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Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

Thanks for the good read. One thing that is not at all clear to me is how so many intelligent individuals found it completely ok to perform irreversible sexual reassignment surgery on children. Could it be related to Hannah Arendt’s description of Eichmann at the time of the Nuremberg trials:

I was struck by the manifest shallowness in the doer [ie Eichmann] which made it impossible to trace the uncontestable evil of his deeds to any deeper level of roots or motives. The deeds were monstrous, but the doer – at least the very effective one now on trial – was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous.

Maybe the real enemy is institutionalized thinking.

Last edited 1 year ago by Julian Farrows
R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

The real enemy is large American pharmaceutical companies pushing these off licence drugs and that have been found to be responsible for funding the toxic mess of lobbyists, activists and ‘research’ dominating the area. What’s chemically castrating a few thousand kids when there are new markets to build and frontiers to extend?

mike otter
mike otter
1 year ago
Reply to  R Wright

Sure the pharma co’s are along for the ride – they’ll sell anything to anyone and perfectly demonstrate the banality of evil. If there is an enemy here it is the gender-baiters who are just the same soldiers of the left who have so far failed to whip up a race war in USA or a “greens” versus humanity war in both European and ANZAC nations. I think of them more as criminals, some insane, who unlike Eichmann or pharma sales execs do indeed present as monsters. Anyone trying to re-hash Charles Manson’s lifes work couldn’t be anything else.

mike otter
mike otter
1 year ago
Reply to  R Wright

Sure the pharma co’s are along for the ride – they’ll sell anything to anyone and perfectly demonstrate the banality of evil. If there is an enemy here it is the gender-baiters who are just the same soldiers of the left who have so far failed to whip up a race war in USA or a “greens” versus humanity war in both European and ANZAC nations. I think of them more as criminals, some insane, who unlike Eichmann or pharma sales execs do indeed present as monsters. Anyone trying to re-hash Charles Manson’s lifes work couldn’t be anything else.

michael stanwick
michael stanwick
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

I share your puzzlement. The presence in the ruminations of Wren of her interpretations of specific ideas of Rorty and Foucault, and then Wren’s application of her ideas is something I wish Stock would seriously deconstruct as to its ontological falsity.
I think there is a weaponised narrative in the ether regarding ‘transgenderism’, that sees it as something that is a true feature of reality rather than a psychological issue of self perception. As Wren writes; In our time, it is hard to see any knowledge or understanding as ‘mirroring’ nature, or ‘mirroring’ reality.” She concludes: “There is an implication here for our work in gender identity clinics: that we are in the business of helping actively to construct the idea and the understanding of transgender,… .
I think that idea is now the entrenched narrative, such that the law can be effected by it and public discussions critical of it can lead to loss of employment and social cancellations with its effect also in the abuse and corruption of language.

Last edited 1 year ago by michael stanwick
Terry Davies
Terry Davies
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Oh, I think this is absolutely the case. Institutional thinking is very persuasive.

Paul Boire
Paul Boire
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Once a cult-ure embraces “no fault” divorce, the Pill, abortion and sodomy as a natural behavior then there is no argument to be made coherently for our actual human biology. We are seeing our faces in the reflective waters of this pool of transgression.

Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul Boire

I disagree.
But what _has_ happened over the last sixty or so years is that with good contraception, easily available abortion and a liberalisation around gay sex is that ‘sex’ as an activity has become totally divorced from sex as a means of reproduction.
Sex is now overwhelmingly about ‘recreation’ rather than ‘procreation’. So ‘changing your sex’ is just an extension of the recreational thing. ‘Trans’ makes no sense in any biological/evolutionary path, but is only individually recreational.

Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul Boire

I disagree.
But what _has_ happened over the last sixty or so years is that with good contraception, easily available abortion and a liberalisation around gay sex is that ‘sex’ as an activity has become totally divorced from sex as a means of reproduction.
Sex is now overwhelmingly about ‘recreation’ rather than ‘procreation’. So ‘changing your sex’ is just an extension of the recreational thing. ‘Trans’ makes no sense in any biological/evolutionary path, but is only individually recreational.

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

The real enemy is large American pharmaceutical companies pushing these off licence drugs and that have been found to be responsible for funding the toxic mess of lobbyists, activists and ‘research’ dominating the area. What’s chemically castrating a few thousand kids when there are new markets to build and frontiers to extend?

michael stanwick
michael stanwick
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

I share your puzzlement. The presence in the ruminations of Wren of her interpretations of specific ideas of Rorty and Foucault, and then Wren’s application of her ideas is something I wish Stock would seriously deconstruct as to its ontological falsity.
I think there is a weaponised narrative in the ether regarding ‘transgenderism’, that sees it as something that is a true feature of reality rather than a psychological issue of self perception. As Wren writes; In our time, it is hard to see any knowledge or understanding as ‘mirroring’ nature, or ‘mirroring’ reality.” She concludes: “There is an implication here for our work in gender identity clinics: that we are in the business of helping actively to construct the idea and the understanding of transgender,… .
I think that idea is now the entrenched narrative, such that the law can be effected by it and public discussions critical of it can lead to loss of employment and social cancellations with its effect also in the abuse and corruption of language.

Last edited 1 year ago by michael stanwick
Terry Davies
Terry Davies
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Oh, I think this is absolutely the case. Institutional thinking is very persuasive.

Paul Boire
Paul Boire
1 year ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Once a cult-ure embraces “no fault” divorce, the Pill, abortion and sodomy as a natural behavior then there is no argument to be made coherently for our actual human biology. We are seeing our faces in the reflective waters of this pool of transgression.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

Thanks for the good read. One thing that is not at all clear to me is how so many intelligent individuals found it completely ok to perform irreversible sexual reassignment surgery on children. Could it be related to Hannah Arendt’s description of Eichmann at the time of the Nuremberg trials:

I was struck by the manifest shallowness in the doer [ie Eichmann] which made it impossible to trace the uncontestable evil of his deeds to any deeper level of roots or motives. The deeds were monstrous, but the doer – at least the very effective one now on trial – was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous.

Maybe the real enemy is institutionalized thinking.

Last edited 1 year ago by Julian Farrows
Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
1 year ago

Both Julian Farrows and R Wright have hit on some of the problems with the Tavistock and GIDS in particular.
Group think is so prevalent around this whole Psycholgy/Psychotherapy area. I was a Psychotherapist and worked within the NHS and privately for a good number of years. I was lucky, I found some sound mentors, but witnessed over the years at conferences and various meetings a strange dogma between different groupings. Think Peoples Front of Judea, and I am not exaggerating.
Psychodynamic versus, Cognitive Behavioural, Kleinian versus Jungian etc. To me, too many people forgot the following word in all these THEORY. A strong subset believed and acted as if all these theories were absolute, true and not to be questioned. To be “in” someone had to support vehemently their truth. Those who rose to any position of power were the strongest believers. This, to me, is the group think that infected the Tavistock.
The Tavistock people were always very sniffy about anyone from one of the other disciplines and it is not much of a leap to go full hardcore on gender.
And on Pharmaceuticals a lot has been written about anti-depressants and that no one knew they were depressed until there was a “cure”. Similarly would there even have been a GIDS without some pills to give?

Michelle Johnston
Michelle Johnston
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Buckley

Andrew, both my parents were mental health professionals, and what struck me over a lifetime of listening to them is that a good deal of how the profession works is akin to wandering around in a fog and pretending they KNOW the way out. The reason being many of the treatments are like you say about this issue, merely theories.
Now if you move on to the transgender issue at its core (not all the other things which have jumped on the raft), where people suffer dysphoria and about 5,000 people between 2004 and 2018 pursued re-assignment. In the end, it’s a self-diagnosis.
So put self-diagnosis with those who have any number of other agendas and the road to chaos in my mind is easily understood.
Most people have dysphoria triggers at either 4/5 when their identity becomes clear (Jan Morris) or at puberty 11/12 when they look down two pathways at how to express the onset of a sexual impulse and in Caroline Cossey’s case, she knew she was not gay or masculine. However, because the vast majority of people are in a state of flux between 11 and 21 (somewhat arbitrary ages) common sense tells you the chance of drawing a line in the sand when it’s still shifting for the vast majority is entirely wrong. I accept that gender dysphoria is real for a handful of people and an even smaller number will be happier when they transition but that has to wait until as an adult you have rejected every other option.
I might have taken the view some years ago that this current movement came from the notion that the road to hell is paved with good intentions but I think not. It’s part of the great deconstruction and so many de—

Michelle Johnston
Michelle Johnston
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Buckley

Andrew, both my parents were mental health professionals, and what struck me over a lifetime of listening to them is that a good deal of how the profession works is akin to wandering around in a fog and pretending they KNOW the way out. The reason being many of the treatments are like you say about this issue, merely theories.
Now if you move on to the transgender issue at its core (not all the other things which have jumped on the raft), where people suffer dysphoria and about 5,000 people between 2004 and 2018 pursued re-assignment. In the end, it’s a self-diagnosis.
So put self-diagnosis with those who have any number of other agendas and the road to chaos in my mind is easily understood.
Most people have dysphoria triggers at either 4/5 when their identity becomes clear (Jan Morris) or at puberty 11/12 when they look down two pathways at how to express the onset of a sexual impulse and in Caroline Cossey’s case, she knew she was not gay or masculine. However, because the vast majority of people are in a state of flux between 11 and 21 (somewhat arbitrary ages) common sense tells you the chance of drawing a line in the sand when it’s still shifting for the vast majority is entirely wrong. I accept that gender dysphoria is real for a handful of people and an even smaller number will be happier when they transition but that has to wait until as an adult you have rejected every other option.
I might have taken the view some years ago that this current movement came from the notion that the road to hell is paved with good intentions but I think not. It’s part of the great deconstruction and so many de—

Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
1 year ago

Both Julian Farrows and R Wright have hit on some of the problems with the Tavistock and GIDS in particular.
Group think is so prevalent around this whole Psycholgy/Psychotherapy area. I was a Psychotherapist and worked within the NHS and privately for a good number of years. I was lucky, I found some sound mentors, but witnessed over the years at conferences and various meetings a strange dogma between different groupings. Think Peoples Front of Judea, and I am not exaggerating.
Psychodynamic versus, Cognitive Behavioural, Kleinian versus Jungian etc. To me, too many people forgot the following word in all these THEORY. A strong subset believed and acted as if all these theories were absolute, true and not to be questioned. To be “in” someone had to support vehemently their truth. Those who rose to any position of power were the strongest believers. This, to me, is the group think that infected the Tavistock.
The Tavistock people were always very sniffy about anyone from one of the other disciplines and it is not much of a leap to go full hardcore on gender.
And on Pharmaceuticals a lot has been written about anti-depressants and that no one knew they were depressed until there was a “cure”. Similarly would there even have been a GIDS without some pills to give?

James Jenkin
James Jenkin
1 year ago

Occam’s razor might suggest these doctors are ghoulish maniacs

James Jenkin
James Jenkin
1 year ago

Occam’s razor might suggest these doctors are ghoulish maniacs

Melissa Martin
Melissa Martin
1 year ago

Puberty blockers are analogous to putting a child under general anaesthetic then claiming they can ask to be woken up if they change their minds.

Charles J Lewis
Charles J Lewis
1 year ago
Reply to  Melissa Martin

Clever! May I use this analogy, Melissa? and, if I may ask, did you coin it yourself?

Charles J Lewis
Charles J Lewis
1 year ago
Reply to  Melissa Martin

Clever! May I use this analogy, Melissa? and, if I may ask, did you coin it yourself?

Melissa Martin
Melissa Martin
1 year ago

Puberty blockers are analogous to putting a child under general anaesthetic then claiming they can ask to be woken up if they change their minds.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

V much appreciate Kathleen’s writing.
A linked discussion point – is it the neuroscience consensus now that the brain doesn’t stop growing/reach maturity until one’s early 20s? How much therefore we risk dabbling before then?
With 90 billion neurones, or something similar, in every brain, and the interconnections running into the trillions we know we remain very much in the foothills of neuroscience. Will a growing biological canon of research squeeze the more psychological interpretations? One can see elements of that already.
There is so much we do not yet understand. One feels therefore that humility has to accompany all consideration in this field.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

V much appreciate Kathleen’s writing.
A linked discussion point – is it the neuroscience consensus now that the brain doesn’t stop growing/reach maturity until one’s early 20s? How much therefore we risk dabbling before then?
With 90 billion neurones, or something similar, in every brain, and the interconnections running into the trillions we know we remain very much in the foothills of neuroscience. Will a growing biological canon of research squeeze the more psychological interpretations? One can see elements of that already.
There is so much we do not yet understand. One feels therefore that humility has to accompany all consideration in this field.

Ewen Mac
Ewen Mac
1 year ago

“The Tavistock didn’t believe in objective truth.”
Neither does the British Government. Only this week the Civil Service announced additional security clearance for “trans and non-binary staff” in order that they could “bring their whole selves to work.”
The Tavistock is a jaw-dropping horror story and the biggest medical scandal in decades, but will it be reported accordingly? Will the Tavistock be acknowledged as a grotesque warning of what can happen when objective truth is denied? I’m afraid I don’t hold out much hope of that in a country whose Government institutions pander to the most ludicrous rejection of objective truth (and biological reality), and where the bulk of the media is terrified to admit what’s happening.

Ewen Mac
Ewen Mac
1 year ago

“The Tavistock didn’t believe in objective truth.”
Neither does the British Government. Only this week the Civil Service announced additional security clearance for “trans and non-binary staff” in order that they could “bring their whole selves to work.”
The Tavistock is a jaw-dropping horror story and the biggest medical scandal in decades, but will it be reported accordingly? Will the Tavistock be acknowledged as a grotesque warning of what can happen when objective truth is denied? I’m afraid I don’t hold out much hope of that in a country whose Government institutions pander to the most ludicrous rejection of objective truth (and biological reality), and where the bulk of the media is terrified to admit what’s happening.

Diane Tasker
Diane Tasker
1 year ago

As ever, right on the nail!

Diane Tasker
Diane Tasker
1 year ago

As ever, right on the nail!

Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago

It’s commonly said that all shrinks are, themselves, nutters.
I suspect much truth is to be found in this.

Last edited 1 year ago by Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago

It’s commonly said that all shrinks are, themselves, nutters.
I suspect much truth is to be found in this.

Last edited 1 year ago by Theo Hopkins
chris hamnett
chris hamnett
1 year ago

This is a brilliant, insightful, piece. It really shows the intellectually dubious stress on creation and fluidity of meaning and identity. It will be interesting to see if, at some stage in the future, some of the key people at GIDs may face disqualification or worse for the harm they have done to children.

chris hamnett
chris hamnett
1 year ago

This is a brilliant, insightful, piece. It really shows the intellectually dubious stress on creation and fluidity of meaning and identity. It will be interesting to see if, at some stage in the future, some of the key people at GIDs may face disqualification or worse for the harm they have done to children.

paul castle
paul castle
1 year ago

It is evident that the Tavistock was being run by a bunch of queers and perverts who appear to have no problem in indoctrinating and harming children and this is people who have no children themselves , have never raised their own . Just listening to the way they speak shows them up for what they are .

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  paul castle

Evil degenerate perverts who could not believe their luck
The eventual bill when the class action(s) concludes will run into hundreds of millions

Last edited 1 year ago by Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago
Reply to  paul castle

I disagree. To me they are sadly just an over-clever bunch of nutters. Not evil, just confused in their own thinking … to the point that the very useful concept of ‘common sense’ has been abandoned.
(On common sense. Way back, I got banned by the moderators at the Guardian for suggesting that if face-to-face with a trans woman who insisted he, or she<polite pronoun>, was a woman I would use the common sense vernacular and say “What? You call yerself a bird? Pull the other one! ….Mate!”.)

Last edited 1 year ago by Theo Hopkins
Andy Martin
Andy Martin
1 year ago
Reply to  Theo Hopkins

I might say something similar and moreover, if any mentally ill trans woman were to accuses me of misgendering them, I would tell them they are misgendering themselves. I am being a realist and I refuse to give into their delusional narcissistic fetishism.

Charles J Lewis
Charles J Lewis
1 year ago
Reply to  Andy Martin

delusional narcissistic fetishism.
Love it! I will use that expression myself…

Charles J Lewis
Charles J Lewis
1 year ago
Reply to  Andy Martin

delusional narcissistic fetishism.
Love it! I will use that expression myself…

Andy Martin
Andy Martin
1 year ago
Reply to  Theo Hopkins

I might say something similar and moreover, if any mentally ill trans woman were to accuses me of misgendering them, I would tell them they are misgendering themselves. I am being a realist and I refuse to give into their delusional narcissistic fetishism.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  paul castle

Evil degenerate perverts who could not believe their luck
The eventual bill when the class action(s) concludes will run into hundreds of millions

Last edited 1 year ago by Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago
Reply to  paul castle

I disagree. To me they are sadly just an over-clever bunch of nutters. Not evil, just confused in their own thinking … to the point that the very useful concept of ‘common sense’ has been abandoned.
(On common sense. Way back, I got banned by the moderators at the Guardian for suggesting that if face-to-face with a trans woman who insisted he, or she<polite pronoun>, was a woman I would use the common sense vernacular and say “What? You call yerself a bird? Pull the other one! ….Mate!”.)

Last edited 1 year ago by Theo Hopkins
paul castle
paul castle
1 year ago

It is evident that the Tavistock was being run by a bunch of queers and perverts who appear to have no problem in indoctrinating and harming children and this is people who have no children themselves , have never raised their own . Just listening to the way they speak shows them up for what they are .

Guglielmo Marinaro
Guglielmo Marinaro
1 year ago

When looking for a suitable Homeric metaphor for GIDS clinicians and their endocrinologist associates, we should probably think about sirens, luring passing young sailors with enticing songs to their ruin on the rocks.

A most appropriate metaphor. The Italian for mermaids is sirene.

Guglielmo Marinaro
Guglielmo Marinaro
1 year ago

When looking for a suitable Homeric metaphor for GIDS clinicians and their endocrinologist associates, we should probably think about sirens, luring passing young sailors with enticing songs to their ruin on the rocks.

A most appropriate metaphor. The Italian for mermaids is sirene.

Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago

I’ll toss this remark of mine as a “Please discuss”…..
Now society has adjusted the word ‘marriage’ to include a union between two people of the same sex – something _some_ people may find as absolutely ridiculous as it seperates marriage away from the social aspects of procreation/the raising of children/the care of the elderly by their now grown children, and the like, has this change of the meaning of ‘marriage’ opened up the space to change the meaning of sex (in the sense that sex is male or female)?
Please discuss!

Guglielmo Marinaro
Guglielmo Marinaro
1 year ago
Reply to  Theo Hopkins

No, it hasn’t – even if you disagree with same-sex marrage.

Guglielmo Marinaro
Guglielmo Marinaro
1 year ago
Reply to  Theo Hopkins

No, it hasn’t – even if you disagree with same-sex marrage.

Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago

I’ll toss this remark of mine as a “Please discuss”…..
Now society has adjusted the word ‘marriage’ to include a union between two people of the same sex – something _some_ people may find as absolutely ridiculous as it seperates marriage away from the social aspects of procreation/the raising of children/the care of the elderly by their now grown children, and the like, has this change of the meaning of ‘marriage’ opened up the space to change the meaning of sex (in the sense that sex is male or female)?
Please discuss!

Richard Gipps
Richard Gipps
1 year ago

This is IMO a bit of a weird piece of writing. First, ‘The Tavistock’ is usually the name given to ‘The Tavistock Centre’ – the main locus of psychoanalytic thinking/treatment in the NHS, where the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust is based. There are lots of different services offered by the trust – but Stock is instead here just writing about the Tavistock GIDS Clinic but misleadingly calling it ‘The Tavistock’. Second, some of the strongest criticisms of the GIDS clinic – and the concerns that were raised over the last few years – came precisely from the psychoanalytic practitioners of the Tavistock! (think David Bell and the whistleblowers Marcus and Sue Evans). The concerns were precisely about the lack of depth psychological thinking, and the prevalence instead of concrete thinking, going on in the GIDS. (A good book-length psychoanalytically based consideration of gender dysphoria is given by the Evans’s in their new book Gender Dysphoria.) I don’t think you could get things more backwards than chalking up the thoughtlessness and ideological capture of the Tavi GIDS to the psychoanalytic heritage of the Tavistock Centre.

Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Gipps

I checked out the recommended ‘Gender Dysphoria’ (Sue Evans) on Amazon.
The publication itself may be of use and interest, but then Amazon took me to ‘also may be of interest’ pages and there is dangerous stuff there; picture books for small confused children with comic characters, telling them their delusion (because it is a delusion) is real and they are this delusion, not what they actually are in reality. And this delusion is a truth.
God help us!

Last edited 1 year ago by Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago
Reply to  Theo Hopkins

BTW. I have bought a copy of Gender Dysphoria by Sue Evans.

Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago
Reply to  Theo Hopkins

BTW. I have bought a copy of Gender Dysphoria by Sue Evans.

Theo Hopkins
Theo Hopkins
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Gipps

I checked out the recommended ‘Gender Dysphoria’ (Sue Evans) on Amazon.
The publication itself may be of use and interest, but then Amazon took me to ‘also may be of interest’ pages and there is dangerous stuff there; picture books for small confused children with comic characters, telling them their delusion (because it is a delusion) is real and they are this delusion, not what they actually are in reality. And this delusion is a truth.
God help us!

Last edited 1 year ago by Theo Hopkins
Richard Gipps
Richard Gipps
1 year ago

This is IMO a bit of a weird piece of writing. First, ‘The Tavistock’ is usually the name given to ‘The Tavistock Centre’ – the main locus of psychoanalytic thinking/treatment in the NHS, where the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust is based. There are lots of different services offered by the trust – but Stock is instead here just writing about the Tavistock GIDS Clinic but misleadingly calling it ‘The Tavistock’. Second, some of the strongest criticisms of the GIDS clinic – and the concerns that were raised over the last few years – came precisely from the psychoanalytic practitioners of the Tavistock! (think David Bell and the whistleblowers Marcus and Sue Evans). The concerns were precisely about the lack of depth psychological thinking, and the prevalence instead of concrete thinking, going on in the GIDS. (A good book-length psychoanalytically based consideration of gender dysphoria is given by the Evans’s in their new book Gender Dysphoria.) I don’t think you could get things more backwards than chalking up the thoughtlessness and ideological capture of the Tavi GIDS to the psychoanalytic heritage of the Tavistock Centre.