The Daily Mail has such a bad reputation for faking stories and fabricating "facts", that even Wikipedia banned it as a source, citing its "poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication".
Quite a lot of fakery in the Mail was exposed over the years. Certainly a proportion of the "political correctness gone mad" stories they dreamt up. And the fabricated cannabis scaremongering "news". And the falsehoods on climate change, Labour politicans, etc. Sometimes it wasn't entirely fake - they just invented the more sensational details. They got an absolute hammering from scientists and doctors for "using minor studies to generate scare stories or being misleading". Quite often the rulings against the Daily Mail conclude not just that they got one thing wrong but that they made "a series of factual inaccuracies", or a string of misleading claims. Typically all slanted politically.
I was reminded of this when looking for further info on two stories that Tourist mentioned in the recent NHS thread, on supposedly far-left woke nuttiness in the NHS. Both stories, it turns out, come originally from the Daily Mail (or at least I couldn't find any other sources with the specific gaudy details). That makes me somewhat wary, particularly when I was unable to fact-check the details adequately - although that doesn't necessarily make them untrue. I found the framing of both utterly misleading, in terms of the wider context presented (generally collapsing NHS).
The Daily Mail seems to specialise in using outrageous stand-out "woke" stories as somehow causally explaining wider instituional malaise. But without any substantiation for any causal link (and they conflate stand-out cases with typical cases, etc). The Daily Express does the same thing, but with immigration. In this way these newspapers deflect from the real (ie better substantiated, factually, statistically) causal links to things such as economic downturns, instituational failures, etc.
It's such a f*cking tragedy that a large proportion of the good people in Britain get their "news" from these appalling, lying, politically tendentious billionaire-owned rags.
@Tourist - thanks for the info. Good piece you quote from care.org.uk, which uses sensible language and comes the day after the Daily Mail report:
'The proposed NHS training is based on research findings by activist group the LGBT Foundation, which was commissioned for the Department of Health in 2021 and has not undergone peer-review. The report urged maternity services to scrap “non-inclusive language” in favour of terms like “chestfeeding”.'
Interesting that the independent (non-NHS) research recommending this language was commissioned by the Conservative government, and was discussed critically within (and outside) the NHS - resulting in its withdrawal. This was a £100,000 contract (for the program as a whole, not just the external LGBT-language recommendations) - a tiny amount relative to the billions in private contracts having a far greater effect on NHS.
So much for the Mail's spurious implication that "woke" examples like this are a significant cause of a more widespread malaise in the NHS or are connected with deaths of babies or "unsafe" conditions for mothers. Obviously misleading bollocks. The Mail concludes its piece: "If the NHS cannot perform the basic task of looking after expectant mothers and their babies, what on earth is it for?" What is it for? What total, dishonest horsesh*t. But gullible people fall for this kind of framing over and over again. And the Mail has millions of readers.
Also good background from the 'Reduxx' feminist website (written by Bryndis Blackadder!) that you quote at length, and which is dated a few days before the Mail report. That certainly shows the absurd "chestfeeding", etc, language was real, although it comes from someone outside the NHS - and formed just part of the recommendations on which the £100K program was based. (To look at it cynically, one could imagine the Conservative Health Secretary approving this contract with the thought: "What's 100K if it keeps these LGBT activists and the woke media off our backs").
Anyway, back to the important issues... such as the imminent collapse of the NHS due to 13 years of Conservative anti-NHS ideology, underfunding, mismanagement and spending countless BILLIONS on private contracts that might as well be burning the f*cking money.
Daily Mail = Daily Fascist
Daily Express = Daily Racist
Quote:
"I was reminded of this when looking for further info on two stories that Tourist mentioned in the recent NHS thread, on supposedly far-left woke nuttiness in the NHS. Bothstories, it turns out, come originally from the Daily Mail (or at least I couldn't find any other sources with the specific gaudy details)."
From care.org.uk
Midwives warn against new NHS gender training plans 13 January 2023
NHS England wants to recruit a group to run ‘gender inclusive training’ classes across 40 NHS maternity services, including trans-inclusive language and pronouns. The sessions, with up to £100,000 taxpayer funding, will also include online resources, information posters and “best practices examples of how to care for trans and non-binary birthing people.” Midwives said the ‘gender inclusive training’, could have “real implications” for mothers and warn that NHS transgender training plans could “be a repeat of the Tavistock scandal”. 300 doctors, nurses, midwives, psychologists, maternity support workers have written to NHS England demanding the plan be placed on “immediate hold” as it has “no evidence base”. With Woman, a group of midwives and obstetricians, wrote to Lizzie Streeter, NHS England’s “national LGBT programme manager”, on January 9th, warning that, “A scandal similar to Tavistock could be repeated in NHS maternity services due to poor research and the influence of advocacy organisations.” The proposed NHS training is based on research findings by activist group the LGBT Foundation, which was commissioned for the Department of Health in 2021 and has not undergone peer-review. The report urged maternity services to scrap “non-inclusive language” in favour of terms like “chestfeeding”. WithWoman claims the research contained “significant flaws” and that its recommendation of “de-sexed language for all maternity service users is incompatible with evidence and current guidance”. The letter, now signed by 2,000 people, also warned Streeter of the “danger” in ushering in activist groups “without sufficient clincial expertise” and that the training scheme is “disproportionate”. “As someone who was instrumental in exposing the damage done to patients by an unthinking acceptance of ideologically based claims, which had no evidence base, I am shocked at this repetition of ideology again trumping careful examination of the evidence and little thought as to the likely damage.” David Bell Former Staff Governor at the Tavistock
link: Midwives warn against new NHS gender training plans | CARE
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From Reduxx:
England’s NHS To Spend £100,000 On “Trans Inclusive Maternity” Program
By
Bryndís Blackadder
January 10, 2023
England’s National Health Service (NHS) has put forward a £100,000 contract to create a “gender-inclusive” maternity care training program based on research guided by a trans-identified male who has claimed that men can give birth and that “pre-operative trans women” have “girl penises.”
On December 16, the NHS quietly released an Invitation to Quote for the “Maternity Gender Inclusion Program,” with a listed closing date for pilot submissions set for January 11th, 2023.
The contracted program is set to be rolled out to midwives in maternity departments across 40 NHS Trusts in England, and would be based on the findings of the Improving Trans Experiences of Maternity Services (ITEMS) research project, which was co-authored by a trans-identified male and is alleged to have “significant” flaws in its methodology.
With Woman, a maternity care advocacy coalition, penned an open letter highlighting the “flawed” research within the ITEMS publications, and has called for a complete pause on the contract offering entirely.
Speaking with Reduxx, a spokeswoman from With Woman raised multiple concerns, especially with the entirety of the program’s focus appearing to be on “inclusive” language and not improvements in medical care for a traditionally complex cohort.
With Woman noted that even the Invitation to Quote appears fixed, with the very short contracting and funding window raising suspicion. With Woman indicated their belief that there may be organizations already lined up to take the contract as the time frames are too brief for uninvolved organizations to adequately prepare a pilot.
The ITEMS report, which is being used as a justification for the need for the program, based its findings on the responses of just 121 people. The report determined that “birthing people” were improperly cared for because they were “misgendered,” and made unsubstantiated claims that 30% of “trans parents” secretly gave birth at home with no medical intervention.
Dr. Ruth Pearce
The report was co-authored by Dr. Ruth Pearce, a trans-identified male Lecturer in Community Development at Glasgow University.
Pearce played a significant role in the direction of the ITEMS research. Pearce’s work focuses on “trans pregnancy” and “Queer, Trans and Feminist music scenes.”
In an essay posted on to his website, Pearce asserts that he is more attractive and confident than biological women.
“Quite frankly, I bet a whole load of women would love to be as confident and good looking as I am. I’ve got a pretty face, great hair, fantastic legs, and I’ve recently grown some rather shapely breasts.” He is also known for having once fronted a “queer feminist rage” music group through which he sang a song about his scrotum.
In an August 2022 video titled “Reproductive Justice for Trans People With Ruth Pearce and Francis White,” Pearce explains the focus of his work on ITEMS, policy and language surrounding “trans birth” and the need to highlight transgender people having children to counter the claims that a “trans child” may not reproduce, and to create media that contradicts Abigail Shrier’s claims that child transition can lead to “irreversible damage” of fertility.
Pearce called attention in particular to a phenomenon known as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, which was coined by Lisa Littman and referenced by Jungian analyst and author Lisa Marchiano in a 2017 academic article titled “Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics.”
In the article, Marchiano examines the role of social media in the sudden rise in teens claiming a gender identity, stating: “a young person’s coming out as transgender is often preceded by increased social media use and/or having one or more peers also come out as transgender.”
Pearce mocked the concept of children learning of transgender identities on social media, but later contradicted himself by discussing the issue in the presentation segment titled “We Are the Virus: Reproduction via Social Contagion.”
In the segment, Pearce asserted the need to help transgender-identifying people to not only sexually reproduce, but also to “socially reproduce” by means of altering medical language and policy to introduce the idea of transition to children and adults as a form of “reproductive justice,” thereby creating more transgender people.
In the video, Pearce acknowledged that social contagion is the method by which transgenderism proliferates, stating: “Alexis Davin noted that the very process that Lisa Marchiano and Abigail Shrier described as a social contagion is the means by which trans people engage in a form of social reproduction. We become visible to one another and introduce one another to a language that makes sense of our lives and our needs.”
Later in the seminar he continued, “I’ve been thinking a lot about social contagion because it’s the language of the anti-trans movement. But… the exact thing they’re describing is the exact means by which we reproduce ourselves.”
During the seminar, Pearce described the work he did with Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) NHS Trust, arguing for the need for “Gender Inclusive Language” to create “Language as Possibility” and posters that act as apparent recruitment advertising for the political transgender movement. Pearce elaborated by saying, “in Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals, that’s a really interesting example of queer spaces of care being created through an institution rather than through more radical networks.”
One of the posters available through Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Pearce’s involvement with the ITEMS research, as well as its use to justify an NHS maternity program, comes less than one year after NHS negligence was found to have been responsible for the needless deaths of over 200 babies and 9 mothers at at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust. According to internal investigations, “repeated failures in the quality of care and governance” was to blame for the deaths, which spanned over 2 decades, with an additional 1,486 families and 1,592 incidents being recorded as a result of inadequate maternity care oversight.
Reduxx has previously revealed how errors and confusion arose due to the use of inaccurate medical language which led to midwifery students at Napier University in Edinburgh being taught how to care for males giving birth through penises and prostates.
According to a course workbook, students were advised: “It is important to note that while most times the birthing person will have female genitalia, you may be caring for a pregnant or birthing person who is transitioning from male to female and may still have external male genitalia.”
...Mindnumbingly unbelievable
Link: England's NHS To Spend £100,000 On "Trans Inclusive Maternity" Program - Reduxx
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Update as of 12/01/23: The Maternity Gender Inclusion Program offering has now been withdrawn by the NHS.
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