Oddbean

I didn't want to pick on Lee Donoghue's uber-howler about how "more kids transgendering now than ever before" - ie coming out as gender non-conforming instead of hiding it in the closet. It felt like shooting fish in a barrel. https://piped.video/watch?v=oaZL-8ytEtE&t=800 But John Campbell's piece reminds me there are a few things worth saying about this. First, props to Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke for pointing out that the fear and loathing of takatāpui Donoghue was voicing is an artifact of colonisation. (11/?)

Second, I was impressed by how Chlöe Swarbrick laid down the wero, in her consistently articulate and evidence-based style; “our trans, and non-binary, and gender minority whānau are disproportionately represented in mental ill health, addiction and suicide statistics.” Finally, respect to National's Erica Standford for saying: "It’s really not a problem. And it’s something I just think is a distraction from the really big issues around the economy, and cost of living." This! (12/?)

Hard right think tanks - particularly in the US - manufacture these Culture War issues. People inflamed about inherently subjective social policy issues, are distracted them from the way capitalists - who fund those think tanks - continue to pick their pockets with tax cuts, public service cuts, and privatisations of public assets. Anti-"woke" culture warriors then amplify them, on social media etc,, digging pits lined with spikes. Which liberal culture warriors routinely blunder into. (13/?)

Maipi-Clarke and Swarbrick handled it well in this case, providing *context*, and challenging Donoghue on the facts. But IMHO, Standford's response is actually the best one. Calmly name the fear and loathing for what it is, dismiss it as the ravings of minds manipulated by the Dark Side, and move on. (14/?)

#JohnCampbell gets it; "...one more before I move on: 'Children who experience socioeconomic disadvantage are at high risk of suffering from multiple disorders by the time they reach adulthood. This reflects their experience of a broad range of hardships.' Hardships. From which all of life is disproportionately likely to be made hard. Or harder. And we’ve probably not mentioned those children, this election, as often as we’ve scaremongered about trans people." https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/09/30/john-campbell-poulton-poverty-and-the-real-way-to-get-tough-on-crime/ (15/?)

"And if experiencing 'intense or regular poverty' in childhood increases likelihood of criminality later in life, we may actually have achieved the remarkable perversity of having economic policies that create the disadvantage we then spend election campaigns arguing over how best to punish the consequences of." #JohnCampbell, Poulton, poverty and the real way to get tough on crime https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/09/30/john-campbell-poulton-poverty-and-the-real-way-to-get-tough-on-crime/ Fucking. This.

@671bc5e9 > Trans are mentally ill. This is not news FYI that's a very vague statement on a very complex subject: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

@58db300d That's nice. Not sure why you're lumping in legitimate, rare, gender dysphoria with the "trans" of the "trans movement". First, those with true dysphoria are typically resentful of the current "movement", as it takes away resources and makes a mockery of their situation. Odd that you don't know this. Second, you countered mental illness with mental illness. So, kudos on that weird cognitive dissonance.

@671bc5e9 Even if you're a trained psychologist, able to diagnose genuine gender dysphoria from some other cause of genderfluid identification (and I doubt it), you can't diagnose such complex psychological states at a distance. So statements like this... > lumping in legitimate, rare, gender dysphoria with the "trans" of the "trans movement" ... have no rational basis.