Interesting Links for 26-09-2017

[andrewducker]

Researcher blocked from researching detransition because it might offend people

(tags: transgender research )

Labour conference 2017: Russell Brand calls for drugs to be decriminalised and regulated to combat addiction

(tags: drugs legalisation uk )

Brexit: EU chief negotiator says no talks on transition period until divorce bill is settled

Was the obvious response to May's speech
(tags: UK europe )

Squirrel, apparently, cannot die from falling

Although nobody seems to know what terminal velocity is for a squirrel
(tags: squirrel video height )

The effect of robots on the German labour market

(tags: economics automation robots Germany manufacturing )

It's ok to be stuck. And you need to be ok with that

(tags: psychology learning mathematics viaFanf )

A really clear explanation of what Europe needs from the UK on the Irish border

(tags: Ireland NorthernIreland UK europe )

Live in a flat in Edinburgh? The council have a survey on recycling

(tags: recycling Edinburgh survey )

The Banned 1910s Magazine That Started a Feminist Movement in Japan

(tags: japan history feminism )

Reddit asks "Russians who were adults back while the Soviet Union existed: How does life in Russia now compare to back then?"

(tags: russia history )

Man banned from Twitter over mosquito death threat

(tags: twitter abuse fail OhForFucksSake )

Debunking the Standard Narrative on the "Opioid Epidemic"

(tags: drugs )

Gender pay gap for managers £3,000 more than thought

(tags: gender pay uk OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I really struggle to see how there is a solution to the UK leaving the EU that leaves all of the parties with an interest in Northern Ireland with enough of what they want to, firstly sign up to the deal, and secondly not actually start killing people again.

I know it's been a long time since the Troubles were active but I don't think the para-militaries from any of the sides have disbanded. They've become drug gangs. Looking five years ahead I'm not confident that they will continue to be happy running drugs accross the border - especially when the border is now harder and weirder.

I just don't see how you can have a border between the EU and the UK that treats Northern Ireland like an indivisible part of the realm (the justification behind the Falklands War), maintains a free trade area and currency union within the UK, and which adheres to the Good Friday Agreement and guarantees the status of Nationalist Northern Irish people whilst also recognising the practical Britishness of the Loyalist community and which doesn't cause a massive, massive trade blockage or rampant smuggling.

(And I'd mention that the problem the US has with Mexico isn't so much Mexicans crossing the border but people from further south crossing Mexico to get to the US border. By analogy, one of the problems the UK is going to have with Ireland is EU citizens crossing the RI / NI border illegally to get in the UK.

And Peter North is right - we asked for it, it's up to us to explain how it's going to work and what we can do when our first attempt doesn't work.

[cmcmck]

Detransition effects a microscopically small number of people from a very small minority yet some people seem to be determined to make a huge deal of it and I've found that one sometimes needs to question their motives.

Northern Ireland

[andrewducker]

"I don't think the para-militaries from any of the sides have disbanded. They've become drug gangs."

I'd agree with you there. Even back in 1995 I was hearing from friends in NI that you couldn't sell anything without one side or the other taking a cut. And it doesn't sound like it's gotten any better.

My approach* would be to hive Northern-Ireland off more, as part of a Federal UK, and have it be part of the EEA. Which puts a customs border between NI and the rest of the UK, but that's still going to be less awful.

*Not really. My approach would be to NOT LEAVE THE EU.

[andrewducker]

It absolutely is tiny.

But I don't think that should mean it can't be investigated. If only to reduce it even further and make it not an issue at all.

[cmcmck]

Oh, granted for sure, but this guy's comments ring all my warning bells. I've heard the same things from the same sort of person so often and have seen the damage done- it often leads in the same direction as 'gay aversion' therapy and seems to be around the edges of the same sorts of nut religious groups.

This guy may be absolutely genuine, but he may not.
White, male, cis and his statement that there is 'evidence of a growing number of people' detransitioning is an old, old saw from those sorts of people and happens not to be true.

I'd actually let him do the research and then, as an academic, I'd watch while peer review tore it apart.

[wildeabandon]

Where does it say that he's cis?

Given that the number of people transitioning has been growing steadily for years, I'd be astonished if the number of people detransitioning weren't also growing.

My understanding is that the small amount of research done on detransitioners in recent years has suggested that the vast majority of them do so not because they realise they're cis, but because they found living with transphobia was more difficult than living with dysphoria. If that is the case then more data to back it up would be extremely helpful in combating anti-trans narratives.

[calimac]

It rings my warning bells too, but less from what the article says the researcher wants to do than from the cartoonish description of the reasons for denying it.

My suspicion is that there's more to the denial than simple fear of being thought "politically incorrect." I have no evidence for this whatever, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it turned out that the researcher had ties to extremist TERF groups or something like that.

But if the researcher is genuinely disinterested, I'd be in favor of the research no matter how few cases are involved. If anyone is actually being pushed into transitioning who ought not to do it, the better to know about it - it's bad for the reputation of the trans process if this happens. Or, it could be something entirely different, as the other commenter suggested: by revealing the harm of transphobia it could improve the lives of those who have transitioned.

[calimac]

"A really clear explanation of what Europe needs from the UK on the Irish border"

If all the repetition and redundancy had been deleted, these 18 tweets would have been about 3.

Re: Northern Ireland

[danieldwilliam]

I think *if* one insisted that the UK still left the EU and *if* one were focused on minimising the economic friction of trade in Northern Ireland then I think something like federating the UK so that Northern Ireland were inside the EEA and the practical border between the UK and the EU was in the North Sea is probably the most workable solution.

I think you run smack in to a number of political issues.

I don't see the DUP being happy with a situation where Northern Ireland is less than a whole part of the UK. I don't see them being happy with a situation where Northern Ireland is arguably more part of the Republic (in the same customs union) than it is part of the UK.

If I were Sein Fein I'd be very tempted to suggest that, if we're going to have a 3/4 autonomous Northern Ireland with stronger links to Eire then perhaps we should just go the whole hog and re-unify.

And I suspect many pro-EU Scots (thee and me included) would be asking questions about how, if Nothern Ireland can be a federal part of the UK within the EEA why can't Scotland?

There are also questions then about fiscal transfers and also English devolution and the forms of that.

For a party founded on the Burkean proposition that if something is already working you should be really cautious about changing things the Conservative Party are not very good at leaving complicated and precariously balanced things alone.

[theandrewhickey]

Indeed. The reasons given simply don't ring true, and the fact that a fuss is being made about this *while the university is legally unable to give their side of the story* is very dodgy.

I've known a couple of people who've detransitioned (though I know an order of magnitude more people who transitioned and have immeasurably better lives as a result), and certainly think it's a subject that deserves investigation, but my gut tells me that this person was not the right person to be investigating it.

[randomdreams]

I don't know if this is covered in the squirrel article, but I read years ago about a neat case of where the plural of anecdote IS data, if you're careful, when some researchers went to thousands of vets and asked them to list cat-falling-out-of-window injuries and how far the cats had fallen, and from that managed to determine how quickly a cat can turn over, stretch out, and get into its minimum-terminal-velocity stance. Cats that only fell 10-20 meters got very badly injured, while cats that fell from much further distances had broken jaws and ribs but were otherwise fairly uninjured. (I know from other information I've seen that mice and rats apparently don't get injured no matter how far they fall.)

[cmcmck]

Apologies for not replying to you sooner! Things got a bit frantic yesterday after we spoke! :o)

It doesn't- but I happen to know he is- in small community like the UK trans community, people tend to know people and I knew his one time counselling colleague, Richard Curtis, who certainly is trans, but Caspian is cis.

Fwiw, I transitioned at fifteen in the seventies and I'm now sixty so have been knocked about the whole thing a bit and in my time I've known only three detransititoners- one who decided not to go through with it after much thought and, I think, for all the rght reasons, one who got into the hands of religious nutbars and retransitioned once she got out of their evil hands and one who decided they had to put family first.

My own experiencce was that I couldn't cope with dysphoria- it was deal or die and that's hard for a fifteen year old! Transphobia is a thing for sure but I know it was worse then than now.

Trouble is that detransition itself becomes an element of the anti trans narrative- look at all these people regretting- it proves they're all mentally ill.

Caspian says, on the one had that he know increasing numbers of people that do and on the other that he can't get into discourse with the supposed increasing numbers because no one will talk to him. Having been badly treated myself by researchers (and I'm an academic researcher myself although not in this field) I could maybe tell him why people won't talk, but then again, perhaps no one will talk because there are way less people to talk than he seems to think.

His connection to the Beaumont Society would also ring alarm bells- a more transphobic outfit would be hard to imagine (and I speak from personal, very painful experience) ironic for a group dealing with the needs of cross dressers!

I've gone on a bit, but I hope this makes sense!

[cmcmck]

To be fair to Caspian I don't believe that's the connection. His connections to the Beaumont Society would worry me far more. It's a self help organisation for cross dressers and I had some very nasty experiences via the BS in my own early days.

As I said above, he claims there are more and more detransitioners but then states that he can't get anyone to speak to him. This does not compute for me!

Regretters and detransitioners have been an unhealthy discourse for way too long and if I thought this piece of research would be any different, I might hold a different viewpoint, but...............

[cmcmck]

Agreed!

As I said to _wildeabandon_ I've know only three detransitioners in the forty odd years since my own transition.

There may be some worthwhile research here, but the subject is too tainted to be truly safe.

[wildeabandon]

Thanks for such a thoughtful response. Your comments and others elseweb have convinced me that he probably isn't the right person to be doing this research.

I do think it's important that despite, or perhaps even because of, the toxic and terfish narratives that currently surround detransition, that more research is done in order to replace them with a more accurate picture of what can lead people to transition when they're not really trans, or to detransition when they are. But I think that research is more likely to be fruitful if its led by trans and/or detransitioned people.

I hadn't heard of the Beaumont Society before, but looking into it a bit more, its apparent focus on the needs of the female partners of trans women, rather than trans people themselves does raise something of a warning flag.

Re: Northern Ireland

[andrewducker]

"And I suspect many pro-EU Scots (thee and me included) would be asking questions about how, if Nothern Ireland can be a federal part of the UK within the EEA why can't Scotland?"

Why indeed? :-)

That would happily solve that one too! Scotland and NI still in the EU, federal UK makes a bunch of people happier, and Scotland inches closer to independence!

Re: Northern Ireland

[danieldwilliam]

Maybe inches closer to independence.

I think most people in Scotland would be either happy or content with more autonomy. Certainly if that autonomy included strong EU links. There's a chance that a federal UK with some part in the EU would significantly reduce support for full independence.

Re: Northern Ireland

[andrewducker]

Fair point.

Given sufficient freedom within a federal UK I'd be happy.

Re: Northern Ireland

[danieldwilliam]

I'm honestly not sure how I'd react to a big generous sensible offer of a federal UK. Whether that would reduce my desire for independence to practically zero or not.

Back in 2010 I'd have certainly been content with that. I probably even prefered that to independence.

Now, having voted Yes and Remain I feel more emotionally committed to an independent Scotland in the EU. On the other hand, if I get most of what I want and a little bit less of some of the downside through a federal offer I can see myself not having the energy to pursue independence much.

Re: Northern Ireland

[andrewducker]

Yeah, mostly the same here. I'd accept it as "Good enough to focus elsewhere".