Thread by @TwisterFilm

1./ It's #TransAwarenessWeek; the new global festival of religious belief; a Gender Identity X-mas that celebrates performative "kindness" that's not to be confused with the similar but totally different Spring festival of #TransgenderDayofVisibility.🤷‍♀️👇

2./ It was David Hume who argued all religious systems require belief in miracles and vice versa. "I never read of a miracle in my life that was not meant to establish some new point of religion”. So what miracles might be at the heart of this newly established faith?

3./ Hume argued a miracle is immune from Reason (or dull facts). So this week will climax with #TransgenderDayofRemembrance, a sombre kind of Kumbh Mela when facts will be scattered to the wind to support a claim immune to Reason and rich in sacrificial religious overtones.👇

4./ The day marks the core Gender Identity belief that insists trans people are victims of an epidemic of violence that continually accelerates. Yet even a cursory glance at the stats show something different. Here are the overall homicide stats for the USA up to 2020.👇

5./ Homicides rose sharply to 21,570. @HRC notes 44 of those were trans "and gender non conforming". The same organisation calculates a US trans population of 2 million (0.6% of 330M). 0.6% of 21,570 homicides is 129 not 44. Is the truth the US is safer for trans than "cis"?👇

6./ Brazil is often cited as the dark heart of anti-trans violence. Bolsanaro is a transphobic monster but even here the stats don't support the rhetoric. There were 50,333 homicides in 2020. 0.6% of that figure is 302. The number of trans people murdered was actually 175.

7./ Any murder is one too many. That principle doesn't always seem to apply tho in reverse. Trans felon Tony McDade was shot by cops after he fled from killing in cold blood the young son of an ex-partner. McDade is listed as a 2020 trans victim. RIP Malik Jackson, his victim.👇

8./ Factual details tho seem to become irrelevant when the oceanic wave (Freud's term) of the religious experience sweeps over believers. So what are some of the other core beliefs of the 'gender identity' faith? A central one is that transition cures mental health problems.👇

9./ Truth is there have been few follow-up studies of medical transition and most don't support the notion it solves mental health issues. This despite the fact those who've changed their bodies have powerful incentives to convince themselves they did the right thing.

10./ When reality can't be ignored the faith shifts. When it became clear many who medically transition didn't achieve their dream look the answer was to promote transition including puberty blockers in children. Here's a promo in which doctors and parents embrace this idea.👇

11./ But there's a problem with the new ritual of dishing out puberty blockers like communion wafers to impressionable kids. Here's Jazz Jennings from hit TV series 'I Am Jazz' talking about the downsides: lack of "growth ..down below', making 'her' surgery much more difficult.👇

12./ Just 5 years ago Jazz -and 'her' growth problem was a rare exception. NOW the approach used for Jazz is advocated as an ideal by promoters of blockers for kids such as Mermaids or GoodLaw. Did they not listen to her surgeon describe how experimental this all is? 👇

13./ Maybe Mermaids ignored the issue. But Marci Bowers, one of Jazz's surgeons, is set to become @wpath's next leader and she's admitted to @AbigailShrier there are insurmountable problems with what Mermaids advocates. 👇 economist.com/united-states/….

14./ Animal trials of blockers prove they damage the brain. Now it's clear they stop physical development so much kids like Jazz won't go on to have adult sexual function. Somehow, this doesn't stop some parents thinking such harm is worth it. What COULD be their motiva$ion?👇

15./ One motivation may be homophobia. Newsnight discovered at the Tavi some parents wanted their kids on blockers MORE than the kids did. Parents used to try to pray away the gay. Now they have pharmacists not priests to intercede for them and remove the 'stigma' of a gay child.

16./ We're all supposed to admire the 'brave' parents who push their kids along this medicalising route to sterility. Feel free. But did you know the new name for Munchausen By Proxy is Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another? Wonder if we'll be hearing more about FDIA... soon.

17./ This strange new religion we're celebrating this week won't stop at what we used to think of as 'gender identity'. It's doing what all faiths do: fracturing, dividing, and getting more fervent. Here's some young people trying to define the miracle of graysexuality. 👇

18. The biggest miracle of all is self-identification. That won't stop at gender. Who can forget the transwoman who decided they weren't just a white person from Florida but Filipino? The Union that failed @Docstockk supports race self-ID so presumably would support that view?

19./ One hope is that, as with all religions, a spiral of belief in miracles is underway. Sex change, or 'sex spectrum' soon won't really be exciting enough. Here's a woman seriously claiming she got some telepathic message from her fetus telling her it was transgender. 👀

20./ And miracles can become humdrum. Here's a trans activist discussing with a trans ally his desire to get nullification (don't ask). In the meantime it's all been fun for him and his boyfriend just imagining it!! We've moved from the "brave and bold" to the err..null and void.

21./ And if the increasing strangeness of the 'gender identity' movement doesn't put off the public then we can at least rely on the hilariously entitled tone of leading activists. The more they tell ordinary voters what they MUST do the less they're likely to do it.👇

22./ If that doesn't work we can take the advice of Christopher Hitchens who said we have a moral duty to ridicule and deconstruct any faith that claims the authority to tell us what to do. "It's the beginning of human emancipation", he said. Amen and Happy Trans Awareness Week.