Fall out of CASS report

[Sparklybutold]

In light of the CASS report, there is still a long way to go. At least that's how it feels. I was bullied, harassed, discriminated against. I told my university there was a serious problem. I was ignored, shamed, and gaslit. By so called professionals. My qualification has been impacted. My physical health took a dive and there were times I thought I was losing my mind. I want to so desperately name and shame openly. I want to directly let the one person who instigated this know the damage they caused. Anyone else feel the same?

I agree strongly with this. Medical scandals take far, far longer to get resolved and the right people brought to account than political scandals.

For example thalidomide was licensed in the late 50s, withdrawn in 1961, compensation not granted until 1968 and no blame was taken, the compensation was small. It then took a further 15 or so years for the Thalidomide Children's Trust to be set up and start campaigning and not until the late 1990s when Diageo, which owned the company that had produced thalidomide, paid a more reasonable compensation and acknowledged the role of the corporation concerned. Probably wasn't until the late 80s/early 90s that the depth and breadth of the scandal really permeated the public consciousness.

the UK Govt's review and £20m compensation didn't happen until 2009.

My point being that these things take a long while to play out (look at Post Office or MMR vaccine-autism lies) and I think this will be the same.

What goes into kcsie and the gender questioning guidance for schools could have a lot of wider impact as all the set ups that have been making money via schools in this area will be forced to adjust and change. Universities too.

As kcsie is statutory everyone has to follow it.

I confess I was actually surprised at the tone of debate in parliament. The Overton window has moved on what is deemed acceptable to say. I feel like this is the biggest shift I’ve seen.

That said, the continuing levels of capture in the UN, WHO and all kinds of other international bodies and charities makes what feels like a significant victory on the ground, look more like a small skirmish.

I can’t tell where this is going to end, but at least it’s looking like some things in the UK can now be approached, in ways they couldn’t before. So I hope that you get some help and justice, OP. What strikes me from your posts is the sheer scale of harassment one individual can inflict when backed by poor systems and biased rules. It’s a frightening exposure of power being wielded and how things can go badly wrong.

I am not optimistic that the Cass report is the 'gotcha' many people hope it is. It has been challenged on many fronts and the Cass report talks about trans people for whom cross sex hormones are the right answer.

Medicine has many examples where large numbers of people are treated, all experiencing some side effects, to result in improved outcomes for a small number of people.

I think we will continue to see compelled speech, erosion of the word woman, erosion of women only spaces, expectations of women and girls that are driven by harmful expectations and stereotypes.

The equality and safety of women is no longer a priority in many areas, we no longer see women only initiatives in work, in regards to safety, in sport, in education... this is not coming back any time soon... we are going backwards in terms of ensuring that women have an equal share of voice and influence in places that matter. AI is not reflecting minorty needs, our world is being designed by men and will not be fit for women.

https://thecritic.co.uk/an-athena-swansong/
This is more relevant to Irish Universities but as it is optional for UK Universities it may apply to the UK too. Either way it's worth reading to see how Universities can find themselves captured.

I am not optimistic that the Cass report is the 'gotcha' many people hope it is. It has been challenged on many fronts and the Cass report talks about trans people for whom cross sex hormones are the right answer.

Neither am I @ChateauMargaux. Talking to one of my daughters today, DD1. She hasn't heard of the Cass Report, but was glad that it questions the use of puberty blockers. I did try to discuss/relay facts but I've tried before and it's in one ear and out the other. It's especially hard to discuss for us as one of my other daughters is trans and DD1 fully supports the transition, calls her her brother, etc.
It seems like the Cass Report while acknowledged by some is ignored by others, many are actively trying to discredit it, and with many many others the fact is that they see the report is only talking about children and young people, and mainly puberty blockers in particular.

We have still a long way to go. The Cass Report is another strand coming loose but Gender Ideology has a long way to go before it becomes unravelled.

Jo Bartosch in the Critic lays some of it out

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-cass-review-is-not-the-end/

Hey there. Staffs uni have since stated (informally) that staffs uni have let me down. They have agreed to everything I have stated. The culprit has now moved on. To cause more destruction elsewhere no doubt. I have been encouraged to make a formal complaint. I have asked for financial compensation and support to qualify, whether here or elsewhere, I want to qualify.

I'm really pleased to hear that Sparkly!

Sparkly, that is excellent news. Well done!

Brilliant news!

@ArabellaScott

"In response to the scandal breaking, and if one had been supportive of sterilising vulnerable children, one imagines extreme shame, embarrassment, perhaps contrition.

But it's important to consider that many people were invested in TWAW precisely because of their personality traits - many disingenuous, narcissistic, willing to compromise morals in exchange for power - and some perhaps credulous, gullible, sentimental, zealous. Those traits won't change for most people.

A chap who enjoys wearing a balaclava and shouting at women while wearing a T shirt that says 'kill the terf' is not going to have a sudden change of heart;, he'll find another reason to threaten women, because it excites him."

I completely agree with what you've said so well here.

My hope is that, now threatened, their traits/disorders will manifest so much more sharply and clearly. I kind of look forward to some Rumpelstiltskin moments for a little light relief. I know that isn't the point. But, like in the Victoria Smith piece that was posted, at least everyone would see as clearly as we do. (Hope not just a pipe dream, however it comes to pass...)

Its not even just women, its democratic institutions and processes. I know that seems melodramatic, but even though there has been dirty tricks played in politics since the dawn of time, the idea that its now acceptable to achieve political goals using undemocratic methods has become openly mainstream on the left and right (specifically abortion and trans issues).

This.

Democracy has not faced threats this big since the 1930s. And arguably for long before that.

I don't think many people realise how perilously freedom currently sits.

I agree, @RedToothBrush - we are on a knife-edge here, and most people are totally n=blind to it, because they haven't (yet) been personally touched by it.

Those EDI staff and consultants are not going to give up their livelihoods without a fight. Ruth Hunt and her rewriting of history isagood example.

There are a lot of managers who think management is a tick box exercise. Set targets, achieve targets, earn bonus. EDI targets are relatively simple - just contract out to a third party. In the public sector especially the NHS and in sclerotic organisations like John Lewis, real managers, ones who act dynamically to respond to changes in circumstances and understand their service/business, staff and customers.

Equally in wider society people are used to bubbles of no debate. Concerned about continued membership of the EU or about uncontrolled immigration, or about what was going in Rotherham - you must be a racist. Linked to the American religious far right. Ditto TWAW.

We have to get back to debate. Voicing our opinions and listening to those of others. Thinking and reasoning.

I said it out loud a month or so back in an arty west London book club, with people who pride themselves on their liberal and compassionate views. Men should not be in women’s sport. A feisty former barrister challenged me, but everyone else stayed silent. I held my ground. Cass will help us start saying things out loud.

Which is ironic in a way, when you consider that anyone who does speak up and try to debate is met with a hail of accusations of being “right wing”.

We have to get back to debate. Voicing our opinions and listening to those of others. Thinking and reasoning.

I completely agree with this. I suspect social media may well be to blame (pile-ons, virtue signalling, the inability to debate adequately in 140 characters, thus reducing discourse to soundbite flinging) but we have so often completely lost the ability to debate respectfully and still remain friends with someone with whom we disagree.

A mate of mine and I were in the pub one day. A contentious subject came up and it was clear we had very different views. She asked me why I felt the way I did. I explained. She asked me some questions, since it was something I had involvement in and I answered, and vice versa. We remained on opposing sides of the issue but understood more about each others’ stance and had learned a bit more about the issue. We then moved on with our conversation and remain friends.

But how often does expressing a “wrong view” lead to animosity and the end of friendships because you’ve “demonstrated” that you’re “one of the bad people”?

It’s like the whole thing with LWS events. If a right wing group turns up and I’m there too, it just means we agree on one thing. I don’t generally have right wing views and agreeing on one thing doesn’t mean we agree on anything else whatsoever. But to the social puritans agreeing on one thing is unacceptable and I’m now tainted with being a right wing nut job.

WHY?

But how often does expressing a “wrong view” lead to animosity and the end of friendships because you’ve “demonstrated” that you’re “one of the bad people”?

And given that there are places, like Scotland, where this might be judged as a hate crime by someone?

I did wonder what you meant there Boiled.
But then I thought if only one person in a family is personally impacted by this mess we have been in, the whole family is impacted.
The collective damage is surely immeasurable and still unfolding.

The problem I've seen repeated over and over again is that there is a total lack of historical and political understanding of the far left.

In this country we are taught about the dangers of Nazis repeatedly and well.

But we are taught little about the abuse and dangerous of Communism and the far left. Instead it can almost be glorified. Norovirsus media and its cheer leaders present Communism as something completely different to what it is too, which doesn't help.

Young people in the UK do not under who Stalin was, who the Stasi were, who the KGB were, don't draw parallels or questions over the Chinese or Vietnamese governments, don't under who the Khmer Rogue were etc etc.

The only time, I've REALLY learnt about it has been from spending time in Eastern Europe particularly in Lativa, Hungary and the former Yugoslav Republics. This is despite extended family members being directly affected by the division of Germany and the Berlin Wall (my grandfather remarried a german woman) and seeing the Iron Curtain before it fell.

We happened to be in Riga on 20 Jan a few years back and they had memorial services and candles in the part which we didn't understand. We looked it up...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Barricades
It was about resistence to Soviet oppression trying to prevent Independence. In 1991. This isn't ancient history. Yet I didn't really know about it (I was 12 at the time of The Barricades).

In Hungary we visited The House of Terror in Budapest which is a museum dedicated to the Stasi https://terrorhaza.hu/en

Honestly, we should be aware that this is a problem within history teaching in the UK. Its a massive gap in understanding the world and has much more relevance and importance to us than knowing about zillions of Kings and Queens.

Orwell, of course, wrote 1984 as a warning against the far left which he viewed as a huge danger to British Society - more so than the far right - because culturally he thought we were more vulnerable to it.

He explicitly talked about 'wrong think'.

We've literally got a book spelling out the issues, yet the SNP still see this as a manifesto not a warning about the power of censorship and the risks of the abuse of the power of censorship.

Its totally fucked up.

But we are taught little about the abuse and dangerous of Communism and the far left. Instead it can almost be glorified.

As a communist (Marxist) I don't actually see the far left as embracing communism so much as an odd form of identity politics influenced ultra-liberalism with an equally odd prejudice against free speech. They are influenced by neoliberalism if nothing else. Most couldn't tell you the name of three books that Marx wrote let alone hold forth on the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production or tell you what surplus-vale and profit are.

We’re in full on Orwell plus McCarthyism

I’m glad others find it as mad as I do because I look at the AIBIU threads on this topic and just think what

Yes to McCarthyism as well!