Today's Battles

On An MMD forum, a blog whose author says :

"You know I sometimes have to keep reminding myself that I don’t have a down on people who’ve had gender reassignment or identify as transgendered. Because believe it or not I don’t."

Sure she doesn't. I might have believed that had I not seen her comments on other sites. It's worth reading her remarks despite that, even though I disagree strongly with her assessment of the evidence. She's intelligent, articulate, and raises some good points that deserve answering.

I left a comment at the Daily Mail, but they don't seem to publish ones that are inconvenient, so here it is:

"it is rumoured that it will top £250,000."

Rumoured.

In fact, Jan has so far received nothing. Not a penny. So whence the source of this "rumour"?

How about this - not a rumour, but fact reported in some newspapers:

(Jan) said: “I was really disgusted to read these stories which are absolutely not true and what’s worse is nobody bothered to contact me about them.

“There is no £250,000 agreement, I have never sought £250,000 and neither would I accept it.

She added: “It is totally false and what has really got to me was the way some national newspapers have brought the families of those soldiers into it, those heroes who have suffered horrific injuries in the line of duty – at a time when these people should be left alone.”

You've been set up. Someone with an axe to grind has deliberately fed you false information - and you've swallowed it. What was previously reported as established fact is now mere "rumour", but the whole lede of the story goes against that.

The definitive story on this, with links to all relevant papers, is at The View From Abnormal Heights.

When I had my surgery, I met a girl in the UK armed forces there for surgery too. Not an officer, and not in the Paras or (Heaven Forefend!) the Guards. There are a number of them, one a Royal Navy Helicopter pilot in Iraq, IIRC. There are standard procedures for dealing with Transition. These were not followed, for reasons that can only be conjectured. But there's been dirty work at the crossroads since then.

And finally, a comment at the Washington Blade.