Am I wrong to say that no one wants to make trans people less equal?

I get that there are plenty of malevolent people who dislike trans people along with gay people, feminists, lefties, atheists, you name it, but are there people who want to make trans people less equal? What would that even look like?

That question is related to one I ask a lot, which is “what do we mean by ‘trans rights’?” What exactly are trans rights? Trans people should have human rights, obviously, but what are specifically trans rights, and how do we know that anyone should have them?

There’s a lot of sloppy rhetoric about equality and rights all through the trans ControVersy, and … Read the rest

President of Humanists UK refuses to step up.

It's not something I know much about.

— Dr Adam Rutherford (@AdamRutherford) April 14, 2024

I must say as an ex member of the Humanists UK I find this startling to say the least. I couldn't find any response from the Humanist Twitter feed on the Cass Review (I may have missed it). I would have hoped that at the very least there would be some acknowledgement of it?

I…

— Heather (@Heatherthefair) April 14, 2024

They don’t want the tsuris.… Read the rest

Neale Hanvey MP on Ruth Hunt:

Ruth Hunt’s claim that she was “absolutely someone who has always been working in the middle ground, trying to build consensus” is most egregious insult imaginable.

@stonewalluk attacked anyone occupying a position beyond their pious queer theory doctrine. Any LGB person who raised so much as a ‘heretical’ whisper was targeted and demonised. The agenda they have been pushing has seen emboldened extremist positions find their way on to the floor of the House of Commons where straight women tell gay men to get back in the closet. That’s what you achieved Ruth Hunt, but it’s never going to happen. Now we stand with @AllianceLGB.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Often contending with other difficulties.

You’d think they’d make sure there actually was such a thing as a “gender identity” before offering to “develop” it, “treat” it, or follow its dictates with regard to the bodies it allegedly inhabits. Why do some people claim to have such an identity, while others do not? Why are most people’s identities “aligned” with their sex, while others are not? What causes this supposed “misalignment”? How is the identity’s presence and nature determined, apart from patient self-diagnosis? How do you screen out people who don’t require your services, and/or those who will not benefit from them? Surely clinicians dealing with this phenomenon would want … Read the rest

Dreaming the impossible dream again:

Euphoria actress Hunter Schafer has said she no longer wants to play transgender roles. The 25-year-old transgender star shot to fame playing a trans character, Jules Vaughn, in HBO’s hit teen drama.

So he’s an actor and a he, and the BBC is lying to its readers in the usual way by calling him “she.”

Anyway. Trans actor Hunter doesn’t want to play trans characters any more. Ok; there are other jobs. Have a nice life, Hunter.

But Schafer said she felt she could go further as an actress by “not making it the centrepiece to what I’m doing”. She said: “I worked so hard to get to where I am, past these really

In other news…

This is exactly the escalation in the simmering conflict between Iran, its proxies and Israel that everyone feared: a direct attack by one nation against another.

For nearly two weeks Iran’s security establishment has been mulling its response to the 1 April airstrike on its consulate in Damascus, widely assumed to be the work of Israel, that killed several top Iranian commanders. Clearly, a decision was reached that such a major escalation – an attack that flattened a diplomatic building and therefore sovereign Iranian territory – called for an escalatory response.

Israel has several layers of air defences and it has vowed to respond to any attack on its soil and it will. The risk now

Ruth Hunt’s “Who, me?? Never!!” is not going down very well.

I found this interview with Ruth Hunt, former head of Stonewall, very hard to read—because I personally know so many people who have sacrificed so much to contradict the stances she once held, and now disowns.https://t.co/53HOh7XxLY

— Helen Lewis (@helenlewis) April 13, 2024

1/ When gay children abandoned to gender needed Stonewall to stand up for them, Ruth Hunt wasn't even absent from her post, it was worse than that. She conspired against them, joined and led enemy forces and today she sets out her defence. But this prosecution is overwhelming. pic.twitter.com/YCI7p36r8K

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) April 13, 2024

https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1779159322666181054

LGB people who tried so hard to

Hannah Barnes in The New Statesman:

[Hannah Barnes is associate editor of the New Statesman and author of “Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children” (Swift)]

The report confirms that the majority of children referred to Gids had complex needs, and alongside their gender-related distress were often contending with other difficulties: anxiety, depression, eating disorder and autism were all over-represented when compared with what you would see in the general children’s population.

It also vindicates what so many former Gids staff have been saying for years: that there was no consistency in its clinical approach; that some assessments – prior to referral for puberty blockers – could be just one

Again with the re-wording.

Doc Stock asked for examples of Stonewall doing its thing, which has made for a highly useful thread full of sources. One item gives us yet another lie about what the trans ideology is about:

https://t.co/8PTxeTcX68 I went looking for 2018, because that's the year Maria McLachlan was battered. And to my memory, weren't Stonewall going to participate in a debate, bailed due to TRA pressure, then women tried to have a conversation without them…. pic.twitter.com/3xMc0cX0xV

— womenopausal ✊♀️ (@womenopausal1) April 12, 2024

Second paragraph under “We stand up for people”:

“We do draw a line with regard to questioning whether trans people deserve the same level of equality as any other group.”

NOBODY SAYS trans … Read the rest

Welp.

Stonewall tried to suppress early warnings to schools about the shaky evidence base for medical transitions for children, The Times can reveal.

Not just ignore; not just dispute; not just dismiss; suppress.

Speaking for the first time since the publication of the Cass review, Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green insisted that Stonewall had always supported calls for evidence-based medicine during her leadership from 2014 to 2019.

That buzzing you hear? That’s gender-critical types exclaiming “Like hell it did!!”

However, when campaigners sent out resource packs to schools in 2018 warning teachers that there was little medical evidence to support puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, Stonewall sought to have them removed from schools.

The evidence-led approach advocated by

Talk about mission creep…

Amnesty International put out a press release announcing Cass review on gender identity is being ‘weaponised’ by anti-trans groups.

What does the Cass review have to do with Amnesty International? And what does Amnesty have to do with the Cass review? Does AI now see itself as simply The Correct Ones, there to rebuke the wicked and sanctify the good, “wicked” and “good” according to Amnesty itself of course?

In response to the sensationalised coverage surrounding the independent review of gender identity services for children and young people by the paediatrician Hilary Cass, Amnesty International UK and Liberty, said:

“All children have the right to access specialist effective care on time and must

16 Candles felony charges:

I don’t think she’s out on bail.… Read the rest

This isn’t how it’s done:

Critical thinking and open debate are pillars of scientific and medical research. Yet experienced professionals are increasingly scared to openly discuss their views on the treatment of children questioning their gender identity. This was the conclusion drawn by Hilary Cass in her review of gender identity services for children this week, which warned that a toxic debate had resulted in a culture of fear.

Why are the professionals scared? Why is the debate toxic? Why is there a culture of fear?

We all know. We’ve been watching it for years. It’s because of the staggering level of bullying that the rah-rah-trans side goes in for.

Her conclusion was echoed by doctors, academic researchers and

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on 14 when he knew.

The BBC has gotten so used to the mantra that (clap) trans (clap) kids (clap) are (clap) who they say they are (clap clap clap) that they can’t shake it even when reporting on a story about how the medicine actually doesn’t say that.

Imagine if a report came out that said that it appeared that oncologists were over-prescribing chemotherapy, and that the medical evidence strongly shows that it’s not appropriate in many cases in which it’s being used.

Would the BBC rush to interview cancer patients for their “opinions” on the medicine? No doubt some patients would have opinions (“I had chemo, and I think it saved … Read the rest

The Beeb rushes to chat with a “trans man” about how hurty it all is.

Trans young people say they feel “disappointed” and “ignored” by the Cass Review into gender care.

No, really??!

They’ve been taught to feel that, Beeb. They’ve been taught by you among others. You’re teaching more people by writing this stupid story.

Sean Donovan was 14 when he knew he had gender dysphoria, but was not able to access puberty blockers which he said could have saved him “so much trauma”.

Or could have wrecked “his” life.

The review recommended a “holistic assessment” of a child’s needs, including “screening for neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism spectrum disorder, and a mental health assessment”. Mr Donovan said none

Another win for magic gender:

The German parliament has passed a law making it easier for citizens and residents to legally change gender. It’s also introducing hefty fines – in specific circumstances – for disclosing someone’s prior registered name or gender without consent.

Hefty fines for mentioning someone’s actual sex? Really? So men can force themselves on, say, women’s hostels or refuges or rape crisis centers and no one is allowed to “disclose” the fact that he’s a man?

Previously, changing your registered gender required a doctor’s certificate and the approval of a family court. Now over-18s can change to male, female or diverse, a third gender option that already exists under German law…The intentional and harmful disclosure of

Trans ideologues refused to show their evidence.

The NHS’s most senior adviser on transgender health refused to share data about his clinic’s patients with the Cass Review. Dr Hilary Cass said efforts to track the journeys of around 9,000 children who went on to be seen by adult services were “thwarted” by the refusal of clinics to provide evidence.

Researchers were trying to establish the long-term consequences of medical interventions by seeking data from adult clinics, which take patients from the age of 16. Six of the seven clinics which run adult gender services refused to comply with the request.

Thus revealing themselves to be not “clinics” at all but political headquarters. Transitude is all in the head, … Read the rest

Labour Quislings stand by their hatred of women:

Angela Rayner has declined to apologise for endorsing a charter describing feminist organisations that raised fears about the treatment of trans children as “hate groups”.

When Ms Rayner stood to be the deputy Labour leader in 2020, she backed a trans rights charter that described bodies including Women’s Place UK, which campaigns for single-sex rape refuges for women, as “trans-exclusionist hate groups”.

In other words, prominent Labour woman backed a charter of “rights” for men who pretend to be women while she called women who defend women’s rights “hate groups.” In other other words she’s a contemptible traitor to women.

High-profile Labour figures have previously made remarks endorsing the views of

The Guardian thinks it needs to inform us that

CEO of female-only app would not address trans woman as ‘Ms’, Sydney court hears

That’s because he’s a man, Guardian. What’s your point? (I mean that in the largest possible sense, as well as the ordinary one.)

A court has heard that the founder and CEO of a women-only social media app will not address a transgender woman as “Ms”, saying “I don’t think it’s kind to expect a woman to see a man as a woman”.

It’s not “kind” and it’s also not reasonable.

[Tickle’s counsel, Georgina Costello KC] asked Grover if she would “call her Ms Tickle in real life?”

“No,” Grover answered. When asked if that was kind,

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Send us your best.

In reality, the problem has never been disagreement about how to care for trans children and young people.

Bullshit. If you can’t define it, how do you treat it? In reality, the problem has been in immediately deciding children with any degree of dysphoria are “trans,” desistance and detransitioners be damned. How do you decide who qualifies as “trans”? What’s the test? What are the criteria? Desistance and detransition are huge red flags showing that somebody has got it wrong. They should be a valuable source of refinement and calibration of “trans” diagnoses, not shameful failures to be swept aside and demonized. If someone “wasn’t really … Read the rest