You might as well unpack your suitcase for that trip to Mars.

Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars’s dead core? No? Well. It’s fine. I’m sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let’s discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.

OK, so you still want to talk about Mars. Fine. Let’s imagine that Mars’s lack of a magnetic field somehow is not an issue. Would you like to try to simulate what life on Mars would be like? Step one is to clear out your freezer. Step two is to lock yourself inside of it. (You can bring your phone, if you like!) When you get desperately hungry, your loved ones on the outside may deliver some food to you no sooner than nine months after you ask for it. This nine-month wait will also apply when you start banging on the inside of the freezer, begging to be let out.

Congratulations: You have now simulated—you have now died, horribly, within a day or two, while simulating—what life on Mars might be like, once you solve the problem of it not having even one gasp worth of breathable air, anywhere on the entire planet. We will never live on Mars.

But surely we can pack enough breathable air in that suitcase? Can’t we?

Some people have the idea that making Mars’s atmosphere breathable is as simple as introducing some green plants to it: They will eat up sunlight and produce oxygen, and then people can breathe it. That is uhhhhh the circle of life (?) or whatever. They call this idea “terraforming.”

At this point in our discussion I must acquaint you with two dear friends of mine. Their names are The South Pole, and The Summit Of Mount Everest.

The South Pole is around 2,800 meters above sea level, and like everywhere else on Earth around 44 million miles closer to the sun than any point on Mars. It sits deep down inside the nutritious atmosphere of a planet teeming with native life. Compared to the very most hospitable place on Mars it is an unimaginably fertile Eden. Here is a list of the plant-life that grows there: Nothing. Here is a list of all the animals that reproduce there: None.

Well…maybe they just haven’t tried hard enough. The people who go to Mars will try harder.

Musk is bribing voters.

A group of 11 former Republican officials have become the latest public figures to raise questions over the legality of cash incentives being offered by tech billionaire Elon Musk to voters before the US election on 5 November.

Mr Musk’s campaign group America PAC, which was set up to support Donald Trump in the presidential contest, calls on registered voters in seven swing states to sign a petition. Each day until the election, one signatory is selected at random and awarded a million-dollar prize.

But legal experts and several Democrats have suggested the giveaway may break American law by offering money for an act that requires someone to be signed up as a voter.

And besides Musk doesn’t even go to this school.

The deck, of course, is stacked.

With former President Donald Trump on the precipice of possibly becoming president again, let’s recall that he’s on the 2024 ballot thanks partly to the Supreme Court. 

I’m not talking about the ruling granting him broad criminal immunity. Though the Roberts Court’s handling of that appeal helped Trump push off a trial in the federal election interference case — possibly forever, if he wins the election and deploys his reacquired presidential power to crush it.

I’m talking about another Jan. 6-related appeal from the last Supreme Court term, one that more directly positioned the Republican to take office again: Trump v. Anderson.

It was there that the justices reversed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to keep the former president from the ballot. The case was technically about one state during the primary process, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling effectively scrapped nationwide efforts to enforce the constitutional provision barring oath-breaking insurrectionists from office.

Which, I have to say, I’ve never been able to understand and probably never will. He broke his oath and he urged the volunteer insurrectionists to insurrect on his behalf. You’d think that would be enough.

As a reminder, here’s what that post-Civil War provision, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, says: 

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Aid and comfort. He gave lots of aid and comfort. He urged them on. The only reason he didn’t rush over there to join them is because the Secret Service wouldn’t let him.

Another thing Trump has been pushing lies about: FEMA diverting its money to “migrants” and thus having no money for disaster relief.

False claims that federal emergency disaster money was given to migrants in the U.S. illegally have spread quickly in recent days, boosted by former President Donald Trump and some of his most high-profile supporters.

Trump repeated one of the more extreme baseless allegations during a rally Thursday in Saginaw, Michigan, saying that the money had been stolen.  “They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” Trump said.

That was October 4. He’s still doing it.

Originally a comment by Dave Ricks on Be sure to omit all the important facts.

RILEY GAINES et al v. NCAA et al is an excellent reference. This class action lawsuit is funded by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS). The ICONS web page about the lawsuit has the latest amended version of the lawsuit as a PDF file (208 pages, filed Sept. 23, 2024).

In this latest version, the list of Plaintiffs (p. 168) adds Brooke Slusser, a volleyball player at San Jose State University (SJSU). In the expanded section on Volleyball (pp. 151-163), she adds details of her experience with Blair Fleming on the SJSU team. Of course there are safety concerns about Fleming hitting harder than women, but I also found these topics that I can group into blockquotes:

651. Brooke was frequently assigned by the SJSU athletic department to room with Fleming on road trips to competitions even though Fleming is male and without Brooke being informed by SJSU that Fleming is male.

658. Brooke did learn however that the reason she had been assigned to room with Fleming so often during road trips in the 2023 season was that SJSU officials asked Fleming who he wanted to room with, and he chose Brooke.

659. At the times she was assigned to room with Fleming during the 2023 season, Brooke had no idea that Fleming was being given the choice of which girl he wanted to room with on team road trips.

672. When the 2024 SJSU women’s volleyball team members returned to campus to begin training for the 2024 season, Brooke learned that none of the nine (9) new recruits on the team for the 2024 season had been told that Fleming is male and participating on the women’s team as a result of the NCAA Transgender Eligibility Policies, even though this was now a well-known fact to the athletic department and virtually everyone at SJSU.

673. Brooke became aware that upon learning that one of their teammates was a trans-identifying male, several of the new recruits became upset, as it was too late for them to transfer, and they felt they had been misled.

690. Due to public attention to Fleming’s transgender status, during the 2024 season SJSU officials have met with all the players on the SJSU women’s volleyball team and again instructed the girls on the SJSU women’s team that they are not to confirm or state to anyone that Fleming is transgender or male, nor are they permitted to criticize Fleming being on the team, or to state their personal feelings or concerns about the matter, including their safety concerns.

691. The SJSU officials said the girls should not worry about any media attention they were getting, because the story “hasn’t hit any media source that matters.”

692. The SJSU officials have also told the girls that to speak about Fleming being transgender would “take away Blaire’s power” and that they “have no right to tell Blaire’s story” or to talk about how Blaire being on the team is impacting them.

698. Due to the NCAA’s Transgender Eligibility Policies which permit Fleming to play on the SJSU women’s volleyball team and which led to SJSU recruiting Fleming, giving Fleming a scholarship, and allowing Fleming to be in positions to violate Brooke’s right to bodily privacy, Brooke has suffered physical and emotional injuries, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress, mental anguish and suffering.

Oops now Trump has got himself a libel suit. Fully deserved.

Five men who were wrongfully convicted as teenagers in the so-called Central Park Five jogger rape case sued Donald Trump on Monday, saying the Republican presidential nominee defamed them by falsely claiming they killed someone and pleaded guilty.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, cites several statements Trump made about the men during his Sept. 10 debate with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, after she blasted Trump for taking out an ad in 1989 calling for the then-teen defendants to be executed.

“Defendant Trump falsely stated [at the debate] that Plaintiffs killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime. These statements are demonstrably false,” the civil suit said.

“Plaintiffs never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing. Further, the victims of the Central Park assaults were not killed,” the complaint said.

The suit alleges that Trump’s conduct toward the men at the debate “was part of a continuing pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct dating back several years, thus constituting a continuing tort.”

The plaintiffs in the case, who now refer to themselves as the Exonerated Five, are Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise. Salaam is a member of the New York City Council.

Pay up Don.

Newsthump (i.e. satirical):

McDonald’s has been praised by the liberal media for giving work experience to a convicted felon who is currently looking for a new job.

Florida resident Donald Trump, 78, has a string of felony convictions that will quite rightly prevent him from seeking gainful employment in a number of businesses and organisations, but McDonald’s said it was willing to offer a helping hand to anyone trying to get back into work.

McDonald’s spokesperson Chuck Williams told us, “I understand that this man lost his job almost four years ago now, and that this job loss led to some poor life decisions that have left him with a significant criminal record – but for one morning, we were willing to look past the convicted felon to the man himself.”

Mind you, the criminal record goes back way before the job loss, although the crimes were never prosecuted.

Williams was asked if, based on his performance during his work experience, he would consider giving Trump a full-time job. He told reporters, “A job? Like on salary? Christ no! He’s got 34 felony convictions, you’d have to be a lunatic to hire him full-time for any sort of real job.”

Harsh but fair.

I don’t normally quote the Christian Post, but I’m not a fanatic about it.

An Arkansas pastor has been arrested on 100 counts related to child pornography after a tip led authorities to investigate.

James Vincent Henry, 43, of Delight, Arkansas, has been taken into custody by Pike County Sheriff’s deputies after special agents with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received two cyber tips from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children last month, KARK reported.

Henry is the pastor of Crossroads Assembly of God Church in Delight and has served as a foster parent to 70 children over the years, according to Church Leaders.

Oh has he. So we know what those unfortunate 70 children were subjected to.

The investigation began on Sept. 25, when Special Agents with the Arkansas State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant, stated the Arkansas Department of Public Safety. During the investigation, agents reviewed digital evidence collected from the search warrant and information drawn from social media messaging apps.

At about 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Henry was arrested and charged with 100 counts of Possession, Viewing, and Distribution of Child Pornography (CSAM). He was transported to the Pike County Detention Center, where he remains in custody.

Amen.

Advance cheating:

Key rightwing legal groups with ties to Donald Trump and his allies have banked millions of dollars from conservative foundations and filed multiple lawsuits challenging voting rules in swing states that are already sowing distrust of election processes and pushing dangerous conspiracy theories, election watchdogs warn.

They also warn that the groups appear to be laying the groundwork for a concerted challenge to the result of November’s presidential election if Trump is defeated by Kamala Harris.

That’s a good look. Decide ahead of time, in the absence of any facts, that the election will have been corrupt because you don’t like the outcome. You don’t see too many will have beens in normal life, because in general we understand that we don’t know now what will have happened then.

Voting experts don’t see much merit to the group’s lawsuits and many others filed by Trump-allied groups.

“Many of these suits seem like vehicles to spread conspiracy theories and misinformation,” said Leah Tulin, a senior litigation counsel with the Brennan Center. “In other words, they read more as press releases than serious legal claims.”

All hat and no cattle, as the saying goes.

Election watchdogs say the aim of these pro-Trump groups with election-denialist track records, coupled with the surge in lawsuits by other Maga allies, is to cast doubts about election rules and security, and are harbingers for challenging the results in key states if Trump loses.

So even if he loses the tedium will go on and on and on and on…………

This isn’t three stoned kids in a garage, this is a government. It says so right in the lede.

The SNP government has claimed there are 24 different genders.

In official guidance, the devolved administration clarified a list of two dozen terms it said the gender identity of members of the public could be recorded [as?] by public bodies.

Just two dozen, eh? You know there will be people wanting new ones added to the list, and pitching fits if anyone tells them no.

Ok let’s have a look.

The 24 genders

Cisgender

Trans man

Trans woman

Non-Binary

Trans – not otherwise specified

Agender

Trans masculine

Trans feminine

Genderfluid

Genderqueer

Questioning

Intersex

Assigned female at birth – not specified

Assigned male at birth – not specified

Pangender

Bigender

Autigender

Androgynous

Gender non-conforming

Detransitioned

Neutral

Demigender – female

Demigender – male

Demigender – not otherwise specified

So, most of this profundity is just cheating – just different names for the same (silly and non-existent) thing. The rest of it is just making shit up. It’s all making shit up, with not a whole lot of difference among the kinds of shit.

What stumps me is why adults are humiliating themselves this way. The kids are still going to think you’re a boring old dinosaur who doesn’t know anything, so it’s really not worth making a fool of yourself trying to keep up with their religion.

“Data collection by public bodies should serve a clear function,” Dr Kath Murray, part of the MurrayBlackburnMackenzie policy analysis group, said. “It is not a validation exercise.

“It is difficult to see why any public body would spend resources classifying data on trans status into multiple subjective subcategories, many of which are circular, hard to understand, and/or contested.

“It is particularly surprising that the government guidance lists ‘intersex’ as a gender identity, and refers to ‘cisgender’ as an identity subcategory, a term that many people find offensive.”

Offensive and stupid.

Reduxx reports:

The father of a transgender athlete has been sentenced to 60 months in federal prison for distributing child pornography. Marc Jacques, the father of Maelle Jacques, cited his son’s transgender identity and his own advocacy for transgender rights in his letter to the court requesting a non-custodial sentence.

Why, on earth, would either of those (let alone both) be reasons not to lock him up? There are reasons to question the usefulness of custodial sentences in general, but how in hell does his son’s trans idenniny equal a reason to be lenient to him in particular?

More the other way around, I would think.

Maelle Jacques, 16, is a trans-identified boy who has become a controversial athlete at Kearsarge Regional High School for advocating for the elimination of female-only sports. In April, Maelle testified at the New Hampshire state legislature in opposition to a bill seeking to prohibit males from self-identifying into women’s sports.

In short he’s a determined enemy of female people. I’m not seeing how that’s a reason not to put Daddy in a cell.

Another character reference was provided by Dr. Elizabeth Counselman-Carpenter, a professor of social work at Adelphi University, who, like Maelle and Remi, pointed out that Jacques was a “committed member of his community and LGBTQIA+ activist” in her argument against a custodial sentence.

Which communinny? The child pornography one?

A pearl beyond compare. 59-year-old man simpers in a short red party dress that would look bizarre on a woman half his age, and questions the queenliness of someone who is not a 59-year-old man in a short red party dress.

Brilliant. Take Back the Night warbles about how incloooosive it is, meaning it inclooods men. Just fucking brilliant: resist rape culture by pretending men are women.

“All women are welcome – we are a trans-inclusive march.” By “all women” they of course mean “including men who say they are women.” Take back the night and then hand it over to men.

Trump’s new message is Oooh Big Dick.

Donald Trump’s campaign suggested he would begin previewing his closing argument Saturday night with Election Day barely two weeks away. But the former president kicked off his rally with a detailed story about Arnold Palmer, at one point even praising the late, legendary golfer’s genitalia.

Re-write: Trump’s campaign was silly enough to claim he would be making an “argument” at his rally last night, but instead he drooled about a golfer’s Yoooje junk.

“Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women,” Trump said. “This is a guy that was all man.”

By “all due respect” he of course means zero respect. Trump thinks women are due no respect at all.

“When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump said with a laugh. “I had to say. We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a man.”

Because they’d all seen his Big Dick?

Trump eventually hit many of his favorite campaign themes but didn’t offer much in the way of new framing of the race or why he should win it. He instead boasted of creating strong tax policies and a strong military during his first term in office.

He slammed Harris as “crazy” and added a profanity.

“You have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough, that you just can’t take it anymore, we can’t stand you anymore, you’re a shit vice president,” Trump said to roars of the crowd. “The worst. You’re the worst vice president. Kamala, you’re fired. Get the hell out of here.”

That’s his way of demonstrating his Big Dick.

Trump praised the raucous crowd, which was outside and at an airport, but also made a point of suggesting that there was more conspicuous security around him following two assassination attempts, saying, “They give you a little extra security nowadays, you notice?”

“I got more machine guns than I’ve ever seen — look at these guys,” he said referring to security. He was interrupted by cries from the crowd of “USA! USA!” before continuing, “We’ve got more guys, and every one of them is like central casting too, holy shit.”

Then he tied it back to Latrobe’s native son, adding, “They look like Arnold. Can’t look better than Arnold.”

Did they all have Big Dicks? Did he check?

Trump is trying to rewrite his attempted coup.

Donald J. Trump on Friday tried to revise the history of the deadly attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, as new details in the federal prosecution against him were made public by the judge in the case.

His attempt to recast the events of Jan. 6, 2021, came on the same day that he compared his supporters who were arrested, convicted and imprisoned for their actions at the Capitol to the victims of the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II. And it followed a recent remark in which Mr. Trump declared Jan. 6 a day of “love.”

It says something about this country that it hasn’t been possible to imprison him for the coup or even to stop him running again after inciting a violent insurrection. It makes me want to puke.

Earlier on Friday, on a podcast hosted by the conservative media figure Dan Bongino, Mr. Trump lamented how those arrested in connection with the attack have been treated.

“Why are they still being held?” Mr. Trump told Mr. Bongino. “Nobody’s ever been treated like this. Maybe the Japanese during the Second World War, frankly. They were held, too.”

Japanese-Americans during World War 2 had done nothing wrong, and were imprisoned because they were seen as “alien” in a way German-Americans were not, in other words because of blatant racism. Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor did not go to the US Capitol and try to force their way in and attack legislators. Trump’s violent fans did, after he gave a speech encouraging them (without quite explicitly spelling it out) to do so.

When in doubt, go full Mermaids!

The NHS has been accused of ignoring the Cass review recommendations on transgender care for children. Dr Hilary Cass’s report advised that under-18s should not be rushed into treatment which they may later regret following concerns about care at the Tavistock clinic. However, a new NHS centre has snubbed the Cass review in favour of discredited transgender guidance that promotes both puberty blockers and surgery without age limits.

Well which is more important, following the hot new trend or letting children grow up without mutilations?

The Nottingham Young People’s Gender Service was founded in April to give psychological and social support to children with gender dysphoria who were former Tavistock patients and are currently taking or waiting to start puberty blockers.

In a job advertisement for a clinical psychologist position, the centre says it is “essential” to “practice [sic] in a gender affirming manner in line with” guidance from the controversial World Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare (WPATH).

What if WPATH is wrong? What if the whole idea of “affirming gender” is just a fad? What if it’s as medically sound as lobotomies or female genital mutilation?

Pre-emptive censorship again. Cancel yourself before someone does it for you.

A documentary that lifts the lid on a “race science” network of far-right activists in Britain and its links to a rich American funder of eugenics research has been pulled from the London Film Festival (LFF) at the last minute due to safety concerns.

The organisers have taken the “heartbreaking decision” to cancel the planned screening of the “exceptional” Undercover: Exposing the Far Right this weekend due to fears about the welfare of the staff and security working in the festival venues.

Thus sending a message that merely threatening to make a stink will inspire the people in charge to cancel everything just to be on the safe side.

Havana Marking, the director of the film – which made headlines last week for identifying the backer of research into so-called race science and highlighting the racist views of former London mayoral candidate Nick Scanlon – has criticised the decision to pull the premiere as “a very unfortunate outcome”.

“I understand the festival need to look after their staff, but I am furious that our film has lost a planned theatrical release so late in the day,” she said. “We were told the LFF felt they could not show it due to security issues. I do feel, though, that the power of the far right is exaggerated, although their influence is clearly dangerous.”

Erring on the side of cancelation sends the message that mere shouting can get panicky organizers and publishers and universities to shut everything down.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Always wrong.

I’m quite amazed that Trump’s rhetoric appears to be working with many people. But then again, I can kind of understand why it’s striking a chord.

For example, I had a long conversation with a MAGA guy last night. A former liberal, so he says, and I believe him, this being solidly left Toronto. But now he’s on the right and he’s buying it all: war will go away if Trump gets elected, the culture war “craziness” will die down, and — this is what surprised me the most — Trump will thwart the billionaire global elites’ sinister plot to… do something or other… something something immigrants.

And then, with a shift in his tone, as if testing me, he asked me point blank what I thought about “trans in sports.” And I told him. Suddenly we were on the same page, and he could trust me and open up to me.

But as I really listened to him, I came to see that his real anxieties are that he feels deeply distrustful of the legacy media after having discovered that so many things he was told were lies, and he’s resentful at his liberal friends for attacking him whenever he revealed even the slightest disagreement with the liberal message of the day. He talked of being scolded and unfriended on Facebook… and he talked of seeing outright lies in the headlines, to the point that he abandoned the legacy media altogether. I sense his extreme views reflect a reaction against the left and the media, but taken to extremes, to match the extreme sting of anger he feels at the betrayal — a retaliation mindset, as Adam Gopnik put it in the New Yorker:

We are frightened and we are angry; we look to expert intervention for the fears, and to comic but effective-seeming figures for retaliation against the experts who disappoint us.

Comic but effective-seeming figures, like his cinematic hero (as he told me), the Joker.

From the sound of it, now he gets all his news from alt-bro podcasters, and much of it is way more conspiracy-fringe-extreme than I had even imagined was going on over in Rogan-world.

It’s telling that he started opening up to me only after he asked me about trans in sports. Ah-ha. Just as I’ve increasingly suspected: the gender mess is the gateway to the far right. It offers unambiguous proof that the legacy media are liars and that the alt-bros are trustworthy. From there, it’s a short walk to “Trump will save us” and then “Ukraine must be given to Russia.” It always leads to Putin in the end, because, as the Department of Justice has revealed, Putin is the one financing the alt-right bro mediasphere.

And then, with a shift in my tone, I made it clear that I think Putin is a monster, a thief, a thug, and a murderer. The spell was broken, and the conversation cooled and died off.

The far right hooked him with trans, and he’s theirs now. I don’t think we’re getting him back.

First of all, the headline is nonsensical.

Trans teachers must be allowed to use same showers as female colleagues, schools told

Trans teachers are people who call themselves teachers but have no training and don’t teach?

Or, “trans teachers” are males and females?

No, neither of those. They mean, of course, male teachers who claim to be women.

The lede also gets it wrong:

Trans teachers must be allowed to use the same showers and lavatories as female colleagues, schools have been told.

The second paragraph gets it right.

Training from the National Governance Association (NGA) tells governors that staff should be given access to the bathroom “available to other members of their newly acquired gender”.

There you go. It’s not “all trans people go in with the women”; it’s trans people go in with the people whose sex they pretend to be. Tangled, to be sure, but that’s because the whole idea is tangled.

Anyway, the point is, yet another pack of fools is saying men should be given access to women’s spaces no matter how vulnerable that makes the women, because men who claim to be women get to do whatever they want all the time.

The advice, seen by The Telegraph, goes on to suggest that requiring transgender people to use a disabled toilet instead of making reasonable adjustments “is not lawful or good practice”.

It reads: “Employees who have undergone gender reassignment or who are transgender must be supported to use all toilets and shower facilities which are available to other members of their newly acquired gender. Requiring transgendered people to use disabled toilet facilities instead of making reasonable adjustments is not lawful or good practice.”

See? There it is: trans people get to do whatever they want all the time. Trans people matter; women do not.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on A disgrace to the name of Sherlock.

“I find it sad that people feel so threatened by someone saying there is something other than biological male and female,….the reality is that there are a small number of people, but a real number of people, who believe they’re born in the wrong body, believe that they don’t fit into the male-female definition.”

But bodies are only male or female. Even if you’re born into the “wrong” body, even if that was a real phenomenon, that “wrong” body is still either a male one or a female one. There are no other sexes. That trapped entity has no impact on the cells and tissues making up the body within which it is trapped. “Gender identity” can’t change that. “Feelings” and “belief” can’t change that. This is another example where sex and gender are conflated and confused for tactical advantage. If it is advantageous to distinguish the two, they will do so, without worrying themselves over having mashed them together moments before. Firm, consistant definitions spoil their ability to play this game, which is one of the reasons they avoid any careful examination of the actual bases for the supposed phenomena upon which they claim to ground their demands. Yet you’d think that they would want to have clear definitions of transness in order to filter out those who won’t benefit from treatment. They should be the ones most interested in filtering out disphoric children who will desist as they go through puberty, and to prevent needless detransitioning. If you claim in retrospect that some people who transition were never really “trans” to begin with, what does that tell us about the standards for screening, and how do you know that anybody is trans? Without research findings that answer these vital questions, “gender affirming treatment” is nothing more than the recruitment of dedicated footsoldiers who are less likely to leave because of the sunk cost fallacy, because they have sacrificed their very flesh, and mental health for the Cause. Any method that could reliably determine exactly which disphoric people would not benefit from “gender-affirming medicine” might well show that nobody does.

We’re back to an undeclared (but fluid, on-again, off-again) Cartesian dualism, and the failure to explain how the “Mental substance” of the mind interacts with the “Material substance” of the body, or the Catholic inability to explain in real-world terms what the difference is between consecrated and unconsecrated Communion wafers, and what skill an ordained priest has learned in order to make that change happen. The unevidenced, faith-based concept of “gender identity” fits right in with these carefully unexamined metaphysical bedfellows.