Letters - 29 March 2024

The language of daffodils

This time of year I am reminded of the phrase that one should never minister about daffodils.

I wonder who came up with that? Answers on a postcard please.

I feel there is nothing wrong with speaking about daffodils.

Why? Because most of us, after the short dark days, enjoy the signs of spring. The fact that nature will always come back to life and carry on regardless, even against the odds. ‘Life will out’, that gives us hope.

Nothing wrong with hope, often the first careful sign of healing to rise from the ashes of loss, anxiety or when things did not turn out the way you prayed for.

Nature can give us comfort oftentimes before people can. It does not judge, speaks without words, teaches about diversity, rhyme and reason, and how everything is interdependent.

So much to hear ‘in the silence’ of a bird chorus to lift our spirit, that Light inside of us when we smell the grass or the rain, when we see the yellow joy of daffodils. It is all telling us so much if we take a bit of time to stop and receive. It gives us new energy to face the world and our role in it. Makes one feel grateful to be part of this amazing creation.

Surely, that is worth ministering about in simple words? Simplicity was one of our very first testimonies. I believe it was not just about clothing, possessions or status. It was also about the whole of our lives including the use of language everyone in the room could understand. The language of daffodils? I think so!

Jacinta White

‘Conscientious taxation’?

Some years ago I discovered that there was a different view of economics than the one I (and nearly everyone else) grew up with. And that includes recognising that ‘tax pays for nothing’.

In the article ‘In the line of duty: Robin Brookes campaigns for conscientious taxation’ (1 March), we read that ‘we all pay for war through our taxes’. Sorry, ‘we’ don’t. It’s the government. It issues the sovereign currency – those pounds sterling – to do many things including purchasing all the equipment to fight wars, buying ammunition, updating nuclear submarines, paying the members of the armed forces…

I have learned that tax serves a number of purposes, however. It is a necessary mechanism for the control of inflation and, without taxation, there could be no money issued at all! The mysteries of these unfamiliar statements are explained in modern monetary theory, and by the UK group the Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies.

Of course, there is a great deal that I, and many other peace-loving Quakers, will agree with in Robin’s article, especially that ‘it is more urgent than ever for the human race to abolish war’. But for me, citizens withholding taxes stand no chance of doing that.

John Morris

‘Common ground’

I would be delighted to seek ‘common ground’ on transgender questions as suggested by Robin Waterston (23 February). And I agree completely that sex and gender are not necessarily aligned, and that people should be free to express their gender however they wish.

But to describe gender and sexuality as ‘a feeling’ is dismissive. The World Health Organisation definition of gender identity is ‘[An] innate, deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender which may or may not conform to a person’s physiology or designated sex at birth’. To suggest gender identity may change but sexual orientation does not creates a false dichotomy.

Medical interventions can have life-changing consequences. Transgender treatments including hormones and surgery have been shown to have a high satisfaction rate. A survey of 90,000 transgender adults in the USA (2022 US Transgender Survey) found the overwhelming majority of trans people reported greater life satisfaction after transition. Delaying or refusing medical care is not a neutral act and can have irreversible consequences.

Robin says that ‘biological sex’ (however defined) is ‘critical’ in ‘situations such as sport, medical treatment, and the care of victims of sexual trauma’. I would argue it may be a consideration, but it is not critical.

In sport, evidence for the exclusion of transgender people is not clear. The most comprehensive survey I have found is from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. It states: ‘Available evidence indicates trans women who have undergone testosterone suppression have no clear biological advantages over cis women in elite sport’. It recommends ‘all reasonable efforts should be made to make sport inclusive and accessible for transgender individuals’. We should be trying to make sport more inclusive not seeking exclusion.

Transgender people understand doctors may need to know their gender history. This should be left between transgender patients and their doctors. Recent Freedom of Information applications have uncovered few complaints about transgender patients on wards. This matter should be left to the care of the NHS. If it is intended to suggest patients should be able to insist on blanket commitments that nobody involved in their care is transgender, this is discrimination, and we should oppose it.

Some women’s refuges accept transgender women, others do not. There are provisions in the Equality Act to allow for single-sex spaces to exclude transgender women, provided this is ‘a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’. The Women’s Aid Federation policy states ‘our members are best placed to determine whether to deliver some or all [services] as single-sex services within the parameters of the law’. Transgender people are victims of domestic violence, and there are no refuges specifically for them. Women’s Aid does not support a blanket ban on transgender women in women’s refuges. I do not think Quakers should do so.

I do not think this list should be accepted by a community committed to ‘acknowledge and affirm’ transgender people.

Cherry Lewis

March for peace

I find myself reluctant to say Keith Braithwaite’s article on Gaza angered me (February 23). He writes of peace and also of evil.

I have marched around London calling for peace in Gaza but I see more than one evil. Keith Braithwaite goes to great lengths to dispose of Hamas as an organisation ‘that we cannot be for’. Many Quakers will agree.

But – and a massive but – he has no word of condemnation for the aerial bombardment, the death toll, the ethnic cleansing and the deliberate use of famine as an act of war. Nor of the history of apartheid in Israel’s long occupation of Palestine.

The cruelty we have seen inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza is beyond evil, and beyond my comprehension too.

Britain Yearly Meeting needs to be thoughtful in not putting partners in danger in the Middle East. But, as I have said to Friends before, if Quakers cannot call out the genocide in front of us, we may as well all pack up and go home.

Keith Braithwaite may wish to distract us, and tell us it’s complicated. It is not for most of us in Rishi Sunak’s ‘mobs’. We call out evil and we march for peace.

Jon Heal

National flags

I was uncomfortable with seeing a national flag recently in a Quaker Meeting house. I was reminded of Leo Tolstoy’s words at an international peace conference that ‘in a hundred years from now, patriotism will be seen as a dirty word’. Tolstoy did not always choose his words carefully, and on this occasion his words are ambiguous. He was not opposed to the kind of patriotism which seeks the welfare of one’s country, but to that nationalism which is one of the roots of war.

It is difficult to disassociate national flags from some of the negative ideas which they carry.

Clive Gordon

Whither Quakers?

Why are Quakers in decline? Is it their aging population? If so, why aren’t more younger people persuaded to experience Quakerism?

Are apparent outsiders put off by Quaker activism? Or are apparent outsiders put off by the lack of Quaker activism?

Are people put off because of Quaker beliefs? Or are people put off by the apparent lack of beliefs or the multiplicity of Quaker beliefs?
What is it that needs to be done?

Gerard Bane