Originally a comment by Sonderval on But I want to, he said.

What do they see that I don’t see???

They “see” the same thing we all see. But they do know that if you are smart you look deeper than the obvious, and that looking only at the surface is what stupid and bigoted people do.

Smart people (having read Kant) know that “I think therefore I am” is not as convincing as it looks on first sight.

Smart people know that species, despite looking clearly distinct, actually evolve.

Smart people know that space and time are not what they seem.

Smart and non-bigoted people know that despite looking different, members of all races are just human.

So this allows one simple conclusion: reality is always deeper and more complicated than we think. Therefore if you are smart, you should never accept a simple thing at face value. The fact that trans women are usually obviously male just confirms how deep and well-reasoned believing trans ideology actually is. To prove this, you can point to people having DSD or at clownfish etc.

It is exactly the fact that it looks so absurd that makes it attractive to at least some intellectual people and this is probably also part of the reason why so many so-called sceptics fall for it: they have (correctly) become wary of things looking simple and of believing that things are what they look like and so they conclude (incorrectly) that things are never simple and that it is always wrong to believe it could be. So telling them “but this is obvious” only shows how shallow and bigoted you are.

In a sense it is extrapolating the lessons of science to a “credo quia absurdum”.

CBS is less dishonest than NBC, which is damning with faint praise indeed. They do manage not to say the assault was an assault, not an “altercation.”

A 13-year-old is facing charges after a student at one Montgomery County middle school was assaulted at lunch with what students describe as a Stanley cup. Upper Gwynedd Township police said the teen will be charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault and other charges.

Less deceptive, but still pretending nobody involved has a sex.

Superintendent Todd Bauer started the meeting with a statement about the attack, which took place at lunchtime Wednesday afternoon. He said a seventh-grade student was assaulted by another student in an alarming attack. As a result, that student was taken to the hospital with serious injuries, and the school was put on lockdown for eight minutes.

“That” student. Which “that” student? All this deception plays hell with reporters’ writing skills. More to the point, it matters that the victim is a girl and the perp is a boy. Physicality is relevant here.

The superintendent sent everyone a letter.

As a school district, we aspire to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for our students and staff. A student sustained serious injuries as a result of another student’s actions. I have been in contact with this student’s family and will continue to work with them throughout the recovery process. The family has requested and deserves privacy as the student recovers.

Which student is “this” student? Has the family requested “privacy” about which sex their child is? And about which sex the other student is?

Pathetic.

NBC Philadelphia lies and conceals and deceives in its shockingly dishonest reporting on the Pennbrook school assault. Aren’t there any professional regulatory bodies that discourage lies and deception in journalism? Are they toothless?

A seventh grader is recovering in the hospital after a physical altercation between students during the lunch period at a Montgomery County middle school.

Liar! It wasn’t an altercation, it was an assault. It was a crime. Call it an alleged assault if you have to for legal reasons, but don’t call it an altercation. Don’t mislead the readers.

A female student was attacked from behind with a 40-ounce Stanley brand mug, according to a source who spoke with NBC10. The attack is alleged to be unprovoked.

So don’t call it an altercation. An attack from behind is not an altercation!

“The girl who got attacked didn’t see it because she was faced backwards and all the sudden you just hear these terrible, loud bangs of the Stanley bouncing off her head,” one student who witnessed the assault said.

One of the students involved in the incident was taken to a nearby hospital for their injuries. They are back home continuing to recover.

The student who was assaulted was taken to a hospital for her injuries. She is back home. What right does NBC think it has to conceal the sex of the victim? Let alone refer to her as “one of the students involved in the incident”?

H/t Mostly Cloudy

Oh oh oh says the man, running is so important to me.

“Running is so – such a crucial part of my like my being” he says – not pausing for a single second, of course, to remember that the same is true of the women he runs “with” and that therefore he should stop competing with them.

They never do. They never ever do. They tell us self-pityingly how much the cycling football running swimming rugby yadda yadda means to them and never ever ever stop to think about anyone other than their precious selves.

Guest post by Jonathan A. Gallant

An Inside Higher Education article on “Critical Studies” announced another triumph of this modern academic approach to socially constructed categories:  “For instance, critical childhood studies investigates how childhood is socially constructed, understood and experienced cross-culturally and trans-historically.  It challenges the notion that childhood is a natural and universal stage of life...”  

  Permit me to announce the new, related approach of Critical Mortality Studies.  This field will interrogate the social construction of death, challenging the notion that those who are assigned to the category of “deceased” are any different from you, me, or the Associate Dean for DEI.  They are just on their own position along the spectrum of vitality, and should therefore be referred to as “vitalistically challenged” or alternatively as “trans-living”.   We believe that members of this marginalized community should never have to feel unsafe on campus, and deserve protection from the harm they suffer when disparaged by unkind words like “deceased”, “the late”, “departed”, “defunct”, or “dead”.  

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania…

– The boy maintained a “hit list” of girls to assault.

– The school was well aware of the boy’s violent tendencies, and reportedly had him solo-escorted into school every day.

– The victim was bludgeoned in the head repeatedly with a Stanley tumbler.

– School administrators had been warned repeatedly about the boy’s violent tendencies, but appear to have never intervened.

The girls he bludgeoned is of course out of school with a concussion.

The Times on the bullying of Hilary Cass:

Dr Hilary Cass has criticised the spread of “disinformation” around her report, including from a Labour MP, as she revealed she had been told not to travel on public transport over safety fears.

In an interview with The Times, the paediatrician behind last week’s landmark review on the treatment of transgender children said that young people were being put “at risk” by the spread of false information.

At risk of ruining their lives, at that.

Following publication of her 388-page report, figures including the Labour MP Dawn Butler repeated claims that Cass had not included 100 transgender studies in it. Calling the assertion “completely wrong”, Cass said that it was “unforgivable” for people to undermine her report by spreading “straight disinformation”.

…

Of her critics, Cass said: “I have been really frustrated by the criticisms, because it is straight disinformation. It is completely inaccurate. It started the day before the report came out when an influencer put up a picture of a list of papers that were apparently rejected for not being randomised control trials.

That list has absolutely nothing to do with either our report or any of the papers. If you deliberately try to undermine a report that has looked at the evidence of children’s healthcare, then that’s unforgivable. You are putting children at risk by doing that.”

For what? For the sake of adamantly defending and propping up an ideology that says people can change their sex.

Cass’s NHS review found that an entire field of medicine aimed at enabling children to change gender had been “built on shaky foundations”. She found there was no good evidence to support the global clinical practice of prescribing hormones to under-18s to pause puberty or transition to the opposite sex.

Welllllllll let’s do it anyway, for shits and giggles.

Cass said: “There are some pretty vile emails coming in at the moment. Most of which my team is protecting me from, so I’m not getting to see them.” Some of them contained “words I wouldn’t put in a newspaper”, she said.

She added: “What dismays me is just how childish the debate can become. If I don’t agree with somebody then I’m called transphobic or a Terf [trans-exclusionary radical feminist].”

We all are! All day every day. It’s the new heresy.

Dr Cass can’t take a bus any more.

If nothing else, we get the satisfaction of knowing Trump had to listen to a bunch of people saying what a pile of ordure he is.

He seems “selfish and self-serving,” said one woman.

The way he carries himself in public “leaves something to be desired,” said another.

His “negative rhetoric and bias,” said another man, is what is “most harmful.”

Way too mild, but better than nothing.

It’s been a dramatic departure for the former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, who is accustomed to spending his days in a cocoon of cheering crowds and constant adulation. Now a criminal defendant, Trump will instead spend the next several weeks subjected to strict rules that strip him of control over everything from what he is permitted to say to the temperature of the room.

And when he gets to bounce up from his chair.

“He’s the object of derision. It’s his nightmare. He can’t control the script. He can’t control the cinematography. He can’t control what’s being said about him. And the outcome could go in a direction he really doesn’t want,” said Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer and critic.

…

Many days, Trump heads to his nearby golf course, where he is “swarmed by people wanting to shake his hand, take pictures of him, and tell him how amazing he is,” said Stephanie Grisham, a longtime aide who broke with Trump after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

When he returns to Mar-a-Lago in the afternoon, members lunching on the patio often stand and applaud. He receives the same standing ovation at dinner…

See, a more normal person wouldn’t want that. It would get embarrassing. A more normal person would realize how pathetic and needy it looks and is.

Grisham, who spent long stretches traveling with Trump and at Mar-a-Lago during his 2016 campaign and as White House press secretary, described staff constantly serving as cheerleaders and telling Trump what he wanted to hear. To avoid angry outbursts, they requested motorcade routes that avoided protests and they left a stack of positive press clips every morning on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

Again. Normal person? No thanks; tell me the truth, tell me your real opinion. Treat me like an adult. No press clippings thank you.

Court rules require Trump to be present throughout the trial. He can’t storm out of the courtroom like he did during a recent defamation trial. He is also barred by a gag order from attacking any of the jurors, including on his Truth Social platform.

He has already been admonished by Merchan for audibly uttering something and gesturing while one juror was answering questions. “I will not tolerate any jurors being intimidated in this courtroom,” said Merchan, who previously warned Trump he could be sent to jail for engaging in disruptive behavior in court.

Tiny crumbs, but we take what we can get.

Trump got told to sit the fuck down yesterday. Got told it and had to take it.

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan was wrapping up a contentious hour of debate with lawyers on both sides Friday afternoon, when he clarified that a contempt hearing—where he might punish Trump for repeatedly ignoring a gag order and continuing to publicly speak threateningly about witnesses and jurors—would commence Tuesday morning.

But just as the judge neared the end of his sentence, Trump abruptly stood up—apparently thinking the day was over. Immediately, Merchan turned his face to the former president and said in a firm voice: “Sir, can you please have a seat.”

His long, black robes dangled from beneath his right hand as he waved it down, like a man addressing his dog.

Or a woman addressing her dog for that matter. When I’m nannying my dear friend Cooper I often have to add the Downward Facing Hand because he’s playing dumb.

Cooper never has a tantrum about it though. He’s not a tantrum kind of guy.

Trump went and plopped straight back down into his maroon leather chair at the defense table—and remained for another minute, fuming as the judge gathered his paperwork and strolled toward his chambers.

As the judge exited the courtroom, Trump shot up and made straight for the back, furious. He looked straight toward the wooden double doors in back, ignoring reporters in the pews and clicking his tongue as he approached the EXIT sign.

How dignified.

Utterly disgusting.

“We’re not interested in defining what a woman is, the patriarchy’s been doing that for long enough.” SMIRK.

This is a farking outrage.

Biden hands over Title IX to trans people

The Biden administration has finalized new Title IX regulations that codify protections for transgender people, as well as enhance protections for victims of sexual assault or harassment and pregnant people.

What was Title IX? The federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities.

The new regulations officially add “gender identity” onto the list of protections from sex-based discrimination for the first time, though the administration said it has already been applying this standard.

So that will be the end of protections for women.

What for?

NHS bosses have been accused of ‘woke pandering’ after they brought out a banner featuring flags for 21 genders or sexualities.  Different terms for those who consider themselves not belonging to any sex, or are a combination of both, are included on the banner at Royal Stoke Hospital. 

The familiar Gay Pride flag, which features a rainbow, appears on the banner alongside a selection of lesser-known identities – such as Polysexual, Demiromantic and Genderqueer. The collection of flags is titled ‘Everyone is welcome here’.  

Well duh. It’s the National Health Service, not a social club or a kindergarten or the House of Lords. Of course it lets everyone in; that’s its job. And if you are going to make a big fuss about the fact that you don’t throw people out of your hospitals, what’s the point of emphasizing that by burbling about “Demiromantic” and “Genderqueer”? Why not just shut up, instead?

University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust – considered one of the country’s worst performing – said the flag enables patients to ‘be themselves’. 

If people can’t “be themselves” without bizarre random flags flapped at them, they need to shut down and restart.

Jane Haire, UHNM Chief People Officer, said: ‘We understand that different individuals may have varying views on symbols and flags used to represent different identities but this banner symbolises our commitment to achieving a more inclusive organisation where both colleagues and the people we care for are encouraged to be themselves.’ 

But it doesn’t work like that. Surely even complete fools can see why. People aren’t “encouraged to be themselves” by the NHS shoving random niche sexual identities in their faces. That kind of absurd patronizing performance is far more likely to make nearly everyone feel repulsed and not welcome at all. Insidery jargon is not a “welcoming” thing; it’s the opposite.

I saw a couple of hours ago that Daniel Dennett has left the stage, and I put off mentioning it because it displeases me.

Let’s turn our minds back to December 2006 and the day Judge Jones issued his ruling in the Kitzmiller case. It inspired me to fire off an email to Richard Dawkins inviting him to comment for publication here, which he immediately did, eloquently.

Judge John Jones has given the Founding Fathers the first really good reason to stop spinning in their graves since the Bush junta moved in. It would have been a scandal if any judge had not found against the ID charlatans, but I had expected that he would do so with equivocation: some sort of ‘on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand’ consolation prize for the cavemen of creationism. Not a bit of it. Judge Jones rumbled them, correctly described them as liars and sent them packing, with the words “breathtaking inanity” burning in their ears. The fact that this splendid man is a republican has got to be a good sign for the future. I think the great republic has turned a corner this week and is now beginning the slow, painful haul back to its enlightened, secular foundations.

So I felt encouraged to ask more, and Daniel Dennett was the next up.

Judge John E. Jones’s opinion in the Dover Area School District case is an excellently clear and trenchant analysis of the issues, exposing the fatuity and disingenuousness of the ID movement both in this particular case and in general. However I found one point in it that left me uneasy. In the Conclusion, on page 136, Jones says “Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator [emphasis added].” I have not read the scientific experts’ testimony, and I wonder if Judge Jones has slightly distorted what they said. If they said that the theory of evolution in no way conflicts with the existence of a divine creator, then I must say that I find that claim to be disingenuous. The theory of evolution demolishes the best reason anyone has ever suggested for believing in a divine creator. This does not demonstrate that there is no divine creator, of course, but only shows that if there is one, it (He?) needn’t have bothered to create anything, since natural selection would have taken care of all that. Would the good judge similarly agree that when a defense team in a murder trial shows that the victim died of natural causes, that this in no way conflicts with the state’s contention that the death in question had an author, the accused? What’s the difference?

Gods have been given many job descriptions over the centuries, and science has conflicted with many of them. Astronomy conflicts with the idea of a god, the sun, driving a fiery chariot pulled by winged horses – a divine charioteer. Geology conflicts with the idea of a god who sculpted the Earth a few thousand years ago – a divine planet-former. Biology conflicts with the idea of a god who designed and built the different living species and all their working parts – a divine creator. We don’t ban astronomy and geology from science classes because they conflict with those backward religious doctrines, and we should also acknowledge that evolutionary biology does conflict with the idea of a divine creator and nevertheless belongs in science classes because it is good science.

I think that what the expert scientists may have meant was that the theory of evolution by natural selection in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine . . . prayer-hearer, or master of ceremonies, or figurehead. That is true. For people who need them, there are still plenty of job descriptions for God that are entirely outside the scope of evolutionary biology.

The Kitzmiller Decision

Victoria Smith on Scotland’s belated “pause”:

This is a tremendous relief and, to some of us, a surprise. As Dr Hilary Cass noted, evidence-based care for vulnerable children has been disrupted by those who prefer “a social justice model”. Being in favour of the sterilisation of autistic and gay children — or “protecting trans kids”, as it’s been known — has long been a way to advertise one’s right-side-of-history credentials. It has also, in the eyes of certain Scottish politicians, been a way to indicate that one’s own country is young, progressive, and forward-looking, rather than mired in stuffy old principles such as “child safeguarding”.

It’s worth pausing over that third sentence for an hour or two. All these people who have seen themselves, and tried to bully other people into seeing them, as “protecting trans kids” when what they’re doing is sterilizing kids who think they’re something called “trans” – are they ever going to realize what they’ve been doing?

It would have been a tragedy if, yet again, adults were permitted to sacrifice the health and future wellbeing of children for the sake of their own egos. Even so, the announcement on the Sandyford Gender Service website leaves a lot to be desired. There’s no shame, no apology, seemingly no awareness that if you are indeed lacking “evidence of safety and long-term impact” for the therapies you have already been prescribing, you are complicit in doing harm.

You are. Not the people who have been urging you to stop, but you.

I have a sickening feeling that one reason the medical interference has been seen as okie doke is because so many people were doing it at the same time. There’s a “community” being built, and when there’s a “community,” well at least you won’t be lonely with your ruined body, you’ll be able to find other people in the same boat. Once that stops being the case, the interference stops looking quite so progressive. What does this mean? That much of the fervid proselytizing for medical interference has been recruitment – so that people who have already trashed their bodies will have a pool of potential fellow-miserables. A circle of horror.

The problem is not just that evidence-based medicine was abandoned in favour of cultural trends. Any return to basic standards has to go hand-in-hand with a serious critique of the culture. On the same day the Sandyford decision was announced, it was reported that “LGBT champions” are visiting primary schools in Scotland to teach children as young as four about gender identity. That is, to teach them that if they are gender non-conforming they may in fact be the opposite sex — there is no real “championing” of LGB in this entire enterprise.

More recruits to share the misery, eh what?

The BBC reported yesterday:

Scotland’s NHS has paused prescribing puberty blockers to children referred by its specialist gender clinic. The Sandyford clinic in Glasgow also said new patients aged 16 or 17 would no longer receive other hormone treatments until they were 18. It follows a landmark review of gender services for under-18s in England. Dr Hilary Cass’s review said children had been let down by a lack of research and there was “remarkably weak” evidence on medical interventions.

And very drastic “medical interventions” they are, too – and in fact they’re not really “medical” as commonly understood. More like anti-medical.

Like other parts of the UK, Scotland has seen a rapid rise in the number of young people questioning their identity or experiencing gender dysphoria.

And why might that be? Could it possibly be because being trans is trendy? Could it possibly be because there is such an avalanche of fevered advertising for the joys of transition? Could it possibly be a fad, different from other fads only in how tragically drastic its effects are?

Dr Emilia Crighton, NHSGCC’s director of public health said: “The findings informing the Cass review are important, and we have reviewed the impact on our clinical pathways. The next step from here is to work with the Scottish government and academic partners to generate evidence that enables us to deliver safe care for our patients.”

I have to wonder why the fuck they weren’t doing that already.

Vic Valentine, of Scottish Trans and the Equality Network, said pausing puberty blockers was the wrong decision and said it would “harm trans children and young people”.

What if it’s the other way around, Vic? What if the harm is prescribing puberty blockers? What if it’s all been a horrible stupid fashionable mistake?

Labour has a new campaign ad.

Replies are scathing.

I find myself wondering why, when we’re told that the feeling of being trans is so real and overwhelming that it trumps the dull facts, it’s so urgent and imperative to change the body so that it matches the feeling.

Unless, of course, it turns out that this real and overwhelming feeling is solely about the appearance.

But then what becomes of the core claims about the self, the identity, the soul?

These thoughts arose as I was reading a rant by Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir on the Cass Report evil terfs etc etc etc.

Waiting lists for trans-related healthcare in the UK are atrocious, with people in England waiting an average of seven years for a first appointment, despite the NHS saying their target is no more than 18 weeks to be seen.  And that’s only the first appointment – if people want access to hormones or surgeries, they could still wait several more months or years.

It is clear to me that the NHS has failed trans people – some who are more than a decade in the system, waiting to be able to move on with their lives and get life-saving hormones and surgeries.

But why do they need hormones and surgeries to save their lives at all? They know who they are; why isn’t that the part that counts?

Just like my partner, Fox, I have also heard many stories of people facing prejudice, sexism and even feeling like they have to perform gender stereotypes in order to be taken seriously. They say they have to tell an ‘acceptable’ story to the medical professionals as a result – things like they prefer certain types of clothing, have traditional hobbies and interests and fit into the mould of your ‘typical woman’ or ‘typical man’.

And by the same token, they are told by trans activists themselves that they have to alter their bodies drastically in order to…fit into the mould of your ‘typical woman’ or ‘typical man’.

It’s all the same thing, isn’t it? Certain types of clothing, traditional interests, female bodies?

If it’s all about what’s in the individual mind, why is “transition” even a thing?

Simon Edge on why Ruth Hunt should not continue to be a peer:

[It’s a Twitter thread but I’m turning it into a short essay so as not to annoy.]

In May 2019 Ruth Hunt, who had just resigned as CEO of Stonewall, did a Q&A at the Oxford Union. Asked for tips on how to argue with people who didn’t agree with Stonewall on trans issues, she said: ‘Those who think transwomen are men? I wouldn’t even bother. Leave them to us.’

If that sounds faintly menacing, consider this: a few months later, the @AllianceLGB held its inaugural meeting, at a secret location. None of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people attending believed Hunt’s mantra that transwomen were women. One of those present, the black lesbian barrister Allison Bailey, afterwards tweeted enthusiastically about the meeting. Stonewall then wrote to her chambers demanding that she be sacked. It wrecked Allison’s career.

As Hunt confirmed to the Oxford Union, Stonewall didn’t behave like other charities. Since it raised all its money privately, it wasn’t subject to any of the normal constraints and could do what it liked. The treatment of Allison Bailey shows she wasn’t joking.

Another of the triumphs Hunt claimed was doubling Stonewall’s workforce and income in her five years as CEO. In fact she was exaggerating on the latter score: she increased it by 61%. Nonetheless, it was a hefty hike and all because, as she put it, Stonewall started ‘doing trans’. Set up as a gay rights charity, Stonewall had fulfilled its entire wishlist of law reform by the time Hunt got the job, and had been looking for a new role. On her watch, it decided to become the UK’s flagship lobbyist on trans issues, even when these conflicted with gay rights.

Trans activism, presenting itself as a new civil rights frontier, came with a lot of demands and language that were bewildering and unfamiliar to most people, including employers. Stonewall set out to talk to those employers, telling them what they [must] do and say to be trans-friendly. The charity’s greatest wheeze was to charge the very people it was lobbying. At the Oxford Union, Hunt boasted that she talked regularly to the security services and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Significantly, she referred to all such people as her ‘clients’. It’s a brilliant trick if you can pull it off. No wonder Hunt referred a number of times in her Q&A to her own cleverness, and boasted that Stonewall and its board were ‘a very bright bunch’. They had found a way to grow rich and powerful. Smugness was the order of the day.

Like many others, I loathe the way Stonewall operated. It exploited the goodwill built up over 30 years to promote gay conversion therapy, the reverse of its founding mission. I satirise this in my novel The End of the World is Flat (although the real version wasn’t at all funny).

However, that’s not why I set up a petition calling for Hunt to be stripped of the peerage which gives her life-time membership of our national legislature, with all the accompanying perks and privileges. I did that for a much narrower, [more] tightly focused reason, based on Hunt’s misguided and damaging conduct when it came to advising schools, who were at the coalface of a bizarre new social contagion among confused teenagers.

By the end of her time as CEO, there had been an alarming spike in the number of adolescent girls presenting with gender distress and wanting to surgically alter their bodies. This caused a particular dilemma for teachers. How were they meant to respond?

To try to help, a group called @Transgendertrd sent resource packs to schools. The packs advised that ‘social transition’ – ie going along with a pupil’s desire to be treated as the opposite sex – led in the great majority of cases to a medical pathway. That in turn meant puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, for which there was little supporting medical evidence. It also warned about the high incidence of autism and mental health issues among pupils saying they were trans.

Without social transition and medical intervention, most of those young people would grow out of their gender distress. Automatically ‘affirming’ their trans identities might well result in irreversible decisions that they would later regret. This is precisely what Hilary Cass has just concluded after her ground-breaking four-year study. Her conclusions have been accepted by the government and the Labour Party, which is likely to form the next government with a big majority.

But Stonewall reacted with the fury of a playground bully. It denounced these resource packs with their responsible, accurate advice as ‘dangerous’ and ‘deeply damaging’. In amazingly aggressive language, they told any teacher who found one to ‘shred it’. By 2019, Stonewall was working with 2,000 individual schools, so it wasn’t hard for the charity to get its way. It also had bigger levers to pull: it successfully lobbied local councils to tell their schools to comply with Stonewall’s ‘affirmation first’ approach.

We know from detransitioners how appalling the consequences have been for those confused and distressed young people who were put onto medical pathways without realising what they were letting themselves in for. We don’t know how many such people there are, because six out of seven adult gender services refused to co-operate with Cass and release follow-up information. To say this is odd behaviour for members of the medical profession using untested drugs is to put it mildly.

Did Ruth Hunt know how much havoc she was causing? Did she disseminate misinformation deliberately? I doubt it. But, as I’ve shown, she had supreme confidence in her own brilliance and was certain she was right, even when people politely told her she wasn’t.

You know, it’s one thing to have supreme confidence in your own brilliance, and it’s another to have that confidence about an issue with horrible consequences if your brilliance turns out to be dim. Egomania is one thing, and egomania coupled with reckless advice about other people’s bodies is another.

She wrote in 2017 that ‘very few young people who access support go on to transition’. We know now the reverse is true. Very few people who accessed gender services did not transition, even though Cass says it wasn’t the best way to manage their gender distress. She also said puberty blockers were reversible so ‘it’s pretty safe’. Aside from some of the gruesome side-effects that have been reported, including osteoporosis among transmen in their twenties, we know that puberty blockers almost always led to irreversible transition.

All her pronouncements, in other words, were the opposite of the truth. She was in a position of influence and authority, which is what made her misguided certainties so damaging.

In the Noughties, Sir Fred Goodwin got a knighthood for running RBS, the world’s biggest bank. When RBS crashed, nearly taking our economy with it, his knighthood was withdrawn. He didn’t crash the bank deliberately, but that wasn’t the point. He didn’t deserve the honour.

It’s the same with Hunt. Rewarding her with a peerage is an insult to all the confused young people and their families who were damaged, and to all the people who were denounced as bigots for expressing valid concerns.

The upper house has the power to remove a member under the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act of 2015. If you haven’t done so already, please sign my petition asking Hunt’s fellow peers to use that power.

A peerage means you get to be in the House of Lords for life. Ruth Hunt should not have that role.

So the question becomes how do you then find jurors who are mentally competent?

Jury selection resumed Thursday in a trial over allegations that Trump falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign. Ultimately, 12 jurors will determine the verdict, with six alternates on standby.

Nearly 200 potential jurors have been brought in. All potential jurors will be asked whether they can serve and be fair and impartial. Those who have said “no” have been sent home.

Lawyers on both sides then comb through answers prospective jurors provide orally in court to a set of 42 questions that probe whether they have been part of various extremist groups, have attended pro- or anti-Trump rallies, or have been involved with Trump’s political campaigns, among other things.

The judge can dismiss people who don’t seem likely to be impartial. Under state law, each side also gets to strike up to 10 potential jurors they don’t like, plus some additional strikes for potential alternate jurors.

That’s how it works, of course. I’ve been through voir dire twice so I’ve watched it doing its thing. But the question is, how can anyone with two brain cells to rub together be impartial about Trump?

I don’t think there’s an answer to that question. I don’t think anyone conscious can be impartial about Trump.