Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Not as familiar.

There’s a bleak irony here that I’ve tried to point out more than once: the loudest champions of gender ideology are often the ones most afraid to actually look at it. “Transphobia” is real and common — it just doesn’t manifest the way we’re told. More often, it takes the form of incuriosity masquerading as virtue. It’s the Ardals of the world — people who don’t know the first thing about the subject — who are phobic in the literal sense: afraid of what they might discover if they examined it too closely.

They haven’t merely absorbed a set of beliefs; they’ve been handed a full epistemic template — a prefab way of slotting “trans” into the social landscape. Activists brute-forced the phenomenon into the moral mould of gay rights and civil rights more broadly, and once that move succeeded, dissent ceased to be merely rude or wrong. It became incomprehensible. They were never taught how to take the story apart. It never occurred to them that it might need taking apart.

Preassembled beliefs. Outsourced judgment. Critical thinking, for Ardal and so many like him, means following the Ikea instructions.

Graham built his own moral framework, guided by principles he actually thought through. It’s not a mystery why they can’t see it — the glass is a one-way mirror. The Dunning–Kruger effect explains the rest.

Graham Linehan points out something I hadn’t realized – some or many defenders of trans ideology haven’t bothered to find out a damn thing about it.

I’ve been here before. I’ve read all the quotes by now, from all the old friends who couldn’t pick up the phone before speaking to the press. Bill Bailey – our secret sauce on Black Books – said he found my stance in supporting women’s rights “baffling”. Amelia Bullmore – one of the things that made Big Train classier than it had any right to be – spoke of the “unfathomable escalation” of me standing against the mutilation of children in gender clinics. They all have their little variations, but the tune is always the same. Baffled. Sorry for me. Can’t understand why I got involved.

“If only he had done it differently,” when they never did it at all.

…

I expected more from Ardal. I never thought he would intone the catechism.

“I still get on great with everyone,” he said in a recent interview with The Times, “though I haven’t seen much of the show’s creator, Graham Linehan, and am baffled as to why he got involved in the culture wars. I feel sorry for him – he’s entitled to his opinions, but the way he presented them made it confrontational.”

When I read that, I phoned him immediately.

When people betray me, I always make the mistake of phoning them straight away. My heart was thumping in my chest as I found his number and gave him a faux-polite, “Hey Ardal, how’s it going?”. My anger was already boiling. I knew exactly what he would say – the exact same things Bill Bailey said when I phoned him, the exact same things Amelia Bullmore said when I wrote to her. I knew, and I phoned anyway, because I can’t help myself. And when he started reading from the same script as all the others, I lost my temper.

At some point, Ardal said, “I just disagree with you.”

I was stunned for a moment. Then I said, “What? You think men should be in women’s prisons? You think children should be mutilated and sterilised? You think men should be in women’s sports?”

“Oh, er, no, I’m not as familiar with the subject as you.”

There. That.

So what is it you disagree with then?

If you don’t know enough about trans ideology to know about men in women’s sports and children being mutilated and sterilized then SHUT UP.

I mean honestly. What next? Slavery wasn’t so bad, unless you know about the lifetime of unpaid labor, the separation of families, the rapes and whippings, the inability to quit or leave or say no. Torture isn’t so bad unless you know what it is. War isn’t so bad as long as it’s thousands of miles away.

This is what we in the fight have come to call the Bananarama defence – “It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.” It’s never what we say, it’s the terrible, awful, confrontational way we say it.

…

We hear the Bananarama defence constantly, almost always from people who have never said a word about the subject. They won’t know the first thing about puberty blockers. They couldn’t name a single safeguarding failure resulting from the idea that a group of self-selecting men are actually women. They haven’t followed the debate at all, because they know it’s more than their career is worth to pay attention. But they’re very confident that I went about addressing it in the wrong way.

If you don’t know anything about it then shut up.

Ardal didn’t seem to have read my memoir. Possibly for the same reason he never phoned me over the 10 years in which my life and career were being dismantled by trans activists – anonymous paedophiles on Twitter, homophobic parents who had transed their children, Wikipedia moderators, Guardian journalists.

I’m guessing he hadn’t done any reading on the subject at all. He doesn’t know about the thousands of children permanently harmed in gender clinics like the Tavistock and Boston Children’s Hospital. He doesn’t know that the psychotic Barbie Kardashian can walk into any female-only space in Ireland behind a woman and not be breaking the law until he decides to assault her. He certainly didn’t know that I raised over £20,000 for Vancouver Rape Relief, which had a dead rat nailed to its door by trans activists, or about the millions we’ve raised for women fighting back against this appalling misogyny in the UK and across the world.

No. He just went to the press, said he was baffled, said he felt sorry for me, and went back to doing precisely nothing about the greatest threat to women’s and girls’ rights in over 100 years – and the greatest health disaster for gay people since the Aids crisis.

It’s mystifying.

It turns out that climate affects many things. Who knew? Besides everyone who isn’t Trump?

Most Americans now connect the worsening climate crisis with their cost of living pressures, with clear majorities also disagreeing with moves by the Trump administration to gut climate research and halt windfarms, new polling has found.

About 65% of registered voters in the US think that global heating is affecting the cost of living, according to the polling by Yale University.

Extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, storms and heatwaves, exacerbated by the climate crisis, are taking a toll on food production, with recent spikes in the cost of coffee and chocolate blamed by experts, at least in part, on global heating.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has set about dismantling key environmental rules, firing federal scientists, removing public information on the climate crisis and explicitly backing the fossil fuel industry over cleaner forms of energy. The president has said that renewables are a “con job” and a “scam” and has attempted to ban certain solar and wind farms.

That’s because it’s all a left-wing plot, as any fule kno.

A White House spokesperson did not answer questions as to the unpopularity of the administration’s environmental policies, instead claiming that Trump had “restored common sense to America’s energy and sustainability policies”.

Well there you go. That’s all that’s required: common sense. Just consult your own good common sense on whether there’s climate change or not, and you’ll be sure to get it right. Look outside. The sky is still there, right? The sun rises and sets. You have to mow the lawn in summer. What more do you want?

Gosh, you mean they might actually mean it???

JK Rowling has urged politicians to “finally” take seriously any threat of violence from transgender activists after it was alleged one group had vowed to target senior officials including the prime minister.

Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians had taken it seriously all along?

The Harry Potter author spoke out after a pro-trans group was reported to be planning a series of attacks on the offices of senior politicians. Bash Back also indicated it could target Wes Streeting, the UK health secretary, five months after it said it had vandalised his constituency office, according to The Mail on Sunday.

They’re allowed to vandalize MPs’ offices because trans is the most everything – most persecuted, most marginalized, most important, most beautiful, most vulnerable, most adorable, most targeted, most sexy, most terrorized, most glamorous, most victimized.

Her latest comment came after The Mail on Sunday reported that Bash Back had said: “If you think we’re done, you’ve got another think coming. MP or PM, you’ve seen us once, we’ll see you again.”

The newspaper said the group had urged sympathisers to form cells and plot criminal damage against high-profile targets. A list of potential targets included the Free Speech Union and the gender-critical campaign group Sex Matters.

…

Bash Back said that it had attacked Streeting’s office in his constituency of Ilford North, in east London, in July, when “child killer” was painted on the building and windows were smashed. The attack came after puberty blockers were banned for children on the advice of medical experts and following the Cass Review of gender identity services.

Bash Back confessed to a crime and nothing was done? Cops too busy arresting women for saying men are not women?

A UK government spokesman said: “Threats, harassment, and vandalism are not only cowardly, they’re criminal and we will pursue anyone who targets politicians and their staff in this way, with the full force of the law. The rhetoric from this group is dangerous and only seeks to distract from our work to improve the lives of trans people.”

Any chance of a little work to improve the lives of women? No? Not even an hour every other week?

We’ve moved on to the rambling about Her underpants now.

President Donald Trump raged at the FBI for making a “mess” of his wife Melania’s “panties” during a raid on their Mar-a-Lago estate.

As an aside: it makes me happy to see that hideous word “panties” in scare-quotes.

In a rambling speech delivered at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Friday night, Trump went off on a wild tangent about federal law enforcement agents, revealing how they had disturbed the First Lady’s underwear drawer during their 2022 search of the Palm Beach, Florida, property.

“They went into my wife’s closet. I’ll say this. Number one, it’s very bad, but it sounds a little strange. They looked at her drawers,” Trump told the crowd while both himself and the crowd laughed.

Hur hur. Never heard that one before. Hur.

“You have drawers, and then you have drawers. They looked at both,” he continued, miming the difference between the storage item and the undergarment.

The unprompted revelation of intimate details did not stop there, however, with Trump going full disclosure on the way his third wife likes to store her underwear.

That’s because he’s That Guy on the bus or in front of you in line or asking if you have a relationship with Jesus. He’s That Guy who thinks he’s a laugh-riot.

“She’s a very meticulous person… Everything is perfect. Her undergarments, sometimes referred to as panties, are folded perfect, wrapped, they’re like so perfect. I say, ‘That’s beautiful,’” Trump continued.

And then God and Santa Claus clapped and the little dog barked and everybody laughed, it was a fabulous party.

Thanks to Francis Boyle’s seeking out the link, we can read all of what the selectively zealous Perth District – WA Police Force said about those dreaded Stickers. Take a deep breath and brace for impact.

The State Security Investigation Group Hate Crime Team is investigating a series of criminal damage incidents in Subiaco around Wednesday, 10 December 2025.

Several transphobic stickers were placed in public spaces around the Subiaco Library precinct, nearby park areas, and close to a local school.

If you see any suspicious behaviour—particularly around bus stops, signage, or the library precinct—or have information that could assist, please report it to Crime Stoppers online at www.crimestopperswa.com.au or call 1800 333 000. Reports can be made anonymously.

WA Police are working closely with the City of Subiaco and the LGBTQIA+ community and are committed to addressing this issue.

The WA Police Force will not allow acts of hatred, intolerance, or discrimination to go unchecked. We have zero tolerance for hate in our community and will use every resource at our disposal to protect the public and bring offenders to justice. Those responsible will be held to account.

One has to wonder, does the WA Police Force get this panicked and upset and furious about “stickers” or any other form of communication that threatens or disparages women? Does the WA Police Force in fact get this panicked and upset about actual literal physical violence against women? Or is that just white noise, background, normal life?

Trump enablers are shocked, shocked at the rudeness of a musician’s canceling on them just because Trump added his own fragrant name to that of the Kennedy Center.

The head of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC has demanded $1m (£740,000) in damages from a musician who cancelled a concert after President Donald Trump’s name was added to the venue.

Chuck Redd called off his Christmas Eve performance, which he has hosted annually since 2006, citing a vote by the board to rename the site the Trump Kennedy Center.

See, the problem here is, the Kennedy Center was named that because Kennedy was murdered on the job. Trump has not been murdered on the job. Furthermore it’s worth noting that there have been a lot of presidents since JFK was killed and not one of them slapped his name up on the wall in front of Kennedy’s. Not even Nixon, not even Dubya. Not one of them had the vulgarity and out of control narcissism and greed to do that. It’s morally repulsive. Lots of things are even more morally repulsive (and Trump is willing and eager to do all of them if invited), but this one is this one, and I for one think Chuck Redd was entitled to say “In that case I’m out of here.”

In his letter, Richard Grenell, said the cancellation was a “political stunt” and “has cost us considerably”. 

Well if the cancellation was a stunt what do you call the renaming of the Kennedy Center? Wasn’t that a stunt, and a much bigger, and worse, and trashier one? Yes, it was. Tough shit about its costing them. I’d like it to bankrupt them.

Hadley Freeman talks to For Women Scotland:

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.

Because why would it? In other news, the term “horse” does not mean a human child on all fours whinnying.

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.”

Yes ok ok you won, pat yourselves on the back, good for you, but we’re still not going to tell men to stop barging into women’s spaces.

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”.

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 what the whole thing is about, really. Women pretending to be men may be annoying, but they’re not threats to men in the multiple ways that men pretending to be women are. Men who pretend to be women are helping themselves to everything women have been fighting for since forever, and that is a problem.

FWS will be starting 2026 back in court because — shockingly, if not surprisingly — the Scottish government still has not settled FWS’s legal expenses, for which it is liable. These expenses are estimated to exceed £417,000.

“That’s currently being covered by our regular small donations from supporters. And of course our far- right millions,” says Calder dryly, referring to the lies spread by trans activist groups that FWS is funded by far-right Americans. In fact, the group is funded by small direct-debit donations from individual supporters, most of which are less than £40. It relies entirely on volunteers and cannot afford an office, relying instead on a PO Box and Zoom calls.

“I wish I could get some of those far-right millions to fix the hole in my ceiling,” says Smith. “Well, it lets in the fresh air, I suppose.”

The Scottish government says it has not paid the costs because “there is an established process to be undertaken to agree the final costs for a legal case and these will be calculated and published in due course”.

Oh in due course, I see. Good to know. When is that exactly? How is the course not due already? Not to say overdue?

Freedom of information requests have shown Scottish politicians exchanging emails with activists from the Equality Network on how to draft bills that respect — in one example — “gender expression, through the medium of clothing”.

“It’s like politicians have outsourced their brains to the third sector so they don’t have to do their thinking, and it all becomes a circle jerk,” says Calder.

Men’s gender expression through clothing is vitally important; women’s basic rights are not. Sucks to be us, eh?

It can be so disorienting living in this half-horror show half-slapstick comedy.

The Kennedy Center says it plans to file a $1 million lawsuit against jazz artist Chuck Redd, after the musician canceled his annual Christmas Eve performance. The Associated Press first reported that Redd pulled out of the show days after President Trump’s name was added to the exterior of the performing arts center in Washington, D.C.

In an email to NPR on Saturday, Kennedy Center spokesperson Roma Daravi said Redd’s decision is a disservice to the arts.

Oh dear, that sounds bad – but wait, who is Roma Daravi? Is she one of the Trump people who were hired to replace all the people who quit when he hijacked the place? Yes, of course she is.

“Any artist cancelling their show at the Trump Kennedy Center over political differences isn’t courageous or principled—they are selfish, intolerant, and have failed to meet the basic duty of a public artist: to perform for all people,” she said.

Sssshhhhhhh. Sit down. Shut up. For one thing, some “political differences” are absolutely significant enough for artists to cancel their shows. For another thing Trump is not just a “political difference”; he’s an evil poisonous sadistic monstrosity.

“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” [Redd] told the AP.

Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell sent a scathing letter to Redd on Friday, criticizing him and calling the cancellation a political stunt. The center shared the letter with NPR.

“Regrettably, your action surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left, who have sought to intimidate artists into boycotting performances at our national cultural center,” it reads.

Ah yes, the bullying tactics on the left, so much more bullying than the bullying tactics of Trump and his army of ants.

In a post on X on Friday, Grenell wrote: “The left is boycotting the Arts because Trump is supporting the Arts. But we will not let them cancel shows without consequences. The Arts are for everyone – and the Left is mad about it.”

Several artists have pulled out of performances and cut ties with the Kennedy Center since Trump replaced the board and was elected chairman. In March, Hamilton canceled its 2026 run at the Kennedy Center. Actor and producer Issa Rae also called off her appearance. Folk musician Rhiannon Giddens moved her concert to a different venue in the city.

Refusing to perform at Trump’s hijacked arts venue is not “boycotting the Arts” – and in other astonishing news, Trump’s seizure of the Kennedy Center is not promoting the Arts. What Trump did is just yet one more grotesque display of vanity and greed for Name Recognition.

Trump’s name was added to the Kennedy Center building last week, after the Board of Trustees voted to rename it. The exterior’s iconic lettering now reads “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Beyond stupid. It’s the Kennedy Memorial Center because he was assassinated in office. Why is it now also the Donald J. Trump Center? What sense does that make? Is he going to slap his name on the Lincoln Memorial too?

“Art is a shared cultural experience meant to unite, not exclude,” said the statement from Daravi. “The Trump Kennedy Center is a true bipartisan institution that welcomes artists and patrons from all backgrounds—great art transcends politics, and America’s cultural center remains committed to presenting popular programming that inspires and resonates with all audiences.”

Bullshit. From beginning to end, complete bullshit. They might as well just rename it the Bullshit Center.

Sticker crime strikes again.

Western Australia’s recently formed State Security Investigation Group Hate Crime Team is investigating a series of criminal damage incidents in Subiaco around Wednesday, 10 December 2025 where anti-transgender stickers were plastered around Subiaco.

“The WA Police Force will not allow acts of hatred, intolerance, or discrimination to go unchecked. We have zero tolerance for hate in our community and will use every resource at our disposal to protect the public and bring offenders to justice. Those responsible will be held to account.” the police said in a social media post.

The stickers must have been really horrible.

The stickers were found around the Subiaco Library, the neighbouring primary school and a nearby park. There have been several incidents of the stickers appearing in this area throughout 2025.

The stickers read ““Trans women are real men”. Throughout the year contractors for the City of Subiaco have been removing the stickers, noting that they have dealt with 38 incidents since July. There have also been reports of the stickers appearing in other inner-city locations.

Um. That’s it?

Speaking to Perth Now earlier this month Sam Gibbings the CEO of Transfolk WA questioned what the perpetrator was trying to achieve by placing the stickers in a space predominantly used by young children.

The perpetrator? It’s stickers, not assault or rape or arson.

“It makes you wonder what they are actually trying to achieve. Are they trying to berate parents? Are they trying to scare children? Either way, when you resort to tactics like this in a playground, you have clearly lost the moral argument,” Gibbings said.

Tactics like what though? Saying something. It’s not as if the trans communinny never says things, including saying things to children.

“Messages like these are designed to create division. They try to import a loud, aggressive culture war style of politics that doesn’t reflect how most of us actually interact in real life.”

Gibbings said the local transgender community was very resilient by the message behind the graffiti needed to be called out. “While they are loud, they are the minority. We know most people in Australia believe in treating others with dignity and respect, and we need to call out this hateful behaviour.”

Is it treating others with dignity and respect to claim that men can be women? I don’t think so. I never feel respected when people claim that. Quite the reverse.

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