icouldtelltheworld

Thanks for your response mate - in answer to your questions about what I would do were it my child, the brutal answer is that I simply don't know. There is so much to balance with this argument and all of us will probably seem ignorant on the issue when we look back on things in 20 years time (hopefully my attempts at being honest and rational in dealing with trans rights came across in my initial post). There are two issues here - trans people obviously deserve protection and are clearly at greater risk of a number of harms, but I also think that if we're putting people on an irreversible journey of gender reassignment surgery then there needs to be appropriate safeguards in place to protect children and ensure that the decision they make is right. There was a court judgement in the UK yesterday about whether or not children can reasonably consent to undergoing surgery, brought about by a 'detransitioner' who regrets undergoing surgery. In future cases, it is likely that the courts will need to make a decision on whether children can adaquately consent to puberty blockers. You may find it interesting to read about the judgement. There is obviously a very difficult balancing act to be performed between giving trans people appropriate treatment and safeguarding children from making a decision that they later regret. Again, I have no answer one way or the other on this, I simply recognise that gender reassignment poses child safeguarding issues that we must take account of. With regards to trans life expectancy - you're right, a life expectancy of just 35 is medieval. It's also an entirely false statistic. The often cited life expectancy of 35 years seems to be a misreading of the findings of a study into homocides of LGBTQ people who had been murdered in Latin America, which found that the average age of victims in the examined cases was 35. Somewhere along the line a bit of Chinese whispers seems to have taken place and many people have repeated the line that the life expectancy of trans people in America is 35, but this is patently untrue (there is some more info at this link if you'd like to see it) I agree with entirely that the bathroom issue is a noisy non-issue that does nothing to help trans people or to further the debate, but I also think that the spreading of fake statistics and sensational arguments does nothing to help trans people either (certainly not accusing you of deliberately spreading false information - but I think it's important that we establish fact from fiction when dealing with such a delicate and sensitive topic). There may well be no precedent of men dressing up as women to attack men, but unfortunately there have been cases of anatomically-male trans women attacking other inmates in female prisons here in the UK. Do I think that affording greater rights and awareness to trans people is going to set off an epidemic of men dressing up as women to access spaces and attack women? No, of course I don't. However, do I understand the anxiety of women around allowing trans women with male sexual functioning into single-sex spaces for vulnerable women (rape crisis centres, prisons, domestic abuse shelters etc.) - yes, having followed the debate closley I do believe that those anxieties are entirely reasonable, albeit at times exaggerated by certain people. As a final counter point, trans people are evidently at a greater risk of both serious violence and suicide, as are LGBT people more generally. My view on this is that it is patriarchy, heteronormativity and the still prevalant aggressive masculinity are the reasons behind this. I don't think that it is at all contradictory to agree that more needs to be done to safeguard trans people at the same time as having an open and honest discussion about some of the anxieties arising from the wider transgender debate.

Struggling at the moment, he'll be fine in the end but really needs to gain some confidence. Was nice to see him consoling Trez after his miss

The good and the bad from him tonight, looked unplayable at times but really needs to lose the petulance from his game

Hard pressed to remember a more frustrating game. We looked so good first half, second half just not up to standard - have to start taking our chances, we can't keep saying "9 times out of 10 we win that" when the same thing keeps happening

**** VAR

Absolutely pathetic second half

The outcome of this trial on Tuesday may have a significant impact on the prescription of puberty blockers and treatment of gender dysphoria in children under the age of 17. Legal action has been brought against the Tavistock gender clinic by an ex-patient who now regrets undergoing hormone treatment and claims that they should have been challenged more vigorously by health professionals. At the heart of the issue is the degree to which children can give consent to treatment and the suitability of the affirmation model advocated by groups such as Mermaids and Stonewall. As with so much of this topic, this is a messy and complex issue that will likely be the source of much debate for a long time to come.

I wasn't going to contribute to this thread, but I will as I think that I may be able to make a few points that are worthy of consideration. As a disclaimer, I've not read through all of the replies on this thread, so apologies if any of this goes over old ground - I'd like to point out that from what I've read through there seems to be a good and reasonable standard of debate here on what is a very sensitive issue. It's really refreshing to see when you consider some of the vitriolic discourse that takes place on other platforms. There are a few points that I think are worth bringing up in relation to the wider trans debate that is currently playing out in society. This is an issue that I feel we have only begun to touch the surface of, and I imagine in 20 years time we will look back on our debates around the topic and will probably conclude that there was a fair deal of ignorance and bad-faith arguments from both sides. I'm certainly no expert on trans issues, but I have tried to follow the gender debate and to approach it as rationally as I can. The first thing to note is that we used to talk of people being transexual, whereas we now talk about people being transgender. This is a significant shift in the language. As I'm sure has been covered in detail elsewhere, there is a distinction to be drawn between biological sex and gender roles, which are generally considered to be a product of social construction. The degree to which gender is socially constructed is up for debate - I think that most of us would probably think it's fair to state that gender roles are partial social constructions with at least some basis in biology. Some adherents of gender theory argue that the idea of biological sex itself is socially constructed - this is pretty loopy thinking IMO, but your view may differ from mine. It is important to mention here that many transexuals who have been through sex-reassignment surgery are critical of gender ideology, and reject the premise that gender identity is the central defining issue in the trans experience (I'd be happy to provide links to some videos etc. if anyone would be interested in hearing those voices). It is important to look at what groups such as Stonewall and the more vocal trans rights advocates are campaigning for. They are arguing for a demedicalisation of gender dysphoria and for the right of transgender individuals to 'self-ID'. In layman's terms, they want to remove the need for formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria and allow people to self-determine their gender identity. This is already the case in some other countries (Ireland is a good nearby example), where people have the right 'identify' as being of the opposite gender if that matches their 'gender identity'. At this point, the person must legally be treated as being of their self-declared gender. The introduction of self-ID was recently rejected by the UK government - I don't often agree with our current Tory overlords, but I do agree with their decision on self-ID. As we are now concerned primarily with gender and not biological sex, there is no requirement to undergo any reassignment surgery. All that a trans woman (or trans man, for that matter) needs to do is to begin living as their preferred gender. I have two transgender friends, and am largely of the opinion that we should live and let live. However, in a situation where someone can legally change their gender without any particular medical or professional process in place, you can begin to see why some women and women's groups are concerned about the capacity for changes in the way we treat gender dysphoria to begin impinging of hard-won sex-based female rights. I think the sensationalisation of this issue doesn't help - the point isn't that trans people are a threat to women per se, but rather that a significant minority of men are a significant danger to women, and a system of self-ID is potentially open to abuse. That women in prisons (the vast majority of whom have experienced abuse of some kind) and those in domestic abuse shelters may be wary of male-bodied people in single sex spaces is IMO fair enough - it is an unfortunate fact of the world that a significant number of male-bodied people do pose a threat to women, and there is clearly a risk of retraumatising survivors of physical/sexual abuse by admitting them into single-sex spaces. This is where the issue becomes tricky, and a you get into a situation where trade-offs need to take place. There are factors within this debate where giving rights to cisgendered people takes away the rights of transgendered people, and vice versa. We must also note some of the other arguments being made by Stonewall and other trans-advocacy groups and individuals. A key issue here is 'affirmation'. What certain trans-rights groups and individuals are advocating for is that people who present with gender dysphoria should be affirmed in their new gender identity as the main course of treatment. What this means, is that 'gender non-confirming' children should not be challenged, but rather affirmed that yes, they do indeed have gender dysphoria and that a medical route of puberty blockers and eventual reassignment therapy could be what is needed. This is a very hot topic and there have been dozens of resignations of doctors from the Tavistock and Portman NHS gender clinic around this issue. A growing number of people are seeking to 'detransition', and I'd imagine there will be lawsuits over this over the coming years. This is something that JK Rowling alluded to her 'transphobic' essay - given the propensity of teenagers to go through phases and experiment with things like their sexuality, it is not too much of a stretch to consider that they may also experiment with their gender identity. In most cases, it could be argued that no medicalisation is needed and things will work out the way they work out. There is also some fairly troubling evidence to children with autism and certain other conditions may be more prone to gender dysphoria - it is far from certain that an affirmation of gender identity is the best course of action here. It is not just feminists that are concerned about affirmation - a number of my gay friends have concerns too. There is a risk that children who would have grown up to be effeminate gay men or butch lesbian women are being set on a path of gender reassignment that may not be appropriate for them. Some gender dysphoria doctors have hypothesised that the recent growth in young people presenting with dysphoria may be driven by their parents' internalised homophobia. This is a topic that we need to have a reasoned and open debate about, I don't think idiots like Germaine Greer are helpful, but nor do I think that the shutting down of any questioning of the accepted tenets of gender theory as 'transphobic' helps either. Unfortunately, this has become an issue in the wider culture wars and I think a large number of people on both sides of the debate are merely picking sides and shutting down reasonable debate. There is an interesting and detailed article here from a doctor who resigned from the Tavistock centre that people may wish to read through: https://quillette.com/2020/01/17/why-i-resigned-from-tavistock-trans-identified-children-need-therapy-not-just-affirmation-and-drugs/ As a final point - it's refreshing to have a space on the internet where these things can be spoken about rationally and sensibly without the hatred that you encounter elsewhere. If we can agree on one thing I'm sure it's that VT is a great place to be.

Pleased for him to get MOTM and its great to see that the rest of the footballing world has cottoned on to what we've been seeing for years. I actually thought he was pretty quiet last night and nowhere near his best, which just goes to show how good he really is on his day I suppose

Think you mean Aaron McShibola mate

Fantastic from start to finish - top marks to everyone tonight. Chuffed

Had a largely excellent start to the season, clearly a hard worker. I like him a lot

Expected a loss but not good enough on the day even so. Trezeguet made a difference when he came on and can take some heart from the way we responded to going 4 down, probably should've made it a little more nervy for them with the chances we ended up creating.

Great article from the Athletic about the changes we've made - some really positive and exciting stuff here

Love it towards the end when he talks about character being vital with the players we sign. You can completely see that in the way that the likes of Trez, Luiz, Keinan, Konsa and Targett have improved over the past year. Players who want to learn, want to improve and are part of a positive culture. After years of being ripped off by mercenaries this is the most refreshing thing for me. I have full faith in Dean and never wanted him sacked (not saying that to boast- I can understand why others had their doubts). He just comes across as calm, measured, analytical and exactly what this club has needed for as long as i can remember. I might be biased as I'm local to North Brum but I really feel that Dean gets it and is truly one of us - IMO whatever happens from here on in, he will be judged kindly in the history of this great club

Think we will get 2 wins, a draw and 2 losses so 7 points, which would leave us in a fantastic position after 9 games. Hope but I'm wrong but have a feeling that we will be brought down to earth tomorrow and Leeds will get a scrappy win

Looks a completely different player to the one who joined us last year. Deserves huge credit for the hard work he has clearly put in - not the most technically gifted but really seems to get the most out of his talent. I've become a real fan of his effort and endeavour

Great start to the season, but we've only played 3 poor teams so far. Tougher challenges to come

Serious league title contenders this year boys

Could be a tasty addition to the squad

You might have a point - certainly wouldn't be the first time!

Point is that someone took it in the first place I guess, nowadays it's always likely to end up on the internet. Silly really, he's such a high profile character that something like this will obviously end up getting out somehow

We've now got by far the best team that we've had in at least 10 years, over to Dean now to get the best out of them. I'm sure that he's relishing the challenge

Idiots, we signed him last summer FFS!

I agree that he's a fantastic prospect, but it's tricky in that it's unclear at this stage whether his development would be best aided by staying with us and getting minutes in the cup/off the bench, or going out on loan to a championship team to play week in week out. As there's been talk that he may be going out on loan, you'd imagine it's a decision that the hierarchy have been weighing up too