The GutterView Transcripts

Melanie McDonagh Original (article in here ) Aimee Challenor and the danger of transgender politics 30 August 2018, 1:00am Aimee Challenor – in case you haven’t heard – has just stepped down as equalities spokesperson for the Green Party. I say Aimee – he was, until the age of 16, Ashley, whereupon he decided to challenge his gender by going to the school prom in a dress. From this point his career took a dynamic turn, as he became a Green Party candidate (spurned, alas, by the electorate), a runner for deputy leadership of the party, a member of Stonewall’s Trans Advisory Group, leader of Coventry Pride and subject of upbeat pieces in the Guardian as the fresh face of transgenderism. 'Yes, I’m trans, but I’m a Green Party politician and proud of it', was the headline of one such profile. That inexorable upward trajectory has come to an unfortunate halt with Aimee’s withdrawal from the deputy leadership contest because of his father’s conviction for the rape and torture of a 10...

  By Gabriella Swerling 2 March 2021 • 7:12pm Trans prisoners should be excluded from female wings because they are "disproportionately" likely to commit sexual assaults, the High Court has heard. The Ministry of Justice's policy of placing trans women in women's prisons is being challenged by a prisoner who claims she was sexually assaulted behind bars. FDJ, who cannot be identified, claims that in 2017 she was sexually assaulted in prison by a trans woman, known as J, who had convictions for "serious sexual offences against women". J was being housed in the general population of a women's prison. FDJ’s lawyers claim that J has a gender recognition certificate (GRC), which is not admitted by the MoJ. As a result, they are arguing that the Government's policy of allocating trans inmates to prisons based on their declared gender identity unlawfully discriminates against women. Speaking on the first day of the two-day remote hearing, Karon Monaghan QC,...

  Mermaids UK charity ban as boy forced to live as girl A controversial transgender group has received cash from the government and Children in Need The seven-year-old boy, who was home-schooled, was dressed in girls’ clothes ALAMY Andrew Gilligan Sunday October 08 2017, 12.01am, The Sunday Times www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mermaids-uk-charity-ban-as-boy-forced-to-live-as-girl-dvx3j99cn?shareToken A taxpayer-funded transgender charity has been banned by the High Court from any contact with a family after the mother, who was being advised by the group, forced her seven-year-old son to live as a girl. The latest accounts for Mermaids UK, published last week, reveal it has been granted £35,000 by the Department for Education (DfE) and a total of £138,000 by the national lottery’s Awards for All fund and the BBC’s Children in Need appeal. It can also be revealed that until last week Mermaids was advertising “same day” cross-sex hormone treatment for children. NHS guidelines do not allow...

The Times on the Keira Bell case; Britain’s only NHS gender clinic for children has suspended referrals for hormone therapy after a ruling on the experimental use of puberty blockers. Judges at the High Court found it was “highly unlikely” that 13-year-olds, and “doubtful” that anyone aged 14 or 15, would understand the full implications of the hormone treatments, and therefore could not give informed consent. In almost all cases people who take puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones, which may lead to life-changing consequences, such as loss of fertility and impaired sexual function. Keira Bell, 23, a woman who regrets starting puberty blockers at the age of 16, brought the legal action against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the country’s only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children. The clinic, also known as the Tavistock, has been prescribing them to under-16s since 2011. The drugs are not licensed for gender dysphoria in the UK and there ...

A fortnight before President Biden took office, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that “mother”, “father”, “daughter”, “brother” and other gendered words to describe familial relationships would be removed from House rules. Henceforth in official documents they would be replaced by the gender-neutral terms “parent”, “child” or “sibling”. The purpose of this was to “honour all gender identities”. Then, within hours of his inauguration, the president’s first executive order decreed that his administration would fully apply the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling that denying rights “‘because of ... sex’ covers discrimination on the basis of gender identity” too. That this finally gives American trans people the same protections long enjoyed in Britain, for example from workplace discrimination, reversing President Trump’s disgraceful ban on trans military personnel, should be celebrated. But this order has far wider consequences. In a stroke of the pen, with zero debate or legislative scrutiny, ...

Munroe Bergdorf, the NSPCC and the failure of the media James Kirkup   "It’s exam season, so here’s a test, suitable for anyone interested in how the media and public conversation work in 2019. Here is a sequence of events: A charity involved in the safeguarding and welfare of children appoints a celebrity ambassador. It emerges that the celebrity has a history of asking children in emotional distress to contact them online. This appears to contradict the charity’s safeguarding guidance, which is that children should not share personal information with strangers online. It emerges that the celebrity has a history of posing for pictures for publication in sexualised clothing and poses, including for Playboy. Issues 2 and 3 are raised online by some supporters of the charity, who suggest they will withdraw financial backing for the charity in protest at the appointment. A journalist asks the charity if it is still happy to work with the celebrity, given the celebrity’s background an...

  ‘Europe’s first jail in a jail’ for trans women Downview prison in south London will have Europe’s first dedicated transexual wing TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE Andrew Gilligan | The Sunday Times Saturday March 02 2019, 6.00pm, The Times Britain is to create its first transgender “jail within a jail” in what may also be a first for Europe. A unit housing only trans inmates will open this week at Downview prison near Sutton, south London, in a building previously named after Josephine Butler, a Victorian feminist. Downview is a women’s jail, and one source reported “significant concern” among its 320 female prisoners at the arrival of male-bodied trans inmates. Almost half of trans prisoners are sex offenders, compared with 19% in the prison population as a whole. Prison governors and doctors say some sex criminals transition to get access to women. However, the new trans wing is understood to be in a separate building within the prison perimeter, with an inner fence dividing ...