Welp.

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

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

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

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

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

The evidence-led approach advocated by the resource pack was sent out to thousands of schools by the pressure group Transgender Trend in February 2018. Much of its content has since been upheld by Dr Hilary Cass in her landmark review.

The pressure group Stonewall has some explaining to do.

The resource pack warned about autism and mental health issues, and the sudden spike in girls joining the gender mania.

It advised them to be cautious if supporting a pupil’s social transition, pointing out that “very few come off the path of increasingly invasive medical treatments once they start” and reminded them of their safeguarding and legal responsibilities. It also advised school leaders to resist offers by external activist organisations to “mentor” children in this complex area.

Advised them to be cautious! How scandalous! Obviously it’s the right thing to be reckless and in a great big hurry to persuade children to ruin their bodies and futures.

In response, Stonewall Scotland told its tens of thousands of followers on Twitter/X: “We, in the strongest possible terms, denounce and condemn this publication. If it lands on your desk, do the right thing: shred it.”

A further Stonewall statement branded the pack as “dangerous” material, “masquerading as a professional, ‘evidence-based’ advice. One thing we want every educator to be clear on is that they must have nothing to do with this deeply damaging publication.”

That’s so fascinating, because what did Stonewall think it was doing? If it’s “masquerading” to urge caution before letting children ruin their bodies, what is it to urge children to ruin their bodies? Eh? How is it that Stonewall has every right to urge children to do drastic life-altering things while others have no right to urge caution? Why did Stonewall think the default was go ahead and mess up your body, and the evil deviation was slow down and use caution before messing up your body?

Hunt, who stepped down in August 2019, has denied that her organisation suppressed debate around transgender healthcare. “If we thought it was bad guidance, and it is, we were right to tell people we thought it was bad guidance,” she said, referring to its scepticism around the concept of a “trans child”.

But you thought it was bad guidance and it isn’t. That’s the problem. Not that you thought it was bad guidance, and it is, but that you thought it was bad guidance, and it isn’t. Do you get it now? You’re the ones who put out the bad guidance. Not those other people; you.

[Hunt] denied that she had ever supported “no debate”, adding: “I’m absolutely someone who has always been working in the middle ground, trying to build consensus.”

Hunt’s critics may contrast that position with her response in October 2018 to a petition asking Stonewall to acknowledge there was a conflict around transgender rights and sex-based women’s rights. She wrote: “We do not and will not acknowledge this. Doing so would imply that we do not believe that trans people deserve the same rights as others. We will always debate issues that enable us to further equality but what we will not do is debate trans people’s right to exist.”

And there it is again, The Big Lie. There’s the implication that gender skeptics wanted genocide for trans people. There’s the sneaky malevolent lie that feminist women hope to see trans people killed. That’s her “middle ground, trying to build consensus.”