It seems impossible to talk about anything on here without you lot getting irritated.
You just seem to think I am “anti trans” or even a “transphobe” just because I am interested in understanding it.

However, since it’s being weaponised by transphobes I can see why many transgender people are no longer using it.

It has been weaponised by everyone, hence why I want it to be sorted out. It has always had a nonsense value and I don’t think it serves the people who experience gender dysphoria.

Anyway for your entertainment so many of my mates are harbouring some kind of delusion that we will give Ireland a good go it is making my teeth itch.
If you wanted to look at possibility of upset from most to least likely is France Wales, Italy Scotland, Ireland England.
France often have a brain fart game, and they have not really yet, and the welsh are always capable of something mad.
Scotland may have taken a confidence hit and Italy are riding high no matter what, so it seems possible.
England are just shit and seem to wear it with pride, so Ireland should utterly roger us.

Lots of litter blows in as well, on bin day our street litter goes up hugely just because stuff gets blown around. As I said, most people use bins. I do not think I have seen a person chuck litter for 20 years.

World XV v Italy.

V good.
BTW, if you look at the Scotland list out of 21 I think 2/3rds came from England Ireland Wales, so i don’t really think they count as real forriners. I only put it there to wind you up.
My feeling is that if world rugby set the rules, you exploit them to the max. If you are given a penalty spot, you don’t go back 10 do you, so why wouldn’t any team not use the residency rules etc.

t might be some people will benefit from medical treatment for dysphoria and fair enough, but many others can happily self identify and be accepted without this. What works best – ie makes people happier with their lives – can be investigated empirically and that’s what matters, not endocrine whatever.

Johnx agree also.

Not easily – no; in fact in some ways as a phrase when unpicked it’s actually unhelpful. Because he only has one body and so how can it be the wrong one? In fact, ‘rejection’ of that body (which does happen, believe me) leads to further psychological damage. But the reality – that the identity assigned to the external characteristics of that body (breasts, genitalia, periods, etc.) do not match the identity of the whole spiritual being – all of us are far more than our external / physical presence. That’s very real.

So it’s a phrase that is kind of shorthand for the whole manifestations of gender dysphoria in all its glory rather than a precise medical definition. And one that is increasingly falling out of favour in the TG community.

Ok this makes the most sense, I think I 100% agree with this.. And is what I have wanted to drag out since the beginning.
Hence my original statement, one cannot be born in the wrong body, feels right, because, the statement actually has no meaning. Hence no evidence.

But – one can reject the idea of a gendered body and appearance etc. There is loads of evidence for this i.e. all the people who have gender dysphoria and other associated conditions. Do we all agree about that?

@brucewee – I can’t define it, I don’t think it is definable, hence why I have been rejecting it all along.

 men but some choose to ‘become’ women.

Can they be both or neither? Or some other definition? Do we need to define them at all?

The problem with this issue is that we can’t discuss it without people making accusations of hate or prejudice etc. when in fact many, me included are very interested in the phenomena of gender dysphoria and want to understand it as much as anyone.

Answer this then, what does born in the wrong body mean? Can you define it?

Is my son’s absolute, deeprooted unhappiness with his AFAB identity, and his slow but daily improvement as the treatments he is now on to masculinise his body start to have an effect – not evidence of some sort? If not then what are we seeing, how do you characterise what is happening?

You seem to think that your sons existence and experience are being denied.
I don’t deny it at all.

No, that is your assumption about what I think is the state of knowledge.
Also you are unclear about if you refer to bio sex or “born in the wrong body”, you had answered to my statement about born in the wrong body but now it seems you are rereferring to bio sex.

Not at all. They don’t exist and there is no evidence they ever have. Even if there’s many stories telling us they do and did, they simply don’t.

Exactly, to prove a negative, people will ask you to prove unicorns do not exist, there is no evidence that they do not exist (because there is no evidence full stop, you cant show evidence of the non-unicorn).
You have not proven a negative, you have just shown that there is no evidence for the positive (yet).

The same as there is no evidence that you can be born in the wrong body (yet).

You asked

Can you provide the evidence it’s false, I mean you must have scientific proof.

The answer is no, because there is no evidence that it is true. Same as unicorns.

TBF that doesn’t actually prove anything. But neither does it need to, “Unicorns don’t exist” is the null hypothesis and the onus is to prove that unicorns do exist. That’s my understanding anyway…

Exactly.

Links for good quality litter pickers?

I did a ROTW trip in the early noughties. Indonesia was a particularly littered up place, India and Sri Lanka also bad. Mainly I think because they do not (or did not) have national or local govt systems to deal with waste. When I arrived back in Heathrow, just driving back to Crawley made me realise how our litter issues are caused by a minority of arseholes. Most people are good, take the positive of that and don’t give up fighting to educate others.

Go on then, prove a negative.

Oh, I understand alright.

So this doesn’t sound like you have made your mind up in advance at all.

Ah! Now you’ve used Wikipedia as your source.

Not source, as a reference, it is easier than finding out your address and sending a google maps link to your local library. If think you can oppose the last 500 years of thought by proving a negative, go ahead. I’m not going to bother entering into a discussion about it. You are going up against Sagan, Russell, and everything before.

Two positives don’t make a negative?
Yeah right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_a_negative

@convert – Points 1 and 2, bang on, and 3, I have seen a ted talk like video on that same topic. Was very informative.

@drac Can you provide the evidence it’s false, I mean you must have scientific proof.

You cannot prove a negative. Do I need to quote Russell?
(I know you know this, I think you are just pissing about?)

For all your crying about science, no scientist worth their salt would ever be bold enough to proclaim that they know anything absolutely. There is a reason that science uses the word “theory.” Even if you weren’t flat out wrong, something might come along tomorrow which presents new evidence.

The fact that you would dare to say this means you have not bothered to comprehend a single thing I have written, it show either ridiculous bias for your concept or intellectual dishonesty.
EG

I am called a terf because I have yet to see evidence that you can be “born in the wrong body”.

and

There is no evidence of a biological sex change, you would have to re-write their DNA. every single cell. (I’m not saying it might not be possible in the future)

You are letting your bias and rhetoric get in the way of your argument and discussion.

No, the problem is that you only want to listen to the “science” which aligns with your opinion.

So the science matters to you, but not to molgrips, which is it?
This is just a constant moving of the goalposts to align with your opinion. This is projection on your part,
There is no scientific proof that you can change bio sex, or that you are born in the wrong body. None.
As I said I have no objection to the way people dress, present themselves, have sex whatever.
But you cannot force me to accept a concept I know to false.

Yes, and the fact there are millions of people all over the world talking about this issue is pretty good evidence of a phenomenon of some kind. I don’t see anything anti-scientific going on here – except by the people who are trying to deny the the concept of being trans.

Billions of people talk about god. Is that evidence of the existence of god?

I’m all for your interpretation molgrips, However the problem is if you want to take science out ofd it, then why is science being used to attempt to convert these people from one sex to another? And others will try and use science to say you can change someone’s sex.
Gender is a sociological construct, normally based on bio sex.
People feel they don’t fit in to that socio norm, I agree with them if that’s what they feel, and I don’t care what they do and how they behave, Why do we need to be thought policed about the bio sex part? You are saying that the science doesn’t matter, so fine, don’t try and convince me that it does.

Do you dismiss everything that you don’t have first-hand evidence of?

You are not gonna make an argument for faith are you? This is the basics of the scientific method. Ordered observations of the evidence.
There is no evidence of a biological sex change, you would have to re-write their DNA. every single cell. (I’m not saying it might not be possible in the future)
Not being able to change bio sex should not take anything away from people who want to take hormones and surgery to change their appearance, let them do it. But you cannot force people to believe that a real change in fundamental bio sex has been made. That’s some 1984 stuff right there.

The point I am trying to make is that there is no good reason not to respect peoples pro-noun requirements, it is basically easy, but if people muck it up or don’t want to, there is no good reason to vilify them either.

Well, no. You’re called a TERF (or are self-identifying as one) because you’ve had this explained to you multiple times over and you refuse to challenge your own entrenched opinion.

And now you’re in danger of derailing the thread. Such as it is.

Well, luckily only a few people think like you do and the world is waking up to some basic facts.
I hope that pronouns and the whole woke thing will lead to a revolution in how people dress, and present themselves as I agree with the freedom for people to present themselves how they like. I don’t think you really understand it Cougar hence the resorting to insult sarcasm and even some implied violence above. You’ve run out of argument.
It isn’t derailing the thread, the topic of pronouns and gender critical types are intrinsically the same.

TINAS – nothing about that article suggest that they were “born in the wrong body” they are born in the body they are born in end of story. They do show a difference from the norm. Is a downs syndrome person born in the wrong body?  And nothing in that article shows that hormones and surgery can change those peoples sex.
They don’t fit the classic gender binary, but it would be barbaric to treat them with surgery and hormones to “correct” them. As it won’t work. They are what they are, lets accept them. The other quoted there seems to accept her own child.

The child’s mother said she could see the transformation starting from the age of five, adding: “I love her however she is. Girl or boy, it makes no difference.”

“On the other hand, in the Dominican Republic, the birth of a pseudohermaphrodite is fully accepted and during puberty, the child’s physical transformation into a male is marked by joyous celebration.”

I’m not trans exclusionary, I just have not seen evidence that anyone can be born in the wrong bod or can change bio sex. I’m perfectly happy for adults to have surgery, hormones and challenge our speech and understanding of appearance. its all good. But facts are facts. It doesn’t change the rights of people to do what they like.

But if they don’t want to change, they shouldn’t get into trouble?

Depends. using race to refuse service, job etc should be legally enforced, but you cannot legally force someone to change the way they think. That is pretty barbaric. I have never seen any evidence that race (whatever that means, skin colour, origin, I don’t think race actually exists right?) correlates with ability in the mental field – ie academic, work etc. Thus there is no logical reason to be racist expect for some form of prejudice/hate. In civilised society it has no place. But in civilised society we have to be tolerant. Otherwise you become a fascist. Some on the left are approaching the fascism we typically see on the right.

And what if their “norm” is to use racist terms?

Persuade them it is racist and persuade them why racism is wrong/harmful etc.

It can be difficult for some, just show willing and try.

That is the same point I made, it isn’t hard to try, it might be hard to achieve it though….

Sticking to norms means that some people want to use gendered language. I don’t mind if they do.

I am called a terf because I have yet to see evidence that you can be “born in the wrong body”. Otherwise I’d like to claim I should have been born in Elon Musks body. I don’t see any evidence that hormones and surgery can change your bio sex (but I’ll defend your right to have that surgery and hormones if you want, it should be a free world).  That’s my norm, I’ll call you whatever pronoun you want. You wear what you want, have sex with who you want. I treat men and women the same so I’m not going to treat anyone any different based on gender or sex. I can pretend that men are women and women are men. I’m happy to do that at work or in places where it is important (most public spaces).
But if my friends ask me to tell my truth, that’s what it is. That’s my norm.
I still don’t have an issue with pronouns, the are all constructed anyway, who cares.

As someone who gets called a TERF on a regular basis I have a bit of ambivalence towards all of this.
I do not see it as that hard to try to call people whatever they want.
However I also do not think people should get in trouble for , getting it wrong, or even wanting to stick to their norms.
I think people (on both sides) are a too soft and get offended to easily. One persons offence is not a good enough reason to fire someone (if it happens, well it has happened, but not often).

France 4
England 5
Italy 6
Wales 7
Ireland 8
Scotland 21

Someone obviously hasn’t seen the latest Scotland U20s result

I think you have to be careful taking too much meaning from this, U20s is a narrow slice of the pool of future players.

First you have to consistently beat your peers, and lesser teams like England, home and away, which you’ve done.

Accurate.

Oh god scotland rugby going down also?
This is bad news.

Once Scotland got behind they forced it too much and when they started attacking wide off poor ball and the forward effort had dropped off and the weren’t getting front foot ball they were easy pickings for Ireland.

Yeah sadly the confidence they have built thus far in 6N just evaporated at that moment, and didn’t really come back.
They’ll beat Italy for sure.

Me too, England are abysmal, despite Scottish amour for how great our team are, the juts keep showing every game how pedestrian they are.
I’m wondering if Borthwick should do a Galthie and just sack all the old boys and start again.

Welsh experience did the job there.
Lots them have won plenty of big games. and lost a few. So they know how to keep their heads.

Wales doing really well.

All your answers are in the replies above, I’ve seen quite a few RSJ’s go in and there is always settlement, as one poster said, its realignment with a new load path. I doubt you have anything to worry about.

I use brave browser which has shields, stops a lot of websites working including that one, try another browser or reduce your defensive measures?

Cool good luck for a positive outcome.

That bounce was insane.

Ok, I wont disagree with that, but you would hope that a left wing govt wouldn’t pour petrol on the fire.

People have short memories – I voted labour every time and will do again – but Blair and Campbell started this rout of the BBC independence after the Gilligan/DavidKelly affair. they started to revise the governance and put huge changes in place that would make appointments more political. Everyone told them at the time that they would not be in power for ever and the Tories would take even more control and it would just become a govt mouthpiece.
Well here we are, and they are making a great case for privatising the BBC and it will be in the control of big money and hence the Tories for ever.

So just be careful what you want, the BBC needs to change, back to full independence, but it needs to stay and be the proper journalistic bastion it should be.

(Note, i am not “labour”, I just feel that so far in my 50 off years they have always been the best of a bad bunch)