Words words words

Written by

July 19, 2026

The reliably fatuous Daniel Lismore writes:

JK Rowling worked at Amnesty documenting human rights abuses. This week she offered millions to destroy it.

They ruled on trans bodies without letting a single trans person speak

There are around 300,000 trans and non-binary people in the United Kingdom. Depending on how you count, there are up to 1.1 million intersex people. That is as many as 1.4 million human beings whose bodies have just been defined by a Supreme Court that refused to hear from any of them.

It’s not a “hear from” category of thing. It’s not subject to vote or debate. It’s not a choice. Our wishes cannot change it. What sex people are is not like what religion people are or what political tendency they are or what work they do. It’s a category that just is what it is. Even 1.4 million human beings can’t change that.

That is not a metaphor. When For Women Scotland reached the Supreme Court, trans organisations applied to intervene and were turned away. The judges decided what a woman is without a single trans woman, trans man, non-binary or intersex person in the room.

But, again, that’s beside the point, because neither Daniel Lismore nor a judge can actually make people either women or men. The question was put to judges only because this ridiculous new ideology had made such a tangled mess of the law that they had to. The reality of which people are women and which are men stayed the same throughout.

Comments

5 responses to “Words words words”

Alison

Jul 19, 2026 12:52 PM

Not all the comments are going his way, though.
Guest

Jul 19, 2026 12:59 PM

The final quoted comment is not true. Amnesty was represented by Lui Asquith and she identifies as trans and non-binary. That makes Lismore wrong on two counts in one sentence.

https://www.russell-cooke.co.uk/news-and-insights/news/pride-month-perspectives-from-a-trans-non-binary-lawyer
The Whimster Gap

Jul 20, 2026 1:55 AM

It shows an astounding misunderstanding – or misrepresentation – of how the law works, too.

From elsewhere in his post:

The science has never been put before the Supreme Court. The full evidence on sex development, on chromosomal variation, on the fifty documented intersex conditions, on what biology actually shows, has never been tested at the highest level because the people it describes were kept out of the room.

I’ll leave aside the asinine idea that people are always expert on their own predicament, and the even more asinine idea that others cannot be more expert. But still: it is not the job of the UKSC to rule on the science. Lismore’s account of that Court is the account of someone whose understanding of the law is drawn from daytime television, and for someone whose understanding of the law is drawn from daytime television.

In his mind, people walk into a courtroom waving documents, shouting “Objection!” and there’s a hiatus in the hearing during which the judges examine their consciences, weep, and then deliver a judgment based on having listened to their hearts. They might applaud, too. There’s probably an orchestra in the canteen to play a rousing theme.

Real life is not like that.

The Supreme Court is not a debating chamber. It determines what the law is, not what it should or should not be. Even in a case concerning trans people, the Court does not have to listen to trans people, any more than a group of oncologists has to listen to people with cancer when discussing how best to interpret a scan.
Ophelia Benson

Jul 20, 2026 5:24 AM

*chef’s kiss*
iknklast

Jul 20, 2026 11:08 AM

If the trans ‘community’ want to be women, they need to understand what women understand, and feel what women feel (not just what the men wearing woman face think women understand and feel).

To wit: women have long been treated to laws made and enforced with no women in the room. Women were not consulted when laws were made that protected the patriarchy. Our voices were not heard until we went out there and made them heard. By doing this, we gained some measure of rights, obviously not equivalent among all women everywhere, and there are some places where women still have no rights.

Trans hasn’t actually suffered this. If you dig deep enough, it’s not unusual that there is trans in the room…but no women, who are also affected by any laws giving trans ‘rights’ to invade their spaces. Women who worked and marched and petitioned and voted until we finally gained a voice are now losing that voice, while the voice of trans can be heard loud and clear, coming at us from every direction, in spite of their small numbers. How many trans have been through what the suffragettes suffered? How many of them have been arrested for peaceable protest, and kept in conditions worse than that of murderers, in some instances?

In reality, most trans haven’t been arrested for violent protest, threats, destroyed property, and women harmed. How many women would be able to avoid arrest if they called for the killing of, say, Sophie Mollie?

They don’t even suffer the minor instances. No one asks them to make a sandwich, buy a gift for the ‘little woman’, or spread their legs for the boss. They have absolutely NO idea of what it’s like to be a woman, and to feel like a woman.

Most women don’t react over the top to being ‘misgendered’, because for us, it’s so minor and uneventful compared to the other things we deal with every day. For trans? It appears that is often the full extent of the ‘violence’ they suffer.