For some time I have blocked from my view Graham Linehan - A fact which I am sure makes absolutely no diference to him. Graham seems to spend all his time these days in arguments with the trans community. I unlocked him the other day to find his account padlocked. But now it is unpadlocked. I wonder what that was all about…
Anyway these arguments range from should trans women be allowed to play football with other women (cis women?) to should trans people be able to poo in women's toilets... to...
The most thorny question of all - at what point should sex change therapy for trans children begin.
This last question seems to be the biggest of the hot button topics about which Graham has vociferous arguments.
He seems to claim that giving trans children drugs to postpone puberty is some kind of child abuse.
This resulted in a memorable appearance on Newsnight in which Graham compared the Tavistock Hospital treating children with gender dysmorophia as being on the same level as the Nazis experimenting on children.
Mind you I don't think Josef Mengele specifically set out to experiment on children as much as twins purely because that would give him a control subject but let's not go there...
In the interview Graham makes a point about the staff turnover at the Tavistock and engages in a lot of disjointed thinking and the interviewer berates him for using the Nazi analogy to the point that neither of them really have any meaningful discussion. That’s exactly the sort of thing the Nazis would have done…
As far as I can tell Graham's point is it makes no sense giving children the "choice" to become transgender at such a young age because you wouldn't let them make choices about having sex at this stage so how can they decide their sexuality if they don't really understand sex yet...?
Meanwhile his detractors argue that delaying puberty in children with gender dysmorphia reduces the chances of suicide in later life.
However, both agree that the process of delaying puberty can be reversed at any later time by the patient simply stopping taking the puberty delaying drug.
So really what's the problem with either…
…the children not taking the drug till they're 16
…or the taking the drug before they're 16 as either way this stage is reversible.
Assuming the side effects are minimal. Or are they? It doesn’t seem a biggie either way to me.
I’m not a biologist so… but …well… that said I had to laugh at the parent in one interview who said their child was much happier on puberty blockers. Mate, most teenagers would be happy if they weren’t going through puberty. It’s not a nice time for anyone. Indeed I think a lot of us would be happier if we could just turn off our sexuality from time to time. That’d be overpopulation and infidelity rubbed out by … The thing is if they’re neither taking hormones to change sex or experiencing their own hormones then these children on puberty blockers are neither experiencing being male or female but actually living in a form of temporary chemical castration?
Don’t quote me I’m not a chemist…
It seems a bit silly to give children puberty blockers before 16 in my view as from what I've read even if they go through puberty into the sex they don't want this too can be reversed.
Of course either way they might have miserable childhoods but childhood is supposed to be miserable in my experience. So it seems like just a choice of different miseries. I may be wrong…
Anyway, I do not know the answer to these questions as not being a feminist, not being a woman and not being trans I don't feel as though I don't have a something-that-is-inoffensive in this fight. And I don’t know why this takes up so much of Graham’s time but I thought I’d join in for fun…
I have however never seen the point of segregated toilets - let's leave the urinal in the past.
As to the issues re football. Let's keep it simple and ban football altogether.
Like it is at the moment... no sport on my TV …bliss.
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