MrWorldwideJr

Fair enough. Maybe lead with that next time instead of going for the 'it's all the trans people's fault that people are being transphobic to them' thing.

So just to be clear, this means that you are against the Conservative party's current culture war obsession with transgender people and think that those in the leadership contest trying to gain support by stirring up anti-trans sentiment should stop?

We don't mind you so long as you sit down, shut up and don't so much as ask for people to use your correct pronouns isn't quite the glowing position on transgender rights that you seem to think it is.

You can say this about any Aberdeen kit in history tbf.

Yes, I think this is really important as well. I think its really important that there is room to do both. To have your big 'trans experience' roles/episodes/shows which really explore that and educate people on what being trans is like. But also to have roles where the trans element of the character isn't central to their storyline, its just a trans person doing some other cool stuff, really normalising the presence of trans people on TV, I guess normalising the fact that trans people are real people with entire lives as well. And its also really important to blend that element into the 'trans experience' shows. I think that that is what really resonated with me about Euphoria (not to bang the drum on it too hard, I'm singling it out more because it had a personal impact on me, not because its a uniquely representative show). It has its big ticket moments and episodes, but Jules is also a regular character. She always feels like a real person who is trans, rather than a character who only exists in the story to be trans. She feels like somebody that I could actually be, that I would want to be, which is something I'd never really felt before with trans characters on screen. For me thats the most important component of trans representation on screen, to create characters that you can really relate to. That has so many positive effects, whether its allowing trans people to feel seen and represented, helping cis people to empaphise and also just get used to trans people or helping people who haven't gotten there yet to work out that this is someone they can be.

Firstly, apologies for taking so long to reply to this. I would say the best resource I have found for this is the gender dysphoria bible. Its a really in depth look at what it means to be transgender and how gender dysphoria manifests, dispelling some of the more common misconceptions along the way. Its pretty long, so maybe more of a drop in and out when you have questions resource, but I would say that even if you only read the intro and first couple of sections you probably learn more about what it means to be transgender than is taught in Scottish schools, or at least was taught to me 10-15 years ago. Similarly I find that turn me into a girl is also good, as are the transgender focussed subreddits (eg. r/asktransgender, r/mtf), probably more focussed towards people who are questioning their gender but a lot of useful info on what that process looks like. Beyond that I would say its about finding sources where trans people talk about their own experiences. A couple of good examples would be the Youtuber Abigail Thorn's coming out videos here and here (the first is about being trans, the second about the challenges currently faced by trans people in the UK). I also like this interview with the actress Hunter Schafer. Finally, I find it really helpful to watch TV/film with trans characters played by trans actors. There's not necessarily anything terribly wrong with films like Dallas Buyers Club where a cis actor plays a trans character but I feel like they tend to turn into an acting showcase for the actor to show how transformative they can be, how much range they have, rather than a real representation of a trans character. Finding shows where the trans characters were played by trans people who also therefore have input into the character and the creative process of the show was I would say the first time I've felt like I could start to properly understand and relate to a trans character on screen. Two I would recommend for that would be Euphoria (featuring the above mentioned Schafer who also wrote one of the episodes which is heavily based around the trans experience) and Pose (which is available on IPlayer and for which Michaela Jaé Rodriguez received an Emmy nomination). Appreciate that I've written a lot there, and I'm not in any way saying that people need to have read/watched all of this but I think that dipping into a few of these resources would be helpful for most people. Also worth noting that what I've suggested above is very much biased towards trans women and that its not in any way an exhaustive list, just a list of things which have been useful to me.

Does this 'bodying' include the part where you claimed Covid was over as a public health crisis in August 2020?

Tbh I've had a complete heads gone at you putting safely live in society in quotation marks as if the danger and difficulty that many transgender people face simply trying to live as themselves in the modern world is something I've made up or overexaggerated. Especially given you've combined it with recommending I watch another special specifically known for being openly transphobic. So think I will just leave it there. What I'll say is that if you want to learn more about the transgender community (and I think everyone should because education around transgender people is pretty much non existent) and why the common tropes and talking points around transgender people are harmful and do real damage then Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle probably aren't the first sources you should be consulting.

If only Ricky Gervais could take the same attitude towards transgender people... Its a whole lot easier to take the 'don't watch it if you don't like it' attitude when you're not a member of a minority having the very words used by people to try to deny you basic rights repeated back to you as 'just a joke' and then having to listen to sensible heads with no skin in the game sagely comment on how you're taking it all too seriously. The reason that people get outraged at stuff like this is not that Gervais is just too edgy or offensive for them, that they just can't handle his style of comedy. Its because he's spouting talking points which, when widely believed, do real damage to transgender people's ability to exist safely in society. Having them repeated by a famous comedian in a Netflix special reinforces the idea that these views are normal, sensible things to think, just a bit of a laugh really. Its a bit different to not watching reality TV because it winds you up a bit.

Unsure how anyone can watch Ricky Gervais in essence reel off a list of transphobic talking points and say 'cocks' a lot for an hour and come away with the impression that he's not actually attacking transgender people, he's just making fun of woke leftists. There's no wit or subtlety to what he's doing, he's not even trying to hide it. The punchline to pretty much every joke is just 'transgender people exist'. Even if you want to dismiss 'the woke' as being performatively annoyed (they're not), if you actually bothered to look at the reaction of the trans community to this you would see that its not just a little joke with no negative effects. Ultimately, its probably not very productive to get wound up about it. That's exactly what Gervais wants and (as evidenced by this thread) that's exactly what his fans want too. That energy is probably better spent on those who aren't completely lost down the rabbit hole. But lets just be very clear that what is going on here is Ricky Gervais taking an entire group of marginalised people and repeatedly punching down at them for an hour. Similarly, the people who found the special hilarious were laughing because they find transphobia funny. He and they don't get to hide behind claiming that there's anything deeper happening than that.

Good to see an incredibly rich and famous comedian being paid a huge amount of money to make a stand up special for one of the most popular content providers on the planet being cited as an example of 'cancel culture'.

There's a whole other thread, started by yourself as it happens, where you can go to discuss the merits of the split if you want to rather than ruining this one. An opportunity for you to actually be on topic for once if you're willing to take it.

Cazoo to sponsor the World Championship going forward. Makes them them the sponsor of pretty much every major UK event other than the Home Nations series. Good news short term I suppose, it's obviously better than no sponsor at all, but I'm starting to feel a bit concerned at how reliant on a single company the health of the circuit is. If Cazoo were to decide to stop for some reason then pretty much every major event on the calendar would suddenly be sponsorless. Different circumstances and different people in charge now but that didn't end well when tobacco sponsorship was banned and took the sport a long time to recover from.

To be fair, if you're going to try to make this a legitimate World Seniors title, which appears to the aim, then you have to have some sort of route for anyone over 40 to qualify regardless of whether they were a top pro in their day or not. Aaron Canavan won the title a couple of years ago and as far as I'm aware he was never a pro. That said, it does leave the whole tournament feeling a bit anti-climactic. Watching guys you've literally never heard of obviously isnt particularly interesting when the standard is low. And even once you get to the final stages its far more likely that this week ends with someone like Michael Holt or Peter Lines winning it, than say Hendry or White, which again doesnt hold a lot interest.

Those two are playing again this evening so they have an earlier cut off time than usual to give them time to get something to eat between sessions. Edit: Beaten to it!

Something tells me you aren't very good at Fantasy Football.

A 7 minute delay from the penalty being awarded to it being overturned seems like a bit more than a 'little niggle which will be ironed out' tbh.

Worth commenting on? Yes. The only thing that has been discussed on this thread all weekend? Probably not. Like @afc_36_0 I don't particularly like Hamilton but this thread is pretty much unusable if you want to talk or read about any other topic. Its not really about Formula 1, its just a support group for people who hate Lewis Hamilton.

It's already in the schedule for 28th November - 4th December, although without a venue attached at the moment. The UK Championship has been moved forward to avoid the World Cup but I imagine that is a BBC thing rather than a World Snooker thing.

Take the pre-World Cup stage for example. Season starts on July 30th, stops on November 12th. That's 16 weekends, the international break is the weekend of 24th September, the other 15 weekends will be used for SPFL fixtures, thats 15 matchdays. November 12th is MD16 so there must be one round of midweek fixtures before the World Cup. We know the dates for the League Cup, European fixtures and the international break. The only free midweek after all those are taken out is, from a quick glance, November 8th/9th. So presumably that will be MD15. There might be a mistake or two in there but that's more or less how its going to work out. I'm sure you can do the same with the post World Cup section, might have to take a guess at Scottish Cup dates but you can predict them with a reasonable degree of confidence based on previous years. Its not like there are a huge number of gaps in the calendar, its safe to assume that every weekend and all but a couple of midweeks during the season will be used for something. The point being that they more or less have been released, you just have to do a bit of working out yourself.

Major flaw in this plan is that it involves Bale actually getting on to the pitch in the CL final.

I think the thing that's really noticeable for me is that whenever the gender 'debate' (such as it is a debate) gets brought up, it immediately gets sidetracked into things that aren't really at the core of the issue. This thread a good example, whether or not you would personally have sex with a transgender person isn't really particularly relevant. What the topic ultimately comes down to is should transgender people have the right to live in this country, or indeed any other country, whilst presenting freely as their true gender without fear of discrimination/violence/having to jump through a million bureucratic hoops and with easy, affordable access to gender affirming healthcare? I would argue, and hope that most others on this thread would too, that the answer to that is 'yes' and that currently the UK achieves none of the items on that list to a satisfactory standard. The real issues in the 'gender debate' are things like that waiting times for access to hormone replacement therapy are frequently measured in years, that the process of legally changing your gender is a nightmare, that bigotry against transgender people is seen as acceptable in the UK media provided that its dressed up as concern about some other issue, that the government are attempting to exclude transgender people from a ban on conversion therapy, the increased risk of being a victim of violence if you are transgender. Now I don't blame you if you don't have too much knowledge on these issues, I know I didn't until relatively recently, I still feel like I have a whole lot more to learn. Ultimately that comes down to the fact that the media portrayal of the 'gender debate' and online discussions feel like they are a long, long way from the reality of the situation. But I don't think the correct response to that is to back away for fear of saying the wrong thing because it doesn't really affect you. I think there is a responsibility there to educate yourself a little and try to help where you can. To come back to the discussion on whether you would have sex with a trans woman. To me saying that trans women are women, or indeed that trans men are men, is simply a statement that you recognise a person as their true gender. In so much as you need to 'commit' to that statement its in treating them with respect and dignity, in advocating for their rights and in standing up against bigotry.

He absolutely knew he was winning the award. He was one of the biggest locks of the whole night, there was precisely 0% chance that anyone other than Will Smith walked out of there last night with the Best Actor trophy.

Smith's acceptance speech for winning Best Actor was in essence just a long, grovelling apology. Given this is almost certainly the only Oscar he will ever win, it seems unlikely that he would agree to effectively ruin that moment in the service of a bit. Its like when they announced the wrong Best Picture winner a couple of years ago. Folk jumped to the idea that its fake straight off the bat, but it doesn't actually serve anyone involved to fake it other than the vague notion that all publicity is good publicity.

I mean I guess. But my point was that if people are coming into your thread and asking what FIRE is, as I was, and one of the first responses begins with 'I think its about recognising that life does, in fact, give us choices' then they're probably more likely to be turned off by what a patronising comment that is than anything else. You don't need to be financially literate to understand that you have free will. You're bringing up stuff now about investments and active fund managers etc. and I can see how that is the kind of thing that would be genuinely useful but it took me asking you multiple times to get us to that point and you only seem to have brought it up to try to imply that I'm looking down on people who don't understand these things. Just to be clear the only thing I was stating was obvious is the concept that 'spend less than you earn, saving money if you can is good' because this is the only thing that is involved in FIRE based on your own posts earlier today.