Author: Ophelia Benson

From the Department of Made-up Problems:

Youth charities like Girlguiding can hopefully come up with “innovative” ways to ensure children do not feel excluded in the wake of a ban on trans girls joining, the Children’s Commissioner has said.

The ban is on boys joining. Girlguiding is for girls (the name is a broad hint). Lots of things are for boys; Girlguiding is one thing that is for girls. If boys feel “excluded” because of that, well, welcome to what it’s like being a girl.

A coalition of volunteers and parents has argued that refusing a child based on their gender identity “sends a message of rejection” to young people.

But it’s not based on their “gender identity”, which is meaningless. It’s based on which sex they are. That’s not “rejection”; it’s allowing girls to have something boys have had since forever.

Girlguiding – which has around 300,000 UK members across its Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers groups – announced in early December that it will only allow those recorded female at birth to join.

In other words Girlguiding will allow only girls to join Girlguiding. Fancy that.

Dame Rachel de Souza said she was “so sad” to hear of children feeling excluded.

Buck up, Dame Rachel. I’m guessing that what you “hear of” is not actual children actually feeling excluded, but adults drunk on trans ideology imagining hordes of children sobbing themselves to sleep. Or, even less persuasively, adults drunk on trans ideology simply claiming hordes of sobbing children, because that’s how trans ideology gets propagated and enforced. There’s really no need to feel sad about imaginary boys longing to be in Girl Guides. Most of those boys will have already been raised to think girls are weak and worthless, so they won’t want to go anywhere near Girl Guides.

“And what I hope is that Girlguiding gets together with its sister organisations and other charities to think about how every child can be included, and nobody has that feeling of ‘they can’t be there’. So, you know, I’m hoping for some innovative on-the-ground response.”

But we have that “they can’t be there” feeling all the time. All of us do. It’s just part of life. We can’t barge in everywhere, we can’t join everything there is to join, we can’t always open that locked door. Just go for a walk around your neighborhood to test out my claim. Can you walk into every house you pass without first getting permission? No you can’t; in fact, you can’t walk into a single one without first getting permission. Life is full of “can’t be there” situations. It’s not something that normal people cry themselves to sleep over.

And then there’s the imbalance issue. Items like Girl Guides tend to be belated corrections to situations where male people have a good thing and after a few decades or centuries female people get a version of that good thing. There was Cambridge, and then after a long time there was Girton. It’s not unfair that there was and is Girton, because there was already Cambridge. Men don’t need to invade women’s things because men have had men’s things for far longer than women have had women’s things. Boys don’t need to infiltrate Girl Guides. They really don’t.

“Beth” Upton continues to get away with it.

A nurse who objected to sharing a female changing room with a transgender doctor has won a claim for harassment against NHS Fife but other allegations of discrimination and victimisation were dismissed.

Sandie Peggie was suspended from her job in a hospital’s A&E department after she complained about Dr Beth Upton – a biological male who identifies as a woman – using a female changing room.

An employment tribunal judgement outlined four ways in which NHS Fife harassed Ms Peggie but dismissed the other allegations against the health board and all claims against Dr Upton.

Dr Upton is a sadistic misogynist bully.

The campaign group Sex Matters, which backed Sandie Peggie in the case, said it was very disappointed in the approach taken by the tribunal.

Maya Forstater, the organisation’s CEO, said it should have provided employers with clarity regarding single-sex spaces and that should have meant giving them the confidence to refuse to let trans women use those spaces. She added: “It is a travesty that a woman can be judged as having expressed herself in the wrong way when she objects to finding a man in the women’s changing room.”

Not least because a man in the women’s changing room could be in there for the purpose of assault. It’s not as if that never happens. I’m pretty sure all women have a supply of stories of finding a man lurking somewhere, and not enjoying the experience.

However, discrimination lawyer Robin Moira White – who works with Translucent, a trans-led advocacy and human rights organisation – said the ruling was a “very sensible, balanced judgement”.

Well of course he did!!! He’s a man who claims to be a trans woman! This is the whole point!

She said the tribunal had found that Sandie Peggie had harassed Dr Upton, not the other way around. Ms White added: “It recognised that both trans people and gender critical people have rights in the workplace and employers have to balance those.”

No they don’t, because the rights trans people have in the workplace don’t include a right for men to force themselves on women in toilets and changing rooms. If tribunals say they do have that right the tribunals are wrong, and evil besides.

Hadley Freedman talked to For Women Scotland about the interesting fact that Scotland has done absolutely fuck-all to put the ruling into practice.

Politicians are “thwarting” the Supreme Court ruling on women’s rights and are putting women at risk, according to the feminist group For Women Scotland (FWS).

Ruling in favour of the campaigners, who brought the court case, the judges said in April that the term “sex” in the Equality Act refers to biological sex, when it comes to the provision of single sex spaces. This means the term “women” refers to — hold onto your hats — women, and women-only spaces are lawfully provided for women. The term does not mean, as the Scottish government insisted, and spent at least £374,000 arguing, a man who identifies as a woman, known as a trans woman.

And why not? Because of the “man” part. It’s really quite simple once you figure it out.

Susan Smith, 53, a former financial adviser and one of FWS’s three founding members, says: “Both the Scottish government and the UK government claim they accept the Supreme Court ruling, but they have done nothing to implement it. Rather, they have gone out of their way to thwart it. Bridget Phillipson [the secretary for women and equalities] in particular is trying to fudge the law by sitting on the Equality and Human Rights Commission [EHRC] guidance, and it is having a serious impact on women.”

Well maybe it is, but you see that doesn’t matter, because women don’t matter. Men matter, and men who say they are women matter times a billion, but women don’t matter. Once you accept this obvious fact it’s all smooth sailing.

After the ruling, the EHRC drafted a code of practice advising businesses and public bodies how to maintain single-sex spaces, including hospital wards and prisons, in order to comply with the ruling, and urged the government to bring it to parliament “at speed”.

Honestly do they really need a written code of practice? Is it really that difficult? Just do what you were doing until the Trans Juggernaut rolled over the horizon. Put your pants on one leg at a time, and don’t tell men they can bounce into women’s toilets and locker rooms.

More than three months later, however, Phillipson is still refusing to sign it, saying she is concerned the guidance is “trans exclusive” — and if she means that it excludes males from women’s-only spaces, she is correct, because that is what flows from the court’s ruling.

It’s “trans exclusive” only in the sense that it doesn’t treat claims of being trans as a reason to force women to put up with men in their spaces. It’s just the same old guidance we’ve had for decades: don’t force women out of public life by refusing to let them piss in a room with no men in it. Continue to let women have their own spaces, shut the fuck up about trans whatevers, and move on.

Trina Budge, 54, a farmer from Caithness and FWS’s third founder, adds: “You know, we asked to meet with Phillipson just before the verdict last April, and she said no.”

Did Starmer contact them? They all burst out laughing at the thought.

I love them. I want to be their best buddy.

A very good listen – and under three minutes.

The editor of Sunday Times discussing our interview with @HadleyFreeman which is published tomorrow. https://t.co/LH9Bhk8YBg

— For Women Scotland (@ForWomenScot) December 27, 2025

The NHS continues to force women to be ill in the presence of men.

The NHS is defying the Supreme Court by allowing transgender patients and staff to access single-sex spaces in English hospitals.

Hospitals are using outdated guidance allowing trans-identifying biological males to use women-only spaces such as wards, changing rooms and lavatories.

An audit has revealed that more than eight months after the Supreme Court ruled that the term “women” in the Equality Act referred to biological sex, the NHS is still failing to protect female spaces.

And thus refusing to protect women. In hospitals.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, pledged to overhaul the NHS guidance on single-sex spaces after the Supreme Court ruling but, like all departments, is stuck in limbo. In the meantime, single-sex guidance from 2019 that has been “under review” for several years remains the only national guidance available to NHS trusts.

An update was made in April 2025 simply to state that “revised guidance which supports privacy, dignity and safety for all patients in hospital accommodation will be published as soon as possible”.

As possible? How can it take most of a year (and counting) to publish guidance that says no men in women’s hospital accommodation? They could have done it in a matter of hours.

Now an audit of all the NHS trusts in England by a group of concerned women – and shared with The Telegraph – found that not a single one had protected spaces for female patients and staff.

Not a single one. It’s almost as if women just don’t matter.

University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust says that “non-binary individuals should be fully supported in using the facilities in which they are comfortable and not forced to decide between ‘Men’s’ and ‘Women’s’ facilities based solely on gender expression”.

Which entails saying (apparently silently) that women should not be fully supported in using the facilities in which they are comfortable.

It’s like watching snakes learn to tap dance.

Oh have they now.

Girlguiding, an organization for, as it says on the tin, girls, must use its power to terminate itself for the sake of being incloosive of boys in an organization set up for girls. It must do that. Girls must not be allowed to have anything for themselves. It’s imperative to take away everything that is for girls only.

Meanwhile…

Pride in Surrey, which this year had its chairman and founder jailed for child rape, while another senior volunteer was also jailed for paedophilia offences, is publicly urging the Women's Institute to break the law so that men can continue to be its members pic.twitter.com/uylW7kn1Dr

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) December 4, 2025

No Women’s Institute for you, bitches! You have to let men in. You are not allowed to say no. Shut up, move over, make the refreshments.

Maggie Chapman announces 2026 must be year we halt the rollback of trans rights.

Must it? Why? How about halting and reversing the rollback of women’s rights? What actual literal enforceable rights have trans people lost anyway?

She tells us “the festive period” is a time when people get together tralala, in order to say BUT not for everyone.

It can be a particularly hard time for a lot of LGBTQIA+ people, with many forced back into the closet or into denial just to keep the peace, and others cut off by estrangement.

But there are no such people. Trans is not the same as lesbian and gay and bisexual.

All over our country there are people being made to deny who they are, their relationships, their identity, so as not to create friction or disrupt the time that is supposed to be special.

Oh shut up and get on with peeling the potatoes or recycling the wrapping paper. If people claim an “identity” that is in fact the opposite of their real identity then that’s not everyone else’s problem. If a man “identifies as” a woman or a tree or a mince pie, he should do it on his own time. The rest of us do not care.

For some trans people in particular, it might mean being forced to return to a dead name they hoped they would never have to use again and a life that simply is not theirs and never truly was.

All that and having to comb their hair too!

Get a grip. The winter solstice holiday is notoriously difficult for many many people who have issues with their families but don’t want to disconnect entirely. That’s just life.

A survey by Pink News, an LGBTQIA+ publication, found 80% of its readers felt they had to hide who they are over the holiday season.

Oh a survey by Pink News; well then there’s no more to be said.

Kidding. Lots of people feel they have to hide at least some part of “who they are” around family. I repeat: that’s just life.

This year’s Supreme Court ruling has led to an increased hostility. Some of the most conservative and reactionary forces feel even more empowered to spread their bile and claw back even more hard-won rights.

Speaking of reactionary forces – here’s a woman spreading her bile at a court ruling that women and only women are women. The fact that she thinks she’s the opposite of reactionary is quite startling.

However, we must not lose hope. Dr Beth Upton’s tribunal victory and vindication underlined the huge problems with the Supreme Court ruling and entrenched the legal right for people to use the facilities that match their lived-in identities, including while they are at work.

I can’t begin to imagine how Dr Upton felt being dragged through a media circus, having her name slandered and her rights questioned in the most public way. Nobody should have to endure that or be maligned and vilified in such a public spectacle for simply being trans at work.

But for simply being a woman at work? Oh that’s a whole other story.

Gosh what a surprise – women are still treated like a tiresome worthless nuisance even after we say we would prefer something different.

A bill that set targets for increasing female representation on public boards in Scotland is not working and has delivered little benefit to women, critics have claimed.

The complaints over the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 come in the wake of statistics revealing that more than a third of listed public authorities had not achieved the key target as of December 31 last year.

The legislation demands that at least 50 per cent of non-executive members on public boards are female. Of the 143 listed public authorities, 88 had achieved the gender representation target, leaving 55 which had not.

[Aside: I do wish that UKnians would not phrase things in a way that requires the subjunctive to make sense while refusing to use the subjunctive. It makes no sense to demand that women are. If they are, there’s no need to demand, is there. It should be “demands that at least 50 percent be female” or else reworded altogether. It should also be “requires” instead of “demands.” Journalists should be required to write better.]

The figures, revealed in the third annual report on the legislation’s operation published this week, also showed the number of authorities meeting the threshold had dipped from two years earlier.

A spokeswoman for For Women Scotland (FWS), the campaign group that successfully challenged the Scottish government at the Supreme Court on the definition of a woman in the act, claimed the legislation had delivered “very little of benefit to women”.

Let me guess. Scotland is too busy forcing women to share all their spaces with men to bother with trivia like public boards forgetting women exist.

A spokeswoman for For Women Scotland (FWS), the campaign group that successfully challenged the Scottish government at the Supreme Court on the definition of a woman in the act, claimed the legislation had delivered “very little of benefit to women”.

“Far from demonstrating that the public boards act is working well, the government’s latest report shows that, seven years after the legislation was introduced, only 61.5 per cent of all public boards have achieved their target of equal representation of women,” the spokeswoman said.

“This is a drop from two years ago when the figure was 64 per cent. It is difficult, however, to have much confidence in any of the data produced when the government’s definition of ‘woman’ has been ever-shifting during this period. No one knows how many men [who have transitioned] have been included in the figures.”

The only worthwhile woman is a male woman.

Ok so I’m catching up, which means following up links you peeps have shared, so let’s read Green Party tearing itself apart over trans rights, leaked dossier reveals from December 12.

Subhead:

Lawyers warn guidance on identifying ‘queerphobia’ risks discriminating against members who question gender ideology

Do they now!?! That is good to know. Of course it does, so it’s excellent news that lawyers are now pointing out that it does.

The 53-page report on legal and reputational risk to the party, leaked to The Telegraph, exposes an extraordinary row over the party’s policies on transgender and LGBT rights. It poses material legal and financial risks to Zack Polanski’s movement, the dossier reveals.

The report, drawn up by the party’s own lawyers, raises concerns over “expulsions” of members who question gender ideology. It says these have not always followed “due process”, suggesting party lieutenants have been taking disciplinary action against members because of “individual hostility to gender-critical beliefs, or assumed beliefs”.

I think “hostility” is the wrong word there. Skepticism or doubt would be a better fit. There probably is some hostility about all the pressure to pretend to believe bullshit, but it’s pointless to feel “hostility” towards the beliefs themselves.

That’s sort of what the whole conflict is based on, isn’t it – the weird new assumption that we have a duty to believe people can change sex, and that it’s mean and rude and hostile to be unable to comply. We can’t believe it. We can only pretend to, and trying to force us to pretend to does tend to make us feel hostile – toward the forcers. The beliefs themselves don’t care what we think, because they’re beliefs, not people.

The report also reveals the party is spending almost £200,000 a year on its legal costs and external investigations of disciplinary cases, threatening its ability to carry out key functions.

But still worth every penny, right? Right?

H/t Sackbut December 15

From the Times:

“In public, at least, her supporters claimed victory. Sandie Peggie had, after all, been found to have been harassed by her employer, NHS Fife, in four different ways. But the veteran nurse’s win was a relatively narrow one. It was far from the slamdunk gender-critical campaigners had hoped for and had, in truth, expected after their landmark Supreme Court win in April.

“A load of sexist shite,” was how one leading activist privately described the 312-page ruling. “I didn’t think the judge would fall for his [Beth Upton’s] schtick. I was wrong.”

It means an employment tribunal which has divided opinion for the best part of a year is unlikely to be the end of the case. An appeal, well-informed sources said, is now a “near certainty”.

The Dundee employment tribunal upheld four of Peggie’s claims against NHS Fife. It found that the health board had harassed Peggie including by failing to revoke Upton’s permission to use female changing rooms “on an interim basis” after the nurse complained, and had taken an “unreasonable” amount of time to investigate the issue. But it dismissed other allegations against NHS Fife and the entirety of the case against Upton.

Among the most contentious findings was that it “is potentially but not necessarily lawful” to still allow trans women — biological men who identify as women — to use female-only spaces in the workplace. The tribunal suggested that rather than a blanket ban on trans women in female spaces, permitting access would become unlawful only if a woman complained. Even then, various factors, such as the trans woman’s efforts to appear feminine, would have to be balanced when deciding whose rights took precedence.

Are you SERIOUS???

Who gives a fuck about men’s “efforts to appear feminine” so that they can follow you into the toilet or the changing room or anywhere else they feel like following you whether you like it or not?

“This ruling just shows the reason we need the guidance from Westminster to be published urgently,” Trina Budge, a director of For Women Scotland, said. She noted that the Supreme Court ruling stated that provisions required for the protection of women “necessarily exclude men”, yet this appeared not to have been considered. Unfortunately, this judgment is all over the place and, in parts, littered with nonsense and the language of trans activism,” Budge added. “This is a perfect example of how in the absence of any leadership from the UK government, the water has been muddied further. Public bodies are still being allowed to cling to the ridiculous notion that putting on make up and wearing a dress is what defines a woman.”

News flash: ANYBODY can put on makeup and a dress. It’s extremely easy.

News flash 2: I never put on makeup and a dress. And yet, I am a woman, and Jonathan “India” Willoughby is not.

The BBC is so shitty on this subject.

The campaign group Sex Matters, which backed Sandie Peggie in the case, said it was very disappointed in the approach taken by the tribunal.

Maya Forstater, the organisation’s CEO, said it should have provided employers with clarity regarding single-sex spaces and that should have meant giving them the confidence to refuse to let trans women use those spaces. She added: “It is a travesty that a woman can be judged as having expressed herself in the wrong way when she objects to finding a man in the women’s changing room.”

Ms Forstater said there was an “urgent” need for the Health and Safety Executive to provide clear guidance to employers regarding workplace toilets and changing rooms.

However, discrimination lawyer Robin Moira White – who works with Translucent, a trans-led advocacy and human rights organisation – said the ruling was a “very sensible, balanced judgement”. She said the tribunal had found that Sandie Peggie had harassed Dr Upton, not the other way around.

Oh look, there’s the BBC failing to say that Robin Moira White is a man who pretends to be a woman, and in fact calling her “she” which means that anybody who doesn’t know Robin Moira White is a man will get a very distorted view of the matter.

Ms White added: “It recognised that both trans people and gender critical people have rights in the workplace and employers have to balance those.”

Oh fuck off, dude. No employers don’t have to “balance” women’s right not to change clothes with men in the room and men’s right to watch women changing clothes. Just fuck all the way off.

Partial victory for nurse in NHS trans changing room row

A nurse who objected to sharing a female changing room with a transgender doctor has won a claim for harassment against NHS Fife but other allegations of discrimination and victimisation were dismissed.

…

An employment tribunal judgement outlined four ways in which NHS Fife harassed Ms Peggie but dismissed the other allegations against the health board and all claims against Dr Upton. Ms Peggie welcomed the decision and said the past two years had been “agonising”, while NHS Fife said it would take time to work through the details.

…

In a written judgement on Monday, the tribunal found that NHS Fife had harassed Ms Peggie in a number of ways. It said that when she complained to her employers about Dr Upton using the women’s changing rooms, permission should have been revoked on an interim basis. It said the NHS should have stopped allowing Dr Upton to use the changing area until different work rotas took effect – at which point they wouldn’t be working together.

The tribunal also ruled that the health board had taken an unreasonable time to investigate the claims against her and that officials were wrong to tell her not to discuss the case. The health board’s reference to unproven claims that Ms Peggie had put patients at risk was also deemed to amount to harassment. However, Ms Peggie’s claims of discrimination and victimisation by NHS Fife did not succeed and were dismissed, as was her claim against Dr Upton.

That last part is annoying.

Trump and his goons are wrong about almost everything, but not about Admiral Levine.

As you walk down a particular hallway on the seventh floor of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., you’ll find a line of photographic portraits of all the people from years past who have led the Public Health Corps at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Only one of those portraits is of a transgender person: Adm. Rachel Levine, who served for four years as President Biden’s assistant secretary for health. She was the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation, and her portrait has been displayed in the hallway since soon after she was confirmed in 2021. 

They say “the first transgender person” as one might say “the first working class person” or “the first neglected orphan” – as if this Levine fella were some kind of persecuted minority.

Levine’s official portrait was recently altered, a spokesperson for HHS confirmed to NPR. A digital photograph of the portrait in the hallway obtained by NPR shows that Levine’s previous name is now typed below the portrait, under the glass of the frame.

“During the federal shutdown, the current leadership of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health changed Admiral Levine’s photo to remove her current legal name and use a prior name,” says Adrian Shanker, former deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Biden administration who worked with Levine and is now her spokesperson. He called the move an act “of bigotry against her.”

Hey, you know what? Pretending that men are women is an act of bigotry against women. Pretending that a man is the first woman to [whatever] is a rank insult.

An HHS staff member who asked not be identified for fear of professional retribution called the change “disrespectful” and added that it exemplifies “the erasure of transgender individuals by this administration.”

But trans ideology is a massive erasure of women. Not just one greedy man, but all women.

Since taking office, Trump has moved aggressively to curtail the rights of transgender and intersex people through many federal agencies, including the Departments of Health, Justice, Education, and others.

Yes but what rights? There is no “right” to pretend to be the opposite sex, let alone a right to force everyone else to agree that pretender really is the opposite sex.

Hiya!

It’s just that the connection stopped working. Maybe the whales get in the way somehow.

On the other hand here’s the beach I walked to at sunset yesterday:

Today Seattle is under an atmospheric river. It is WET out there.

Is this a joke?

President Trump wins inaugural Fifa Peace Prize

The guy who kills civilians in lifeboats wins a peace prize? The guy who responds to protests by sending soldiers to terrorize the protesters? The guy who is helping Putin gobble up Ukraine? The guy who cheers on violence provided it’s his team perpetrating it?

Trump is not a good symbol of peace or peace seeking or peacemaking.

Trump received the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize before the draw for the 2026 Fifa World Cup.

The award has been introduced this year by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, designated for a person who has “taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace” and “united people across the world”.

Description does not match perpetrator.

As well as receiving a large golden trophy, Trump was also given a medal and certificate by Infantino before making a speech.

Are we sure this is not a transcription of Trump’s diary?

Just so you don’t think I’m ignoring you – I’m at my employer’s other place, on the Monterey Peninsula, doing strenuous employee activity like taking a puppy out for walks. The internet connection is slow as frozen molasses in Greenland, so posting may be a bit sparse for a couple more days.

This morning while puppy was sleeping off the first morning walk I zoomed off to Asilomar State Beach, and there staring out at the ocean I saw little white puffs in the distance so I looked harder and you know what, I think they were whales blowing. I’ve never seen THAT before. I watched and watched, and there were a couple that just had to be that, so the others – not quite as distinct or high or emphatic – must have been too. Whales do hang around here, so it’s not a supernatural claim.

More on the ballroom saga – or should that be the ballsroom saga?

Trump has hired a new architect to oversee the construction of a vast ballroom at the White House, officials said.

Following reports that Trump had clashed with the previous architect, James McCrery, over the size and scope of the addition, the White House said architects Shalom Baranes Associates will take over the project. Mr McCrery will remain as a consultant.

Ah the size and scope. Do they think it’s too small and modest? Do they think it ought to be huger and more self-aggrandizing?

According to US media, Mr McCrery was concerned the ornate 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sq m) project would overshadow the rest of the White House. The house where the president lives and entertains is 55,000 sq ft while the West Wing, which includes the Oval Office and other work spaces, is 40,000 sq ft, according to the White House Historical Association.

Well of course it would – and will. It will be grotesque.

On Thursday, Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill that would require NCPC approval before tearing down a historic federal building.

Blumenthal pledged that the bill, the No Palaces Act, “prevents future presidents from recklessly destroying historic sites like the East Wing without approval from the independent National Capital Planning Commission or consideration from Congress.”

Door potentially closed. Horse long gone over the horizon.

When in doubt, punish the nearest women. Don’t ask any questions about who did what to whom, just punish the nearest women. It saves time in the end.

Bristol city council has banned two gender-critical women from stepping foot in City Hall after they asked Green Party councillors if the Supreme Court judgment on trans identity was “offensive or transphobic”.

The council alleged the questioning of the two councillors in the public lobby after a heated council meeting last month, in which Green councillors staged walkouts and held trans rights placards, was carried out “in a way that they found intimidating”.

Did they though? Or did they just say they found it intimidating?

Men don’t usually find women talking back intimidating. They find it outrageous, yes, but intimidating, no. Broadly speaking, men are not fearful of women’s voices.

The council has banned Wendy Stephenson, chair of the council’s independent remuneration panel, and Phoebe Beedell, a retired academic researcher, from attending any council meetings for six months because of their “unacceptable behaviour”.

But Greens staging walkouts is not unacceptable behaviour?

A number of “trans activist” placards were raised by Green councillors during a full council meeting on November 4 whenever a member of the public asked a question about women’s safety and the council’s criticism of the Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case that “woman” and “man” in the Equality Act refer to sex at birth.

The placards read “trans women are women”, “trans men are men”, “protect the dolls” [a reference to hyperfeminine trans women], “trans rights are human rights”, “trans is beautiful” and “trans people always have and always will exist”.

In short the placards brandished the usual collection of falsehoods and flattery.

Trans journalist: not a real journalist.

God, give me strength. pic.twitter.com/lIxDtak2SB

— Stuart Macintosh (@stueymaco) December 5, 2025

He writes things. Nobody pays him to do so. He’s not a journalist.