Rayvin

"We're a democracy" as if this is the single most important factor in any conversation about anything, anywhere. If we democratically voted to nuke every major city in this country, would that be an infallable judgement that everyone should just accept? Being on the majority in a democracy doesn't make you right. It is in fact only a measure of how successful any particular narrative has been, over competing ones. Poor girl. genuinely. You could see her rage as well. These old fucks sitting there, burning her future, and telling her that she's not complaining about it in the right way, she's complaining in an inconvenient way. They're lucky the young aren't literally arming up - I suspect in 20 or 30 years time, they'll be wishing they had.

I think this probably comes down to a question of what difference it makes, if we all accept that they are who they say they are. Who does it harm? I'm not the best advocate for trans people on this discussion I might add, it's not an area I know in detail and I am constantly being schooled by my trans friends on various associated issues. I'm wary of talking nonsense for the sake of making their case. Ideally, these would be conversations to have with trans people - and all I can say here is that at least for those I know, they're not trying to bring down the entire social order of things - they're just trying to live without feeling shit all day, every day.

I think you're right. The added difficulty they have (IMO) is that they cross a political line for some on the social justice side as well. Some feminist women see them as interlopers into conversations about privilege and oppression where traditionally their views and feelings would have been paramount. This is the JK Rowling angle. So they take fire from both sides, which I think is probably a fairly unique circumstance. I mean we all know all of this I guess but yeah - seems to keep them in the news. I vaguely feel as though they are going to become a larger demographic in the coming years as young people spend more time questioning themselves along these lines - but I also suspect it will end up with a total dilution of the whole gender binary anyway; to the point where it doesn't really matter anymore, who is what.

fwiw it isn't by design on my part, and up until 3 or 4 years ago I knew precisely zero trans people. That said I guess a couple of friendship groups opened up my community a bit on that basis and here we are. I will say tbh, none of them are militant and angry, they're all timid and scared shitless. So I have a hard time seeing them as "the enemy". They're just people trying not to live their lives in pain.

10 or 11? Mostly trans women, one trans man. Anecdotally I would say its more common amongst people in their early to mid 20s than other age groups. Only one of them I know well, the others are friends of friends. Still though, have had conversations with them all.

She reminds me a bit of Leadsom on that basis. Whatever happened to her?

I mean I agree on the fallout from this if Sunak goes, but Liz Truss is not an intelligent person...

So that'd be a no

What the fuck. Just what the fuck.

Liz Truss? I thought you were joking...

Some suggestion that Sunak might go. Would make sense, he's had an incredibly bad week and they could let him walk off with the budget done and spend the next year pointing the finger at him when people complain. On the other hand, he really did seem to be the PM in waiting and I'm not sure the Tories have any manner of plan B. Certainly not an obvious one.

Started in my mid-20s. Some sort of dust allergy. It gets really bad if I don't medicate it to the point where I can't sleep, but other than that they don't really show up day to day. I think I fucked my nose with paper dust working in a print workshop.

As if anyone, anywhere, would willingly go down there Given what the rest of him looks like, the horror of it would be unthinkable.

Especially given that he was so 'traumatised' by what went on here, he didn't think he'd ever work again. I mean that's some recovery for the extensive deeply pained 'trauma' that the man endured here...

I'm not the one who keeps talking about his Johnson tbh

It's now all over my family, some of whom I saw at the weekend - so I'm expecting the worst now. Allergies have been acting up since yesterday but maybe it's not allergies.. Damn pain this thing.

I'm not sure who that person is but I agree with you that no one should be receiving death threats on social media. That does seem to be what twitter is mainly for though, given how often you hear about it happening. Your sister is of course entitled to express her view without being threatened - in the same way that you'd hope trans people would be free to live their lives without being attacked. It's odd that people who come under such sustained abuse by the wider world would be so ready to turn to aggression themselves, but presumably (as in all such cases irrespective of the area of argument) it's the unstable people leading the charge here.

Exactly. I really don't think this stuff happens very much at all. My mum used to argue trans women entering women's bathrooms made women vulnerable and I'd have to argue that if a man really wanted to assault a woman, the social weirdness of entering a woman's bathroom was not a barrier.

I'm not going to comment on the matter at hand in terms of specifics because I don't have firsthand experience - suffice to say that I know many trans people and they don't mention being as comfortable with the sort of reality that the author describes, as she herself does. Mileage seemingly varies. That point aside though, even if I felt the need to speak out against left wing views - as I have done before - I would never choose to do so in the Daily Heil. They're not running that article because they care about the issue, they're running it because it agrees with their perspective in the culture war. I don't understand why anyone would offer themselves up for that.

A 1.2% chance of going down.. I think we're good.

BBC reported yesterday that current polling goes as close as 51:49. At some point, the centre is going to have to recognise that something needs to give here. Either the policies or the narrative, one of the two. IMO they could stand to be a little more honest with voters across the board. I very much hope Macron wins for the sake of Europe. I'd vote for him on that basis alone.

I thought that myself tbh

He's a human being whether we like it or not, also a cunt, and whether I call him Boris or Johnson changes none of those things. I do try fwiw but I'm over apologising for forgetting like I'm a hen pecked husband who forgot to put the seat down ffs You lot can have at it, I'm going to ignore the comments in future. Johnson is a cunt, and he has been one in my mind for his entire political career irrespective of who called him what. I suspect everyone else on here has the same view. If you found him more relatable when he was being called Boris, that's on you tbh.

So, this may be common knowledge for all I know - I wasn't aware of it but there's plenty of people on here more knowledgeable on the region than me - I was told earlier today by my old man that the animosity between Sunderland and Newcastle (or at least the overenthusiasm for it on wearside) stems back to the 1700s and the English civil war. Apparently Newcastle was a royalist city, and Sunderland threw in with Cromwell and, by association, the Scots. When the Royal family was restored or however that went, Newcastle was rewarded for its loyalty by being given mining contracts that were otherwise with Sunderland. A grudge that the Sunderland residents apparently have generationally hung on to without necessarily being aware of it. And from that point they've been economically behind us. It's interesting because the English civil war was a great waste of everyone's time that Sunderland seems to have wholeheartedly embraced following a populist uprising, which they 'won' and then disproportionately suffered for.. which, idk, sounds kinda familiar to some other great event that perhaps occurred more recently...?

I hadn't realised he wasn't the first tbh so yes, fair comment on that.