbles in their mouth - all obvious things but where a child's instinct or desire might want to do something not safe - but looking after children means that as adults we know when to intervene for their benefit...

A child who says I am in puberty / am confused about who I am / have mental health issues / etc. doesn't deserve an adult response which tells them to mutilate themselves and take non-reversible drugs to fit an adult twisted perspective / to validate the adults. So - totally a safeguarding issue...

Like you I am a little more surprised that some women have also played that game - esp. when the trans-ideology movement is so male driven but that possibly is a whole extra area of psychology to unpack!

Ultimately though we have a safeguarding issue - we live in a world where rightly the norm is to agree that safeguarding is a good thing - so it is one of the tools of putting this whole area right... and that is going to have to involve men as well as women - from politicians to GPs to NHS management to the courts - there is a domination in higher positions and authority from men - if they are not a part of the solution, not much will happen...

Isn't it mostly the women who have trans kids who are supporting this though? They've been lied to, but as mums our first instinct is to protect our kids (or should be) and if it's presented to them as 'would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter' many mums are going to go along with that. That's going to seem much more vital to them than the more abstract concept of "women's rights" and they won't think of it as not safeguarding in so many other ways. And it's such a recent thing, historically speaking, in the numbers going through it, that most parents of 'trans kids' haven't seen the long-term effects and consequences yet.

good points - and yes, I suspect that on the ground it is mothers who are more involved, but those driving it / head teachers setting policy / NHS management / doctors / etc. will be both male and female

I'm also male. I'm not on any other SM anymore, so dont have a sense of whether its being widely talked about on more male dominated forums, but can quite believe you that it's not. I used to argue with people about gender in the guardian comments but they kicked me off. I can well imagine how a conversation would go there if they allowed one.

I think on the whole men are not as clued in to safeguarding or thinking about child development as women are unless they have a career in a related area or other personal reason to do so. E.g. I don't think your average male mechanic or engineer is paying a lot of attention.

I also think there's something in 'trans kids' having been othered even though it's been done in a these kids are super special and brave way. So they are set apart from other children as not quite children or not children like your children.

Someone mentioned on here yesterday about them being a cohort of children that have been adultified. Probably some parallels there with how black children can also be adultified in the media and the eyes of other adults.

As a generalisation I think women can see past this a bit easier. Indeed much of the campaigning that has resulted in the final Cass report is because people, largely women, could see these children were not afforded the due diligence and standards of care other children get.

My DH is quite head in sand. He doesn't think men can become women but he doesn't see the wider safeguarding issues (deliberately imo as his workplace is full on twaw and it would be an uncomfortable place to be - yes I am disappointed in him)

There need to be people losing their jobs for it to turn around imo. For a start the head of each adult gender clinic that denied Cass data. They are public servants, this was a government investigation by a medic with unimpeachable credentials. If you're not going to hand over data in that situation then you are unable to fulfill your duty to the public in any situation and need to go.

People losing jobs is needed because the McCarthyist witch hunter generals are still in the workplace scaring people (see Jo Ps tribunal tweets for examples). Only when people lose jobs for going along with this anti-science anti- safeguarding, anti-data anti-free discussion ideology will the fear of the witch hunts abate.

One thing that gives me hope is reading comments in the Times and Telegraph. I now see so many men incandescent at what's happened to children - and women's rights.
Many of them speak as fathers, some as gay men and often their direct language and pertinent comments would get them banned on here. But they all hold the government and captured organisations responsible for this. Most of them don't make a right wing / left wing point - they see it as a child grooming and safeguarding issue.
As I watch so many left wing men and women twisting and turning in order to undermine Cass and ignore the harm done to children it gives me hope that there's a majority who will stand up and protect the young.

Safeguarding is everyone’s business.

Not surprisingly - most on here with that view point are female (I am male) so seeing the responses to the Cass report on here today I went onto Pistonheads (a very male forum) to compare the reaction - zero discussion or response.

There are a fair few threads on Datalounge. Example: https://www.datalounge.com/thread/34225006-uk-to-ban-transitioning-to-25#34225870

Single Track World is a site for middle aged men who used to cycle. There have been a couple of threads that discuss trans activism and women’s rights.

There are only a couple of women involved, and I think one trans person and one parent who believes his daughter is now his son. Of those involved in the argument I’d guess a small majority are GC, but the TRAs are a lot louder, more strident, more insulting, and more prone to hissy fits and flounces when others disagree with their unevidenced nonsense.

There hasn’t been a discussion about Cass, or any other trans issue, for a few months. I think people are steering clear of it as it gets so heated.

There is a very pro-TRA editor. She’s female.

It’s discussed on PistonHeads here

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=2068005

there was a very, very long thread on PH about trans issues but it was closed a little while back. Too toxic apparently.

Well, this. I'm right in the Red Wall, and folk round here don't have any doubt about what a woman is. And when I've pointed out to friends the fragrant Isla, and DQST and so on, they are WTAF. But this isn't going away. There's going to be more and more talk and publicity.

“people are steering clear of it as it gets so heated”

My adult sons won’t talk about it, think I’m obsessed.

It’s funny how combative men can be about some things, but not others. I saw my brother get into a dick swinging match about his company car, my BiL will swear up is down for a good argument, but no one wants to talk about this one.

Based on nothing but my own life and experience I do think that women tend to the more proactive in social and family spheres and that will go in both directions, the vicious campaigning and support for transing their child or threatening schools with legal action for changing their child's pronouns without permission. Men in my experience tend to take the path of least resistance socially. Namalt of course and it isn't really a bad trait as such, it might cause less drama in their relationships but also might be attributed to men being more lonely and less connected? I'm rambling I know.

I suspect the idea of pp that men default to children-as-extension-to-women is right to some degree and this isn't surprising as we make the transition from full time mother (even if only for a few weeks) to often part time roles. My husband is a good egg and does his share but because I'm part time and took three years out to have kids, he does turn to me about school stuff, emails, pick up times, applications, permission slips etc. he absolutely would and could do it if I was incapacitated but these are the roles we have fallen into, he does other things like our finances which again he took on when I was too exhausted and distracted.

Misposted! Edited to delete

Edited to delete too! 🤣

The Cass report has been near the top of both the Unitedkingdom and UKpolitics subreddits over the last few days, both massively male dominated spaces, and most of the upvoted comments there have been of the gender critical variety.

So I don't think there's a dearth of men discussing it particularly.

That gives me some hope - society to be strong should not split into men v women it needs to be right v wrong…

That is horrendous. I would be fuming too.