As much as Cass’s report insists that all lives — trans lives, cis lives, nonbinary lives — have equal value, taken in full it seems to have a clear, paramount goal: making living life in the sex you are assigned at birth as attractive and likely as possible. Whether Cass wants to acknowledge it or not, that is a value judgment: It is better to learn to live with your assigned sex than try to change it. If this is what Cass personally believes is right, fair enough. It can charitably be called a cultural, political or religious belief. But it is not a medical or scientific judgment.
The medical and scientific judgement would be that you are not assigned a sex at birth it is observed. Further, you cannot change your sex. You are, of course wholly and entirely at liberty to change your gender, that societal thing.
’…that is a value judgment: It is better to learn to live with your assigned sex than try to change it.’
Because you can’t. All you can do is surgically and chemically mutilate yourself to look like a poor facsimile of the opposite sex.
all lives — trans lives, cis lives, nonbinary lives — have equal value,
that is a value judgment
Reality would seem to indicate that individuals assign different lives different values. That’s is people’s value judgement. Not liking reality doesn’t make it go away.
So now he’s claiming medical and scientific backing to reject the findings of a report authored by Dr Hilary Cass, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
What quality of medical opinion is he relying on? Doctor Nick Riviera (Hi Everybody!).
It may be crazy, but I do have this certainty that the left, having accused normal people of every prejudice they could think of, ran aground as their ship washed up on the shores of reality. Not everyone else was racist, homophobic or any other -ism or -ist they dreamed up. Someone hit on the idea of those very rare people who are neither fish nor fowl being victims, which only Lefties can save from the cruel, nasty normals. The normals hadn’t thought of them! A trick had been missed!
Inflated with their magic conversion from people who oppressed, dealt cruelly with those who had different opinions (hello Russia, China!) to saviours of the cruelly oppressed, they went full pelt at punishing those vile normals. In the same way that some people went from being ordinary to being victims because of their skin colour (hello Mrs Markle, Mrs Warren) so ugly blokes put on a wig and some lippy and were transformed into new victims. This enabled misogynists to have free rein and be unmolested by our new progressive enforcers of lawnorder when shouting “find the TERFs and kick their fucking heads in!” in Trafalgar Square. The new Progressive Plod nodded sagely and just stood around…
” I do have this certainty that the left, having accused normal people of every prejudice they could think of, ran aground as their ship washed up on the shores of reality. ”
I was talking to some female friends over last weekend, and the whole trans thing came up. They are all typical middle class wet liberal types, and even they admitted the trans stuff is turning them into raving bigots. They really don’t want hairy blokes turning up in the Ladies changing rooms and on female hospital wards claiming to be ‘real women’ while waving their lady penises around. If they all looked like Thai ladyboys they’d probably put up with it, but when its hairy arsed lorry drivers calling themselves Mandy instead they’re well on the way to voting for Nigel to put a stop to it.
The Strange Report Fueling the War on Trans Kids
“Trans kids” don’t exist.
Adult groomers do.
John – What quality of medical opinion is he relying on? Doctor Nick Riviera (Hi Everybody!).
Last week, it was Glasgow Clown College’s finest tranny doctor of sociology.
This week, it’s mostly the scum of the Earth (journalists).
Sex is not: “… assigned at birth….”, it is observed and recorded.
I’m old enough to remember when men in frocks or tutus were amusing because they looked absurd. The alphabet mafia have outlawed being entertained by Some Like It Hot and don’t regard Robin Williams as a credible postmenopausal grand mother type in modest clothing as worthy of emulation
The French word for transvestite is Travestie.
We should adopt this in English and describe any trannie like Gary/Carrie as a Travesty*
*definition – a debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitation.
Sex can be wrongly assigned at birth, as that gold medallist Algerian boxer has just demonstrated.
Thankfully, the error is rare.
@ Jim
I operate in a pretty open minded circle. Most of the girls regard trannies reasonably favourably. They refer to them as she not he. But even they have limits. There was some befrocked english geezer really got up their noses for using the ladies. I’m surprised he survived the experience.
@BF Travesti – man in women’s clothes. Entirely different from chica-trans.
Politically, though, it was still contested. The Bell case further stoked what was already a climate of transphobia in Britain, where conservative politicians have made common cause with some women’s groups, and the celebrity author J.K. Rowling, to claim without convincing evidence that transgender women endanger other women and that children born as girls are being seduced, often while suffering serious mental illness, by what they call “gender ideology” into believing they are transgender boys.
See, bigots? You just hallucinated that male rapist being sent to a women’s prison, and there’s absolutely nothing suspicious about large numbers of teenage girls suddenly wanting to get their tits cut off.
Journalists: the people of the lie.
Amusing: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/17/fire-breaks-out-at-somerset-house-in-london/
Somerset House is now an arts venue and on Saturday was due to be hosting a day of breakdancing
Obviously ignited by the Duke of Somerset & various subsequent royal owners spinning in their graves.
The medical and scientific judgement would be that you are not assigned a sex at birth it is observed. Further, you cannot change your sex. You are, of course wholly and entirely at liberty to change your gender, that societal thing.
Come now, Timmy.
Carrie is well aware of this. What she is demonstrating above is not ignorance, but rather intellectual dishonesty.
Unsurprising, given that “her” whole life is a lie.
Should the disingenuous rantings of a narcissistic bloke in a frock really be classified as ‘feminism’?
Sex can be wrongly assigned at birth, as that gold medallist Algerian boxer has just demonstrated.
Wrongly identified at birth, not assigned.
Marius
Sex can be wrongly identified, as that Algerian boxer wrongly assigned a gold medal has just demonstrated.
@ BraveFart
Imane Kheleif’s sex was accepted as Female by dozens of boxing authorities before the Putin-regime-influenced IBA (disqualified by the IOC) rejected it after she defeated an UZbek female boxer. The other female boxer rejected by said IBA was Taiwanese (also accepted as female by dozens of boxing authorities).
The IBA initially refused to say what test they carried out, then gave two *very* different stories (I think it was reported to be in the same interview …).
Her Italian opponent quit after 46 seconds *without being knocked down* – that is *no* sort of evidence that Imane is male. I have seen more than half-a-dozen one-punch Knock Outs so the difference within genders is frequently greater than that.
John77 – the clue is in the name, Imane Kheleif.
He was too lazy to even change his name to Iwomane Kheleif.
@ Steve
Pathetic!
john77 – I know, I don’t know what he was thinking there.
Also genuinely surprised by the attention this got, if you go to France you can see Algerian men beating up white women all the time.
@ Steve (aka Vladimir’s spokesperson)
Is there *any* of the lies put out by Putin’s crew that you will not endorse?
That’s no woman, that’s a man, baby, yeah!
It seems that Khelief is one of the roughly 1 in 10,000 unfortunates born with genuine intersex conditions of various types. Despite having XY chromosomes, the baby presented at birth as a typical female and was brought up accordingly. But at puberty the sex hormones (mainly testosterone) kick in, with the result that there’s a greater resemblance to male muscular and skeletal development than to female.
The simple solution is not to say anyone can be whichever sex they choose at any particular instant, simply by declaring themselves to be so, but rather for all sports to be divided into an open category in which all can compete, and a female category reserved for those with both XX chromosomes and levels of testosterone not excessive for females at any point in their development.
Having said that, it was hard to avoid the conclusion when watching the Olympics that many world class athletes are genetic freaks of one kind or another. None of us are going to run as fast as Usain Bolt, no matter how many hours of training we put in, from however early an age.
@Chris Miller
Wouldn’t be simpler to just say to these one in ten thousand people. Sorry, sports not for you. Why don’t you take up macrame? It’s not as if taking part in sport is obligatory. Some people in life lose out. Tough. Get over it.
I was thinking the other day that the obvious solution to the whole trans issue would be to revise all laws that talk about men and women, male and female etc etc and replace all such mentions with two categories, XX and XY chromosomes. That ends the whole issue, because no-one can change their chromosomes. Whatever category you’re born into is the one you’re stuck with til you die.
Or am I missing something?
OT but this is literally unbelievable.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2024/08/17/prince-harry-meghan-quasi-royal-tour-apologise-slave-trade/
Prince Harry should apologise for slavery, Colombian townsfolk say
This I sincerely doubt. The Colombians are fully aware that Britain had very little to do with slavery in Colombia. The defeat of the British at the battle of Cartagena ended the short period of British involvement. For a start, the proportion of Colombians of African descent is relatively small & largely confined to the Caribbean coastal region. They are, however, quite aware of Spanish involvement in slavery. But since nearly 90% of Colombians have Spanish blood, it really isn’t an issue. And they’re also aware Colombia would not exist without the British. It was the Legion Britanica and the Rifles Battalion’s aid to Bolivar won the crucial battle at Boyacá. Which defeated the Spanish Army & gave Gran Colombia its final independence. There’s a memorial to them at the site.
If you can detect a specific virus from a q-tip stuck up your nose I suspect you can also detect an XY chromosome from a cheek swab or a blood test.
Is there *any* of the lies put out by Putin’s crew that you will not endorse?
Did you write that after one too many? I wasn’t aware that calling out obvious males who failed a sex test was spreading Putinist lies. Does that count for the Taiwanese bloke who stole a medal in similar fashion too?
I suspect Chris Miller is correct, these people are intersex with male chromosomes which gives them a significant advantage over women in combat sports. And on that I agree with BiS – they should simply not be allowed to compete.
Even though intersex people of this (or any) are very rare, they are much more likely to crop up in women’s sport due to the massive advantage their sex brings them.
If you can detect a specific virus from a q-tip stuck up your nose I suspect you can also detect an XY chromosome from a cheek swab or a blood test.
I read somewhere that it only takes a minute to do a chromosome test, if that is the case it would save a lot of trouble if all babies were tested as part of the battery of tests that are done just after birth and recorded on birth certificates.
@BiND
Dear, oh dear, oh dear. That will never do! You are using logic and common sense. /s
In any case, by the time such a system is implemented there will be a new craze in progress.
No one is cis and no one was assigned anything at birth, so the bloke is talking bollocks from the outset and nothing he says should be taken with anything other than a grain of salt. We are born male or female (a miniscule number of intersex people doesn’t change this) and you cannot change sex. So-called sex change therapy is hideously medieval and surgeons carrying it out deserve to be struck off.
john77: ’ accepted as Female by dozens of boxing authorities before the Putin-regime-influenced IBA…’
I’d have thought he had enough on his plate with war with Ukraine without finding time for plotting to…interfere in women’s boxing?
It could be that maybe you’re just a little bit paranoid?
’@ Steve (aka Vladimir’s spokesperson)
Is there *any* of the lies put out by Putin’s crew that you will not endorse?’
The prosecution rests.
@ Marius
The only people who say that she failed a sex test was the Russian-influenced IBA after she defeated a CIS# boxer – before that bout she had been allowed by the IBA to box, presumably having passed their sex test – and she has passed the tests for twenty other, mostly international, bouts. The other female boxer accused by the IBA was Taiwanese: again on political grounds, again despite having passed more than a dozen sex tests previously.
The IBA initially refused to say what test they had “failed”, later it gave two different versions *in the same press conference*.
No, I had *not* had one too many (unless you are referring to too many comments by Steve)
If you had read a bit more about it you would have seen that the IBA has been de-recognised by the IOC for a list of reasons including “fixing” results. It couldn’t fix the results it wanted for these two so it made up a claim they were “not female”.
#CIS here mean “Commonwealth of Independent States” – part of former USSR choosing to remain under Russian influence
@ Chris Miller
No-one has said the two boxers are XY except the second, or was it third?, version of the IBA’s explanation.
If she was, then she would be a lot stronger, but she does not appear to be outside the range of female strength and won most of her bouts on points, through skill rather than strength – I read one comment that she won every round in each fight. One stoppage in four bouts – that’s not abnormal: I have known guys with a higher stoppage rate and the only time I watched Women boxing the stoppage rate was higher than one in four.
Khelif passed the IOC sex tests in Tokyo. Has she changed chromosomes since then?
@ Chris Miller
Yes, I agree with your suggestion.
I have muttered words to the same effect in the past.
Dear John77
Bravo in refuting the stereotype that trans advocates are all mad frothing cunts.
My mate went to Russia and all I got was this ugly Algerian He-She.
John. I think you’re looking at this in the wrong direction. Unless my lying eyes are deceiving me. Because if I saw either of those “female” boxers down the pub in a t-shirt & jeans I’d be thinking geezer. There is a difference between blokes & birds we’re all aware of. That’s the outcome of genetics. What you’re talking about is the nuances of genetics behind that fact. All very interesting but it doesn’t alter the outcome. They’re obviously geezers.
Personally I have all the confidence in the IBA & the IOC as I’d have in a used car dealer. They’re both at heart political organisations. They will produce rulings that suit their political aims at the time. Pretty well all organisations are like this. Money & power.
I don’t follow boxing. I do follow powerlifting a bit.
There are several leagues who have ruled that a male (someone raised as male, with XY chromosome, and gone through puberty as male) can compete as a woman provided they take blockers for a year and test as having a low level of testosterone.
This is a completely wrongheaded ruling. Note that for the same league, a woman (XX) who tests too high for testosterone even once can be eliminated, while a male can have high (natural) testosterone for decades, train while at that level, then artificially depress the level for a short time and pass.
If the boxing authorities are like this (and there’s no reason to suspect they aren’t), then they have let ideology rule over science and cannot be trusted.
That “dozens of boxing authorities” have ruled this person female is like saying “dozens of people have ruled the Earth is flat”. Doesn’t make it so.
Boxing is a great sport, in fact it’s the ultimate sport imo.
It takes more than just athletic ability to be a champ, you’ve got to have heart, determination and courage to go into a ring with another man and throw punches until he or you falls down. Tyson Fury is a personal hero of mine. Greatest living British sportsman.
Idk why anyone would want to watch women fighting tho, that’s just sad. Women should be having babies and making cakes, not getting a brain aneurysm from being battered in the face.
I don’t know Steve, I’d watch someone punch the crap out of a lot of the female politicians for sport. That bloke who won the woman’s Olympic gold would be perfect.
@ Julia M
Totalitarian states have track records for using sport as part of their PR: e.g. Hitler in the 1936 Olympics (and a range of other events), East Germany with drugging its female swimmers, runners, almost anything, Russia with performance drugs, several Warsaw Pact countries feeding their weightlifters steroids.
Putin doesn’t have to take personal time off for it – he’s got a small team working on sport full-time. One of the several reasons for the IOC de-recognising the IBA was that it is mainly funded by GazProm.
I am not paranoid, merely observant (and if I was paranoid it wouldn’t invalidate my comments).
@ M
It isn’t a question of how flat the earth is or isn’t.
One discredited, politically-motivated, group has said she failed an unspecified test while dozens of well-respected groups have said that she passed their test. I have heard no claim that anyone queried her competing in the Tokyo Olympics.
Whom to believe, Putin’s lackeys or the IOC?
@ bis
*You* think they are obviously geezers. Imane Khelif has lived all her life as a woman so it seems that you are in a minority
There are rare cases of XX/XY chimerism. Affected individuals may appear to be unambiguously female or unambiguously male. Karotyping will show some mix of XY and XX cells, possibly with a large majority or one type, which may vary according to how the cell sample is taken.
It would make some sense to bar anyone with any Y chromosomes from competing in women-only sports. But it would be wrong to say that a person who appears to be female and has 99% XX cells is not a woman.
Imane Khelif has lived all her life as a woman
What difference does that make? The whole basis of the medical condition is that the genitals say one thing but the hormone production says another. Someone expressing male hormones will develop with a male physique.
This is sport. Where the rule is not “should I cheat?’ but “can I get away with cheating?” Common to all sports.
You have it with running now where high tech footwear can knock seconds of times. So races are decided by who’s got the extra few hundred quid.
@ bis
Rubbish!
I have an extra few hundred quid but I should *never* buy shoes that gave me an unfair advantage.
As to your views on Miss Khelif – if she had developed a male physique she would have won three bouts on stoppages to one on points instead of three on points and one on the Italian women quitting without having been knocked down. Her victories have reportedly been through superior skill, outpointing her opponents in every completed round.
FYI since you seem to know rather little about Amateur Boxing, it is very rare for any bout where the first round is won through a more skilful but weaker boxer being sufficiently battered in two-and-a-half minutes for the less skilful boxer to win the round to actually last three rounds. It does sometimes happen that a stronger but less skilful boxer will win the third round on points if his opponent is tired, but the first round???
John – Whom to believe, Putin’s lackeys or the IOC?
Yes, the International Olympic Committee is one of the Trusted Things of today’s world. Up there with the WHO and the UNRWA for honesty and integrity.
Joe – I know what you mean but I’m a soft hearted liberal.
So, lions.
I prefer to know nothing about amateur boxing, John. Anyone who participates needs their head examining. Before the bout not after. I regard fighting as something to be avoided at all costs. Preferably someone else’s.
“There are rare cases of XX/XY chimerism”
Hmm, I’d say mosaicism but still. There was one around where someone was claiming that an XY had had a baby – the female way. Therefore and thus etc…..
But it wsa the one single noted case of mosaicism, with the concentration being in the ovaries. One of out 8 billion does not a great case make…..
@ bis
Your choice, but it means that you lack the ability to appreciate that a male welterweight who was good enough to win rounds on points would finish off almost any female opponent in the same weight division within two rounds. Females inevitably carry more bodyfat so will be in a higher weight division than a man with equal bone, muscle and reach so have a major disadvantage against men the same weight.
Miss Khelif won her Gold Medal on points – so skill not strength.
“There are rare cases of XX/XY chimerism”
Hmm, I’d say mosaicism but still.
I wrote ‘chimerism’ because that’s what I meant. XX/XY chimeras are thought usually to arise from the fusion of non-identical twins of different sexes. Of course it’s rare in an apparently normal individual, but no one knows how rare, because karotyping is not routinely done.
Why is all this shit backwards? Women, unable to compete against men in sport, wish to have their own competitions. It’s their party. If they don’t consider a person is a woman, why are they obliged to invite them?
It’s this ludicrous idea of “rights” & this is where it always ends up. A minority often a very small one, holding the whip hand over the majority.
There are only obligations. And why should people be forced into obligations against their will?
The IOC stopped doing chromosome tests years ago, and a spokesman said recently that they rely on what it says on the particular individuals passport.
Now, according to the UK Gov website, if you self identify as a woman you can get it printed on your passport and hey presto, your in.
Has Venus Williams ever had a chromosome test or was it just down to the anabolic stair rods?
@Chris Miller – “all sports to be divided into an open category in which all can compete, and a female category …”
That’s pretty much the current position. If women want to compete against men, either they are already allowed, or there is not much resistance to changing the rules.
@Tim Worstall – “But it wsa the one single noted case of mosaicism”
There are four cases listed on the Wikipedia page for Human chimera (which is different to mosaicism, which is a mutation rather than a fusion of two cells). But it’s impossible to tell how widespread it is because chimeras show no symptoms and can only be detected by some form of contradictory DNA test (e.g. Lydia Fairchild whose initial DNA test showed she could not be the mother of her children, and only because it was important and she had heard of another case was she more thoroughly tested and found to have two sets of DNA).
Re everyone being either XX or XY:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_chromosome_anomalies
45, X, also known as Turner syndrome
45,X/46,XY mosaicism, also known as X0/XY mosaicism and mixed gonadal dysgenesis
46, XX/XY
47, XXX, also known as Triple X syndrome and trisomy X
47, XXY, also known as Klinefelter syndrome
47, XYY, also known as Jacobs syndrome
48, XXXX, also known as tetrasomy X
48, XXXY
48, XXYY
48, XYYY
49, XXXXY
49, XYYYY
49, XXXXX, also known as pentasomy X
XX gonadal dysgenesis
XY gonadal dysgenesis, also known as Swyer syndrome
XX male syndrome, also known as de la Chapelle syndrome
The latter is particularly relevant to the discussion as it makes “XX = female” not entirely true. Roughly, the X inherited from the father can accidentally contain genetic material that comes from the father’s Y chromosome, enough to produce male development:
“In 90 percent of these individuals, the syndrome is caused by the Y chromosome’s SRY gene, which triggers male reproductive development, being atypically included in the crossing over of genetic information that takes place between the pseudoautosomal regions of the X and Y chromosomes during meiosis in the father.[2][7] When the X with the SRY gene combines with a normal X from the mother during fertilization, the result is an XX male. Less common are SRY-negative XX males, which can be caused by a mutation in an autosomal or X chromosomal gene.[2] The masculinization of XX males is variable.
@Charles
“That’s pretty much the current position. If women want to compete against men, either they are already allowed, or there is not much resistance to changing the rules”
It’s true that CM was suggesting only a relatively small tweak – how many females would really want to compete in a male division in sports where there’s a large performance disadvantage? And you’re right that the likes of darts, snooker, chess and others have this kind of set-up, where women can compete in open competition against men or in women’s competitions that are intended to give women a route into the elite level of a traditionally male-heavy sport.
But notably those aren’t sports where women have big physiological disadvantages (if there aren’t many women competing at the top level, that’s partly just a result of the low numbers competing at lower levels) and more importantly there are few safety concerns from women competing against men. That makes them pretty rare exceptions.
In a lot of large, mainstream sports like football and rugby, the competition is much more strictly divided between males and females (at least above a certain, rather low, age) and these rules are very hard set, with no chance of them changing soon. CM’s suggestion would allow females to compete against men at their own risk, but many governing bodies don’t wish to permit this – perhaps fearing the inevitable court cases when the injuries happen. So really we are much further from CM’s suggestion than you’re implying.
Re everyone being either XX or XY:
Universal statements about living creatures in general (and humans in particular) are nearly always subject to exceptions, but the statement “more than 99.97% of humans are either XX or XY” is correct. If I state that humans are quadrupeds with two arms and two legs, quibblers may complain that there are unfortunates with fewer (or even additional) appendages, but I would claim that my statement is both accurate and helpful.