Helen Joyce: Trans Ideology Is Bringing Back Old Views that Gays Not Really Men

I was watching a video this afternoon of gender critical feminist and author Helen Joyce speaking at an IEA event. I don’t have any time for the Institute of Economic Affairs. They’re one of the Tufton Street think tanks who’ve been pushing a pro-privatisation, anti-welfare state, anti-NHS agenda since the 1970s. They and the other think tanks were responsible for Liz Truss’ disastrous government which damn near wrecked Britain before those evil lefties – the Conservative party – turfed her out. But Joyce’s views on the transgender ideology and its malign affect on society and to people’s minds and bodies are worth listening to. One of the points she made is that the view that non-gender conforming people aren’t proper members of their biological sex, and so should transition is actually regressive. It’s a return to an old, long-discredited view of gays and transvestites that defined them as ‘psychic hermaphrodites’. I think you could probably trace that attitude back to the 18th century, when gays were described as ‘amphibious’, presumably meaning they occupied an intermediate position in the same way amphibians are both water and land creatures.

Gender critical gays like the EDIJester and Clive Simpson and Dennis Kavanagh are partly motivated by their feeling that the trans ideology is a profoundly homophobic movement. They are alarmed at how many of the children transitioned by the Tavistock clinic were gay, and see the movement as a form of gay conversion therapy. Their argument, and that of the feminists, is that a man or woman, who doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes, is nevertheless a genuine man or woman, who should be allowed to continue to act and dress how they want without being made to feel that they are somehow members of the opposite sex. I think they have a point, and the similarities between the modern transgender ideology and the old, pseudoscientific homophobic view about gays does seem to support this.

Open Britain on the Threat to Democracy from the Tech and Social Media Companies

I got this piece earlier this morning, and it’s well worth reading. The pro-democracy organisation show how the social media giants, like Cambridge Analytica, harvest our data so that they can target us specifically with material that matches our own opinions. This is making politics more polarised as people retreat into isolated communities of like-minded fellows. But a whistle blower also revealed that the company was targeting those with a conspiracy-based view of the world. The same tech giants are also publishing state disinformation, such as Putin’s propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine. The organisation states that the internet needs regulating, but it should be after the EU’s methods, not the Tories. Their proposed law would criminalise the publishing of views they don’t like, such as presenting a positive view of the Channel Migrants.

‘Dear David,

In recent weeks, we’ve been discussing the real threats to British sovereignty that you won’t hear about from fuming Brexiters or apathetic politicians. Opaque think-tanks lobby for unpopular and unworkable policies, celebrating when their proposals crash the economy; dark-money infiltrates UK political channels, warping our leaders’ priorities. These forces did more to prevent the UK from forging its own path than EU bureaucrats ever did. 

This week, we want to bring another phenomenon into the equation: Silicon Valley, social media, and disinformation. It’s a complicated topic, capable of filling many books (I’d recommend friend of OB Kyle Taylor’s Little Black Book of Social Media as a good starting place). This ‘Long Read’ Series newsletter will get to the core of why tech platforms threaten our democratic sovereignty, putting the business priorities of California Tech bros over the needs of regular people and undermining the very social fabric of Britain. 

If you don’t want to read all of it – here’s the takeaway: the social media business model is inherently harmful to democracy. It generates disinformation on an industrial scale because that is what is profitable. For those seeking to manipulate public opinion for their own benefit, spreading disinformation is a worthwhile investment. This process means that we can no longer engage in good-faith debates, siloed away in our own micro-communities and becoming increasingly polarised politically. It’s completely changed the nature of politics – and regular people are paying the price. These companies need to be regulated, democratically and transparently. We can’t keep playing by their rules. 

This newsletter starts with some context, explaining how these issues came to light. Then we’ll cover the scale of the threat democracy faces, which is only increasing due to pending government legislation. Finally, we’ll get to how we can fight back and create a political system fit for tackling 21st century challenges. 

Background – Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: 

Throughout the 2010s, the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica (CA) collected data on tens of millions of Facebook users, building psychological profiles designed for political advertising. Using this data, the company was hired by the 2016 Trump Campaign, the Vote Leave campaign, and many other right-wing political organisations around the world to use this data for political advertising. 

According to CA whistleblower Christopher Wylie, the firm targeted its ads towards users that they identified as “more prone to impulsive anger or conspiratorial thinking than average citizens”. Our partners at Fair Vote UK launched their organisation by publishing whistleblower evidence from CA’s Christopher Wylie and Vote Leave’s Shahmir Sanni, exposing the scandal and demanding more campaign transparency alongside strong digital regulation. 

In 2019, Facebook paid fines of $5 billion in the US and notably much lower £500k in the UK for exposing user’s data to “serious risk of harm”. Cambridge Analytica has now been shuttered, but the scale of the problem – our data being used to warp our opinions – has increased exponentially. What the scandal showed is that anyone can pay for political influence, and modern technology allows us to target people’s insecurities, vulnerabilities, and emotional states with terrifying precision. And things have only gotten worse since 2019. 

The Disinformation Factory: 

The fundamental problem, many argue, is the intrinsic business model of big tech. The vast majority of revenue for these companies, from Google to Youtube to Facebook to Twitter comes from this kind of “surveillance advertising”. A core problem is that harmful content spreads faster, giving platforms an incentive to attach ads to it and allow it to spread rapidly. There’s also a huge concern around the surveillance aspect, with giant companies monitoring every swipe and scroll on their platforms to better understand what kind of content to push in your direction. We never got to agree to this kind of data collection – or the ways in which it’s used. 

There are countless examples of this process in action, and the consequences have often been immense. State-backed disinformation campaigns from the Russian government have churned out pro-Kremlin propaganda related to the invasions of Georgia and Ukraine; Fossil fuel companies pay to convince us that the climate isn’t really changing or that it’s not really so bad if it is; The lie that the 2020 US Election was stolen was circulated on social media and the ensuing attempted coup was orchestrated on Facebook (and was copycatted in Brazil). The list goes on and on. 

The threat, then, to our democracy and our sovereignty is that we are no longer in control of our information environment. Anyone with enough cash can churn out content targeted directly at us to change our opinions and undermine the integrity of democratic debate. Moreover, that lack of control stems from the fact that we have no right to control our own personal data. This was all part of an unspoken deal that we were never given the chance to consent to – and now we’re forced to pay the price. 

Privacy Under Fire: 

The Online Safety Bill (OSB) emerged in response to these very real problems and others. Tragic cases, such as the untimely death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, further showed how social media platforms “monetise misery” with tragic real-world implications. However, after many revisions, postponements, and much Conservative in-fighting, the bill is now an absolute trainwreck. 

We won’t bore you with everything in this bill, but here’s a summary from our blog last November if you’re interested. Essentially, the OSB grants giant exceptions and exemptions to some of the most harmful actors, is immensely complicated to the point of being borderline incoherent, and fails to meaningfully address any of the problems we mentioned above. It causes more problems than it solves.

For example, the bill would make it illegal to share videos showing migrant crossings in a “positive-light”. It undermines end-to-end encryption, meaning the government could be looking over your WhatsApp messages and private conversations. Not only does it not protect us from corporate surveillance, it adds in state surveillance as well. 

In addition, a new government bill – the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill – could make things even worse. It looks to expand the government’s control over our data instead of protecting it and create new barriers to exercising the rights we already have. 

How We Fight Back: 

We fight back by pushing for functional legislation that will give us control over our data and force tech platforms to be transparent and accountable for their actions. We know it’s possible, because the EU has already done it. 

The EU’s Digital Services Act, effective from 2024, does what the OSB always should have done: 

• Legally binding transparency requirements for platforms, showing how they moderate content and how their algorithms work
  
• Consumer protection rules around “deceptive design” and “dark patterns”, preventing platforms from manipulating people into buying things or clicking links
  
• A ban on targeting people and content amplification using certain types of sensitive data (ie sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc). This goes a long way in addressing the fundamental harms ingrained in the business model of social media
  
• Requires social media platforms to tell people why they’re being targeted with certain kinds of content
  
• Requires large social media platforms to subject themselves to independent audits and rigorous risk assessments.

If we want to build a political system where we can not only exercise all of our rights effectively but engage in democratic debate freely and fairly, we need serious action on social media platforms. We’re working with our partners at Fair Vote, as well as international partners to not only oppose the Online Safety Bill and Data Bill, but to champion a new paradigm for digital rights that ensures we’re no longer at the whim of Silicon Valley tech barons. 

It’s just one more reason that we need a government which is on our side, to set in motion the policies that will keep democracy functioning well into the digital era. Right now, this administration’s actions only make us less safe online and further undermine our fundamental right to privacy.

It’s a huge challenge but with your support and by working with partners across the tech and democracy sectors, we can keep the pressure on as part of our overall mission to defend, strengthen and renew democracy.

Thank you for all your support.

The Open Britain team‘

1960s Logging Footage with UFO-Shaped Blimp

I found this interesting little video on the Wellness Cottage channel on YouTube. It’s of newly released film footage of logging from the 1960s, which includes a balloon which looks rather like a UFO. I haven’t watched all of it, just the first few minutes as I’m really not interested in logging. But what I do find interesting is that the Americans were clearly using dirigibles like this to lift the fallen tree trunks onto the trucks and vehicles. And I very much wonder how long the Americans carried on using them, as it might explain, or help to explain, the Travis Walton abduction.

Walton was a member of logging team, who was supposedly abducted and examined by aliens aboard a UFO in 1976 or so. His story was later filmed in the ’90s as Fire in the Sky, with James Garner as the sceptical sheriff. There have been allegations that he abduction was a fraud, as the logging team were behind in their work and Walton himself had a chequered past. He also failed a polygraph test the first time he took it, but passed the second. But polygraphs don’t necessarily prove anything, only that the person taking them has a bad response to questions. It’s why, I believe, they’re inadmissible in court.

From what I remember of the film, Walton’s team were coming back at night when the saw a red light in the sky. Walton got out, and was hit by a strange light. I can’t remember if he disappeared, or the others simply took fright and left him. After several days missing, he turns up in one of his friends and neighbour’s houses naked and shivering and cowering in fear. I’ve no idea what really happened. But it occurred to me that if there was a similar blimp operating in the area, possibly it could have been an element in the abduction, which was really an internal, psychological experience. Which is not to say that the experience wouldn’t have been terrifyingly real to Walton.

But this is just my speculation. It could well be that the blimps had stopped being used by the time Walton had his experience, or that even if they were still being used, they were nowhere near him and his fellow lumberjacks. I’m sceptical about UFO abductions, but perhaps he really was kidnapped by aliens.

Diane Abbott Slams Rishi Sunak’s Bogus Promise about Continuing Maths Education Until 18

Yesterday, our latest prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced that as well as tackling the state of the NHS and channel migrants, he would make it compulsory for school students to continue to study maths until 18. This was, he announced, necessary to combat poor maths literacy. His speech has impressed precisely no-one, and has been extensively torn to shreds by commenters like Owen Jones and Novara Media. After all, it’s the Tory policies of underfunding, cuts and stealth privatisation that have created the mess the NHS is in, in the first place. As for the channel migrants, they’ve been unable to tackle that either, except with Patel’s plan to send them all to Rwanda, a country suffering serious human rights abuses. That plan was condemned by the public and also, I believe, various judicial authorities.

Abbott in a tweet stated that Sunak’s plan for continuing maths education until the school leaving age was bogus because the Tories had cut teacher’s pay, as well as underfunding education generally. She’s absolutely right, as I can remember from my schooldays when schools were increasingly decaying thanks to cuts to funds. Except for the academies, of course, which were given more far more than state schools. Critics have also wondered whether Sunak will even have time to implement this reform before the possibility that he and his wretched party are voted out at the next election.

There’s also been an interesting opinion piece in the Groaniad by a lecturer in mathematical biology. He argues that it’s unnecessary, as maths is already the most popular A Level subject, far outstripping its nearest rival, psychology. He also states that making it compulsory would further decrease the numbers of people taking arts and humanities subjects, as they’d have to give up them as well as choose another STEM subject to harmonise with the maths. He also makes the excellent point that making it compulsory might put people off it even more by forcing them to study a subject they hate.

To me, it just looks like Sunak trying desperately to look like he’s actually doing and standing for something, whereas in fact he stands for nothing except the worn out Tory policies that have driven the public services into the ground and working people to desperation. The fact that he has nothing to say was shown very clearly just before Christmas, when he, or one of the Tories, announced they wanted to meet the railway unions, but wouldn’t talk about wages. As wages are part of the issue, this negated the whole point of any meeting. Again, it was just an exercise in public relations. He wanted it to appear that he was doing something and prepared to negotiate while the reality was the complete opposite.

Sunak is flailing about with nothing to offer, and it’s obvious.

Anti-Trans Activist Kelly-Jay Keen Standing for Women against Keir Starmer at the Next Election

A week or so ago Kelly-Jay Keen announced that she intends to stand as a candidate under her ‘Standing for Women’ banner against Keir Starmer at the next election. She had originally said that she would stand against Eddie Izzard if the Labour party selected him as their candidate in Sheffield. Keen is unhappy with drag, viewing as ‘womanface’ comparable to Blackface as an expression of prejudice and hostility towards those it caricatures. She did, however, like Izzard. She admired him as a comedian and had absolutely no problem with him when he identified as a transvestite. She turned against him when he announced that he had gone into ‘girl mode’ and was now a woman, despite being biologically male. She was particularly not impressed with Izzard running a marathon in fake boobs. Izzard lost the selection battle, the winning candidate being someone with a very Muslim name. One of the candidates Izzard was up against was a local, Asian woman, who had been a charity worker as well as a long term activist in the Labour party. It was natural that Sheffield Labour party would chose a local person, who had been active in the constituency for years, rather than an outsider. I don’t think the Asian lady was the successful candidate, but I’m sure the same reasons applied. I think there’s an element of deliberately sticking two fingers up to Starmer in this, as I’ve got a feeling that Izzard was Starmer’s preferred candidate. Now that Izzard is out of the running, Keen is going after Starmer, especially because many women feel betrayed with the Labour party over the trans issue.

Starmer has stated that the Labour party is fully for the trans rights campaign. I got an email from deputy head Angela Rayner and the head of LGBT Labour that if the Labour party was elected, they would outlaw all conversion therapies. This set alarm bells ringing in me. As Gay anti-trans activists like EDIjester and Clive Simpson have pointed out, the sadistic, inhumane and barbarous pseudo-medical practices used to try to turn gay people straight are illegal today. There’s simply no need for it. Modern conversion therapy involves psychiatric or religious counselling, which is voluntary. From American examples, and a brief story about one such in-patient centre in Wales in the ‘In the Back’ column in Private Eye some time ago, this can still be extremely unpleasant, and I don’t blame anyone for wanting to have this treatment very carefully monitored and legislated for.

But the ban on conversion therapy brings its own, anti-gay dangers. The Labour party also wishes to ban conversion therapy for transgender people. This could mean that they desire only the affirmative care model to be used in the treatment of transgender people. This mandates that someone going to the therapist believing that they are in the wrong sexed body should be affirmed in their gender identity and consequently set on a path to transition, complete with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and finally surgery. Gender transition may be appropriate for some, but it is grossly inappropriate for others. There are issues with the mentally ill and autistic children being incorrectly diagnosed as transgender. Gender-critical gays have also argued that it is being used by homophobic parents to ‘trans the gay away’. This is based on the very high number of gender non-conforming children being brought to the Tavistock centre, who, if left on their own, would probably grow up gay but with a stable personality and identifying with their biological sex.

Keen is particularly concerned with the way the gender ideology is detrimentally affecting women’s sex-based rights. Trans rights activists demand transwomen be identified as real women and so have access to all female-only spaces. This has meant that in Scotland and California violent, biological men have been incarcerated in women’s prisons because they have declared themselves to be trans. The American anti-trans lesbian activist, Arielle Scarcella, recently put up a post about a report in the Scottish Daily Record that most of the men, who were transferred to female prisons claiming they were transgender, made minimal effort to behave in a feminine way and went back to being blokes after they were released. If this is true, then they were obviously lying to get out of being sent to the much tougher male prisons. She also posted about the problem of violent, sexual predators being put in women’s prisons because they identify as female. These are men guilty of rape and child abuse. One of the most notorious of these was 6′ 3” and guilty of assaulting a 12 year old girl in a ladies’ loo. She escaped by whacking him in the happy sacks and running away. These men, it has been alleged, have deliberately arranged to enter women’s prisons so they can terrorise the women there. I’ve no doubt this is true, not because they are trans, but because they are sadistic rapists and predators. They should not be imprisoned with women, or at least, not the general population.

There are similar problems with toilets and changing rooms in schools and sports facilities. In sport particularly, born women feel that they are being robbed of victories and opportunities by men like Lia Thomas, who seem to have opportunistically changed their gender. There are also related issues of dignity and care in medicine, with women being denied treatment by members of their own sex because of the ideology. And so on. Women are particularly vulnerable to the spread of the ideology and the feeling that they are really trans. For many activists and medical personnel critical of the ideology, it’s a psychological contagion like the spread of anorexia and eating disorders in the 1970s. In America, girls as young as 12 have had mastectomies. Some of those, who have transitioned have no come to feel it was wrong, and are detransitioning. Their stories are heartbreaking. One Dutch male detransitioner, who had been left with severe bowel and bladder problems following surgical transition, put up a tearful video last week announcing he was going for medical euthanasia as he could no longer live with these problems.

This is also not an organic movement. It is not grassroots, despite what trans activists claim. It is funded and promoted by big business and particularly the pharmaceutical companies producing the drugs. It is also extremely lucrative for those clinics providing the treatment. And some of the lobby groups in America promoting the ideology have received extensive funding from freedom of speech groups, who in turn are funded by the pornography industry.

This is a movement that demands very close scrutiny, if not to be actively fought. There are gay and trans people actively critiquing and opposing it, like Gays Against Groomers and Trans Against Groomers. But the mainstream gay organisations like Stonewall are actively promoting it, to the exclusion of gay interests. There have been complaints from the gay community that when a delegation was put together for some kind of mission to promote gay rights, it was composed entirely of gay men and transwomen. Lesbians were not represented, despite having suffered the same prejudice and persecution as gay men.

But the Labour party is captured. My local branch in Bristol passed a motion censuring the initial judgement in favour of Keira Bell, which ruled that this young woman had been misled and so damaged through medical treatment involving puberty blockers. The LGBT officer blandly stated that puberty blockers were safe and completely reversible. This has been revealed as untrue. I opposed the motion, and was thanked by some of the women afterwards for doing so, but the motion was passed. Militant trans activists spoke at the Labour party conference. The LGB Alliance, which was formed especially to fight for the rights of gay people against the trans ideology, was denied a place when they applied.

Starmer has said he will back trans rights, and made a public fool of himself by running away from questions about the fundamental nature of womanhood. When asked if women had cervixes, he refused to answer the question and said it was one that shouldn’t be asked. He has also apparently stated that if Labour gets in, legislation will be passed demanding the use of trans people’s preferred pronouns. This is the issue that catapulted conservative ideologue Jordan Peterson into the public limelight. When that legislation was being mooted in Canada – I think it may even have been passed – Peterson stated that he would defy the law. He also made it clear that if a student in his class was transgender, he would of course do them the courtesy of using their preferred pronouns.

Keen does not expect to win, but she intends to use the opportunity to raise questions and promote her cause, not just against Starmer but all politicians supporting the trans ideology. She has had a problem with advertising in the past. When she paid for a billboard in Liverpool to show the dictionary definition of woman as ‘adult human female’, which is the common sense definition, the local council banned it as hate speech. But if she registers as a political candidate, it will be impossible for councils to do this as censuring free speech and political debate.

I don’t think she’ll win, as she herself admits. The election is still some way off yet, and she intends to do more foreign tours to places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand first. But it should make for a very interesting election.

Here’s the video in which she announces her intention to stand against Starmer

There Are Big Corporate Forces Promoting the Trans Craze

I think many, probably the majority of people believe that the current expansion of trans identification among the young is an organic development and that the movement for trans rights comes from grass roots activism. At least some of the massive increase in young people, particularly young women, identifying as members of the opposite sex seems to be a psychological contagion like the rise of anorexia and eating disorders among girls and young women back in the 1970s. Gender critical feminists have also suggested that natural feelings of awkwardness and fear of the degrading sex acts in contemporary pornography may also be behind it. Many adolescent girls are embarrassed or feel awkward about their developing breasts and the sexual attention they get from boys and their periods. They may also be terrified of what they see in pornography with women beaten and strangled. One of the gender critical feminists speaking on YouTube said that fifty per cent of women between the ages of 18 and 24 had been strangled during sex. This is an alarming statistic, if true. Children are being exposed to pornography through the internet at increasingly younger ages. So, it is argued, some young women try to escape from these awkward, uncomfortable aspects of femininity and frightening, sadistic sex by believing that they are really men.

But there are also very powerful corporate forces behind the trans movement. There’s a considerable amount of funding from various lobby groups as well as pharmaceutical companies and activist lawyers. For example, it’s been claimed that the company that produces lupron, used as puberty blocker for trans-identified children, has given a very generous donation to the Lib Dems. A few years ago a document emerged from Denton’s, an international company of lawyers, about how to introduce pro-trans legislation into governments around the world. This advised activists to keep very quiet about what they were doing. There was to be no publicity. Instead, the legislation was to be tacked on to genuinely popular government motions. This is happened in countries like Spain, Iceland and Scotland, where various gender recognition acts, in which women are defined according to mental/psychological identification rather than biological reality, were added to popular measures legalising gay marriage. Gender critical feminists have remarked that these tactics are the exact opposite of what popular reforming movements have done in the past. The gay rights movement, for example, wanted people to know about them and to understand what they were campaigning for. But Denton’s didn’t, and so showed that they, at least, believed that trans rights weren’t popular. Of course, against this is the pro-trans stance of the mainstream gay organisations like Stonewall and so on. From Big Pharma and the medical-industrial complex’s point of view, medical transition is immensely lucrative. Doctors and clinics performing the treatment are paid very well, and the side-effects of the treatment may mean that many trans people need supportive medical care for the rest of their lives. The surgery itself has a 30 per cent failure rate, which is absolutely unacceptable anywhere else in medicine, so that patients need corrective surgery. Once this is done, they need to be kept on cross-sex hormones, which may have detrimental effects on bone density and the heart. Many transmen need to have hysterectomies after being placed on testosterone. This is not because they want the surgery done, but because the hormone causes the uterus to atrophy and stick to the body cavity. The result is extremely painful. And there is the related criticism that the groups demanding better healthcare for trans people aren’t interested in improving these aspects of their treatment. What they want is the expansion of medical transition.

I’ve started watching an interview on YouTube with Benjamin Boyce and K. Yang. It’s two hours or so long, so it might be some time before I see all of it. Yang’s a New York based gay rights activist and was a fervent supporter of trans rights until she became disillusioned. The video’s title is about how activists are carrying water for the corporations. If this is true, then it means that the idealistic people campaigning for trans people are being cynically used by big businesses whose only real concern is the profit margin.

Heroic People Stop Shooter at Gay Nightclub

I just found this report by Sky News’ Bethany Minelle, ”Heroic people’ stopped attack at US gay nightclub in which five died’. There’s been yet another mass shooting in America, but according to the report at least two people stopped the gunman killing any more people. And the maximum possible respect to them. The article begins

‘“Heroic people” confronted a gunman at a gay nightclub in Colorado and stopped him killing any more people, police have said.

Five people died and at least 18 were injured at Club Q in Colorado Springs.

The suspect has been named as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was taken into custody and treated for injuries.

In a news conference, officers said the gunman used a “long rifle” and began shooting as soon as he entered the venue.

Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said: “At least two heroic people inside the club confronted and fought with the suspect and were able to stop the suspect from continuing to kill and harm others.

We owe them a great debt of thanks.”

John Suthers, the mayor of Colorado Springs, said their actions “clearly saved lives”.

At least two firearms were found at the scene, and the FBI is assisting with the investigation, Mr Vasquez said.

His officers are working to identify those that died, and to establish whether anyone helped the suspect.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who is openly gay, commended the “brave individuals who blocked the gunman”, describing the attack as “horrific, sickening and devastating”.

The venue called the shooting a “hate attack”. It said: “Club Q is devastated by the senseless attack on our community.

“Our prayers and thoughts are with all the victims and their families and friends. We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack.”‘

For more information, see: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/heroic-people-stopped-attack-at-us-gay-nightclub-in-which-five-died/ar-AA14jNUj

One of the most horrific aspects about such mass killings is that they’ve happened so regularly that people have got used to them. I don’t know how many such shootings occur each year in America, but it’s huge. And while there are areas with a high level of gun ownership which have very low rates of gun violence, such crimes are related to the easy accessibility of at least certain types of firearms. The American left-winger Robert Reich stated in one of his posts that when certain types of very powerful weaponry were briefly outlawed, the incidence of these shootings, or perhaps just the number of deaths from them, fell 70 per cent.

As for the type of maniacs who carry them out, some of them, like this scumbag, are clearly motivated by hate. Others, like those who shoot up schools, stores and bus queues, have a grudge against the world in general and simply go where they can find enough people to take out their rage on.

And after such killings you hear from the Republicans the refrain that instead of banning guns, there should be better mental health care. Well, it would probably help stop these atrocities if there was, but when in power the Republicans have always voted to cut mental health provision and funding.

And so terrible acts like this continue to break out, and it’s left to the cops and ordinary, great people like the heroes above, to stop them.

Gender Transition as Gay Conversion Therapy

I’ve clipped this little segment about the way one mother came to view her infant son as trans in stark opposition to the possibility that the little fellow instead might just be gay from a mrmenno video on YouTube, ‘Graham Norton’s Accountability Problem – A Gay Man’s response’. Menno’s a gender critical gay man who posts videos deeply critical of the trans ideology and some of the people pushing it. In his video, he criticises Graham Norton for stating in an interview on TV that J.K. Rowling has ‘problematic views’ and refusing to defend Graham Linehan, the writer of Father Ted, who has also been viciously attacked, vilified and cancelled because he is also a staunch opponent of the trans ideology. Menno is especially critical of Norton because of the way he has thrown other gay men and lesbians under the bus. The gay community as well as biological women has been hard hit by the trans ideology. Homosexuality has been redefined as same-gender attraction, so that gays and lesbians are attacked as transphobic if they do not accept as lovers people of the opposite sex, who identify as trans.

I don’t wish to start another argument over the trans issue. I’m very much aware that many of the great people who read this blog don’t share my views. And I also want to make clear that I don’t support abuse, assault or discrimination against anyone because of their sexuality or sexual presentation. But I think the video makes a very good point when it discusses how some parents seem to be using gender transition as a way of ‘curing’ their children of gayness. The segment I’ve clipped below contains a statement from an American woman that she did this to her little boy to stop him being gay, as he was playing with girl’s toys. Graham Linehan has said that he’s been told by whistle blowers at the now defunct Tavistock clinic that many of the children they saw were gay. They had been brought to the clinic for treatment by their extremely homophobic parents. If true, then it is, in my opinion, frightening and disgusting. I don’t doubt that there are people are genuinely trans, and who benefit from such therapy and surgery. But it should not be used, as it appears to be by some, as a form of gay conversion therapy.

This is why I’m putting this clip up. It’s a confession that she turned to this by the mother of a gay child. And this has a direct bearing on Labour’s LGBTQ+ policy. The party has said it wants to ban all gay and trans conversion therapy. This is extremely questionable, as the brutal methods of gay conversion therapy have been rightly illegal for a long time. But the ban on trans conversion therapy seems to be designed to stop alternative forms of treatment, such as psychiatric counselling, that may stop patients transitioning, for whom gender reassignment surgery may be inappropriate. And if homophobic parents are using it as a form of gay conversion therapy, then transitions of this sort should be banned just as the Labour party intends. To see the clip, go to:

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxGaNBq-NhhKK7Vdy_BxeOJ9IF4yIw0Jxf

Truth Checkers Gives Us Alex Belfield’s Ten Worst Moments

More Alex Belfield. Well, he’s due to be sentenced tomorrow, and just to remind us how nasty he really is, the Truth Checkers channel on YouTube have created this video of his ten worst moments, which they subdivide into the following sections:

CHAPTERS 0:00 – Introduction 0:21 – 10 – Contempt for his fans 4:43 – 9 – Misogyny 7:55 – 8 – Creepy Behaviour 9:33 – 7 – Outing Celebrities 10:19 – 6 – Fat Shaming 12:48 – 5 – Inciting Harassment 15:14 – 4 – Dodgy Finances 24:18 – 3 – Trans/Bi/Homophobia 29:50 – 2 – Mental Health 36:06 – 1 – Racism 38:40 – 0 – Bonus Material.

Belfield shows himself in these incidents to be callous, manipulative, bigoted and actually dangerous. He mocks people with genuine mental health issues, going on about how they’re weak and should pull themselves together and making the old mock crying actions about them. When it comes to the subject of suicide, he thinks it’s funny to cut off one woman who has reasonably objected to his sneering comments about it because her boyfriend took his own life. He then posts pictures of nooses. As regards racism, Black and the ‘dinghy divers’ are dangerous, feral savages. And he really is homophobic. He rants about transpeople and when a transman calls in to challenge him, he cuts him off. Now some of his views on some of the trans issues aren’t unreasonable. I think the gender-neutral toilets in the Barbican were installed to help trans identified people. And some of the criticisms of Drag Queen Story Hour are also quite valid, in my opinion. Modern drag is highly sexualised, and so it is highly questionable whether it is suitable for children. A few weeks ago, a video made by a drag queen, who said that it wasn’t suitable for kids, went viral among the right-wing YouTube channels. But Belfield here is extremely rude about it all. Helen Pluckrose, who’s a critic of postmodern theories like Queer Theory, which is behind some of Trans ideology, believes that there’s a middle ground on which Trans people and gender critical feminists can agree on. And many gender critical feminists complain that they have a problem debating the trans rights activists because they refuse to appear with them, sometimes making the excuse that they don’t feel safe. Well, Belfield had the opportunity to have a respectful dialogue with a transperson, and threw it away with snide remarks. Which makes the gender critical side look bad. Quite honestly, I can’t blame some transpeople not feeling safe if that’s the response they get from Belfield and people like him. The contempt he has for his audience is astonishing to behold. He shouts at them, tells them to hurry up with what they’re saying and generally insults them.

I dare say that Belfield probably sees himself as some kind of shock jock, provoking his listeners with his abrupt and outrageous behaviour. Well, he ain’t Howard Stern, who was genuinely shocking and outrageous, but wasn’t homophobic. Belfield, by contrast, is just rude and nasty. And watching his behaviour here, including the sneers about women’s football and his creepy behaviour towards his female fans, you can see why Radio Leeds sacked him after a year.

My Email to the Labour Party Protesting against the ‘Trans Ally’ Training Event

A week or so ago I got an email from Labour Southwest telling me that they were organising a series of training evening online about equalities. These consisted of individual evening devoted to women, disabilities and with one about ‘how to be a trans ally’. As readers of this blog will know, I have very strong feelings about the trans craze and the supporting ideologies based in Queer Theory. I certainly do not hate trans people, and very much believe that they have the same rights to dress how they wish and express their gender or sexual identity. But I believe that the craze looking for the slightest sign of trans identity is doing immense harm to psychologically and emotionally vulnerable young people by leading them to believe mistakenly that they are trans when really they are just confused kids, having the same emotional problems with the physical and mental changes of puberty that very many other people go through. And I am utterly convinced that this craze has far more to do with postmodern identity politics than the real needs of LGBTQ+ people.

I have therefore sent the following email of complaint to Labour SouthWest:

‘Dear Sir/ Madam,

Thank you for the email informing me of the forthcoming training sessions on equalities. I agree that it is important that the Labour party should continue to combat discrimination and work for greater equality. However, I am greatly concerned about the training session on ‘How to Be a Trans Ally’, led by REC LGBT rep, Dylan Tippetts,.This is certainly not because I hate trans people, let alone the wider gay community.

But I also believe that the ideology purporting to defend and promote trans rights is doing instead immense harm by convincing tens of thousands of psychologically vulnerable and confused people, especially young girls, that they are really trans when they are certainly not, for the following reasons:

Firstly, the number of young women coming forward believing themselves to be members of the opposite sex is bizarre and alarming for several reasons. This should, after all, be an age in which women should feel secure in and enjoy their womanhood. Girls are outperforming boys at school, and more industries and occupations are opening up to them. They are continuing to succeed and excel in nearly every aspect of human endeavour. Yet an increasing number it seems are trying to escape from their femininity into a masculine identity. The numbers of young women seeking this suggests this, in all too many cases, does not come from a genuine alienation from their gender identity. Rather it suggests other forms of mental distress and the pernicious influence of social pressures and an aggressive ‘trans’ ideology that encourages psychologically well and healthy young women and men to consider themselves transgender when they are not. Please see the following video with Abigail Shrier: 

Why Abigail Shrier Took on the Transgender Craze Amongst Teenage Girls – YouTube;

I am also concerned about the harm done by the hormone and drug therapy to these people. The hormone therapy marketed to children and their parents as part of the therapy are claimed, in the case of puberty blockers, to be safe and reversible. To my knowledge, they are not. Please see these videos: 

The Dangers of Giving Hormones to Kids with Gender Dysphoria – YouTube;

The cross sex hormones on which transpeople are put after they transition also have detrimental effects on health: See these videos citing the relevant medical literature:

LIVE: DID, estrogen deficiency, and hormone blocker doctor discussions – YouTube

The Institutional Capture is Real Endocrinologists and Puberty Blockers 2009 vs 2019 – YouTube

Literature Review: SRY acts in the brain across the lifespan – YouTube

Literature Review: Estrogen Deficiency, Early Hysterectomy/Oophorectomy, and Dementia – YouTube

Literature Review: SRY and the Male Liver – YouTube

The Dangers of Giving Hormones to Kids with Gender Dysphoria – YouTube;

This craze – I can only call it that, as it very strongly resembles one in, my view, has reached the nadir where surgeons in America are amputating the healthy breasts of 12 year old girls. ‘Top Surgery’ for 12-year-olds??? 😱 – YouTube

It has also been found that about 85 per cent of teens confused about their gender identity eventually settle down into that of their existing biological gender. But if they are put on the affirmation course of treatment, this almost always seems to lead to them going ahead with surgical transition.

You will no doubt be aware from watching news recently that concerns about the Tavistock clinic’s handling of transgender treatment has resulted in it being shut down. There are also a number of detransitioners, people who have medically transitioned, then realised that this has been wrong for them and have transitioned back. I believe there are an online community of 17,000 of them. And some of them are suing the doctors and medical professionals who treated them on the grounds that they feel they were misled about the benefits of transition.

It strongly appears to me that there is a very strong feeling amongst trans rights activists that the only acceptable treatment of gender confusion and distress is to confirm and support the suffer’s desire to transition, even when this is suspect or inappropriate, and to attack, vilify and even physically assault anyone who disagrees and seeks to present an alternative view.

It is for these reasons that I wish to see this training session cancelled, as I feel it will inadvertently do immense harm. Rather than support radical ideologies of trans-inclusion, I feel that the best way to be a trans ally is simply to provide genuine sympathy and support for people with the condition. This also means giving them space to decide for themselves if they are genuinely trans after proper medical consultation, treatment and review. This should exclude any pressure from ideologies based in Queer Theory and identity politics that denounce any treatments that may persuade such patients that they are not trans as conversion therapy and medical or social bigotry.

I realise these views are immensely controversial, and that some regard them as hateful. I certainly do not hate transpeople, and believe that everyone should have the right to express their sexuality or gender how they choose without discrimination, abuse, violence or other form of persecution. But I am greatly concerned here that young people are being misled into gender confusion for external, cultural and ideological reasons. And I am very much afraid that well-meaning courses like yours, though done for the very best reasons, are contributing to and exacerbating this harm.

This is why I also cannot support the Labour party’s policy to ban transgender conversion therapy.

Yours faithfully,

David Sivier’