Advice for parents of trans kids from Iran

I found this on an Iranian website made by trans people for trans people there. It is advising parents of  trans children what to do. It was translated from the Persian by Google Translate so I have tidied it up a bit, as in my experience automated translation programmes struggle with things like pronouns at the best of times, but hopefully it has not lost its meaning. I just wanted to share it, because I found it so touching and passionate about how parents need to protect their children, especially if they are trans. There are many things we can learn from these people in Iran, in particular how the most important thing parents can do for their trans child is to give them unconditional love.

"If you are a parent of a transsexual child, you should know that it is harder to explain to your relatives and acquaintances than accepting and accompanying your child.  Grandparents, aunts, aunts, uncles, uncles, neighbours ... All are high on the list that you may have to explain to about your child and tell them why your child has changed so much.  The difficulty of doing this is when it comes to explaining to older people than yourself and the elderly, those who can no longer challenge their past gender stereotypes.

You are supposed to be a defender for your child, but the difficulty is that you are going to protect them against your friends and relatives, and this will put you in a quandary.  The important thing is how to balance yourself to protect your child and friends and relatives.

So stay tuned....

Literature class! 

Not all people are familiar with the subject of transsexuals and many do not know about it, so you should not expect them to use the correct words and phrases right from the start. It may sound like words and phrases in the beginning are offensive or have a negative effect, but you should not be quick to go at them with a stick.  Try to explain to them yourself why these words are wrong, or where the negative value is, but do not try to tire them with complicated terms and words. Simplify and summarize with them and do not enter into complicated and confusing details

Persistence. 

If you are going to attend a family picnic, a big party, a wedding or any other community that has a large number of relatives, be sure all the people who need to know about your child, so that they do not knowingly insult your child.  It's better to explain one by one to the people before the start of the party so that your child feels safe and has a good party.  Explain to individuals your child’s name and pronoun.  Teach them to not be surprised at the dress and appearance of your child and respect their identity.

Iron fence

Always in every family there may be someone who does not want to accept your child's identity. Despite all the patience, there are still some who do not want to accept this. Not accepting a topic from one of the relatives is not a big problem; it matters that the person is taking actions against your child and trying to disrespect them or insult them.

It's best to cut off relationship with that person. 

Try to limit traveling with this person. As long as you can interrupt their whole relationship with you, this will give your child and other relatives a message that your child is the most important thing and for their sake, you can interrupt the relationship with your relative but support your child. You can replace your disadvantaged friend or family, but do not forget that your child will no longer be replaced and your child will not be able to find another alternative to his or her parents. If your relationship with that friend or relative is very important to you, try to change their mind or ask for a knowledgeable and reliable parent or a parent for help.

No entry 

You are about to talk about the same child they used to be, just accept and explain your new identity. So you do not need to explain to your child's relatives and describe all of their situations and behaviours. Suffice it to say that your child's behaviour and situation are a private matter between you and your child, and the whole city is not supposed to be notified.  Explain sex and gender differences, tell them gender identity, and talk about gender disorder. Explain the religious issues and explain the legal path.

How your child walked, how would you laugh, how to do surgery, and ... that not everyone trans child has to have surgery. Keep your child's privacy.

Happy joy

Your child needs family support more than surgery, hormones, friends, and so on.  Do not forget, their success depends on your support.

You can change your place of residence, you can find new friends, but your child cannot find new parents.  If your child feels calm and happy, then you should be proud of yourself because it's because of your support.

You cannot change their identity by rejecting, punishing or reprimanding your child. You can not go to the war of spirit and identity, that would just take them away from you and into a community that does not welcome a single person and which would easily send them to the wolves to kill them.

This is not a transitory step, and you should not worry about your parent's support for this situation.  You gave birth to them, so you are responsible for them.

Do not try to change them with pills, shock therapy, wrong counselling to forget their identity. By doing this, you will only harm their mental health and body, and slowly move them away from you, and they have to go to the stranger to fill the vacancy of the family, who do not get mice at the mercy of God.

So know that the first and most important and best protector of your child is you.” OK

Annihilationism: The Basis of TERFism.

Neo-TERF Blaire White has once again foregrounded the dirty secret that the TERFs have tried to hide-in-plain-view since the infamous Janice Raymond exhorted that trans people should be “mandated out of existence.” Her hastily-deleted comment about immigrants exposing the fundamentally right-wing basis of her ideology. “Gas ‘em” is every bit as chilling as you might think, and it exposes the inherently annihilationist nature of TERF ideology. 

The esprit fasciste of TERFism laid bare in White’s and Raymond’s comments is in fact an ever-present basis of TERF dogma even if it is disguised or cloaked in linguistic alibis. To its core TERFism is inherently annihilationist of trans people, whatever its modus operandi or claims it makes, it ultimately seeks to prevent trans people from existing. In particular the new TERF alignment, a formal one in many instances, with hard-right/alt-right/extremist “Christian” far-right/Trumpist oppressive groups exposes this. The tsunami of anti-trans “bathroom bills” in the US have been given a veneer of legitimation by TERF narratives. These bills are designed to prevent trans people from accessing employment, education, social life, civic engagement and more by preventing us from using the appropriate public convenience. This is simply a way of preventing trans people from living their lives, and it is a tactic specifically aimed at trans children.

Of course the idea that trans people threaten women’s existence is another ultimately annihilationist stance and resonates with the propaganda of 1930s Germany. The idea that trans women are inherently “anti-women” or “anti-feminist” is of course based on an essentialisation of trans people and a deliberate misrepresentation of us. Their need to present their own confected image of what trans people are like is necessary to maintain this argument, an essentializing one presented in the clothes of something else. This is why TERFtexts try to focus the arguments on older, late-transitioning trans women (victims of more transphobic and oppressive times) like Caitlyn Jenner, as opposed to younger (and more representative) trans girls like the tough cookie who is Jazz Jennings. Not only is this reductionist, but it employs the propaganda techniques of the far-right; define your target in the minds of your target audience in a way that reinforces your argument; dehumanise, misinterpret, misrepresent, demonise, monster… It allows you to avoid engaging in real arguments, and means they can avoids defending their arguments against pesky things like facts.

TERFs engage in all kind of activities of an annihilationist nature, and in particular with trans children; spreading the lie that simply treating a trans child as the gender with which he, she or they identify will result in their being placed on an unstoppable conveyor-belt to gender-reassignment surgery. This is Julie Bindel in that well-known subversive radical-feminist publication the Daily Mail;

“If I were a teenager today, well-meaning liberal teachers and social workers would probably tell me that I was trapped in the wrong body. They might refer me to a psychiatrist who would prescribe fistfuls of hormones and other drugs. And terrifyingly, I might easily be recommended for gender re-assignment surgery… just because I didn’t like the pink straitjacket imposed on girls.”

Obviously Bindel has not read my article on CulturalCisgenderism published in 2013 by the British Psychological Society (or indeed countless stories of trans kids and their parents trying to access acceptance at school or any kind of treatment). Yes Julie Bindel, there is a conveyor belt, but it is an invisible one that is pointed in the opposite direction from the one you have concocted. Cultural Cisgenderism is a tacit ideology that positions cisgender as the norm and transgender as deviant. Trans kids are more vulnerable to this than most, not having the resources to challenge it or the power to resist it. In my opinion by spreading the myth that teachers, medical professionals and others are putting kids on a conveyor belt makes TERFs potentially complicit in child abuse. Anyone who has worked with trans kids will know that the opposite of this narrative, is true.

However this is indicative of how, for TERFs, their worstnightmare is large numbers of trans kids being who they are, this is why they have devoted so many resources to campaigning against trans kids, in effect advocating a kind of amateur Conversion Therapy by teachers and parents, by not allowing trans kids to be themselves, effectively encouraging adults to bully trans children, at home or in school.

Of course trans people and our allies call the TERFs out on their dishonesty all the time, which is why they have changed their modus operandi. Now, quiet words behind the scenes individually have become the way of spreading their hate and disinformation in order to influence others without opposition.

What we need to remember is that TERF ideology is predominantly comprised of deliberate misinformation supported by caricaturing trans people. What Blaire White’s outburst reminds us, is how anihilationism is the ultimate goal of TERFism. All their anti-trans activism is based on this, and what they have shown is that they do not care who they work with to achieve this aim. Ultimately fascism, like all bigotry and hatred, is based on essentialisim, and TERFism is no different, the dissimilarity is that TERFs also essentialise women in a biologically reductionist narrative cloaked in faux social-constructivist language. Far from trans women being anti-feminist, it is TERFs, whether through the essentialist foundations of their narratives, their profound annihilationist hatred or their association with fascists, who are the real anti-feminists.

Why there is no longer any mandate for Brexit.

Much has been made of how a wafer-thin margin of 51.8% to 48.1% in a non-binding referendum is supposed to have

represented a “clear” (Theresa May) decision to leave the EU.

Today Britain Elects reveals that around twice as many people think that leaving the EU with no deal would be worse than leaving with some kind of deal, in addition there is now a majority, 53% in favour of a referendum to ratify whatever final deal Theresa May – or more likely her successor – come up with.

In a week in which Michael Gove has said the UK will definitely be

leaving the Customs Union a poll for the Mail on Sunday reveals that 69% of voters want to remain in this.

A few weeks ago the Prime Minister called an election on the basis that her, and her party’s popularity on Brexit in particular would result in them getting a landslide on June 8^th. This failed to happen, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Soft Brexit Labour Party denied May an overall majority, reducing her number of seats in parliament.

This comes on top if numerous polls which essentially say that people would like the ‘Have our cake and eat it’ impossible approach of the Fairy Godmother, AKA Boris Johnson. Meanwhile the latest opinion poll on the core issue of Remain/Leave puts Remain at 45%, Leave at 43% and gives a massive 12% to “Don’t Know”, a massive increase since June last year. This represents a classic case of a country changing its mind, with a huge 9% drop in the number of people who definitely support Leave since the referendum.

The recent survey that showed that 89% of the Uk population would like to have dual nationality also demonstrated that the support for Brexit is wafer-thin.

The one thing that is becoming abundantly clear is that there is no “clear mandate” for Brexit whatsoever. There is no agreement amongst the British people about what they would like Brexit to look like, no idea how to get there and no understanding of what it means in most cases anyway.

Putting all this data together it is abundantly clear that only a deluded fantasist can claim that there is a “clear mandate” for Brexit. At best there is chaos and confusion, at worst the British people are starting to follow the rest of the EU and turning decisively (if rather more slowly) against leaving. As we have witnessed in the General Election people can change their minds and do so over quite a short space of time: I have certainly changed my mind substantially on Corbyn. This is why either we need to cancel Brexit entirely or we need another vote on it, and soon before too much irreparable damage has been done to the country.

All the way to the top, as political as it gets.

Capitalism has always been a conflict between profit and safety. Profit for the rich against safety for workers, customers, passengers, clients, pupils, inhabitants and neighbours. The history of capitalists putting profit before safety, or taking huge risks to make a fast buck is long and unworthy. The Titanic, Bhopal, Chittagong, the Torey Canyon, Fukushima, Deepwater Horizon, Thalidomide, Potters Bar…

In each of these, and many more, safety was compromised by the desire of the rich to make more money by exposing others to higher than necessary degrees of risk. Corners were cut, unnecessary risks were taken and lives were lost, unnecessarily. Not surprisingly those who stand to make money from having to spend less on safety want fewer health and safety rules, the costs of these come out of their profits, consequently they have campaigned long and hard to remove as many of these as they can. They manufactured the narrative about “red tape” as if to imply that the only reason for the existence of these laws was simply to keep bureaucrats in jobs. This is why campaigning against health and safety rules has been at the heart of Tory Party policy since the late 1970s. And when I say “at the heart”, it has been a fundamental, core objective which has never ceased to underpin Tory fundamental Tory ideology not merely as expressed through their policies but through their actions in government and through the output of their propaganda mouthpieces from the Sun and the Times to the BBC and the Mail. Removing rules and regulations has become so deep-seated in their ideology that confected phrases like “nanny-state” are commonplace in their narrative, such that these rationalisations are hidden behind a doxa of abstract justifications centred on a carefully crafted mythology.

The myth of the plucky, struggling entrepreneur up against imperious and overbearing bureaucrats is the side of the argument they like to present, and like any myth there is a grain of truth in it. (although these people are often lauded because of their willingness to 'take risks', yet what we increasingly see are those risks being offloaded from the entrepreneur onto others, from workers to consumers) However health and safety regulations mostly impact on large corporations and those who benefit from their withdrawal are largely insulated from the consequences of their failure or of deaths resulting from those failures. The self-employed electrician who puts someone in danger by cutting corners wiring a house will go to jail if he or she is found to be at fault and a fire is caused, whereas the shareholders of a large corporation responsible for negligence, whether direct or indirect, are protected from all but financial loss by being at arms length from direct responsibility.

Yet, at the same time, these people donate to, support and vote for the Conservative Party in large numbers, a party which seeks to reduce their overheads by removing, or watering down, health and safety legislation, and, of course it does not stop there. One of the first things the last Labour government did was introduce the Human Rights Act, which put the European Convention of Human Rights formally into British law. This act is now being targeted because, of course, being forced to concede human rights to employees, customers and the public is also an expense for big business.

In fact a huge part of the motivation behind the stupidity of the coming economic catastrophe that is Brexit is motivated by a desire, on the part of the Conservative Movement (and by "movement" I include all the big business that funds them and the far-right media that maintains them) to remove rules and regulations, in some instances mythical ones (like Boris Johnson’s bananas). Ultimately then the tragedy of Grenfell Tower was not merely that it was avoidable but that it was profoundly political in nature.

And by political, I do not just mean from the point of view of the

S London:
 On the right a new, privately-owned block with no cladding
On the left an old block, clad in...we don't know...

incompetent and criminally negligent (allegedly) Kensington and Chelsea council, but political in the sense that the Tories, in all their guises; from MPs to the media to big business interests, have pushed the confected narrative of deregulation to the extent that we had a 24-storey building wrapped in highly flammable plastic and with no sprinkler system, and it looks like there may be many more like Grenfell.

Of course the Tories and their apologists on the right have been attempting to shut down criticism of this state of affairs since the disaster, claiming that people are “politicising” this disaster. Nothing could be further from the truth; this disaster was politicised by the Tories 40 years ago, and constantly ever since. For the last 40 years The Conservative Movement has campaigned against health and safety regulations, not merely explicitly in political debates but seeking to create a deep-rooted, partly tacit cultural environment in which health and safety legislation is regarded as always a problem. They used constant media reinforcement, in which the reduction in “red tape”, “The nanny state” or whatever euphemism they could concoct, for deregulation to became an unchallengeable, unquestioned and unquestionable Good Thing.

As Jonathan Friedland argued in the Guardian; the Tories’ ‘bonfire

of regulations’ has been shown up for what it is. So make no mistake, this tragedy is about as political as it gets, the deaths of everyone in that tower were produced by the underlying, central, core ideology that the Conservative Movement has been pushing since the 1970s; this is not just about a few policies, a few individuals or a few incompetents but about a deep-seated (although probably ultimately astroturfed) political culture which created the environment for something like this to happen.

Which is why, over the next few days and weeks we will experience a subtle but determined media campaign to get the public to ‘Look over there!’ The media will try and distract us with celebrities, celebrities, sport and more celebrities. It will focus on any story it can to distract from Grenfell, and when it does talk about Grenfell it will seek scapegoats. Expect a whole heard of scapegoats to appear and disappear, expect the media to attempt to focus our attention on the individual, the detail, the microscopic, whatever, (including the conspiracy theories which are beginning to creep through, and faux righteous indignation about damage caused by rioters venting their anger) as long as it takes the focus away from the ideology they themselves have been pushing, as their prime, core dogma for the last four decades.

Dacre

Murdoch

Ultimately the responsibility for creating this cultural milieu of a reduction in necessary health and safety regulation lies with those most responsible for creating and perpetuating it, those in the very highest leadership positions of power in the Conservative Movement. To that end the likes of Thatcher, Bojo,

Gove, May, Dacre and Murdoch are the ones most responsible for this tragedy. We can expect, and hope, that those responsible at a local level will be held accountable for this crime. Holding those more generally

responsible for it, at a higher level will be much harder, although in my opinion ultimate responsibility lies with those at the top of the Conservative Movement. We owe it to the victims of their selfish, harmful and dangerous ideology in Grenfell, to prevent

those responsible right at the top, from getting away with it.

May's Brexit Delusions.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (abbreviated FAZ), is a centre-right, liberal-conservative German newspaper. It leaked the chat at the disastrous dinner between Juncker and May.

Jeremy Cliffe, Berlin Bureau Chief at the Economist, has relayed these for English readers in a series of tweets. You may be sure that the EU (thankfully) has no intentions of keeping these negotiations quiet.

Not pleasant reading, and says little for May or her advisors.:

1) May had said she wanted to talk not just Brexit but also world problems; but in practice it fell to Juncker to propose one to discuss.

2) May has made clear to the Commission that she fully expects to be reelected as PM.

3) It is thought [in the Commission] that May wants to frustrate the daily business of the EU27, to improve her own negotiating position.

4) May seemed pissed off at Davis for regaling her dinner guests of his ECJ case against her data retention measures - three times.

5) EU side were astonished at May's suggestion that EU/UK expats issue could be sorted at EU Council meeting at the end of June.

6) Juncker objected to this timetable as way too optimistic given complexities, eg on rights to health care.

7) Juncker pulled two piles of paper from his bag: Croatia's EU entry deal, Canada's free trade deal. His point: Brexit will be v v complex.

8) May wanted to work through the Brexit talks in monthly, 4-day blocks; all confidential until the end of the process.

9) Commission said impossible to reconcile this with need to square off member states & European Parliament, so documents must be published.

10) EU side felt May was seeing whole thing through rose-tinted-glasses. "Let us make Brexit a success" she told them.

11) Juncker countered that Britain will now be a third state, not even (like Turkey) in the customs union: "Brexit cannot be a success".

12) May seemed surprised by this and seemed to the EU side not to have been fully briefed.

13) She cited her own JHA opt-out negotiations as home sec as a model: a mutually useful agreement meaning lots on paper, little in reality.

14) May's reference to the JHA (justice and home affairs) opt-outs set off alarm signals for the EU side. This was what they had feared.

15) ie as home sec May opted out of EU measures (playing to UK audience) then opted back in, and wrongly thinks she can do same with Brexit

16) "The more I hear, the more sceptical I become" said Juncker (this was only half way through the dinner)

17) May then insisted to Juncker et al that UK owes EU no money because there is nothing to that effect in the treaties.

18) Her guests then informed her that the EU is not a golf club

19) Davis then objected that EU could not force a post-Brexit, post-ECJ UK to pay the bill. OK, said Juncker, then no trade deal.

20) ...leaving EU27 with UK's unpaid bills will involve national parliaments in process (a point that Berlin had made *repeatedly* before).

21) "I leave Downing St ten times as sceptical as I was before" Juncker told May as he left

22) Next morning at c7am Juncker called Merkel on her mobile, said May living in another galaxy & totally deluding herself

23) Merkel quickly reworked her speech to Bundestag to include her now-famous "some in Britain still have illusions" comment

24) FAZ concludes: May in election mode & playing to crowd, but what use is a big majority won by nurturing delusions of Brexit hardliners?

25) Juncker's team now think it more likely than not that Brexit talks will collapse & hope Brits wake up to harsh realities in time.

26) What to make of it all? Obviously this leak is a highly tactical move by Commission. But contents deeply worrying for UK nonetheless.

27) The report points to major communications/briefing problems. Important messages from Berlin & Brussels seem not to be getting through.

28) Presumably as a result, May seems to be labouring under some really rather fundamental misconceptions about Brexit & the EU27.

29) Also clear that (as some of us have been warning for a while...) No 10 should expect every detail of the Brexit talks to leak.

30/30) Sorry for the long thread. And a reminder: full credit for all the above reporting on the May/Juncker dinner goes to the FAZ.

War in Europe.

The national delusionality fuelled by the media, brexit and Leave seems to be getting worse in the face of the sharp dose of reality supplied by the EU27 after the invoking of Article 50. Now the Tories/leavers are already talking about war with Spain over Gibraltar. They REALLY haven't thought this through...

Not only is Spain not Argentina but Gibraltar is not the Falklands (and for that matter Theresa May is no Margaret Thatcher). Gibraltar has a land border with Spain, is economically dependent on Spain and could be isolated much more easily. A Royal Navy task force would be up against a large land army and any war would result in the deaths of large numbers of people on both sides but especially in Gibraltar.

What they have also not considered are the other consequences. In the event of any hostilities the EU (which by then we would not be part of) would take Spain's side and Britain would be subject to economic sanctions. This would not only result in that 44%+ of our trade with the EU simply drying up overnight, but most of our trade with the rest of the world too, since most of it goes through Europoort in Holland. In other words our trade with the US, the Middle East, China, Japan, Korea and Africa would instantly cease also. Economic sanctions could also result in a ban on flights to the UK and a ban on aircraft flying from/to the UK over EU territory, meaning the only flights that could reach us easily would be from North and Central America.

The economic consequences would be massive and instant. Unemployment would skyrocket as British businesses went bankrupt overnight. The exchequer would run out of money very quickly meaning that the NHS would cease to function and teachers, doctors, nurses, the police and other public sector workers would not be paid.In addition pensions and social security would go unpaid, and those are just the straightforward consequences I can think of off the top of my head. Petrol would become scarce and food very scarce. We would see rationing, poverty, unemployment, power cuts, bankruptcies and consequent riots in the streets within weeks if not days. And I haven't even mentioned NATO, the British people living in Spain, loss of influence around the world, becoming a pariah nation and being ejected from the World Trade Organisation yet...

The Fascist media (let's face it they are no longer the "Tory media" they are fascists, daily pushing a fascist agenda) and the right-wing fanatics in the Tory Party like Michael Howard are trying to bounce the country into a war with Spain over the colony. Howard was probably the only party leader in history to be quite a dire as Jeremy Corbyn, and while people accuse Corbyn, with some justification, of still living in the 1970s, Howard and his ilk clearly live in the 1870s. Now we see how the lack of a serious political opposition to the Tories is starting to get really, really dangerous for the country as a whole.

Telegraph 9 May 2016

Remain pointed out the problems with Gibraltar during the referendum campaign and of course the Leave campaign said we were just "scaremongering". 

So far every piece of "scaremongering" has proven not to be scaremongering, but reality, only this time it is much worse even than the so-called "scaremongers" could have imagined. And Leavers had the gall to suggest that the EU has had nothing to do with preserving peace in Europe. 

Plenty more of this to come over brexit.