Donkey Kong 64 Stream for Mermaids UK because #@?% Graham Linehan

[Test User]

46 hours+ stream and still got 22% of the game to complete.

His stream has raised $175k so far for the charity Mermaids UK. Why? Because Graham Linehan is a **** who got Mumsnet users to flood the National Lottery with complaints over a grant to Mermaids UK because he's a Transphobic asshat which led to the grant being held t investigate the nonsense complaints. Because kids killing themselves is better than them getting help with gender dysphoria.

Anyway. 46 hours and two sleep breaks in and still going strong.

https://www.twitch.tv/hbomberguy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Test User]

He also might be about to have Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez on his stream so all the right-wing US nuts are going to flip their **** if that happens, which will be great for the charity.

[piston broke]

That link makes me feel very old.

[Damo]

I've seen you spend longer on here having an argument Charlie

[Lancasterclaret]

I'm still not 100% clear what the spat is all about, but it does sound like one of those were not having an opinion makes you a Nazi to both sides.

[Darthlaw]

Wasn't Charlie only using Test User whilst he was banned from posting as IT?

[Test User]

I'm still not 100% clear what the spat is all about, but it does sound like one of those were not having an opinion makes you a Nazi to both sides.

Linehan thinks kids shouldn't get help for gender dysphoria because Linehan doesn't think kids can have gender dysphoria. Presumably because he thinks gender dysphoria doesn't exist.

[thatdberight]

I'm buying Graham Linehan products just to even things up.

[Test User]

I'm buying Graham Linehan products just to even things up.

Everyone should be made to watch The IT Crowd by force. I've watched it through at least 3 times, and i'm sure i'll watch it though again before too long.

[4:20]

These YouTubers are good at raising money for good causes. I remember PewDiePie doing one last December for Child Rights and You, good lad that Felix, saving lives online, Jordan Peterson does a lot of that too, helping many folk back from the brink of suicide with his talks.

[Test User]

£200,000 reached.

[Bfcboyo]

That link makes me feel very old.

You are not alone.

[Test User]

Ocasio-Cortez it on the stream.

Almost Hbomberguy's first comment "omg it's an honour to meet you. I committed so much voter fraud for you".

[Test User]

The stream has ended. He finally completed the game after 52 hours and 44 minutes. (Remember when games lasted so long, and on a 64MB capacity cartridge?)

It raised over $340,000.

[NottsClaret]

Because Graham Linehan is a **** who got Mumsnet users to flood the National Lottery with complaints over a grant to Mermaids UK because he's a Transphobic asshat which led to the grant being held t investigate the nonsense complaints.

Wasn't it a High Court ruling about how the Mermaids organisation was operating which stopped the funding?

[Test User]

Wasn't it a High Court ruling about how the Mermaids organisation was operating which stopped the funding?

No.

https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/news/ ... o-mermaids" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[willsclarets]

I don't agree with a lot of what Graham Linehan says, but your characterisation of his stance is somewhat oversimplified. His objection as far as I can see it, is in prescribing puberty blockers to children who are too young to have self-determined their gender identity. Mermaids come out with some real tosh about kids not fitting into gender roles, as young as nursery age ie "girls like this, and look like that" - "boys don't like that" etc which then presumes a 5 year old girl with a short haircut and a love for motorbikes is going to have confusion over gender identity. Which is nonsense.

In stops things like periods and breast growth, or voice-deepening and facial hair growth you are also running the risk of preventing puberty naturally clearing the confusion which evidence suggests it does. This, of course, has to be balanced against the mental well-being of the individual child and the very real possibility that they don't identify as male/female despite their physiology. But it is a balance, and it has to be evidence-based if you're giving life-changing prescriptions to very young people.

Again, there are some quotes from Graham Linehan that are pretty gross, but it's not a binary right and wrong. Look up some of the criticism of Mermaids, to me some of it is absolutely justified.

[NottsClaret]

Aye, that's a fair post wills. I didn't know who Graham Linehan was (I admit to Googling him today). But I had heard of concerns about Mermaids and indeed the High Court ruling which is the story which I'd read about - it wasn't directly related to the end of Lottery funding as Turtle pointed out, but it did ban them from having contact with a family after some odd - possibly disturbing - advice to a family.

[Test User]

I don't agree with a lot of what Graham Linehan says, but your characterisation of his stance is somewhat oversimplified. His objection as far as I can see it, is in prescribing puberty blockers to children who are too young to have self-determined their gender identity. Mermaids come out with some real tosh about kids not fitting into gender roles, as young as nursery age ie "girls like this, and look like that" - "boys don't like that" etc which then presumes a 5 year old girl with a short haircut and a love for motorbikes is going to have confusion over gender identity. Which is nonsense.

I think you've got your objections reversed. It's not Mermaids or even trans advocates who are telling the world that boys and girls each only like certain things and look a certain way. Typically it's the anti-trans people who oppose the idea that gender is a spectrum, and that boys and girls can like a variety of things.
I invite you to cite your source for your claim that it's actually Mermaids UK, the charity that actually acknowledges the reality of gender dysphoria, that is treating boys and girls as binary. I'm particularly interested in this 5 year old girl you refer to and would love to read about how Mermaids have decided that she's gender confused because she likes motorbikes.

It stops things like periods and breast growth, or voice-deepening and facial hair growth you are also running the risk of preventing puberty naturally clearing the confusion which evidence suggests it does. This, of course, has to be balanced against the mental well-being of the individual child and the very real possibility that they don't identify as male/female despite their physiology. But it is a balance, and it has to be evidence-based if you're giving life-changing prescriptions to very young people.

Again, there are some quotes from Graham Linehan that are pretty gross, but it's not a binary right and wrong. Look up some of the criticism of Mermaids, to me some of it is absolutely justified.

Yes, my understanding based on the word of doctors is that puberty blockers block puberty. What you haven't mentioned is that it's reversible. Why not? It's kind of implied in the name "puberty blockers". If you stop blocking something, guess what happens?
I accept that if you take puberty blockers for long enough that it has permanent effects but then if you you're taking them for long enough to have permanent effects then surely you're pretty sure you need them. Or do you disagree?

I've seen the criticisms, or at least i think I've seen most of the main ones, i may be ignorant to some so I invite you to post what you consider to be the best criticisms in order to change my mind.

[Test User]

Aye, that's a fair post wills. I didn't know who Graham Linehan was (I admit to Googling him today). But I had heard of concerns about Mermaids and indeed the High Court ruling which is the story which I'd read about - it wasn't directly related to the end of Lottery funding as Turtle pointed out, but it did ban them from having contact with a family after some odd - possibly disturbing - advice to a family.

It didn't ban them from having contact with the family. The Sunday Times corrected that claim.

[Awayfromburnley]

Can anyone clarify what this is all about please?

I have no idea what’s going on, but feel compelled to find out.

[willsclarets]

I think you've got your objections reversed. It's not Mermaids or even trans advocates who are telling the world that boys and girls each only like certain things and look a certain way. Typically it's the anti-trans people who oppose the idea that gender is a spectrum, and that boys and girls can like a variety of things.

This is from Mermaid's website:
"By the age of 3 years, most children express an interest in or preference toward activities and behaviors typically associated to their specific gender. We call these behaviors “gender-typical” because the members of one of the sexes favor them. For example, boys enjoy rough-and-tumble play and identify with male heroes, while girls enjoy such activities as playing with dolls and pretending to be a mommy. By age 5-6 years, children have a strong sense of the gender-appropriate behavior that is typical for their social group. However, some children develop in a different way. Some children have interests more typical of the other sex and sometimes want to look and act like the other sex. For example, a 7-year-old boy plays with Barbie™ dolls and pretends to have long hair and be a princess. A 6-year-old girl is only interested in playing outside with the boys, refuses to wear anything except jeans and t-shirts, and talks about being a boy. We call these gender-variant behaviors and interests."

They are using the term gender variant, and as such are drawing the boundaries as to what that means.

I don't have time just this moment, but I will certainly provide a long list of criticisms and sources which you may or may not agree with. That's fine. But what you said about Graham Linehan's stance was a misrepresentation, do you not agree?

Your second criticism is again, wildly oversimplified. It's not clear at all that taking puberty blockers is as easily reversible as you suggest, or even that it is effective in it's principle aim. Taken from a paper by professors at Washington University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Arizona State University.

Puberty blockers are presented as a “let’s just hold off puberty” solution, meant to delay the development of the most prominent features of a child’s biological sex while the child wrestles with his or her gender identity. But Hruz, Mayer, and McHugh argue it remains unknown if regular sex-typical puberty will resume following suppression.

Indeed, “there are virtually no published reports, even case studies, of adolescents withdrawing from puberty-suppressing drugs and then resuming the normal pubertal development typical for their sex,” according to the authors.

Second, that the treatment is harmless.

“Puberty suppression hormones prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics, arrest bone growth, decrease bone accretion, prevent full organization and maturation of the brain, and inhibit fertility,” Hruz, Mayer, and McHugh write in a Supreme Court brief filed in the Gavin Grimm case. They go on to list other possible side effects of cross-gender hormones, oral estrogen, and testosterone, including sterility, coronary disease, cardiovascular disease, elevated blood pressure, and breast cancer.

Finally, that the treatment is cautionary.

The authors note the best, most-cited studies conclude most children with gender dysphoria come to embrace their birth sex. But Hruz, Mayer, and McHugh warn hormone therapy often solidifies a child’s gender dysphoria, driving him or her to persist in identifying as transgender, instead of allowing for the likely result: growing out of it.

“Gender identity for children is elastic (that is, it can change over time) and plastic (that is, it can be shaped by forces like parental approval and social conditions),” write the doctors, warning that if gender-affirming care causes children to continue identifying as the opposite sex, children will be exposed to hormonal and surgical interventions they otherwise would not need.

Instead of accepting hormone suppression without question, Hruz, Mayer, and McHugh instead recommend treating it like what it is: a radical experimental therapy carried out on children.

[willsclarets]

I want to clarify, that I'm not saying that gender dysphoria does not exist and does not need addressing. What I'm saying is, that we need to be careful assuming problems in children where they might not be one. It's a tricky balance.

[Test User]

This is from Mermaid's website:
"By the age of 3 years, most children express an interest in or preference toward activities and behaviors typically associated to their specific gender. We call these behaviors “gender-typical” because the members of one of the sexes favor them. For example, boys enjoy rough-and-tumble play and identify with male heroes, while girls enjoy such activities as playing with dolls and pretending to be a mommy. By age 5-6 years, children have a strong sense of the gender-appropriate behavior that is typical for their social group. However, some children develop in a different way. Some children have interests more typical of the other sex and sometimes want to look and act like the other sex. For example, a 7-year-old boy plays with Barbie™ dolls and pretends to have long hair and be a princess. A 6-year-old girl is only interested in playing outside with the boys, refuses to wear anything except jeans and t-shirts, and talks about being a boy. We call these gender-variant behaviors and interests."

They are using the term gender variant, and as such are drawing the boundaries as to what that means.

What's wrong with that? There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I don't have time just this moment, but I will certainly provide a long list of criticisms and sources which you may or may not agree with. That's fine. But what you said about Graham Linehan's stance was a misrepresentation, do you not agree?

I won't agree it's a misrepresentation. I'll agree it's a simplification though because i havn't spoken to Graham, nor have i read every one of his tweets on the issue. If you want to explain to me in more detail what Graham's stance is, and how that differs from my simplification then i'm happy to correct it.

Your second criticism is again, wildly oversimplified. It's not clear at all that taking puberty blockers is as easily reversible as you suggest, or even that it is effective in it's principle aim. Taken from a paper by professors at Washington University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Arizona State University.

Puberty blockers are presented as a “let’s just hold off puberty” solution, meant to delay the development of the most prominent features of a child’s biological sex while the child wrestles with his or her gender identity. But Hruz, Mayer, and McHugh argue it remains unknown if regular sex-typical puberty will resume following suppression.

Indeed, “there are virtually no published reports, even case studies, of adolescents withdrawing from puberty-suppressing drugs and then resuming the normal pubertal development typical for their sex,” according to the authors.

Second, that the treatment is harmless.

“Puberty suppression hormones prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics, arrest bone growth, decrease bone accretion, prevent full organization and maturation of the brain, and inhibit fertility,” Hruz, Mayer, and McHugh write in a Supreme Court brief filed in the Gavin Grimm case. They go on to list other possible side effects of cross-gender hormones, oral estrogen, and testosterone, including sterility, coronary disease, cardiovascular disease, elevated blood pressure, and breast cancer.

Finally, that the treatment is cautionary.

The authors note the best, most-cited studies conclude most children with gender dysphoria come to embrace their birth sex. But Hruz, Mayer, and McHugh warn hormone therapy often solidifies a child’s gender dysphoria, driving him or her to persist in identifying as transgender, instead of allowing for the likely result: growing out of it.

“Gender identity for children is elastic (that is, it can change over time) and plastic (that is, it can be shaped by forces like parental approval and social conditions),” write the doctors, warning that if gender-affirming care causes children to continue identifying as the opposite sex, children will be exposed to hormonal and surgical interventions they otherwise would not need.

Instead of accepting hormone suppression without question, Hruz, Mayer, and McHugh instead recommend treating it like what it is: a radical experimental therapy carried out on children.

Of course we don't know for certain the long term effect of puberty blockers yet. They're fairly new. They have however passed every clinical trial required by our National Health System and by our government, just like every other drug the NHS prescribes. The suggestion that because we don't know the long term consequences of a drug is reason enough not to prescribe it, or is in any way a criticism, is disingenuous bullshit since pretty much every drug there has ever been began being prescribed before we knew the long term effects. Do you think when penicillin was discovered that we should have not prescribed it in the 30's because we didn't have 50 years worth of data on it's long term consequences?

And the claim that it's a "radical experimental therapy carried our on children" is not the kind of unscientific, subjective claim i would expect in a peer-reviewed scientific paper, and it makes me question the objectivity of the authors.

[NottsClaret]

"For example, boys enjoy rough-and-tumble play and identify with male heroes, while girls enjoy such activities as playing with dolls and pretending to be a mommy."

And the guys coming out with stuff like this in 2019 are the good guys?

[Test User]

"For example, boys enjoy rough-and-tumble play and identify with male heroes, while girls enjoy such activities as playing with dolls and pretending to be a mommy."

And the guys coming out with stuff like this in 2019 are the good guys?

The word "typically" is implied. "boys typically like" is what it should really say and i'm sure it's what the author meant. How am I sure? Because they call it "gender typical".

[thatdberight]

And the claim that it's a "radical experimental therapy carried our on children" is not the kind of unscientific, subjective claim i would expect in a peer-reviewed scientific paper, and it makes me question the objectivity of the authors.

Not their claim.

[willsclarets]

To your first point, everything I've read on Mermaids specifically names tendencies, likes and dislikes that define gender identity. Their assertion is that if a girl likes x, y and z then they are identifying with the opposite gender. This they say, is stable at 4 or 5 years old. What it never asserts is, that it's perfectly normal for a girl to like trucks, have short hair etc and still identify as a girl. So while they are saying that gender is a spectrum, they are completely opposed to the idea that there is a spectrum of tendencies by which each gender are drawn to at a young age. Hence why I think the terms "gender typical" and "variant" are hogwash.

[Test User]

"For example, boys enjoy rough-and-tumble play and identify with male heroes, while girls enjoy such activities as playing with dolls and pretending to be a mommy."

And the guys coming out with stuff like this in 2019 are the good guys?

I've been unable to find the quote posted earlier, because when i google it the Mermaids website doesn't come up, and in fact no website seesm to have that quote indexable by their search engine. But i did find this on their website in answer to the question "What is gender dysphoria?"

"Gender dysphoria is a mismatch between the gender assigned to a person at birth and the gender that they actually identify with. Sometimes in younger children, this may surface with boys playing with dolls and other traditionally female toys, or girls who refuse to wear dresses or hate having long hair, along with a persistent, insistent and consistent cross gender identification. It is important to note that simply playing with toys or clothing usely associated with the opposite gender does not mean a trans outcome, and freedom of expression is important for children. Enforcing binary expectations is generally unhelpful but for trangender children, can be actively damaging. Most young people will disclose their feelings in their teens, often around the time when puberty is progressing. They may find the changes of puberty very upsetting, and a lot of trans teens begin to get very depressed, withdrawn and may even self-harm or have suicidal feelings.Some young people may identify as non-binary, meaning that they feel as though they are neither truly male or female, they may feel like they can be both at once, either one or the other on different days, or just a mix of the two."
https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/index.php?id=33" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[NottsClaret]

The word "typically" is implied. "boys typically like" is what it should really say and i'm sure it's what the author meant. How am I sure? Because they call it "gender typical".

Come on Turtle, even for you this is a stretch. Let's examine the arguments of both sides fairly. If we're going to give suggestions for what people 'should' have said, or what we reckon they really meant there's little point to any debate. Well, you know, even less than usual.

The actual text taken from that site.. it's what I'd expect from some family values alt-right conservative manifesto. How it's ended up being defended by woke folk on the right side of history - if nothing else - goes to show how complex this whole thing has become.

[Lancasterclaret]

Owen Jones and Stonewall v Graham Linehan has got really nasty on twitter it has to be said.

[willsclarets]

Glad to read that test, but it does seem as odds with their message as a whole which at best is confused.

[Test User]

Come on Turtle, even for you this is a stretch. Let's examine the arguments of both sides fairly. If we're going to give suggestions for what people 'should' have said, or what we reckon they really meant there's little point to any debate. Well, you know, even less than usual.

The actual text taken from that site.. it's what I'd expect from some family values alt-right conservative manifesto. How it's ended up being defended by woke folk on the right side of history - if nothing else - goes to show how complex this whole thing has become.

I've found the PDF it's from through google, and it's not produced by Mermaids UK, and i can't find the link to it on their website. But here it is for you perusal.
https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/assets/me ... aviour.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And no, it's not a stretch. I'm literally acknowledging that what was written, literally speaking, is a point of agreement between you and I. The only difference between you and I is that you don't seem to be able to allow any latitude whatsoever and refuse to acknowledge that they use the term "gender typical" and that that should give them the benefit of your doubt. I don't know why you are so quick to condemn them for it when there's a very easy explanation (that they weren't considering pedants) but whatever. It's clear to me that the passage quoted, taken in the whole context and not cut down to just one sentence, is completely benign.

They very briefly generalised because they trusted that the person reading it wouldn't take their generalisation out of the necessary context, and the context necessary is that they are talking about what is "typical", not what is absolute.

[Test User]

Glad to read that test, but it does seem as odds with their message as a whole which at best is confused.

It's probably because what you quoted wasn't their message. It was from a PDF they either have, or used to have, a link to.
The quote you provided is from a PDF created by the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Can you link the page on which you found the PDF? It would help to see how the PDF was presented by Mermaids.



EDIT: I've found the page. https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/resources ... rents.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's their Resources for Parents page and above all the resources linked to is the following disclaimer:

All information provided by external organisations signposted on this page is for reference purposes only, and does not constitute any form of recommendation, endorsement or guidance by Mermaids.

[Imploding Turtle]

For those interested, Mermaids grant from the lottery was approved after review. So the ignorant and/or bigoted little ******* who inspired donations of over $300,000 didn't even succeed in blocking the grant that inspired the donation drive. Well done to everyone involved in all of it.

https://twitter.com/Mermaids_Gender/sta ... 4750396418" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[NottsClaret]

It's been a good week for white men everywhere. Kindly explaining to a black fella and a jewish lady yesterday why the Labour Party couldn't possibly be racist.

Then putting that silly little feminist Martina Navratilova in her place, after she got herself in a pickle with bigoted views on a male's right to play women's sport.

There's no subject on which the white males of the world can't correct folk of their foolish thinking.