Labour Leadership : Reboot 2019

[Pippedydeadeye]

I’m ready to sign up to your newsletter though.

I think it’s not wanting to be seen to be on the wrong side of history.

[Ella77]

You’ve basically said what I’m thinking, Bats.

[Bat Macdui]

LGB Alliance have a lot to say on this, as LGB Alliance is supported by a lot of gay men old enough to remember fighting against Section 28 and fighting a hard and enduring battle to separate 'gay man' from 'child molester' in the public consciousness.

[Bat Macdui]

But also, LGB Alliance is now a hate group.

[Red]

You’ve basically said what I’m thinking, Bats.

Same. All these kids transitioning and making left changing decisions about their body before they are 16 .... if they can decide to transition they can make other decisions about their body, IYSWIM. Mr has always asked who is behind all of this, he thinks its the Tories who have sent the left to destroy themselves. Yes that is also a bit tinfoil-hat.

[Bat Macdui]

I think the Left are mostly doing this to themselves. The Tories were captured by it as well. Maria Miller led the first charge on GRA reform.

I don't rate Dominic Cummings as the evil genius mastermind he thinks he is but I think he's got enough sense to realise that this one is toxic. Hence why Johnson's government isn't touching it (GRA reforms on ice). They can play it to their advantage whenever they want, though. Stuff like that Lisa Nandy clip and that Dawn B clip are absolute gifts if the Tories want to, you know, detract attention from employing someone who thinks eugenics is great.

[smalex]

They must be laughing all the way to the 2024 election.

[Mountain Goat]

I really don't know what to think about this but thank you all for helping to make sense of it.

[Bat Macdui]

Basically, we are all doomed. Fiddling whilst Rome burns. Except this time we're taking the planet down with us.

[Morganna]

I don't know - I think I see what you are (all) saying, and I'll try to say what I mean whilst still leaving room for anyone who wants to delete, but aren't there easier ways to achieve that end result? Allowing marriage at a younger age would be a religious way in, or lowering the age of consent with more pragmatic arguments ('children mature earlier, nowadays' or 'why criminalise sexual experimentation?' - that sort of thing) could have the same impact without the controversy and expense of having a lot of transition operations. There will be other and better ways, too - I just can't think of them just now (it's not the sort of thing I dwell on as a rule!).

This way is storing up a backlash, as the transitioning kids will grow up and may well decide that they want a reversal operation, or might sue the NHS/advisors on the grounds that they were too young. If suicide rates and drug/alcohol abuse rise as a result of the surge in operations, then again, that will have to be addressed, so it seems like a bit of a circuitous route to recreating Sodom and Gomorrah for the benefit of a few.

And whilst I wouldn't put the 'boundaries' motives past an entitled and powerful group with those proclivities, I'm not sure that politicians at the top of their game wouldn't see through it. Nobody in any sort of power seems to be speaking against it.

[Red]

I do get what you are saying, Morgs.

The really worrying and sad element of the young transitioners for me is the whistleblowing from the Tavistock staff who claim that some parents have openly said they would rather have a trans kid than a gay one. One clinician was sure that a father insisting his daughter go on puberty blockers was a paedophile.

[Bat Macdui]

It's a minor, possible part of a collection of things influencing. Possibly.

[Morganna]

the whistleblowing from the Tavistock staff who claim that some parents have openly said they would rather have a trans kid than a gay one. One clinician was sure that a father insisting his daughter go on puberty blockers was a paedophile.

Christ!

It's like a hall of mirrors. It makes no sense to me that people can make those decisions on behalf of others. I get that parental consent is probably necessary (or is it? Maybe a guardian ad litem would be a better bet?) but I can't imagine being on that situation with mine when they were younger. Where do you start?

The massive alarm bell for me is much less shocking, but I don't understand how, if it's all above board, there has been a sudden surge in the number of people born into the wrong body. Obviously the fact that transitioning can be done now makes a massive difference, but otherwise it doesn't make sense to me. There will always have been people who lived as 'the other' gender one way or another, and doubtless a whole lot more who just had miserable lives, but not as many as we are seeing now. I don't think it is wrong to ask why that has happened, and to understand that before going down the road of allowing irreversible decisions to be made by very young people.

ETA Sorry - this is all on the wrong thread, isn't it?

[Red]

the whistleblowing from the Tavistock staff who claim that some parents have openly said they would rather have a trans kid than a gay one. One clinician was sure that a father insisting his daughter go on puberty blockers was a paedophile.

Christ!

It's like a hall of mirrors. It makes no sense to me that people can make those decisions on behalf of others. I get that parental consent is probably necessary (or is it? Maybe a guardian ad litem would be a better bet?) but I can't imagine being on that situation with mine when they were younger. Where do you start?

The massive alarm bell for me is much less shocking, but I don't understand how, if it's all above board, there has been a sudden surge in the number of people born into the wrong body. Obviously the fact that transitioning can be done now makes a massive difference, but otherwise it doesn't make sense to me. There will always have been people who lived as 'the other' gender one way or another, and doubtless a whole lot more who just had miserable lives, but not as many as we are seeing now. I don't think it is wrong to ask why that has happened, and to understand that before going down the road of allowing irreversible decisions to be made by very young people.

ETA Sorry - this is all on the wrong thread, isn't it?

Yeh we should probably move to the 'other' thread. My brother was very gender non-conforming and no one really batted an eyelid. He never said he was a girl or should be a girl and instead grew up to be a gay man.

[Montana]

What I don't understand is why the right wing press aren't kicking off about the whole GRA reform / self id issue? It seems like it would be so down their virtue signalling / wokeness gone mad street?

[smalex]

What I don't understand is why the right wing press aren't kicking off about the whole GRA reform / self id issue? It seems like it would be so down their virtue signalling / wokeness gone mad street?

I wondered that too, but I guess they've been able to fill their boots with Brexit for ages? They might also be waiting until it's 'useful' to start kicking off about it (i.e. if and when they wanted to give Labour a kicking)?

[Montana]

The massive alarm bell for me is much less shocking, but I don't understand how, if it's all above board, there has been a sudden surge in the number of people born into the wrong body. Obviously the fact that transitioning can be done now makes a massive difference, but otherwise it doesn't make sense to me. There will always have been people who lived as 'the other' gender one way or another, and doubtless a whole lot more who just had miserable lives, but not as many as we are seeing now. I don't think it is wrong to ask why that has happened, and to understand that before going down the road of allowing irreversible decisions to be made by very young people.

Yes, I agree. There's no argument that there have been milennia of widespread misogyny and homophobia but I'm not aware of similar widespread persecution of great populations of trans people.

[Montana]

What I don't understand is why the right wing press aren't kicking off about the whole GRA reform / self id issue? It seems like it would be so down their virtue signalling / wokeness gone mad street?

I wondered that too, but I guess they've been able to fill their boots with Brexit for ages? They might also be waiting until it's 'useful' to start kicking off about it (i.e. if and when they wanted to give Labour a kicking)?

It could be that they have been otherwise engaged and are just biding their time - but the silence is kind of deafening - and it does make me kind of tempted to buy into the conspiracy theories. :toot:

ETA - And I also think that if and when the Sun and the like do get hold of this the danger is going to be that the backlash against trans people could be enormous and really unpleasant.

[Mountain Goat]

Perhaps they're letting Labour elect a "woke" leader and then getting the knives out once that's done. If they did it now, would it influence people to vote for someone perceived as more electable?

[Montana]

Maybe, maybe - it just seems strange to me. And is Keir Starmer the only one of the candidates that is aware of this danger? He certainly looks uncomfortable enough when the subject comes up in the leaders debates (and does a reasonably good job of dodging the question). Are the others just not thinking beyond getting elected as leader?

Or... is the right wing press unlikely to come out against self id they see it as anti-feminist?