Time to Think
Mar. 17th, 2023 06:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootTwo nights in a row dreaming of mean old foe. Both were very friendly pleasant dreams, though in one he had separated from his husband and was dating a lawyer. Why's he turning up now?
It might be my reading matter. I have stalled again on The City and The City, due to this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Think-Collapse-Tavistocks-Children-ebook/dp/B0BCL1T2XN
This book's had phenomenal reviews. It's exceptionally researched and sticks to its remit which is to chronicle the rise and fall of GIDs, the Gender Identity Development Service operating out of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
It's terrifying.
The Guardian review covers it better than I can: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/19/time-to-think-by-hannah-barnes-review-what-went-wrong-at-gids?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1676792952
Just as this hit the headlines, Jamie Reed, a case manager at the Washington University Transgender Clinic, wrote an article based around the same phenomenon in the States (https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids) it's a faster read of course, and more emotional given that it's one person's experience rather than a thoroughly researched documentation. There are issues here that echo those raised in Time To Think. At the same time, there has also been the release of a film documentary called Affirmation Generation in which young de-transitioners talk about their journeys, and discuss the drugs they take. (https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/you-can-watch-affirmation-generation?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email) Of these three, I would say this last, while heartrending, is the most clearly slanted towards a specific point of view. Perhaps this was unavoidable given that it is a record of how people feel. There is no distance in it. Whereas I would call Time to Think far more neutral, quoting success as well as failure, the rights as well as the wrongs.
Why do I group these three together? Because they've come to public notice around the same time, itself a bit odd. And why would this spur me to dream of old foe? Perhaps cos he's gay, and to quote the dark humour of a couple of Tavistock clinicians, at GIDS so many potentially gay children were being sent down the pathway to change gender that 'there would be no gay people left.' Personally I find it hard to imagine a more brutal therapy than to tell a gay boy he's a straight girl. This could have been my brother.(And of course, old foe is another gay 'brother' figure, so there's the dream lexicon link.) Bro wasn't interested in 'gendered toys' i.e cars and soldiers, same as I wasn't interested in dolls and prams. But Bro has a specific take on the issue.He thinks there's homophobia involved, that it's easier for many parents to go the socially sympathetic route of having a sick child in need of help, than to accept that their child is gay.
This seems like a drastic interpretation, but then he lived through 70s/80s gay-hostile, AIDs-hysterical Britain, so maybe he is reverting to that old sense of paranoia. Or maybe he is completely right and I am just not recognising. How could I?
One thing stays with me; Time To Think is a very important book, for two reasons; first, its subject matter, and secondly as an example of fine factual writing, how to document, how to source, how to present a credible history, the opposite of gonzo journalism. We really need this kind of approach, it is respectful, pertinent, and very well constructed, so how come it was turned down by 22 publishers? In the end, a small publisher snapped it up, and away it went, straight onto the bestsellers list.
Jamie Reed had to leave her job.
Affirmation Generation was taken down by Vimeo. After much protest this was reversed, but for a few days, it was very difficult to find anywhere that would host the film. Honestly, I do not understand why. The most that might be said is that it cannot be taken as typical, it's just some more points of view to be born in mind. It is certainly useful re documenting the steps of transition.
As an observer I become aware, not just of the material presented to me, but of the difficulty there seems to be in getting it in front of my eyes. It's a real paradox; we live in a time when anyone can say anything, but some things should not be heard. And without disappearing down the conspiracy rabbit hole, I wonder just how much Omertà seeps into our lives, governs our screens and bookshelves, buttons our lips. I wonder.
It might be my reading matter. I have stalled again on The City and The City, due to this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Think-Collapse-Tavistocks-Children-ebook/dp/B0BCL1T2XN
This book's had phenomenal reviews. It's exceptionally researched and sticks to its remit which is to chronicle the rise and fall of GIDs, the Gender Identity Development Service operating out of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
It's terrifying.
The Guardian review covers it better than I can: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/19/time-to-think-by-hannah-barnes-review-what-went-wrong-at-gids?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1676792952
Just as this hit the headlines, Jamie Reed, a case manager at the Washington University Transgender Clinic, wrote an article based around the same phenomenon in the States (https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids) it's a faster read of course, and more emotional given that it's one person's experience rather than a thoroughly researched documentation. There are issues here that echo those raised in Time To Think. At the same time, there has also been the release of a film documentary called Affirmation Generation in which young de-transitioners talk about their journeys, and discuss the drugs they take. (https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/you-can-watch-affirmation-generation?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email) Of these three, I would say this last, while heartrending, is the most clearly slanted towards a specific point of view. Perhaps this was unavoidable given that it is a record of how people feel. There is no distance in it. Whereas I would call Time to Think far more neutral, quoting success as well as failure, the rights as well as the wrongs.
Why do I group these three together? Because they've come to public notice around the same time, itself a bit odd. And why would this spur me to dream of old foe? Perhaps cos he's gay, and to quote the dark humour of a couple of Tavistock clinicians, at GIDS so many potentially gay children were being sent down the pathway to change gender that 'there would be no gay people left.' Personally I find it hard to imagine a more brutal therapy than to tell a gay boy he's a straight girl. This could have been my brother.(And of course, old foe is another gay 'brother' figure, so there's the dream lexicon link.) Bro wasn't interested in 'gendered toys' i.e cars and soldiers, same as I wasn't interested in dolls and prams. But Bro has a specific take on the issue.He thinks there's homophobia involved, that it's easier for many parents to go the socially sympathetic route of having a sick child in need of help, than to accept that their child is gay.
This seems like a drastic interpretation, but then he lived through 70s/80s gay-hostile, AIDs-hysterical Britain, so maybe he is reverting to that old sense of paranoia. Or maybe he is completely right and I am just not recognising. How could I?
One thing stays with me; Time To Think is a very important book, for two reasons; first, its subject matter, and secondly as an example of fine factual writing, how to document, how to source, how to present a credible history, the opposite of gonzo journalism. We really need this kind of approach, it is respectful, pertinent, and very well constructed, so how come it was turned down by 22 publishers? In the end, a small publisher snapped it up, and away it went, straight onto the bestsellers list.
Jamie Reed had to leave her job.
Affirmation Generation was taken down by Vimeo. After much protest this was reversed, but for a few days, it was very difficult to find anywhere that would host the film. Honestly, I do not understand why. The most that might be said is that it cannot be taken as typical, it's just some more points of view to be born in mind. It is certainly useful re documenting the steps of transition.
As an observer I become aware, not just of the material presented to me, but of the difficulty there seems to be in getting it in front of my eyes. It's a real paradox; we live in a time when anyone can say anything, but some things should not be heard. And without disappearing down the conspiracy rabbit hole, I wonder just how much Omertà seeps into our lives, governs our screens and bookshelves, buttons our lips. I wonder.
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no subject
Date: 2023-03-17 10:34 am (UTC)It's excellent.
no subject
Date: 2023-03-17 11:07 am (UTC)https://twitter.com/MrsNickyClark/status/1634460497071185920
no subject
Date: 2023-03-17 12:19 pm (UTC)What I find interesting is that even listening to JK Rowling is seen as a radical anti-social act. Another friend of mine was saying the same as you, and her FB page just blew the hell up. Because the argument goes, JKR is so evil you shouldn't listen to her. But if you don't listen to her, how do you know she is evil? Answer; believe what we tell you. And if you listen anyway, well that means there must be something wrong with you...
I find that much more scary than the current debates themselves.
Re the link, oh, Germaine, Germaine! Compelling as always, if slightly terrifying!
no subject
Date: 2023-03-17 12:27 pm (UTC)The podcast is excellent, though. It uses the broader context of witches in that witches have always been subversive, which is one of the reasons why they've always been attacked. Rowling got it from both sides—the Christian evangelists railing against the evil, magick aspect of the books and the trans activists railing against the TERF-dom of the tweets.
She's a smart woman. And very, very serious in an earnest appealing way.
Yes, Germaine Greer was always terrifying! But brilliant. 😀