Retired academic, psychologist specialising in psychotherapy. Debut novel ‘I, Jack Parker?’ out now. Nature novella. Common Life, also recently published.
2/2 even if life history, physicality, hormonal development and medical intervention have a FAR greater impact - so service providers have to somehow zone in on that point in time decades ago to decide if the law is being complied with?
Thank you @EHRC - This is what I can’t get my head around. If it’s not about appearance, not about performance of femininity it is about a state someone is classified as at birth - 1/2
Thank you @EHRC - This is what I can’t get my head around. If it’s not about appearance, not about performance of femininity it is about a state someone is classified as at birth - 1/2
This clip shows what an embarrassing mess the EHRC guidance is. Mary-Ann Stephenson knows it is a mess and states no criminal offence is committed by a trans person using toilets aligning with their gender. It's a useless policy, fixing a problem which does not exist.
Summer is coming. And we love it, but will the inhabitants of Middledown Pond? Read about Storm damage, and delight in the cool ponds - which not everyone appreciates. Common Life is available https://t.co/BmB1aYRNfB #Nature#CommonLife#ducks#Mandarinducks#dogs
More than 100 MPs have now signed the motion I tabled alongside colleagues to disapprove the Equality Act 2010: Draft Code of Practice for Services, public functions and associations.
This motion is currently the only available mechanism by which MPs can reject the EHRC’s Code of Practice; if debated and passed within the 40-day scrutiny window, it would prevent the EHRC from issuing the Code and bringing it into force. This is unfortunately unlikely, but it is important that as many MPs as possible sign the motion.
Please email your MP asking them to sign EDM 240 if they haven’t already.
https://t.co/odTmOAIejk
Pride month is here - how did Jack find his first New York Pride? Find out in I, Jack Parker? Available https://t.co/hqH2nK5o3f #Pride#NewYorkPride#NewYork#LGBTQ+
So let me get this straight:
When immigrants take jobs, it’s a national crisis.
When AI takes jobs, it’s innovation.
Can someone explain why we’re supposed to fear people willing to work, but celebrate technology designed to replace workers?
discussions about gender that fixate on binary notions of being human are problematic. I wrote something about this in 'Non-binary gender, Beyond the binary: https://t.co/YzdxHJ5W5P #Pride#BPS#UKCP
Questions about Pride month, ‘why do you need it?’ etc (Yes more than ever) reminded me of this chapter of mine - 'Can I ask if you are gay?' The personal is political/ Stories of difference and psychotherapy https://t.co/YzdxHJ5W5P #Pride#NewYorkPride#NewYork#LGBTQ+
Public health agencies be like "the risk to healthy people is low" while burying the fact that due to the ongoing pandemic, almost no one is a healthy person anymore.
Questions about Pride month, ‘why do you need it?’ etc (Short answer - Yes more than ever) has me looking back over some of my past work - see ‘Making the invisible visible’ in Balancing on Quicksand https://t.co/fvHSL6o2ab #Pride#NewYorkPride#NewYork#LGBTQ+
The constant banging on about DEI is an infuriating American import into the UK.
In the UK we call it EDI. And EDI training is essentially summed up like this:
‘Don’t be a knob to other people, and realise some people face barriers you don’t.’
It’s not some woke conspiracy.
The binary was always a simplification. Biology never agreed to it.
Gay and Bisexual People
The same science applies.
Brain structure studies have found consistent differences in the hypothalamus between gay and straight men that appear developmental in origin. Twin studies show higher concordance rates for same-sex attraction in identical twins than fraternal twins. Prenatal hormone research links the hormonal environment in the womb to sexual orientation outcomes.
Sexual orientation develops. Before birth. In the same biological processes that shape everything else about who a person fundamentally is.
Conversion therapy does not work because there is nothing to convert. You cannot change what was established in the womb through prayer or punishment or any psychological technique. Every major medical and psychiatric body in the world has said so. The evidence is not ambiguous. It causes harm. It changes nothing about orientation. It only causes damage to the person subjected to it.
It Has Always Been This Way
If any of this were a modern invention it would not appear in documents written thousands of years before social media existed.
The Hijra community of South Asia has been documented for over four thousand years. They appear in the Ramayana. Two-Spirit people held recognised roles as healers and leaders across hundreds of distinct Indigenous North American nations before European contact. The Fa’afafine of Samoa have been part of Samoan culture for centuries. The Galli of ancient Rome lived as women within accepted religious life two thousand years ago. Medieval European records document people living outside the identity assigned at birth long before any modern concept of transition existed.
Every culture. Every continent. Every era of human history. Independently. Without contact with each other.
Modern science did not create these people. Modern science developed the tools to understand what every human culture on earth had already recognised.
What the Medical World Has Concluded
The World Health Organisation removed transgender identity from its list of mental disorders in 2019.
The American Medical Association agrees it is not a disorder. The American Psychiatric Association agrees. The British Psychological Society agrees. The Royal College of Psychiatrists agrees. The Endocrine Society agrees. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health agrees.
These organisations represent the global medical consensus. They do not reach consensus by accident or through ideology. They reach it through evidence. And the evidence here has been pointing in one direction for decades.
What All of This Means
Being transgender is a naturally occurring variation in human development. So is being intersex. So is being gay or bisexual. These things emerge from the same biological processes that build every human being. They happen before birth. They are shaped by genetics, hormones and developmental timing in the womb.
They are not choices. They are not illnesses. They are not trends. They are not threats to anyone.
The man with nipples he will never use is walking proof of exactly how human development works. Proof that biology builds complexity into us. Proof that separate developmental windows can produce different outcomes in the same body. Proof that variation is not error. It is just what biology does when it builds a human being.
The science has never been the problem here.
The problem has always been that most people were never taught it.
Now you have been.
New York Pride is almost here - how did Jack find his first New York Pride? Find out in I, Jack Parker? Available https://t.co/hqH2nK5o3f #Pride#NewYorkPride#NewYork#LGBTQ+
The Government's Office for Equality and Opportunities has published their impact assessment on the new EHRC code of practice.
They say the new codes is detrimental for those with protected characteristics of gender reassignment, disability and sex
Pride month has me looking back over some of the relevant work we have published - see
Dr Julia Brewer- ‘Is there something you need to tell us?’ in Balancing on Quicksand https://t.co/996xlmchJY
Pride month has me looking back over some of the relevant work we have published - see
Carter Jacobs - ‘I’m not as bad as you’ in Balancing on Quicksand https://t.co/rGH3GhX1iB