General News

[leicsmac]

8 minutes ago, Sampson said:

 

Starmer has to hold his nerve and not sell out our values to these lunatics in Washington.

Freedom to abuse power over minority groups, but not to call the Gulf of Mexico by its internationally agreed name.

 

The hypocrisy is just one part of how loathsome this administration is, however.

[Torquay Gunner]

[Sampson]

Good overview.

[Md9]

3 hours ago, Sampson said:

 

Starmer has to hold his nerve and not sell out our values to these lunatics in Washington.

Needs to tell that big orange man baby to do one . 
all they do is go on about free speech yet can’t answer a single question between them or call what people are saying is fake news like a 2 year old . Leave them to deal with only Russia and El Salvador for a few more weeks and I am sure he will start back tracking and claiming it as a win for himself. 

[Sampson]

nm

Edited Friday at 13:36 by Sampson

[leicsmac]

7 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Maybe one of the most chilling things I’ve seen in a while. I too sincerely hope what he’s seen is wrong.

 

 
 

Some of the stuff that DOGE have been getting up to is, quite frankly, blatant violation of quite a few different laws.

[Dahnsouff]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

Good overview.

Terrifying potentially

[The Doctor]

8 hours ago, ClaphamFox said:

It is not the responsibility of women to solve the problem of male violence. Of course trans women prisoners must be protected from the kind of horrific abuses you describe, but the answer to that is to create places where they are safe - it is not to put them in women’s prisons and put women at risk of being the victims of male violence. 
 

There is no evidence that medical transition fundamentally alters the male pattern criminality I describe above, and which I regard as fundamental to this. Medical transition cannot fully reverse the masculinisation of the brain that occurs during foetal development and puberty, and the available evidence we have suggests that post-transition trans women continue to behave like men. Hence why I believe trans women do not belong in female prisons and that other solutions must be found to protect them from V-coding and other forms of abuse. 

This isn't making women "responsible for solving the problem of male violence", rather what you're doing is stating that you think there should be a sacrifical group of women to pacify men, and that's a dangerous road to go down, because when you start divvying up people who are and aren't acceptable targets for violence, you invariably create a slippery slope where more and more groups are designated acceptable targets.

 

There's no reliable evidence that trans women have male pattern criminality to start with, the common citation for this is Dhejne et al, and it's a gross misinterpretation of the research. The study doesn't look at conviction types, it's not a male or female pattern criminality (in terms of offences) study, it's a finding that a cohort of trans women between 1973 - 1988 has similar conviction rates to a cisgender male group, a pattern not observed in the 1989 to 2003 cohort. So, we then have to ask the simple question: why was this pattern seen in the older cohort but not the younger? could it have anything to do with the attitudes towards LGBT people as a whole in the 70s and 80s compared to the 90s?

 

So, I don't agree with the notion that there is significant masculinisation of the brain, because there's not solid evidence that significant differences between "male" and "female" brains exist, instead instead we can mostly discount it as an artefact of the average sizes of men and women, but let's suppose that 1% of difference is significant, well the research we've got suggests that the brains of trans women are significantly different from both cis men and cis women to start with, and that hormone therapy pushes the more neuroplastic regions towards that of acquired sex anyway. The notion of male and female brains is on shaky ground generally, and the idea that trans women have male brains (and trans men female brains) is even less founded.

 

As for the idea that post transition trans women behave like men, cite your evidence - and make sure it's actual evidence, not speculative crap from anti-trans campaign groups like Sex Matters who take half the available information to justify the conclusion they've already started at.

 

[WigstonWanderer]

6 hours ago, Sampson said:

 

Starmer has to hold his nerve and not sell out our values to these lunatics in Washington.

Just break with the US any tell Trump to fùck off!
 

[Spudulike]

1 hour ago, The Doctor said:

This isn't making women "responsible for solving the problem of male violence", rather what you're doing is stating that you think there should be a sacrifical group of women to pacify men, and that's a dangerous road to go down, because when you start divvying up people who are and aren't acceptable targets for violence, you invariably create a slippery slope where more and more groups are designated acceptable targets.

 

There's no reliable evidence that trans women have male pattern criminality to start with, the common citation for this is Dhejne et al, and it's a gross misinterpretation of the research. The study doesn't look at conviction types, it's not a male or female pattern criminality (in terms of offences) study, it's a finding that a cohort of trans women between 1973 - 1988 has similar conviction rates to a cisgender male group, a pattern not observed in the 1989 to 2003 cohort. So, we then have to ask the simple question: why was this pattern seen in the older cohort but not the younger? could it have anything to do with the attitudes towards LGBT people as a whole in the 70s and 80s compared to the 90s?

 

So, I don't agree with the notion that there is significant masculinisation of the brain, because there's not solid evidence that significant differences between "male" and "female" brains exist, instead instead we can mostly discount it as an artefact of the average sizes of men and women, but let's suppose that 1% of difference is significant, well the research we've got suggests that the brains of trans women are significantly different from both cis men and cis women to start with, and that hormone therapy pushes the more neuroplastic regions towards that of acquired sex anyway. The notion of male and female brains is on shaky ground generally, and the idea that trans women have male brains (and trans men female brains) is even less founded.

 

As for the idea that post transition trans women behave like men, cite your evidence - and make sure it's actual evidence, not speculative crap from anti-trans campaign groups like Sex Matters who take half the available information to justify the conclusion they've already started at.

 

Thank God the Supreme Court has simplified this. Jeez.

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Thank God the Supreme Court has simplified this. Jeez.

Exactly.

 

Complex and nuanced issues involving scientific matters and people really should be reduced to simple soundbites for the purpose of legislation and subsequent feelgood headlines and Tweets. One size fits all.

 

...

...

...... right?

Edited Friday at 16:40 by leicsmac

[Spudulike]

2 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Exactly.

 

Complex and nuanced issues involving scientific matters and people really should be reduced to simple soundbites for the purpose of legislation and subsequent feelgood headlines and Tweets. One size fits all.

 

...

...

...... right?

Dunno, check with the Supreme Court. Right?

[leicsmac]

11 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Dunno, check with the Supreme Court. Right?

Wouldn't be the first time a legal entity has chosen not to fully engage with the full intricacies of a scientific matter for the sake of convenience, tbh.

 

I guess, as per earlier discussion, we'll see where we are in roughly ten years. I just hope it isn't where I think it might be. (Though this is only one of a very great number of matters where that's accurate imo.)

[The Doctor]

46 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Thank God the Supreme Court has simplified this. Jeez.

ah yes, because complex scientific and sociological questions should be simplified for the benefit of a hack children's author who's now ~60% black mould by weight and a bunch of people really unhappy that science didn't stop at their primary school education.

[The Doctor]

but, hey, thank god the supreme court enabled this: https://news.sky.com/story/trans-women-to-be-strip-searched-by-male-transport-police-after-court-ruling-13350577

 

now, what are you going to do when male police abuse it to strip search random cis women because you actually cannot always tell and the supreme court judgement means that this would apply even with a GRC (which changes your marker on your birth certificate). You've got no way of proving you're not trans, and even if you carry your birth certificate with you (not legal ID so not sure why you would), they've now been given grounds to ignore what it says

[Parafox]

2 hours ago, WigstonWanderer said:

Just break with the US any tell Trump to fùck off!
 

 

If only it were that simple.

 

Inexorably tied militarily and economically, sadly.

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

If only it were that simple.

 

Inexorably tied militarily and economically, sadly.

For the moment, certainly.

 

But hopefully, in this case, nothing is inexorable.

[Parafox]

Just now, leicsmac said:

For the moment, certainly.

 

But hopefully, in this case, nothing is inexorable.

 

Isn't it a bit of a catch 22 though. We could divorce ourselves from the USA and go all out to form military and economic ties with our less powerful allies (which already exist) and risk losing support from America or re-join the EU and risk being at the behest of Strasbourg and their often ill-advised and poorly thought out policies affecting all members, many of which historically, went against our own sovereignty.

 

I'm not clever enough to know which way to go. 

[FoxyPV]

45 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

but, hey, thank god the supreme court enabled this: https://news.sky.com/story/trans-women-to-be-strip-searched-by-male-transport-police-after-court-ruling-13350577

 

now, what are you going to do when male police abuse it to strip search random cis women because you actually cannot always tell and the supreme court judgement means that this would apply even with a GRC (which changes your marker on your birth certificate). You've got no way of proving you're not trans, and even if you carry your birth certificate with you (not legal ID so not sure why you would), they've now been given grounds to ignore what it says

Absolute insanity.

 

A hard fought victory for women everywhere

 

Fvckn terfs

[leicsmac]

9 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

Isn't it a bit of a catch 22 though. We could divorce ourselves from the USA and go all out to form military and economic ties with our less powerful allies (which already exist) and risk losing support from America or re-join the EU and risk being at the behest of Strasbourg and their often ill-advised and poorly thought out policies affecting all members, many of which historically, went against our own sovereignty.

 

I'm not clever enough to know which way to go. 

I think on this one the flexibility to change depending on circumstances, rather than nailing colours to one particular mast, is the key thing here.

 

One thing I will say is that the current US administration represents a majority of values that really should be anathema to any civilised nation and the continuity of civilisation, so if the UK chooses to associate with them in any close way, then like it or not those values will likewise be associated with the UK too.

Edited Friday at 18:26 by leicsmac

[Parafox]

Wouldn't it be great if when we leave this mortal coil we can look down on all the insanity, breakdown, horror and craziness that is world will experience in the future and then we can say "we told you so but you didn't listen".

 

I'm reminded of Billy Joel's "We didn't Start The Fire". But actually we did.

 

More fool us, right now.

Edited Friday at 18:30 by Parafox

[Parafox]

16 minutes ago, Parafox said:

Wouldn't it be great if when we leave this mortal coil we can look down on all the insanity, breakdown, horror and craziness that is world will experience in the future and then we can say "we told you so but you didn't listen".

 

I'm reminded of Billy Joel's "We didn't Start The Fire". But actually we did.

 

More fool us, right now.

 

Actually just listened again to that song and really It's not much of a protest song just a song with clever contextual rhymes.

Edited Friday at 18:43 by Parafox

[Foxdiamond]

3 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

Actually just listened again to that song and really It's not much of a protest song with clever contextual rhymes.

May I suggest Done Too Soon by Neil Diamond. From 1970. Not a protest song but rather about life and death using the names of famous people from various backgrounds 

[bovril]

6 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

Actually just listened again to that song and really It's not much of a protest song with clever contextual rhymes.

DJ Campbell's through, no he's not he's offside 

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, bovril said:

DJ Campbell's through, no he's not he's offside 

Tune.