Mailwatch(ed) Forum

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2024 4:35 pm No you start with the principle that you don't have with the principle you don't put male born rapists in with female inmates.

Who says you should? In the "Isla Bryson" case, he was taken to the women's prison, held in solitary, then taken straight to a men's prison. That certainly made the Scottish Prison Service look silly but he was never held with female inmates.

Philip Marlow wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 7:59 pm
He can be a little grating at times, but if memory serves the far right accusation was a specific referenced to Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull/Posie Parker and her association with assorted far right types, not to mention her assertion that the loss of Roe v Wade was a price worth paying for the defeat of the evil trans. All told, it’s probably not worth puffing flour your chest on defence of that.

That may well be right.

It's a very common bait and switch. Literal far right people latch on to something (eg LTNs) and people call them out, then somebody says "Opposition to LTNs is far right now!"

‘Billy Bragg hates women’ would appear to be a thing now on gender critical Twitter. And for that to fly you have to allow that women who differ from the approved gender critical take on things are not, in fact, women. It’s…a position…of sorts.

They've turned their fire on James O'Brien now, for what seems to be the crime of having a reasoned position on the debate.

Philip Marlow wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 6:42 pm

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 1:33 am I'd point out that if trans activists had been less arrogant and less convinced that they were on the right side of history then maybe things might be different.

And yet…no.

I once worked, God help me and once upon a time, on the night shift at a Muller factory, and for an immediate supervisor who was both gay and one of the most toxically obnoxious human beings under whose authority it has ever grieved me to suffer. Many were the insults we minimum wage peons heaped upon him at break times when he was not in a position to hear us. And yet, had any of us taken his unpleasantness as free licence to spit homophobic abuse upon his person, I like to think that the rest of us would have objected, volubly.

Which is to say, if your avoidance of embracing a tediously bigoted view about a minority group relies upon them addressing you in a manner which you find suitably respectful, then you’re not really an opponent of said bigotry at all.

The sort of trans activists I'm referring are more often or not non-trans but constantly believing that they're on the right side of history leads many of them to behave like utter arseholes to anyone who dares to disagree with them Lord Kobel a former mod on this forum was a prime example of this.

davidjay wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 11:10 pm They've turned their fire on James O'Brien now, for what seems to be the crime of having a reasoned position on the debate.

This was in relation to the publication of the cass review a reasoned report into transgender NHS youth care.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 9:30 pm

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2024 4:35 pm No you start with the principle that you don't have with the principle you don't put male born rapists in with female inmates.

Who says you should? In the "Isla Bryson" case, he was taken to the women's prison, held in solitary, then taken straight to a men's prison. That certainly made the Scottish Prison Service look silly but he was never held with female inmates.

There's a touch of the Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep about it all, a largely false and sensational headline and accompanying narrative supplanting a much less "interesting" story. I'd have thought we'd have a bit of defence built up to that shit around these parts.

I was actually referring to Karen White a convicted sex offender who was able to con their way into a woman's prison and proceeded to sexually assault the inmates.

And as mentioned before, if Karen White had been banged up with the men she'd be stalking the soap-droppers in the showers at Slade. Still a nonce, still getting shit and glass in their food, still not exactly popular in the exercise yard. Probably an equal chance of getting "shanked" at either a men's or women's nick.

There are discussions to be had here, but they're around endemic violence in prisons, segregation of prisoners who pose a risk to others, funding for adequate staffing and much more.

Meanwhile, have any FTM prisoners been banged up with the men? Did anyone bring them up for discussion? Asking because it seems to always be MTF people, with a good dose of "hur hur, what I'd do if I had x-ray vision for a day" thrown in.

In the case of White it's worth pointing out that she manipulated and conned people to get into a woman's prison

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... der-prison

Transgender politics – like any politics – can be divisive. Yet in the case of Karen White, who is legally still a man but was put in a female-only prison, both sides of the transgender rights debate are united in the belief mistakes were made.

White entered the UK prison system as transgender. However, despite dressing as a woman, the 52-year-old had not undergone any surgery and was still legally a male. She was also a convicted paedophile and on remand for grievous bodily harm, burglary, multiple rapes and other sexual offences against women.

In September last year she was transferred to New Hall prison in West Yorkshire. During a three-month period at the female prison she sexually assaulted two other inmates.

The decision to move White to a women’s prison was made public after she admitted in court to the sexual assault and to multiple rapes committed before she was sent to prison.

Those who met White were shocked that she was moved to a female prison, describing the convicted sex offender as “manipulative and controlling”, and questioned her commitment to her transition. The Ministry of Justice has since apologised for the placement.

For now, White is being held at HM Prison Leeds, a category B men’s prison, and is undergoing gender reassignment surgery.

And on the other side of things, this is the reality of legislating based on one or more of a paranoia of vanishingly rare events committed by people who would be criminals regardless, a fear of anyone not like yourself, or plain old-fashioned bigotry: cis people being policed by dangerous fuckwits if they don’t match some sort of macho/feminine template, and trans people shrinking into becoming unseen hermits. Which is, of course, exactly what a lot of people actually want these laws and rules to do - erase people they’d rather just didn’t exist. Just like they didn’t want to see gay people, or before that people of colour, or before that women, or before that lower class people. And on and on back through time.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/floridas- ... te-attacks

Yes, but...

I agree that extreme cases make for bad law. But on the other hand it shouldn't be beyond the wit of our judicial and legal systems to anticipate and avert such cases, making legislation necessary.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 4:26 pm Yes, but...

I agree that extreme cases make for bad law. But on the other hand it shouldn't be beyond the wit of our judicial and legal systems to anticipate and avert such cases, making legislation necessary.

Totally agree. The problem is when you get what should be a common sense issue warped by people out to pursue culture wars, or to endear themselves to certain groups in the population (or simply to use their position to enforce their own beliefs).

There’s a reason Sunak keeps trying to make “Starmer can’t define a woman” into a ‘thing’, and it has absolutely nothing to do with concern for safe spaces. It’s to paint anyone who has the sense to see people’s rights and freedoms around gender isn’t a black and white issue as some sort of raging lefty who’ll force your son into a dress and your daughter into changing rooms full of burly men in lipstick.

I've only recently discovered The New European's "Two Matts" YouTube channel and am gradually catching up on their output. Here's their discussion of the Trans debate. Some of you won't like it, but I would urge you to listen to it.

See, I don’t have a problem with the vast majority of what’s said there. I work in healthcare, I understand the need for clinical caution, and I can see a service that was - to put it generously - so keen to do the right thing it didn’t stop to check what ‘right’ actually meant well enough for each person. And I also agree that some trans activists are far too ‘full on’ and are past the point where they can be fully objective.

But I also still think some people on the other side are equally unforgiving and inflexible. Some of the ‘brave women’ mentioned in the video have said some quite unpleasant things that - being as generous as I can - are either unnecessarily blunt, unfortunately disingenuous or inaccurate, or wholly disrespectful, and said from a position of relative privilege. So I’d urge everyone to listen to people on all sides. No offence to the 2 hosts here, as I can see they’re going out of their way to be even handed, but this is still 2 middle-aged cis white men - and there are other voices to be heard here, with very different lived experiences.

And that’s the biggest difficulty in this debate - it’s possible for many things to be true at once. A popular author can make a genuine point but do so in a needlessly callous manner. A service can be dangerously overzealous but the intent well meant. A law equally can be fundamentally flawed but intended to do good. Members of an already marginalised group can be terrified for their literal existence, but also unobjective because of the very fact of their marginalisation. It’s unarguably difficult to be objective when you fear being used as pawns in culture wars nothing to do with the issues your group faces, but that action on will still result in your rights and your freedom to just live your life being curtailed.

Do you not think that they covered the 'fault on both sides' argument rather powerfully, and showed it to be, at best, a fallacy?

and

No offence to the 2 hosts here, as I can see they’re going out of their way to be even handed, but this is still 2 middle-aged cis white men - and there are other voices to be heard here, with very different lived experiences.

Isn't that shutting down the discussion? And think about where that line of reasoning ends.

No it's not. It's part of a wider pattern of not seeking out the views of actual trans people. We criticise that in the same way we criticise Stop The War for discussing Syria without involving any Syrians. That's not us shutting down discussion.

Really?

On their podcast?

Just think about that for a moment...

I've been hearing that crap for years - yes of course you listen, and give space, but you don't cut out anyone from the 'debate' because they don't have 'lived experience'.

On their podcast?

Just think about that for a moment...

]

If you take that attitude, it was Stop The War's meeting.

Gay rights aren't discussed (any more) without input from gay people. Trans rights are, overwhelmingly.

That's correct inasmuch as we see little from actual trans people, mostly from trans-rights supporters.