Dare to debate, discuss, disagree, dissent
This happened yesterday: the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children canceled a debate it had scheduled. Hilariously but disgustingly, it was part of a series called Dare to Debate.
Is society letting down trans children? will no longer take place
Our Dare to Debate seminars are designed to provoke debate about serious issues facing children today – child protection issues that might not otherwise get the focus that they deserve.
The next debate in the series was intended to shine a light on the difficulties and problems that trans children face in the UK, to ask whether society is doing enough to help them and discuss what more can and should be done.
Children and young people are increasingly raising concerns about trans issues and gender dysphoria. Many trans children have felt that they aren’t getting the support that they need and we wanted to explore how these young people could be more supported within our communities.
I don’t believe that claim that “many trans children have felt that they aren’t getting the support that they need” because that’s not how children think or talk. That’s adult thinking and talking.
And then there’s the fact that it just is not clear that this apparently vast number of “trans children” is actually all trans children as opposed to some trans children and some children who just don’t much like the rules and expectations attached to their sex, and/or children who just like to fantasize and pretend all sorts of things, including being someone of the other sex. Childhood is probably too early to tell.
However, the trans community have raised concerns and told us that they don’t support the NSPCC hosting this discussion. We have listened, and following the withdrawal of a keynote speaker, we are no longer hosting this event.
Nonsense. “The trans community” did no such thing. Some trans activists raised concerns; that doesn’t mean the whole community did.
Pink News has a horrible piece about the cancellation, by Nick Duffy.
The NSPCC is under fire for inviting an alleged anti-trans campaigner to a ‘debate’ about transgender children.
Sarah is not an anti-trans campaigner.
However, activists have vowed to shun the session over the invitation to Sarah Ditum, a feminist campaigner who opponents say has a history of extreme comments about trans people.
Former boxing promoter Kellie Maloney, who came out as trans last year aged 61, is the only trans person set to appear on the panel.
That’s interesting, isn’t it? Maloney gets to live 61 years as a male boxing promoter and have a history of domestic violence, and then “come out as trans” and watch Sarah Ditum get called “an alleged anti-trans campaigner.”
On her own website announcing the event, Ditum lays into fellow panellist Kellie Maloney, noting their violent past.
She wrote: “The other speaker will be Kellie Maloney, the boxing promoter formerly known as Frank who transitioned in 2014.
“Maloney’s past includes the expression of homophobic sentiments (now repudiated), and a 2005 attack on Tracey Maloney when the two were married (Maloney has attributed this in part to the strain of living with a suppressed gender identity).
“My participation implies no endorsement of these acts. Gendered violence, and its effects on children, is something I expect to discuss at the event. I trust the NSPCC to facilitate a full and open discussion, and am delighted to volunteer my time for this debate.”
A petition calling on Ms Ditum to be dropped from the event cites Ms Ditum as a person “who actively campaigns against supporting trans children with anything but conversion therapy”.
That’s an outright lie, that is.
Trump and the Trumpkins on the one hand, and this crap on the other. What a dog’s breakfast.
I notice that you have been very reasonable and even-handed in enumerating the possibilities of children’s experience, without repudiating the possibility that a child may be (or may go on to be) trans; that after two years of calumny levelled against you, you haven’t stopped acknowledging the possibility of transness and the existence of a broader trans community that is not wholly metonymised by its most reactionary activists. For this nuance you have been (and continue to be) derided as a TERF.
I don’t think I could stand it, myself. I might well succumb to the desire to rub their faces in it by not even trying to be nuanced or even-handed in the ways you’ve never failed to be, even under the direst rhetoric. You continue to have my respect and admiration.
The NSPCC:
“Many trans children have felt that they aren’t getting the support that they need and we wanted to explore how these young people could be more supported within our communities.”
Sounds like they never really wanted a debate. They wanted an “exploration” of a decided position.
@ Lady Mondegreen–re your comment a way while back, I’m about 2/3 of the way through The Accursed and loving it. (Just about to head off for bed to pick it up again.)
Absurd. In fact, knock-out trans-absurd.
Of course they didn’t want a real debate. People get so angry if you point out that 5 year olds are likely to insist that they are kitties or puppies for weeks at a time, so declaring themselves a boy or girl at that age is not especially meaningful.
Samantha – my son was an elephant for several months, and a baboon for a while. Makes me wonder if I should have stocked up on peanuts, and then changed to bananas? To support his identity, I mean.
Why thank you, Seth (@ 1). Also – “a broader trans community that is not wholly metonymised by its most reactionary activists” – *applause*
My son was a different train or prehistoric animal every day at preschool. (He would ask the teachers or parents to write his name-of-the-day on a piece of tape and stick it on his shirt.) He would pretend to be a cat, a girl, whatever.
@ guest, I’m so glad! I thought you might dig it, since you liked Mysteries of Winterthurn. :)
A kid we knew was insistent that when he grew up, he wanted to be a turtle. He didn’t see any problem with that.
What I hate is the way encouraging a kid to accept themselves as they are is deemed “conversion therapy” while having them go down a route that involves hormone treatments and extensive surgery to change their body is not. Why is the former not seen as the preferable position?
This identity politics is pushed by the people who did transition. The people who considered it but did not are not part of the “trans community” so their voices count for nothing.
Clearly the NSPCC don’t dare to debate. It’s a brave person who does when any dissent means being labelled as scum.