Mail vs Transgender

ezinra · **Posted:** Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:07 am

Here's the trouble: the Mail runs a mostly reasonable interview with 'Britain's first male mother', which is empathetic although a bit freakshowy. And how do the readers react? Hatefully.

Quote:

I am an extremely liberal and open minded individual but this is just wrong. How anyone can view this as acceptable is beyond me. Broken Britain has just reached a new level.

- Steve B, London, 19/2/2012 4:04 Rating 20

Quote:

So if I started walking around on my hands and knees and grew long hair and had some freaky surgery to have a tail attatched to my rear end and started eating dog food for ten years, could I officialy become a Dog on my birth certificate? I don't think so.

- Ha Ha, Spain, 19/2/2012 5:07 Rating 10

Quote:

Reading this has put me off eating my breakfast. A disgrace.

- Zug, Woking Surrey., 19/2/2012 5:49 Rating (0)

And possibly worst of all:

Quote:

You cannot give birth and then call yourself that child's father. If there was any real incentive to being a man, then any woman could just have her breasts removed and have her birth sex changed to male - it's a joke! That means a man only has to have breast implants in order have his sex changed to female. People who really do suffer from REAL identitiy crises need every bit of their birth gender removed and replaced by the opposite..... These people are still of the sex they were at birth. Whichever government allowed this must have been absolutely desperate for votes or blessed with an exceptional sense of humour. I don't recognise them as having had any type of gender re-assignment - because they haven't. If these 'men' decide to have breast implants at a future date, they can be women again in couple of hours - not much of a committment to an identity 'crisis' is it? Stop this madness - make them have a full gender reassignment to change their sex.

- Mags, Surrey Borders, 19/2/2012 4:33 Rating 17

That's right, not only do Mailites refuse to accept transgender people, they also reserve the right to decide how much "suffering" and "commitment" is required before a person can earn that label (and the right to be treated as a freak that goes with it).

bluebellnutter · **Posted:** Sun Feb 19, 2012 11:21 am

Quote:

I am an extremely liberal and open minded individual but this is just wrong. How anyone can view this as acceptable is beyond me. Broken Britain has just reached a new level.

- Steve B, London, 19/2/2012 4:04 Rating 20

I'm calling "bollocks" on that Steve.

1. You read the Daily Mail.
2. If you were you would accept this like I do (making me more liberal and open-minded by a distance).
3. You can't even accept people would think differently to you. Very "open minded".
4. You use the phrase "Broken Britain" and thus prove you're just a ranting right-wing cunt.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:11 pm

With a cock like a vole in a fridge.

Carlos The Badger · **Posted:** Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:13 pm

bluebellnutter wrote:

Quote:

I am an extremely liberal and open minded individual but this is just wrong. How anyone can view this as acceptable is beyond me. Broken Britain has just reached a new level.

- Steve B, London, 19/2/2012 4:04 Rating 20

I'm calling "bollocks" on that Steve.

1. You read the Daily Mail.
2. If you were you would accept this like I do (making me more liberal and open-minded by a distance).
3. You can't even accept people would think differently to you. Very "open minded".
4. You use the phrase "Broken Britain" and thus prove you're just a ranting right-wing cunt.

QFT

davidjay · **Joined:** Tue Feb 17, 2009 8:24 pm **Posts:** 3824

Quote:

So if I started walking around on my hands and knees and grew long hair and had some freaky surgery to have a tail attatched to my rear end and started eating dog food for ten years, could I officialy become a Dog on my birth certificate? I don't think so.

- Ha Ha, Spain, 19/2/2012 5:07 Rating 10

That sounds remarkably similar to the 'dog born in a stable' line so often used by the far-right.

ACG · **Posted:** Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:48 pm

davidjay wrote:

Quote:

So if I started walking around on my hands and knees and grew long hair and had some freaky surgery to have a tail attatched to my rear end and started eating dog food for ten years, could I officialy become a Dog on my birth certificate? I don't think so.

- Ha Ha, Spain, 19/2/2012 5:07 Rating 10

That sounds remarkably similar to the 'dog born in a stable' line so often used by the far-right.

it also says something worrying about "ha ha"s understanding of gender differences if he thinks that the gulf between male and female is comparable to the gulf between human and dog.

Big Rob · **Posted:** Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:15 pm

Quote:

Broken Britain has just reached a new level.

I agree with that. Whenever I read the comments left on Mail articles, or Mail articles for that matter, I often think that Britain is broken.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:42 pm

Only a part of it.

Please, by all that's good and rational, let it only be a part of it...

Esqui · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:20 pm

And their biggest story today...
Boy, 5, lives his life as a GIRL

Article fairly neutral and factual. Comments, however....

Quote:

What the hell is wrong with the world, and this kid's parents? When I was a little girl I too acted as a boy and even said that I wanted to be a boy, but I grew out of it, like all kids do. What right do these people have branding a little kid with a "disorder" and messing up his mind for life? If the kid wants to wear dresses, that's fine, but give him a chance to grow up as a normal person, don't start labeling him before he even has the ability to form lasting wishes. Tomorrow he might want to be an unicorn, will you then label him with a "species identity disorder"? Stupid, stupid people.

- Le, The Earth, 20/2/2012 9:52

Quote:

When my son was 3 he wanted to be a cat - but I didn't start feeding him Whiskas.

- marnie, manchester, 20/2/2012 10:23

I'm sure many children do sometimes want to dress as the opposite sex, or play with toys that traditionally are associated with the opposite sex. But I'm sure that they don't have the same wish daily for over two years. Nor are medical specialists completely unable to see the difference between normal child behaviour and Gender Identity Disorder. It's that same black or white situtation that seems to pervade the Mail's comments section.

Tom_UK · **Joined:** Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:14 pm **Posts:** 3168

The full headline (at present) is 'Boy, 5, lives his life as a GIRL after becoming one of the youngest ever to be diagnosed on the NHS with 'Gender Identity Disorder''. The shoehorning in of 'diagnosed on the NHS' seems to me a rather sad way to blow the anti-NHS dogwhistle on this one. The headline seems to be trying to plant in the reader's mind the notion that there's nothing wrong with him, and that five is far too young to be diagnosed with this.

There are quite a few comments along the lines of "what do those doctors know? It's obviously just a phase" from the armchair medics, but quite a lot of encouragingly tolerant and supportive ones too.

Esqui · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:35 pm

One of those stories where the "worst rated" make you lose your faith in humanity, then the "best rated" restore it

Paul · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:41 pm

Esqui wrote:

One of those stories where the "worst rated" make you lose your faith in humanity, then the "best rated" restore it

Quote:

Marvellous, it's great that this condition can be identified this early.

- Paula, Chichester, 20/2/2012 2:24
Click to rate Rating 203

Report abuse

Quote:

What a load of rubbish. All children get bees in their bonnets about certain things at certain stages in their lives. I have five, and one boy went through a phase of wanting to play with his sister's dolls and dress up in my clothes. The phase passed and he is most definitely a healthy 30 year old male, albeit with a strong feminine side. This is simply too young an age to decide such a thing, when a child is not even fully self-aware. Sad.

- Fed Up, Somewhere in Britain, 20/2/2012 2:29
Click to rate Rating 639

are you sure ?

Esqui · **Posted:** Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:53 pm

Earlier this morning, yes. But it looks like some people have been red arrowing the sensible ones and green arrowing the nasty ones since.

storygirl · **Posted:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:25 pm

ACG wrote:

davidjay wrote:

Quote:

So if I started walking around on my hands and knees and grew long hair and had some freaky surgery to have a tail attatched to my rear end and started eating dog food for ten years, could I officialy become a Dog on my birth certificate? I don't think so.

- Ha Ha, Spain, 19/2/2012 5:07 Rating 10

That sounds remarkably similar to the 'dog born in a stable' line so often used by the far-right.

it also says something worrying about "ha ha"s understanding of gender differences if he thinks that the gulf between male and female is comparable to the gulf between human and dog.

When you have never had physical contact with an actual woman, you can understand his confusion. Computerized images only go so far.

storygirl · **Posted:** Wed Feb 22, 2012 12:49 pm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ng-up.html

Quite apart from wondering when Exeter became a top university, the comments are sadly, pretty much as you might expect. How dare anyone point out that people might be offended by blacking up and comedy cross dressing.

This one's logic confounds me though.

..proof that the young have been successfully brain-washed. Job done, eh, NuLab and LibCons?
- Margaret Heathersett-Makepeace.,

If they had been successfully brainwashed surely someone would have mentioned that the black and white minstrel show was no longer considered cutting edge comedy?

Mail vs Transgender

Who is online