When is A Woman not A Woman?
…when she has a vagina, apparently. Germaine Greer is a woman, but not one at the top of Cardiff University’s Student Union Christmas card list. Why? Because she dares to mention the unmentionable, that transsexuals aren’t actually women while they’ve still got their meat & two veg intact – like Bruce Jenner, soon to be named ‘Woman of the Year’ in his current incarnation as ‘Caitlyn’. Apparently, all it takes to be a woman these days is to look like one, or one who’s been airbrushed into a 65-year-old man’s idea of a woman. Even Andy Warhol, in a rare candid moment during his infamous interview with David Bailey in 1973, pointed out that his admittedly entertaining drag queen Superstars such as Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn were mere poseurs because ‘they’ve never had a period’. Salient point in 1973; heresy in 2015.
Anyway, one of the few reasons I’m glad I didn’t have any form of higher education is that I bypassed first-hand experience of the first wave of right-on student behaviour in the 1980s. Products of the puritanical punk Year Zero and its strict rules and regulations, I remember the headlines when a bunch protested outside Leeds Polytechnic at a gig by Steve Albini’s Rapeman, a band they thought should be banned on the strength of their name. I also remember how eager that generation of students were to name their college houses after such exemplary role models as Winnie Mandela. They laid down their Stalin-esque Ten Commandments with an earnest absence of humour characteristic of the far left and were rightly mocked for their po-faced PC principles by the generation that followed them.
And now we’ve come full circle again. Once more, students are patronising ‘minorities’ and speaking on their behalf, pigeonholing and labelling them anew, surmising that they’re happy to be defined by one aspect of their personas – without first asking, of course. The proliferation of fresh mouthfuls to pin on outsiders and grouping them together as a community on the strength of one paltry shared characteristic means anyone who isn’t aware of the new world order stands to be accused of some ‘ism’ that’s just been added to the PC lexicon. LGBT – I mean, come on; who wants that millstone hanging round their neck? And am I the only person on the planet who plays ‘the acronym game’ when out and about? Generally, it serves to alleviate pedestrian boredom, but if confronted by humourless gits who insist their branding is imposed upon the whole of society, my instinct is to work overtime on the possible permutations. Larry Grayson Bums Toddlers? Loose Gussets Bugger Tights? Ladies Gobble Big Todgers?
The generation who were the recipients of Blair’s educational reforms are now terrorising the campuses with their totalitarian intolerance, demanding free speech as long as it doesn’t contradict their narrow worldview, promoting endless useless causes in the absence of any worthy ones, and threatening social media vendettas on anyone who dares to decline signing their constant bloody petitions to ban this and censor that. At what point did British Universities begin to resemble North Korean correction centres?
The fact that this clique of fanatical enforcers have the nerve to call Greer a misogynist not only exposes their ignorance of what that word actually means; it highlights just how far from genuine free speech and debate they’ve moved. Disagree with us and you’re the Devil incarnate, even if you’re a woman who has written more eloquently – and wittily – on the female experience than anyone else of the last half-century. Germaine Greer was never a man-hating ‘Millie Tant’ figure ala Bea Campbell; she was a key member of the late 60s/early 70s London Underground who shot to household name status because she issued her own feminist take on the hippy manifesto and found she had a bestseller on her hands, one that reached way beyond the counter-culture drop-in centres of Ladbroke Grove and turned her into the reluctant spokeswoman for that awful media buzz-word, ‘Women’s Lib’. She’s also the only author to ever have replied to a letter of mine, around fifteen years back, so I know she has a heart.
Greer is not someone who will curb her tongue to compliment contemporary mores; she was once shouted down on ‘Question Time’ because she suggested little girls have the power to wrap fathers round their fingers, demonstrating from an early age that they’re in possession of a potent sexual weapon. And now she has questioned the right of men either midway through, or at the end of, the surgical process to call themselves women. Isn’t she merely stating the obvious? And who made the Students Union of Cardiff University the official spokespeople for males undergoing gender reassignment? I’d wager it wasn’t the males themselves.
Actually, the Cardiff Politburo didn’t strictly call Greer a misogynist; they called her a Trans-misogynist, which is the adequate label they’ve concocted to slot neatly alongside ‘Transphobia’ – the latest label to blacklist somebody who doesn’t want to wrap transsexuals in cotton wool and pat them on the head for being good little victims of an uncaring society. The Cardiff Stasi want to prevent Greer giving a speech at the University that happens to fall in ‘Trans Awareness Week’, believe it or not. I don’t believe Greer has a ‘problem’ with A Boy Named Sue; she’s just publicly voicing an opinion no doubt shared by many in private.
A few years ago, I even toyed with the idea of gender reassignment myself, partly because I envied the frivolous freedoms women enjoy where clothes are concerned whilst men are encased within a sartorial straitjacket that any slight veering from can make life hard going at times; and partly because I was in a relationship with a lesbian that couldn’t be consummated for fairly evident reasons. My GP put me in touch with someone who’d been through it – an inspired move, as it turned out. The strength of will it takes to endure the surgery and then recover from it was something I’d been ignorant of before; this person had been completely disowned by their family, yet felt the sacrifice was worth it. I realised I wasn’t committed enough and didn’t want it badly enough. I changed my mind. Besides, just because I’d never been at ease with being a man didn’t necessarily mean I’d be at ease becoming a woman. How much of our own gender identity is pure psycho-social conditioning, anyway?
Therefore, I remain an uncategorised enigma within the endless minority sub-sections of society. I don’t belong to a ‘community’ that is policed by the storm-troopers of Cardiff University and I can’t summon up an appropriate phobia of which to accuse any stranger who takes it upon themselves to hurl abuse at me. Having said that, I’m quite content with it; I don’t want to be defined by how I look or by the fact that I’m a square peg or a black sheep. I like that, and I don’t want to be taken up as a cause by borderline fascists who suffer from a sense of humour bypass.
One would like to think when this generation of students graduate their reign of terror will gradually subside. That may be true in the universities, but there’s the uncomfortable truth that they will then be unleashed upon the outside world. You have been warned…
Petunia Winegum
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October 28, 2015 at 9:22 am -
“…that transsexuals aren’t actually women while they’ve still got their meat & two veg intact…”
Nor are they afterwards, no matter what the law may claim.
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October 28, 2015 at 11:07 am -
+1
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October 28, 2015 at 3:27 pm -
Nor ever will be. Male to female transgenders will never have ovaries, and their endochrine system is wrong. There’s more to womanhood than the possession of a vagina. According to my wife and both stepdaughters that is. Same as there’s more to manhood than the mere possession of a penis. Which is the black hole in the SJW’s protestations.
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October 28, 2015 at 9:24 am -
Has Ms Greer dared to mention the fact that male to ‘female’ trans persons will always have Y-chromosomes in every cell in their bodies, thus making them inescapably male, regardless of how they allow their bodies to be mutilated? Similarly, women to ‘men’ won’t get Y-chromosomes. I can hear the cries of discrimination as they are denied them on the NHS!
Have you noticed that transgender issues and ‘transphobia’ are all the rage just now? It’s yet another part of the divide and conquer agenda, yet another issue with which to attack free speech and yet another ‘option’ on the ‘sexuality’ smörgåsbord (my spell checker put those accents on the vowels) to create dysfunction in society.
But when the government encourages half of school leavers to go on to tertiary ‘education’ it is hardly surprising that many have ‘better’ things to do than study for their degree course in Tea Cosy Design & Manufacture.
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October 28, 2015 at 9:30 am -
Posted this on Longrider a while back: My best mate growing up was a 6ft 4″, hard as nails, 12 pints of SnakeBite, soldier. Overcompensation, much? One day, after I met up with him after several years of no contact, he told me he was infact a girl and was going to have the OP. Lost for anything much to say I managed to stutter “I’ve loved you as a brother, I can love you as a sister”…which, more by sheer luck than design, was apparently the best thing to say in such a situation.
I then went and got Caroline Cossey’s ( the trans-girl who became a ‘Bond Girl’) book out of the library- this was pre-internet. I knew that the OP was possible but nothing more than that. I’m hard to shock and have a fairly strong stomach but when I got to the bit about peeling the penis like a banana, I had to put the book down and wait for my own nuts to unclench and redescend before reading further. Figured any man who would voluntarily put themselves through THAT must really be a woman. Not only voluntarily put themselves through it but have to FIGHT to get the OP on the NHS after proving themselves ‘worthy’ in the eyes of Charing X clinic.A few months after starting “to live as a woman” (god, that is an insulting phrase), my friend was beaten to a pulp by the local red necks. People she’d have dismembered only months before if they had even looked at her wrong. She almost lost an eye from the beating. As she sat at my house sobbing her heart out I suddenly ‘saw’ a woman before me and all I wanted to do was put my arm around her and kiss it better.
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October 28, 2015 at 10:09 am -
It’s amazing what people are frightened of to react in such a horrendous manner.
I think it is heartbreaking when someone feels so dysfunctional, but personally I feel that counselling is the way to go.
I think that, because it is now so high profile, more people consider a ‘sex change’ whereas in the past it wouldn’t have occurred to them.
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October 28, 2015 at 10:39 am -
If you suffer from that mental illness that makes you think there’s something wrong with your legs or hands or other body part (‘body dysmorphia’..?) the NHS won’t amputate. They will treat you as mentally ill (which you are).
But if you believe you’re a woman/man, they’ll happily lop pieces off or stitch them on.
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October 28, 2015 at 11:02 am -
But if you believe you’re a woman/man, they’ll happily lop pieces off or stitch them on
actually they won’t…or at least back when my mate was ‘transitioning’ (sorry mate but that makes you sound like a friggin butterfly) it was a long long looOOOOng process to get the ‘op’. I think i can say that no one who did finally get the ‘ok’ from CharingX was in any doubt about their gender (or ‘irrevocably delusional’ if you prefer). Things have probably changed now but I know my mate fought for years.
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October 28, 2015 at 11:50 am -
Many years ago I listened to a programme on Radio 4 about this unnerving desire that some people have, and I thought that a very limited number of amputations WERE being performed by the NHS. I may be mistaken, though – here is an article which raises some of the issues & suggests that perhaps while NHS-facilities were used the patient paid for their stay & the surgeon waived their fee:
http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice/specialisms/wound-care/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-amputate-a-healthy-limb/5074324.article
Frankly, I find it too sad to investigate further.-
October 29, 2015 at 11:35 pm -
Here is a link to an old article I wrote about that with some comment from the legendary Dr Spector, a specialist in castration for any reason who was much loved by all his patients:
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/boxing-helena-2000/
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October 28, 2015 at 1:01 pm -
I read a Kindle ebook book about that once. Apparently when they actually do have the body part cut off, patients are very happy afterwards. They are fully intellectually aware that they will be disabled afterwards, but still opt for it.
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October 28, 2015 at 10:52 am -
when someone feels so dysfunctional,
Not sure I would describe my mate as having been ‘dysfunctional’-although it depends I suppose on the definition. Something she said , during one of our many late night chats (newly ‘converted’ myself I was trying to missionary her…oh boy, now there’s an unwanted mental picture), has stayed with me. She described growing up-for as long as she could recall- with a feeling of alienation, of being ‘different’ until one day she was flicking through one of her Dad’s porn mags (she had found his stash) and came across an ‘article’ about a Transgirl. She described her ‘epiphany’ of , in that instant, knowing that she was infact a girl.
Strangely enough that mirrors pretty much the experience of every gay bloke I have ever talked to. The feeling of ‘different’ and then a ‘epiphany’, the realisation of how they were different. It also mirrors an experience I had regarding my own sexuality. I doubt many Trannys or gays awaken one morning after the age of majority and suddenly decide they prefer boys to girls or want to own a vagina. Indeed many trannys have said they quite enjoyed having a penis…it is indeed a useful bit of kit.
After this ‘epiphany’ she started to OVERCOMPENSATE to the point of beating up coppers and having stomach muscles you could literally smack with a iron bar , again like so many of the gay guys I know (something which has perhaps now changed since the 80s when to simply wear a pink tshirt was to ask for a kicking at school).
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October 28, 2015 at 9:35 am -
I was at Cambridge with Germaine – I don’t know about vaginas but she was a right pain in the arse. I liked her though. She had a brilliant book out a few years back illustrating the beauty of teenage (and legal) young men. Might I point fellow snug sippers at this link to today’s Guardian? http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/27/inside-time-newspaper-prisoners-independent-editor-eric-mcgraw
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October 28, 2015 at 9:56 am -
I have a friend who transitioned from male to female, surgically, physically, psychologically, socially – she’s married to a man, helps bring up his children and grandchildren. She was recently seen by a private (well known and respected) health company following an incident in which she collapsed. The consultant examining her asked her “when did she have her hysterectomy”? My friend was well chuffed – her operation had been so good the consultant could not tell she had never had a womb.
The point being – you can live your life these days in whichever way you see yourself. The only people to whom these things really matter are physicians. If I meet someone with a beard, wearing a dress (it has happened), you quickly work out whether this is drag/lifestyle. It’s up to the two of you to work out how you see each other. (One troubled soul I knew who cross-dressed while not wanting a sex change referred to himself as a “gender illusionist”). Relationships are about the people in them – how they see each other is down to them.
As to Germaine – she has every right to express her opinion, wherever, however, whatever it is – but I don’t always see the NEED to express an opinion. Still. a good spat can help pass the time (guilty as charged), or help promote whatever commercial venture is upcoming.
Petunia – for another take, I found this interesting:
What weirded me out recently: my sister asked me (she’s 65, and this is nearly 40 years after I came out) while we were lazing in her garden, if I had ever considered a sex-change, because I was “always flamboyant and loudly dressed and used to buy clothes from girl shops”. I tried to explain that being gay meant I enjoyed my own genitalia very much and others that worked and were shaped pretty much like it. The idea of wanting to change them to suit the clothes I liked to wear was a complete confusion to me, although I agree with you Petunia “men are encased within a sartorial straitjacket that any slight veering from can make life hard going at times”… but those are the choices we make, n’est ce pas?
Fnally, I have long argued for T to be dropped off the end of LGB – it’s a completely different issue and confuses things. I think the time would be right, now, as is becoming more apparent. Doesn’t mean we can’t be allies, though.
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October 28, 2015 at 10:01 am -
Fnally, I have long argued for T to be dropped off the end of LGB – it’s a completely different issue and confuses things. I think the time would be right, now, as is becoming more apparent. Doesn’t mean we can’t be allies, though.
+1
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October 28, 2015 at 10:39 am -
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October 28, 2015 at 10:53 am -
actually, as Tranny friendly as I am, that made me snork coffee over the laptop!
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October 28, 2015 at 10:11 am -
The “normalisation” of the past 15 years or so of both “G.A.Y.” and “womanhood” has, it seemed to my jaded outlook, served to make both women and homosexuality seem completely unappealing. “Trans” just seems to be a ghastly combination of both, and all hinged around the least appealing uncultured aspects of narcissism and consumerism, where “femininity” is redefined as OTT shopping, make-up and mincing.
A friend of mine was seeing a woman who is best mates (along with, it would seem, most of the other middle-aged women in the area with a social life) with a local transgender ‘m2f’ earlier this year – they were explaining how she is ‘more of a woman than they are’ as ‘she chose to be a woman’.
I felt it politest not to explain how someone with a builder’s back, bloke’s arse, huge hands, no womb or female hip structure, an adam’s apple and a voice like Julian Clary – not to mention the boat-race – is not my idea of ‘feminine’. -
October 28, 2015 at 10:33 am -
The real giveaway is how so many young trans people become parodies of gender. The perfect ‘Barbies’ or the bearded ‘Action man’ (the beard presumably – like breasts – a designer label of ‘authenticity’). The whole transgender surgical process sounds excruciating – but with so much invested in it you can’t admit to disappointment.
I wonder how the trans ‘boppers’ will fare as their looks fade and the ‘image’ becomes yesterday’s dream?-
October 29, 2015 at 3:55 pm -
“I wonder how the trans ‘boppers’ will fare as their looks fade and the ‘image’ becomes yesterday’s dream?”
They’ll fare pretty much as well as anybody else. About twenty years ago, an acquaintance – Bill I’ll call him, male, biker, ex-miner, divorced, bringing up a son – surprised us all with an announcement that he was transitioning to female. The first time I saw him after his op, he looked to me like Rose West dressed up as Danny la Rue. And he talked in a ridiculous, false ‘feminine’ way that set my teeth on edge. It reinforced my feeling at the time that no transsexual could ever be anything but what their chromosomes dictated ; I was so put off that I made excuses not to to meet him again.
Fast forward a few years and I was a member of a forum; another forum member revealed that she was a male-to-female transsexual and offered to answer our questions about it. She was honest, open, funny, and very patient with the few hostile posters. I related my experience with Bill, and she reassured me that this was overcompensation and very common; Bill would eventually find her own style of dressing and behaviour and settle down.
And lo, Bill soon after contacted me on Facebook with a friend request. She is now living with another woman and her photos show her looking like any smartly-dressed middle-aged woman. She’s happy, aging well and I enjoy chatting with her; for me, she’s definitely a woman.
As for Ms Greer, all I can say is that she’s turned out to be remarkably old-fashioned!
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October 28, 2015 at 10:33 am -
Brilliant piece and spot on in every way.
I’d just like to add that, as an average white hetereosexual man, I just wish the activists for all the various non heterosexual groups, would sometimes just reflect that all I want from people is to be able to meet them and judge them on the strength of their character and skills and am happy to be judged on the same terms. If we get on it will be because we share interests, humour, common experiences from childhood etc etc.
If your only claim to fame is the particular lifestyle choice you have made based on an aspect of your sexuality, and you keep proclaiming it from the rooftops without actually offering any other human trait that is mutually atttractive or beneficial to both of us, then I think it is clear that sexuality or sexual orientation is not what your problem with life is at all.
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October 28, 2015 at 10:42 am -
“I just wish the activists for all the various non heterosexual groups, would sometimes just reflect that all I want from people is to be able to meet them and judge them on the strength of their character and skills …”
I expect the average transexual just wants to get on with their life too, without being an ‘example’ or ‘poster girl/guy’. It’s the noisy 1% that everyone takes as representative that is the main problem.
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October 28, 2015 at 1:00 pm -
It’s the noisy 1% that everyone takes as representative that is the main problem.
And what are they making noise about? My tranny mate was very active in Trans-Rights ie post op trannies getting passports in their new gender, not being sent to male prisons if they had a vagina, not being sacked for having changed their gender (when the job was gender nonspecific of course). But all those battles have been won…what do modern day Trannys have to grizzle about? Do they demand free pink iphone covers? Oh sorry, of course they don’t because gender stereotyping colours is an anathema too.
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October 28, 2015 at 1:11 pm -
TBD, there is a current case of a ‘transgender woman’ being an inmate of a male prison:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-34650486-
October 28, 2015 at 1:30 pm -
October 28, 2015 at 1:51 pm -
Dear god! I thought that one had been ‘dealt’ with long ago. Did she not get a new birth certificate/passport issued after surgery and is so still legally male?
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October 28, 2015 at 1:52 pm -
and yes I shall be signing the petition.
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October 28, 2015 at 2:19 pm -
According to the petition “she has been medically declared a woman by a doctor”, but who knows? The photographs suggest that an environment of captive males really wouldn’t be the best place for her…
Strangely, the Mail’s article has a pre-op man (?!?) being placed in a woman’s jail, which doesn’t seem to suggest there are guidelines in place. Probably not the poster boy/girl/? some would like, though:
“A pre-op transsexual locked up in a women’s jail for a savage torture-killing has been moved to a different prison after claims he was having sex with female inmates.
Murderer Paris Green, 22, who was previously known as Peter Laing, was allowed to serve his 18-year sentence in Cornton Vale women’s prison, in Stirling, because he says he is transgendered.”-
October 29, 2015 at 10:53 am -
Seems the petition worked. Interestingly the Indie article does say that Post Op trannies can get a new BC and thus be incarcerated according to their new gender. I’m assuming Tara was ‘self identifying’ and hadn’t gotten a new BC, which would explain how it came to such a sorry state of affairs. As her supporters noticeably don’t mention the fact of a new BC but went on about ‘lived all her adult life’ and ‘recognised by doctor’… it would seem to be that Tara herself was at fault (sorry dear but your fellow trannies fought for years to have the right to a new BC INORDER to prevent exactly such things from happening).
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October 29, 2015 at 10:56 am -
Strange also that the ‘expert’ comment was from Stonewall. Don’t trannies have their own ‘body’ (if that’s not an unfortunate choice of word) for such things? I’m too long out of it to know but it seems unlikely in this day of every Tomasin, Dick (unfortunate again) and Harriet having a charity fronted campaigning group…
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October 30, 2015 at 12:45 pm -
Stonewall aren’t quite as Trans-friendly as they would like people to think.
Tara Hudson’s problem is that although she has had reassignment surgery and has lived as a woman “all her adult life” (as she’s 26, that’ll be eight years), she hasn’t got a Gender Recognition Certificate. The process of applying for a GRC is beureaucratic, not free, and resented by many trans people, as exemplified by this blog:
http://sarah-savage.com/the-trans-tax-i-refuse-to-beg-for-equality/
Hudson’s case illustrates the whole nonsense of the process, in that someone who lives as a woman, and has both a vagina and breasts, has been sent to an all-male prison for lack of a piece of paper.
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October 30, 2015 at 12:59 pm -
and has both a vagina and breasts, has been sent to an all-male prison for lack of a piece of paper.
Apparently she still has a penis….at least the Indy Article said as much.
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October 30, 2015 at 1:20 pm -
The information on that site is incorrect, at least according to this one:
https://www.gov.uk/apply-gender-recognition-certificateDon’t you think they may be getting a little carried away with themselves? “I refuse to prostrate myself in front of a panel of cisgender overlords and beg for my human rights.” Oh, come on!
Applying for the certificate seems pretty straight forward & help is available with the fee (£140) for those on a low income. (I recently had to renew my passport from overseas and paid over £100 (plus the registered-postage costs to the UK), something which I resented having to do, particularly as my girlfriend only paid €26,02 for a two-day turnaround on HER passport whereas the wait for mine left me ‘stranded without papers’ for a couple of months.)
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October 30, 2015 at 1:31 pm -
“Apparently she still has a penis….at least the Indy Article said as much.”
There seem to be a lot of conflicting reports, and certainly frequent referenecs to “six years of reconstructive surgery” would suggest more than the self-evident boob job. It may be, though, that they’re confusing surgical treatments with non-surgical ones. A friend of mine has been on hormone treatment for over a year, and has thus developed what can be said objectively be said to be a nice petite pair, but still has a long way to go.
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October 30, 2015 at 1:54 pm -
There seem to be a lot of conflicting reports, and certainly frequent referenecs to “six years of reconstructive surgery” .
There seem to be indeed conflicting reports but going by the Indy (yeah I know) it would seem clear that she was on the waiting list for the ‘op’ and hadn’t gotten her GRC. Right or wrong , trannys fought long and hard with TPTB and amongst themselves to get the GRC system set up precisely to avoid this kind of thing happening.
I feel for Tara and she should be moved to a female prison post haste BUT it seems she is as much to blame for her predicament as the Justice Dept/HMPrisons.
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October 30, 2015 at 1:59 pm -
I’m not even sure that the surgery is necessary to be ‘re-classified’:
Apply by the standard route if all the following are true:
– you’re 18 or over
– you’ve been diagnosed with gender dysphoria (discomfort with your birth gender) – this is also called gender identity disorder or transsexualism
– you’ve lived in your acquired gender in the UK for at least 2 years
– you intend to live in your acquired gender for the rest of your lifeBacked-up by the other site which states that: “Genital surgery is not a requirement, although where it has taken place, applicants must supply details.”
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October 29, 2015 at 11:12 am -
Call me naive, but would not a medical would have prevented this? Unless the doctors were taking Germaine’s approach?
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October 29, 2015 at 11:30 am -
Reading the article again more closely “Hudson is awaiting final reassignment surgery and is therefore legally male.” in other words SHE HAS A PENIS. So that would be the reason why she didn’t have a new BC and why a medical wouldn’t have helped.
Female prisons have had problems in the past with still-penis-possessing Trannies. Beginning to wish now I hadn’t signed the bloody petition.
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October 29, 2015 at 11:43 am -
I had assumed that the the penis-removal would have been included as the petition stated: “She has undergone 6 years of reconstructive surgery”. Mind you, I have no idea how long the full procedure takes (and am too squeamish to find out).
A small shout-out for the victim of the drunken bar-room attack perpetrated by the prisoner, too – in all the coverage they seem to have been forgotten. Meanwhile Stonewall say that: “… something must be done [mustn’t it always?!?] now to ensure that Tara is safe and protected in her environment.”
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October 29, 2015 at 12:21 pm -
What is the legal condition of gender assignment? Some males don’t have penises to speak of either by accident or design. The urethra in the female is not the vagina. Caitlin Jenner has a penis I understand in the full sense of the word and therefore no ‘vagina’ which is created by tucking in excavated penile tissue (I think) presumably the waterworks bit is separately channelled (as it is in the penis – just same exit in the male). I don’t think this contingency should be the arbiter of ‘gender’ if you accept the transconcept. If you’ve been maxed up with hormones etc and look and ‘feel’ like the gender then surely should suffice? Or is it about the use and abuse of the ‘member’?
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October 29, 2015 at 12:35 pm -
Or is it about the use and abuse of the ‘member’?
Short answer: YES! A female prison warder once told me that in her prison (in the US I think) all tables, chairs and bedsteads etc were fashioned from BOX section.
Normally I would agree with your definition of gender, it is just this one specific instance. I believe that a pre-op M=>F tranny has no place in a male prison because she will be enough of a woman to be anally raped from morn til dusk and would need to spend her whole stint in solitary, but I doubt many Governors of female prisons would be overjoyed to have to house a penis-bearer either…
Possibly the only ‘workable’ solution is to postpone a sentence until full reassignment is finished or go the non-custodial route. Other European countries will postpone sentences for illness/work etc. Hell, in Germany even serious offenders tend not to get ‘sent down’ straight away if they were on bail before the hearing. They get a letter later telling them when to report to prison. Works no better nor worse than other system.
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October 29, 2015 at 12:41 pm -
Mind you, I have no idea how long the full procedure takes
Neither do I these days but , assuming the NHS waiting lists haven’t gotten any shorter, then I expect they leave doing the IRREVOCABLE op til last just incase….(which is a bit insulting to trannies but probably a prudent strategy).
The preceeding ops will have been for breasts, chin, forehead, voice box etc.
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October 29, 2015 at 1:00 pm -
From what I understand, not all surgical transitions are done on the NHS, so if a person has to pay for it themselves, the whole process takes as long as they need to raise funds.
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October 29, 2015 at 1:25 pm -
TBD, “Possibly the only ‘workable’ solution is to postpone a sentence…”
This might work in some instances but surely not for more serious crimes (like the “savage torture-killing” of the Mail-article).
I’m not totally sure how it works here in Spain but certainly many convicted criminals get to choose – within reason – when they enter prison to complete their sentence. My girlfriend’s brother lost his driving-licence (again) a few years ago but was able to choose when to turn it in (and dig out his bike)… I suppose the thinking is that the loss – be it of your freedom or licence – is the punishment in itself. Certainly for those with dependants it makes a kind of sense. -
October 29, 2015 at 1:49 pm -
This might work in some instances but surely not for more serious crimes
Doubtful that a killer would have been out on bail before trial…which, as I said, seemed to be the proviso in Germany for delayed imprisonment back when I was *cough* actively involved with their legal system.
One does have to bear in mind also that in Germany (and possibly EU-elsewhere) escaping from prison or not turning up for imprisonment isn’t an offence in itself.
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October 29, 2015 at 2:16 pm -
TBD – “escaping from prison or not turning up for imprisonment isn’t an offence in itself” – really?!? I suppose that helping somebody else escape would still be punished, though…
If you have a tale of leaping out of a window into the freezing waters of the Danube, paddling to freedom on a crude raft fashioned from huge tobacco-leaves, I’d love to hear it! Dried sauerkraut in place of papier-mache…
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October 29, 2015 at 2:53 pm -
“escaping from prison or not turning up for imprisonment isn’t an offence in itself” – really?!?
Indeed it is, as is just about anything else involved with a prison break like vandalism of Prison property or assaulting a guard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hoBI1DweTg
Sorry no ‘colditz’ type tales and the short story I once wrote about a tranny I won’t even send to Pet because it is pure filth.
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October 29, 2015 at 3:08 pm -
Bandini-another German legal fun fact: German courts do not require the Accused to swear an oath or affirm the truthfulness of his statement. German judges expect people accused of a crime to lie or only tell ‘half truths’. Witnesses can be made to swear an oath but judges only usually insist on it if there is good reason.
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October 29, 2015 at 4:08 pm -
That sounds quite sensible really, TBD; if the oath was really taken seriously every one being found guilty could expect a few months to be added-on for perverting the course of justice/lying under oath!
It’s quite surprising that attempts at ‘harmonizing’ the differing judicial systems across the EU haven’t taken place – too many interested and entrenched parties, I suppose.There is a case here which has educated me a little about the Spanish system – a grim tale that has the trashier television programmes in a froth: the murder of the adopted daughter of an ‘elite’ lawyer & her journalist husband.
Apparently jury-trials were only introduced in 1995, but only for selected cases & it seems they are used infrequently as there have been many talking-heads explaining what they are (jury trials) and how they work.
One lawyer rather snootily said that “obviously” they couldn’t be used in complicated cases as the plebs wouldn’t be able to understand… maybe he has a point.
Anyway, there are nine members led by a judge, and it seems that rather than pronouncing a simple ‘guilty’ or ‘innocent’ they will have to answer a questionnaire (questions set by the judge?) giving not only their answers but their REASONS for each conclusion: they are being made to work!What really surprised me was the isolation of the jury – no ‘phones, no internet, no media, no contact with friends & family & they are all holed-up together in a protected hotel. They’ve been in there a while now, and I imagine they’ll be losing their minds. I can’t imagine too many people handling the information-withdrawal too well in this connected-age… but the system is not relying on a simple ‘pay no attention to media reports’ to keep things fair.
I’ve no idea which – if any – system is best. -
October 29, 2015 at 6:13 pm -
What really surprised me was the isolation of the jury – no ‘phones, no internet, no media, no contact with friends & family & they are all holed-up together in a protected hotel.
I think, back in the Good Old Days, that Brit juries were also not only isolated but even kept without food and water…food, I assume, distracting from the weighty task at hand. When one considers that juries literally decided over life and death (ie a ‘guilty’ in a capital case led to someone being hanged) I suppose one can understand that it was taken very seriously.
Germans have a different ‘take’ on juries, they use a couple of ‘professional’ jurors in some criminal courts, not simply 12 whimsical darlings plucked at random off Unter Den Linden (to misquote Rumpole). Their jurors are people of ‘good standing’ who get some training and expenses (I believe). So the bench in my own trial was one Ober Judge, 2 normal judges and 2 jurors.
I really worried before the trial about the lack of 12 men good and true, even though I was pleading guilty. However right from the moment the judges sat down (and rejected my guilty plea) they impressed me by being only interested in discerning the Truth of what had happened. Only when the Truth has been ascertained then can one decide on ‘guilt’. Unlike our system where two over priced salesmen try and sell their brand of
washing powderof The Truth to the 12 handpicked whimsical darlings with the judge sitting above,directing the fun.
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October 28, 2015 at 1:35 pm -
At some point, my dwarvish co-commenter, your friend would have been regarded as the “noisy 1%. I know the same accusation was (is) made of me. Thing is, while we may be able to relax a little – but only a little, because pendulums swing to AND fro – there are always another 1% (or more) on the other extreme who will always maintain transexuals, gays and lesbians, queers, transvestites, etc are NOT BLOODY NORMAL. so that the need to say “OI. SHUT IT!” will always exist (until we are all united in the transcendent glow of brother and sisterly love, one for the other.
As if.)
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October 28, 2015 at 1:55 pm -
Windsock, further up the page you were after dropping the T from LGBT but here you are bringing transvestites into the equation too!
Surely the whole point about would-be gender-swappers is that they are NOT normal – they consider themselves to be somehow ‘wrong’, nature has played a cruel trick on them. I can’t see what this has to do with sexuality (gay/straight/bi) or transvestism (someone who enjoys dressing in the clothing more typically associated with a member of the opposite sex, and who may actually be perfectly straight, perfectly gay or perfectly bi).Like Greer I respect people’s right to do whatever they want with their own lives and with their own bodies, but to try to impose a new definition of what a word means is another thing. Could I identify as being an albino? Perhaps there are chemicals I could take to bleach the colour from my hair & skin, a pair of pinky contact-lens would complete the look… but I could never truly be an albino. That’s all!
The implication that there may be hatred at the root of this is exactly what annoys about that “noisy 1%” – it’s a low blow.-
October 28, 2015 at 2:18 pm -
The transvestism reference was a nod on my part to Petunia’s comment “men are encased within a sartorial straitjacket that any slight veering from can make life hard going at times”. An extreme nod, maybe.
I am saying that gender issues and sexuality issues are related, but not identical and we are all “fighting the same cause” in as much as it is for the freedom to be ourselves – as defined by ourselves and not anybody else. I don’t think transgender people would describe themselves as abnormal even if they feel their birth body was mis-assigned. So the issues I face as a man who wants to have sex with other men are not the same as a man who identifies, whether physically, psychologically or socially as a woman – but we have allied interests and often face similar barriers to acceptance.
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October 28, 2015 at 2:34 pm -
But surely this is the bone of contention: “as defined by ourselves and not anybody else.”
Neither you or me gets to define what something is or isn’t – there is objective truth, and that truth is that a man will not become a woman by removing his penis. And it’s not that some wish to define themselves, it is that they wish to impose their own definition – which is unscientific – on others.
The people saying: “OI. SHUT IT!” are actually those who would try to prevent Greer from pointing out the fact that a series of procedures will not change water into wine. We can change the label on the bottle, perhaps…-
October 28, 2015 at 2:43 pm -
Sorry Bandini – misplaced my reply to you below Mr Dwarf.
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October 29, 2015 at 12:02 am -
Mr Dwarf? Mr?!?! Since when do I qualify for a ‘Mr’? The only people who call me ‘mr’ are cops. You know , Peelers Sarcastic Politeness…”in a bit of a hurry are we, Sir?”
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October 28, 2015 at 2:08 pm -
your friend would have been regarded as the “noisy 1%.
Indeed she was when she made the national press ‘Stunning Transsexual wins for unfair dismissal against MOD’ or something I think the papers said. Why they felt the need to inform us that she was stunning however is known only to , I suspect, sub editors….mind you this was many years ago and no doubt today’s papers wouldn’t dream of such ‘sexist’ language…
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October 28, 2015 at 2:43 pm -
I do get your point, Bandini. But that comes back to why does that point need to be made? If a person undergoes surgery and feels to every fibre of their being that they are female, why does anyone need to say: “sorry mate, your tits are the result of administered hormones, you’ll never ovulate and where are your Fallopians? It’s your hormones, innit, mate.’
To me that is trying to make sure someone feels inferior and wrong, put in their place and shut in their box. It’s like Germaine Greer feels that men taking on the outward appearance of women is somehow encroaching on HER territory. They have never faced the same discrimination she has because she has a womb? I think most men who discriminate against others on the basis of their gender don’t check first to see if the chromosomes mach the collar and cuffs.
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October 28, 2015 at 3:12 pm -
Well, Greer was pointing out that often the results are not very convincing, and that many ‘real’ women felt this to be true but were too scared to say so. Why did she feel the need to say this? Perhaps for the same reason that the hetrosexual Duncan Norvelle’s comic mincing will not always have been appreciated by the gay community as an accurate representation of gay masculinity?!?
“I think that a very great many women don’t think that, um, post-operative or even non post-operative transexual M-to-F transexual people look like, sound like, or behave like women. They daren’t say so.”
I understand that it could be seen as being hurtful – Wark even challenged Greer on this point & elicited a head-shake: “People are hurtful to me all the time. Try being an old woman! For goodness sake – people get hurt all the time. I’m not about to walk on eggshells.”
To be honest, I find it all a confusing minefield. In the Mail’s example up the page we have a person with a penis who identifies as being a woman (a convicted murderer) and ended up in a women’s prison. Here, he/she is said to have had liasons with female prisoners… so a ‘woman’ with a penis has lesbian (?) relationships? My poor head hurts!
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October 28, 2015 at 3:37 pm -
The wonderful world of human sexuality!
Why does itmatter to some women that others are not “convincing”? They should just fewel prettier and walk away.
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October 28, 2015 at 3:46 pm -
It’s all too much for me, Windsock, but each to their own!
Personally, I’m less interested in people’s opinions of what is or isn’t convincing & more in their right to voice them without having someone start a petition to have them silenced. Anyway, mentioning Norvelle reminded me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmK5S39Gng4&feature=youtu.be&t=390
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October 30, 2015 at 12:55 pm -
“Well, Greer was pointing out that often the results are not very convincing, and that many ‘real’ women felt this to be true but were too scared to say so.”
Obvious examples are obvious. I know some people I know are trans only because I’ve been told so.
It’s also rather ironic that Greer and her ilk kicked against the traces of the trappings of femininity for so many years, yet now seem keen to regard them as sacrosanct for the purposes of marginalising the Y-chromosomed infiltrators (not that posession of a Y chromosome is a hard-and-fast determinant, anyway).
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October 28, 2015 at 10:42 am -
Identity politics are vile. End of.
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October 30, 2015 at 1:34 pm -
But absent them, there are still people whose identity falls outside of the binary majority. Attitudes to trans people are now pretty much where we were with gays and lesbians 30-50 years ago.
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October 28, 2015 at 11:08 am -
“At what point did British Universities begin to resemble North Korean correction centres?”
When a whole lot of low-grade polytechnics were mislabelled as universities?
Though in fairness one must admit that even Oxford is not immune to this nonsense, now.
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October 28, 2015 at 11:45 pm -
Since Cardiff has been a university or university college since 1883, your theory does not hold up.
As a graduate of a polytechnic, I would rephrase your comment thus-“When a whole lot of high-grade polytechnics were down-graded to universities?” That is certainly my observation, the perfectly sound Borough Polytechnic devolved into the abominable South Bank University. Once that happened the cultural marxists moved in and destroyed the institution.
The whole issue of freedom of speech is governed by the quality of “faculty” when the scientists and technicians were replaced with theorists and teaching school graduates the result was predictable.
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October 28, 2015 at 11:22 am -
I think that it is hilarious that Greer, the doyenne of feminism, is now the bete-noire of the third-wave feminists.
But she has identified a new danger, second-hand oestrogen, surely some clever scientists can prove that this idea has some merit. -
October 28, 2015 at 12:23 pm -
I watched the BBC/Kirsty Wark interview with Greer & couldn’t disagree with what she said. Despite the furore around her ‘radical views’ she explained that she would – as a courtesy – refer to people by whichever personal pronoun they so wished, but was firm in her view that lopping off a penis could never magically convert a man into a woman (or vice-versa).
Her view is surely scientifically sound. Her argument – if we remove the transgenderism – is, it seems to me, against the perversion of language & meaning, the favoured weapon of the cultural terrorists.
There are undoubtedly unfortunate people born somewhere between male/female; I remember years ago seeing a graph extrapolating current trends which seemed to suggest we were heading away from the binary sexes & towards God knows what… pollution has apparently played havoc with some fish such that many are simultaneously male AND female. But here we are talking about scientific facts rather than a fish ‘identifying’ with being that-which-(s)he-is-not.
I’m surprised not to have seen that other ‘identifier’ mentioned: Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who prefered to think of herself as being black, something that she never truly can be, no matter how hard she tries, no matter how much her hair is frizzed. I suggest that the people who are born inbetween – like the fish above – are analogous to those of mixed-race, with a legitimate claim to ‘identify’ with whichever ‘side’ they choose. The whining complainers, though, seem to be on a par with Dolezal, destroyers of objective truth who are basically pieces of chalk ‘identifying’ as cheese.
P.S. After the Greer interview I found myself watching a few seconds of Caitlyn Jenner presenting an Oscar or summat. I’d never previously read nor watched anything other the endless headlines, even resisting the temptation of the Daily Mail sidebar! A sturdy wench… or a man in a dress.
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October 28, 2015 at 1:43 pm -
October 29, 2015 at 4:51 pm -
I agree with you Bandini.
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October 28, 2015 at 1:13 pm -
There was another massive controversy a while back about the alleged different reasons some men have for converting to women. According to the book linked to below, some blokes that transition are effeminate gay men who have always felt like women. And other men are heterosexual but want to become women because they have a sexual fetish about it. Typically they are older and frankly look a bit a bit crap after the job is done because of all the testosterone that has gone through them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Would_Be_Queen‘Twas very controversial.
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October 28, 2015 at 1:38 pm -
Human sexual orientation is not rigidly clear-cut. Each of us lies somewhere on the continuum between wholly heterosexual and “one-of-the-other” (whatever the “other” may be). For many people, the disconnect between the gender assigned at birth and their own self-perception can be so wide as to cause immense trauma. For some, it may be sufficient to adopt the external markers (e.g. clothing) of their inner sexuality. For others, that is not enough: gender re-assignment is the next step. But, again, that is just another external marker. And, unless it is disclosed early on in any future relationship, it will inevitably give rise to problems: a trans-female cannot conceive; a trans-male cannot inseminate.
However, the current vogue for censoring free speech is a separate issue. The UK government has already endorsed this, with the filters that it obliged ISPs to put in place on searches. Or had you forgotten that? So, given that example, it’s no wonder that everyone else is now demanding similar filters on free speech.
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October 28, 2015 at 6:44 pm -
A post, IMHO if I may say so, which says it all. Two major states of sexuality or gender (or call it what you will) and the very small minority that do not fit, or want to fit in either camp. Perhaps the German language has it right? Der, die, das.
If they are not 100% happy with being masculine or feminine – give them a neuter label and then we are all content. -
October 28, 2015 at 8:59 pm -
Another aspect to consider is that of nurture. Wherever we originate on that continuum, we are also subject to cultural nurturing which can have a profound effect on the difference between our displayed position on it and what would be our more natural place. Coming from an industrial northern background, it is certainly the case that many boys who may have naturally veered towards the gay or feminine end of that spectrum were ‘nurtured’ so deeply into the cultural norm of ‘northern manhood’ that they have lived out their lives feeling unable to express their own reality.
Of all those boys at my school who were obviously by nature more feminine, I only know of one who, at the age of almost 50, finally felt he had the freedom to change gender and fully adopt a new female persona – I suspect this was really awaiting the demise of his parents, such is the strength and longevity of the nurture effect. Fortunately this is changing, but more slowly than many realise and certainly more slowly than in more metropolitan environments.
I am close to the hetero end of the spectrum: however, I do recognise my own feminine traits, but my cultural conditioning still conspires to keep these well in the background, away from public view. That’s not a problem, as I feel no urge at all to transition to womanhood or even just to be gay, but I can understand how those with more significant natural femininity would struggle with it against the established pressures of nurture and convention.
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October 28, 2015 at 1:58 pm -
These petty concerns are surely just another aspect of the slow death of Western civilisation.
But no worries!, the “incomers” will establish a new society, in which these precious minor freedoms will be entirely eradicated in the name of a medieval goat-herder. Then all those identified as LGB (&T) will be removed.
Nero fiddling comes to mind – all this concentrating on minority rights misses the bigger picture: major, detrimental changes are occurring across Europe and yet there’s no public outcry or resistance. Perhaps there will be when all our rights have been eroded.
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October 28, 2015 at 3:47 pm -
“And now we’ve come full circle again.”
I don’t see any circles being turned or pendulums swinging, just a one-way road towards the end of Western civilisation.
The incoming Taliban might re-position the wheel or pendulum but it won’t be by a gentle change of direction.
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October 28, 2015 at 2:28 pm -
Here’s Germaine Greer on Question Time talking about the sexualisation of children.
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October 28, 2015 at 10:38 pm -
Q. When is a woman not a woman?
A. When they are an hermaphrodite, of course, they want their cock and eat it!!!
Yes, yes, I’ve already got my coat… -
October 29, 2015 at 10:57 pm -
Re: “The generation who were the recipients of Blair’s educational reforms are now terrorising the campuses with their totalitarian intolerance, demanding free speech as long as it doesn’t contradict their narrow worldview, promoting endless useless causes in the absence of any worthy ones”
it seems worse in America….
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October 29, 2015 at 11:17 pm -
Re: “just because I’d never been at ease with being a man didn’t necessarily mean I’d be at ease becoming a woman. How much of our own gender identity is pure psycho-social conditioning, anyway?”
Good point.
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October 30, 2015 at 3:02 am -
If Bruce Gender wants to spend his twilight years as a 6-foot-2-inch granny holding tea parties and showing off photos of his grand-kids, it really harms no one, other thank possibly his grand-kids who will lose the joy of having a grandfather.
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October 31, 2015 at 5:42 pm -
May I say, Petunia, as someone who reads posts on this blog but doesn’t comment, that this is the best piece I have ever read on transgenderism, if you can call it that, and the comments have been very enlightening.
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October 29, 2015 at 4:04 pm -
October 29, 2015 at 6:18 pm -
I assume that was in answer to me? No worries, I wouldn’t want to upset your delicate digestion – you know you’ll never be able to look a vegan girl in the eye again now anyways
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October 29, 2015 at 6:36 pm -
October 29, 2015 at 6:43 pm -
He needs to have a gauloises hanging from his lower lip and have a bottle of Vin and Baguette in his panier to tick ALL the stereotype boxes…but a valiant attempt none the less. Plus points if his name is “Henri” or “Jacques”, double word score if he can get the phrase ‘oOh la la’ into a serious sentence.
oh and BTW the phrase I used wasn’t ‘riding a bike smelling of onions and garlic’
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October 29, 2015 at 6:55 pm -
Bears an ‘uncanny resemblance’ to David’s favourite fictional French dick. Ooh-la-la!
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October 29, 2015 at 8:17 pm -
October 30, 2015 at 1:24 am -
A woman needs a Frenchman like a fishy smell needs a bicycle seat!
I’ll call a cab…
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