mormont

Scot, protest is a legitimate tool, and no, it doesn't have nuance. But nuance isn't always useful or good. Different tools are suitable for different purposes. Nuance alone would not have won universal suffrage.

Scot, I'm not sure you understand the difference between a protest and a debating society.

The Liefeld joke indicates some element of time travel, since it would last have been funny twenty years ago.

Well, yes: it answers it by avoiding it.

The quoted is not my 'mind', though. It's not an opinion, it's an observation. With respect to that observation, if the facts change, the facts change. If a medicine does show evidence of harm, the consideration then - made by far more qualified folks than you or I - would be about a balance of the harm versus the benefit. Again, it's not unusual for that to happen, in fact it's commonplace. I'm going to try not to be rude here. But there are, we can agree, numerous medical interventions that have weak evidence and many that show evidence of harm, and we're not discussing those. Do you accept, then, that it's not solely the weakness of the evidence or the possibility of evidence of harm that is making you ask that question, and making you so curious about whether these particular interventions cause harm, or should be approved? As I've said repeatedly: there's no point in pretending that this is a medical discussion when it is in fact a political one.

Lobotomies, with respect, are an even worse example. Nobody doubted that lobotomies caused irreparable harm. If there's no lack of examples, it's hard to understand why the first two comparators that come to your mind are not very comparable. As for the Cass review and puberty blockers, I quoted previously the actually worrying finding, which is that most of the (very small number) of under-18s being prescribed them were older, with the most common age being 15. There's a suggestion that this was done purely because protocols required they be on puberty blockers for a year before being prescribed gender affirming hormone treatments. No arguments there: if that's true, it's bad medical practice. Drugs should be prescribed on medical need, not to fulfil an administrative requirement. But I'll repeat, since it's not been mentioned in this thread yet - the Cass review did not find any evidence that puberty blockers were harmful. Prescribing a medicine where the evidence of benefit is weak, but there is no evidence of harm, is not as unusual as some people seem to imagine. Take this study, for example: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjopen/2024/02/15/poor-quality-clinical-data-informing-nice-decisions-on-treatments-in-over-half-of-cases/ What is unusual is that this is a controversial area of medicine. But let's not pretend that it is controversial because of the weakness of the evidence base. Rather, more is being made of the weakness of the evidence base because the area is politically controversial.

[mod] OK. folks. Let's be clear. One may legitimately argue about whether a particular person, or post, or opinion is or is not 'anti-trans'. But to argue that there is not a substantial anti-trans movement in the world today is straight up gaslighting a group who are currently being oppressed worldwide. It's needlessly offensive to most users and that is why I have my mod hat on. It isn't going to be tolerated as a statement. Simple as that. We would not tolerate that sort of statement about prejudice faced by any other group, and we're not tolerating it about trans folks. ETA - and the other thing about having the mod hat on: that means if you want to discuss this, take it to PM. It's not open to discussion in thread. [/mod]

There certainly is a lot of disinformation about what the Cass report says, but you would agree that a large chunk of that disinformation comes from the anti-trans side? As I said when the report was published, if the report has a flaw, it is that Cass was - at best - naive about how the report would be received and used. It was commissioned for political purposes and is being used for political purposes. Largely, ones that are unsympathetic to the idea that trans people should have dignity and equality. I believe Hilary Cass when she says she wants to see more services and more support for trans kids. But nobody's interested in discussing what care trans kids should receive - only what they shouldn't get. As is the case with so many issues about young people, sadly.

I think it's important also to note that the Cass Review does not conclude that puberty blockers are an unsafe treatment. We know this because they have said so, explicitly. https://thekitetrust.org.uk/our-statement-in-response-to-the-cass-review-report/

Any chance we could get the conversation back to contemporary UK politics?

His retired campaign manager had instant access to £5K - £6.5K, in fact. So I'm not buying that as an excuse. And in the grand scheme of things, £90K a year really is that much. It puts you in the top 5% of earners.

So I'll forgo my rant about how shitty our generation is, and how we've no right to criticise younger folks when we are so awful, in favour of highlighting this story, which the headline ('Tory MP suspended over alleged misuse of funds') really does not do justice: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68841840 I suspect this is one of those times when we won't ever find out the whole story, but clearly, there's a little more to this than 'Tory MP misuses funds'. I appreciate that MPs live an expensive life, but this dude gets £90K a year in basic salary and he did not have £5K in the bank even for a matter of life and death? Who were these bad people? How did this situation arise? This is extremely concerning. There's also another £14,000 of medical bills covered by party money and not repaid.

I'm a little confused about kids today, who are simultaneously anarchic visigoths roaming the land secure in their invulnerability to adult disapproval but also oversensitive woke snowflakes who never leave their bedrooms, but one thing's for sure - they aren't to be trusted to make their own decisions.

Since this is the first I’ve heard of them, and I work in an organisation that has a nightclub, I’m thinking they were not that big of a minority.