Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[Darat]

The FDA has started adding warnings to puberty blockers. BEcause, it turns out, they are NOT "safe and reversible"

FDA Slaps Warning on Puberty Blockers

That's an additional possible side-effect warning, they rightly already have side-effect warnings. If I was a parent and they were being suggested for treatment of anything it would take a lot to convince me it was the best option.


Interesting nugget under the story:

Six cases were identified that supported a plausible association between GnRH agonist use and pseudotumor cerebri. All six cases were reported in birth-assigned females ages 5 to 12 years. Five were undergoing treatment for central precocious puberty and one for transgender care. The onset of pseudotumor cerebri symptoms ranged from three to 240 days after GnRH agonist initiation.​

 

[shuttlt]

The Tavistock is a centre of Psychoanalysis in the UK. Freud escaped to a nearby area of London in the 30s and it is connected to the circle around him. It was integrated into the NHS pretty early. If you consider Psychoanalysis to be reputable, then the Tavi certainly is.

 

[Darat]

The Tavistock is a centre of Psychoanalysis in the UK. Freud escaped to a nearby area of London in the 30s and it is connected to the circle around him. It was integrated into the NHS pretty early. If you consider Psychoanalysis to be reputable, then the Tavi certainly is.

Thankfully that will soon be "was a centre" for anything.

 

[shuttlt]

Thankfully that will soon be "was a centre" for anything.

Maybe. Until 5 minutes ago gender dysphoria was a tiny part of what they did. A non-clinical CEO came in and everything became about trans kids. Maybe they will be able to go back to what they were before, maybe they won't.

 

[mikegriffith1]

This should go without saying. Of course trans women are not women. They are males who choose to self-identify as females. Even if they have had transition surgery and are taking hormones, they still have male bone structure, male neural pathways, and if you do a gender-ID blood test, the test will show them as male. Even when criminals leave a blood smear, their gender can be determined by analyzing the blood for form a and form c neutrophils.

I find it very odd that liberals who always talk about "fairness" and "justice" see nothing unfair or unjust about allowing biological males to compete against biological females in female sporting events.

Go look at films and photos of Lia Thomas at female swimming competitions. She towers over nearly all the female swimmers and is clearly much more muscular than they are--yeah, because he's a guy who calls himself a girl. Even his parents have publicly called for Thomas to be barred from female swimming events because of his clear biological advantage.

Thomas's height is given as 6'1". Some sources say 5'8". He looks 6'1" to me. But even at 5'8" that would put him 4 inches taller than the average American female. The average height for American females is 5'4".

Even when Thomas competed against two Olympian female swimmers, he finished far ahead of them. Well, yeah, because he's a guy. He has more muscle mass than they do. He is stronger than they are, much stronger.

Perhaps this craziness will stop when the first NBA star self-identifies as female and demands to play in the WNBA.

 

[d4m10n]

"They are, however, nearly unanimous in their opinion that transgenderism is not a manifestation of mental illness."

It is unclear how exactly we are supposed to get from "not a mental illness" to "transmen are men," at least to me. Can you outline the logical path from one to the other? Does the definition of "man" somehow include a caveat about the absence of mental illness?

It is also unclear which experts you are citing here; I'm not sure whether to trust some random website which doesn't even quote anyone published in the relevant field.

Finally, it is unclear how a diagnosis that requires irreversible medical interventions (such as orchiectomy, mastectomy, and hormone replacement) isn't an illness in at least some sense of the term. We don't generally consider these treatments to be elective (in the same sense as botox or a tummy tuck) but rather we think of them as necessary, the sort of thing NHS should underwrite.

 

[Darat]

Maybe. Until 5 minutes ago gender dysphoria was a tiny part of what they did. A non-clinical CEO came in and everything became about trans kids. Maybe they will be able to go back to what they were before, maybe they won't.

There's no maybe - the clinic is closing.

 

[Darat]

This should go without saying. Of course trans women are not women. They are males who choose to self-identify as females. Even if they have had transition surgery and are taking hormones, they still have male bone structure, male neural pathways, and if you do a gender-ID blood test, the test will show them as male. Even when criminals leave a blood smear, their gender can be determined by analyzing the blood for form a and form c neutrophils.

I find it very odd that liberals who always talk about "fairness" and "justice" see nothing unfair or unjust about allowing biological males to compete against biological females in female sporting events.

Go look at films and photos of Lia Thomas at female swimming competitions. She towers over nearly all the female swimmers and is clearly much more muscular than they are--yeah, because he's a guy who calls himself a girl. Even his parents have publicly called for Thomas to be barred from female swimming events because of his clear biological advantage.
Thomas's height is given as 6'1". Some sources say 5'8". He looks 6'1" to me. But even at 5'8" that would put him 4 inches taller than the average American female. The average height for American females is 5'4".

Even when Thomas competed against two Olympian female swimmers, he finished far ahead of them. Well, yeah, because he's a guy. He has more muscle mass than they do. He is stronger than they are, much stronger.

Perhaps this craziness will stop when the first NBA star self-identifies as female and demands to play in the WNBA.

They should be happy because that has happened.

 

[theprestige]

They should be happy because that has happened.

We are all happy it has happened. We are happy that more and more organizations and policymakers are recognizing that it needs to happen. We are unhappy that distressingly few organizations and policymakers recognized the obvious need and forestall it before it became a reality. We are unhappy that trans-activists are still pressing for the opposite.

 

[Rolfe]

There's no maybe - the clinic is closing.

I'm a wee bit unclear about exactly what is closing. I was aware of the Tavistock as a leading (if sometimes controversial) centre for Freudian psychoanalysis way back when, in the days when tomboys were still allowed to grow up without being fast-tracked into a double mastectomy before they were out of their teens.

I somehow had the impression that "GIDS" was simply a section of the Tavistock, while the rest of it was carrying on much as it had ever done. My take on this week's announcements was that it was GIDS that was closing and not the entire Tavistock Centre.

 

[Rolfe]

They should be happy because that has happened.

I have read suggestions that Will Thomas actually transitioned because of psychological and/or emotional issues. His older brother was apparently a major star of the men's swimming team at that, and while Will was quite good, he wasn't that good. The armchair psychologists have suggested that he couldn't cope with not being as feted as his brother, and this - possibly subconsciously - led him down a path to be able to compete in events where he had a very good chance of coming out as the star. (Personally I find it difficult to believe that any young man would do this solely to win sporting trophies and that a touch of autogynaephilia is likely to be involved as well, but who knows as regards what drives people.)

The margin by which he won his first event was embarrassing. Over half a minute ahead of the leading woman I think, in a relatively short event. I think he simply went for it in the usual way without really understanding how much faster he was even than the élite female competitors. Ever since then there has been very persuasive evidence that he's been deliberately holding back, in particular swimming with only his arms without using his legs much at all. I think he's been throwing races (especially the one involving the transman) to try to take the heat out of the criticism, but it hasn't really worked.

His main objective was to be in the US women's swimming team at the next Olympics. I don't think his brother made the Olympics. That would have shown him! He's been basking in all the "stunning and brave" adulation while taking on the mantle of "the most marginalised group in society" to screen out criticism.

It hasn't worked. But unless sports bodies get their act together and institute a rigid rule that only female-born (or actually I'd prefer the "never gone through male puberty one, because that gets rid of the Caster Semenyas) people can compete in women's events, this is just going to go on happening. It's not a good look, and I think even the most trans-captured organisations are beginning to realise that.

 

[Rolfe]

I can't see that anyone has posted this link.

The Tavistock scandal shows the dangers of civil service groupthink

The link has a share token so it should work, with luck.

I was initially drawn to the link because of a photo of the Tavistock illustrating the article. It seems huge. A much bigger building than one would imagine would be dedicated to GIDS. How many square metres of floor space do you need to trans distressed and miserable gay kids into "stunning and brave" heterosexual trans kids anyway. (Now that's conversion therapy if you like.) I think there is more going on there, possibly as legit as it ever was, and it's only the GIDS unit that's being closed. All that floor space can be repurposed to persuade people they want to marry their mother and kill their father.

But the article itself is interesting. Yes, Kemi Badenoch is a nasty black-hearted Tory, but it seems as if the left-wing parties are so captured that nobody else is speaking out on this. She highlights the role of the civil service in trying to keep her from criticising GIDS, to the point where they were telling her repeatedly that it would be "inadvisable" to meet anyone who wasn't already thoroughly signed up to the trans agenda. Especially Kiera Bell, who now campaigns to highlight how GIDS ruined her life.

She (Badenoch) says it's not that the entire civil service has been captured, but that a relatively small group of vocal activists has become the tail wagging the dog and everyone else is too afraid to speak out.

It would be wrong to portray the entirety of the civil service as hostile on these issues. Far from it. A small minority of activist officials are the tail wagging the dog, often to the dismay of their colleagues and the hand-wringing of far more senior officials. This includes some permanent secretaries who are too scared to challenge their own staff and instead see ministers as obstreperous.

She touches on the toxicity of online discourse on the subject, and the bullying and name-calling that is used to frighten those who oppose the trans agenda into silence.

There is a wider problem of campaigning groups making life difficult for those who have to make tough decisions by creating a toxic atmosphere on social media where many MPs engage with their constituents. A Conservative MP in a marginal seat told me she was not confident discussing the matter publicly for fear of being branded a bigot by her Liberal Democrat opponent. A Labour MP told me in private she was grateful her party was not in power because they would not be able to face down the large number of activists online that Labour relies on to push its message.

The civil service is portrayed as being terrified of controversy and retreating from engaging with issues it perceives as being "too contentious". In this climate all that's needed is a very loud group on one side monstering everyone on the other side with emotive slurs, and here we are.

 

[shuttlt]

I'm a wee bit unclear about exactly what is closing. I was aware of the Tavistock as a leading (if sometimes controversial) centre for Freudian psychoanalysis way back when, in the days when tomboys were still allowed to grow up without being fast-tracked into a double mastectomy before they were out of their teens.

I somehow had the impression that "GIDS" was simply a section of the Tavistock, while the rest of it was carrying on much as it had ever done. My take on this week's announcements was that it was GIDS that was closing and not the entire Tavistock Centre.

You are correct. It's like if somehow the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary went mad keen on chiropractic, allocated an ungodly amount of it's resources to it, and then after a scandal it was announced that the chiropractic clinic was closing. Over the past few years, if you phone up the Tavistock's switchboard, the first option has been the gender clinic, but it's just a single outsized service. They do a lot of other things.

 

[lionking]

You are correct. It's like if somehow the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary went mad keen on chiropractic, allocated an ungodly amount of it's resources to it, and then after a scandal it was announced that the chiropractic clinic was closing. Over the past few years, if you phone up the Tavistock's switchboard, the first option has been the gender clinic, but it's just a single outsized service. They do a lot of other things.

I understand this. When I was studying psychology in the 1980s Tavistock was on everyone’s lips. But management of Tavistock let GIDS become its flagship. Many companies become irrelevant because of unconscionable behaviour by high profile parts of those companies. This I believe will be Tavistock’s fate, and the good work they have done in the past will remain just that.

 

[Rolfe]

Here's another one. BBC ‘disappearing women’ as gender quota filled by trans guests who self-identify

("View source" works if you hit a paywall.) In 2017 he BBC set up a system to try to increase women's representation in its output, as it recognised that women were under-represented. Now this has been changed to "anyone who identifies as a woman". And of course, once again, men are taking places that should have gone to women.

... the insider pointed to a host of recent programmes in which women have not been represented, despite editors being told to discuss 50:50 data in regular meetings and share data across the BBC on a monthly basis.

In a Jeremy Vine discussion about women’s sports on BBC Radio 2 in June, the voices on air were four men and three trans people with no women, the insider said.
In another example, two men and two trans women discussed women’s sport in an edition of Radio 4’s Moral Maze last June.

The BBC was also forced to apologise for interviewing a transgender athlete who had boasted about knocking women out, in a Radio 4 Today women’s sport segment last month.

And there isn't a single word there about men being forced out of programmes discussing men's issues and transmen being asked on instead. Why not? Because it doesn't happen. What a surprise.

 

[smartcooky]

This should go without saying. Of course trans women are not women. They are males who choose to self-identify as females. Even if they have had transition surgery and are taking hormones, they still have male bone structure, male neural pathways, and if you do a gender-ID blood test, the test will show them as male. Even when criminals leave a blood smear, their gender can be determined by analyzing the blood for form a and form c neutrophils.

I find it very odd that liberals who always talk about "fairness" and "justice" see nothing unfair or unjust about allowing biological males to compete against biological females in female sporting events.
Go look at films and photos of Lia Thomas at female swimming competitions. She towers over nearly all the female swimmers and is clearly much more muscular than they are--yeah, because he's a guy who calls himself a girl. Even his parents have publicly called for Thomas to be barred from female swimming events because of his clear biological advantage.

Thomas's height is given as 6'1". Some sources say 5'8". He looks 6'1" to me. But even at 5'8" that would put him 4 inches taller than the average American female. The average height for American females is 5'4".

Even when Thomas competed against two Olympian female swimmers, he finished far ahead of them. Well, yeah, because he's a guy. He has more muscle mass than they do. He is stronger than they are, much stronger.

Perhaps this craziness will stop when the first NBA star self-identifies as female and demands to play in the WNBA.

You appear to be under the misapprehension that all Liberals think transwomen are women and that all Conservatives think they are not. You need to rethink this, because it is not the case at all.

This issue is one of those that crosses political affiliations. I can't speak for the conservative side, but I can tell you the belief that self-identified transwomen are women is a minority one, even among liberals. Many of the liberals here (including me) do not think transwomen are women, and are opposed to the idea that such transwomen should be allowed to compete in women's sports, or use women's safe spaces such as ablutions and changing rooms.

Now this is anecdotal of course, but I can tell you that most of my friends and colleagues are liberal minded, but none of them think that transwoman are women.

 

[Rolfe]

That Telegraph article I linked to above, saying that it could be read using "view source" if there was a paywall. There is now an archive copy available to save trouble.

https://archive.ph/2022.07.30-16311...g-women-gender-quota-filled-trans-guests-who/

Sorry, but as my post is still in limbo I can't edit this in as I normally would.

 

[Steersman]

I can't see that anyone has posted this link.

<snip>

The link has a share token so it should work, with luck.

Yup; works as advertised. Thanks.

<snip>

The civil service is portrayed as being terrified of controversy and retreating from engaging with issues it perceives as being "too contentious". In this climate all that's needed is a very loud group on one side monstering everyone on the other side with emotive slurs, and here we are.

Exactly right.

Alice Sullivan - Professor of Sociology at UCL & Head of Research at UCLSocRes - had a couple of tweets on that topic last June:

In this article, I explain how the Office for National Statistics found itself in court defending the strange idea that sex is an "umbrella concept". #sexinthecensus #census2021

I have explained previously in at TheIJSRM why conflating sex and gender identity in data collection is a bad idea.

The chilling climate on discussion of sex and gender has affected data collection as it has other areas of policy and practice.

Of some passing interest echoing your "monstering" is that her Twitter background picture is of Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" - amen to that.

But of particular relevance is one of her articles that her tweets link to:

Sex and the Office for National Statistics: A Case Study in Policy Capture (Wiley Online Library)

Abstract

On 17 March 2021, just four days before the England and Wales census date, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) conceded in a judicial review case. The case concerned the meaning of the sex question in the census, and the guidance to accompany this question. How did the ONS end up in court defending its guidance on a question which most people would deem self-explanatory? This article explains the legislative and political context around gender recognition, and the consequences for data collection. Drawing on my own experiences, I explore the politicisation of the definition of sex, and argue that the ONS gave undue weight to lobby groups with a particular viewpoint on sex and gender identity.

Hard to imagine a more idiotic and cretinous idea than "self-identification". If some child of 12 "self-identifies" as an adult of 35 then we should allow them to drive a car, to buy guns, booze, and cigarettes?

The UK government - of many - has been blathering on about "gender recognition certificates", but they seem clueless that the upshot of that "policy" is to endorse the assertion and the claim - which they put the full-force of the law behind - that those with GRCs have actually changed sex.

They might just as well pass laws stipulating that "2+2=5", or that the tide can only come in between the hours of 3 and 5 PM, 7 and 9 AM on Saturdays and Sundays.

 

[Elaedith]

I'm a wee bit unclear about exactly what is closing. I was aware of the Tavistock as a leading (if sometimes controversial) centre for Freudian psychoanalysis way back when, in the days when tomboys were still allowed to grow up without being fast-tracked into a double mastectomy before they were out of their teens.

I somehow had the impression that "GIDS" was simply a section of the Tavistock, while the rest of it was carrying on much as it had ever done. My take on this week's announcements was that it was GIDS that was closing and not the entire Tavistock Centre.

I believe it is only the GIDS service that will close.

The closure follows recommendations in the interim Cass report which were also outlined in a letter from Dr Cass to the NHS a couple of weeks ago.

One improvement will be to establish a proper research framework with independent oversight.

 

[d4m10n]

Possibly of some interest here:

A homeless shelter worker and people close to Ms. Leyden questioned whether, despite her gender identity, Ms. Harvey should have been placed in a homeless shelter for women, given her history of attacking and murdering them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/30/...er-get-out-to-be-charged-again-at-age-83.html