Links - 16th February 2020 (2) (Trans Mania)

Flora vs Mumsnet: the culture war is out of control - "Margarine is now on the frontline of the culture war. Not just any old margarine, but the longtime family favourite, Flora. Until a few days ago, Flora advertised on Mumsnet... Some contributors are concerned that the privacy and safety of women-only spaces, whether changing rooms, toilets, prisons or refuges, will be threatened if men can enter simply by declaring themselves to be women. Other Mumsnet posters have raised concerns about their own children being encouraged to question their gender identity at school. Transgender activists hate that Mumsnet provides a forum for these concerns to be expressed out in the open, without either censorship or a clear editorial voice passing judgement on what is said. And rather than just not going on Mumsnet, or trying to challenge particular arguments made on there, Twitter warriors have instead petitioned companies to pull adverts from the site in order to rob it of revenue and ultimately have it shut down. This practice has been well-honed by the campaign group Stop Funding Hate, which ‘names and shames’ companies that advertise in the Daily Mail, the Sun or any other publication its members decide they don’t like... There’s a horrible, bullying narcissism in these activists’ insistence that, just because they don’t like what people are saying on Mumsnet, they will shut down the platform and stop the conversation entirely. Casually throwing around accusations of transphobia and bigotry is designed to intimidate companies into submission. Unfortunately, it works... Upfield’s decision makes no economic sense. Even if Flora is the margarine of choice for every single member of the trans community, the bottom line is that mums still buy more. But, as we have seen with Gillette and a host of other companies that have suddenly gone woke, making a profit no longer seems to be their reason for existing. Bizarrely, those who produce Flora now see the brand’s remit not as providing a cheap spread for the nation’s morning toast but preaching to us about how to live. The aim, it seems, is to appear morally pure rather than to be economically successful. Avoiding being labelled ‘transphobic’ overrides every other concern – from making a profit to defending the core customer base: women and mothers... Back in the late 1970s, Flora ran a series of ads featuring hapless men and the women who loved and shopped for them. The slogan was: ‘Flora, the margarine for men.’ Today, many women will no doubt draw the same conclusion. Flora is still the margarine for men. It’s the margarine for men who think they are women and are prepared to throw their weight around to stop actual women discussing issues of concern to them."

Mothers boycott Flora margarine after it pulls its adverts from Mumsnet in 'transaphobia' row - "Mothers across Britain are now boycotting the firm that owns the margarine brand, which had responded to complaints by a 'handful' of transgender activists... Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts accused the brand of bowing to pressure from 'a handful of activists on Twitter'.She added: 'Mumsnet has turned down hundreds of thousands of pounds of advertising over the years from companies which we feel don't make parents' lives easier, so we're well used to putting purpose before profit. I do think in the end consumers will value companies which show a bit of backbone.'Laura Perrins, co-editor of online magazine The Conservative Woman, said: 'It is a ridiculous decision that will have a chilling impact on free speech.'Upfield are bowing to an extremist view if they think you can't discuss these matters on an internet forum. If people want to, they should make their feelings known with a boycott of their own.'Kiri Tunks, co-founder of Women's Place UK, which opposes the introduction of 'self-identification laws for transgender people', said: 'It's disappointing to see a company try to bully a women's online forum simply because women talk freely about politics and feminism there.'Karen Ingala-Smith, chief executive of a women's domestic violence charity in London, said: 'I find the expectation that women who share motherhood don't have the right to talk about anything political beyond motherhood absolutely sexist, patriarchal nonsense.'I'd be delighted to see women voting with their purses to show Flora that if they choose not to support their right to speak, women will fight back.'"

Why is a trans woman leading a men’s rights group? - "The MRA group, SFU Advocacy for Men and Boys (AMB), invited Karen Straughan, an outspoken and charismatic men’s rights internet personality, to speak about “toxic femininity.”... The AMB’s indignant response was penned by the club’s president Theryn Meyer, a transgender woman... Meyer identifies as a men’s rights activist and an “afeminist,” and says she thinks feminism has an unfair ideological chokehold on LGBT communities.“I don’t like feminism constructing a trans identity around victimhood,” she says. “I used to be a feminist, and I was a fucking wreck. I was eating up everything that feminism fed to me: that the world was out to get me, that the world was structured to not accommodate me. And of course that’s true to some extent, but it was the constant harping about it, and the idea that you can never do anything about it as an individual. When I finally turned my back on all that stuff and I started realizing the strength I have as an individual, that’s when I started becoming strong as a trans woman.” The last straw, she said, was during a protest for gender-neutral washrooms in 2015, when students occupied a male washroom at SFU. When Meyer suggested that only occupying the male washroom was unfair, she says, she was ignored. She says she heard another student say that bashing men was okay because men hold structural power. As someone who was once seen as a man, the statement struck her as wrong.“I decided I was done,” she says... Blaire White, a 22-year-old computer science major and trans woman from the tiny Sierra Nevadas town of Chico, California, is also a rising star in the men’s rights movement. On Twitter, she discusses the effects of her estrogen treatment, her boyfriend and how feminism is a cancer. One of her YouTube videos, about her classmates in a psychology class laughing at a male abuse victim, has nearly 200,000 hits. Meyer and White agree their criticisms of feminism, and support for MRAs, did not develop despite being transgender but because of it. White says after living part of her life as a man and part as a woman, she believes she unequivocally receives more societal privilege as a woman than a man. She says as a woman people are kinder, care more about her feelings, and are more willing to sacrifice on her behalf... Meyer shares White’s view that trans women are abused and criticized not because of their apparent femininity but because they are seen as “failed men.” She thinks transphobia against trans women stems from the hatred of men who do not live up to strict social standards of maleness — in her words, misandry... Meyer and White have a gripe with feminists that could only come from two trans women. Contemporary third-wave feminists, they say, often argue that gender is a purely social phenomenon, and that male and female brains are not fundamentally different. If that’s true, these trans MRAs say, how is it that two people born and socialized as men could intrinsically know they were women? You can argue that gender is entirely socially constructed and that male and female brains are the same, or you can respect transgender people’s claim that they are intrinsically one gender, they say, but not both... [They] feel more comfortable among MRAs than among feminists."

Blaire White on Twitter - "If you believe children shouldn't be able to drive, drink alcohol, or get a tattoo.. but SHOULD be able to chemically castrate themselves and transition, you're either a monster or a fucking moron."

Make Men Men Again - Posts - "What I used to look for *Tits and Ass*"
"What I look for now *Adam's Apple*"

Police forces let rapists record their gender as female - "Police forces are recording suspected and convicted rapists as female if they no longer wish to identify with their male birth sex.Six forces, including South Yorkshire and Thames Valley, disclosed under freedom of information laws that if someone is arrested for or convicted of rape, the official record will state the gender they chose to identify themselves as.A further five forces — Durham, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk as well as British Transport Police — did not answer the question directly but each said they recorded gender in line with the person’s wishes.Nicola Williams, director of Fair Play for Women, which submitted the requests, said: “You can’t get much more of a male crime than rape. It would be highly offensive to a woman who was raped to have it written down that her attacker was a female when clearly that was a male with a penis.”The legal definition of rape involves penetration with a penis without consent."
The flip side of this is that trans people may be reflecting as having a very high crime rate. Doubtless that will be blamed on "transphobia"

One in 50 prisoners identifies as transgender amid concerns inmates are attempting to secure prison perks - "One in 50 male offenders in prisons are self-identifying as transgender, according to a survey by the official jail watchdog,  amid concerns inmates may be attempting to secure extra perks.The figure, the first by the watchdog, suggests there are up to 1,500 transgender inmates among the 90,000 prisoners in England and Wales, more than ten times previous estimates, and at least four times the number in the general population. Among offenders from traveller communities the number self-identifying as transgender or transsexual rose to one in ten inmates, according to the annual report by Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons.  Transgender prisoners are entitled to shower alone, separate cells and can apply to switch between male and female jails. Earlier this year the Ministry of Justice created a "wing" for transgender prisoners to keep them away from other inmates... The watchdog’s survey of 5,133 British prisoners found two per cent self identified as transgender or transexual, rising to 10 per cent of the 287 traveller offenders surveyed. Extrapolated across the prison service, this would mean about 1,500.  By contrast, the Government’s equalities office estimates as few as 0.5 per cent or 200,000 in the general population are transgender"
Alternatively, trans people are especially prone to criminality
Of course, it's easier to just blame "transphobia"

Parents battle ‘state‑sponsored sterilisation’ of trans children | News | The Sunday Times - "More than 30 families with transgender children are to lobby the government and the NHS against what they claim is “coerced medicalisation” — propelling vulnerable young people convinced they are the wrong gender towards treatments that risk leaving them infertile.The group, provisionally called Our Duty, was formed after one mother went public to describe gender reassignment medication and surgery for those with autism or psychological problems as “state-sponsored sterilisation”... The clinic already faces a challenge from Sue Evans, a Gids psychotherapist from 2003 to 2007, who plans to ask the courts to say that children cannot give informed consent to “radical experimental medical treatment” such as hormones to block puberty. The hormones are prescribed from age 11 and are often followed by cross-sex hormones at the age of 16, creating a risk of infertility.The parents are determined to fight what they call the automatic “affirmation” model that discourages professionals from questioning young people who say they want to change gender. They say other possible causes of distress are rarely investigated.Nearly all of the parents in the group have children who “suddenly” identified as transgender... The parents say their children decided they were trans after spending time in internet chatrooms focused on gender identity, or were influenced by classmates and LGBT activist groups... “It just doesn’t make any sense that hundreds of young vulnerable people with mental health issues like my son are being led by the LGBT lobby into the delusion they were born the wrong sex,” she said. “Then the medical profession are offering to fix their bodies instead of their minds.”... “If they proceed to surgery we’re talking about removing healthy breasts and wombs from young women and functioning penises from young men to be replaced by extensions and inversions with high complication rates that require lifelong maintenance.”He said his daughter went through puberty at 10 and developed large breasts — also reported in several other cases in the group — which he thinks may have made her feel uncomfortable about her body."

Lupron, used to halt puberty in children, may cause lasting health problems - "For years, Sharissa Derricott, 30, had no idea why her body seemed to be failing. At 21, a surgeon replaced her deteriorated jaw joint. She’s been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. Her teeth are shedding enamel and cracking.None of it made sense to her until she discovered a community of women online who describe similar symptoms and have one thing in common: All had taken a drug called Lupron.Thousands of parents chose to inject their daughters with the drug, which was approved to shut down puberty in young girls but also is commonly used off-label to help short kids grow taller."

Drugs used as puberty blockers in youth linked to thousands of adult deaths, FDA shows - "A spokesperson for the FDA confirmed in a Friday email to The Christian Post that the agency figures reported in this article are accurate. The spokesperson, however, clarified that "regarding deaths specifically, these are reports with the 'serious' outcome of death, not the reported adverse event term 'death.'”"

The transgender cult stole my daughter - "Your beloved child has been kidnapped by a sadistic cult. The cult brainwashes her to believe you are the enemy. The brainwashing erases her entire childhood. Every good memory is replaced with memories of abuse that never happened.The cult convinces her to inject poison in her body and to get her healthy body parts amputated.You panic. You scream. You sob. You beg. You are reduced to nothing.You search for help everywhere. Nobody will help. Nobody will stop the cult. In fact, the government investigates YOU and tells you to approve of what the cult is doing to your daughter.The world has gone mad.You find out the cult is kidnapping thousands of other young girls and boys. And the government is funding the cult. You grieve with other parents going through the exact same thing.Society celebrates the cult and ridicules parents who fight back. Some parents are willingly handing their children over to the cult and cheering their child’s destruction."

NHS transgender clinic accused of covering up negative impacts of puberty blockers on children by Oxford professor - "An Oxford University professor has accused the NHS’s only specialised clinic for transgender children of suppressing negative results while undertaking experimental treatment on adolescents.Dr Michael Biggs, an associate professor at Oxford’s Department of Sociology claims the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) has been giving puberty blocking hormones to children, without robust evidence as to the long-term effects... after a year of treatment “a significant increase” was found in patients who had been born female self-reporting to staff that they “deliberately try to hurt or kill myself”. Parents also reported “a significant increase in behavioural and emotional problems” and a “significant decrease in physical wellbeing” in children born female, he claims. According to his research, there was no positive impact on “the experience of gender dysphoria”, the diagnosis given to those who are described as feeling intensely uncomfortable with their biological sex... “Puberty blockers exacerbated gender dysphoria. Yet the study has been used to justify rolling out this drug regime to several hundred children aged under 16.”...
There is no specific age when puberty-suppressing drugs can be prescribed: it depends when a child goes through puberty. The US state of Oregon recently made it legal for 15-year-olds to undergo gender reassignment surgery...
In announcing the study in 2011, the Trust said treatment with the hormones - known as Gonadatropin-Releasing Hormone agonists or GnRHa - was reversible. Yet a Freedom of Information request to the NHS Health Research Authority showed the study’s own research protocol stated: “It is not clear what the long-term effects of early suppression may be on bone development, height, sex organ development and body shape and their reversibility if treatment is stopped during pubertal development”.  In an interview with the Guardian in 2015, Dr Carmichael admitted: “Nothing is completely reversible.”"