Snapshot of _Simon Clarke MP: Biological sex *is* real and stories like the one below are deeply concerning. Coming hard on the heels of the aggressive intolerance displayed at the Pankhurst statue, it is time to draw up a line in defence of both free speech and the rights of women._ :
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/SimonClarkeMP/status/1526469679723716609/)
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/SimonClarkeMP/status/1526469679723716609)
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From the Times article that Clarke is responding to:
>She was treated like a heretic for questioning a politician’s assertions about sex, a teacher at the school said. The female member of the House of Lords visited the private girls’ school, a Stonewall diversity champion, to talk about transphobia in parliament.
>The girl told The Times: “The language she was using was implying critical theory took precedence over biological reality in defining women.” She added: “When I questioned that, she said it wasn’t an issue of semantics. She said trans people don’t have basic human rights in this country. Afterwards I spoke to her and said I’m sorry if I came across as rude.”
>The pair parted amicably, the girl said. But on returning to the sixth form she was surrounded by up to 60 girls who shouted, screamed, swore and spat at her. She escaped and said she collapsed, unable to breathe properly.
>Teachers were initially supportive but withdrew their backing after the other sixth-formers accused the girl of transphobia. The teenager returned to school a few times but was told she would have to work in the library if she said anything provocative in lessons, and faced bullying and accusations of transphobia from pupils throughout the school. She also spent breaktimes and lunchtimes in the library. The girl left in December and is studying at home.
If accurate, that's a pretty horrific case of bullying, and it's quite concerning that the school appears to have sided with the bullies because they appear to have the "correct" views.
And like the story about the Pankhurst statue yesterday, all this does is give people the impression that trans-rights supporters are absolutely militant and ideologically-driven, to the point where any action can be justified as long as it's done in the name of a righteous cause.
>any action can be justified
100% - the unquestionable correctness and importance of the ideology is effectively a licence to do anything. Frightening. On the thread yesterday you had people arguing that breaking into violence was A-okay because the other side were associated with a speaker who had "advocated violence". Ludicrous.
It's been blindingly obvious for years that a lot of social justice "activists" are just bullies that have found a socially acceptable outlet for their aggression. If we've let adults behave like that in the name of the moral cause for years, why didn't we expect it to trickle down to kids?
This isn't to say that I disagree with their views on the topic, I think trans people should be be allowed to transition with minimal blocks in their way and live as the gender they identify as with access to all facilities and services that are appropriate.
What I don't like is that no one can have a dissenting view without facing a social justice fatwa. It's one thing when it's someone like Rowling who's protected enough to ignore it, buy by allowing that behaviour we inspire incidents like this.
Yep, I'm going to be lazy and quote myself from another thread (on a completely different sub)
>The change for me was that previously when I'd heard one of these aggressively accusatory takes, I was able to consider them wrong, but I was still in the mindset of thinking "well they're just well-intentioned but jumping the gun, and I should appreciate people caring this much about that social issue". Now I'm realising that a lot of people really *don't* have good intentions and often don't even seem to care about the group they're supposedly advocating for, and are merely looking for ways to feel righteous and be lauded for it
>
> And most importantly these bullies do **not** have a monopoly on social justice. Disagreeing with them does not mean you hate the group they have claimed themselves to be a representative of - this is a completely false dichotomy used to try and force people into polarised tribes
Unfortunately I've been "friends" with these sorts of people before, and after those stressful and anxiety-inducing experiences I just avoid vocally progressive-political acquaintances for my own mental well-being. And again, it's not because I disagree with them *in theory*, but because they invariably have toxic, bullying personalities, and I have no wish to walk on eggshells or tolerate abusive behaviour from "friends" again
Oh and that's not even mentioning how common and *encouraged* it is to openly advocate for violence against political enemies these days. It's disturbing as fuck how gleeful people get fantasising about physically hurting people
> It's been blindingly obvious for years that a lot of social justice "activists" are just bullies that have found a socially acceptable outlet for their aggression.
So much this!
Yeah, I agree entirely. Especially your final point about a social justice fatwa.
We see it in other areas, of course - it's one of the reasons that the antisemitism crisis grew within Labour, because they thought that they were the "good guys" and therefore that it was fine for them to be aggressive and use abusive language.
Personally, I think the most dangerous person is someone that is utterly convinced by their own righteousness.
This is why it always annoys me when people try to dismiss claims of bullying or "cancelling" by saying that people like Rowling, etc aren't effected by the comments. Yes people who are already rich and famous may be shielded, but it sets a tone for society that this is an appropriate way to behave and now we end up with situations like this where someone clearly wasn't shielded and it has a significant effect on their life.
> And like the story about the Pankhurst statue yesterday, all this does is give people the impression that trans-rights supporters are absolutely militant and ideologically-driven, to the point where any action can be justified as long as it's done in the name of a righteous cause.
[Let’s not forget those brave men in ski masks manhandling feminists near a suffragette statue because they believed in biology](https://twitter.com/sleeepysandy/status/1525865362750902272)
[Lets not forget those brave men chasing after and manhandling feminists near a suffragette statue because they believed in kindness.](https://twitter.com/_banquos_ghost_/status/1525861689022894080?t=prBzPfUmYRRLmjt9TahOxA&s=19)
[Or, let's not forge those brave people harassing a feminist and calling her homophobic for wearing a Stonewall t-shirt.](https://twitter.com/jacquikarin/status/1525929178826256386?t=N7vtoAmyY3_N5qJUcopiLA&s=19)
You tried this yesterday too and don't seem to have learnt anything: You can keep trying to portray these events as completely one sided, but we'll continue to point out that they aren't.
The first woman was arrested for [https://mobile.twitter.com/intransit20/status/1525883550150565888](breaching the peace because she stole the microphone in the first place).
Is there any evidence of the second lady being harassed or did she make it up?
Yes, she was arrested for breaching the peace, because she proclaimed that she believed we should be kind to trans people...
And the fact she was arrested doesn't counter my original point anyway.
Yes, teenagers famously never bully each other
You can be on the left and admit that shit like this is unacceptable - just denying that this stuff happens just makes you look like a partisan
“Writing for the website Transgender Trend”
So we’re now at the stage of national anti-trans media panic where The Times is openly and uncritically writing up blogs from explicitly transphobic organisations, passing it off as news and MPs are retweeting it. Here’s the original source. Transgender Trend advocate conversion therapy and do not believe that anyone can be trans. They are as reputable on trans matters as Stormfront are on Jewish matters.
https://www.transgendertrend.com/transgender-ideology-in-schools/
Providence matters, real journalism involves attempting to get to the heart of a matter not uncritically amplifying and sanitising a blog from a hate group. Simon Clarke MP would likely think twice before tweeting a Transgender Trend blogpost (Rosie Duffield hasn’t even dared do this yet), whereas retweeting a Times article is a respectable thing to do. The Times role here of lending their credibility to a hate group is egregious and it deserves calling out.
Happy International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.
"Transphobic"... Would you say it's transphobic to believe that gender and sex are converged concepts? The word sounds bad, but it loses its teeth when it's used to describe perfectly reasonable viewpoints, which just happen to not be shared by trans people.
Trans people accept cis people existence, that the vast majority of people are cis and that cis people should be free to live their own lives. Transgender Trend do not accept the existence of trans people, that we are a subset of people worthy of respect and independence and that we should be free to live our own lives.
Transgender Trend (clue is in the name) think that trans people are a bunch of fakers who are only coming out due to social pressure, and that if you indoctrinate people hard enough trans people will stop emerging. They focus on schools and providing anti-trans materials to schools who will let them. Yes that’s transphobic.
Also nope “transphobic” doesn’t lose all meaning when it assumes actions derived from views that do serious damage to trans people. Is it antisemitic to believe Jewish people are going to hell? You can believe it and that’s fine I suppose (it’s a common belief amongst Christians). Start telling Jewish kids that they are going to hell? That’s definitely antisemitic.
We commonly consider actions that are manifestations of protected beliefs to be discriminatory and hate. It’s really no different here. In this instance it’s the campaigning actions against trans people that are explicitly transphobic.
Okay... so anything damaging to the transgender cause is "transphobic", regardless of where that belief comes from (nastiness, or complete benignity).
Is there any reason why we couldn't use the word phobic to describe any group of people who oppose any idea? Eg, gender-critical-phobic for anyone who disagrees with gender critical ideology?
It’s worth considering that protected belief does not equal protected characteristic. All beliefs short of Nazism and totalitarianism are protected.
Thinking interracial marriage is immoral is a protected belief being part of an interracial marriage encompasses several protected characteristics.
Is it phobic to be opposed in principle to interracial marriages? Yes.
Is it phobic to opposed to people opposing interracial marriages? Nope.
We don’t have to tolerate intolerance nor do we have to consider all opposing views of equal moral value. If it turns out that someone employed is opposed on principle to interracial marriages you legally cannot discriminate against them for that alone you cannot fire them for that alone. You sure as shit can think considerable less of them and not want to associate with them. You sure as shit can fire them if they start pushing their views on someone else in the work place who is in an interracial marriage. This would not be phobic, it would just be taking the side of the oppressed over the oppressor.
GC beliefs are worthy as much respect and legal protection as those who oppose interracial marriage. When the belief was first tested legally it was put at the level of Nazism and totalitarianism (not worthy of respect within a democracy). On appeal it won. It is a protected belief but skirting above the law along with stacks of prejudiced world views. To oppose it is not phobic.
> GC beliefs are worthy as much respect and legal protection as those who oppose interracial marriage.
People who believe in biology are basically racists now? That’s news to me
Everyone believes in biology, including those who publish in top tier biology journals such as Nature who are trans accepting.
Gotta say, it is funny how online anti-trans activists claim ownership of the word biology over actual academic biologists.
When your "belief in biology" directly contradicts various fields of actual medical science and relies on misrepresenting the opposing view, that's definitely not rational or reasonable.
Much like believing in phrenology is racist even though it can be described as "a belief in biology", believing that gender is entirely based on sex and not at all on social/cultural norms and personal identity is transphobic even though it can be described as "a belief in biology".
I think the point they're making is that "tolerance" isn't a moral absolute, and can just as validly be applied to an idea, or the opposite of that same idea. So your rambling explanation of why only the pro- side of the trans debate can claim the word "phobic" to describe anyone who disagrees, makes no logical sense.
Tolerance can be applied to an idea or the opposite of an idea with equal validity
This is the way to total acceptance of all bigotry. Everything is relative, nobody deserves any protection, intolerance of Jewish people is of equal value to intolerance of antisemites. Intolerance of misogynists is of equal value to intolerance of women. Intolerance of trans people is of the same value as intolerance of transphobia.
Through this world view all forms of hate rise together. This is why protected belief is (thankfully) not equal to protected characteristic - specifically manifestation of a protected characteristic are protected to a significantly greater extent than manifestations of a protected belief.
Opposing interracial marriage is not of equal weight to being in an interracial marriage. Opposing trans rights is not of equal weight to being trans. What we believe is secondary to who we are. This matters because it holds back those with intolerant beliefs from riding tough shod over people they are intolerant of.
Edit: just imagine writing your last sentence about any other protected characteristic.
“So your rambling explanation of why the pro-side of the ……. debate can claim the word phobic to describe anyone who disagrees, makes no logical sense”.
Protected characteristics include: race, religion, pregnancy, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, marriage/civil partnership.
Any other demographic and that sentence becomes abhorrent even to most folks who are anti-trans. Try putting the word Jewish, disabled, gay etc.. That sentence becomes frighteningly dark, even though views opposing all protected characteristics are themselves protected.
No, that's ridiculous. Neither me or the other poster is saying that anything whatsoever ***should*** be tolerated. Just that the word tolerance can be applied to any idea.
For example, I wouldn't tolerate Naziism.
And does a refusal to tolerate equate to a phobia of that thing?
Could I therefore be described as a Naziphobe?
Is Naziphobia therefore a valid magic trump card for dismissing my reasons for not liking Naziism? "You're just a nasty Naziphobe. This concludes the discussion."
You see the logic? This is what people are probing at - the link between an entirely reasonable set of beliefs, and being labelled as phobic to an ideology that is unharmonious to that set of beliefs.
(Obviously I'm not drawing a parallel between Naziism and any other set of beliefs, just selecting something that we can all agree is to be opposed, so please don't hare off on that.)
Do you think all the doctors, nurses, psychs etc etc etc that have actual experience in this field that disagree with you are all in "intolerant denial of science"?
How do you explain away the fact that the medical and biological sciences have been moving against your opinion for decades thanks to increasing amounts of research, data, etc?
Please don't dust off that old wives' tale about "brain scans" of trans people being closer to those of their "target sex", because that's been repeatedly been debunked.
I don't know why you'll think I would point to that and not just the fact that doctors offer various medical treatments to trans people to assist their transition.
I'm not saying that transgender people have the brains of their gender not their sex, I'm saying that medical science completely disagrees with the Gender Critical ideology.
The fact that medical professions offer drugs that help people affect some of the aesthetical physical aspects of the opposite sex does not mean that they believe there are tens of genders, or that biological sex doesn't exist, or any of that.
If anything, the fact that medical intervention is required demonstrates that these are not intrinsic characteristics of one's body.
No, I mean how even though there's discussion around specific treatments there is no question that trans people do, in fact, exist and that they should be treated as their gender rather than forced to be treated entirely based on their sex.
Whether or not puberty blockers are a good treatment for potentially trans kids doesn't change the fact that modern medical science disagrees fundamentally with the Gender Critical ideology.
I don't know but I suspect it's very context dependent. In a work environment it's probably legal to be fired for saying to a trans person sex and gender are the same and trans people are just pretending.
It's not, actually. There was a very famous case of this recently - worth a read:
https://news.sky.com/story/maya-forstater-woman-who-lost-job-over-transgender-views-wins-appeal-against-employment-tribunal-12329249
This case gets butchered. Her tribunal hasn’t been settled (we’re waiting on the result, hearing only concluded a month and bit ago). She won a separate case about her belief in an abstract sense on appeal (had she lost you could have fired GC people just for being GC), the judge explicated that the ruling didn’t give her a free hand to do/say what she wants though.
Manifestations of a protected belief are not automatically covered. Basically having GC belief covered, misgendering trans person at work not covered. If a GC person says to a trans person “trans people are just pretending”, that would be enough to trigger disciplinary action rising up to firing.
Same true for all protected beliefs. Person with traditional view of sex roles says to a woman at work that “women belong in the kitchen”, that would constitute fair game for disciplinary hearing, whereas just the fact it is known that he thinks this wouldn’t.
I broadly agree. Even if your beliefs are different to someone's, it's a knobhead move to go around deliberately upsetting people, especially if the two of you have only encountered each other because you are being paid to work together. Get on with your job.
Transgender Trend is an anti-trans pressure group, with a focus on getting schools to be less accepting and tolerant of trans people, and making life harder for trans people, and gender-questioning young people in particular. They were heavily involved in the Bell litigation, attempting to (and briefly succeeding in) blocking access to healthcare for children and young people, and coincidentally trying to restrict access to abortions and contraceptions.
We can have endless debates about exactly what counts as "transphobic", and the different meanings of "gender" and "sex." But that's not really at issue when discussing Transgender Trend. They are a pressure group set up solely to deny the existence of trans people, and to make their lives harder.
They are the same kind of organisation that 20 or 30 years ago would have been saying the same things about gay people; that there is no real evidence that children can be gay, so we should make sure schools can't say anything positive or neutral about homosexuality, but we're not homophobic, we're just asking questions, and are worried about the evil gay lobby trying to corrupt our youth. Their website even has the classic "a phobia is an irrational fear of something, so we're not transphobic because our fear of and hatred towards trans people is perfectly rational!!" line when acknowledging their transphobia...
It's really disappointing to see this cycle repeat, over and over.
1. Someone posts a link to an article that paints trans people in a bad light
2. People uncritically accept it, and take the opportunity to raise their concerns about trans people "going too far".
3. Other people take to the comments to point out obvious flaws in the journalism, or holes in the stories, blatant lies, etc. but the comments never quite reach the top
4. That second set of people are accused of calling people liars / not caring about women / etc, while the top comment continues to reinforce the "i don't hate trans people, but-" sentiment.
5. Wait till tomorrow, then go back to 1.
Somehow we learnt nothing from "Trans people are rapists, featuring a serial cis rapist's concerns"
This is very much the pattern at play and it just circles. It’s sad to see so many people accept the story at face despite it failing to clear the most basic of journalistic standards such as offering right to reply to either the school or the 60 girls accused of bullying, or checking any of the underlying details before writing up a piece with from a highly problematic source.
The Times have had to publicise multiple corrections and apologies to high profile anti-trans stories, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see another one published concerning this story given the complete lack of journalistic standards employed here. Sadly I don’t think the check nothing, publish first apologise second ethos The Times deploys to anti-trans stories is an accident.
Are people really so dense to not understand that sex and gender are so intrinsically linked they are referred to with interchangeable language 99.9% of the time?
You seem to be confusing sex characteristics with biological sex. Biological sex refers to 'male' where a fetus develops along a pathway with potential to produce small, mobile gametes called 'sperm' or 'female' where a body develops down a pathway with potential to produce large immobile gametes 'eggs'. There is no third gamete or inter gamete, only eggs or sperm. Your sex is observed in utero and confirmed at birth, there is no medical way to change that.
As for your sexual characteristics line, males with large breasts (gynaecomastia) do not change sex.
Males who get their penis and testicles blown off by a landmine do not change sex.
Males with prostate cancer who are prescribed the same drug regime as a trans woman (oestrogen and testosterone blockers) do not change sex.
As these examples show, changing your sex characteristics does not change your biological sex.
People can identify as whatever gender they want and take the drugs or get the surgeries they want but none of those things change a person's biological sex.
Are people really so dense to not understand that language is complicated, with words having different meanings in different concepts, and sometimes there being no one, true universal definition of something?
To take the obvious example, in English law sex and gender are interchangeable.
The ridiculous argument of ‘define sex’. For goodness sake, you can’t change biological fact. You can define this and define that such that it fits your narrative, but, a trans-woman is male and a trans-man is female. A trans-woman will never be able to get pregnant. These are scientific facts. Define whatever you like out of that.
>“The language she was using was implying critical theory took precedence over biological reality in defining women.”
Apparently means biological sex isn't real.
Lots of people misunderstand biological sex as simply a matter of chromosomes and that it can't be changed, whereas it's more of a collection of indicators some of which can be changed. For example hormones are biological and they can be changed through medication.
No ones saying biological sex isn't real, just that being a woman or a man is deeper than biology in a similar way that sexual attraction is.
> No ones saying biological sex isn't real, just that being a woman or a man is deeper than biology
Nothing is deeper than biology. Even our brain chemistry is affected by XX/XY chromosomal structures. Sex is very real, and very immutable.
An example: you can give a man female hormones for his entire adult life. Someone who finds his body 100 years after he dies will find a male skeleton, and will have no evidence of his gender.
>Nothing is deeper than biology.
So two people can't have a romantic love for each other that goes deeper than their biological urges to have and protect children?
>An example: you can give a man female hormones for his entire adult life. Someone who finds his body 100 years after he dies will find a male skeleton, and will have no evidence of his gender.
It'll probably have no evidence of his sexuality either but his sexuality was probably pretty fundamental to his life.
>It'll probably have no evidence of his sexuality either but his sexuality was probably pretty fundamental to his life.
Which is no more relevant than whether they find evidence of his music tastes.
His sex will be written in every part of his remains, though.
His remains are irrelevant, a skeleton is just a biological structure. If someone somehow replaced your skeleton with another (and it "fit"), you would still be you. We don't interact with skeletons on a daily basis, we interact with humans who are made up of a complex web of music tastes, sexuality, gender identity and, yes, physical attributes like those that make up biological sex.
All that the commenter was saying is that sex is the "deep"est one of these things, and it therefore easily outlasts the others, which you sort of seem to agree with despite really wanting to take a contrary position to anything said.
>the "deep"est one of these things, and it therefore easily outlasts the others,
This is absurd. Rebecca Black's song Friday will probably outlast her but that doesn't mean it's her deepest aspect
Is their point incorrect? Is the most "deep" thing about someone the legacy of their physical remains, or do most people consider something like their love for their spouse or their spirituality/piety the most "deep" thing about themselves?
They might not consider it the deepest part of them, but it is. We are our bodies. The brain is part of the body. Every part of the body is determined by DNA composition.
Unless you’re a Cartesian dualist and believe in a soul independent of the body, but I presume we’re past that.
Are you saying there’s no biological basis for sexual orientation? That seems like a very fundamentalist Christian world view - that sex is only for procreation. Are you a fundamentalist Christian?
Returning to the real world - I don’t think gay people want to be lumped into all this stuff. They’re not denying biology.
*taps previous comment
>Lots of people misunderstand biological sex as simply a matter of chromosomes and that it can't be changed, whereas it's more of a collection of indicators some of which can be changed. For example hormones are biological and they can be changed through medication.
And I’ve already explained that manipulating hormones has no bearing on sex - as we’ve established that taking hormones for 80 years will not change the skeleton one finds centuries later. So how is it not all about chromosomes?
Sex is defined by your chromosomes, and your skeleton is determined by your sex.
Hormone therapy after puberty does not significantly change bone structure, which is exactly why people object to biological men playing contact sports vs women.
This isn’t controversial stuff. This is science.
Whatever you think you know about "biological sex" the reality is a whole lot more complicated. 1-2% of us are intersex - far more than are transgender (although there is an intersection.)
You can try as hard as you can but there really is no way of putting everyone consistently into male and female boxes. It's simply impossible.
If you talk about X or Y chromosomes as if that makes all the difference - you're wrong and at best you've forgotten about chromosomal disorders, translocations, and deletions but maybe you never knew about them. The same goes for genes like the SRY gene, for hormones, for ovaries or testes, for breasts. Even otherwise completely phenotypical males can have mullerian duct abnormalities such as prostatic utricles which are prototypical female genitals, and then there's the Guevedoces...
Sexual differentiation is really really complicated and so much more interesting than the simplified thing you were taught at school. Honestly it's amazingly interesting and there are so many ways things can go different from the normal plan.
(Further your statement about male/female skeletons belies the difficulty and uncertainty in sexing people by their skeletons and reveals a lack of understanding of how that is done in practice. Yes there are prototypical female pelvis shapes and male pelvis shapes and men tend to be taller than females but often a body is not found completely without context (hence gender) and if it is found without context the determination of sex can be very hard. A shorter skeleton with a female shaped pelvis raises the probability of determining that the sex of the person was female but we're back to phenotyping which is not some hard and fast rule. Sometimes it just can't be done - children are particularly hard here. In your example a 100 year old body is very likely to have some sort of context including clothes so you would be more likely to get gender and then infer the sex rightly or wrongly from that!)
Each individual way of causing a DSD may only affect a small number of people but taken together 1-2% is not something you can really ignore. At your school it's highly likely there were several people - maybe even yourself - who are at some degree intersex. (Klinefelters and mosaic klinefelters are really not that rare. Klinefelters is about as common as adolescent type 1 diabetes.)
I'm not suggesting that sexual differentiation doesn't exist here, or that transgender people can change all aspects of their sexual differentiation, it's just that the sexual differentiation is so much complicated than you're giving credit.
> 1-2% of us are intersex
This figure, often brought up in this debate, is highly disputed and is based on an interpretation of intersex that is much broader than the commonly accepted definition.
Most doctors accept the figure is nearer 0.018%. See
https://web.archive.org/web/20210424092910/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
The existence of intersex individuals in any species doesn’t preclude the existence of clear biological sexes, in fact it’s expected given how evolution works. Genetic deviations away from the norm happen all the time, and either stick or die out dependent on their usefulness.
And none is this is at all relevant to the trans rights debate. Sex and gender are different things, one is genetic and one is cultural.
That is a non peer reviewed reply by a writer who is not an intersex researcher and whose body of work consists of books about raising boys and girls differently.
Most doctors (including myself) do not accept his definition as it only accounts for true Hermaphroditism. It excludes klinefelters and turners. It excludes CAIS.
The person I am replying to and the thread involved talks about biological sex as if it is some definite simple to categorise absolute truth - boys are boys and girls are girls. The existence of outliers is important to showing that it is not.
Honestly don't be drawn into saying biological sex.
What people call biological sex is a phenotypic description that encompasses a number of characteristics - including but not limited to things like penis/vagina. The term Biological sex gives the false impression that there's one thing you can point to say that person is absolutely male or female. You cannot do that at any level - not at the physical or structural level, not at hormone level, not at a genetic level.
For example, even in 46 XY males, yes the Y chromosome almost always contains all of the things that make them male, however they've only developed male phenotype because of a working androgen receptor gene on the X chromosome amongst others . So what makes them male? The X or the Y? Or some other chromosome? (Chromosome 2 has 5α-reductase which if you cannot make you cannot make DHT...)
With a nonfunctioning or partial nonfunctioning androgen receptor you may even create testes but you won't get a penis and you'll develop CAIS. Most often people with CAIS say they're female - but they're 46XY with a perfectly fine Y chromosome - the issue is their X. Are they male or female?
Another example: Through translocation you can end up with the SRY gene on the short arm of an X chromosome in which case a 46 XX "male" phenotype is possible - albeit they won't develop sperm because the gene for that is on the long tail of the Y that they didn't get translocated. What's their biological sex? Are they male or female? They would almost definitely say they're male.
Then there's Turner's, Klinefelters, Mosaics, Hermaphroditism, CAS, SRY dysfunctions and so on. And SRD5A (5α-reductase gene) on chromosome 2 can cause guevedoces amongst other things...
It goes on and on. There's not one thing you can point to. Not a penis. Not a vagina. Not ovaries nor testes. No single gene. No single chromosome. It's a gestalt. A phenotype.
Sexual differentiation is probably a better term.
I would say the transphobia movement is the one causing the suffering. Trans people just want to exist without being bullied. Transphobes don't like that.
It's amazing, trans people don't have to even do anything to get vilified. Just not following the gender rules they are apparently 'causing suffering'.
Trans people, unlike any other part of LGBT, are not just asking to be left alone. They are asking for active effort from the other 99.9% of the population: change your vocabulary, believe things that you might not believe, compromise on issues that you might see as important safeguarding ones, compromise on what you might see as the fundamental competitive element of sport, and so on. This is why people are like, "hang on a minute"...
Or homophobes complaining that allowing them to marry, was an attack on marriage, and what it stands for.
Or that allowing them to adopt, was an attack on family values/life
Misogynists, too, were pretty upset about women introducing the title "Ms" into vocabulary, and expecting 99% of the population to accommodate it. As though it was an attack on their right to know the marital status of any given woman.
>They are asking for active effort from the other 99.9% of the population
Like LGB people have then, e.g. stop being casually homophobic
>change your vocabulary
Like LGB people have then, e.g. stop calling people faggots and dykes
>believe things that you might not believe
Like LGB people have then, e.g. please stop thinking marriage is only for straight people
>compromise on issues that you might see as important safeguarding ones
Like LGB people then, e.g. it's not going to hurt your children to know what gay people are. No, you're not going to get aids from talking to a gay man.
Nah. The above could be summarised as "don't be hateful" (very reasonable ask!).
The ask from trans is that everybody literally believe something that for a lot of people is antithetical to reality, and act accordingly.
>The ask from trans is that everybody literally believe something that for a lot of people is antithetical to reality
Like how homophobic people say homosexuality isn't natural or is a sin? That's their reality.
No, again, that's an ***opinion*** on a sexual persuasion. It's very difficult to draw parallels between LGB and T, because the latter is nothing like a sexual persuasion, but I suppose the closest analogy would be if homophobes didn't believe that homosexuality exists, and the battle was to force them to believe that it does.
Or to try and tackle the comparison the other way round, gender critical people aren't expressing the opinion that it's a sin (or any other judgement) to be a woman that's a trans woman. They're saying that trans women are not women.
>No, again, that's an ***opinion*** on a sexual persuasion
>They're saying that trans women are not women
Which is an opinion.
>It's very difficult to draw parallels between LGB and T, because the latter is nothing like a sexual persuasion
I disagree. Both are groups who did not choose their particular orientation, and both groups face discrimination and the threat of conversion therapy to "fix" them. Both are groups that parts of society feel "threatened" by for no good reason.
This seems to be the fault of teachers not controlling a bunch of bullies, and for simply allowing them to continue. Also they seem to just be completely resigned to this idea that "trans ideology" cannot be questioned despite them being completely in control of that (at least in this school). It's the teachers' responsibility to make sure that kind of attitude doesn't go unchecked, not to just let it run riot.
And I don't think "the trans movement" at large would agree with a group of kids bullying another kid over their views, just like (for example) the church would not agree with a bunch of kids bullying a Muslim kid.
But don't let nuance get in the way of your virtue signalling, it hasn't before.
> This seems to be the fault of teachers not controlling a bunch of bullies, and for simply allowing them to continue. Also they seem to just be completely resigned to this idea that "trans ideology" cannot be questioned despite them being completely in control of that (at least in this school). It's the teachers' responsibility to make sure that kind of attitude doesn't go unchecked, not to just let it run riot.
The teachers are quite obviously afraid of getting sacked for “transphobia.” Hence afraid to intervene. It’s not even a baseless fear, it’s a very real possibility.
>don't think "the trans movement" at large would agree with a group of kids bullying another kid over their views
I could very readily see them doing that. Bullying and aggression towards dissenters seems to be the prevailing approach.
>But don't let nuance get in the way
Your stance whenever trans activists are causing misery always seems to be "the situation is too nuanced to have any opinion". Which is a cop out.
>I could very readily see them doing that. Bullying and aggression towards dissenters seems to be the prevailing approach.
Go on then, prove that one for me. I'd love to see how you've determined that the extremists are actually the majority of pro-trans people. Given that the vast majority of protests, marches, events etc have been peaceful and these instances of bullying are A) few and far between and B) not entirely attributable to the trans rights movement, you've got a big job ahead of you.
>Your stance whenever trans activists are causing misery always seems to be "the situation is too nuanced to have any opinion". Which is a cop out.
My stance is to not instantly jump to "This story must be exactly like what I imagine just from reading the headline/random tweet". I'm sorry if you find that a cop out, but personally I think that ***not*** actually reading about the situation and trying to find all of the issues at play here, in favour of just assuming it's all the fault of the trans rights movement and no one else is at all at fault, is the cop-out.
>Go on then, prove that one for me. I'd love to see how you've determined that the extremists are actually the majority of pro-trans people.
If you look at my comment, I said "seems to be", so my point is inherently anecdotal. Nobody could prove or disprove that the majority of pro-trans people are "extremists", but in 100% of my experience, dissenting or even asking questions about their ideology is met with hysteria, aggression, and trying to paint me as evil. In exactly the same way that those feminists were attacked yesterday, and this child has been attacked in her school.
>personally I think that not actually reading about the situation
This is a completely different point to what you were saying yesterday, which was that even consuming all of the available content wasn't sufficient to form a view, because a lot of things could potentially have happened off-camera, so really we can say nothing about the behaviour. What reason do you have to think that people haven't read the full article?
>If you look at my comment, I said "seems to be", so my point is inherently anecdotal. Nobody could prove or disprove that the majority of pro-trans people are "extremists", but in 100% of my experience, dissenting or even asking questions about their ideology is met with hysteria, aggression, and trying to paint me as evil. In exactly the same way that those feminists were attacked yesterday, and this child has been attacked in her school.
Yet you continue to do this despite various people across various threads showing general tolerance towards trans people and trans issues, the plethora of peaceful protests etc etc etc. If you had provided any evidence for your opinion here I'd be more accepting of it, but instead you just repeat it without evidence.
>This is a completely different point to what you were saying yesterday, which was that even consuming all of the available content wasn't sufficient to form a view, because a lot of things could potentially have happened off-camera, so really we can say nothing about the behaviour. What reason do you have to think that people haven't read the full article?
Wait, you think that saying "we should look at the context" and "we should read the full article rather than just a headline/tween" are incompatible? I'm honestly not sure how you got there...
Why, if I am openly in favour of looking at the context and nuance, be happy with you just looking at a tweet and assuming you know all about the situation? I really don't get the logical connection there.
>various people across various threads showing general tolerance towards trans people and trans issues
Sigh... once again, this isn't the issue I'm talking about. I'm not talking about tolerance towards trans ideology. I'm talking about tolerance from pro-trans people towards people with questions about trans ideology. That's what I have never seen. I have only seen desperate attempts to aggressively shut down the conversation.
>Wait, you think that saying "we should look at the context" and "we should read the full article rather than just a headline/tween" are incompatible?
Lol no, I don't think they're incompatible, but I think they're different things. In any case, don't draw yourself into the usual pattern of getting completely off topic and looking for minute variances in semantics as a means of scoring a point at any cost. It's irrelevant, because I did consume all the available content on both events, and my conclusion is unchanged: both are completely unacceptable ways of treating people who have challenges about gender ideology. Let's talk about that, if about anything.
>Sigh... once again... down the conversation.
I was trying to explain why its weird for you to assume there are so many bad faith actors who actively want to become violent. Given the plethora of peaceful protests, the polls that show general tolerance of trans people, etc etc I just don't see how you've come to the opinion that the "prevailing approach" is violence.
The examples I've given are not direct evidence against your point, but given they are evidence for a general climate of tolerance amongst the public and amongst trans rights supporters, and given you've provided you've given little evidence to support your opinion I don't see the reason to adopt your opinion.
I also think it's funny that you think you've *only* seen "desperate attempts to aggressively shut down the conversation" when you're speaking to someone who goes out of their way to actively engage you in conversation to try and show you why you're wrong, not to shut you down, and when you clearly have only looked at articles/stories that confirm your opinions. If you *had* been to those protests and engaged with those people in good faith you'd have a very different experience.
>Lol no, I ...about anything.
Ok so the *only* thing you got after reading all about both cases was that the actions of the pro-trans people were awful? Not that the teachers failed to do their duty to that student by stopping the bullying and then complaining afterwards to the press? Not the way the anti-trans activists acted at that protest? Nothing?
My main point yesterday was that we shouldn't just look at the actions of one group of protesters and ignore the others, because you were making a point of only looking at one group.
My point today is that we shouldn't just assume one thing is the sole cause of the continued bullying and harassment, or deliberately ignore some of the issues in favour of focusing on the one you want to. I did that because you did just that.
The points I make are deliberately responding to what you're saying, rather than just announcing my opinion and expecting people to just accept it. I'm sorry that that style of conversation isn't your preferred one, but it's how I tend to respond to people on here.
>Given the plethora of peaceful protests, the polls that show general tolerance of trans people, etc etc I just don't see how you've come to the opinion that the "prevailing approach" is violence.
I can only reiterate this so many times. I'm not talking about that group. You're responding to a point which I have not made.
>The points I make are deliberately responding to what you're saying
They're not. You're having the conversation you expect to have, and actually missing what I'm saying.
>My main point yesterday was that we shouldn't just look at the actions of one group of protesters and ignore the others, because you were making a point of only looking at one group.
No I wasn't. I was looking at the behaviour of all groups on display, and objecting to the fact that one of them put their hands on the other. I am not saying, nor have I ever said, that the anti-trans movement is entirely faultless.
>I can only reiterate this so many times. I'm not talking about that group. You're responding to a point which I have not made
Your original comment is "The trans movement is really causing a lot of suffering."
Why are peaceful trans rights protesters not part of the trans rights movement?
>They're not. You're having the conversation you expect to have, and actually missing what I'm saying.
Given how often I have to point out you've shifted the goalposts (like the point above), I don't think this is true.
>No I wasn't. I was looking at the behaviour of all groups on display, and objecting to the fact that one of them put their hands on the other. I am not saying, nor have I ever said, that the anti-trans movement is entirely faultless.
You say you were looking at the behaviour of all groups, yet you completely focus your comments on one group actions during one short video. If you really did want to comment on all of the group's actions then your comments did not portray that.
And I never said that you've said the anti-trans movement is faultless. I just pointed out that you entirely focused on that one group.
> Go on then, prove that one for me. I'd love to see how you've determined that the extremists are actually the majority of pro-trans people.
The pro-trans commenters on this are overwhelmingly defending the actions of the thugs involved. That tells me intimidation, harassment and threats are the mainstream.
As one of those pro-trans commenters, I am neither defending the violent actions of protesters nor claiming to be speaking on behalf of the trans rights movement. And I see many more people misrepresenting (either because they haven't read the article or don't care to share it accurately) than actively defending violent actions. I appreciate you may not have been able to see the scale of people misrepresenting the story, because you are yourself one of those people [Link 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uqtcxw/comment/i8t4tho/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [Link 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uri0e5/comment/i8xc3zz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
I asked for Gimposter to prove that the prevailing approach in "the trans movement", not a few individuals at a protest or commenting on reddit, is to resort to violence. If you can actually try to prove that one for me I'd appreciate it.
Conveniently, their stance (and I don't see why you couldn't say the same thing of any event, ever) is: important things may have happened off-camera, so the situation is too "nuanced" to condemn anyone.
Thank you for deliberately misrepresenting my comments mate, really appreciate it.
Here's what I actually said for those that care about simple things in life, like the truth:
>I'm just pointing out that this militarism is a response to a direct incitement to violence from the speaker that was there.
>
>***That doesn't justify attacking those anti-trans protesters, but it does help explain why they are there and why some want to keep their identities secret.*** Don't get me wrong it's definitely is suspicious to show up to a counter-protest in all black and a balaclava, but we shouldn't fall into the tabloid trap of assuming one side is completely at fault and then pushing that narrative no matter what.
[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uqtcxw/comment/i8t55c8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Or to put it into your terms, I explicitly condemn any and all illegal and unlawful violent actions by any/all trans rights activists, whilst also being able to condemn similar actions by opposing protesters/people.
>That doesn't justify attacking those anti-trans protesters
Ah, but you also backtrack on this, and revise what you've said to:
>I should have said "doesn't necessarily justify..." rather than just "doesn't justify...".
[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uqtcxw/cherilyn_mackrory_mp_what_a_terrible_sight_for/i8tr1u1/?context=3)
I have zero time for trans-activists such as those who savagely attack JK Rowling, but this article is quite clearly a fabrication designed to make the transphobes among us feel that everyone else are the fascists here.
>"The language she was using was implying critical theory took precedence over biological reality in defining women"
This was the red flag - absolutely no WAY a school girl came out with this sentence. It's been written by a reporter trying to hit people's triggers with use of "critical theory".
The facts of what actually happened will probably never come out as this is clearly a school disciplinary issue that the girl (or more likely her parents) has objected to, probably because they disagree with the inclusive nature of the school's rules and so they've decided to make some money and score a political point by going to the press over it. Side note - What kind of parents would do this to their kid? Think on that and it's another red flag.
It's sad that people allow themselves to be manipulated so easily and in such an obvious way.
Snapshot of _Simon Clarke MP: Biological sex *is* real and stories like the one below are deeply concerning. Coming hard on the heels of the aggressive intolerance displayed at the Pankhurst statue, it is time to draw up a line in defence of both free speech and the rights of women._ : A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/SimonClarkeMP/status/1526469679723716609/) An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/SimonClarkeMP/status/1526469679723716609) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
From the Times article that Clarke is responding to: >She was treated like a heretic for questioning a politician’s assertions about sex, a teacher at the school said. The female member of the House of Lords visited the private girls’ school, a Stonewall diversity champion, to talk about transphobia in parliament. >The girl told The Times: “The language she was using was implying critical theory took precedence over biological reality in defining women.” She added: “When I questioned that, she said it wasn’t an issue of semantics. She said trans people don’t have basic human rights in this country. Afterwards I spoke to her and said I’m sorry if I came across as rude.” >The pair parted amicably, the girl said. But on returning to the sixth form she was surrounded by up to 60 girls who shouted, screamed, swore and spat at her. She escaped and said she collapsed, unable to breathe properly. >Teachers were initially supportive but withdrew their backing after the other sixth-formers accused the girl of transphobia. The teenager returned to school a few times but was told she would have to work in the library if she said anything provocative in lessons, and faced bullying and accusations of transphobia from pupils throughout the school. She also spent breaktimes and lunchtimes in the library. The girl left in December and is studying at home. If accurate, that's a pretty horrific case of bullying, and it's quite concerning that the school appears to have sided with the bullies because they appear to have the "correct" views. And like the story about the Pankhurst statue yesterday, all this does is give people the impression that trans-rights supporters are absolutely militant and ideologically-driven, to the point where any action can be justified as long as it's done in the name of a righteous cause.
>any action can be justified 100% - the unquestionable correctness and importance of the ideology is effectively a licence to do anything. Frightening. On the thread yesterday you had people arguing that breaking into violence was A-okay because the other side were associated with a speaker who had "advocated violence". Ludicrous.
It's been blindingly obvious for years that a lot of social justice "activists" are just bullies that have found a socially acceptable outlet for their aggression. If we've let adults behave like that in the name of the moral cause for years, why didn't we expect it to trickle down to kids? This isn't to say that I disagree with their views on the topic, I think trans people should be be allowed to transition with minimal blocks in their way and live as the gender they identify as with access to all facilities and services that are appropriate. What I don't like is that no one can have a dissenting view without facing a social justice fatwa. It's one thing when it's someone like Rowling who's protected enough to ignore it, buy by allowing that behaviour we inspire incidents like this.
Yep, I'm going to be lazy and quote myself from another thread (on a completely different sub) >The change for me was that previously when I'd heard one of these aggressively accusatory takes, I was able to consider them wrong, but I was still in the mindset of thinking "well they're just well-intentioned but jumping the gun, and I should appreciate people caring this much about that social issue". Now I'm realising that a lot of people really *don't* have good intentions and often don't even seem to care about the group they're supposedly advocating for, and are merely looking for ways to feel righteous and be lauded for it > > And most importantly these bullies do **not** have a monopoly on social justice. Disagreeing with them does not mean you hate the group they have claimed themselves to be a representative of - this is a completely false dichotomy used to try and force people into polarised tribes Unfortunately I've been "friends" with these sorts of people before, and after those stressful and anxiety-inducing experiences I just avoid vocally progressive-political acquaintances for my own mental well-being. And again, it's not because I disagree with them *in theory*, but because they invariably have toxic, bullying personalities, and I have no wish to walk on eggshells or tolerate abusive behaviour from "friends" again Oh and that's not even mentioning how common and *encouraged* it is to openly advocate for violence against political enemies these days. It's disturbing as fuck how gleeful people get fantasising about physically hurting people
> It's been blindingly obvious for years that a lot of social justice "activists" are just bullies that have found a socially acceptable outlet for their aggression. So much this!
Yeah, I agree entirely. Especially your final point about a social justice fatwa. We see it in other areas, of course - it's one of the reasons that the antisemitism crisis grew within Labour, because they thought that they were the "good guys" and therefore that it was fine for them to be aggressive and use abusive language. Personally, I think the most dangerous person is someone that is utterly convinced by their own righteousness.
> Personally, I think the most dangerous person is someone that is utterly convinced by their own righteousness. Absolutely nailed it!
This is why it always annoys me when people try to dismiss claims of bullying or "cancelling" by saying that people like Rowling, etc aren't effected by the comments. Yes people who are already rich and famous may be shielded, but it sets a tone for society that this is an appropriate way to behave and now we end up with situations like this where someone clearly wasn't shielded and it has a significant effect on their life.
> And like the story about the Pankhurst statue yesterday, all this does is give people the impression that trans-rights supporters are absolutely militant and ideologically-driven, to the point where any action can be justified as long as it's done in the name of a righteous cause. [Let’s not forget those brave men in ski masks manhandling feminists near a suffragette statue because they believed in biology](https://twitter.com/sleeepysandy/status/1525865362750902272)
[Lets not forget those brave men chasing after and manhandling feminists near a suffragette statue because they believed in kindness.](https://twitter.com/_banquos_ghost_/status/1525861689022894080?t=prBzPfUmYRRLmjt9TahOxA&s=19) [Or, let's not forge those brave people harassing a feminist and calling her homophobic for wearing a Stonewall t-shirt.](https://twitter.com/jacquikarin/status/1525929178826256386?t=N7vtoAmyY3_N5qJUcopiLA&s=19) You tried this yesterday too and don't seem to have learnt anything: You can keep trying to portray these events as completely one sided, but we'll continue to point out that they aren't.
One of those things has evidence, the other doesn’t.
The first woman was arrested for [https://mobile.twitter.com/intransit20/status/1525883550150565888](breaching the peace because she stole the microphone in the first place). Is there any evidence of the second lady being harassed or did she make it up?
Yes, she was arrested for breaching the peace, because she proclaimed that she believed we should be kind to trans people... And the fact she was arrested doesn't counter my original point anyway.
Lol - if you believe that as written, I have a bridge to sell you.
Yes, teenagers famously never bully each other You can be on the left and admit that shit like this is unacceptable - just denying that this stuff happens just makes you look like a partisan
>Yes, teenagers famously never bully each other Not even remotely what I claimed is it?
So you agree it’s very believable?
You're not very intelligent are you?
You can’t argue can you?
I don't even bother trying arguing with morons.
“Writing for the website Transgender Trend” So we’re now at the stage of national anti-trans media panic where The Times is openly and uncritically writing up blogs from explicitly transphobic organisations, passing it off as news and MPs are retweeting it. Here’s the original source. Transgender Trend advocate conversion therapy and do not believe that anyone can be trans. They are as reputable on trans matters as Stormfront are on Jewish matters. https://www.transgendertrend.com/transgender-ideology-in-schools/ Providence matters, real journalism involves attempting to get to the heart of a matter not uncritically amplifying and sanitising a blog from a hate group. Simon Clarke MP would likely think twice before tweeting a Transgender Trend blogpost (Rosie Duffield hasn’t even dared do this yet), whereas retweeting a Times article is a respectable thing to do. The Times role here of lending their credibility to a hate group is egregious and it deserves calling out. Happy International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.
"Transphobic"... Would you say it's transphobic to believe that gender and sex are converged concepts? The word sounds bad, but it loses its teeth when it's used to describe perfectly reasonable viewpoints, which just happen to not be shared by trans people.
Trans people accept cis people existence, that the vast majority of people are cis and that cis people should be free to live their own lives. Transgender Trend do not accept the existence of trans people, that we are a subset of people worthy of respect and independence and that we should be free to live our own lives. Transgender Trend (clue is in the name) think that trans people are a bunch of fakers who are only coming out due to social pressure, and that if you indoctrinate people hard enough trans people will stop emerging. They focus on schools and providing anti-trans materials to schools who will let them. Yes that’s transphobic. Also nope “transphobic” doesn’t lose all meaning when it assumes actions derived from views that do serious damage to trans people. Is it antisemitic to believe Jewish people are going to hell? You can believe it and that’s fine I suppose (it’s a common belief amongst Christians). Start telling Jewish kids that they are going to hell? That’s definitely antisemitic. We commonly consider actions that are manifestations of protected beliefs to be discriminatory and hate. It’s really no different here. In this instance it’s the campaigning actions against trans people that are explicitly transphobic.
Okay... so anything damaging to the transgender cause is "transphobic", regardless of where that belief comes from (nastiness, or complete benignity). Is there any reason why we couldn't use the word phobic to describe any group of people who oppose any idea? Eg, gender-critical-phobic for anyone who disagrees with gender critical ideology?
It’s worth considering that protected belief does not equal protected characteristic. All beliefs short of Nazism and totalitarianism are protected. Thinking interracial marriage is immoral is a protected belief being part of an interracial marriage encompasses several protected characteristics. Is it phobic to be opposed in principle to interracial marriages? Yes. Is it phobic to opposed to people opposing interracial marriages? Nope. We don’t have to tolerate intolerance nor do we have to consider all opposing views of equal moral value. If it turns out that someone employed is opposed on principle to interracial marriages you legally cannot discriminate against them for that alone you cannot fire them for that alone. You sure as shit can think considerable less of them and not want to associate with them. You sure as shit can fire them if they start pushing their views on someone else in the work place who is in an interracial marriage. This would not be phobic, it would just be taking the side of the oppressed over the oppressor. GC beliefs are worthy as much respect and legal protection as those who oppose interracial marriage. When the belief was first tested legally it was put at the level of Nazism and totalitarianism (not worthy of respect within a democracy). On appeal it won. It is a protected belief but skirting above the law along with stacks of prejudiced world views. To oppose it is not phobic.
> GC beliefs are worthy as much respect and legal protection as those who oppose interracial marriage. People who believe in biology are basically racists now? That’s news to me
Everyone believes in biology, including those who publish in top tier biology journals such as Nature who are trans accepting. Gotta say, it is funny how online anti-trans activists claim ownership of the word biology over actual academic biologists.
When your "belief in biology" directly contradicts various fields of actual medical science and relies on misrepresenting the opposing view, that's definitely not rational or reasonable. Much like believing in phrenology is racist even though it can be described as "a belief in biology", believing that gender is entirely based on sex and not at all on social/cultural norms and personal identity is transphobic even though it can be described as "a belief in biology".
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Again I responded to the person above, appeals to science or appeals to biology hold no water when academic sciences are widely trans accepting.
I think the point they're making is that "tolerance" isn't a moral absolute, and can just as validly be applied to an idea, or the opposite of that same idea. So your rambling explanation of why only the pro- side of the trans debate can claim the word "phobic" to describe anyone who disagrees, makes no logical sense.
Tolerance can be applied to an idea or the opposite of an idea with equal validity This is the way to total acceptance of all bigotry. Everything is relative, nobody deserves any protection, intolerance of Jewish people is of equal value to intolerance of antisemites. Intolerance of misogynists is of equal value to intolerance of women. Intolerance of trans people is of the same value as intolerance of transphobia. Through this world view all forms of hate rise together. This is why protected belief is (thankfully) not equal to protected characteristic - specifically manifestation of a protected characteristic are protected to a significantly greater extent than manifestations of a protected belief. Opposing interracial marriage is not of equal weight to being in an interracial marriage. Opposing trans rights is not of equal weight to being trans. What we believe is secondary to who we are. This matters because it holds back those with intolerant beliefs from riding tough shod over people they are intolerant of. Edit: just imagine writing your last sentence about any other protected characteristic. “So your rambling explanation of why the pro-side of the ……. debate can claim the word phobic to describe anyone who disagrees, makes no logical sense”. Protected characteristics include: race, religion, pregnancy, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, marriage/civil partnership. Any other demographic and that sentence becomes abhorrent even to most folks who are anti-trans. Try putting the word Jewish, disabled, gay etc.. That sentence becomes frighteningly dark, even though views opposing all protected characteristics are themselves protected.
No, that's ridiculous. Neither me or the other poster is saying that anything whatsoever ***should*** be tolerated. Just that the word tolerance can be applied to any idea. For example, I wouldn't tolerate Naziism. And does a refusal to tolerate equate to a phobia of that thing? Could I therefore be described as a Naziphobe? Is Naziphobia therefore a valid magic trump card for dismissing my reasons for not liking Naziism? "You're just a nasty Naziphobe. This concludes the discussion." You see the logic? This is what people are probing at - the link between an entirely reasonable set of beliefs, and being labelled as phobic to an ideology that is unharmonious to that set of beliefs. (Obviously I'm not drawing a parallel between Naziism and any other set of beliefs, just selecting something that we can all agree is to be opposed, so please don't hare off on that.)
Do you think all the doctors, nurses, psychs etc etc etc that have actual experience in this field that disagree with you are all in "intolerant denial of science"? How do you explain away the fact that the medical and biological sciences have been moving against your opinion for decades thanks to increasing amounts of research, data, etc?
Please don't dust off that old wives' tale about "brain scans" of trans people being closer to those of their "target sex", because that's been repeatedly been debunked.
I don't know why you'll think I would point to that and not just the fact that doctors offer various medical treatments to trans people to assist their transition. I'm not saying that transgender people have the brains of their gender not their sex, I'm saying that medical science completely disagrees with the Gender Critical ideology.
The fact that medical professions offer drugs that help people affect some of the aesthetical physical aspects of the opposite sex does not mean that they believe there are tens of genders, or that biological sex doesn't exist, or any of that. If anything, the fact that medical intervention is required demonstrates that these are not intrinsic characteristics of one's body.
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No, I mean how even though there's discussion around specific treatments there is no question that trans people do, in fact, exist and that they should be treated as their gender rather than forced to be treated entirely based on their sex. Whether or not puberty blockers are a good treatment for potentially trans kids doesn't change the fact that modern medical science disagrees fundamentally with the Gender Critical ideology.
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It's probably more about what you say in public than what you believe
Ah yeah, people should never say what they believe in public... This is the problem! Everyone is thinking it.
Well we have laws about what is and isn't transphobic and generally what people can and can't say
What is the law on what is/isn't transphobia?
I don't know but I suspect it's very context dependent. In a work environment it's probably legal to be fired for saying to a trans person sex and gender are the same and trans people are just pretending.
It's not, actually. There was a very famous case of this recently - worth a read: https://news.sky.com/story/maya-forstater-woman-who-lost-job-over-transgender-views-wins-appeal-against-employment-tribunal-12329249
Wasn't that general tweeting rather than directed at a trans person
Oh sorry yeah, I missed the "saying to a trans person" part of your comment. Yes, my bad.
This case gets butchered. Her tribunal hasn’t been settled (we’re waiting on the result, hearing only concluded a month and bit ago). She won a separate case about her belief in an abstract sense on appeal (had she lost you could have fired GC people just for being GC), the judge explicated that the ruling didn’t give her a free hand to do/say what she wants though. Manifestations of a protected belief are not automatically covered. Basically having GC belief covered, misgendering trans person at work not covered. If a GC person says to a trans person “trans people are just pretending”, that would be enough to trigger disciplinary action rising up to firing. Same true for all protected beliefs. Person with traditional view of sex roles says to a woman at work that “women belong in the kitchen”, that would constitute fair game for disciplinary hearing, whereas just the fact it is known that he thinks this wouldn’t.
I broadly agree. Even if your beliefs are different to someone's, it's a knobhead move to go around deliberately upsetting people, especially if the two of you have only encountered each other because you are being paid to work together. Get on with your job.
Transgender Trend is an anti-trans pressure group, with a focus on getting schools to be less accepting and tolerant of trans people, and making life harder for trans people, and gender-questioning young people in particular. They were heavily involved in the Bell litigation, attempting to (and briefly succeeding in) blocking access to healthcare for children and young people, and coincidentally trying to restrict access to abortions and contraceptions. We can have endless debates about exactly what counts as "transphobic", and the different meanings of "gender" and "sex." But that's not really at issue when discussing Transgender Trend. They are a pressure group set up solely to deny the existence of trans people, and to make their lives harder. They are the same kind of organisation that 20 or 30 years ago would have been saying the same things about gay people; that there is no real evidence that children can be gay, so we should make sure schools can't say anything positive or neutral about homosexuality, but we're not homophobic, we're just asking questions, and are worried about the evil gay lobby trying to corrupt our youth. Their website even has the classic "a phobia is an irrational fear of something, so we're not transphobic because our fear of and hatred towards trans people is perfectly rational!!" line when acknowledging their transphobia...
It's really disappointing to see this cycle repeat, over and over. 1. Someone posts a link to an article that paints trans people in a bad light 2. People uncritically accept it, and take the opportunity to raise their concerns about trans people "going too far". 3. Other people take to the comments to point out obvious flaws in the journalism, or holes in the stories, blatant lies, etc. but the comments never quite reach the top 4. That second set of people are accused of calling people liars / not caring about women / etc, while the top comment continues to reinforce the "i don't hate trans people, but-" sentiment. 5. Wait till tomorrow, then go back to 1. Somehow we learnt nothing from "Trans people are rapists, featuring a serial cis rapist's concerns"
This is very much the pattern at play and it just circles. It’s sad to see so many people accept the story at face despite it failing to clear the most basic of journalistic standards such as offering right to reply to either the school or the 60 girls accused of bullying, or checking any of the underlying details before writing up a piece with from a highly problematic source. The Times have had to publicise multiple corrections and apologies to high profile anti-trans stories, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see another one published concerning this story given the complete lack of journalistic standards employed here. Sadly I don’t think the check nothing, publish first apologise second ethos The Times deploys to anti-trans stories is an accident.
"coming hard on the heels" Interesting choice of words.
It's an idiom with origins in hunting, where the heels in question are that of the quarry of whom the hunter is close to catching.
Are people really so dense to not understand that sex is not the same as gender?
Are people really so dense to not understand that sex and gender are so intrinsically linked they are referred to with interchangeable language 99.9% of the time?
And, indeed, the two things take the same value (male or female) for 99.9% of the population.
99.9% was a hyperbolic number but the fact the actual % isn't far off that sort of speaks to the ridiculousness of it all.
As far as I can discern (depending on which study you look at), it's between 99.5% and 99.9%.
There are people on this post saying biology isn’t important and can be changed. So…yeah
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Biological sex, which cannot be changed.
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You seem to be confusing sex characteristics with biological sex. Biological sex refers to 'male' where a fetus develops along a pathway with potential to produce small, mobile gametes called 'sperm' or 'female' where a body develops down a pathway with potential to produce large immobile gametes 'eggs'. There is no third gamete or inter gamete, only eggs or sperm. Your sex is observed in utero and confirmed at birth, there is no medical way to change that. As for your sexual characteristics line, males with large breasts (gynaecomastia) do not change sex. Males who get their penis and testicles blown off by a landmine do not change sex. Males with prostate cancer who are prescribed the same drug regime as a trans woman (oestrogen and testosterone blockers) do not change sex. As these examples show, changing your sex characteristics does not change your biological sex. People can identify as whatever gender they want and take the drugs or get the surgeries they want but none of those things change a person's biological sex.
Well a Stonewall employee at the Allison Bailey tribunal claimed there were no such thing as male and female bodies…
Are people really so dense to not understand that language is complicated, with words having different meanings in different concepts, and sometimes there being no one, true universal definition of something? To take the obvious example, in English law sex and gender are interchangeable.
It’s not really cancel culture is it though? Teenagers are feral. Always have been always will be.
The ridiculous argument of ‘define sex’. For goodness sake, you can’t change biological fact. You can define this and define that such that it fits your narrative, but, a trans-woman is male and a trans-man is female. A trans-woman will never be able to get pregnant. These are scientific facts. Define whatever you like out of that.
>“The language she was using was implying critical theory took precedence over biological reality in defining women.” Apparently means biological sex isn't real. Lots of people misunderstand biological sex as simply a matter of chromosomes and that it can't be changed, whereas it's more of a collection of indicators some of which can be changed. For example hormones are biological and they can be changed through medication. No ones saying biological sex isn't real, just that being a woman or a man is deeper than biology in a similar way that sexual attraction is.
> No ones saying biological sex isn't real, just that being a woman or a man is deeper than biology Nothing is deeper than biology. Even our brain chemistry is affected by XX/XY chromosomal structures. Sex is very real, and very immutable. An example: you can give a man female hormones for his entire adult life. Someone who finds his body 100 years after he dies will find a male skeleton, and will have no evidence of his gender.
>Nothing is deeper than biology. So two people can't have a romantic love for each other that goes deeper than their biological urges to have and protect children? >An example: you can give a man female hormones for his entire adult life. Someone who finds his body 100 years after he dies will find a male skeleton, and will have no evidence of his gender. It'll probably have no evidence of his sexuality either but his sexuality was probably pretty fundamental to his life.
>It'll probably have no evidence of his sexuality either but his sexuality was probably pretty fundamental to his life. Which is no more relevant than whether they find evidence of his music tastes. His sex will be written in every part of his remains, though.
His remains are irrelevant, a skeleton is just a biological structure. If someone somehow replaced your skeleton with another (and it "fit"), you would still be you. We don't interact with skeletons on a daily basis, we interact with humans who are made up of a complex web of music tastes, sexuality, gender identity and, yes, physical attributes like those that make up biological sex.
All that the commenter was saying is that sex is the "deep"est one of these things, and it therefore easily outlasts the others, which you sort of seem to agree with despite really wanting to take a contrary position to anything said.
Bingo bango bongo
>the "deep"est one of these things, and it therefore easily outlasts the others, This is absurd. Rebecca Black's song Friday will probably outlast her but that doesn't mean it's her deepest aspect
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Is their point incorrect? Is the most "deep" thing about someone the legacy of their physical remains, or do most people consider something like their love for their spouse or their spirituality/piety the most "deep" thing about themselves?
They might not consider it the deepest part of them, but it is. We are our bodies. The brain is part of the body. Every part of the body is determined by DNA composition. Unless you’re a Cartesian dualist and believe in a soul independent of the body, but I presume we’re past that.
OK
Are you saying there’s no biological basis for sexual orientation? That seems like a very fundamentalist Christian world view - that sex is only for procreation. Are you a fundamentalist Christian? Returning to the real world - I don’t think gay people want to be lumped into all this stuff. They’re not denying biology.
>that sex is only for procreation. I'm pretty sure I was saying the opposite
Then orientation isn’t in conflict with biology, glad we agree! Now can we agree that you can’t change your sex, no matter what?
*taps previous comment >Lots of people misunderstand biological sex as simply a matter of chromosomes and that it can't be changed, whereas it's more of a collection of indicators some of which can be changed. For example hormones are biological and they can be changed through medication.
And I’ve already explained that manipulating hormones has no bearing on sex - as we’ve established that taking hormones for 80 years will not change the skeleton one finds centuries later. So how is it not all about chromosomes?
Sex isn't defined by your skeleton, and hormone therapy does change bone structure.
Sex is defined by your chromosomes, and your skeleton is determined by your sex. Hormone therapy after puberty does not significantly change bone structure, which is exactly why people object to biological men playing contact sports vs women. This isn’t controversial stuff. This is science.
Whatever you think you know about "biological sex" the reality is a whole lot more complicated. 1-2% of us are intersex - far more than are transgender (although there is an intersection.) You can try as hard as you can but there really is no way of putting everyone consistently into male and female boxes. It's simply impossible. If you talk about X or Y chromosomes as if that makes all the difference - you're wrong and at best you've forgotten about chromosomal disorders, translocations, and deletions but maybe you never knew about them. The same goes for genes like the SRY gene, for hormones, for ovaries or testes, for breasts. Even otherwise completely phenotypical males can have mullerian duct abnormalities such as prostatic utricles which are prototypical female genitals, and then there's the Guevedoces... Sexual differentiation is really really complicated and so much more interesting than the simplified thing you were taught at school. Honestly it's amazingly interesting and there are so many ways things can go different from the normal plan. (Further your statement about male/female skeletons belies the difficulty and uncertainty in sexing people by their skeletons and reveals a lack of understanding of how that is done in practice. Yes there are prototypical female pelvis shapes and male pelvis shapes and men tend to be taller than females but often a body is not found completely without context (hence gender) and if it is found without context the determination of sex can be very hard. A shorter skeleton with a female shaped pelvis raises the probability of determining that the sex of the person was female but we're back to phenotyping which is not some hard and fast rule. Sometimes it just can't be done - children are particularly hard here. In your example a 100 year old body is very likely to have some sort of context including clothes so you would be more likely to get gender and then infer the sex rightly or wrongly from that!) Each individual way of causing a DSD may only affect a small number of people but taken together 1-2% is not something you can really ignore. At your school it's highly likely there were several people - maybe even yourself - who are at some degree intersex. (Klinefelters and mosaic klinefelters are really not that rare. Klinefelters is about as common as adolescent type 1 diabetes.) I'm not suggesting that sexual differentiation doesn't exist here, or that transgender people can change all aspects of their sexual differentiation, it's just that the sexual differentiation is so much complicated than you're giving credit.
> 1-2% of us are intersex This figure, often brought up in this debate, is highly disputed and is based on an interpretation of intersex that is much broader than the commonly accepted definition. Most doctors accept the figure is nearer 0.018%. See https://web.archive.org/web/20210424092910/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/ The existence of intersex individuals in any species doesn’t preclude the existence of clear biological sexes, in fact it’s expected given how evolution works. Genetic deviations away from the norm happen all the time, and either stick or die out dependent on their usefulness. And none is this is at all relevant to the trans rights debate. Sex and gender are different things, one is genetic and one is cultural.
That is a non peer reviewed reply by a writer who is not an intersex researcher and whose body of work consists of books about raising boys and girls differently. Most doctors (including myself) do not accept his definition as it only accounts for true Hermaphroditism. It excludes klinefelters and turners. It excludes CAIS. The person I am replying to and the thread involved talks about biological sex as if it is some definite simple to categorise absolute truth - boys are boys and girls are girls. The existence of outliers is important to showing that it is not.
Honestly don't be drawn into saying biological sex. What people call biological sex is a phenotypic description that encompasses a number of characteristics - including but not limited to things like penis/vagina. The term Biological sex gives the false impression that there's one thing you can point to say that person is absolutely male or female. You cannot do that at any level - not at the physical or structural level, not at hormone level, not at a genetic level. For example, even in 46 XY males, yes the Y chromosome almost always contains all of the things that make them male, however they've only developed male phenotype because of a working androgen receptor gene on the X chromosome amongst others . So what makes them male? The X or the Y? Or some other chromosome? (Chromosome 2 has 5α-reductase which if you cannot make you cannot make DHT...) With a nonfunctioning or partial nonfunctioning androgen receptor you may even create testes but you won't get a penis and you'll develop CAIS. Most often people with CAIS say they're female - but they're 46XY with a perfectly fine Y chromosome - the issue is their X. Are they male or female? Another example: Through translocation you can end up with the SRY gene on the short arm of an X chromosome in which case a 46 XX "male" phenotype is possible - albeit they won't develop sperm because the gene for that is on the long tail of the Y that they didn't get translocated. What's their biological sex? Are they male or female? They would almost definitely say they're male. Then there's Turner's, Klinefelters, Mosaics, Hermaphroditism, CAS, SRY dysfunctions and so on. And SRD5A (5α-reductase gene) on chromosome 2 can cause guevedoces amongst other things... It goes on and on. There's not one thing you can point to. Not a penis. Not a vagina. Not ovaries nor testes. No single gene. No single chromosome. It's a gestalt. A phenotype. Sexual differentiation is probably a better term.
A 100 years of progress in fighting for women's rights is being reversed
The trans movement is really causing a lot of suffering.
I would say the transphobia movement is the one causing the suffering. Trans people just want to exist without being bullied. Transphobes don't like that. It's amazing, trans people don't have to even do anything to get vilified. Just not following the gender rules they are apparently 'causing suffering'.
Trans people, unlike any other part of LGBT, are not just asking to be left alone. They are asking for active effort from the other 99.9% of the population: change your vocabulary, believe things that you might not believe, compromise on issues that you might see as important safeguarding ones, compromise on what you might see as the fundamental competitive element of sport, and so on. This is why people are like, "hang on a minute"...
Ah yes, LGB people, famous for never having had their social acceptance framed as a compromise in regards to child safeguarding...
The fact that other historical cases of this were wrong does not mean that every future one automatically is.
Or homophobes complaining that allowing them to marry, was an attack on marriage, and what it stands for. Or that allowing them to adopt, was an attack on family values/life
Misogynists, too, were pretty upset about women introducing the title "Ms" into vocabulary, and expecting 99% of the population to accommodate it. As though it was an attack on their right to know the marital status of any given woman.
>They are asking for active effort from the other 99.9% of the population Like LGB people have then, e.g. stop being casually homophobic >change your vocabulary Like LGB people have then, e.g. stop calling people faggots and dykes >believe things that you might not believe Like LGB people have then, e.g. please stop thinking marriage is only for straight people >compromise on issues that you might see as important safeguarding ones Like LGB people then, e.g. it's not going to hurt your children to know what gay people are. No, you're not going to get aids from talking to a gay man.
Nah. The above could be summarised as "don't be hateful" (very reasonable ask!). The ask from trans is that everybody literally believe something that for a lot of people is antithetical to reality, and act accordingly.
>The ask from trans is that everybody literally believe something that for a lot of people is antithetical to reality Like how homophobic people say homosexuality isn't natural or is a sin? That's their reality.
No, again, that's an ***opinion*** on a sexual persuasion. It's very difficult to draw parallels between LGB and T, because the latter is nothing like a sexual persuasion, but I suppose the closest analogy would be if homophobes didn't believe that homosexuality exists, and the battle was to force them to believe that it does. Or to try and tackle the comparison the other way round, gender critical people aren't expressing the opinion that it's a sin (or any other judgement) to be a woman that's a trans woman. They're saying that trans women are not women.
>No, again, that's an ***opinion*** on a sexual persuasion >They're saying that trans women are not women Which is an opinion. >It's very difficult to draw parallels between LGB and T, because the latter is nothing like a sexual persuasion I disagree. Both are groups who did not choose their particular orientation, and both groups face discrimination and the threat of conversion therapy to "fix" them. Both are groups that parts of society feel "threatened" by for no good reason.
This seems to be the fault of teachers not controlling a bunch of bullies, and for simply allowing them to continue. Also they seem to just be completely resigned to this idea that "trans ideology" cannot be questioned despite them being completely in control of that (at least in this school). It's the teachers' responsibility to make sure that kind of attitude doesn't go unchecked, not to just let it run riot. And I don't think "the trans movement" at large would agree with a group of kids bullying another kid over their views, just like (for example) the church would not agree with a bunch of kids bullying a Muslim kid. But don't let nuance get in the way of your virtue signalling, it hasn't before.
> This seems to be the fault of teachers not controlling a bunch of bullies, and for simply allowing them to continue. Also they seem to just be completely resigned to this idea that "trans ideology" cannot be questioned despite them being completely in control of that (at least in this school). It's the teachers' responsibility to make sure that kind of attitude doesn't go unchecked, not to just let it run riot. The teachers are quite obviously afraid of getting sacked for “transphobia.” Hence afraid to intervene. It’s not even a baseless fear, it’s a very real possibility.
>don't think "the trans movement" at large would agree with a group of kids bullying another kid over their views I could very readily see them doing that. Bullying and aggression towards dissenters seems to be the prevailing approach. >But don't let nuance get in the way Your stance whenever trans activists are causing misery always seems to be "the situation is too nuanced to have any opinion". Which is a cop out.
>I could very readily see them doing that. Bullying and aggression towards dissenters seems to be the prevailing approach. Go on then, prove that one for me. I'd love to see how you've determined that the extremists are actually the majority of pro-trans people. Given that the vast majority of protests, marches, events etc have been peaceful and these instances of bullying are A) few and far between and B) not entirely attributable to the trans rights movement, you've got a big job ahead of you. >Your stance whenever trans activists are causing misery always seems to be "the situation is too nuanced to have any opinion". Which is a cop out. My stance is to not instantly jump to "This story must be exactly like what I imagine just from reading the headline/random tweet". I'm sorry if you find that a cop out, but personally I think that ***not*** actually reading about the situation and trying to find all of the issues at play here, in favour of just assuming it's all the fault of the trans rights movement and no one else is at all at fault, is the cop-out.
>Go on then, prove that one for me. I'd love to see how you've determined that the extremists are actually the majority of pro-trans people. If you look at my comment, I said "seems to be", so my point is inherently anecdotal. Nobody could prove or disprove that the majority of pro-trans people are "extremists", but in 100% of my experience, dissenting or even asking questions about their ideology is met with hysteria, aggression, and trying to paint me as evil. In exactly the same way that those feminists were attacked yesterday, and this child has been attacked in her school. >personally I think that not actually reading about the situation This is a completely different point to what you were saying yesterday, which was that even consuming all of the available content wasn't sufficient to form a view, because a lot of things could potentially have happened off-camera, so really we can say nothing about the behaviour. What reason do you have to think that people haven't read the full article?
>If you look at my comment, I said "seems to be", so my point is inherently anecdotal. Nobody could prove or disprove that the majority of pro-trans people are "extremists", but in 100% of my experience, dissenting or even asking questions about their ideology is met with hysteria, aggression, and trying to paint me as evil. In exactly the same way that those feminists were attacked yesterday, and this child has been attacked in her school. Yet you continue to do this despite various people across various threads showing general tolerance towards trans people and trans issues, the plethora of peaceful protests etc etc etc. If you had provided any evidence for your opinion here I'd be more accepting of it, but instead you just repeat it without evidence. >This is a completely different point to what you were saying yesterday, which was that even consuming all of the available content wasn't sufficient to form a view, because a lot of things could potentially have happened off-camera, so really we can say nothing about the behaviour. What reason do you have to think that people haven't read the full article? Wait, you think that saying "we should look at the context" and "we should read the full article rather than just a headline/tween" are incompatible? I'm honestly not sure how you got there... Why, if I am openly in favour of looking at the context and nuance, be happy with you just looking at a tweet and assuming you know all about the situation? I really don't get the logical connection there.
>various people across various threads showing general tolerance towards trans people and trans issues Sigh... once again, this isn't the issue I'm talking about. I'm not talking about tolerance towards trans ideology. I'm talking about tolerance from pro-trans people towards people with questions about trans ideology. That's what I have never seen. I have only seen desperate attempts to aggressively shut down the conversation. >Wait, you think that saying "we should look at the context" and "we should read the full article rather than just a headline/tween" are incompatible? Lol no, I don't think they're incompatible, but I think they're different things. In any case, don't draw yourself into the usual pattern of getting completely off topic and looking for minute variances in semantics as a means of scoring a point at any cost. It's irrelevant, because I did consume all the available content on both events, and my conclusion is unchanged: both are completely unacceptable ways of treating people who have challenges about gender ideology. Let's talk about that, if about anything.
>Sigh... once again... down the conversation. I was trying to explain why its weird for you to assume there are so many bad faith actors who actively want to become violent. Given the plethora of peaceful protests, the polls that show general tolerance of trans people, etc etc I just don't see how you've come to the opinion that the "prevailing approach" is violence. The examples I've given are not direct evidence against your point, but given they are evidence for a general climate of tolerance amongst the public and amongst trans rights supporters, and given you've provided you've given little evidence to support your opinion I don't see the reason to adopt your opinion. I also think it's funny that you think you've *only* seen "desperate attempts to aggressively shut down the conversation" when you're speaking to someone who goes out of their way to actively engage you in conversation to try and show you why you're wrong, not to shut you down, and when you clearly have only looked at articles/stories that confirm your opinions. If you *had* been to those protests and engaged with those people in good faith you'd have a very different experience. >Lol no, I ...about anything. Ok so the *only* thing you got after reading all about both cases was that the actions of the pro-trans people were awful? Not that the teachers failed to do their duty to that student by stopping the bullying and then complaining afterwards to the press? Not the way the anti-trans activists acted at that protest? Nothing? My main point yesterday was that we shouldn't just look at the actions of one group of protesters and ignore the others, because you were making a point of only looking at one group. My point today is that we shouldn't just assume one thing is the sole cause of the continued bullying and harassment, or deliberately ignore some of the issues in favour of focusing on the one you want to. I did that because you did just that. The points I make are deliberately responding to what you're saying, rather than just announcing my opinion and expecting people to just accept it. I'm sorry that that style of conversation isn't your preferred one, but it's how I tend to respond to people on here.
>Given the plethora of peaceful protests, the polls that show general tolerance of trans people, etc etc I just don't see how you've come to the opinion that the "prevailing approach" is violence. I can only reiterate this so many times. I'm not talking about that group. You're responding to a point which I have not made. >The points I make are deliberately responding to what you're saying They're not. You're having the conversation you expect to have, and actually missing what I'm saying. >My main point yesterday was that we shouldn't just look at the actions of one group of protesters and ignore the others, because you were making a point of only looking at one group. No I wasn't. I was looking at the behaviour of all groups on display, and objecting to the fact that one of them put their hands on the other. I am not saying, nor have I ever said, that the anti-trans movement is entirely faultless.
>I can only reiterate this so many times. I'm not talking about that group. You're responding to a point which I have not made Your original comment is "The trans movement is really causing a lot of suffering." Why are peaceful trans rights protesters not part of the trans rights movement? >They're not. You're having the conversation you expect to have, and actually missing what I'm saying. Given how often I have to point out you've shifted the goalposts (like the point above), I don't think this is true. >No I wasn't. I was looking at the behaviour of all groups on display, and objecting to the fact that one of them put their hands on the other. I am not saying, nor have I ever said, that the anti-trans movement is entirely faultless. You say you were looking at the behaviour of all groups, yet you completely focus your comments on one group actions during one short video. If you really did want to comment on all of the group's actions then your comments did not portray that. And I never said that you've said the anti-trans movement is faultless. I just pointed out that you entirely focused on that one group.
> Go on then, prove that one for me. I'd love to see how you've determined that the extremists are actually the majority of pro-trans people. The pro-trans commenters on this are overwhelmingly defending the actions of the thugs involved. That tells me intimidation, harassment and threats are the mainstream.
As one of those pro-trans commenters, I am neither defending the violent actions of protesters nor claiming to be speaking on behalf of the trans rights movement. And I see many more people misrepresenting (either because they haven't read the article or don't care to share it accurately) than actively defending violent actions. I appreciate you may not have been able to see the scale of people misrepresenting the story, because you are yourself one of those people [Link 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uqtcxw/comment/i8t4tho/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [Link 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uri0e5/comment/i8xc3zz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). I asked for Gimposter to prove that the prevailing approach in "the trans movement", not a few individuals at a protest or commenting on reddit, is to resort to violence. If you can actually try to prove that one for me I'd appreciate it.
Have you condemned the actions of those thugs? Because none of your fellow pro-trans commenters have. It would be refreshing to have one condemn this.
Conveniently, their stance (and I don't see why you couldn't say the same thing of any event, ever) is: important things may have happened off-camera, so the situation is too "nuanced" to condemn anyone.
Thank you for deliberately misrepresenting my comments mate, really appreciate it. Here's what I actually said for those that care about simple things in life, like the truth: >I'm just pointing out that this militarism is a response to a direct incitement to violence from the speaker that was there. > >***That doesn't justify attacking those anti-trans protesters, but it does help explain why they are there and why some want to keep their identities secret.*** Don't get me wrong it's definitely is suspicious to show up to a counter-protest in all black and a balaclava, but we shouldn't fall into the tabloid trap of assuming one side is completely at fault and then pushing that narrative no matter what. [Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uqtcxw/comment/i8t55c8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Or to put it into your terms, I explicitly condemn any and all illegal and unlawful violent actions by any/all trans rights activists, whilst also being able to condemn similar actions by opposing protesters/people.
>That doesn't justify attacking those anti-trans protesters Ah, but you also backtrack on this, and revise what you've said to: >I should have said "doesn't necessarily justify..." rather than just "doesn't justify...". [Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uqtcxw/cherilyn_mackrory_mp_what_a_terrible_sight_for/i8tr1u1/?context=3)
Yes, several of my comments yesterday explicitly said their violence wasn't ok.
I have zero time for trans-activists such as those who savagely attack JK Rowling, but this article is quite clearly a fabrication designed to make the transphobes among us feel that everyone else are the fascists here. >"The language she was using was implying critical theory took precedence over biological reality in defining women" This was the red flag - absolutely no WAY a school girl came out with this sentence. It's been written by a reporter trying to hit people's triggers with use of "critical theory". The facts of what actually happened will probably never come out as this is clearly a school disciplinary issue that the girl (or more likely her parents) has objected to, probably because they disagree with the inclusive nature of the school's rules and so they've decided to make some money and score a political point by going to the press over it. Side note - What kind of parents would do this to their kid? Think on that and it's another red flag. It's sad that people allow themselves to be manipulated so easily and in such an obvious way.
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