Gender Identity in Modern Ireland (Mod warnings and Threadbanned Users in OP)

Vestiapx

Gentlemanne wrote: »

I believe the "Best Actress" award was introduced because of the overwhelming wins by men for "Best Actor". Similarly, although Chess in the competitive sense wasn't gendered, the top players were dominated by men, so a division for Womens Chess was introduced.

It's not that men are just better at chess or acting, there's a larger conversation about institutional sexism. It would be good for people to understand there is a lot of nuance with our social biases.

Do you believe chess should be gendered? Personally that's something I just found out and it seems crazy.

In today's Guardian. Useful perhaps for those who regularly say ''I don't know enough about this to have an opinion'' or ''Let the doctors decide, they know best''. David Bell has been involved in this area for decades at the highest level.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/02/tavistock-trust-whistleblower-david-bell-transgender-children-gids

Extracts

Bell, a distinguished psychiatrist and practising psychoanalyst, is the doctor who in 2018 wrote a controversial report about the activities of the gender identity development service (GIDS), a clinic at the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust in north London, where he worked in adult services from 1995 until his retirement earlier this year. GIDS, the only clinic of its kind in England, specialises in treating children with gender identity issues

Bell’s report anticipated the concerns of the high court (in the recent Keira Bell case where the High Court ruled that children under 16 cannot consent to puberty blockers) and he feels vindicated by its judgment. “It was jaw-dropping,” he says. “Because it was very strong.” As he read it, he was struck by details that have not been widely reported, particularly those involving a lack of data, a problem he had raised himself (GIDS was unable to produce for the court any data relating to outcomes and effects, whether desirable or adverse, in children who had been prescribed puberty blockers; nor could it provide details of the number and ages of children who had been given them). But the experience was painful, too: “I felt concerned that we’d moved away from the values [of care] the trust has embodied for so long.”

Writing the report was, he says, a matter of conscience. In 2018, 10 GIDS staff brought their worries to him unsolicited, a figure he estimates to be around a third of those then working there. He had no choice but to act and would do the same again. Nevertheless, it was not easy. Far from being grateful to him for alerting it to a potentially dangerous situation, the trust’s position appeared defensive – having read the correspondence involved, perhaps aggressively so – almost from the start. It tried to silence him and instituted proceedings against him.

Of the 10 GIDS staff who would talk to him over the course of the next seven months, only the first saw Bell at the Tavistock; the others, who spoke of intimidation, worried about being seen. What did he make of what they told him? “My blood ran cold. Their concerns were similar, but not in a choreographed way. One or two were severely troubled.”

Among these concerns were the fact that children attending GIDS often seemed to be rehearsed and sometimes did not share their parents’ sense of urgency; that senior staff spoke of “straightforward cases” in terms of children who were to be put on puberty blockers (no case of gender dysphoria, notes Bell, can be said to be straightforward); that some were recommended for treatment after just two appointments and seen only infrequently thereafter; some felt that GIDS employed too many inexperienced (and inexpensive) psychologists; that clinicians who’d spoken of homophobia in the unit were told they had “personal issues”. One told Bell that a child as young as eight had been referred to an endocrinologist for treatment. “I could not go on like this… I could not live with myself given the poor treatment the children were obtaining,” said another.

The clinic, which was established in 1989, had grown hugely during his time. In 2009, it saw 80 patients. By 2019, this figure had risen to 2,700.

(Bell) believes more questions must be asked, particularly about the rise in the number of girls presenting at the clinic (three-quarters of patients are now girls; the gender balance used to be closer to 50:50). “We do not know why this is happening.” He worries that too much emphasis is placed on gender and not enough on sexuality – “the children are often gay” – and he continues to be anxious about co-morbidities such as anorexia, autism and history of trauma in its patients. “Some of the children are depressed. It’s said that it’s their gender that is the cause of this, but how do we know? And why don’t we try to treat that first?”

Bell is not against puberty blockers per se – “a doctor should never say never” – but he believes that halting puberty only makes it more frightening to the child: “The child will never want to come off the hormones and 98% do now stay on them. This could be a dangerous collusion on the part of the doctor. The body is not a video machine. You can’t just press a pause button. You have to ask what it really means to stop puberty.” It should be possible, he believes, to manage the distress of a child who is suffering gender dysphoria in a less interventionist way, until he or she is an adult and can make a decision: “Consent is the issue here, nothing else.” He does not doubt that some patients will want, and need, to transition in the future. But, he says, not all children with gender dysphoria are trans. The two have been elided. More work needs to be done locally. “Gender dysphoria clinics should be part of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and available nationwide,” he says. “At the moment, children who are suffering extreme distress in relation to their bodies are sent to the Tavistock and the problem then goes away at local level, where psychotherapy services are on their knees.”

(Bell) has been most shocked by the reluctance of the left to engage with the issues. “They think this is to do with being liberal, rather than with concerns about the care of children. Mermaids and Stonewall [the charities for trans children and LGBTQ+ rights] have made people afraid even of listening to another view.”

The current campaign to ban so-called gay conversion therapy is, he believes, likely to become a Trojan horse for trans activists who will use it to put pressure on any clinician who does not immediately affirm a young person’s statement about their identity, decrying this, too, as a form of “conversion”. For Bell, the prospect of not being able to talk openly about such things is a tyranny: just another form of repression. “This is about light and air,” he says. “It’s about free thinking, the kind that will result in better outcomes for all young people, whether transgender or not.”

ingalway

Wallet Inspector wrote: »

Caitlyn Jenner is of the opinion that trans girls should not take part in girls' sports: https://deadline.com/2021/05/caitlyn-jenner-supports-banning-trans-girls-from-girls-sports-1234748372/

She also said that there were bigger issues than pronouns when a television host apologised to her for mistakenly referring to her numerous times with male pronouns: https://twitter.com/Caitlyn_Jenner/status/1385823403005734923?s=19

I saw these items on social media, and the response from those who take issue with her comments is that she's only trying to appease republican voters in her bid for the role of California governor representing that party. And she's privileged and white and a transphobe yadda yadda (no doubt the same people considered her brave for identifying as trans a few years back).

Or... maybe she has a mind of her own and that's her actual opinion, having been an Olympic athlete. She is already running as republican in the first place, so I doubt she is just pretending to hold this view.

Maybe she - being a transwoman like - realises that you don't have to agree with absolutely every opinion you're "supposed to" agree with, in order to be non transphobic. Maybe she just prefers not to pretend that biology is subjective, and that while it's difficult for kids to hear these things, a physical advantage rules out fairness.

I'm pleasantly surprised that CJ is being open and honest on this. TRAs are tying themselves in knots, as usual, denouncing CJ. Wrong kind of trans. Of course they know better than a former elite athlete. Feelings over facts as ever.

I also like her not being precious about pronouns. Apparantly CJ's children still call her dad and it's not a problem.

Wallet Inspector

ingalway wrote: »

I'm pleasantly surprised that CJ is being open and honest on this. TRAs are tying themselves in knots, as usual, denouncing CJ. Wrong kind of trans. Of course they know better than a former elite athlete. Feelings over facts as ever.

I also like her not being precious about pronouns. Apparantly CJ's children still call her dad and it's not a problem.

And doesn't view references to her past, which can be a significant part of a person, as "deadnaming". (:rolleyes:)

Wallet Inspector

Wallet Inspector wrote: »

And doesn't view references to her past, which can be a significant part of a person, as "deadnaming". (:rolleyes:)

Yes the concept of deadnaming is a bit bizarre.

Wallet Inspector

Hhhhh wrote: »

Yes the concept of deadnaming is a bit bizarre.

If someone, following the distressing experience of transitioning, wants to draw a line under their past, I respect that.

But punishing people for mentioning the past of a well known person erroneously - ridiculous.

Vestiapx

isha wrote: »

In today's Guardian. Useful perhaps for those who regularly say ''I don't know enough about this to have an opinion'' or ''Let the doctors decide, they know best''. David Bell has been involved in this area for decades at the highest level.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/02/tavistock-trust-whistleblower-david-bell-transgender-children-gids

Extracts

In my case I still don't know enough even after reading Bell.

km991148

Wallet Inspector wrote: »

If someone, following the distressing experience of transitioning, wants to draw a line under their past, I respect that.

But punishing people for mentioning the past of a well known person erroneously - ridiculous.

Yes and the last sentence is important. Context and boundaries (and who gets to set them).

Most trans people I know wouldn't give a crap if there was an accidental use of the wrong name or pronoun.

Often tho, that's not what happens and the deadnaming is usually plain bullying. Similarly, the amount of misgendering etc that happened on the CJ thread (just for ****s and giggles) before the mod action.

On 'dead naming' as a moral issue.

The traffic seems to be oneway in progressive culture on the subject of deadnaming. It is a bad thing to do, apparently, even to the point of being compelled in a UK court to refer to one's male rapist by their preferred female pronoun and name.

Caitlyn Jenner says they do not worry about it and Caitlyn's children call them Dad. Debbie Haytons kids also call them Dad.

Erasure of history can be an immoral act from the point of view of its effects on other people. Like the children of Debbie and Caitlyn. Like the woman raped by a person with a penis.

One case in particular troubles me wrt the potential requirement to refrain from dead naming or being in any way compelled to use preferred pronouns. In February of this year a prisoner appealed the severity of the 6.5 year sentence they received in 2019 for sexually abusing their stepson when the boy was 4 to 6 years old. That was in 2011 ro 2013. The boy is now 14.

The abuser came to the house as "step dad". They threatened to break the childs arms and legs if the child told anyone. That abuser is now imprisoned in a female prison.

I wonder do those so troubled by deadnaming have an exception clause in such cases. What line in the sand do you defend? If you make exceptions how do you police others exceptions or lack of them?

Certainly the newspapers have not used an exception. The child abuser above is referred to universally as a woman and she, and if the identity of the boy was not to be protected, the abuser would likely be called their chosen name. Even though they sexually abused the child as a man, before self ID-ing as a woman.

That boy - now 14 - can see those media reports. How must he feel? The world tells him, repeatedly, on multiple platforms, that he was raped as a child by a woman. The person who violated him is in a woman's prison. Perhaps his counsellors must refer to his abuser as female.

While I do not deadname people generally, as it would be rude and almost always unnecessary, I would not think it is egregious to say Caitlyn Jenner was known as Bruce Jenner formerly.
But far far more grevious than any wound deadnaming might cause a trans person would be the dreadful wound of being compelled to refer to one's sexual abuser in a guise incomparable with one's real life experience of them and their actions.

And yet, such manners have been wholesale adopted - media reports, crime statistics, court language. This is harmful to others and wrong.

Wallet Inspector

It's horrendous isha.

And it's not a claim that trans people are child abusers - obviously the vast majority aren't, but it's the requirement to abide by rules even when undeserved.

Wallet Inspector

Wallet Inspector wrote: »

It's horrendous isha.

And it's not a claim that trans people are child abusers - obviously the vast majority aren't, but it's the requirement to abide by rules even when undeserved.

It is often twisted that one is trying to somehow say that trans people are abusers, which is a really horrible lie.

Colm Keena in today's Irish Times re puberty blockers, Crumlin Hospital, paucity of studies etc

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/lack-of-clarity-on-use-of-puberty-blockers-for-gender-dysphoria-treatment-in-ireland-1.4551119?mode=amp&mode=amp&__twitter_impression=true

Recent research finds 1/3rd of children on puberty blockers for 2 years have abnormally low bone density

https://segm.org/the_effect_of_puberty_blockers_on_the_accrual_of_bone_mass

km991148

[Deleted User] wrote: »

On 'dead naming' as a moral issue.

The traffic seems to be oneway in progressive culture on the subject of deadnaming. It is a bad thing to do, apparently, even to the point of being compelled in a UK court to refer to one's male rapist by their preferred female pronoun and name.

Caitlyn Jenner says they do not worry about it and Caitlyn's children call them Dad. Debbie Haytons kids also call them Dad.

Erasure of history can be an immoral act from the point of view of its effects on other people. Like the children of Debbie and Caitlyn. Like the woman raped by a person with a penis.

One case in particular troubles me wrt the potential requirement to refrain from dead naming or being in any way compelled to use preferred pronouns. In February of this year a prisoner appealed the severity of the 6.5 year sentence they received in 2019 for sexually abusing their stepson when the boy was 4 to 6 years old. That was in 2011 ro 2013. The boy is now 14.

The abuser came to the house as "step dad". They threatened to break the childs arms and legs if the child told anyone. That abuser is now imprisoned in a female prison.

I wonder do those so troubled by deadnaming have an exception clause in such cases. What line in the sand do you defend? If you make exceptions how do you police others exceptions or lack of them?

Certainly the newspapers have not used an exception. The child abuser above is referred to universally as a woman and she, and if the identity of the boy was not to be protected, the abuser would likely be called their chosen name. Even though they sexually abused the child as a man, before self ID-ing as a woman.

That boy - now 14 - can see those media reports. How must he feel? The world tells him, repeatedly, on multiple platforms, that he was raped as a child by a woman. The person who violated him is in a woman's prison. Perhaps his counsellors must refer to his abuser as female.

While I do not deadname people generally, as it would be rude and almost always unnecessary, I would not think it is egregious to say Caitlyn Jenner was known as Bruce Jenner formerly.
But far far more grevious than any wound deadnaming might cause a trans person would be the dreadful wound of being compelled to refer to one's sexual abuser in a guise incomparable with one's real life experience of them and their actions.

And yet, such manners have been wholesale adopted - media reports, crime statistics, court language. This is harmful to others and wrong.

There are so many twists and turns and assumptions here, I don't know where to start. Sounds like a horrible situation, but are you saying that we should be allowed to deadname as we please because of this extreme situation? I'm not sure I follow your argument and the the assumption you seem to be making?

Please clarify.

km991148

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It is often twisted that one is trying to somehow say that trans people are abusers, which is a really horrible lie.

I don't think so tho? Not by most people - I'm sure someone could counter this with some Twitter stuff or something.

I suppose one might be tempted to ask why someone might introduce such extreme examples into the general topic of deadnaming, but I don't believe anyone is pushing this 'lie' - it's almost like making up arguments or preempting them before they have happened.

km991148

[Deleted User] wrote: »

On 'dead naming' as a moral issue.

The traffic seems to be oneway in progressive culture on the subject of deadnaming. It is a bad thing to do, apparently, even to the point of being compelled in a UK court to refer to one's male rapist by their preferred female pronoun and name.

Caitlyn Jenner says they do not worry about it and Caitlyn's children call them Dad. Debbie Haytons kids also call them Dad.

Erasure of history can be an immoral act from the point of view of its effects on other people. Like the children of Debbie and Caitlyn. Like the woman raped by a person with a penis.

One case in particular troubles me wrt the potential requirement to refrain from dead naming or being in any way compelled to use preferred pronouns. In February of this year a prisoner appealed the severity of the 6.5 year sentence they received in 2019 for sexually abusing their stepson when the boy was 4 to 6 years old. That was in 2011 ro 2013. The boy is now 14.

The abuser came to the house as "step dad". They threatened to break the childs arms and legs if the child told anyone. That abuser is now imprisoned in a female prison.

I wonder do those so troubled by deadnaming have an exception clause in such cases. What line in the sand do you defend? If you make exceptions how do you police others exceptions or lack of them?

Certainly the newspapers have not used an exception. The child abuser above is referred to universally as a woman and she, and if the identity of the boy was not to be protected, the abuser would likely be called their chosen name. Even though they sexually abused the child as a man, before self ID-ing as a woman.

That boy - now 14 - can see those media reports. How must he feel? The world tells him, repeatedly, on multiple platforms, that he was raped as a child by a woman. The person who violated him is in a woman's prison. Perhaps his counsellors must refer to his abuser as female.

While I do not deadname people generally, as it would be rude and almost always unnecessary, I would not think it is egregious to say Caitlyn Jenner was known as Bruce Jenner formerly.
But far far more grevious than any wound deadnaming might cause a trans person would be the dreadful wound of being compelled to refer to one's sexual abuser in a guise incomparable with one's real life experience of them and their actions.

And yet, such manners have been wholesale adopted - media reports, crime statistics, court language. This is harmful to others and wrong.

I'm still not really sure what your point is. It's up to anyone to choose how they would like to be addressed. It's sickening that someone has been able to abuse a child in such a way. Presumably in court the rule stands, because what else would happen?

I would hope the victim is receiving all the support and counseling that they deserve (and no doubt, need) to even begin to recover from such horrors and I'm sure the professionals are able to work with the victim to achieve some form of recovery. I'm sure they will refer to the attacker in whatever way is useful to achieve this. It may or may not have caused further issue for the victim to have to refer to the attacker as female during the legal process, but it's pure speculation either way.

But I really don't know what your point is in relation to dead naming in general, or why this one very extreme and tragic case is brought up as part of a discussion on dead names and misgendering. In the general sense using someone's dead name without knowing if the person wants that is plain disrespectful. It's quite simple really. It's nothing to do with a 'moral issue' or 'progressive culture' or whatever woolly terms you want to shoehorn in there. If someone wants to be called X and you decide to call them Y then you are acting like a prick.

The case you highlighted is "troubling" for many, many reasons other than what someone should be addressed as.

volchitsa

km991148 wrote: »

.

The case you highlighted is "troubling" for many, many reasons other than what someone should be addressed as.

It’s also troubling that the court would choose to participate in a fiction that may increase the victim’s trauma and create a false impression in the jury’s mind. Because a woman did not rape the child, a man did. So the person should stand trial as a man. Seeing as he was a man at the time

km991148

volchitsa wrote: »

It’s also troubling that the court would choose to participate in a fiction that may increase the victim’s trauma and create a false impression in the jury’s mind. Because a woman did not rape the child, a man did. So the person should stand trial as a man. Seeing as he was a man at the time

What makes you believe that the people in the court don't have the same level of executive function that you or I have? That somehow the court room is in a weird time vacuum where they are unable to differentiate past from present?

km991148

Any chance of a link to this case? We are (again) pushing the thread topic a bit here, but would be useful to share this one since there have been a few posts?

km991148

km991148 wrote: »

Any chance of a link to this case? We are (again) pushing the thread topic a bit here, but would be useful to share this one since there have been a few posts?

It is a very recent Irish case.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishexaminer.com/news/courtandcrime/arid-40234322.html%3ftype=amp

It has been mentioned on this thread before. Unless it is among deleted posts. If one is to have strong opinions about how things are or should be, or equally if one is to strongly dismiss other posters opinions, then it would be better to keep up with the current affairs regarding this situation, in my opinion. These are very serious matters and deserve very serious consideration.

I find it repugnant that every media reference to this person who dreadfully abused and threatened a very small boy calls them a woman and refers to them as she, her etc. What a head wrecker for that boy, now 14 years old. And that they go for their crime to the female jail. It is so incredibly disrespectful to the child's real experience of the trauma. Not to mention the vulnerable women who cannot get out of the prison.

The framing of the thread topic of gender identity in Ireland being "pushed" by refering to a recent high profile and very pertinent Irish example is just ridiculous.

Probes

volchitsa wrote: »

It’s also troubling that the court would choose to participate in a fiction that may increase the victim’s trauma and create a false impression in the jury’s mind. Because a woman did not rape the child, a man did. So the person should stand trial as a man. Seeing as he was a man at the time

I'm keen to understand how someone's gender matters in this case? Is a rape somehow more or less severe if it was committed by either a man or a woman? Are you suggesting women who abuse children get less severe sentences?

Probes

Probes wrote: »

I'm keen to understand how someone's gender matters in this case? Is a rape somehow more or less severe if it was committed by either a man or a woman? Are you suggesting women who abuse children get less severe sentences?

If you were raped by a man how would you like to have to screw your head up by having to say publicly that you were raped by a woman? It is not ''gender'' that matters, as you asked - gender has been stretched as a definition to be as meaningless and ephemeral as being an indigo child or some other special creature. It is the SEX of the person that matters because it is the REALITY of what is happening. To the person experiencing it. They are being raped by a man.

Equally if they were being raped by a woman why would we have societal norms introduced to fcuk with their heads and make their experience be recorded or told to them as rape by a man. it is incredibly disrespectful.

Amazing how ''lived experience'' only runs one way, it seems.

Probes

Probes wrote: »

I'm keen to understand how someone's gender matters in this case? Is a rape somehow more or less severe if it was committed by either a man or a woman? Are you suggesting women who abuse children get less severe sentences?

To think we have gotten to the point where the progressive viewpoint now is to say to rape victims that it really does not matter if your rapist was male or female, it's all the same, we will tell your story according to our politically correct prognostications.

Utterly bizarre.

Probes

It just seems weird to associate gender change with such a negative and rare situation, why do it unless the purpose is to create that negative association?

Yes, for me you still refer to the defendant by the pronouns they want unless as a society we say anyone accused or guilty of certain offences are not allowed to change genders.

GreeBo

Probes wrote: »

I'm keen to understand how someone's gender matters in this case? Is a rape somehow more or less severe if it was committed by either a man or a woman? Are you suggesting women who abuse children get less severe sentences?

I dont think its out of this world to differentiate between a homosexual and a heterosexual rape, it wouldnt surprise me for anyone but especially a child to feel differently about the two. There could certainly be some perceived stigma attached to being raped by a man for a young male.

GreeBo

Probes wrote: »

It just seems weird to associate gender change with such a negative and rare situation, why do it unless the purpose is to create that negative association?

Yes, for me you still refer to the defendant by the pronouns they want unless as a society we say anyone accused or guilty of certain offences are not allowed to change genders.

Its the fact that this case illustrates the absurdity of the situation where a boy is forced to refer to his rapist as a woman despite them raping him as a man. Many feel that this same absurdity exists in all cases of transgenderism.

km991148

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It is a very recent Irish case.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishexaminer.com/news/courtandcrime/arid-40234322.html%3ftype=amp

It has been mentioned on this thread before. Unless it is among deleted posts. If one is to have strong opinions about how things are or should be, or equally if one is to strongly dismiss other posters opinions, *then it would be better to keep up with the current affairs regarding this situation, in my opinion*. These are very serious matters and deserve very serious consideration.

But not so serious that a bit of snark is allowed?
Come on, I asked (politely) for a link. Thank you for providing.


One is not dismissing an opinion. This part here is a reasonable hypothesis that many may make:

[Deleted User] wrote: »

And yet, such manners have been wholesale adopted - media reports, crime statistics, court language. *This is harmful to others and wrong*.

But it's based on a lot of assumption, and I'm not sure I agree with all of your assumptions.

On top of that, I'm not finding a persons name the worst thing about this, it's not like everyone involved doesn't know the facts. I think it's even more disrespectful to the victim to bring the attackers name up and make it a debate. Accept the name and focus on what really matters: justice and recovery for the victim and rehabilitation of the attacker. It's not like the jury and everyone involved in the process is ignorant to who done what and when.

Mystery Egg

Perhaps isha is highlighting the consequences of self ID and compelled pronoun use.

Doesn't seem strange to me at all.

km991148

Probes wrote: »

Yes, for me you still refer to the defendant by the pronouns they want unless as a society we say anyone accused or guilty of certain offences are not allowed to change genders.

Why not go a step further and just take away their names altogether?

km991148

km991148 wrote: »

It's not like the jury and everyone involved in the process is ignorant to who done what and when.

Oh. So the jury and everyone involved knows. But must frame it otherwise.

BTW using the word ''assumptions'' when referring to another posters argued opinion is not the acceptable usage of the word.