WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE ABOUT TRANSWOMEN? TAKE THE TESTS

Posted byGordon DangerfieldPosted inUncategorized

The Scottish Government believes that transwomen are women and that this statement is so self-evidently true that it is not even up for debate.

I believe that transwomen are not women, and that this statement should not require debate in any rational society.         

Which of these two opposite beliefs you hold is important because which one you hold logically determines what you think should follow from that belief.

If, like the Scottish Government, you truly believe that transwomen are women, then the question of what follows largely resolves itself. You’ll believe that, by definition, transwomen should have all the rights that women have and that anyone denying these rights is denying the rights of women. 

If, like me, you believe that transwomen are not women, then the questions of what should follow from that belief are much more complicated, especially if, like me, you regard yourself as a decent and compassionate person. One thing that does clearly follow, though, is that transwomen are not entitled to the rights of women, such as women-only spaces and services. 

This post, then, is aimed at helping you determine which of these two foundational beliefs you hold.

Maybe, like me, you’re a long-time proven leftie, reluctant to accept finding yourself on the same side as Piers Morgan and Toby Young on any issue, and worried that you might be on the wrong side of history.

Maybe you’re at school or university and are being told by those in authority over you that people much smarter than you (who are also, so you are told, very “progressive”) have proved, in ways you don’t need to trouble yourself with, that transwomen just are women, and that if you ask for any argument or evidence, you’re a reactionary and a troublemaker.

Maybe you have children or grandchildren who are at school or university and who have passed that “knowledge” on to you with the same air of authority with which it was imposed on them. Maybe you think of how you used to correct your own parents or grandparents if they said “coloured” or “negro”, and you wonder if this is just your generation’s version of not moving with the times.

Maybe you’re in a Scottish Government or otherwise Stonewall-captured workplace where you’re given “training” in these issues and where no-one dares oppose the ludicrous dogma which comprises this “training” for fear of abuse, humiliation, dismissal and worse.

Maybe…

Well, you get the point, and if you are in any of those positions, I’ve got good news for you.

I have come up with three simple tests that you can take to establish for yourself exactly where you stand on the transwomen are women statement.        

These three tests are all derived from the experiences of lesbian women as reported by journalist Caroline Lowbridge in her recent article published on the BBC website.

I hope you will find taking them to be as decisive as I did.

Before we begin…

A couple of preliminary points:

Firstly, for all the storm of outrage that has greeted Lowbridge’s article over the last few days, I have not seen anyone on any side claim that anything set out there disqualifies the transwomen featured from being transwomen.

Accordingly, for the purposes of the three tests which follow, we don’t need to worry about defining what is or is not a “transwoman”. We can safely say that the transwomen featured in the article and included in my three tests below are, as they are represented to be, genuine examples of transwomen.

Secondly, let me say quite clearly that I believe in the truthfulness of the women featured in the article and I believe in the integrity of the female journalist who wrote about them. I think the attempts being made by numerous authority figures to discredit the women and the female journalist who wrote about them are shameful. 

But for the purposes of this post, that doesn’t even matter. If these women and their experiences had been conjured out of thin air by some isometric testing company purely for this purpose, they could hardly have provided us with better tests of where we stand on the statement trans women are women.

So let’s proceed to the tests:

Test 1

Lowbridge reports how 24-year-old Amy, a lesbian, was asked to have sex with a transwoman. The circumstances as narrated in the article are then as follows:

[T]he transwoman in question had not undergone genital surgery, so still had a penis.

“I know there is zero possibility for me to be attracted to this person,” said Amy, who lives in the south west of England and works in a small print and design studio.

“I can hear their male vocal chords. I can see their male jawline. I know, under their clothes, there is male genitalia. These are physical realities that, as a woman who likes women, you just can’t ignore.”

Amy refused to have sex with the transwoman.

So:   

Do you believe that this transwoman with male vocal chords, a male jawline and male genitalia is a woman?

If, like me, your answer is a firm no, then I’d say it’s clear that, like me, you believe transwomen are not women.

If, on the other hand, you believe that what happened here is that Amy, a same-sex attracted woman, rejected another woman, with a woman’s male vocal chords, a woman’s male jawline, and a woman’s male genitalia, then your belief is right in line with that of the Scottish Government.

I can well understand why you wouldn’t want to debate that belief.  

Test 2

Lowbridge narrates another experience as follows:

Another lesbian woman, 26-year-old Chloe, said she felt so pressured she ended up having penetrative sex with a transwoman at university after repeatedly explaining she was not interested.

They lived near each other in halls of residence. Chloe had been drinking alcohol and does not think she could have given proper consent.

“I felt very bad for hating every moment, because the idea is we are attracted to gender rather than sex, and I felt bad for feeling like that,” she said.

Ashamed and embarrassed, she decided not to tell anyone.

What do you think?

If, like me, you think the transwoman who had penetrative sex with Chloe wasn’t a woman then, like me, you don’t believe transwomen are women.

You may well believe that Chloe was raped by a man. I certainly do.

If, on the other hand, you believe that the transwoman who penetrated Chloe did so with a woman’s penis, then welcome again to the Orwellian world of the Scottish Government.

I can well understand why you’ll have no interest in debating that belief. 

Test 3

Lowbridge cites a report published here in which:

One woman reported being targeted in an online group. “I was told that homosexuality doesn’t exist and I owed it to my trans sisters to unlearn my ‘genital confusion’ so I can enjoy letting them penetrate me,” she wrote.   

Again, what do you think?

If, like me, you think that these “trans sisters” who wanted to penetrate a lesbian woman with their male genitalia are not women, then you believe, as I do, that transwomen are not women.

If on the other hand, you believe that these “trans sisters” wanted to penetrate this lesbian woman with their women’s male genitalia, then … well, you know the rest by now.

It’s pretty obvious to me why you’d do anything to avoid debating that belief.

How did you do?

If, like me, you concluded that transwomen are not women, then we can talk about ways in which our society can be kinder to transwomen and the difficulties they face, always though with the very clear proviso that the rights of women must be in no way compromised by any such kindness.     

If you concluded that transwomen are women, and that women’s rights are their rights by definition, then it’s probably just as well that you don’t want to debate the subject.

I really don’t see what we could possibly have to talk about.

134 thoughts on “WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE ABOUT TRANSWOMEN? TAKE THE TESTS”

  1. Interesting, Gordon.
    Have a look at this too. It concerns Steven Nolan, the journalist, who has recently completed nearly a dozen podcasts covering Stonewall’s unbelievable influence over many organisations, including the BBC, Scottish and Welsh governments.
    https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/stephen-nolan-warned-off-stonewall-podcast-by-seasoned-people-within-bbc-40979482.html
    The podcasts themselves are here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p09yjmph

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, sadscot. I’ve listened to the one on Ofcom but not any of the rest yet. I corresponded with Ofcom myself on this very topic earlier this year (or maybe last — time goes by so fast when you’re old) and I’ve been meaning to do a post publishing the correspondence, which I think may be of interest in view of Nolan’s podcasts and other recent developments. Seasoned followers of the blog like yourself won’t be holding your breath for its appearance, I know…

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      3. “time goes by so fast when you’re old”

        Ha! It’s all very well for you spring chickens. Young whippersnapper! (what’s the younger generation coming too? I don’t know, we weren’t like that in my day … grumble, grumble, grumble) 😉

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Grum, I’d love to know what the argument even IS. I spent the best part of a decade at the University of California, studying at one of the centres of Gender Studies and Queer Theory, and even passed my Ph.D exams with distinction without any professor ever offering anything more than ex cathedra pronouncements and unintelligible poststructuralist bullshit in answer to the most basic questions.

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

      1. I don’t think there is one. It’s simply an assertion, like saying, “the earth is the centre of the universe” because that’s what the belief system demands. Basically your standard in-group signalling to signify loyalty to your chosen peers.
        I very much doubt that any of these idiots understand the idea of “it is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure. . .”, and would know of Thomas Aikenhead to whom it is attributed. I’d hoped that we’d grown out of that nonsense.

        Like

  3. It really is the equivalent of tip-toeing blindfolded through a minefield.
    Can I give another hypothetical scenario.

    You’re a top level manager needing to fill a vacant slot by promoting from within

    Applicant A is able, conscientious, hard working, flexible and popular with clients and colleagues. She is also heterosexual
    Applicant B is lazy, clock watching, prone to taking days off ill. generally surly, not a people person and tolerated by clients and colleagues. She/he/whatever is also ‘trans’

    Do you

    a. Promote the right person for the job on merit alone.regardless of any extraneous circumstances.
    b. Promote the ‘trans’ person because you want a quiet life, you don’t want to lose future contracts with Scot Gov and you don’t want your company to be subject to legal action.
    c. Pack it all in and join a monastery

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. Like you I’m sure, IM, I think most people are currently going with some version of (b). I hope, though, that the tide may be turning, and the BBC article, now that they’re free of Stonewall, is a very encouraging sign. The closest parallel I can think of to this collective insanity is McCarthyism, which in the end collapsed suddenly and completely, with everyone wondering how on earth it took such devastating hold for so long. I hope the gender madness will go the same way.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      1. There’s actually a much closer parallel Gordon – the Cultural Revolution in China.

        When I ask Westerners who were the vanguard of the Cultural Revolution, they never get the answer right. It wasn’t the PLA, or Communist Party Members, or workers, or peasants. It was radical student zealots. Armed with the arrogance and intolerance of youth, and manipulated by an odious little clique (led by a woman…) obsessed with seizing power in the aftermath of Mao’s rule, they rampaged around the country for ten years making people’s lives a misery for no reason other than the pleasure it gave them. Much of the bullying and abuse they engaged in – and the very tactics they employed – was indistinguishable from what we are seeing today.

        Eventually their hubris got the better of them, when ordinary people finally got sick of their excesses, and they were undone by a stubborn veteran – Deng Xiaping – who simply refused to be ousted despite being purged twice. The nasty little viper who was behind it all ended up paying a high price, but not before her cohorts had done appalling damage to the country that took decades to remedy…

        Liked by 2 people

      2. [It’s just as well I get to edit my comments — unlike you plebs — because of course the Cultural Revolution happened long after Nineteen Eighty Four was published. I’ll let the comment stand as reassurance to you all that even I am not infallible.]

        Absolutely, David — Orwell was brilliant but he didn’t come up with the Junior Spies and the Junior Anti-Sex League out of nowhere. One of the most memorable — and most chilling — bits in the book for me is when Winston’s neighbour is sharing a cell with him and is all proud because his wee indoctrinated fascist of a son grassed him in, thus showing both that he must have actually committed the thought crime of which he is accused (he hasn’t) and that his son is a shining example of Party virtue.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Gordon: my previous comment disappeared into the ether, so I will just say this: the sexual offences laws we have in Scotland will be in direct conflict with self-ID and wholesale access into women’s spaces and rights. It is here that the greatest injustices will come. People really need to think about how you can prosecute fetishistic/paraphilic men/predators when what they do in those spaces will be allowed precisely because they are deemed to BE women in law. For example, can a trans identified male rape with a lady dick which is deemed to be a vagina? If a trans identified male strip off in front of women and female children, is he flashing, is it pedophilia? Queer Theory in action: no boundaries; no prohibitive laws; total sexual freedom. For whom, one might be entitled to ask?

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    1. lorncal, your comments are much valued by me and other commenters, so please do have another go at the one that disappeared if you have any energy left for it. On this one, I agree completely. I don’t have a high opinion of lawyers in any number of areas but the one thing I’d have expected from us is precision and a demand for argument and evidence. I can’t believe how easily and how completely our profession has been captured by this imprecise, incoherent, evidence-free cult-speak.

      I could draft laws in a day that would banish completely from the statute book the incoherent notion of gender and return us to the coherent position where gender and sex are interchangeable and mean the same thing (sex), and that would allow all of your questions to be easily, and correctly, answered. Any competent lawyer could do the same, and yet we are where we are.

      Liked by 7 people

      Reply

      1. This should be an article in the Guardian. Instead they gave Judith Butler another platform the other day for more of her dangerous and disingenuous (“what’s the problem?”) nonsense.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Many thanks, Gordon, that’s much appreciated. I have to admit that, as awful and dangerous as she is, Butler’s article gave me a complete hoot. For an utter charlatan like her, who doesn’t even understand the continental philosophy she writes about, let alone classic or analytic philosophy, and who hides her ignorance by writing in a mixture of truisms and nonsense, to tell US we are incoherent must surely be the absolute peak of this insanity.

        Liked by 3 people

      3. This is my experience of Butler too. I spent quite a lot of the latter part of the 1980s reading Foucault and other so called postmodern philosophers. Butler’s reading of these is at best partial and at worst pernicious. And yet young folks always point here as if it were truth. Intellectual standards have disappeared and critical thinking is a crime.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Transwomen are not women.

    There is another aspect to this and that is the rank bad set up within the Scots government for making laws. Sturgeon wants something and everyone has to reverse engineer this into an act of parliament. That’s the policy program. There are reasons they haven’t achieved anything in 7 years beyond not wanting to step on Blighty’s toes. It is possible she makes such an arse of the GRA that it never comes to pass. Its taken an age to get to this stage and it is allowing more and more people to make a judgement on the issue.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. OP, it’s important to remember, however, that the SNP are not alone in these aims. Labour are onboard without a doubt and so are the LibDems.
      Interesting to read today that the COPFS has today discontinued all proceedings against Marion Millar. This is “ahead of a court hearing scheduled for next Monday, pending a standard review with the alleged victims.” (Whatever that means.)

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. I left the ForWomen Scotland rally at the parliament worried about two things in particular. The treatment of women in our prisons today and the treatment of women working in our university sector who choose to speak openly in defense of their rights. This is before this iteration of the GRA is enacted. Nothing I have read lately calms the nerves on this. TransScotland writing procedures for Scottish women’s prisons before this law is even enacted?

        The piss poor way this has been handled is a great part of the problem. In fact the way it has been handled by the SG is the major cause of the damage it has done to date. To my mind anyway. You could greet at the near-insane way these issues, deeply sensitive issues, are handled.

        I was greatly impressed by the people I heard speak and the women I talked to during and after the event. That’s the bright spot for me.

        Liked by 5 people

  7. OP, I saw a quote from a senior figure within Stonewall claiming that the holding of “gender critical views” was the same as anti-Semitism.

    Like

    Reply

    2. Surely that depends on whether the penis of the Trans’woman’ in question had been circumcised by a rabbi for religious purposes?

      If not, I don’t see how that charge would stand up! (pun definitely intended)

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. The whole principle of this is unbelievably ridiculous in all senses of biological physiological and psychological. The term trans-woman is not in the first instance physiologically not possible unless you can surgically change a male physic to female(woman) by inserting a womb unheard of never been done. Never will be. I’m not medically train but I would be safe to say it’s totally impractical. So the English word for female being woman as in she has a womb. Stops there. Unless you want to change the Oxford English analog and that of Greys analog of the human species. The politicians that come up this in my opinion have been got at with an ulterior motive to throw confusion into a currently sensitive issue with intent on distraction from the issue of independence. You hear no issues of this topic within WM or any other devolved government. Is it not working ? NS has initiated this , and you have to ask the question Why?

    Regards Robin

    On Fri, 29 Oct 2021 at 8:21 am, Gordon Dangerfield wrote:

    > Gordon Dangerfield posted: ” The Scottish Government believes that > transwomen are women and that this statement is so self-evidently true that > it is not even up for debate. I believe that transwomen are not women, and > that this statement should not require debate in any rational ” >

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Robin, I’m probably in a minority here but my own opinion is that this madness is largely something lefties and liberals have inflicted on ourselves. Yes, of course our masters have stood back gleefully and watched us tear ourselves apart and yes of course as soon as it was obvious there was a buck to be made, big business/pharma have got rolling. But fundamentally we did it to ourselves (I’ve written in previous comments about how and why — academic preening as a substitute for actual activism and collective struggle is the main culprit in my view) and it’s up to us ourselves to sort it.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      1. Gordon: I know you are very busy, but, if you get the chance, listen to Ray Blanchard on ‘The Mess We’re In” with Graham Linehan. It is an eye-opener on how we got here. Blanchard and Bailey, between them, sent men out into the world to “live as women”. They actually meant “live as a stereotype female gender” because they are not and can never be women. That was way back in the 1960s. Most of these men lived their lives quietly, bothering nobody, although women have always known that men have been using their loos, but we had compassion. That compassion has gone as the trans activists have latched on to the 2004 GRA which they now use as a springboard to take over all of women’s spaces and rights.

        Self-ID is just the beginning, certainly not the end. At the end of the interview, Blanchard gets angry and starts to blame women for what has happened in an effort to take the heat off himself and Bailey. As psychologists, they should have been counselling these men to face up to their delusion and accept it as just that. Instead, they gave them the hope of being able to actually live as women, whatever that means, then, now, to actually be women. I could feel sorry for them, because body dysphoria must be an agonizing mental condition, as must be having to live with fetishes and autogynephilia, if they cannot be managed or if someone does not want to manage them (and this latter, the in-your-face demands for forced public participation in their fetishes/autogynephilia that so many trans identified males, in particular, shove in our faces at Pride Rallies and at every conceivable opportunity, is the new generation of so-called trans who shelter under the Stonewall umbrella).

        However, I felt disgusted with Blanchard as he tried sorely to wriggle out of the responsibility for what has happened. Not once did he ever mention asking women for their consent to have these trans identified men in their spaces, and his advice was to break the law. I can speak only for me, but, personally, I find the whole trans thing despicably and grossly offensive, as I am sure black people must find whites blacking-up offensive in the same way. It is nothing more or less than a theatrical performance, an appropriation of someone else’s skin as if they are not human, but an idea in a man’s head or a white person’s head – not real, not worthy of respect.

        Liked by 4 people

      2. Thanks lorncal, that has definitely helped me clarify my own thinking and of course it makes sense that this is not just the fault of Judith Butler and a bunch of French charlatans. One of the things I’m glad you keep reminding us of is how disparate the various groups marching under the “trans” banner actually are — and that’s just the males!

        Have you yourself written any detailed classification of the various groups you mention — autogynephiles etc? I’m increasingly realising that my own reaction to each group is quite different and I’m probably at the point where I’d like to classify them in a Mermaids-style chart with “Yes, that must be awful for you,” at one end and “Fuck right off!” at the other.

        Liked by 3 people

      3. I’m thinking particularly here of the validation/celebration aspect. The condition of someone who hates his male body to the point where only mutilating it provides any relief does not even seem obviously related to the condition of someone who loves his male body so much that he’s shouting “Suck my ladydick!”

        Like

      4. No, I haven’t tried to classify all the groups, Gordon. I have been able to see two distinct groups, but I don’t doubt there are more. What I do think has happened is that never before have trans identified males classified themselves as actual women, as in TWAW. I believe that they took one look at the 2004 GRA and thought: this could really do a lot for us beyond same-sex marriage and other wee tweaks to official documents. We could take everything from them. That is why I believe that it is the access to women’s spaces and rights (rights will be their next target if they pull off the spaces) that is crucial for what, as far as I can determine, is the biggest group – the paraphilic and fetishist group. They are the real problem because, even before we start to think of bona fide predators gaining access through self-ID, these trans identified males have fetishes that are extremely unsavoury and/or distressful to females, and, now, they want us all to join them in these fetishes. Personally, although I have no real issue with any of the groups so long as they stay out of all female spaces and rights, I do find it all so offensive to me, and all women, because it is so akin to blacking-up: a performance, like putting on a skin or a costume, that we are not real human beings but facsimilies of a human being, interchangeable with trans identified men. It really is quite creepy and appalling when you think of it like that. For men, it doesn’t have the added fear factor, although I daresay, men don’t want women coming into their private spaces and rights either. Most women fear men when they are in situations where they are vulnerable. I’m sorry, but that is just a fact because men can hurt us.

        Liked by 3 people

      5. Yes, it’s interesting reading the first European Court case which the SG are always citing as the basis of the 2004 Act and need for further reform. I’d have to look up the name but the circumstances are exactly what you’d expect, and what most of the population still think we’re talking about — an elderly “transsexual” who’d had a miserable time all her life and had done everything possible to assuage her dysphoria, including surgery, but was still called a man on official documents and treated as a man in various social situations, adding to her humiliation and distress, and of course any compassionate person wants to help and probably says, as the court did, let’s give this person the legal fiction that she’s a woman. This was then the tone and substance of the debate on the 2004 Act — tiny group of people, great suffering, no prejudice to the rest of society, exceptional circumstances, rigorous monitoring, need for compliance with the ECHR, blah blah.

        Practically everything in the court decision, including the repeated use of “transsexual”, and the very clear view that dysphoria is a distressing MEDICAL condition, would probably now be condemned as “transphobic” by the TRAs, which shows how frighteningly far we’ve come.

        Liked by 3 people

      6. Indeed, Gordon. The human capacity for malign thought and deed, and for self-delusion appears to be infinite, sadly.

        Like

      7. Lorncal,

        Thanks for commenting on that interview with Ray Blanchard – my reaction was exactly the same as yours – that final misogynistic outburst, totally out of the blue, was horrific and very telling about his attitude. And probably the reason he decided to validate autogynephilic men. It isn’t really gender dysphoria is it – it’s a fetish gone to extremes.

        Liked by 1 person

      8. Absolutely correct. Some time back, the Right decided it would be a jolly good wheeze to get us lefties tied up in knots over what we can lump together as ‘Identity Politics’.

        It was predicated on the fact that everybody but right wing bastards thinks that we should be nice and kind to each other. But Ii has been used against us.

        This distracts us from challenging them on the only things that matter in real politics: Class, poverty and imperialism.

        If these are kept foremost then, de facto, sexism, racism and all the other evils flowing from right-wing hegemony are tackled through genuine political challenge based on class action.

        This Identity stuff gets them off the hook. They just love it!

        One small but telling example from my own experience: For most of my working life I was a Union Rep in the NHS and Universities.

        A couple of decades ago, after Personnel Departments had been subsumed by the Human Resource Management bollocks, some apparently enlightened policies were introduced. One of these was the “Respect at Work Policy”.

        Who could complain?

        I never saw it successfully used against any bullying manager , but it was certainly used against Union Reps (including myself) when they tried to defend cases robustly.

        In one instance where a vexatious grievance was laid on me by a manager after I had raised actions for members in a Bullying and Harassment case, I had a disciplinary raised against me by the Senior Manager who had ‘ impartially’ heard the case, based on the evidence of this manager’s malicious malpractice I had given in writing at the Harassment case. In other words for written evidence of his bullying given in the due process of the proceedings.

        The action against me was taken under – the Respect at Work Policy!

        Apparently, in truthfully describing the actions of this snivelling, lying, bullying toad, I had ‘disrespected’ him.

        This action against me was unlawful under the Health and Safety at Work Act (I was allegedly protected as a Safety Rep under HASAWA).

        But like much else in HASAWA it is totally inoperative in a real workplace, where power resides on one side only, unless staff are willing to strike – which strikes were made unlawful by Tory Governments – and allowed to remain in statute under New ‘Labour”.

        But I digress: the only struggle that matters is the class struggle – and we can never rely on the Law to win that battle, for as you Gordon well know, the Law is made by the Ruling Class to serve the interests of the Ruling Class.

        We need to get back to basics: class is class; men are men; women are women.

        It’s on the tin!

        Liked by 2 people

      9. What the left did, John O’Dowd, was open up this stuff to the right and to corporate capitalism. Philanthropists in the, invested in genuine educational opportunities for working-class children, they invested in clean water sources (to eradicate cholera, typhus, etc. from working-class areas), they invested in libraries so that working-class people, men and women, could educate themselves and cultivate critical thinking and apply it to their own circumstances. Now, people with enormous wealth invest in pharmaceuticals, in technology, etc. to create even more money that they hide in tax havens and Swiss Bank accounts to the detriment of the society in which they live, and most certainly to the detriment of the people on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.

        Everything that ever meant anything to societies and acted as cultural glue has been corporatized : from Christmas and Hogmanay and New Year to Easter. Nowadays, everything has to make a profit or it becomes a target for destruction. Starting on children helped in two ways here: 1) with the ‘born in the wrong body and I knew since I was about 18 months”; and 2) if you get them early enough, you have them for life, mutilated and poisoned with hormones, and requiring vast resources from the NHS and from welfare for the rest of their lives, and, also, it becomes a perpetual dripping roast.

        The left – I am not the left myself, but I’m not blind to its stupidities – always, but always, manages to take everything too far and ends up cracking and allowing in the right to exploit and use its basic decency and social collectivism to turn them on the left and use them as a springboard for the right’s own benefit. People on the right are natural predators, users, enablers and they are on the right because the right caters openly for this type of human being. They are akin to parasites because they use people’s own weaknesses against them in their efforts to make their own existences better, usually by accumulating money, but not always – sometimes, it is just for the thrill of hurting others.

        The trans activists and those who claim to be trans are merely the foot soldiers who carry out the bidding of the first group. Mainly, but not totally, they are driven by paraphilia and fetishes – in other words, their sex drive has become out of control as, often, the lust for blood motivates armed killers. I’m not sure that the left has any answer to this latest hysteria and delusion, even though it helped to create it, because much of the left is part of it, and some of the very worst totalitarian and authoritarian excesses are down to the left youth activists and virtue-signallers, far too inexperienced and lacking in critical thought to even recognise how they are being used like flushable toilet roll by the right.

        Liked by 1 person

      10. What happened to you has happened so many, John, and I only wish all of them had as clear an analysis of it as you have. I cringe when I read, as I did recently, a supposed leftie talking about “classism”, as if the class struggle could be resolved if we were all just a bit more polite to one another. I don’t want the ruling classes to be polite to me; I want the bastards overthrown. Sadly, I think we’re going to have to reinvent the wheel, exactly as you state in your last two sentences.

        Liked by 2 people

      11. Right, I see it now Lorncal. It’s the Left’s fault that the Right (formerly such wonderful, thoughtful “Philanthropists” have now turned into nasty, selfish, ruthless bastards!

        Now where have I heard that before?

        Talk about victim-blaming!

        And where do you think these “Philanthropists” got their excess cash to endow all these wonderful libraries out of their infinite goodness, for the deserving poor?

        “Gawd bless you Gov – can I have your crust”

        I suggest you read a true account of the likes of (Library endowed) Carnegie and Frick – and their murderous exploits at, for example Homestead Mill.

        Examples of capitalist murderous activities closer to home, and across the globe,and right up to the present day are abundant.

        Like

      12. Good grief, John O’Dowd, where did that come from? Where do you think this stuff originated if not on the left? Where do you think the anti Corbyn/supposed anti semitism originated? Who do you think benefited? Denton’s are, indeed, corporate lawyers, but who do you think employed them, Brenda? Could it have been Stonewall – the same Stonewall that once stood for equal rights for gay people?

        The left, and I did say I have always been on the left of nationalism, has always overreached itself in trying to be whiter than white. Human beings are invariably innumerable shades of grey in colour, so, when you push white, you are going too far, and, when you go too far, you attract the attention of the right. The right, is, by its very nature, nearer to black than to white on the scale of shades of grey, and it follows its nature, which is to screw people over. Stonewall and their support of, not to mention, actual driving of, trans issues, pushed it right into the right’s camp, from Denton’s to corporate tech, corporate pharmaceuticals, corporate insurance, and certainly, corporate p**n. In other words, the right saw an opportunity to make a mint and jumped at it.

        Capitalism was given a free injection of purpose, all supplied by the left, which is tearing itself asunder over this issue, too busy virtue-signalling to see the crocodile approaching from the right, while capitalism gets on with making money, as per. This thing is a dripping roast to corporate interests. I do know that many philanthropists were b*****s of the first degree. I was making a comparison. Some of the Victorian chaps (note they were invariably chaps, then, as now) ‘developed a conscience’ and did put their money to good use. They were largely responsible for many of the ‘welfare’ projects that were undertaken in the 19th century. I did not speculate on their goodness or otherwise in so doing.

        My point was to highlight the difference between the extreme wealthy of that time and now. There are a few today, but they are few and far between, and they tend to spend money on ridiculous space projects for their own vanity rather than, for example, build proper water treatment plants or build hospitals, etc. Today’s wealthy put their dosh – the bit they have left over after hiding it in off-shore tax havens and so on – into making more money out of poor deluded idiots who actually the guff they’re selling; and those who push it, the activists, are generally, malign, young thugs whom the money use as attack dogs. Yet, they would declare themselves to be on the left.

        How many daft Labour voters voted for Brexit and are squealing now that the right is doing what the right always does? They never learn. Never.

        Like

      13. I have to say Lorncal, that I find your “argument” incoherent and difficult to follow. But I’m sure you mean well, even if the extent to which you appear to have misunderstood what I was saying, is too extensive to be susceptible to remediation within the time I’m willing to expend on it.

        But just to clarify: I support an independent Scotland – I joined the SNP 36 years ago, and ALBA on the day it was launched.

        I left the SNP and joined ALBA (mainly but not exclusively) because I believe that Alex Salmond was stitched-up by a conspiracy of people around Nicola Sturgeon, and that Sturgeon has no intention whatsoever of pursuing independence.

        I do NOT accept that the Left are in any way to blame for the Capitalism’s evil nature.

        I agree that Corbyn was traduced and stitched up and is not, and never has been an antisemite

        And I pretty much agree with everything that Gordon has written on the subject matter of the present blog article (I am by profession a biologist, and there are certain scientific truths that are undeniable)

        I believe that those of us on the genuine left (not the wishy-washy self-blaming pseudo-left) have a duty to fight against the evils of capitalism

        And I believe that ‘identity-politics’ mainly, but not exclusively of the sexual variety, has given the Ruling Class an unbelievable opportunity to take the heat off themselves, to the extent that it’s so-called liberal ‘right-on’ wing, has promoted it relentlessly.

        And that’s it from me.

        Goodnight.

        Liked by 1 person

      14. I did not say that the left was to blame for capitalism’s evil nature, John O’Dowd. Please try not to patronise me. Try reading what I have written. I, too, left the SNP for ALBA, probably for very much the same reasons you did. I, too, believe Alec Salmond was stitched up. I, too, am on the left. What I did say was that the left makes it easy for the evil b******s to do what they do because it is blinded by virtue-signalling. If th left wants to stand up to the right, it has to stop making things easy for the right. Good night to you, too.

        Like

  9. Well I had written an erudite explanation of what I am going to more quickly say now, but I was reading through and proof reading when poof, the whole lot disappeared. I have now scraped myself off the ceiling and returned to comparative normality. I wanted to say, being a person whose formative years were lived at a time before Thatcher when quality of life for everyone was important, that there is one obvious factor in all this explosion of concern both of the people who are experiencing such frightening differences and those who struggle to come to terms with the changes needed to pacify their needs. It is on a different trajectory altogether. It’s maddening, the piece I was about to post was much clearer.

    Ten years ago, my partner complained that he could no longer drink the water from the tap, it tasted too nasty. Seems that when Thatcher decided that the only aspect of life that was important was financial, she arranged for the privatisation of the water companies. The lowest level of acceptance for cleanliness became the benchmark for what had to be delivered through the tap. Cheaper. There was a filter system available for the whole water input to be installed in our our rural property but it was eye-wateringly expensive. So we had the water tested. The one-third resultant sludge that we found in the test-tube contained high levels of other people’s oestrogen from contraceptives, antibiotics as well as a lot of other pollutants that by that time my reeling brain could not process. Another point that I made was that comparing my observations of people going out and about in society 65 years ago was different in many ways from what many people apparently experience now, must be, or these arguments would not be in the forefront.

    But oestrogen in the drinking water that many people unwittingly ingest, immerse their bodies in, spread about their homes in laundry and floor-cleaning in my view has a strong effect. And you don’t know you are taking it.
    And if you are male it will have a very strange effect. Don’t know what happens if you are female, but if you have more than your body makes it must make a difference, its a powerful working natural purposeful hormone, it won’t be doing nothing.. The unintentional inclusion of this recipe of other people’s medication and contraceptive efforts has altered the environmental balance necessary for ‘normal’ biological development. Many more people seem to be affected by hormonal and neuro-chemical imbalance than ever before, reading between the lines of reported mental health issues, unhappiness caused by confusion and feeling out of place and suicide rates. Many people now refer to ‘my anxiety’ as a part of life they struggle with on a daily basis.

    You may be relieved to know that I have now no more time to go into this further, having lost the carefully prepared comments I had intended to post, but we bought the filter system and many illnesses cleared up, my husband’s heart condition even improved. Fatigue, headaches, indecision, dithering, anxiety, all just went. I think this ghastly Thatcher-effect is one of real importance and by concentrating on clearing that up we could maybe find that we quite quickly change the problem and can begin to encourage our politicians to concentrate for us on the administration and provision of the best of our resources rather than the social engineering ( which is much more fun and makes one feel so self-important) required to overcome the effects of Thatcherism.

    Get the water system everywhere under observation, look at the environmental issues that are affecting the delicate balances of human development and by concentrating on that and listening to what has happened to people we may find a new balance that helps us all feel better about ourselves and that solutions become easier. Am so sorry you lost the opportunity to read the real thing!!! But I’m posting this anyway, please forgive.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Plenty of time, roscurwood, if you want to regather your forces and try again with the full thing at some point. I confess that the water issue is something I’ve never heard of before and know nothing about but I agree completely with you about Thatcher’s destruction of the concept of society lying behind so much of this.

      I’m sure even she had no idea how much the so-called “left” would adopt her ideas of individual “rights” (i.e. my “right” to do whatever I want, and fuck you) as the driving “progressive” force, in place of the quaint old-fashioned things lefties used to believe in, like solidarity and collective struggle and community and the common good — oh, and of course fairness and decency.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      1. It’s an interesting post, isn’t it, Gordon? I have heard the point made about oestrogen in the water supply highlighted in the past, in fact, more than twenty years ago. It was made by a GP friend who said the amount of the stuff which would inevitably find its way into the water supply would not, as the previous poster pointed out, be “doing nothing”.

        Like

      2. Things like oestrogen getting into watercourses – and other pollutants – affect the development of fish & can prevent breeding, for sure.

        Hopefully our drinking water supplies are much better than that now though – they should be, water quality standards are much higher now and there should be stricter regulation.

        There is a habit of English water companies to add fluoride to the water, something I disagree with because then you have people taking in uncontrolled doses – that is, it’s good for healthy teeth, but it’s also a poison in a certain amount (which is why you shouldn’t swallow an entire tube of toothpaste, and we usually spit it out, and twice a day brushing is recommended not more often) – how much are you taking in if you drink 2 litres of water a day? It’s an additive – for teeth – not a water treatment so isn’t necessary. Besides the point, but it does show you can’t be certain of everything that’s in tap water ‘at safe levels’.

        Like

      3. Good points Gordon about the adoption, by the so-called “left”, of the notion of individual “rights”. If only these “lefties” would question the genesis of these “rights”. “Rights” granted by whom? By God? By the AA? The EU?
        Consideration of this question is a pre-requisite.
        I remember well, on arriving in the UK in the mid 70’s, the mantra chanted by my demonstrating fellow students “Fight for the right to work!” and thinking “Really?” Stripping such “rights” from the political context within which they are exercised has led to wooly thinking by “lefties”. John O’ Dowd above has it right. The only struggle that matters is the class struggle.

        Like

    2. Ros: good points there. However, if the majority of these trans identified men have paraphilia and fetishes to begin with – and studies have shown that this is the case – then, it excludes, or, at least, reduces, the ‘hormones in the water’ theory, but, perhaps it is still an issue with overall health. I’m not saying you are wrong at all, but we do need more research done. Add to the paraphilia and fetishes a goodly helping of narcissism (which often accompanies delusions and other mental conditions, and you have the perfect storm. As Gordon says, traditional leftism (and not to be found exclusively in Labour ranks) has been ditched for the toddler tantrum theory of social living where you have lots of privileges and absolutely no corresponding obligations. To be witnessed at first hand any weekend in any town centre, and also in any parliament on any given day.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. Very good points, especially the last part on rights without responsibility. I work in a school and see a daily imbalance here, though this has been pushed from government levels for years too.
        Much good writing on this site, thank you all.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. “Scot Goes Pop” has a current post giving the results of an opinion poll on this subject. Needs to ben read and advertise. Spoiler alert: “Just 20% of people in Scotland, and 295 of SNP voters, support self ID”.

    James Kelly could do with some retrospective funding for this poll.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    2. Interesting Robert. It makes you wonder why, if so many SNP voters are against this, no one is saying too much. They may well be too afraid. I’m convinced that inside the SNP many are against it too but have seen what Joanna Cherry has endured and are too afraid to open their mouths lest they get the same from the likes of Ms Oswald, Ms Blackman et al.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

  12. The “preserve woman’s rights” lobby doesn’t do itself any favours by linking rights to single sex places to the suffragette movement, which was about other rights entirely.Both sets of rights are important, but they are not linked.

    Incidentally, and for what it’s worth, I’d like to think that many of the single-sex places issues can be solved by good-will, not by legislation. If you dress like a woman, behave like a woman, and your friends regard you as a woman, I’d say you should be using a female toilet – not our of right, but out of courtesy to you. And in return, you should behave discretely there, as (I guess, not being a frequenter) most people do. What the eye doesn’t see the mind doesn’t grieve over.

    Reserved occupations is different.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Robert: the Suffragettes did actually campaign for women’s private spaces – loos, changing rooms, etc. at the turn of the century. If you think about it, loos for women would have been very necessary female public participation in society. Workplaces also had to introduce them (men’s already existed). Unfortunately, most of these wonderful, stone/granite-built, fully tiled and very clean, floor-to-ceiling door-ed loos have been demolished or their use changed forever.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      1. Oh, and Robert: gonnae no dae that? Gonnae no decide from a male perspective what women want or hand over our single-sex spaces without our consent. We – most of us – say, f**k off. Trans identified males – NOT trans women, please – are men, males, penis and prostate havers, so they are actually a sub-set of men. You deal with them and their fetishes and paraphilia. Not many trans identified females will be clamouring to enter male single-sex spaces and rights.

        Liked by 4 people

      2. Exactly Lorncal, women-only public toilets was one of the biggest things that allowed women freedon of movement – to get out of the house and stay out for an entire day! Men’s dismissal of this need – as though its a minor and picky nice-to-have – is rolling us back centuries. Already we see harm as girls in school have no private spaces.

        Why aren’t all men’s toilets now unisex, and preserve women’s? Because it’s the predators that are campaigning to degrade women…

        Liked by 5 people

    2. Beautifully put, lorncal. You’ll appreciate I’m sure that I had to use “transwomen” in the post for rhetorical reasons but “trans-identified males” is so much better and I’ll be using it whenever possible from now on.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Lorncal at 2;18: I do take your point, and agree with your saying I as a mad shouldn’t be speaking for women. The opinion there can from my asking two women what they thought. Not a big sample, but it’s better than just me.

        As an engineer, and putting feelings aside (as engineers do), an “optimum” public toiled would have one side urinals and one side cubicles. I’m tolk there’s a new one in Mallaig like that, though I’ve not been there for some time. If was a female friend who tolk me – I asked what she though of it, and got “seemed OK to me”.

        The big nasty thing which gets me is the puberty blockers for children. But then I’m not a woman, but I do have children, and I know how imperssionable children are.

        Like

      2. It just isn’t as simple as having two separate parts to one toilet area. It is fundamentally about self-ID and how any man, even one who looks 100% like a man and has made no changes at all, will be eligible to use a women’s single-sex space. I am mystified as to why anyone, male or female, should think it is okay to remove single-sex spaces and that would have no repercussions. There are now hundreds of examples of so-called ‘trans women’ (trans identified males) committing sexual offences in toilets, changing area, women’s prison estate, etc. Someone whose brain had been removed and replaced with a cabbage, should be able to work out that they will be given an inch and take a mile.

        They are the most aggressive, violent thugs our society has seen for many a long day, and some – too may – seem to say: oh, let’s just try to compromise. Appeasers are a menace to themselves and everyone else. Compromise is useful only after you have won the war. Ask the Russians, who lost millions upon millions to the German onslaught, because the Germans just happened to want what they had. Had they compromised, they would have been overrun and occupied even now. The British did not compromise either, after Chamberlain because, sometimes, there is no compromise to be had with people who have lost all sense of reason and sanity. Women cannot compromise either. These men – and they are men, men with sexual fetishes and paraphilia – who want us out of the way so that they can take everything from us – from our body parts to our sex name.

        They need help, but it is counselling and medication they need to come to terms with their p**n addiction and uncontrolled fetishes, the one feeding off the other. They have nothing to do with women. Nothing. We will not step back and let them destroy us because they want to indulge their fetishes. The body dysmorphic trans might require hormones and surgery, but most of them do not express any desire to oust women from their hard-won rights. Yes, the scandal with children is growing and will explode eventually, the sooner the better. Jimmy Savile fooled so many for so long, and we have learned nothing. Our laws will not be able to stand against these people if we one let them in. Getting access to women’s spaces and rights is just the beginning for these colonisers and deluded, entitled p**n-soaked men. Any empathy I had for these vicious men is long gone.

        Liked by 2 people

  13. Brilliant!

    At first I thought that maybe you were being a little disingenuous, but then I found myself laughing out loud. The very fact that this was my first reaction tells me just how deeply embedded is this shite into Scottish consciousness and public discourse.

    Thank you.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. My results are, no, no and no, because the transwomen still had male genitalia. If they had undergone hormone treatment and surgery so that their naked bodies looked like a woman’s that would be a totally different ballgame (excuse the pun!).

      Like

      Reply

      1. Do you think that turns them into women, though, JSM? For me, they’re still quite obviously men and this is where the difficult questions arise that the mantra “transwomen are women” has deliberately obscured, as have our own informal locutions like “sex change”, which go back many years.

        If we accept (as I do) that we should be as kind as possible to people who have been driven to such lengths to assuage their dysphoria, to what extent can we give them the legal fiction that they are “women”, and is it even something that the law should be involved in at all? If it is, how do we provide that legal fiction without opening the door to at least some of the horrors that self-ID has brought so starkly to light?

        One thing I’m absolutely against is validation, and indeed celebration, of dysphoria, just as I would be against validation of anorexia or self-harm or schizophrenia or depression or anything else, mental or physical, that makes people’s lives miserable and which we should be striving to alleviate, and maybe some day even cure.

        Liked by 6 people

      2. Exactly that Gordon, and just because of medical transition a born-male still needs screening for typically male medical problems as well as the complexities brought on by hormones and surgery – ‘gender reassignment’ is not something to be encouraged. And I would say, should not be allowed before the age of 25 (given the recent study showing young people don’t develop awareness of consequences until about that age).

        Liked by 4 people

      3. The three tests were about male genitalia. I was pointing out that if they had undergone medical treatment the tests would be invalid because there could be no penetration. But, no, I wouldn’t think they were women. They might have a vagina surgically created but they would never have a uterus, ovaries or eggs that females are born with.

        I’m all about live and let live, being kind to others, and treating people as I would like to be treated, no matter their sexuality, race or religion.

        Liked by 1 person

  15. davidwferguson: spot on. Pol Pot’s young revolutionaries in Cambodia were equally brutal and nihilist. Young people (in general) below the age of 25 are simply not able, mentally, to process their experiences at a level of reason necessary for compassion and logical conclusions because their synapses have not fully connected. It is a biological thing, but they won’t believe that either. Probably I was exactly the same, but most young people are dogmatic, easily led, brutally dismissive of advice from their elders and do not have the required experience to think out problems to their necessary conclusion if they are to be solved or even just faced up to. They will, of course, grow out of it, most of them, but the havoc wreaked meantime is going to be utterly catastrophic for females and for society as a whole. Young people are also extremely prone to totalitarian solutions to problems which just a little thought would go some way to solving without destruction. All of this has been shown to be the case over and over again, yet, still we hand power to youth who have no conception of anything other than excess. Thatcher handed power to this societal group and look at the mess they left us. It seems that Sturgeon is hell-bent on doing the same.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I disagree, lorncal, because everything in my experience of being a young person, everything I saw in my peers when I was a young person and everything I see today in so many young people contradicts it.

      As I understand it, the biology of the brain is pretty much at the pre-Galilean stage at this point and I’d be very wary of concluding anything with this degree of confidence. I don’t doubt that there is biological evidence on which such arguments could be plausibly founded but I’ll bet my bottom dollar they’ll turn out to be at least insufficiently nuanced and most likely just plain wrong.

      (In my own field of language, for example, no biologist can explain how a child knows that in “Gordon thinks he is intelligent” the “he” can be Gordon or someone else but in “He thinks Gordon is intelligent” the “he” must be someone other than Gordon — knowledge the child has without it ever having been taught or demonstrated, not least because, unless you’re a generative linguist, you wouldn’t even have noticed that such knowledge exists.)

      I think hegemony is just hegemony, whatever age you are, and I’ll take my chances with young people to think for themselves (for all their faults, as we agree, on the present issue) ahead of — to take just three examples of hegemonic groups subject to herd mentality and over-confidence that I happen to know a lot about — middle-aged lawyers, police officers or DWP staff.

      Like

      Reply

    2. “young people are dogmatic, easily led, brutally dismissive of advice from their elders and do not have the required experience to think out problems to their necessary conclusion”

      I would suggest that this is in proportion to their level of privilege. My experience of young people confronted from an early age with the material reality of what used to be called the class struggle is that they have no problem at all thinking out problems to their conclusions, nor respectfully listening and thinking critically.

      The trouble with neurological reductionism is that you can never remove parallel developments in historical conditions.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. Gordon/Duncan: I am well aware that there are young people who have not swallowed this stuff, who do think for themselves, and, yes, I do think this is very much a middle-class, white phenomenon. That doesn’t alter the fact that it is mainly young men and young women who are making the lives of all women, but, often, older women, miserable and uncertain. The “but they’re not all like that… ” argument cuts no ice when enough of them are. Not all trans identified males want access to women’s spaces and rights, but enough of them do. Not all young Chinese became Red Guards, but enough of them did. Not all young Cambodians became Pol Pot’s thugs, but enough of them did. Not all young people became Hitler’s henchmen, but enough of them did. Ditto young Russians, for Stalin. Of course this is older people brainwashing to a great extent, young people, but, when you are faced with extinction, you don’t have time to weed out the ones who might have a change of heart. It is not pleasant to be accused of something nebulous like ‘transphobia’ and of being an ‘old witch’ because you are trying to defend your rights. It is only recently that science has been able to pinpoint why young people often behave without apparent compassion or sense, and that is down to the synapses not being fully connected. We didn’t know that till very recently. That is not neurological reductionism, just biology, as is the statement: a trans woman is not a woman. Maybe I am just getting old, but I cannot recall ever treating older people with such disrespect and I believe that we go through each stage of life in sequence for a reason, and that each stage is as valid as the others. If, of course, you have passed through the early stages of life without your parents ever having let the word, no, pass their lips, you are going to treat the rest of the world as if it’s your private fiefdom.

        Liked by 3 people

    3. Gordon: just had a thought about those young people in China, Cambodia, Russia, etc. In all those cases, the state stepped in to separate children from their parents, and, often, to report on them and not listen to them. Isn’t this what is going on in our schools, courtesy of Stonewall?

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  16. Pingback: WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE ABOUT TRANSWOMEN? TAKE THE TESTS — Gordon Dangerfield – It's shite being Scottish

  17. Duncan: Professor Kathleen Stock has just resigned from her university. It’s not at all clear whether those trans activists who targeted her are actually students, but, if they are, the universities need to put out a warning that students who have the time to make other people’s lives a misery will be thrown out of university if they behave in this way. Let’s see them actually lose something that they want and need for a change. You and Gordon are right: any kind of critical thinking is anathema to these people. Most philosophers, even where you can’t agree with them, have something to say that is worth hearing. Butler is incomprehensible. All philosophical discourse on rights and privileges being balanced by corresponding obligations and responsibilities seems to have disappeared and I’m not at all sure that is not what the aim is.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. I have a feeling DocStock will be more free now to say what has to be said. And I’m sure she is happy to be away from the braying of woke too. It is nevertheless a troubling trend. Particular when her departure is celebrated with posters of burning witches.

      Cultural terrorism has taken over from culture wars.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  18. Hi Gordon, fantastic to see you back with the blogging! I was going to keep your ardent fans occupied with the occasional comment but a confluence of circumstances have made it more difficult, and that laziness factor of course.. My ipad mini – my favourite blog-trolling instrument – is spluttering to a halt and refuses to load your blog (and many other blogs), and I also went off to investigate how the Gender Identity Ideology (does it have anything to do with Trans? What is ‘trans’ anyway?) – GII – affects the gay community (aside from how badly it affects women & children) and so got waylaid.

    It’s extremely disturbing, the entire ideology. And I found how horrifically lesbians are being treated, worst of all of us – so it was good to see the BBC article highlighting one, very serious, aspect. GII might even have the sole purpose of legitimising rape culture.

    One question I asked myself was, how homophobic are we as a society? I believe, yes we are fairly homophobic – how much have we found a way of defining boundaries so that we don’t see gay people within our own heterosexual peer group (same sex) as something to fear (however minor that fear may be)? When you read or hear testimonials of detransitioners – women are the only ones I’ve seen so far – there is a repeated phrase of ‘internalised homophobia’. Is this the reason for the massive increase in girls believing they can transition? The reasons will be many and varied, but certainly GII is homophobic, at its heart and in principle.

    I have a lot of links to post in case anyone wants to look at some of a random selection of videos and articles I kept links to, but I’ll post them separately because WordPress can be funny about more than one.

    The way the GII-ists fling out insults, hate, threats and intimidation made me realise how they always seem to project their own behaviour – when they say ‘bigot’ they seem to be deflecting their own bigoted behaviour by projecting it onto someone who disagrees with them – there should a link to an interview that agrees with this (,,, confirmation bias!!). Every time you see one of the gender ideologists throw an insult, question if that’s exactly what they are doing themselves.

    I think more needs to be done to look into the role of pornography in this ideology; I remember a few years ago I was reading sentencing criteria (for English courts) for cases of death from ‘rough sex’ – I thought at the time, WTF is that? Common enough that it has notes for judges on how to sentence / rule on the cases? That is, many perpetrators don’t get sentenced for causing death – you’d expect it for the small number of sadomasochist events, but it seemed to be a fad. Now we have the insulting term ‘queer’ being touted as a normal thing and drag Queens (male sex act for male pleasure) being presented in primary schools as though normal, and let’s not mention the rest. It’s like more extreme porn is being presented as normal, and people unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality, thinking its okay to act out ‘their’ (the porn industry’s) fantasy. So men think lesbians are a legitimate sexual target, and that rape is just ‘play’. This makes me furious, and no wonder girls want to identify out of being a woman when we are possibly looking at a majority of young men being brought up to think predatory is normal.

    I think I may have been converted into full-on feminist; this GII cult is determined to take away all women’s rights and freedoms, it is a narcissicistic, woman-hating, homophobic, insulting, depraved cult – it is itself transphobic by the way it tries to label transsexuals into their own GII pigeonholes – no freedom of expression for anyone, with intersex people falsely used as examples to justify how they feel. The whole thing is socially backward and I don’t think they should be given any quarter.

    We are hopefully coming out of the ‘no debate’ phase now – because being able to openly discuss it is essential. The distinction needs to be made between GII and trans, between AGP males and gender dysphoria, between what’s written in law and what’s being done without legal backing (convicted rapists – a fairly easily identifiable category of ‘predator’, I’d have thought – being put in women’s jails??), between fantasy and reality and how that can affect the health and wellbeing of everyone.

    Read about ‘transwidows’ – the AGP condition is abusive and predatory. I don’t think they should be allowed the label ‘transwomen’ – it’s that group that harms all genuinely gender dysphoric transsexuals – it’s that group that want to rape (or ‘date’) lesbians but don’t want to accept other ‘transwomen’ into their dating pool… Sounds transphobic, if you ask me. Actual transexual people appear to understand the boundaries of others, and have no desire to overstep those – they want to live as though they are the opposite sex without destroying rights and lives and wellbeing of that class. (as far as I can tell, and in general)

    Is narcissism a form of psychopathy? (or sociopathy).

    I had a huge rant at a (young, male) colleague the other day – he used the word ‘cis’ at me – which wasn’t fair as he’s okay in the main and had a tough upbringing – but that’s when I realised I’d had enough, and that the infringement on my personal rights by believers of this ideology is unacceptable. I was interrupted so he was saved from being called a flat-earther, but I’ll get around to it once I’m a bit more chilled about it. He did give me a long description of what trans means, and confirmed ‘it’s just a feeling’ when I summarised the mince he was spouting.

    How does self-ID help people with gender dysphoria – it doesn’t really, what it does is remove the support and therapy they need to be able to live with themselves and find some degree of comfort. I am sure there are improvements that can be made to the system – but self-ID isn’t it. Self-ID would be very useful for predators that want to change their name and sex-class so they are untraceable on a sex offenders register and such like, though; no questions asked. Have we all become naive balloons to accept the idea that it wouldn’t ever be used by predators? Our Scottish government certainly are. At least I don’t think them criminally insane like the Argentinian govt. Yet.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I forgot about your 3 tests Gordon! I think all of those 3 examples are people that are not even ‘trans’ let alone ‘women’ – they shouldn’t have the label transwomen because they are neither. They are heterosexual males that get off on controlling and abusing women, and I don’t care how they dress. They haven’t transitioned anything, if they’ve always been that way as they claim. Can one transition between gender stereotypes? That seems like a pointless question because a stereotype can mean anything to anyone, so any transition is a personal perspective – and not something that should be legally or socially binding to anyone else.

      Not trans, and not women, on all 3. What category does that put me in?

      The Scottish government needs kicked out for punting their gender ideology – as well as for being a failure on everything they touch in general. Robin McAlpine has been posting some good articles analysing how they are such a failure – worth a read, and it makes clear how we are never going to get any worthwhile policies from this SNP government, let alone get independence which is so far from their capabilities and intentions it’s a just fuzzy imaginary improbability to them.

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

  19. Some links:

    LGBA Gay Spot webinar on gender dysphoria mostly about women

    Personal story of a lesbian realising she had been played as a fool
    https://suedonym.substack.com/p/played-the-fool

    Detransitioner – very articulate (heterosexual) woman – video of interview better than article
    https://www.rt.com/op-ed/536277-detrans-woman-regrets-removing-breasts/

    Detransitioner in Scotland talks about the effect on her mother the transition had
    https://nitter.42l.fr/ImWatson91/status/1355612073724686341#m

    Projection of their own hate used by gender ideologists, interview of Malcolm Clark
    https://nitter.42l.fr/ALLIANCELGB/status/1447299706913177608#m

    Women’s rights the SNP have given away thread:
    https://nitter.42l.fr/historywoman/status/1444652206964285440?cursor=LBkWhoCzofbht4woJQISAAA%253D#r
    Thread of transgender criminals
    https://nitter.42l.fr/historywoman/status/1191453438825181186#m

    General state of GRA reform
    https://susandalgety.substack.com/p/sturgeon-on-the-hook-over-reform?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=

    Transwidow
    https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2021/turning-victims-into-folk-devils/

    Thread on consultation by ukgov on conversion therapy legislation
    https://nitter.42l.fr/Transgendertrd/status/1454024707464957959#m

    That last link was a thread I just picked up today – it a consultation on legislation to ban conversion therapy – but, as usual with things these days, it conflates sex and gender and different kinds of conversion. Transing is being used as gay conversion therapy, so the distinctions need to be made. I haven’t read the consultation itself yet, I’m trusting that the thread author has picked out the main problems.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. That sounds like an arduous task Duncan, I could maybe try though, what kind of focus would you like? There are so many aspects of the issue – which is one of the main problems in itself as the ideology impacts on nearly every aspect of society and on all groups, and it is a moving target. Hah! And we are told self-id is just a wee tweak to GRA. The homophobic aspect is not something I could discuss from a knowledgeable perspective either – though sometimes that can be useful in helping others as ignorant as me understand some of it – but it could cover so much; what’s happening in schools right through to the article Gordon discusses.

        You have wonder why Stonewall – a supposed LGB charity – never went to schools with guidance that said something like ‘sexuality is a spectrum’ – a plausible thing – but instead launched into their unknown definition of gender being a spectrum, against all reason? The suggestion that gender dysphoria is something people are born with instead of developed as a social construct, and that a ‘trans’ person just is – is wholly couched around validating those men with fetishes trying to pretend they can’t help it. They can help it. I doubt that many of them develop gender dysphoria even, that’s just them using the condition to make their abhorrent bullying & controlling behaviour socially acceptable. The more they get away with, the more they will escalate.

        ‘Trans’ stands for ‘transition’, but you are hardly transitioning if it’s just how you are and/or how you feel. The ideology has appropriated the word ‘trans’ for something that has nothing to do with transition! Just as it has appropriated the word ‘gender’ to be a meaningless stereotype. Just as it is trying to appropriate the word woman. Why is it not vehemently trying to appropriate the word men, we wonder.

        Anyway. I’d need a title or some kind of guidance note on specific topic or I just meander off, like I did just there.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. It’s up to you. If you can find a hook and can express something of the shiteness of being Scottish, I would be happy.

        Perhaps enumerating the contradictions inherent in identity politics, as above, might be a way in. There are many people out there trying to make sense of this shite without realising that it really is shite. Perhaps you might be able to shed light on the shite.

        Like

  20. I find it rather disturbing that the tests suggested by Gordon Dangerfield are considered sensible far less necessary. Sex is not a dilemma. There is no choice, so there can be no quandary. Nature determines our sex every bit as much as nature determines the colour of our hair and eyes. We can dye our hair and wear coloured contact lenses. But we do not thereby undo what nature has done.

    I find it disturbing that the terms sex and gender are used as if synonymous. Confusion between and/or conflation of the two terms is a contrivance. The distinction is not problematic. Sex is absolutely determined by our genes. Gender is only to an extent determined by our genes. And the extent to which gender is determined by nature is entirely a function of sex. If a person is born male then the ‘default’ is that their gender will be male. But factors other than genetic determination then come into play. Social factors.

    Those social factors can – in principle – take gender to any point on a notional spectrum between the ‘default’ gender identities associated with male and female as defined by sex. Sex is categorical. Gender is conditional. Persons of male sex will always be so. But they will only TEND to be of male gender. In reality, their gender identity can be any of a potentially infinite number of micro-identities. And, unlike sex, gender is not fixed. Insofar as gender identity is a product of social factors and insomuch as social factors are in play throughout life, gender identity must at least potentially change over time.

    What is most disturbing is the current effort to give gender the same status as sex. I have great difficulty accepting the idea that we can simply choose to treat as categorical something which is in fact conditional. I consider with profound concern the consequences of applying to something undefined and fluid the social attitudes and mores and norms and laws which evolved or were developed in relation to something which is absolutely defined and permanently fixed. It seems to me that this has the effect of eradicating the distinction between the two sexes.

    I cannot see how effectively eliminating sex as a category can have anything other than huge implications for society.

    I find it disturbing that so little consideration appears to have been given to the consequences of stripping away the most fundamental category by which we understand our social environment.

    You may be interested in this article https://peterabell.scot/2021/06/25/first-do-no-harm/

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I agree with you, Peter, but the distinction is a recent one for most of us and we’ve only come to make it because we’ve realised that the standard use of the terms interchangeably to mean “sex” is being used to pull a fast one on us. I’d bet that for most people of my generation (I’m 58), “gender” is still just a posh, or more polite, way of saying “sex”. There has been a quite deliberate exploitation of this conflation, so that, among many other things, the law is a complete shambles, with no definition of “gender” given anywhere (not least because no workable legal definition CAN be given) so that it is sometimes clear in context that it is synonymous with sex and at other times equally clear that it means something different, though no-one knows what.

      This continues right up to the present and it’s a quite deliberate exploitation of the quite deliberately created confusion, continued quite deliberately by the Scottish Government in the draft GRA bill and explanatory notes they published, where they talk about “the opposite gender” (which can only mean the opposite sex) and then in the same sentence about “living in” that “gender”, which makes no sense at all if “gender” still means “sex”. How do you “live in” a sex opposite to the one you have?

      Then they go on about there being many more than two “genders” and about legislating in the future for people who are of the “non-binary” gender, and your brain explodes.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. Gordon: even transsexuals who are fully transitioned are still a problem for women and girls in that it is not just the safety part of the single-sex space that matters, but also the dignity and privacy parts, and crucially, the rights which are also being taken away. That is why third spaces are the only answer to this issue now.

        It is horrible, but we are going to have to be cruel to these men and start calling out their delusions even if that smashes them and causes them pain, initially. Any other condition that resides in the brain has to be dealt with by deep counselling and medication, but, crucially, any hope of containment for any condition that is housed in the brain must be met by bringing the person to see that what he or she is suffering is actually in his or her head. You cannot indulge the delusions of a schizophrenic, for examples, because you will bring them, and others, to great harm. Bi-polar people must, first, acknowledge that they have the illness before they can be treated in any way that is effective.

        Psychologists are now approaching the autism spectrum in the same way – at least, they were until this nonsense reared its head – by helping the child to understand that he/she has a condition that is on the autistic spectrum. If a young man has a fetish that is causing him great distress, what is to be gained by indulging his fetish to the point where he is addicted to it and cannot function properly in society? Likewise, you have no hope of getting someone off drugs or alcohol or gambling if they are not first brought to acknowledge their addiction. It is societal madness, virtue-signalling that is doing the greatest harm to those who are, supposedly, trans, and to the rest of society.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. Peter: you bring up several excellent points. I think that Gordon is concerned with legal definitions, as am I, if he will permit me to say, because, if the established ones fall, we are in the deepest doo-doo, unable to define anything. You are right to say that attacking the dimorphic nature of human beings will lead to confusion, and worse, but it it the reasons that this is being done now that we need to tease out.

      The attacks on females from every direction, in many different ways, some subtle, some extremely dangerous, is unprecedented. At first, I thought that it was just better reporting, people being more open to what is going on, but I have been astounded at the pressure that women are under right across the globe right now. The conclusion that I have come to is that females stand in the way of something that men want to do, have, think, say, or something. Do they fear that women will take over and they will be put in women’s place? I do think that is part of it.

      The rise of Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Insurance and, way ahead of them, the multi, multi billion p**n industry, all controlled by men (women do not own big corporations unless they are what is called trans women (trans identified males) and that is part of it, too. Something else, though, is at play here, because even very ordinary (trans) males seem hell-bent on pushing women back into the home and out of the public space. Then, there is the problem of the trans activism being led, largely, by paraphilic/fetishistic men, not by transsexuals (fully transitioned, body dysmorphic males who feel more comfortable with a female persona, but who, ostensibly, at any rate, do not campaign for access to women’s spaces and rights) so we cannot ignore the very real evidence that heterosexual fetish is also driving this movement, and that these fetishes are, in turn, being driven by the p**n industry and easy access to p**n sites, even for the younger males. Is the pursuit of every kind of sexual pleasure known to man turning some men’s brians to mush?

      P**n does not make a man do anything, but, as one police officer explained to me some years ago, every crime that involves a sexual offence is fuelled by p**n, always found, in prodigious and copious amounts in suspects’ living quarters/computers. Moreover, the p**n is always tailored to the particular fetish/paraphilia/proclivity of the perpetrator. Women must stand against allowing any trans identified male into their spaces and rights or they will lose everything that was campaigned for and won over many years. It will all go in a flash, if you’ll pardon the pun. Men must start to look beyond women to their own behaviour, and unless we accept without qualification, that men are simply beasts with uncontrollable sexual passions at all times, everywhere, incapable of self-reflection and self-restraint, then both males and females need to fight back against this pernicious threat to our civilisation – because that is what it is: a massive threat far greater than Al Qaeda or the Taliban could ever pose, and it is coming from within because it has the potential to utterly destroy our laws and boundaries.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. “men are simply beasts with uncontrollable sexual passions at all times, everywhere, incapable of self-reflection and self-restraint”

        It often appears to be exactly so. The challenge of society is to make it otherwise.

        Like

  21. Where does the nonsense that this is a left-wing belief come from?

    Denmans, who wrote the document advising Stonewall how to smuggle this ideology into the law-books round the world are a huge firm of CORPORATE Lawyers. They are not left wing, and neither is a large chunk of the Democratic Party, due mainly to the exigencies of raising cash to match the Republicans.

    The people promoting this White Male Supremacists just as much as Trumps mobs are – they don’t come out on the streets with guns – they operate in a different way, sneakily behind closed doors, and this has all been in process for years..

    Many leading Democrats are in hock to Big Pharma which is why Biden is having such problems fulfilling the promises of vaccines for Africa. Gender-ID will fill the coffers of the Pharma companies who have had a setback lately with Opioids no longer being a money spinner. It is the FinTech investor interests who drive this.

    It is likely to be a hard fight.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  22. Pingback: Trans Women Are Men – an article – Gender Critical Guildford

  23. Oh well well well. Here is our brand new Lord Advocate advocating for juryless trials for sexual assault class, because of the huge backlog she says. Article embedded in tweet:

    https://nitter.42l.fr/ColinTKIrk/status/1456592697582624768#m

    She says there are an extraordinary number of sexual assaults. Has anyone checked statistics, and is there a correlation in timing between the embedding of Gender Identity Ideology into schools and institutions and this huge rise in sexual assaults? I don’t think it would be coincidence that an ideology promoting rape culture may influence this behaviour.

    Has the Mark Hirst case made any progress Gordon? Any apology issued by the Lord Advocate? Will we see COPFS getting theirs handed to them? I understand if you can’t comment!

    Like

    Reply

  24. Sorry Gordon – I’m late.

    We (a small group of political activists who took part in the last GRA Bill consultation) have been gathering information related to the trans-ideology and how it’s effectively captured many of our insitutionss, governments, charities, businesses, and other bodies for the best part of three years.
    Looking at the other comments on this and previous threads we’re pleased that we aren’t the only ones.

    However, most opponents of the ideology keep missing the two bull elephants in the room – the Scottish Trans Alliance and the Equality Network.
    These bodies have done in Scotland what Stonewall has done in England and Wales, but are never referenced.

    Yet the evidence proving this is in the public domain.

    Last week we looked at the latest list of ‘equality’ organisations/lobby groups that receive grants from the Scottish Government.
    Yes – Stonewall Scotland was there, and over the last four years has been gifted £415,000. That sounds like a huge sum, but it’s peanuts compared to what the STA and EN have been given.

    Over the same period, the STA has received at least £850,000, while the Equality Network was handed and eye-watering £1,168,750 !

    A week before we accessed those numbers, we stumbled across a 113-page ScotGov FOI response dated 2015 (we were looking for Stephen Nolan’s teams’ ‘Stonewall/ScotGov’ FOI submitted early this year).
    The first few pages of the response confirmed what we’d suspected – that the Scottish Trans Alliance and Equality Network are basically the same thing.
    Our suspicions were raised when we saw that both lobby groups used the same address, spoke the same language, and backed each other up during the final meeting of the Justice Committee prior to the most recent recess.

    Those first few FOI pages were emails between the Scottish Govt and the fledgling EN, and related to a 5-year funding request.
    Briefly, we had (redacted) at ScotGov suggesting that rather than the application being headed ‘Scottish Trans Alliance’ (we’re sure that’s how the initial exchanges were headed), ‘The Equality Network’ should be used instead, as this wouldavoid difficult questions being asked (our interpretation).
    The very first paragraph reads :

    ” Thank you for your emails …… I completely understand your reasoning behind your request to amend the the recipient ofthe grant offer to Equality Network, and have attached …… Iappreciate you have already returned the grant offer letter ….. but would be grateful if you could sign and return this (new) one for our records instead. Can I ask whether you are of the opinion that having James* as the named recipient on the grant offer letter may also confuse things, or is it more just for the public facing part of the grant that caused concern ? I will ask a colleague to amend our website where we’ve published funding for projects so that the intersex project is under the Equality Network instead.”

    What follows is a senior civil servant advising the STA/EN staffer how to successfully apply for taxpayers cash.

    Much of the remaining 113 pages relate to the STA/EN ‘advising’ ScotGov on policy and internal guidelines relating to ‘trans’ issues – which is one of the things Stonewall was doing down south.

    We always knew that it was the STA CEO who co-authored the ‘guidance; for transwomen being housed in the female estate (2013), and that the STA/EN were one and two on the ScotGovs stakeholder list, especially when whatever it was might anger women.
    But these emails prove just how much control those two lobby groups actually had, and still have.

    Collectively the STA, Equality Network, and Stonewall Scotland have received £2,433,750 of taxpayers cash from the Scottish government over the last four years, and those funds are inflation proof.
    And that’s just one ScotGov funding stream.
    There are others.
    We’re almost certain that some of the smaller LGBTQi+ (which basically means ‘T’ these days) are affiliated/controlled by the STA/EN, so that ‘trans cash’ could be considerably higher.

    The three lobby groups received an increase in grant cash of £141,750 in 2020/21.

    Over the same period, food prices have increased steadiliy, energy prices have shot up etc etc.
    Our food banks are under severe pressure, and people are going hungry.
    And will soon be cold.

    Our local foodbank is typical. It’s desperate.
    Imagine what our foodbanks could do with even half that £2.43 million the trans allies/ideologists get !

    As you may have guessed, after 3 years of searching, we have ammassed a small mountain of information.
    Sadly, we have nowhere to use it.

    * James Morton, former CEO of the STA.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Adam: thank you for this very comprehensive outing of the various Stonewall allies. Whilst I agree that they have been doing the work in Scotland that Stonewall has been doing in England, I believe they are all interconnected, and the aim is to make Scotland, being small, the lab rat for far, far greater movement into women’s spaces and rights – and it is rights, too, because they are determined to remove the exceptions/exemptions that are in the 2010 Equality Act, as well as using the 2004 GRA as a springboard for their activities in the area of changing the law the suit them and their movement.

      I have been doing a bit of digging in spare moments, and almost everything to do with this issue starts in 2015, after the negative referendum result was brought in. I may be overreaching myself here, and I am no conspiracy theorist, but I do believe that everything that has followed 2015 is down to the infiltration of the Scottish Government and its arms by ‘woke’ activists, particularly gender ideologues. They surged into the party from every side – members, researchers, spin doctors, civil servants (Leslie Evans, 2015).

      Once the referendum was out of the way and Scotland corralled for another few years, the cannibalisation of our body politic started to take place, with those who did not fit the bill being ‘consumed’ or placed where they could not raise the alarm. It is almost The Body Snatchers right here on our doorstep. More digging revealed big names backing this stuff – corporate names that run huge American industries, all with a finger in the pie. I do not believe for one moment that any of this is a coincidence. We were selected to be the first part of the UK to be captured by this stuff, then for it to spread to the rest of the UK. England is far too big, with far too big a population for uniform absorption of this insanity, but Scotland is just right, as we were right for the poll tax experiment. I have no doubt whatsoever that the movers and shakers in the UK know, and they know that America is backing it for commercial reason, and that every part of the NHS is in mortal danger.

      For some reason, women stand in the way of this stuff more than men, and must be swept away, and the foot soldier activists and genuine ideologues (not the predatory capitalist and corporate financiers who back them) and who are captured by sexual proclivity, misguided equality considerations that apply to no one but themselves, and absolute hatred of women, make all of these drivers of this stuff. It is the next wave of predatory capitalism which sees the crisis in climate change as preventing all-out exploitation of the planet as a brake on its activities. Roll this madness out across the world, and it becomes a dripping roast.

      Scotland? Why is the SNP leadership so entrenched in this? Why the leadership? The activists, I can understand, because they are driven, essentially by rampant ‘feelings’ divorced from reason, but the leadership must know what is going on, must know how much money is being pumped into this stuff? What do they have to gain? That some of them will almost certainly be inured in the sexual side of it, some might even, at a pinch, be believers in equality for everyone except females and some of them might well be women haters, but what is the driving motivation for this? Was Nicola Sturgeon inadvertently telling us when she was standing and simpering before Biden, who has sold out his own country to this stuff?

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. Lorncal,

        Power and control – that heady mix, and the same motivation for rape – power and control in a warped brain.

        You believe the SNP leadership was somehow bought into it, and it was things already taking place that convinced them, after getting into power? I believe otherwise; I think it was Sturgeon et al that made it happen because they were already part of the ideology – and that the political manoeuvring was aimed at getting the prime acolyte Sturgeon into power. Now there is a conspiracy theory for you! But why else was everything so quickly put into place in 2015? It must have been the current leadership pushing it, and they were already gender ideologists.

        By all accounts Nicola Sturgeon was an awkward, unsociable youth – I think right up to the age of 30 even. Hardly the makings of a smooth-talking world leader. But people can be given training and a makeover – Margaret Thatcher did, after all, before she became party leader. Who would give Sturgeon training, or think it worthwhile? Let’s say if Peter Murrell saw an awkward vulnerable woman, and groomed her into a cult (and other nefarious things often used to capture the vulnerable), giving her ‘credibity’ with a marriage and confidence with training – ta da the power-duo! Peter Murrell, by all accounts, has always despised Alex Salmond – and so he then had the perfect innocent vulnerable stooge to muscle into Salmond’s leadership circle.

        So Sturgeon is pushed forward in her new personable presentation to become deputy leader, and put in charge of the indyref campaigning. As far as I remember, the SNP lost that indyref, so you’d have thought the person in charge of the campaigning may have considered stepping aside for a time – it was a failure after all (and you have to wonder who was really behind the indefensible currency position). It wasn’t the SNP that caused the huge rise in Yes support – it was the energy of the grassroots campaigns: Alex Salmond has said this. But then we see Sturgeon catapulted into the leadership position, without question (wheesht anyone?). Her backers and supporters must have had enough power to make it happen. Mr Murrell for instance. Note that there were never any moves to separate the two most powerful leadership roles for that couple.

        Apologies if that’s a speculation too far,,, I think I’m missing Craig Murray’s blog. I hope he’s well enough to continue once he gets out.

        The Gender Ideology is about power and control – why do scientologists believe in scientology? There is no rationale or reasoning behind it, but people are still captured by it, and those that run it have a lot of power and control. You can’t apply normal rational questions like ‘why?’ to it – there is no rationality. You can twist yourself in knots trying to reason it out, and I find it best to accept it happens, and stay well clear – we don’t have much choice now on that score with gender identity ideology, unfortunately.

        Like

      2. Contrary: yes, I agree that Nicola Sturgeon must already have been steeped in this stuff, but she was also already in a relationship with Peter Murrell long, long before 2014. She was very awkward and shy before she became depute leader, but her ambition and drive were also there from the early days. Had there been a YEs vote, I doubt that we would have seen this stuff come to the fore even now, to the extent that it has.

        The NO vote, basically allowed this to come to the fore in 2015, in Scotland, and the huge influx of former Labour left, middle-class university graduates, ‘woke’ staffers and civil servants all added up to the perfect storm. It seems that everything of significance now in Scotland came to the fore in 2015, and while I do believe that the SG has brought much of the opprobrium on its own head, and I also believe that Peter Murrell and Alex Salmond were at loggerheads for a very long time, something about it all this is just too pat.

        If the Scottish government ignored the advice of its own legal representatives on Gender Reform as it has on almost every other issue, then it is no wonder it has come a cropper. It was always in the law that the fine detail lay – for both sides of this non-debate. Many people did see this coming in 2015, but it is in hindsight that the dots can be joined together to give the bigger picture. This stuff was also touted as ‘equality’ and that should have rung a warning knell when women’s rights and the 2010 Equality Act came under threat.

        The Salmond case was the same: touted as a man in power’s indiscretions, causing harm to women, it became a hatchet job, with the women, whatever anyone thinks they did or did not do, carrying the can for the establishment’s gross actings (and I hope that one day, at least one of them will break ranks and tell the real story) and the real reasons that Alec Salmond needed to be out of the way are only now becoming so evident that only the wilfully blind can’t see them. He is and always was the only person in Scottish politics who had a hope in hell of getting us out of the Union, and I am sure he now sees where he went wrong, too.

        All of this is tied up in independence, or, to be more specific, is tying up independence, as it was meant to do, while, simultaneously, opening the door to corporate capitalism in Scotland on a scale never seen before. It is intended that our NHS should be the first to fall to capitalist privatisation as it struggles to cope with the trans demands for health care, mental health care and transitioning, while, at the same time, the divisions created will keep Scotland tearing itself apart and independence will be completely undermined. Every party is into this stuff up to its neck, but it is the SNP and, with it independence, that will carry the can, so that the party will be voted out. At one and the same time, we are a lab rat, a patsy and red meat for corporate America, and independence is no nearer than it was pre 2014.

        Like

      3. Yes I meant that Sturgeon had already been polished and honed by Murrell well before the 2014 indyref – I’m sure Murrell is a nasty enough individual to do this in anticipation of any opportunity that arose (to take power from Salmond and get rid of him), and I’m sure he delighted in his good fortune at the indyref – and losing it (was he instrumental in that loss even…?) – because SNP would have not retained the power they did if won – everyone predicts this – and the union is perfect cover for their social engineering – riding high on the coat tails of independence, forever a promise – forever in power without having to do any decent policy making – or legislation! ‘it’s all Westminster fault’ they cry at every turn.

        To implement gender ideology they cant ever allow independence – it irritates me the number of people that say the ideology is a distraction and we should… Wheesht… Whilst in fact, under this regime, we cannot ever get indy unless we tamp down the ideology – so the latter needs to get resolved first. If more men would step up and speak out against it, instead of thinking its nothing to do with them (or, more likely, waiting for a football analogy to make it comprehensible) we could get this ideology and all its threats shoved aside much faster – then the incentive will be there for the SNP – but more likely others once the SNP is cleared away – to get us on the road to independence.

        I’m not sure we’ll ever hear the real story from any in the inner circle – once you are part of a cult it’s near impossible to break ranks, and certainly not with any honesty. It would be an extraordinary event at any rate and I’d treat any stories with scepticism. When you hear or read testimonies of people that have escaped from the moonies or scientologists – all low ranking people – you realise the upper eschelons would never be ‘allowed’ to leave. It’s horrific.

        It’s interesting that the Tory party in power at Westminster barely pays lip service to any GII, and retains power,,, yes the SNP are the perfect patsies to this American construct (I think the corporations are just cashing in, encouraging it maybe, but aren’t the driving force) – as a devolved administration promising (and not delivering) independence the SNP has the ideal cover for social change. Then again, they’ve snuck this ideology into legislation in plenty other countries – as you say Lorncal nearly all the parties are backing this. We need it to get out in the open and make it untenable for any party to support it, if they want votes.

        Like

      4. I absolutely agree that the GRA reform and the Hate Crime legislation are not distractions. Too many men still think this has nothing to do with them, that it’s a women’s issue, and that makes my blood boil. These trans identified males are men, not women. Many of them also appear to believe that if women would just shut up and accept these trans identified males into our spaces and rights, everything will be hunkydory with independence after that. I don’t know what planet they are on. This is a war against women and it is a war we cannot afford to lose – either as women or as supporters of independence. Many, many female members and ordinary women have gone rom the SNP, so, if anyone is banking on the SNP getting us to the independence end point, they are as deluded as the trans warriors. They can’t because they will no longer have the numbers on their own. It will require all the independence parties together to get us there – and that includes ALBA, where the former female SNP members are now.

        Liked by 1 person

  25. Hi Adam – fascinating, and revealing, stuff. And well done for being on the ball with the first GRA consultation – you need to remember that the majority of us are still working out what is *wrong* with the gender identity ideology – the public face of it, the part that’s presented to us without debate or explanation, is that ‘trans’ people need to have an easier life and be treated fairly – that’s not what it’s about, and there is such an inordinate amount of time, money and effort being spent on a supposedly small group (the stated ‘T’, which is not true, unless you believe the redefinition of T) of people that it should be obvious. No other group gets that spent on them. Disabled groups need that funding, and a fit-for-purpose social security system, something the SG finds it impossible to deliver.

    Do you mind me asking what group of political activists you are part of? You say you have a lot of information and nowhere to take it – have you ensured For Women Scotland, currently taking the SG to court or just have done (lucky them, judge Dorrian is on the panel of judges…), have any relevant material?

    Many people are shocked by how captured all our public bodies and institutions are already, and ask why no one spoke out – it turns out there are plenty of whistleblowers etc, but there is nowhere for them to go – it’s the entire leadership and management that have bought into Gender Ideology & complaints never get further with them.

    Stonewall is the group we hear most about, but we do hear about the STA and the Equality Network – but not necessarily their exact role (and is there a difference really?). Those funding figures are huge, though. And, if what you say is correct, the SG knew in 2015 exactly what they were implementing and that women would object – they KNEW they were doing wrong.

    What have the STA and EN done in all this time – are they tied to TIE? What are their roles and how do they use that money – for those sums they could have set up care services or helplines etc. Are they only using it to convert people to boost numbers? If they are publicly funded, do we get to see their accounts to see what the money is spend on, and which are in the public’s interest?

    How many elections have we had since 2015 – in fact, in 2015 the landslide victory the SNP got, how many times have they had the opportunity to put the detail of this as an election promise and see public opinion in action…

    I’m furious; furious that this has been done under the radar, furious that the elements now in charge of the SNP planned this – Sturgeon plus clique were Gender Ideologists well before she was put in charge, and they’ve punted their freaky new-age religion on us without admitting their intention. Even without legislation in place they are destroying society – and the order in which they are bringing in legislation is planned for slowly accustomising people to the new brutal regime for telling us fantasy is real and we cannot say otherwise. Planned. Sturgeon was positioned to be the next SNP leader (note she was in charge of the lacklustre SNP campaigning for indy ref), her whole being aimed at imposing her ideology on us. She hasn’t been ‘captured’, she is the ring leader, and we have been conned on the biggest scale imaginable. But that’s how groomers work, they are ‘nice’. She’s a fraud, and I’m a bit furious at Alex Salmond for not being cognisant of that and allowing her anywhere near a position of power (though given how well we were all conned, I can’t wholly condemn him).

    Sturgeon’s obsession with young people all these years, all the selfies, and the policies supposedly to help youth, particularly young people in care – if she’d been a man, I wonder if there would be more frowns at that obsession – has taken a sinister turn in my mind. Grooming, in broad daylight, it feels like, and that makes me feel ill. I really hope we see nothing like the NI scandals.

    Back to the subject of your post Adam, the 2015 date is revealing, the enormous funding is revealing, and the immediate red flag phrase “…just for the public facing part…caused concern” is revealing, the need to create an additional lobby group is revealing, the collusion between SG and groups is revealing. And what on earth is the ‘intersex project’?!

    Adam, you say you are political activists, but have nowhere to use this information… Have you collated it? Summarised it? Written articles and published, and published again? Have you written to every mp and msp with it? Have you been in touch with other groups campaigning against gender ideology?

    Food banks – replacing social security with charity. The SG funding should be going towards ensuring everyone can afford to eat.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Contrary : Thanks for the comprehensive respone.
      I will reply in detail as soon as I can, but briefly – our ‘wee group’ are all office bearers (branch, constituency, and region) of the current party of government, and we know we’re being monitored.

      That said, it looks like we’ll all be standing down from our positions at the next round of AGMs, and at least two of the six (four women, two men) will be resigning their party memberships.
      The memberships of the others depends largely on what happens at the next party conference (late November).

      Once again any proposed resolution that even mentions ‘transgender’ has been vetoed by the Conference Committee – even the one calling for a National Assembly where we could discuss and present facts (as opposed to the fantasy and ‘magical thinking’ that domonates the party elite/Pretorian Guard), and debate those facts in a respectful and rational way.
      As you may know, the reason supporters/promoters of the trans-ideology refuse to debate or respond to questions is that they can’t. They don’t have any answers – hence the threats, smears, abuse, and defamtory attacks that follow those questions being asked.
      The last thing they want is a public debate !

      However, two of us have decided to stick with it – nor because we want to – but because we think we have to. If we all walk away, then we lose contact with like-minded folk we’ve known for many years – people we’ve worked with, exchanged ideas, information and opinions with since the days when our party had a very strong deocratic principle at it’s heart, and the grassroots played a central role in deciding party policy
      Conferences are usually where we meet each other, and it’s a sign of what our party has become that for a number of years (pre-covid) we could only meet privately. Had we organised an official ‘trans-specific’ fringe event then all those attending would have been purged by now.

      Indeed four of the group attended the inaugural meeting of the party’s ”Women’s Pledge” event at the last ‘proper’ conference in Aberdeen (Oct 2019).
      That event had to be organised in secret, and was ‘invitation only’.
      More than half the 100+ who attended are now either with Alba or are active within the women’s groups you referred to.

      The party Pretorian Guard have been trying ever since to find out who was there, and those identified have either been ‘removed’, or quit before that happened.

      Please note that some of us became more than a wee bit concerned by what was being proposed before, during, and after the first GRA Bill consultation (2016-18), and every conference/National Council we attended pre-Covid saw the situation deteriorate further.

      Basically, we watched our party being ‘captured’ by a small group of determined single-issue entryists, and those of us old enough to remember saw the very obvious parallels with the Labour Party of the early 80’s.

      So at the moment we have to be extremely cautious.
      If ‘the elite’ are willing to change the party rules to get rid of the likes of Joan McAlpine and Neale Hanvey, or prevent Joanna Cherry from being elected to Holyrood, they’ll have no qualms in doing whatever it takes to remove us from the equation.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      2. Thanks for your response Adam, I have no wish to expose anyone so didn’t want to be too probing, but I think that clearly explains the curious case of non-active activists.

        I am taking a hard line on anyone that still has membership or supports that party, and believe that you have already been removed from the equation – anyone not completely bought over by the gender ideology and/or queer theory will not get a say in the party’s machinations. By remaining in the party you are by default supporting the ideology – we can’t know otherwise when voices are silenced – (and the rest of the things apparent in the Sturgeon regime; neoliberalism etc) and all the harm they are doing to us. I’m sorry if this seems brutal and I’m sure you have the best of intentions (and have done more towards independence than I ever even thought of), but while the party is seen to have support, the general public will think it okay to support them without too much thought. I include, controversially I’m sure, Joanna Cherry in this – more so in fact – yes she does great work and is doing a fantastic amount for women & people in general, but her continued membership of that party provides support for it and will be keeping many others as part of it under the illusion it can be ‘saved’, while realistically we are well beyond that stage.

        It took years for new Labour support and membership to dwindle – but time is not on our side with all the gender ideology legislation getting pushed through – and I believe a complete crash in the membership and support is the only way to create a (political) crisis strong enough to effect a change in direction (preferably towards independence and away from social engineering). Remaining inside the party has been shown to have no effect. I know its a hard thing to do, but the biggest support for independence is to leave & not put up with their crap any more. If we can do this quickly, we can pull together some real political forces in favour of independence sooner rather than later.

        I say ‘we’ but I’m just a keyboard warrior, not an activist, but I’ll be there supporting in the background as much as I can!

        Contacting Iain Lawson, as well as Gordon here, with information you’ve gathered could be useful too.

        Like

  26. Here is an archived version of the Herald article on the For Women Scotland vs SG case re public represent… Whatever – the seemingly benign legislation that snuck in a complete redefinition of ‘woman’. I think we see hallmarks of typical SG MO, ‘oh we’re not sure if legal advice was given, we’ll have to see if there is anything’ their QC says when the judge asked about whether the overlap with UK equality laws were taken into consideration. Angela Constance was instrumental in pushing the Bill through Parliament, interesting, fingers in a lot of pies that one.

    Lord Pentland is also on the panel of judges – he ruled on the judicial review of the SG harassment procedure – and seems fair minded, but who can tell what madness any judge will throw at us next.

    https://archive.vn/2021.11.06-063321/https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/19699022.trans-row-ministers-explain-equality-law-ignored-changing-woman-definition/

    Our entire parliament is pushing this guff through, not just the orchestrating SNP. They are not representing the Scottish people, and they are not being transparent about what they’re doing. We really need the scrutiny of a citizens assembly (or more than one) – nothing should be getting snuck in, and the Scottish Parliament current anti-women rhetoric needs to be reined in, and shown for what it is. It seems hopeless at the moment, going against this ideology, but with each small step…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Here is a link in this tweet for donating to For Women Scotland if you want to do so – it’s just donating direct to the group, not for this specific court case, and it is via paypal

      https://nitter.42l.fr/fatblackcatspaw/status/1456740790160576517#m

      If they win the case against the SG, it will give us all breathing room, all the other legislation that conflates sex and ‘gender’ (the feeling), that tramples over everyone else’s rights and protections in the equality act, should be brought under scrutiny. Hopefully enough time to expose gender identity ideology for what it is & start people’s brains working again.

      Like

      Reply

  27. Completely off-topic, if you’ll forgive me Gordon, but if there is anyone still scrolling down the comments, I thought some light relief from this fraught subject might be nice (well, sort-of light relief)

    I have just come across this (long) interview with Margo Mcdonald from her firebrand MP days, as part of the old SNP – this is the sort of thing we want, expect, from our party of independence – this is the kind of attitude and stalwart responses we should have. I found it uplifting, anyway, and was in fact shocked – because we have become inured to the kowtowing grovelling attitude of the current ream of MPs and MSPs perhaps – at how straight talking she was

    Excellent Margo Mcdonald interview, from her younger days as MP

    Then, of course, we have the later treatment of her by the SNP ‘inner circle’ – Swinney and Murrell – they have form. There has always been this unpleasant underlying politicking based on personalities within the SNP, and now those are the people in charge of the SNP.

    Extract from Martin Cambell’s book ‘was it something I said?’ on the poor treatment of Margo by the snp
    https://nitter.42l.fr/OccupiedScot/status/1457048707950686211#m

    Why is it there are still so many people that cannot accept criticism of the SNP – the previous form is there, the evidence of how bad things are in and with the SNP is there – we know the voices of the activists and membership have been silenced forever – yet some vocal SNP still claim that this corrupt and nepotistic inner circle requires fanatical and uncritical praise… Or, somehow, mysteriously, we will ‘never get independence’. They have it backwards: only by reining them in, with criticism and demands, will anything ever be done towards independence. They – the new SNP – have no reason to ever give you independence and every reason to deny you it. It’s the fanatical support that enables this regime to stay in power and denies us all, denies Scotland good living and independence. The evidence is there, I wish everyone would screw their heads on the right way round to better see that evidence.

    I was prompted to say that last paragraph because of a recent tweet by Richard Murphy, stating that the SNP are neoliberals – which they are – getting numerous replies of complete denial that this could be so. These deniers will only believe an expert if he says what they want him to say. The reality is, if you support the SNP still, this tartan tory brand SNP we have now, you support neoliberalism, you support austerity, you support GII.

    In reality, the SNP has always been a mixed bag of political leanings, and there has always been battles for supremacy. Alex Salmond brought in centre-left leanings, and believed showing competent socially-just governance would convince Scotland of the benefits of independence. Why are there still those clinging to the belief that this somehow translates to being the same as the current Sturgeon neoliberal dogma? Things change, and one person is not the same as the other – because Sturgeon has being lying about it for so long doesn’t make it real.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  28. Hi Gordon,

    This might be useful at some point – this chap John Smyth, if you haven’t noticed him already, is creating an index of the harassment committee submitted evidence – and we know how arduous that task is

    https://johnsmytheinvestigations.wordpress.com/

    Could be useful for helping find things,,, particularly as my spreadsheet hasn’t got much further that however many months ago.

    I still desperately want to know your thoughts on was the procedure signed off on the 20th in reality – is that a fabrication (and if not, why did they keep it secret after sign off, and if so how could they investigate complaints under it). The whole thing – the numerous bad practices, unlawful things, lying to committee – everything – swept under the carpet. Our glorious leader reigns once again with her bare faced conniving visage – her and her acolytes still swearing that, despite the evidence, her target is guilty. I don’t want her and her kind writing the history books on this. It’s wishful thinking to think she could get jailed for any of it, but that to me would be the best example to give all politicians on why they should behave in a proper manner.

    No resignations, no apologies, no contrition – only promotions, anonymity, arrogance. It’s sickening. The story is yet to finish playing out though…

    I’ll have to read back over your past episodes to remind myself of where we got to – this is worse than waiting for the next book in a series!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  29. Ingwe: “… The only struggle that matters is the class struggle… ”

    The struggle for resources and power to change their lives between males and females is far, far older than the class struggle and far, far more fundamental. Didn’t Marx – or it could have been Engels, I keep meaning to check, and it has been a while since I read the philosophers – say that “women are the slaves of slaves”? Often, working-class men were brutal towards working-class women in many ways. Not all, but enough to make life for working-class women very hard, harder than it needed to be, but, when you have little power or resources, having more than the wifie must have been some kind of recompense. The Left has betrayed females all along, with some unions being happy to coast along as women’s conditions and wages fell well below men’s. The Labour Party has been in the forefront of trans rights, stabbing women in the back. I’m working-class, on the left of nationalism, probably steeped in socialism with a small ‘s’. One of the few male philosophers who ever actually tried to change women’s lives was John Stuart Mill, albeit I suppose there may be others, if I think about it. Most of them acknowledged that females did not receive their fair due because these male philosophers could not deny their own intelligence and sense of reality, but actually standing shoulder to shoulder with women, of all and any class/es, never seemed to occupy them for long. I think that it’s the same today with politicians who talk the talk (and, sometimes, not even that) but will not walk the walk. It is why females need their own representatives, their own trades unionists, their own single-sex spaces and rights and services. No trans identified male can ever replace a woman in any of these areas because he is still thinking like a man.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  30. Gordon, I access your blog from a home computer with no problems. Ditto various phones. However, I occasionally use a local library with recently installed machines.
    This gives me a warning message that your site is unsafe and, what’s more, will not even allow me to proceed without contacting the administrator. Of course, I am able to work a way round this kind of shadow banning but wonder if other fans have the same problem?

    Like

    Reply

  31. The LGB Alliance are releasing YouTube videos of their conference, and this first session is fantastic – it really is worth a watch, it has a fabulous line up, looking at lots of different aspects of the problems with gender identity and fearlessly talking openly, and sensibly, about them. It is all from an LGB perspective, of course, but please don’t think it’s not relevant to you as well, and more importantly, about children “they are sterilising our children”… They have Sinead Watson – the Scottish detransitioner that has spoken up about her experiences, and I admit to getting emotional when she talked about being angry (at how the changes made are not reversible). I was shocked to hear about the level of institutionalised homophobia in the Tavistock clinic (that cuts off body parts on a whim, and seems to be incapable of putting them back) and in the NHS in general. This video is packed with information about gender identity & why it’s so harmful, with some speculation about how it’s become so ingrained, a general overview, (and lots of Scots), and some humour, please do watch.

    I don’t believe the majority of parents would prefer to see their child sterilised rather than have a gay child, I refuse to believe that, but certainly that’s what the gender identity ideology is pushing.

    I believe the huge increase in girls ‘trans-identifying’, and both them & boys identifying as ‘non-binary’, over the past decade – that is, the reason why they are so vulnerable to the ideology – has more to do with the very scary violent & degrading porn they’re being exposed to at a young age, in culture if not in imagery. I’ll talk about that at another time, it’s very disturbing – & I think it’s men’s role to sort it.

    Like

    Reply

  32. The Economist newspaper has always struck me as being conservative (small “c”) in its options. However, the view it’s expressed in its leaders over the past few weeks, worrying about the trans issue, the GRA, and the HCB, are almost identical with the views in the comments on this blog.

    I suspect we’re pretty mainstream, despite feeling that we’re ahead of the game.

    I guess everyone’s seen the current Scot Goes Pop poll on gender issues – again, similar to the views expressed here.

    https://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2021/11/and-thats-wrap-here-is-full-list-of.html#comment-form

    Like

    Reply

    1. Another relevant leader in this week’s Economist (4 – 10 December), coming out strongly against puberty blockers and the like.

      Like

      Reply

  33. Hi Gordon
    It’s strange that I read this and re-read it again, and each time I admire it more. Your method is absolutely sound. And the humanity is hugely inspiring.
    The hullabaloo about the teenage school survey on sexual activity is reaching a crescendo just now… I am sure ScotGov will persist and will not change their tactics.

    Sadly, now that there will be a backlash against the SNP, all SNP policies, and particularly the pursuit of independence, will be tarred with variations of the same brush. That seems inevitable.

    And here I am again reading your blog and knowing that we have brilliant, humane people who like people and want to be fair and see fairness practiced throughout society.

    John Rawls. Justice as Fairness. Transwomen are not women. But they are human beings with particular needs. It’s time.

    Respect.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Oddly, tombkane, so are women and girls, no? When the trans lobby starts treating us with respect, we’ll stop calling them out for the parpahilics/autogynephiles most of them are. What we will never do, is let them into our spaces with equanimity. We will fight for every inch of ground, and when men talk of compromising women’s rights for other men, they can stop right there. Let TWAW into male spaces because they are a subset of males, aren’t they?

      Like

      Reply

      1. Oh yes, Lorncal.

        You’re 100% right. I was responding to the end of Gordon’s article. Rights for women and girls first and foremost, for all the important reasons. Then rights for genuinely Trans people… Different rights.

        I am very much right there with you. Women/girl rights have to be first.

        The great Ivor Cutler… Women of the world, Take Over song … Has been coming to mind a lot recently.

        Like

    2. Many thanks indeed for these very kind words, tombkane. They’re very much appreciated.

      Lorncal, like you I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep these men — and all men — out of women’s spaces. Unfortunately, plenty of women, particularly young women, are on the other side from us, and I have no more difficulty as a man in telling them I think they’re wrong than I do as a man in agreeing that you’re right.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Thank you, Gordon for this post. I know what you’re saying, and I absolutely agree. However, talking privately to some recently, I learned that many young people simply don’t believe this tosh either, but they are terrified of losing ‘friends’ by speaking out against it.

        Here’s a antidote and a warning (I hope) to the feelz that come before reason, courtesy of the wonderfully subversive Tom Paxton classic, and applicable to parts of the Scottish education system, heavily influenced by Stonewall:

        What did you learn in school today, dear little girl of mine, what did you learn in school today, dear little girl of mine?

        I learned that Edinburgh never told a lie, I learned that women seldom cry
        I learned that everybody’s free, I learned that applies to all but me
        And that’s what I learned in school today, that’s what I learned in school

        What did you learn in school today dear little girl of mine, etc.

        I learned that Stonewall are my friends, I learned that justice never ends
        I learned that ‘women’ commit sexual crimes, Even if that is rape sometimes
        And that’s what I learned in school today, that’s what I learned in school

        Repeat chorus:

        I learned that trans is not so bad, I learned about the anal sex to be had
        We fought in the streets for a Bunce, And somehow I feel like a dunce
        And that’s what I learned in school today, that’s what I learned in school

        Repeat chorus:

        I learned our government is very strong, It’s always right and never wrong
        Our leaders soon will all be men, even in frocks we elect them again
        And that’s what I learned in school today, that’s what I learned in school.

        Like

      2. Nice one, Lorncal, totally nails it, and makes me wistful for the days of the original when this kind of brainwashing was the province of the Right.

        I love that song and indeed most of that album, with the notable exception of Ramblin’ Boy itself. I’ve never understood Paxton’s obvious fondness for it when he’s written so many great ones. The way he just sticks “ramblin'” in at every opportunity always reminds me of the Wombles putting “wombling” into everything.

        My fave Paxton story is when a reviewer in the Village Voice accused him of being “slick” and “professional” and he wrote a long, elegant letter in reply, pointing out that writing songs and performing them was the only job he had ever had and he hoped he’d be professional at it by now, etc etc, and then ended the letter, “Fuck him and the horse he rode in on!”

        Like

      3. Thanks, Gordon. Ha, ha, I hadn’t heard that story. Just the right response for Tom Paxton. One of the greats.

        Like

  34. The lunatics are definitely (defiantly?) running the asylum:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/13/jk-rowling-condemns-letting-rapists-self-identify-women-guidance/.
    To all normal people in Scotland and to everyone else who does not shout from the rooftops that they are different – I wish you luck, you will need lorry loads of it.
    To avoid doubt, as far as I am concerned, you can be this, you can be that, you can be whatever – UNTIL YOU CHOOSE TO SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!

    Like

    Reply

    1. nemesis: listened recently to a psychologist who deals with so-called trans women (trans identified males) and he explained that they have two warring personalities within them, especially the AGPs (autogynephiles) which is by far the largest percentage of them, and even the body dysphoric ones are mainly AGP. When the female part is in the ascendancy, they wish to transition, but here’s the thing: not via surgery. They are so steeped in their maleness that cutting off their bits is anathema to most of them, yet they applaud the young girls who are cutting off their breasts and having skin removed from their inner arms to be made it a false penis that can never, ever work because it contains none of the tiny nerve endings that afford stimulation and pleasure from penile action. Basically, these young women end up as sexless, unsexed people whose later life problems are bound to be horrendous, both physically and mentally. The AGPs, on the other hand, who drive this movement, will continue to enjoy sexual relations. Ain’t life a bitch!

      The males run into problems, too, if the male part of their dual personality ever surfaces to the extent that it dominates again, because, then, they understand how pointless it all was – the hormones, if they have taken them, and/or the drilled hole in their undercarriage directly below the penis – and that they can never be women. Where is the kindness in pandering to this stuff? The psychologist also said that he had been attacked by a trans identified man who would not accept that he was AGP and not a women. Two other (female) psychologists I read, said the same thing and would not treat AGP trans identified men because of their propensity to become extremely angry when challenged. Yet, these are the very men that the SNP government wants to put in all female spaces, and have already put in the women’s prison estate. The other bleat that so many politicians echo is that trans identified men are blamed for being rapists, paedophiles, sex offenders and that this is untrue of most of them. That will be why the sexual offending of this group is higher than the average in the population, then? When you read the list of fetishes and paraphilia that they are prey to – and we should have some sympathy for any human being who is so swallowed up in fetishistic behaviours that normal life become difficult to impossible, but validation of, and pandering to, them is not the answer – you cannot help but weep for women and girls.

      The desperation for validation leads so many of these men to claim they were born in the wrong body and have known that since they were toddlers. This leads directly to the mutilation of children and young people. No two-year-old child can possibly ‘know’ that he is born in the wrong body unless all child psychology and observation of children’s behaviours are thrown out of the window, and all notion of sex as a biological reality, with them. AGP, all experts in his field are agreed on, starts around puberty, when a boys becomes aware of his sexuality. To try and claim that children are aware of sexuality at a lower age is suggestive of child abuse, and child psychologists are very aware that disruption to childhood non-sexuality can be extremely damaging, which destroys the paedophile’s claim that children are sexually aware at a tender age. Individual trans identified males may well not be sexual predators at all – and, indeed, most are probably not – but they should be aware of the past attempt to hi-jack the gay rights movement to validate sexual activity between adults and children, and accept that they cannot have access to safe spaces for women and children. They should also be aware that AGP fetishes will be unacceptable to females in their public/private spaces, and accept that they cannot access those spaces. When they show some maturity and start to engage in proper debate, they might come to understand why there are boundaries.

      That so many do not appear to care what women and girls and children think or feel or want or need, is indicative of a dangerous narcissism that will not be easily overcome, and the fact that so many of our political representatives hail this dangerous tosh means that they cannot be returned to office. If anyone was in any doubt about why the SNP government delayed the census at such great cost, he or she should look no further than the proposed GRA reform and the deliberate attempts to hide recent population changes in Scotland. It had to be delayed until after the Scottish elections and this stuff was pushed through and until it was too late to punish the SNP at the polls by voting for another independence party that was putting independence on the ballot paper as a priority. The pandemic is now being wheeled out as the reason for just about underhand move. It is serious, absolutely, but why can certain things not be done in Scotland that are done elsewhere in the UK or abroad, pandemic or no pandemic? All life here is staggering to a halt, except for those things that the SNP hierarchy wants passed or delayed or hidden.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Thank you Lorncal. I was beginning to think I was alone and crying in the wilderness re the cancelling of the census. Every time I voiced exactly the same concerns I was poo-poohed and worse made to feel like a conspiracy theorist.
        I wonder now if in fact the 2022 census will take place. Time will tell

        Like

  35. It’s worth remembering that the views being expressed here are mainstream. I’ve already drawn attention to the Scot goes Pop poll confirming this, and more trhan one leader in the Economist (can you get more mainstream than that?). There’s a new book out, “Trans”, by Helen Joyce, on the subject. I’ve not read it, but it gets positive reviews..

    Like

    Reply

  36. Short video here, commentary on AGP, I should put context into why I’m posting it, but this woman is someone to watch to get a lot more clarity on the gender identity cult and many different facets of it so do check out her YouTube channel, there is a lot there though. I have more to say on the religious aspect of gender identity – clarifying why it is and why it shouldn’t be written into law: either it’s a faith based dogma or it’s a medical condition… I’ll get back to you Later though

    Commentary on AGP – a pathology – by Exulansic

    Like

    Reply

    1. Contrary: Exulansic is very much in the style of the late Magdalen Berns. Karen Davis (You’re Kidding, Right?) is another demolisher of this ordure and who lays bare the reality of the ideology – which is, without doubt, a men’s sexual rights movement allied to a men’s rights movement allied to the incel movement, an all of whose strings are being pulled by corporate interests in America, and elsewhere. It is the ‘elsewhere’ that the West needs to get to grips with, because this ideology is being used to undermine liberal traditions and democracy in the Western nations in favour of authoritarianism. It is as big a threat to the US and Canada as it is to us. Wouldn’t it be the greatest of ironies if we were to achieve independence only to be thwarted by the demise of democracy and liberalism?

      Like

      Reply

      1. Lorncal and Contrary, I take your point about how this stuff is being increasingly exploited by the people you mention but there’s no doubt in my mind that the origin of it lies further back in the so-called “theories” of poststructuralism and postmodernism which I experienced first-hand in the English Departments of UK and US academia from the early nineties onwards. The proponents of it were and are people who regard themselves as on the Left, and almost all of the opposition to it came from academic traditionalists and conservatives.

        Noam Chomsky was, and is, a rare exception, who saw it for what it was from the outset, and I recommend the following, written in 1995, to anyone who wants to understand how this dangerous nonsense has come to dominate our Arts and Social Sciences faculties, and now our schools as well:

        http://bactra.org/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

        Like

      2. I absolutely agree, Gordon, that the expression of this stuff started in earnest in the US education system, but it is as old as human existence on Earth, and is the expression (yet again, in a different guise) of the age-old hierarchy/patriarchy, once necessary for survival and now simply a means for the elite (all males) to purloin the planet’s resources en bloc to themselves through political power structures. It is not confined to the West: indeed, it seeks to undermine the West in many ways. We are led astray by females like the impenetrable Judith Butler because this is entirely a masculine pursuit and only superficially female in any sense. When you ask: what do females get out of this, and back comes the answer, shrivelled and useless female internal organs, removal of their breasts, irreversible male-like characteristics and a mass of tattoos on their arms, it doesn’t seem like much of an advance for the distaff side, no? This movement is like a pyramid: the sexually-driven and often, mentally-ill, males at the bottom who support the structure and are its ground troops, to the mass in the middle who can’t bring themselves to pull out and destroy the whole, even though they are aware of its potential for corruption, because to an extent, it will always benefit them, too, to the elite males at the apex, who have it all.

        I’m sorry if that sounds anti male. It’s not meant to be. We need males to drive our human civilization forward, just as we need females. It’s just that I have at last been forced to see that our human civilization cannot survive much longer under this patriarchal regime that appears to be predestined by our biology, but is very likely not. This is where resources should be concentrated: in gaining equality of opportunity for all right across the globe; and I know it will not be possible until patriarchy is destroyed down to the ground; and I also know that that is unlikely to happen any time soon. What might come out of all this is that our society will change so much that patriarchy will wither. Perhaps we have reached as far as we can under this human system that we have, and Mother Nature herself has had enough of patriarchy which has outlived its usefulness and, now, we must evolve to be different. I have little real evidence for this, but I do believe that we are evolving in a direction in which our present patriarchal structure cannot survive. If it does, the planet itself cannot survive. The whole trans issue, itself the latest masculine/patriarchal power convulsion, is laying bare the inherent tensions between male and female that must be resolved by evolution and social change that is scarcely thinkable at the moment.

        Neanderthals disappeared, leaving behind their DNA only, because they could not compete successfully with aggressive Homo Sapiens. I think we might be coming to another crossroads where female ‘oppression’ or ‘subjugation’ can no longer be sustained and maintained because it will destroy our human species, and, probably, the planet. We have three ways to go: 1) the end of females and masculine roles encompassing female roles, too, a hybrid humanity; 2) the end of masculinity and patriarchy as aggressive entities; 3) a melded and evolved higher consciousness which encompasses the best and most productive attributes of both male and female and allows us to co-exist as one human species that is co-operative and non-competitive in relation to the distribution of resources, and that allows both males and females to co-exist, each as wholly autonomous beings.

        Like

      3. Thanks both,

        In what way does knowing the roots of this cult help us combat it? I’m not being facetious with that question, I would like to know how it can feed into a way to counter Gender Identity, but can’t see it. For sure it seems to have been around a lot longer than we think.

        I think there are historic examples of the Liberal left (middle classes) going astray into sexually Liberal cult behaviour, and groups have formed that have had pretty vile ideas on how extreme that can be (paedophilia). Do either of you know the roots of scientology? I have no idea, but I suspect there was an initial person that came up with it? I think one of the most difficult things with combating Gender Identity ideology is that there is no central head person or group – there is no one claiming to be the head of this social contagion, coordinating things – so we have to look at who it is that most benefits from its harmful practices; men (in the main) with sexual pathologies.

        Exulansic talks about ‘social pragmatic language’ (she’s a speech therapist, or speech pathologist as she terms it, but I think that’s just an Americanism) – how we describe the world around us in practical terms – and its total absence in the language of trans activists. I think that’s some of what Chomsky was describing? The whole concept of forcing pronouns that may or may not be appropriate is to ignore how we interact socially and use language to communicate. The rest of what they say is gobbledygook – in most cases to confuse any issue, to keep the listener off balance to prevent them noticing the wild inconsistencies, or straight up gaslighting – telling you its you that’s mad for ‘not understanding’ (hah! For understanding only too well maybe, and applying social norms and socially pragmatic language to a discourse).

        What statistics we do have on the effects – the massive percentage increase in girls trans-identifying, along with a larger than usual proportion of autistic people – led me to look at possible causes (why has it affected this group so strongly), homophobia? Violent porn? Misogyny? All those things, I reckon. The autism aspect is interesting, and that seems to be explained by the way the autistic mind sees the world in black & white – nuance is a difficult concept – and with such emphasis on gender stereotypes these days (pink for girls…) emphasised by TV advertising etc, they are more likely to feel a type of gender dysphoria – or discomfort, if they don’t believe they conform. For example, if I wear trousers, it doesn’t mean I’m dressing like a boy; those trousers are girly trousers because I’m wearing them, so I’m dressing like a girl. Okay, my girl days are long gone, but you want to see the old photos of the atrocious clothes I was dressed in back then, whether or not those clothes were made for boys doesn’t matter, I’m wearing them so they’re girl clothes. An autistic girl being told pink dresses are for girls but wanting to wear trousers, would have difficulty coming to terms with still being a girl, then along with problems in social pragmatic language too, the Gender Identity ideology would be quite attractive to them (I watched a YouTube video by Purple Ella, I’ve lost the link sorry, a recently autism-diagnosed mother with a trans child, she’s ‘helping’ other parents with trans children – she explained gender, and was very articulate, describing a feeling, but then says “you might think that’s just how you feel – wrong!! ” then she talks contradictory mince. It was fascinating).

        Ask for any meaning of gender and the explanation will boil down to ‘a feeling’. Trans is where that feeling doesn’t appear to match up with the body’s sex and a few other feelings thrown in to make it sound complex. Gender identity is the belief in that feeling & that you have a right over and above anyone else’s rights to be allowed to express that feeling. Gender expression is how you think you should express those feelings, and how you think you are presenting to the world to influence other people’s impression of you. So it’s all about how you feel about yourself and trying to force others into participating in any delusions you are having.

        Let’s go on to the religious aspect – there are quite a few references recently to how it seems like a religion (or cult – they are both the same, but we tend to use religion when it’s an officially recognised organisation, like scientology say!) – while the majority of the general public are under the impression that ‘trans’ only relates to gender dysphoria, a mental illness.

        To be a true believer in gender identity, and to think that such a thing as self-ID is reasonable, to believe that there is such a thing as conversion therapy for trans, or that one can be born in the wrong body, you have to believe in the ‘gendered soul’ and that it enters the body at birth (or some undefined time before birth – their dogma is not well defined).

        If you believe that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, then therapy can usually help, and there is often a cure with the right kind of help, for most people. That can only be called conversion therapy if you believe a gender identity is just a thing, and entity in its own right separate from your body (and separate from your innate immutable sex class, of which there are only two) – this is the gendered soul.

        Believing in reincarnation (otherwise, where does this gendered soul come from if it isn’t at one with your body?) is a religious belief. The soul is not measurable, it can’t be proven to exist, the gendered soul is religious dogma. Gender Identity is a faith-based religious belief.

        We are a secular society, and all of the Christian laws were removed from the law books, because you can’t have freedom of religious belief, ever, when only one religion is written into law. Self-ID as pertains to gender-only would be a religion written into law, because it assumes that ‘gender identity’ is just a thing you have (and the gendered soul somehow doesn’t match your sex so you need to declare as the opposite sex), and that somehow, miraculously, everyone on the planet has become honest and have no nefarious purpose to changing their name and sex. In fact, probably, statistically speaking – if trans people are such a tiny minority – the majority of people using self-id will be sexual predators.

        It is utterly, completely, and wholly incomprehensible why other countries have already done this – although understandable in those that are institutionally homophobic & misogynistic, because those two hatreds are what the Church of Gender Identity tell you is okay. The implications of Gender identity and self-id without safeguards are so obvious, the future so easy to predict, I just can’t fathom it. I wrote to all my MSPs regarding GRA reform – a standard letter For Women Scotland (I think) produced – and I have had three replies; the usual incomprehensible politic speak, but a Labour MSP might have been a vaguely positive response, the SNP said they’d toe the party line, the Scottish Greens – Patrick ‘friend of paedophiles’ Harvie – I’ll summarise as “fuck women’s and children’s rights”.

        We already have defacto self-id in most of our institutions – and that would be a good test to see how putting it into law would result – unfortunately all the statistics are being misidentified, so we can’t tell!

        So what are our MSPs thinking – writing Gender Identity into law? They have laid the groundwork by redefining woman in one law (gender representation on boards act), they’ve introduced the hate crime Bill to exclude women as protected, and they tried to prevent women from being allowed to ask for a female examiner or caregiver – if that isn’t all targeting women – in law! – I don’t know what is. Do the MSPs believe in gender identity as a religion, or as a mental illness? If the former, they’re trying to write religious laws so are discriminating against all other faiths, and if the latter they are preventing the people suffering from getting treatment. What other options are there? Religion of mental illness? I can’t think of any other.

        Gender Identity is the result of a mental illness, be that gender dysphoria or a sexual pathology. A sexual pathology is a fetish allowed to run unchecked and so becomes obsessive and harmful & from what I’ve read, if there are no constraints or limits put on a fetish it will keep deteriorating into a very serious pathology – allowing autogynephilic men free rein in public displays and entering women-only spaces not only causes the women exposed to it harm, but will see this pathology deteriorate – similarly with paedophiles: the more child porn they watch the more likely they will be driven to act. It doesn’t have to be that way – these are mental illnesses & can be controlled (however much people claim there is no cure for paedophilia, that’s not true). It’s this latter group, the sexual predators, that need the ‘validation’ – they desperately want their out of control sexual deviancy to be seen a normal and something they were born with so they can play it out in public; that’s part of the creepy sexual gratification they get (but, it will never be enough, it will always escalate). One reason I posted the above video was to help people understand that the occasional intrusive thought is not the same as a fetish or pathology.

        Those people with gender dysphoria are not helped by affirmation – they need proper therapy, also to look at any other associated mental health problems that may be causing it, and only in the most extreme cases should surgery or medical castration be considered. The testimony of Detransitioners is heartbreaking, their lives ruined, and still they are left with the original problem of gender dysphoria. Those surgeons and doctors doing and allowing this should be struck off, sued for malpractice and jailed. It those young people were being ‘affirmed’ – it was based on faith in the gendered soul, and the surgeons were performing FGM (and MGM if thats a thing). It is quite possible puberty blockers irreversibly stop development, physically and mentally: there seems to be point at which no restart of puberty takes place and there might be permanent brain damage from preventing development.

        How do we prevent self-id becoming law – unbelievable though it is that it’s even being suggested – and how do we get it removed from all guidelines (eg in prisons)? MSPs are still going along with it, so how do we get them to understand no one is in favour (except predators & their enablers – talk about writing rape culture into law! It’s sick.) and that it will cause untold harm and will be misused? Stopping those things is a priority.

        Next – and by preventing laws on self-id we will be in a better position to tackle this – we need to stop the brain-mushing lessons in school on gender – it’s indoctrinating children into a religion in the realms of flat-earthers, it needs to stop. A government that thinks its okay for adults to ask children invasive sexual questions and to share that information with unknown others – is not going to stop, they are going to keep at it – if they don’t have a health care plan ready to rock & can’t articulate that, and just saying it’s to ‘inform medical needs’ is not a plan – the entire thing stinks & stinks of sexual pathology. Its not like the Scottish government has made any improvements to mental health care, either, as they keep claiming they’re about to do.

        On a side note – why is it, since the statistic came out decades ago that same sex classes greatly benefitted the educational needs of girls & really enhanced their learning outcomes, and so life chances, have most schools now become mixed? Why are there even less single sex schools now? Oh! Because it doesn’t particularly benefit boys? Well well.

        I propose all lessons and hygiene facilities in schools and colleges become single sex – it doesn’t have to be the whole school after all, and girls and boys should be mixing socially.

        Like

      4. I am speaking for me only, Contrary, but, yes, this has been in existence for quite some time. I really started to take note of its insidious move into Scottish politics in early 2015, although I had been aware of it long before that, but only on the periphery. When it did move into Scottish politics (the SNP, via Labour far left) I was alarmed because it became possible to see clearly that this insidious movement was infiltrating politics to push its agenda.

        I believe the main aim on the frontline (i.e male trans activists and trans identified men) is to abolish sex as such as belonging to the binary, dimorphic model. If you do that, you open up whole new vistas of what we might have called perversions even a decade ago. In turn, this porno madness is being pushed by easy internet access to pornography. Both corporate pornography and corporate prosthetics (cosmetic surgeries and hormone treatments) to create new human bodies is a prelude to creating new technological beings in the form of robots, and so on. This is the new developmental science and medicine that is emerging, and it is aimed to benefit men, not women, because it is very sexually driven.

        One thing that we can always be sure of is that few so-called advances really help human females (think of the pill and the greater access to females and greater sexual opportunities that opened up for men without responsibility). This has nothing to do with biology or natural selection or evolution; it has everything to do with how men have structured our society – every society, actually – in their favour.

        Behind the front-line troops (the trans identified people and the activists) are the money men – they are all men, though a few wear frocks. This layer is the wealth/power/control layer, popularly called the capitalist layer, and the new capitalism involves the new technologies and medicines, prosthetics, etc. Behind them are the power blocs – America and the West, Russia, China, and the West is actually waning somewhat, and, soon, a power vacuum might well emerge. The trans issue is well on the way to undermining Western society by turning heteronormative sexual biology on its head. The West is still blind to the implications because, as per, it can’t see past the dollar signs, but other potential world powers are just as smitten with capitalism while espousing something ostensibly different. After all, wealth, power and control are masculine pursuits in every country, in every era, in every way. This is no different.

        Anyone who doubts the reality of this movement should access the Denton’s Report online, and take it from there. I think that women stand in the way at every level, by the way: they will try to protect the most vulnerable, the young; they are not driven in the same way as men to take up corporate careers, and even if they were, men would keep them out somehow; and, finally, women are not driven by world dreams of world domination either, so they stand in the way there, too. In other words, men – or many men, but it’s the patriarchy in operation – at every level of human society are propelling this stuff forward, and women are the spoilsports, the party poopers, who could derail the whole thing.

        The allocation of resources is at the heart of it all, too. Women – that is, human females everywhere, taken as a whole, as a class – are allocated a tiny percentage of the world’s resources, the rest going to men – that is, to human males, as a whole, as a class, everywhere, with a small percentage of human males taking the lion’s share of the men’s allocation. Remember, women are just over half the human race with a claim on half the world’s resources, but some men grudge them even the tiny amount they are allocated, the allocation itself decided by men. Many men see women as non human. It is a fact, sadly, and so is misogyny and hatred of females everywhere. I would recommend listening to a few trans widows’ stories and listen particularly to what their AGP men say to them. By their words shall ye know them. Many of these so-called trans women believe that human females are an inferior species, a biological mistake and cul de sac, and they also believe, many of them, that it is just a matter of time before artificial wombs can be developed and they can carry off-spring. It is insane, but I’d bet there is a male scientist somewhere trying it out as we speak. Tellingly, it was an adult human female, Mary Shelley, who pointed out the pitfalls the gross experiment of Dr Frankenstein to create a man. Man was made in God’s image, and the inferior Eve from his rib. Many, many men truly believe that. Me, I think he made her eat the apple and the snake was between his legs at the time.

        Like

  37. I missed this post (and many others I normally follow) at the tail end of last year due to some dreadful family circumstances I was dealing with…I have not yet had time to read all the comments but just wanted to say VERY WELL SAID GORDON!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Many thanks, LB, that’s much appreciated, and I’m sorry to hear about your family situation. I hope your being able to catch up with the blog means that things are a bit better now. All the best to you.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment