Graham Linehan's Beard Weekends: Transphobia III: The Sorceror

[wosl]

I am increasingly reminded of Timothy treadwell from the Herzog's documentary 'the grizzly man'.

Timothy visits Alaska to spend time in the wild with wild bears. He convinces himself this is the only path to their preservation and anyone who disagrees is an enemy and actively wants to see the extermination of grizzlies.

There is a scene in the film (most footage is shot by timothy himself on a tripod) where he stands in a field, railing against his perceived enemies. He works himself into a furore, spitting 'fuck you!' At the viewers who he has built up as strawmen, high on his sense of moral certainty.

Don't want to derail here, but would like to speak up for Treadwell and say that Herzog seems to have done a fair bit of skewing in Grizzly Man through highly selective footage selection and editing.  It's a great and enthralling documentary, no question, but if you read Nick Jans' The Grizzly Maze, you get a different and more-rounded picture of Treadwell as someone who, though still a bit of a misfit and malcontent, was less cut-off, and far more prepared to communicate with, listen to and consider reaching compromise with the Katmai Nat. Park authorities and the like, than the Herzog film would have you believe.  To survive thirteen summers in the gender-confusional Twittersphere Alaskan wilderness, as Treadwell did* (rather than perishing during your first, as Chris McCandless did), must've taken a fair bit of real-world nous (you don't deal with a grizzly behaving aggressively by blocking it on social media).

*Granted, he wasn't on his own for all of those

[Glebe]

He's already begun marrying himself. It's a worrying trajectory for anyone to be on.

[thenoise]

Even if my views fully aligned with him about this, I'd still think he needs to get the fuck off of Twitter. It's not right, is it?

When I was young and dumb enough to get into rows on here, I'd always reach a point when I think - I've said all I have to say on this subject. What's the point in continually repeating myself to people that disagree with me?

Glinner has said all he has to say about this subject. His views are well documented. Why does he feel the need to continually repeat himself?

[sevendaughters]

I will shit my pants every day until we can have women shit their pants in public and not have people offended by it.

[Famous Mortimer]

I remember criticising "The Last Leg" and their choice to remove Glinner from their poll of whatever the fuck it was they were banging on about; a few people on here said it was too niche anyway. I bet they wish they'd done the segment now.

[Blumf]

One of the things he's been banging on about recently, that the Tavistock clinic has had x amount of resignations over y years. What's the real story? Just normal staff turnover?

[sevendaughters]

One of the things he's been banging on about recently, that the Tavistock clinic has had x amount of resignations over y years. What's the real story? Just normal staff turnover?

apparently lower than normal. it's a totally decontextualised statement that is proffered in full intellectual dishonesty.

[Blumf]

apparently lower than normal.

Hah, and there's me at least giving them the benefit of doubt that they were just exaggerating normal levels.

[bigfatheart]

I remember criticising "The Last Leg" and their choice to remove Glinner from their poll of whatever the fuck it was they were banging on about; a few people on here said it was too niche anyway. I bet they wish they'd done the segment now.

Didn't see it, but a mate who does watch it[nb]it's for a mate I swear[/nb] said that they did mention him, to say that they didn't include him because he was asking for his followers to vote for him in an attempt to skew the results and basically give him publicity. Katie Hopkins had done it previously, so he's in good company.

[Famous Mortimer]

Didn't see it, but a mate who does watch it[nb]it's for a mate I swear[/nb] said that they did mention him, to say that they didn't include him because he was asking for his followers to vote for him in an attempt to skew the results and basically give him publicity. Katie Hopkins had done it previously, so he's in good company.

My apologies.

[phes]

apparently lower than normal. it's a totally decontextualised statement that is proffered in full intellectual dishonesty.

Lower than normal for what? This is the only children's NHS gender clinic in the country, isn't it?

I'm not having any of Graham's revolting and fucking dangerous nonsense, but as 1/5th of those who resigned cited over-diagnosis and medicalisation as contributing to their decision, we probably shouldn't assume this is a non-issue

[sevendaughters]

lower than normal for an NHS institution.

[Ferris]

One of the things he's been banging on about recently, that the Tavistock clinic has had x amount of resignations over y years. What's the real story? Just normal staff turnover?

As someone who does staff retention reporting all the time, I would have gone to town on this.

How many other staff are there? What's the ratio to patients (and how many patients are there)? Are KPIs still being met? What is a usual rate in similar facilities? What about in non-related facilities? What's the turnover reasoning - promotions? Moving to similar facilities near major urban centres? Contracts expiring? Leaving the industry?

Just presenting a number and asking "is that safe for children?!" is naive and ignorant and best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.

[phes]

lower than normal for an NHS institution.

As described above, that's not really helpful. There are so many factors that it's an absolutely useless statistic. Something that Graham is quite happy to ignore

[alan nagsworth]

Hang on a minute (and apologies if this is known, I've been avoiding the old thread for a while): In the interview when he's on about how he's a hated figure, he says "my wife's address has been [posted online/revealed publicly/fuck if I'm watching it again for an accurate quote]". Does that mean she's moved out?!

[JamesTC]

Hang on a minute (and apologies if this is known, I've been avoiding the old thread for a while): In the interview when he's on about how he's a hated figure, he says "my wife's address has been [posted online/revealed publicly/fuck if I'm watching it again for an accurate quote]". Does that mean she's moved out?!

Either that or his address is also his wife's address and he is just using her as a human shield to deflect criticism. As all good feminists do.

[Blue Jam]

One of the things he's been banging on about recently, that the Tavistock clinic has had x amount of resignations over y years. What's the real story? Just normal staff turnover?

The terves keep tweeting a link to an article with the "true" story, but it's on Quillette, so probably bollocks, and I'm not fucking clicking on it.

Amazing to see self-proclaimed feminists linking to pro-life Christian websites and now Quillette. People seem so confused, but instead of admitting they know fuck-all and bowing out they're acting like a dog with a bone about all this.

[Armin Meiwes]

Slightly frustrating interview because whilst the interviewer clearly wasn't having any of it she didn't seem to be that well briefed in terms of the way he approaches the argument, rather than the Nazi stuff and letting him distract with his "concerns" about children it would have been interesting to hear him defend calling trans people sexual fetishists and women that stickh up for them "handmaidens". But absolute lol at him saying he "wrote to stonewall asking them to stop saying nasty things" about him.

[Jockice]

The terves keep tweeting a link to an article with the "true" story, but it's on Quillette, so probably bollocks, and I'm not fucking clicking on it.

Amazing to see self-proclaimed feminists linking to pro-life Christian websites and now Quillette. People seem so confused, but instead of admitting they know fuck-all and bowing out they're acting like a dog with a bone about all this.

Qulllete. The best a man can get.

[Blue Jam]

Also I don't know who "Count Dankula" is, but I'm struggling to understand how so many people can take someone calling themselves "Count Dankula" so seriously. That name just keeps reminding me of This Country and the two Warhammer nerds named Count Fartula and Weak Nathan.

[Blue Jam]

Qulllete. The best a man can get.

Beard.

[Jumblegraws]

Either that or his address is also his wife's address and he is just using her as a human shield to deflect criticism. As all good feminists do.

I think it was her work address
ETA: Yeah, I just checked, it was her workplace https://www.buzz.ie/amp/celebs/protestors-graham-linehan-wife-info-rte-trans-314186

[Mango Chimes]

I'm not having any of Graham's revolting and fucking dangerous nonsense, but as 1/5th of those who resigned cited over-diagnosis and medicalisation as contributing to their decision, we probably shouldn't assume this is a non-issue

I've had a quick look.

First, the 35 number. Seems to be from a single source, that being this Sky News report from December 2019: https://news.sky.com/story/nhs-over-diagnosing-children-having-transgender-treatment-former-staff-warn-11875624

They say: "Thirty five psychologists have resigned from the children's gender-identity service in London in the last three years, Sky News research suggests." They contacted 20, six spoke to them, all six said they were "were concerned about giving hormone treatment to children with gender dysphoria" and "they weren't able to properly explore underlying psychological factors". Only one agreed to be interviewed, so it's unclear in what form those statements were agreed.

The one who agreed to be interviewed does give some worrying accounts.

At the end of the report, the Trust are said to say "their levels of staff turnover are not unusual for child and adolescent mental health services".


Here's the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust's log of Freedom of Information disclosures: https://tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/about-us/contact-us/freedom-of-information/foi-disclosure-log/

At a quick glance, there's two recent FOIs regarding resignations at the Gender Identity Development Service.

June 2018 request
Calendar year; resignations / total staff. The request is about "clinicians" but the response only mentions "staff".
2016: 5/66,
2017: 15/90.

February 2019 request
Clinical leavers in the financial year / average staff on payroll (clinical and non-clinical) in the calendar year.
2015: 2/32,
2016: 2/45,
2017: 9/75,
2018: 9/86.

Not sure how you match all three sources up, but presumably differences in contract arrangements will be some of it. Someone else can work out what's 'normal'.


So, Mr Linehan: "Early affirmation is highly controversial and has led to 35 psychologists leaving the Tavistock in three years."  Have 35 psychologists left the Tavistock in that time period? Probably significantly more, but let's assume he's using "Tavistock" to mean GIDS, and say "quite possibly". Is that unusual? I've not idea, but the Trust says not with regards to other young people's mental health services. Did they all leave due to the reason Linehan ascribes? There's fuck all evidence for that.


On the qualitative side, it's far more effort than I'm willing to put in as I'm already exhausted. From reading various quotes, it seems there are definitely problems, but it's unclear again how much they are problems specific to this service due to ideological/political issues around affirmation (seems a governor gave this as the reason for his resignation), and how much it's the sort of demand/resource management issues you might see across the NHS. Either's concerning, but seems bad faith to assume it's all the former.

Bye!

[Blue Jam]

Good summary here- heard via a retweet from Michael Legge, naturally:

https://mobile.twitter.com/phyphor/status/1227240330434469889

[alan nagsworth]

Also I don't know who "Count Dankula" is, but I'm struggling to understand how so many people can take someone calling themselves "Count Dankula" so seriously. That name just keeps reminding me of This Country and the two Warhammer nerds named Count Fartula and Weak Nathan.

Tbf the name started out as a vaguely humorous youtube account but the daft name has stuck since. He's the guy who got into trouble for teaching his girlfriend's pug to do a nazi salute every time he said "gas the jews" which in a way I did find funny - in fact give a shit, I found it really funny - but then he turned out to be an actual knobhead and not just a person who acts like a knobhead to create viral content.

[Ferris]

I'm not saying it's not a problem, but just saying 35 in 3 years is not a helpful metric to make that determination.

[Jockice]

Tbf the name started out as a vaguely humorous youtube account but the daft name has stuck since. He's the guy who got into trouble for teaching his girlfriend's pug to do a nazi salute every time he said "gas the jews" which in a way I did find funny - in fact give a shit, I found it really funny - but then he turned out to be an actual knobhead and not just a person who acts like a knobhead to create viral content.

Didn't he and Sargon The Invincible (or whatever he's called) join Ukip and were announced as members by Neil Hamilton? Or did I just dream that?

[Thursday]

I am increasingly reminded of Timothy treadwell from the Herzog's documentary 'the grizzly man'.

Timothy visits Alaska to spend time in the wild with wild bears. He convinces himself this is the only path to their preservation and anyone who disagrees is an enemy and actively wants to see the extermination of grizzlies.

There is a scene in the film (most footage is shot by timothy himself on a tripod) where he stands in a field, railing against his perceived enemies. He works himself into a furore, spitting 'fuck you!' At the viewers who he has built up as strawmen, high on his sense of moral certainty.

Glinner really seems like he has reached this point, standing alone in a field in Alaska, shouting through tears at all and sundry because *no one else understands except him*.

I wont spoil the ending of the film, its genuinely a good watch, but I wonder if Glinner will have a similar fate. Metaphorically of course.

Oh I hope he get brutally killed by a Bear, I'd laugh with glee at the audio recording of it.

[sevendaughters]

Didn't he and Sargon The Invincible (or whatever he's called) join Ukip and were announced as members by Neil Hamilton? Or did I just dream that?

that happened. they joined under the guise of classic liberalism.

[Jockice]

that happened. they joined under the guise of classic liberalism.

Thanks. I didn't dare look it up myself in case it turned out that I really am having a nervous breakdown..