Janice Turner - Class snobbery is at the heart of NHS gender war

[DisappearingGirl]

Janice Turner article - headline looks interesting but I don't have a share token sorry!

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/class-snobbery-is-at-heart-of-nhs-gender-war-mz8pdsw3s

I don't care at all what a person believes. It's what they do that matters.

I think it interesting that someone mentioned James OB because he is the very embodiment of patronising progressive group think. He is completely tin eared on gender matters and dismisses GC view points by putting his fingers in his ears and singing la la la.
I think his callers are now mostly self selecting so that anyone with the opposing view won't bother. JOB deploys his deflecting strategies to dismiss their views and emerge triumphant from the bout. He learns nothing whatsoever from the encounter and nor does the listener. It isn't by accident that one of his books is called how to be right about everything. Only he could choose such a goady title

No, I probably wasn't clear enough. I think there was a kneejerk response from some people whose lives haven't been adversely affected by immigration, rather the contrary, to think that other people, living in completely different circumstances, should also be delighted to see uncontrolled immigration into their local areas. I also think there's been a head in the sand attitude to the problems caused by certain specific groups failing to integrate into UK society, to the extent that they don't all learn English and they cling to some attitudes and practices which are against UK law and/or which the majority of UK residents find unacceptable.

It's not simple, though. Many of the migrants who came here were better educated and trained and willing to work for lower wages and live in worse conditions than indigenous UK workers, so of course they got jobs. Many employers who took on migrants had really struggled to get anybody to do their work previously. We can argue about whether they would have had more success if they'd paid more but it isn't just that. Early starts, outdoor work, hard manual labour (e.g. picking fruit and veg) are never going to appeal to everybody and we have a fairly generous welfare system which keeps people going even if they never manage to last at a job for more than a few days. A sign that it wasn't just about unfair competition from migrants is that when a great many of them went home after Brexit farmers, care agencies, cafes and so on all struggled to find workers from those who are left.

Anyway, I've strayed a long way from Fife and the Peggie case.

I am certain any pro-bono work is factored into the NHS Fife charges. You are not going to find JR having to count any pennies at the end of the month.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g No, I think you’re right and it is all very much from the same attitude.

There could in principle have been an accommodation which took account of the differing points of view – on gender by having universal individual facilities, by building different infrastructure for trans, by having whole areas where it just wasn’t allowed; on immigration by being highly selective on who was admitted and for what sectors, by disapplying human rights, by being ruthless in enforcing returns. And so on.

But in practice no, and instead we got name-calling, militancy by interest groups, and whole flabby sectors which grew up dependent on keeping the carousel turning.

Ultimately nothing was done properly or with forethought, and so I don’t think we can really expect that the unravelling is going to be orderly either.

He can get away with his lies because of his middle class upbringing and his job status.

Sandie, on the other hand with a much tougher upbringing, gets a public kicking. Even in state schools by the end of year 11 the class divide is practically ingrained and students who were very pally in year 9 are basically on nodding terms in year 11. I fear we are all guilty of it to some degree, you only have to read some of the comments that we have written along the lines of I couldn’t be her friend because she is racist. The implication being that Sandie is good enough to treat us in A&E but god forbid we should have to mix with her.

I specifically didn't read the What's App messages, they mean nothing.
I remember years ago at uni telling some hilarious Polish jokes (that my Polish uni friend told Jewish me) my super WASPY friend was uncomfortable with ethnic humor and told me to stop, when I didn't she threatened me. That ended my friendship.
Don't judge, don't label private communications. It doesn't prove you are a morally superior person; mostly that you're a judgemental twat.

My point was that she must have come across the concept of the claimant not paying for their expensive legal representation before, she’s just being disingenuous.

I'm sure asking who was funding Peggie was based on an awareness of the class issue. It was an attempt to paint a doctor, and hospital workers in general as poor compared with billionaire JKR.

It also indirectly highlighted that lots of workers arent expected to have any access to courts around how they are treated at work. Its as if she was been awkward expecting good working conditions.

Absolutely this. As on so many issues, overprivileged middle-class kids scolding working-class adults who have to deal with all the shit.

Time to trot this out again. Seven years old. I bet the annoying students have moved on and are doing all right. I wouldn't be so sure about the women of Deptford. https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/03/23/leftist-women-uk-refuse-accept-labours-attempts-silence-critiques-gender-identity/

This is a really interesting discussion and I agree with most of what people are saying. Definitely parallels with race, and also things like EDI - there's a balance, and if you push things too far, the other side will push back.

I think it also resonates with a lot of the posts on AIBU recently about neurodiversity, reasonable adjustments, welfare, etc etc where it feels like there's a balance to be had and we're not quite there yet.

I agree with matresense points about JKR. I admire her hugely and agree with most of her principles. But I agree some of her more recent posts are very strident and even unkind at times. I feel conflicted about this! I do feel it's a shame she's been pushed to the point where she thinks "fuck it". On the other hand it can be refreshing to see an intelligent educated woman with no fucks to give.

Interesting.

Crumbs I have never heard of doctors being classified as poor.

I don’t think you can group Upton and Sandie in the same wage bracket.

Sadly, and sorry if someone else has made this point, it is too neat and in fact not true to say it is about class.

After all much of the media support for sex based rights (apart from the DM who I wouldn't date classify!) is in the Times and the Telegraph. Who have a high ratio of snobbery.

If you look at what has happened to the BMA and all (most?) NHS Trusts it seems to come from those who may well have a privileged background, but somewhere along the way of "growing up" and getting an education, have taken on a minority belief that they think is their mission to impose on everyone else. It may be true that their back ground and education makes them feel confident to behave in this intolerant way.

What is more interesting is why so many NHS trusts have submitted. And this decision wouldn't have been taken by the elite within the medical practitioners, but those somewhere in middle management.

So nothing in the article persuades me to change my mind that the main cause of this capture is that women are not considered important enough to be thought about or listened to.

And it will have been many women complying with this trans takeover.

Lets call it what it is.

Misogyny

I'm not sure about Upton being a decent person tbh. He fabricated professional concerns about Peggie

I am perfectly sure that he isn’t a decent person!

But, importantly, he made very serious allegations against Sandie’s professional competence, which she denied and which were never proved or backed by anyone else.

Why is he not being prosecuted or at the very least investigated for that?

This.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying. It’s just that when you said that “a great many” people had hidden their views and you were shocked that racism still existed you were saying that all such people were racist. I think very few people are actually raging racists - frustrated with the management of immigration and quite keen to limit it far more (and intemperate about expressing their views sometimes), yes, but actually full blown racists, no.

And @DisappearingGirl

i totally agree about JKR. She has now had so much shit that I’d defend her right to speak up almost to the hilt, but she says things I wouldn’t say myself.

There's an idea that trans is like an iceberg, its only the agressive activists who can be seen. And we have to consider the good trans, below the surface, who aren't troubling anyone.

So JKR is being unfair to the unseen trans by focusing on the TRA? Its how the management of Fife probably feel. Upton to them, is vulnerable, not sexually motivated. It's wrong of Peggie to suggest that their vulnerable colleague is harassing her and she is focusing is on the wrong kind of trans.

Rather than think women are too critical, I'd put it the other way, how far can a man impersonate women before we can critising him?

What are you talking about? We are not going back to being kind because of an iceberg idea. Too many women have been intimidated by this ideology, forced to be quiet because they are too scared to speak. Women are being pushed out of sport. That’s what being kind has done for women.

why can’t we have women only spaces? Why can’t we have women only wards? Why can’t we have women only service provision? Why do we have to share with fully intact males eg Uptonogood ? He doesn’t come out of this Fife business all squeaky clean especially with all this note-taking nonsense and allegations of Sandie putting patients in danger.

Why do we all have to accept the erosion of our language with the introduction of chest-feeders, birth givers, cervix possessors? We are being eradicated for what?

Oh of course Labour didn’t hold its women’s conference because men objected that they could be there.

Honestly it’s all about pandering to men.

I agree, any other disadvantaged social group people would be up in arms at the colonisation and appropriation of our stuff by a traditionally oppressive class.

With all due respect, I find it difficult to believe her. I’ve been unwell for over four weeks now, and during that time, I’ve repeatedly felt dismissed by some of the female staff at A&E. It was only the male doctors and nurses who truly listened to me, took my concerns seriously, and provided the help I needed. This experience has been disheartening, and it’s made me question the consistency of care and empathy within the system with these nhs working women

There was no reason for Cameron not to negotiate a soft Brexit. Nothing on the ballot defined it after all. But he ran away instead. Post Brexit , many small firms complaining that there are different documents needed for various EU countries they export to. Thats because we are all sovereign nations making all but a tiny % of our own laws you see and helping to draft EU rules . As was the UK in 2016.

Schrödingers EU : -
It's an oversized behemoth constantly interfering in British politics.
No wait ....it is weak and useless and can't stand up to Trump.

I know a fair few proper working class people who aren't racist , are sex realists and pro EU. Having said all that I think Turner makes good points. As does Kenan Malik , especially on class from a left perspective. The most important axis that gets left out as PPS have said.

I saw this article too. Very good. I'd already thought that the case would have been very different if it had been a female doctor reacting to a trans identifying male-bodied nurse, but hadn't really thought about the class aspects.

She was also livid about the fact that more money is being spent on further cases instead of the organisations concerned dropping them.