[ali k]

I'm not sure if I misunderstand the point you're making, and apologise if so, but surely there's a good deal of value in calling bigotry out when you see it even if you don't have statistics and references or first-hand experience?

Yeh definitely a misunderstanding if I sounded at all like I was advocating staying silent in the presence of abuse or discrimination towards trans people. It's when opinions about trans issues are voiced from a position of ignorance on the topic that I'm calling out (as happens too often by politicians and the media at the moment). Or even worse, when the whole debate is weaponised for political ends.

[sdm]

In a 'real science of sport' podcast from a while ago one of the podcast hosts refers to trans females as "male, even though I know they won't like it". Pretty hard to have a respectful, scientific debate when one side doesn't have the respect/compassion to even use the correct pronouns. It's a pity as in the past I'd felt the RSinS podcast had had good, scientific debates around these issues, but since listening to the podcast from a while back (where there were other issue in the way they discussed it) I've not been prepared to listen to any more.

I don't remember (or perhaps didn't listen to) that episode. But that's disappointing given that it has been one of the few places that has generally been very good at looking at the issues of transgender (and intersex) athletes from a scientific, and generally compassionate, perspective.

[Fiend]

I am trying very hard not to care that much about trans issues, mainly because it seems that it is an issue that it is increasingly being jumped upon politicians and the media to create divide between the "liberal" left and the anti-woke right. By caring too much and arguing it feels like we are playing their game.

That is not to say that there is not a discussion to be had but I think that is better served by quiet reasoned discussion of the science/ethics etc.

It's yet another wedge issue being exploited by the govt and helped along by the media. I'm fucking sick of hearing large portions of interviews with politicians being devoted to a question about how many willies a woman can possess, or some swivel-eyed Tory MP wading in to a discussion they have zero knowledge or personal experience of. As if that's the most pressing issue of the day.

I don't tend to follow the polarizing politics of the issue, and I certainly don't follow Rowling (who is at least guilty of being a vastly inferior and overhyped YA fantasy writer compared to Weis & Hickman, Eddings, etc etc) and obviously I have no personal skin in the game, but I do find it a generally interesting issue from an "understanding humanity" perspective as well as some of the conundrums and grey areas it raises (I also have a general interest in sex, sexuality, sexual morality, deviances, and the grey areas those entail). OTOH in terms of polarization I have blocked a previous friend on Facebook after he took the huff with me for pointing out the inherent prejudice in "trans-identifying men" and other such terminology, used in exactly the way El Mocho highlighted (sports science debate), and had to button my lip when hanging out with a similarly militant black-and-white friend (the conspiracy loon) recently.

I might be tempted to post the sports thread tomorrow. But now I'm off to the Bangface Weekender, in particular to catch my favourite transgender DJ - the mighty KILBOURNE

[abarro81]

Three pages in and as far as I can tell no one has argued about anything of substance, just argued about the people arguing 

Some people will hate the following anecdote, but still... The only child/adolescent mental health professional that I've ever had a conversation with where this topic popped up was convinced that all the young trans people they had interacted with had significant other underlying issues. But they essentially said that the conversation around this was something most wouldn't go near because of how toxic it is. It would be interesting to know how widely that view is shared, but I doubt it's easy to get many people to talk openly. (I obviously have have no view on the substance of what they said)

[Dingdong]

Some people will hate the following anecdote, but still... The only child/adolescent mental health professional that I've ever had a conversation with where this topic popped up was convinced that all the young trans people they had interacted with had significant other underlying issues. But they essentially said that the conversation around this was something most wouldn't go near because of how toxic it is. It would be interesting to know how widely that view is shared, but I doubt it's easy to get many people to talk openly. (I obviously have have no view on the substance of what they said)

Thanks for sharing that totally vague and meaningful anecdote Alex, really added to the conversation… 

[slab_happy]

The only child/adolescent mental health professional that I've ever had a conversation with where this topic popped up was convinced that all the young trans people they had interacted with had significant other underlying issues.

I mean yes, we know that trans kids have extremely high rates of anxiety and depression, which are typically reduced by allowing them to transition socially.

There's also an increased risk of eating disorders: if you're deeply distressed because you're hitting puberty and your body's changing in ways that feel very wrong, then trying to stop it by not eating is a desperate way of trying to get some control.

But it's ass-backwards to infer from that, "well, if we can cure the eating disorder, that'll make them stop being trans!"

There's also a well-documented correlation between transness and autism (also ADHD, if I recall correctly) -- autistic people are way more likely than average to be trans, and vice versa. No-one knows why, but it's a thing.

I have a bunch of trans and non-binary friends just because I have a lot of autistic (and otherwise neurodivergent) friends, and we do skew that way.

(We're also way more likely than average to be gay, lesbian, bi, asexual and/or left-handed, so, you know, we've got a lot going on.)

N.B., however, that this is a correlation documented in adults (and my friends are mostly grumpy middle-aged people like me).

It's not "oh the poor little autistic children just think they're trans because they're too broken and confused to know what gender is"; we actually are more likely to be trans.

And watching so many politicans (and writers like Rowling) cite autism as if it's self-evidently a reason why a teenager can't possibly understand their own identity or be allowed to have any say in medical decisions is a real fucker.

Always lovely to hear other people's blithe certainty that of course you shouldn't be allowed to make decisions as if you were a normal person, don't be silly! Imagine listening to what a young person says about who they are and what they need, even though they're autistic -- outrageous!

N.B. In case it needs saying: I'm absolutely in favour of kids who are questioning their gender getting a proper assessment before any kind of treatment, to establish what they need and ensure they get the most useful kinds of support. Gender's complicated and figuring it out can be complicated! What I'm not in favour of is going "this kid is autistic so obviously anything they say about their gender must be a silly little delusion."

[PipeSmoke]

I think some people would be worried that children taking treatments such as puberty blockers could end up leaving a young person unable to have children, or function normally in society. Them being young with additional things to deal with such as autism gives people in their lives even more to think about in terms of whether they are in a position to make a decision now that could impact the rest of their lives.
The decision can have a huge impact on a family and life changing for everyone involved, surely looking at dealing with stuff like someones eating disorder first is potentially a useful step forward? its not "ass-backwards" to at least try and cure an eating disorder first.

I have to say slab_happy, with the way you are responding to comments on here, you make it very difficult for someone to approach a conversation in a normal manner. Taking the worst opinions you've seen online and using it as a point to take down anyone's concerns isn't the way forward.

[slab_happy]

I find it interesting that trans women absolutely dominate the discourse on the topic of trans people, nobody really talks about trans men.

Rowling and some of the others do actually talk about trans men a fair amount, but it's not symmetrical - trans women are presented as the scary threats potentially invading "women's spaces", while trans men are treated as confused little girls who've gone astray, who were "meant" to be lesbians (even though plenty of trans men are gay and not attracted to women) and need to be rescued and brought back to the true path and taught to love their Womanly Bodies.

Not surprisingly, a lot of trans men find this creepy and patronizing as fuck.

Yeah I've heard about "Lost Lesbian Sisters" a few times. Seems pretty awful.

Excellent piece on this from Jay Hulme:

https://jayhulme.com/blog/transmen

[slab_happy]

We have reached the time when I start breaking out the citations.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17794-1 -- "Elevated rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, and autistic traits in transgender and gender-diverse individuals"

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15374416.2016.1228462 -- "Initial Clinical Guidelines for Co-Occurring Autism Spectrum Disorder and Gender Dysphoria or Incongruence in Adolescents"

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15374416.2020.1731817?scroll=top&needAccess=true -- "A Clinical Program for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Neurodiverse/Autistic Adolescents Developed through Community-Based Participatory Design"

I think both of the latter two are good on current best practice re: thoughtfully supporting young people who are both autistic and trans or gender-questioning, and should make it clear that the myth about "poor little helpless autistic girls being swept up and forced to be trans men against their will just because they're tomboys" is indeed a myth.

https://xtramagazine.com/power/trans-autism-connection-neuroqueer-206076 -- "Divergent: The emerging research on the connection between trans identities and neurodivergence"
 
https://www.autistichoya.com/2020/05/gendervague-at-intersection-of-autistic.html -- "Gendervague: At the Intersection of Autistic and Trans Experiences"

https://ellenfromnowon.co.uk/wrongdecisions/ -- "The Wrong Decisions: Trans Rights and Disability"

Or if you want something a lot pithier, there's always the jokey explanation for the correlation between autism and transness produced by an anon person online:

"because gender is stupid and autistic people aren't."

[petejh]

And watching so many politicans (and writers like Rowling) cite autism as if it's self-evidently a reason why a teenager can't possibly understand their own identity or be allowed to have any say in medical decisions is a real fucker.

Always lovely to hear other people's blithe certainty that of course you shouldn't be allowed to make decisions as if you were a normal person, don't be silly! Imagine listening to what a young person says about who they are and what they need, even though they're autistic -- outrageous!

N.B. In case it needs saying: I'm absolutely in favour of kids who are questioning their gender getting a proper assessment before any kind of treatment, to establish what they need and ensure they get the most useful kinds of support. Gender's complicated and figuring it out can be complicated! What I'm not in favour of is going "this kid is autistic so obviously anything they say about their gender must be a silly little delusion."

Entirely unconvinced that what Alex posted was said with any sort of blithe certainty.. but anyway..

To play devils advocate, children under age 16 aren't allowed to make a decision on whether they can drive a car on public roads. Children under 18s aren't allowed to make a decision on who governs them. Under 18s aren't allowed to make a decision on whether they can buy alcohol. Under 16s aren't allowed a say on whether it's legal for them to consent to have sex. In other words there are countless examples of 'children not being allowed to have a say', on loads of matters that carry consequences that fully-fledged adults do get to have a say on.

So in your view why should gender transitioning be different, and at what age should people be allowed to make a choice? If anything, gender transitioning appears to have much more profound long-term consequences than some of those other examples above, where children are denied a choice for reasons of public health.

[slab_happy]

surely looking at dealing with stuff like someones eating disorder first is potentially a useful step forward? its not "ass-backwards" to at least try and cure an eating disorder first.

Nobody's saying "don't try to treat the eating disorder". However, it's also unhelpful (and, I would say, cruel) to go "shut up about your gender, we're not going to offer you any support with your gender issues or take them seriously until you stop being anorexic first." Particularly when the gender stuff may be fuelling the anorexia in the first place.

And remember that a lot of this stuff with teenagers is just allowing them to cut their hair or wear a skirt or experiment with using a different name or different pronouns.

I think some people would be worried that children taking treatments such as puberty blockers could end up leaving a young person unable to have children, or function normally in society.

Fortunately, puberty blockers are a temporary measure which don't cause infertility (and I'm not sure how you think they would render people unable to "function normally in society"?).

I am not an endocrinologist, but as I understand it, the one situation where fertility is an issue is when children go on puberty blockers before any puberty has started, and then go directly onto "cross-sex" hormonal therapy (or skip the puberty blockers and go straght to hormones prior to any puberty), in which case their sperm or ova will not have matured.

That's actually relatively rare in practice -- someone has to be VERY clearly trans to be put on puberty blockers before any signs of puberty have started, that's the kids who's been screaming "I'm a girl!" or whatever since they were 4 -- but I know researchers are looking for a way around it; IIRC, one clinic's using a "window" where kids come off puberty blockers for a year before starting hormone therapy, so they can preserve fertility.

Them being young with additional things to deal with such as autism gives people in their lives even more to think about in terms of whether they are in a position to make a decision now that could impact the rest of their lives.

Forcing someone to go through a puberty that feels profoundly wrong and distressing to them and changes their body in permanent ways is also a decision that will impact the rest of their lives, though.

That's why puberty blockers get used in the first place, because they give a couple of years breathing room before any permanent decisions have to be made.

These are complicated decisions, but they're being made between parents and doctors and psychologists and kids, in what's usually a slow process over multiple years.

People seem to imagine that it's like an eleven year-old says "I think I might be a boy?" and the next day they're on testosterone and booked in for a double mastectomy. That would be bad! But it's also not what is happening.

[danm]

Thanks slab_happy for all the informative info. As a cis white middle aged male I don't have any lived experience to help me form an opinion. All I can do is listen and question, with the intention of being a good ally to those who need it most so this has been a really useful thread.

Could this be seen as a form of oppression by proxy? So toxic being the continuing legacy of male violence and harassment against women that it has lead to some women rejecting the one group in society who suffer from this even more than themselves, rather than feeling solidarity with them?

[Droyd]

I think some people would be worried that children taking treatments such as puberty blockers could end up leaving a young person unable to have children, or function normally in society.

This focus on 'could' and fringe cases is one of the aspects of the gender-critical movement that has become so commonplace that it's accepted, but is pretty ridiculous: Why spend so much time agonising over what 'might' happen were someone to transition and then regret it, rather than focusing on all of the cases in which it's been enormously successful and improved quality of life and prevented suicide?

If you care more about hypothetical kids than real ones, there's a decent possibility that you (sorry - 'some people') don't actually care all that much, and that 'won't somebody please think of the children?' is as hysterical and empty as an expression of concern as it's ever been.

[slab_happy]

Entirely unconvinced that what Alex posted was said with any sort of blithe certainty

I didn't say it was -- that line was aimed at people like Rowling and Ash Regan and Miriam Cates, who absolutely have spoken with that kind of certainty.

Alex was referencing an anecdote, not expressing an opinion.

If it sounded like I was taking a swipe at Alex, then apologies because that wasn't my intent!

To play devils advocate, children under age 16 aren't allowed to make a decision on whether they can drive a car on public roads. Children under 18s aren't allowed to make a decision on who governs them. Under 18s aren't allowed to make a decision on whether they can buy alcohol. Under 16s aren't allowed a say on whether it's legal for them to consent to have sex. In other words there are countless examples of 'children not being allowed to have a say', on loads of matters that carry consequences that fully-fledged adults do get to have a say on.

So in your view why should gender transitioning be different, and at what age should people be allowed to make a choice? If anything, gender transitioning appears to have much more profound long-term consequences than some of those other examples above, where children are denied a choice for reasons of public health.

Look up the concept of "Gillick competence",  for starters.

And we do in fact generally accept kids under 16 should get some say and be involved in medical decisions about them, even when they aren't fully capable of making a decision on their own, or when in some cases they have to be overruled by parents and doctors in their own best interests.

A three-year-old might have to be dragged screaming to be vaccinated, but a thirteen-year-old might get to be involved in discussions about medical treatment they're having and express their wishes, even if they don't get to make the final decisions:

https://www.gmc-uk.org/ethical-guidance/ethical-guidance-for-doctors/0-18-years/making-decisions

And we have an extensive body of law which establishes that in some cases, a specific child under 16 can be deemed to be mature enough and have sufficient understanding to give consent to a specific medical treatment on their own (e.g. to take contraception or have an abortion), even without their parents' knowledge or consent.

Of course, that's a moot point because nobody in the UK or US is giving medical treatment to trans kids under 16  without their parents' consent anyway (even though it would theoretically be legal if a particular child was deemed Gillick competent). That's simply not happening. Decisions are being made in collaboration between doctors, parents and kids, regarding what's in a child's best interests.

And note: doctors! they are rather involved here! Even if a child wants a particular medical treatment, they're not getting it until a doctor has concluded that they need it and it's in their best interests.

To return to my point: I don't think that having autism intrinsically renders someone less capable of making decisions or expressing their wishes than someone else of the same age and mental capacity.

[Wellsy]

I think some people would be worried that children taking treatments such as puberty blockers could end up leaving a young person unable to have children, or function normally in society. Them being young with additional things to deal with such as autism gives people in their lives even more to think about in terms of whether they are in a position to make a decision now that could impact the rest of their lives.
The decision can have a huge impact on a family and life changing for everyone involved, surely looking at dealing with stuff like someones eating disorder first is potentially a useful step forward? its not "ass-backwards" to at least try and cure an eating disorder first.

I have to say slab_happy, with the way you are responding to comments on here, you make it very difficult for someone to approach a conversation in a normal manner. Taking the worst opinions you've seen online and using it as a point to take down anyone's concerns isn't the way forward.

This is exactly what has happened the other way around in this thread, people homed straight to the worst behaviour of a tiny minority of trans people towards people like Rowling rather than discuss the very real oppression they face

[petejh]

Look up the concept of "Gillick competence",  for starters.

Thanks, had a read, interesting.

'The Gillick Competent Child': https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962726/

[slab_happy]

Thanks slab_happy for all the informative info. As a cis white middle aged male I don't have any lived experience to help me form an opinion.

I mean, I'm a cis (if genderweird) white middle-aged woman, who just happens to have a bunch of trans and nb friends, so really, I'd say people should go and read Shon Faye's book rather than listening to me about it!

But I'm glad if it's been helpful.

Could this be seen as a form of oppression by proxy? So toxic being the continuing legacy of male violence and harassment against women that it has lead to some women rejecting the one group in society who suffer from this even more than themselves, rather than feeling solidarity with them?

There's definitely stuff coming from people who (like Rowling) have been through awful experiences of violence and abuse from cis men, and maybe there's a sort of displacement going on where their anger gets directed onto trans women instead.

(Maybe because overthrowing the patriarchy seems like an impossible and despair-inducing task, whereas getting a bathroom bill to ban trans women from using the loos is looking increasingly do-able? I understand the thought of "I'll just focus on this one tiny area where I might be able to change something.")

I'm really wary of sounding like I'm psycho-analyzing people I disagree with, though; it'd be incredibly shitty and patronizing to go "oh, you only think this because of your trauma, you're just confused!"

And there are plenty of people -- like, say, Graham Linehan -- who hold the same views but are certainly not survivors of male violence against women.

Sometimes people just believe what they believe, and they deserve to have their views judged on the content of those views, and their actions judged on their own merits.

[slab_happy]

Look up the concept of "Gillick competence",  for starters.

Thanks, had a read, interesting.

'The Gillick Competent Child': https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962726/

Yeah, there's a lot of very thoughtful and nuanced work that's gone into considering how to assess whether a child can meaningfully consent to a particular medical procedure (and also how to involve children as much as possible even when they don't have full capacity); it's good.

It's also worth knowing that a lot of the fight over puberty blockers in the UK has involved people who want to overturn the principle of Gillick competence, specifically because they don't want teenagers to be able to get contraception or abortions without parental consent.

They're not keen on anyone transitioning either, but the big prize for some of them is targeting reproductive autonomy.

Look up Paul Conrathe, Keira Bell's lawyer.

And Posie Parker recently came out explicitly in favour of overturning Gillick competence and said that under-16s shouldn't be able to get contraception or abortions without parental permission, and has also declared that the loss of Roe vs Wade and abortion rights for people of all ages is a "price worth paying".

Which is the sort of thing that makes me personally go "hey, just a thought, maybe feminists shouldn't be allying with these people?"

[danm]

Thanks slab_happy for all the informative info. As a cis white middle aged male I don't have any lived experience to help me form an opinion.

I mean, I'm a cis (if genderweird) white middle-aged woman, who just happens to have a bunch of trans and nb friends, so really, I'd say people should go and read Shon Faye's book rather than listening to me about it!

But I'm glad if it's been helpful.

Could this be seen as a form of oppression by proxy? So toxic being the continuing legacy of male violence and harassment against women that it has lead to some women rejecting the one group in society who suffer from this even more than themselves, rather than feeling solidarity with them?

There's definitely stuff coming from people who (like Rowling) have been through awful experiences of violence and abuse from cis men, and maybe there's a sort of displacement going on where their anger gets directed onto trans women instead.

(Maybe because overthrowing the patriarchy seems like an impossible and despair-inducing task, whereas getting a bathroom bill to ban trans women from using the loos is looking increasingly do-able? I understand the thought of "I'll just focus on this one tiny area where I might be able to change something.")

I'm really wary of sounding like I'm psycho-analyzing people I disagree with, though; it'd be incredibly shitty and patronizing to go "oh, you only think this because of your trauma, you're just confused!"

And there are plenty of people -- like, say, Graham Linehan -- who hold the same views but are certainly not survivors of male violence against women.

Sometimes people just believe what they believe, and they deserve to have their views judged on the content of those views, and their actions judged on their own merits.

It does seem that there are many male commentators who hitherto were very silent on women's rights but have suddenly become strong advocates on this one issue.

[slab_happy]

Yeah great interview that. Required viewing. I'll always remember watching her, when she was a he, flashing The Brute at the Diamond and then in the same sesh falling off close to the flash (and FA..can't remember?) of Pink Panther. At that time no-one had come close to flashing the Brute. She pissed it, with bad beta, more of an onsight.

See from 30mins on the interview for a clear explanation of why a great many trans people don't 'fully' transition - it's obviously not exactly an easy journey to begin to undertake to put it mildly and must require a lot of courage, which deters many.

To slabhappy, great defending of the cause. For me you cheapened your position (and the debate) slightly by using this line:

''If I say "I wish the Tories would all fucking die in a fire", that is not a threat of arson.

It isn't. But your casual use of this as a (hopefully jokey) analogy is illuminating. I bet you wouldn't have felt OK using as a jokey analogy, "I wish blacks, Jews, trans people would all fucking die in a fire".

If you wouldn't have been OK saying that, then it probably isn't cool to feel OK saying it about any other group either. Would almost give you slack if you'd said 'paedophile murderers' but even then, nah. However much you might detest a group, they're still just as human as you.

Being a Tory is not a trait you are born with, though. It's a choice to support and promote a particular set of governments and policies.

Absolutely they're still as human as me! And to be clear, I don't actually want anyone to die in a fire!

But also I'm allowed to feel anger and frustration at the state of the country, and occasionally to vent my feelings through hyperbole.

(And I'm sure a good few Tories will have verbally expressed the occasional wish for unpleasant fates to befall whiny SJW snowflakes like me. It goes both ways.)

My point isn't to defend aggressive language per se, but we can all recognize and understand that this its a thing people do, and that it's different from an actual threat.

[Fiend]

Some people will hate the following anecdote, but still... The only child/adolescent mental health professional that I've ever had a conversation with where this topic popped up was convinced that all the young trans people they had interacted with had significant other underlying issues. But they essentially said that the conversation around this was something most wouldn't go near because of how toxic it is. It would be interesting to know how widely that view is shared, but I doubt it's easy to get many people to talk openly. (I obviously have have no view on the substance of what they said)

It doesn't strike me as very surprising that if you've got physical dysmorphia to the extent that you feel you're entirely the other gender, then you're going to have mental health issues. To what extent that's correlation or causation and which way the causation goes is a different matter - of course it's entirely possible that in some cases the gender dysmorphia is caused by other issues and would cease to be an issue if those other issues are resolved.

I just remembered the sole retort I had to my black-and-white a-bloke-is-a-bloke friend: If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, has duck genitals, is doused up to the beak on duck hormones, and really truly believes it's a duck, does it matter if it was original born with goose chromosomes??

Quack!!

Anyway, I'm off to night 2 of the Bangface Weekender, but to be honest I'm a bit tired and might not last all night to catch TG "queen of jungletek" MANDIDEXTROUS

[slab_happy]

I've been waiting for a trans topic on here for a while (mine was going to be about the tg-in-sport issue, but I was too wary of posting it). Will catch up on this one later but for now if anyone hasn't seen it, this should be essential viewing before considering any TG issues:

SUCH a good interview.

I've just realized it could also be good to drop in the exceptional film "They/Them", for people who'd like to get their education about trans issues interspersed with gorgeous footage of hyper-techy trad:

[slab_happy]

I just remembered the sole retort I had to my black-and-white a-bloke-is-a-bloke friend: If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, has duck genitals, is doused up to the beak on duck hormones, and really truly believes it's a duck, does it matter if it was original born with goose chromosomes??

If you want to mess with your friend, lob this paper at him:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/

There are ducks out there with goose chromosomes who don't even know it!

And this woman is only the subject of a paper because she had normal pregnancies; otherwise, cis women born with XY chromosomes (currently estimated at slightly more than 1 in every 20,000 women) are not at all noteworthy as unusual chromosomal set-ups go.

The fact that cis women with XY chromosomes are not that rare (and XO chromosomes are even more common, ditto women with XX chromosomes who have Mullerian agenesis and no uterus -- both around 1 in 5000) is why Kathleen Stock and some others have gone for "okay, so maybe it isn't chromosomes or uteruses that define someone as 'biologically female' after all! Maybe it's having some or all of a cluster of physical traits -- but only if you don't acquire those traits in a trans way!"

This is what I would call "philosophically incoherent", not to mention "begging the question".

[slab_happy]

In case anyone has any doubt that we're in the middle of a manufactured moral panic:

https://c4genderwars.blogspot.com/2023/05/when-it-comes-to-trans-and-non-binary.html?m=1
https://whittlings.blogspot.com/2023/05/c4s-genderwars-is-vile-and-horrible.html?m=1

[mrjonathanr]

On that note, interesting and down to earth opinion piece in the Grauniad today
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/18/there-is-so-much-more-for-us-to-worry-about-than-men-masquerading-as-women-to-access-single-sex-spaces