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Gary Lineker vs. BBC

The BBC referred to her as a "16-year-old transgender girl". Even The Mail used the term "trans girl" in their report.

The Graun writer pretty much has no choice but to use a pronoun - but they can avoid using the word "girl" and so they do.

edit: and I realise that some might see this as a pretty trivial distinction - but after all the outcry when the word 'girl' was removed from initial reports of Brianna's murder I honestly believe this is a deliberate choice by The Guardian.
My daughter is trans, I asked her if she had any issues with this article, she said no, calling her a teenager is not misgendering. She felt it was important that the article carried the distinction that as this was a hate crime, use of 'transgender girl' was both necessary and legitimate.
On the subject of leaving the uk she is currently applying for an Irish/EU passport( grandparent) as she too sees the writing on the wall, the uk is already an ugly place and will only get worse, that she feels she has to breaks my heart.
 
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On the subject of leaving the uk she is currently applying for an Irish passport( grandparent) as she too sees the writing on the wall, the uk is already an ugly place and will only get worse, that she feels she has to breaks my heart.

Awful. I can't imagine how hard on you that must be.

I'm hopeful that things will get better in the long term. As I mentioned before one of my colleagues came out as a trans man last year and pretty much no one cared. Most folk are decent and willing to accept people as they are. We just need to get past this stupid culture wars bullshit. I'm hoping that won't take decades but I can well understand anyone not wanting to hang around to find out.
 
As I mentioned before one of my colleagues came out as a trans man last year and pretty much no one cared. Most folk are decent and willing to accept people as they are. We just need to get past this stupid culture wars bullshit.

This is the message that really needs to get through. None of this is being done in our (the vast majority’s) name.

What we are witnessing is a far-right division strategy from the US Republican Party, the UK Conservative Party, some religious extremists, and a couple of billionaire bigots with personal agendas. This is 100% a political tool. An entirely manufactured wedge-issue to disrupt, split and facilitate a power grab. It bares no connection whatsoever to what the vast majority of the population feel today, let alone what they felt about what was a total non-issue only two or three years ago.

It is all part of the same trajectory as Trump whipping-up all the white supremacists, unhinged militias etc at Charlottesville who later stormed the capitol to try and overthrow an election on Jan 6th. Same here with the Tories refugee demonisation policy very actively enabling and empowering every violent flag-waving knuckle-dragger in the BNP, Patriotic Alternative, UKIP, Britain First, EDL etc. Same language. Same political aim.

This is the modern face of fascism and we need to recognise it as exactly what it is. It has absolutely nothing to do with trans people at all. They, like refugees, have just been cynically selected as the ball in a remarkably cruel power game some right-wing strategists have dreamt up (or copied verbatim from 1930s Germany). It needs fighting with every tool we have to hand.
 
When you first arrive, it's no surprise that you feel there are a lot of things that are not right. You could take my comments in the context I wrote them, in that after 6 years things feel more settled for me. Is this unusual, for an expat to need time to accept the differences? Finally, my comment says that in fact France is a marginally better place to live than UK. So your comment seems judgemental and lacks balance.

You never seem to have a bad word for other countries. Why is that? Are they all wonderful? I'm also struggling to recall a post from you where you write anything positive about the UK or offer it some defence when people here are far more negative about it than I am France. For example, are you not interested in finding out what the plenty of things are that are bad about the UK that Neilr claims exist? In a few weeks I'll repackage his thoughts but replace UK for France.....see what response it gets in comparison. You'd be the first out the traps to pull me up on it.
You are quite wrong: there are many lovely aspects to the UK, and I have mentioned them here from time to time, so please don't put words in my mouth. But I am very upset by Brexit and by what Brexiters have done, not only to their own country but to the rest of Europe as well.

I have mixed feelings about all the countries I have lived in (7 so far in Europe, America and the Middle East). I am familiar with the classic stages of expatriation, but for most expats/migrants the first stage is delight: everything is so wonderfully different. Then comes phase 2, rejection: why are these people so different? Some people get stuck in phase 2. Most people are able to move on to phase 3 or even phase 4 (serenity).

The starting point this time was your outrage that Les Douanes have the right to search your car or flat, a clear sign of fascism. You have spent years in Asia as well as in France. I would have thought that you would have realized by now that different countries have different systems, and that this is not a particularly convincing example of fascism.
 
You are quite wrong: there are many lovely aspects to the UK, and I have mentioned them here from time to time, so please don't put words in my mouth. But I am very upset by Brexit and by what Brexiters have done, not only to their own country but to the rest of Europe as well.

I have mixed feelings about all the countries I have lived in (7 so far in Europe, America and the Middle East). I am familiar with the classic stages of expatriation, but for most expats/migrants the first stage is delight: everything is so wonderfully different. Then comes phase 2, rejection: why are these people so different? Some people get stuck in phase 2. Most people are able to move on to phase 3 or even phase 4 (serenity).

The starting point this time was your outrage that Les Douanes have the right to search your car or flat, a clear sign of fascism. You have spent years in Asia as well as in France. I would have thought that you would have realized by now that different countries have different systems, and that this is not a particularly convincing example of fascism.
And now you bring Brexit into this threado_O
And you have a cliche of the phases expats go through that makes my personal experience worthy of attacko_Oo_O
Regarding fascism and examples of, whatever, I don't care what you think defines fascism But I know France is more like that than the UK, albeit marginally. France has spent the majority of the last 15 years or so as a flawed democracy, UK has spent the last 15 years as a full democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
 
And now you bring Brexit into this threado_O
And you have a cliche of the phases expats go through that makes my personal experience worthy of attacko_Oo_O
Regarding fascism and examples of, whatever, I don't care what you think defines fascism But I know France is more like that than the UK, albeit marginally. France has spent the majority of the last 15 years or so as a flawed democracy, UK has spent the last 15 years as a full democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

What is a "full democracy"?
 
This is the message that really needs to get through. None of this is being done in our (the vast majority’s) name.

What we are witnessing is a far-right division strategy from the US Republican Party, the UK Conservative Party, some religious extremists, and a couple of billionaire bigots with personal agendas. This is 100% a political tool. An entirely manufactured wedge-issue to disrupt, split and facilitate a power grab. It bares no connection whatsoever to what the vast majority of the population feel today, let alone what they felt about what was a total non-issue only two or three years ago.

It is all part of the same trajectory as Trump whipping-up all the white supremacists, unhinged militias etc at Charlottesville who later stormed the capitol to try and overthrow an election on Jan 6th. Same here with the Tories refugee demonisation policy very actively enabling and empowering every violent flag-waving knuckle-dragger in the BNP, Patriotic Alternative, UKIP, Britain First, EDL etc. Same language. Same political aim.

This is the modern face of fascism and we need to recognise it as exactly what it is. It has absolutely nothing to do with trans people at all. They, like refugees, have just been cynically selected as the ball in a remarkably cruel power game some right-wing strategists have dreamt up (or copied verbatim from 1930s Germany). It needs fighting with every tool we have to hand.
One problem as I see it is that while yes, it is being consciously used by right as a wedge issue and the vast majority of people are indifferent or actively supportive of trans rights, there is actually an organic part of society who are committed transphobes or at least lean that way. It’s a small minority but it’s *massively* over-represented in the media, government, professional organisations and so on. I know of someone very senior in the civil service, working on equality issues, who attended a work fancy dress party as a “trans woman”, to the giggles and backslapping of her colleagues! And these people are running the show: they have an iron grip on public life in this country.

The only hope I can see is that this does seem to be generational. Not in any simplistic way obviously, but TERFS generally are of a certain age and young people generally take a very different view of things. You can imagine scenarios where the people in charge of the Guardian, BBC etc., even the Times and civil service, just *can’t* run the show anymore because their younger staff are in open revolt. They either get moved on or the organisation collapses.
 
France has spent the majority of the last 15 years or so as a flawed democracy, UK has spent the last 15 years as a full democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

Last paragraph of the wiki page:

Investment analyst Peter Tasker has criticised the Democracy Index for lacking transparency and accountability beyond the numbers. To generate the index, the Economist Intelligence Unit has a scoring system in which various experts are asked to answer 60 questions and assign each reply a number, with the weighted average deciding the ranking. However, the final report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts.
 
Regarding fascism and examples of, whatever, I don't care what you think defines fascism But I know France is more like that than the UK, albeit marginally. France has spent the majority of the last 15 years or so as a flawed democracy, UK has spent the last 15 years as a full democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
Whereas I am super impressed by you providing an internet link to a UK publication that proves the UK is a full democracy. That is extremely convincing. Equally impressive is your fortitude in removing yourself from such a full democracy to endure life in a semi-fascist country (or is it a flawed democracy? I'm getting a bit lost).
 
One problem as I see it is that while yes, it is being consciously used by right as a wedge issue and the vast majority of people are indifferent or actively supportive of trans rights

Most of the people routinely shut down as 'terfs' are the people you're describing, i.e. indifferent or supportive of trans rights but with genuine 'issues arising' from gender/sex. The conversation seems to have become impossible, with everyone accusing everyone else of being something terrible, when at root most people just want to have a reasonable discussion.
 
Last paragraph of the wiki page:

Investment analyst Peter Tasker has criticised the Democracy Index for lacking transparency and accountability beyond the numbers. To generate the index, the Economist Intelligence Unit has a scoring system in which various experts are asked to answer 60 questions and assign each reply a number, with the weighted average deciding the ranking. However, the final report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts.
You can criticize with one name, but there are other reports...
I am super impressed by you providing an internet link to a UK publication that proves the UK is a full democracy. That is extremely convincing. Equally impressive is your fortitude in removing yourself from such a full democracy to endure life in a semi-fascist country (or is it a flawed democracy? I'm getting a bit lost).
That is more personal attack nonsense, but less direct than normal. Like i said many times on pfm, on balance it is a better life here. But the authoritarianism I experience is higher than it is in the UK, and that brings the pleasure of being here down. If you don't like my opinions, supported by data, which corresponds with my experience here, then you could just put me on ignore?
 
That is more personal attack nonsense, but less direct than normal. Like i said many times on pfm, on balance it is a better life here. But the authoritarianism I experience is higher than it is in the UK, and that brings the pleasure of being here down. If you don't like my opinions, supported by data, which corresponds with my experience here, then you could just put me on ignore?
What's the point in that? My experience differs from yours and I disagree with many of your opinions, that's all.

EDIT: the "data" you provided says Turkey is part of something called Western Europe. Oops. Why do you think they do that?
 
I take no comfort in the notion that in the UK "the majority are nice people (even pro trans)" as from the perspective of anyone in a minority/marginalised community they can't tell who's friendly, who's going to abuse, discriminate or assault them, an environment made worse by a government determined to monster these groups is creating a hell on earth.
 
richardg
'UK has spent the last 15 years as a full democracy.'

Wrong.
The current Conservative Government got 38% of the votes from those who bothered to vote and has 100% of the power. That means that the 62% who voted for other parties have no representation in Government. Although no system of election is perfect one which gives a minority all the power and the majority none is a dictatorship however it is packaged. The UK is currently a 2 party state in the style of a democracy.
 
EDIT: the "data" you provided says Turkey is part of something called Western Europe. Oops. Why do you think they do that?

Why the inverted commas around data? Is it because Turkey is described as part of western Europe?
 
Is it because Turkey is described as part of western Europe?
Wouldn't you agree it's at best pretty funny, considering there are 2 other categories (Central/Eastern Europe and Middle East)/North Africa) that would appear more relevant, and at worst an attempt to manipulate perceptions?
 
Most of the people routinely shut down as 'terfs' are the people you're describing, i.e. indifferent or supportive of trans rights but with genuine 'issues arising' from gender/sex. The conversation seems to have become impossible, with everyone accusing everyone else of being something terrible, when at root most people just want to have a reasonable discussion.
Well, what do you mean by "shut down"? If you're talking about people being called out on forums or at the Christmas dinner table for saying something that strikes others as whiffy, I don't know if I have much of an opinion on that. If you're talking about people being excluded from mainstream debate then I would say that it simply doesn't happen. As I say, TERFS are massively over-represented in the national press, in politics, in professional organisations. British public is wall-to-wall TERFS, they are in no way marginalised, they completely own the space. Sometimes this total dominance is challenged and it launches a hundred newspaper columns decrying the woke mob on Twitter but it's paranoid fantasy, the reassertion of dominance, cry bullying.
 


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