The changing room question is cultural, of course. While Kirstea and Billy may be happy to strip off in front of each other, that doesnât make those who arenât evil transphobes.
The debate has become hysterical, though very little of what is happening in the US has reached here. That is probably because the Right in the US use abortion, trans rights and the LGBT agenda to rally their supporters. That would not work in the UK, so the idea of a three-stage process to strip rights from everyone but cis men is a fabrication.
An example of the hysteria is the demonisation of people like Rowling, who - as far as I can see - expresses her views in a balanced -sometimes trenchant - way, but attracts threats and vilification simply because she disagrees with some of what the trans lobby wants.
It is important to remember that gender reassignment procedures are backed by no long-term research, and no studies (as far as I am aware) are following people after gender reassignment. Hannah Barnesâs book (she was and may still be a Newsnight reporter Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistockâs Gender Service for Children : Barnes, Hannah: Amazon.co.uk: Books ) is an excellent study of what went wrong at the Tavistock Clinic, but more: she also points out the lack of research prior to the widescale adoption and promotion of gender reassignment procedures.
Iâm more prophetic than one of those crooked evangelical preachers, this just today from the Good Law Project âŚ
A major anti-abortion march taking place in London this week is being heavily influenced by US Christian right group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), raising concerns about the import of anti-gender fundamentalism to the UK.
Good Law Project can reveal that over half of the speakers in Londonâs March for Life 2025 itinerary have direct links to ADF, an Arizona-based Christian legal organisation that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as an âanti-LGBTQ+ hate groupâ.
ADF has poured money into the UK over recent years, spending over ÂŁ1m in 2024. According to Democracy for Sale, some of its funding comes from US conservatives such as Charles Koch and the Morgan Stanley Foundation.
But they still had separate changing rooms? Well they did in the one I went to.
With all the in fighting of one sort or another it keeps our eyes off what is really taking place, or is it, just another conspiracy? Sorry itâs FB but interested in others views.
Oh, it will be tiny, thereâs no doubting it, just as the anti-trans ones are, the same faces over and over every time too. This isnât my area of knowledge as much as cults but I bet I could recognise some of the people there as itâs the same faces that do all of these things. You see them pop up on Christian TV stations as talking heads from âchristian advocacy groupsâ and such. But the one thing the religious right is good at itâs making much more impact than youâd imagine given their fringe positioning. Given half the speakers are yanks I wouldnât be at all surprised to find theyâd brought some over to swell the numbers of the demonstration, and to attempt to reduce the average age of attendees so it looks less like an outing from a nursing home. More classic cult tactics, and one Trump loves to use too.
It absolutely is not another conspiracy. Youâre spot on, the whole point is to unite people behind a common enemy to distract from what youâre doing while everyone is focused elsewhere. Itâs exactly what happened with Roe v Wade and is continuing to happen every day of the trump administration. As I have already said, the trans issue is nothing but a smokescreen for the ultimate destruction of womenâs rights, and the dilution of everyoneâs rights, and it will be very ironic that people who today claim to be fighting for the rights of women will be in the history books among the people to destroy them.
But we just have to stay wise to it and do what we can.
Very surprised that no-one appeared to do a bit of probing into what exactly the late Virginia Giuffreâs duties were as a 17 year old âsauna attendentâ at Mar a Largo, before she was poached by EpsteinâŚ
Unfortunately, just as the American Right has an agenda, so does tha GLP: in this case, to promote liberal Western valuesâor, more accurately, some of them. So they preach tolerance (for views they agree with); free speech (as long as they approve of it); debate (as long as you donât argue against them).
GLP quotes the assertions of the Southern Poverty Law Center (an organisation which keeps secret its list of donors and which is pretty far Left):
As usual, GLP doesnât engage with the issues (in this case, gender ideology): they just tell you to be afraid of the bogeyman.
The problem remains. None of these organisations - on the Left of the Right, Christian or atheist - is interested in discussing the issues: itâs all hysterical ranting. That is doubtless because of the complete absence of scientific research to support trans ideology or post-treatment outcomes.
As Mark says, the turnout will be low. The supporters of each side will continue to fund their groups. Meanwhile, youâre directing attention away from the actual debate and focussing on extreme Left and Right pressure groups shouting at each other!
All this who-ha over sharing spaces with others is alarming me.
I have sat in ryokan onsenâs steaming hot pools with complete strangers. Everyone is very polite, small talk between heads poking out of the water is pleasant, and all avert their eyes from bodies entering or exiting the communal pool.
When did we, British and humans, lose the ability to be civil when in close quarters with other human beings? What has become of âlive and let liveâ? Are we, with increasing intolerance, frequently wrapped up as fear, actually devolving?
Following on from my onsen bubble, I fear that in castigating Angela Rayner, whose efforts on behalf of Britainâs citizens have been long and tireless, the Great British Public may just have âthrown out the baby with the bath water.
@Susannah , itâs largely cultural. But you will know that what constitutes a culture is a complex system of acceptable and unacceptable behaviours, policed almost entirely by the members of that culture.
What people in culture A are comfortable with may be entirely alien to members of culture B. Neither culture is better, and certainly neither is ârightâ: theyâre just different.
I hadnât realised Angela Rayner was such an enthusiastic user of communal baths, however. You live and learn.
At the back of her building is Marroccoâs, people queue for 45 minutes during the summer to get their absolutely incredible ice cream so Iâm very jealous, Iâd be the size of a house in a month if I lived there!
Meanwhile ⌠sorry if youâre a victim of rape, of domestic abuse, or any other crime: 1500 people are going to deliberately bung up the criminal justice system for reasons of their own, delay your abuserâs trial and probably increase the chance of an acquittal.
