Links - 5th February 2019 (Trans Mania)

Why don't trans activists practise what they preach? - "nine women filed a lawsuit against Naomi’s House, a shelter for homeless women, and its parent company, the Poverello House, after a man identifying as female was allowed to stay at the shelter, and sexually harassed numerous residents... rather than address any of the arguments I’d made in my talk, respond to any of the questions I’d asked or to any of the concerns I’d brought up, she wanted to talk about people’s “feelings”... this is a go-to strategy on the parts of trans activists. When asked to explain their claims that “transwomen are women”, that individuals can change their sex, or, simply, what a “transwoman” or a “woman” is, they will refuse to respond, and instead accuse the questioner of being “mean,” “hurtful,” “hateful” or “bigoted”. It’s a successful tactic, since most people do not wish to be considered “bad” or “hateful”. But when it comes to debating ideas and public policy, it makes no sense to avoid critical thinking or evidence, lest we upset those lobbying for the changes or ideology. Imagine if we were asked not to debate war or capitalism or climate change, lest it hurt the feelings of warmongers and capitalists and climate change deniers? But beyond that, since when did being “nice” entail lying? Or rejecting critical thought? Is it “nice” to accept dogma one believes is harmful or irrational? If someone told you the earth was flat, would you agree in order to avoid hurting their feelings? Jonathan Haidt, author of The Coddling of the American Mind, sees this trend as having originated on college campuses, where students have “medicalized” their aversion to certain ideas, books, words, and speakers. Rather than simply protest, as they would have in the past, students are claiming that these ideas, books, words, and speakers are actually harmful, traumatising, or even “literal violence”. And rather than debate these difficult ideas, they no-platform speakers and entirely avoid having to examine what, exactly, they say or believe is troubling about the ideas or words in question. This isn’t an attitude that will save us from bad policies or harmful political ideologies. In fact, it is already preventing us from forming good ideas and legislation with regard to trans issues. Nor is it good philosophical practice to accept dogma unquestioningly. Besides, how “nice” is it to demand the public go along with your preferred beliefs, lest they be blacklisted, bullied, fired, threatened, or labelled as “bigoted”? I’ve been threatened with violence online countless times, simply for asking questions about transgender ideology and gender identity legislation. Recently, Twitter locked my account because I tweeted the phrase, “men aren’t women”. This doesn’t strike me as particularly “nice” or open-minded behaviour. Yet somehow I am the one accused of “hate”... if this is the preferred way forward, let’s not carry on the charade of describing trans activism as a progressive movement towards acceptance. It smacks, instead, of tyranny."

Schools pulled into row over helping transgender children - "the “watchful waiting” approach advocated by the Transgender Trend pack, which warns schools to be “aware of the risk of ‘social contagion’ from celebrity trans internet vloggers who glamorise medical transition”? Stephanie Davies-Arai, a parenting adviser, launched the Transgender Trend resource pack in February half-term, thinking it would barely get noticed. Instead, she says: “It just blew up”. The LGBT lobby group Stonewall accused Transgender Trend, the organisation Davies-Arai set up two-and-a-half years ago, of spreading “damaging myths, panic and confusion”, and advised local authorities not to use the pack. On Twitter, people piled in, with one describing the pack (which had been checked by lawyers) as a “modern edition of Mein Kampf”. Davies-Arai says she took an interest in the subject because as a child she had felt herself to be a boy, and she didn’t think it was a good idea to label children like her as transgender because she believes that in some cases, these feelings resolve naturally by the end of adolescence... Davies-Arai says her broader concern is that by affirming students’ gender identity, schools may be nudging them down a route that can lead to cross-sex hormones and life-changing surgery without enough time to reflect. Teachers, she says, “are essentially being forced to collude in an experimental approach towards children with gender dysphoria”. She adds: “You can support children and accept them, without affirming their belief that their body is ‘wrong’.” Adele Robinson (not her real name), a head of year at a secondary school, shares Davies-Arai’s worries. The school has had 12 children, all girls, come out as transgender in the past 18 months. The majority, she says, have autism, and some have experienced sexual abuse. When they come out, she says, they have brought in information sourced from Tumblr blogs and YouTube videos... staff are too frightened to challenge what she sees as harmful practices: “We have chest binders worn in school, which is horrible. If a child was cutting, they would be straight in with a counsellor. Yet damaging developing breast tissue goes unquestioned. It’s a gross failure in terms of child protection.”"

Even Oxford University can’t save Jenni Murray from the transgender activist mob | Coffee House - "woman says things some people don’t like; woman gets invited to speak at a event; some people say woman shouldn’t get to speak at all; woman ends up not speaking"

The misogyny of trans censorship - "It seems this new generation of feminists are willing to silence women in order to accommodate trans activists – a group which, let’s face it, consists mainly of white, biological men; those usually seen by the left as the most privileged demographic, and those most responsible for silencing women throughout history. That the hurt feelings of biological men are being used by feminists to justify the censorship of biological women is absurd. This sounds a lot like the thing that hampered women throughout history: patriarchy. The fact that this new assault on women is coming from within the feminist movement is a cruel irony."

Trans murderer serving life will receive £80k gender reassignment on the NHS - "Green, 27, was found guilty of murder and jailed for life in 2013 after she tortured, sexually assaulted and beat a man to death with two accomplices.Since being incarcerated, Green from Glenrothes, Fife, has been removed from a women’s prison for sexually assaulting other inmates... prison officers are unhappy about Green’s operation, branding it “not live saving” and not “vital”... “You can murder someone brutally but while you’re in prison you’re entitled to everything you ask for, no matter the burden you put on a stretched system, because it might breach your human rights to say no."

Childhood Gender Nonconformity and Children’s Past-Life Memories - "Results: Children who remembered a life involving a different natal sex were much more likely to exhibit GNC than children who remembered a same-sex life.
Conclusions: After exploring potential explanations, we conclude that past-life memories represent a novel factor that may be associated with the development of GNC."
Maybe this means they're making both up

Everyone's Doing It: Three Trans Middle Schoolers Undergo Sex Change Therapy Together - "With the support of their parents and each other, the children -- all under age 12 -- will undergo medical intervention to avoid the otherwise inevitable process of developing adult male bodies... They will start taking hormone blockers right away. At age 14 to 16, they will begin taking female hormones, aka hormone replacement therapy. And when they are 18, they will have gender reassignment surgery."

Academics are being harassed over their research into transgender issues - "We represent a newly formed network of over 100 academics, most of whom are currently employed in UK universities. We are concerned, from a range of academic perspectives, about proposed governmental reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, and their interaction with the Equality Act... We are also concerned about the suppression of proper academic analysis and discussion of the social phenomenon of transgenderism, and its multiple causes and effects. Members of our group have experienced campus protests, calls for dismissal in the press, harassment, foiled plots to bring about dismissal, no-platforming, and attempts to censor academic research and publications. Such attacks are out of line with the ordinary reception of critical ideas in the academy, where it is normally accepted that disagreement is reasonable and even productive. Many of our universities have close links with trans advocacy organisations who provide “training” of academics and management, and who, it is reasonable to suppose, influence university policy through these links. Definitions used by these organisations of what counts as “transphobic” can be dangerously all-encompassing and go well beyond what a reasonable law would describe. They would not withstand academic analysis, and yet their effect is to curtail academic freedom and facilitate the censoring of academic work. We also worry about the effect of such definitions on the success rates of journal submissions and research grant applications from governmental bodies such as the AHRC and ESRC. We maintain that it is not transphobic to investigate and analyse this area from a range of critical academic perspectives. We think this research is sorely needed, and urge the government to take the lead in protecting any such research from ideologically driven attack."

Australian PM Blasts Transgender ‘Nonsense,’ Will Not Change Gender On Passports - "Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he has had enough transgender "nonsense," refusing to capitulate to the movement's demands for the government to create "non-binary" government documents for transgender people... "This is the problem with Labor, obsessed with nonsense like removing gender from birth certificates rather than lower electricity prices, reducing tax for hard-working families and small businesses.""

Transgender rights reforms: How it could be ILLEGAL to say 'he' or 'she' - "Using the pronouns 'he' and 'she' could land Australians before the courts under Tasmania's controversial transgender rights reforms, legal experts have warned... the prime minister drew widespread criticism after commenting on social media that schools do not need 'gender whisperers' in response to a report that teachers are being trained to identify transgender children"

YouTube Bans 'Dangerous' Ad For Video Critiquing Transgenderism - "Progressives are no longer willing to argue with those who oppose them, even with satire. Instead, companies like Google are just shutting them down...
"me talking about basic biology w/ @LOUontheSUBWAY @WeTheInternetTV is "dangerous or derogatory.""...
WTI gives it to both sides, but only finds itself facing an ad ban when it offends the sensibilities of progressives... There is nothing even remotely offensive about the ad that was blocked or the content that is advertised. Google is bowing to progressive pressure to shut down thought that progressives find problematic"

Trans Activists’ Campaign Against ‘TERFs’ has Become an Attack on Science - "To cite the historically verifiable fact that someone named Bruce Jenner once existed is now seen as a sort of religious heresy. And like all heresies, it must be ritualistically expunged—not because it is factually wrong, but because it is seen as morally wrong... Marcus is worried that facts might be used to undermine ideologically hallowed “perspectives”—also known as “opinions.”... transgender activism has undermined the efforts of clinicians and researchers who have sought to investigate the issue of gender dysphoria. There is perhaps no other area of human behaviour where ideologically motivated actors have been so successful in creating what are in effect no-go zones for academics, and even for facts themselves... trans extremists aren’t even trying to hide their witch-hunt tactics anymore. Goldsmiths researcher Natacha Kennedy, working under the name of Mark Hellen, was discovered to have orchestrated a smear campaign targeting female academics in the UK who refuse to conform to transgender ideology. (Kennedy encouraged members on a private Facebook group to draw up a list where “members plotted to accuse non-compliant professors of hate crime to try to have them ousted from their jobs.”)... girls as young as 13 are being told by US physician Johanna Olson-Kennedy that they “have the capacity to make…reasoned, logical decision[s]” about whether they want their breasts removed—because if they “want breasts later on in [their] life, [they] can go and get them.” This sort of casual attitude to body mutilation—and re-mutilation—helps explain why many enterprising doctors have become de facto transgender activists, since they get paid on both ends of the transformation... The journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (PPR) recently published two articles—one by trans academic Rachel McKinnon (College of Charleston) called “The Epistemology of Propaganda,“ and another by Jason Stanley (Yale), “Replies”—wherein the epithet “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) is casually flung about to attack women who oppose a trans-maximalist agenda. The attack on women contained in these articles was so scathing that a group of philosophers were moved to publish a guest post in the philosophy blog Daily Nous entitled “Derogatory Language in Philosophy Journal Risks Increased Hostility and Diminished Discussion,” pointing out that TERF is “at worst a slur and at best derogatory.” (It has also been pointed out that McKinnon’s paper contained at least one flat-out falsehood—the claim that there is no case on record of a transgender woman sexually assaulting a woman in a female-only space.)... there have been recent analyses of the British prison system showing that approximately two-fifths of transsexual male prisoners are sex offenders. And while the BBC attempted to whitewash this analysis (a scandal unto itself), The Spectator’s James Kirkup took it upon himself to set out the grim facts that the BBC has sought to bury."