LGB Alliance vs Mermaids= Reality in Conflict with Reality

[Stavros]

A remarkable Tribunal is taking place in London. As described by The Guardian-

"A judge will consider an appeal by the trans rights charity Mermaids on Friday against the Charity Commission’s decision to award charitable status to the new gay rights organisation LGB Alliance. It is understood to be the first time one charity has attempted to strip legal status from another.
The highly unusual hearing will focus attention on increasingly fractious debates over sex and gender identity, and the legal definitions of same-sex attraction and sexual orientation.
Mermaids, which supports transgender, nonbinary and gender diverse children and their families, launched an appeal last year against the Charity Commission’s grant of charitable status to the LGB Alliance. It argued that the group was set up primarily to lobby the government to restrict the legal rights afforded to transgender people."
Judge to consider trans charity’s appeal to strip LGB Alliance of legal status | Transgender | The Guardian

So far the Tribunal has exposed to view what happens when two versions of Reality collide in a Court of Law or in this case a Tribunal, and I do not envy the legal counsel who must make a decision in this case. That is not because I think the LGBA is right and Mermaids are wrong, but because I find the arguments are themselves either weak, or in philosophical and psychological terms, cannot in fact reach the conclusion that they want.

Here, for example, is a telling moment, so emotional for the person concerned, the Tribunal was suspended -

"A co-founder of LGB Alliance was reduced to tears during cross-examination on the definition of the word lesbian on Thursday, prompting the court to adjourn, during a legal challenge to the Charity Commission’s decision to award charitable status to the organisation.
Kate Harris, a co-founder of LGB Alliance, was invited by Michael Gibbon KC, counsel for Mermaids, to reflect on whether some people would have a different understanding of lesbian from the definition given by her organisation.
“That a lesbian can be a man with a penis?” she asked.
Gibbon responded: “Putting it in a more neutral way, that lesbians can include someone who is a woman as a result of gender reassignment.”
Harris, who is a lesbian, was distressed by the exchange, and the judge called for a short adjournment. Gibbon later apologised if he had “raised something inadvertently upsetting”. Harris said: “I’m going to speak for millions of lesbians around the world who are lesbians because we love other women … We will not be erased and we will not have any man with a penis tell us he’s a lesbian because he feels he is.”
She added: “A lesbian is attracted to another biological woman, full stop.”.
LGB Alliance co-founder breaks down in court when asked to define ‘lesbian’ | Transgender | The Guardian

Two things stand out -the first is the rigid attachment that some people have to the argument that biology is secure, that humans can be, indeed, can only be defined as Male or Female. It is something that the new UK Prime Minister believes and which may lead the Govt to oppose Gender Recognition law, as it is called. The fact is that if Biology was secure, two or three out of every 100 children born in the UK would not have indeterminate genitalia, their biology would produce defined bodies on which there can be no dispute.

The second is the argument made by SNP politician John Nicholson, that among the LGBA claims there is the one that men seek to identify as women so that they can place themselves in 'women only' locations for sexual purposes, consensual and non-consensual, as he put it-

"Nicolson insisted that the campaign was “designed to terrify” and “scaremonger”, implying that “plagues, hoards of predatory men will be bursting through the curtains of Marks and Spencer”."
MP John Nicolson slams LGB Alliance for 'obsession with genitals' (pinknews.co.uk)

For their part, the LGBA have argued that a consequence of Gender Recognition law, would be the elimination of categories such as 'Lesbian' and 'Gay', as Bev Jackson put it-

"She told the court: “I’m not suggesting that Mermaids or Stonewall are intentionally trying to get rid of gay people, but I do believe it is an unintended consequence of promoting universal gender identity.”"
LGB Alliance founder claims Mermaids will 'get rid of gay people' (pinknews.co.uk)

Somewhere in this so-called debate, there are conflicts over what reality is, when for so many of the real people concerned, the reality is their unhappiness, something difficult to define in law, and something that keeps any number of psychologists, cognitive or otherwise, in well-paid work.

Should this unhappiness be treated with chemicals at an early age, for it seems to me that this aspect of Trans issues has become so prominent because it involves children. I find it a profoundly difficult issue on which to make a judgment, because some children may have a genuine need to adjust their identity, while for others it may just be a phase they are going through, and we cannot make a judgment without knowing what the domestic situation of the child is and how it can affect their sense of being.

For adults, well I think there too it is difficult if not impossible to make a judgment without impugning the integrity of the individual. In two cases I failed to form a relationship with Trans people, one in the 1980s and other in the 1990s. In part it may have been my own flaws, but in their cases, their motivation bothered me, as both had to me an irrational hatred of their male genitalia, though in one case, this also included such hatred of men, it was perfectly logical that after SRS this person identifies as Lesbian or 'Trans-Lesbian' and thus without a penis I assume would meet the approval of the LGBA, but would she?

Philosophers have been engaged in the arguments about appearance and reality ever since Plato sat in his cave, looking at the images dancing on the wall. What happens when it takes two to tango, but neither can dance?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance?

[Stavros]

According to their website, Mermaids will present their case to the Tribunal some time this week as they were asked to present evidence by the 8th of October.

An update on Mermaids' appeal against LGB Alliance being granted charity status - Mermaids (mermaidsuk.org.uk)

I was going to offer these links to the thread on Trans Kids modelling but decided it strays from that topic.

The first link is to a post from the BMJ which offers an overview of clinical treatments with the rider that the volume of studies has been limited so few conclusive judgments can be made in terms of the clinical or psychological profiles of patients, but which does offer some indication of the long term effects of oestrogen or testosterone therapies.

Gender-affirming hormone in children and adolescents - BMJ EBM Spotlight

The second link is to a more contentious set of articles in Transgender Trend. I offer the links to those who don't already know them, to indicate how the 'debate' on Trans issues seems to me to divide along clinical and political lines, often in conflict. I would prefer a more clinical approach because I find the politics tends to fall into 'left' 'right' arguments that have little intrinsic merit given the complexity of the topic, and the prior claims to 'freedom' which seem to me to collapse in the face of pre-ordained politics.

The general site is here-
Transgender Trend - Who Are We? - Transgender Trend

This article on grooming may annoy some people, but is a good representation of what some think about trans issues, with particular reference to 'breast binding' in girls-

Breast Binding, Sexual Objectification & Grooming - Transgender Trend