Darwin'shobbit

It’s a shame that @GMB felt that Keira Bell needed to be ‘balanced’ by a satisfied transitioner (who was affirmed throughout). We have heard voices like Keira’s so little, and there has been no shortage of affirmative lived experiences of trans-identified people. Keira WAS the balance to a deluge of affirmation. Unfortunately the guest was allowed to claim that puberty blockers are ‘completely reversible’. This advice was taken down from the NHS website several years ago. It was challenged by Kate Garraway but it should have been fact-checked in the brief. ‘No - that’s not the case’. No doubt this hit was an attempt to head off complaints activism at the pass. Paul Brand has a rep of being very activist but he was measured. They both were. Kate asked some insightful questions. Nothing new from the guest, who rolled out the usual lines: ‘it’s not happening’, ‘trans community is small’ ‘precocious puberty’ ‘the drugs are tremendously hard to get hold of’ ‘you’re monitored incredibly closely’ ‘I knew when I was tiny’ ‘decision comes with full information’ ‘detransition rate is vanishingly small’ and finally - the chutzpah - ‘we are so often not in the room’ (that last came with the encouragement of Paul Brand who just couldn’t stop himself throwing in ‘it’s so toxic, how does that make you feel’.) To be fair all of them could have been knocked out of the park by the journalists in SiJ (plus most of our non journalist followers) without catching a breath. Kate G really did seek to challenge. But it’s hard to deliver what must seem like very harsh facts when someone whose sanity depends on the facts being untrue is sitting right in front of you. That’s why gender identity activists focus on ‘lived experience’ journalism, in order to disarm. The visual furniture - ‘puberty blockers saved my life’ was ill-informed. Every single researcher putting a brief together should know that the suicide myth has been debunked by none other than the UK suicide commissioner, Louis Appleby, as well as gender activists in court hearings, and it should never be given prominence without challenge. Pres were fair. They are very exposed, and they’re not going to say on live TV, what if you want kids, aren’t you worried about your sexual function, how do you know you’re not just saying this because your brain was stalled in a pre-pubertal state, are you being chemically castrated, what about the elevated risk of cancer and stroke, have you thought about the next forty years of pharmacological dependence etc. But that’s a conversation that should have been had in planning. This is primarily a safeguarding issue, not just a culture war or political ding-ding. We campaign for balance. What a coincidence that outlets remember what what it is when they’ve had the audacity to platform a detransitioner. Finally well done to whoever added ‘controversial’ about half a dozen times to ‘puberty blocker trial’ in the script.

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