Shun the witch and her witchy Report:

The New Statesman can reveal that tomorrow (Wednesday July 17) the governing body of the British Medical Association (BMA) – the doctors’ trade union – will vote on whether or not to “disavow” the Cass Review.

To “disavow.” They might as well say it has cooties.

The motion, first drafted as an emergency measure in June, was not discussed at the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) last month. BMA rules would suggest that for it now to be going to the union’s governing body, the proposal has gained the support of at least 10 members – about one in six – of the BMA’s Council in the intervening weeks. That makes it eligible to be voted on. The motion alleges that the Cass Review contains “unsubstantiated recommendations driven by unexplained study protocol deviations” and is concerned at its “exclusion of trans-affirming evidence”. It calls on the BMA to “publicly disavow the Cass Review” and to “lobby and work with other relevant organisations and stakeholders to oppose the implementation of the recommendations made by the Cass Review”. It also calls for the union to “lobby the government and NHS in all four nations to ensure continuity in provision of transgender health care for patients younger than 18 years old”.

Keep destroying children, full speed ahead.

The BMA is an outlier here, Hannah Barnes goes on to say, in having not yet responded to the Cass Review.

The Royal College of GPs and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have both accepted Dr Cass’s recommendations and said that it will inform their practices going forward. So too has the Association of Clinical Psychologists.

But not the BMA. Too frightened of the zealots?

Commenting on the BMA vote proposed for 17 July, Dr Cass said: “It is disappointing that a professional organisation should choose to determine whether to support the findings of my report based on the votes of Council, rather than a transparent and scientific appraisal of the report.” She added that were the BMA to invite her to discuss her work with its members, she would “happily accept”.

Well that won’t do. Then they would have to come up with reasons.

Yet for people like me, who hoped that the Dr Hilary Cass’s painstaking work would lead to calmer, more nuanced discussion – and to an agreement that the previous model of care has diverged far from ethical medical practice – the past couple of weeks have proved otherwise. Not just the revelation that the body that represents the UK’s doctors would consider rejecting it, but also the response to the new Labour health secretary Wes Streeting’s indication that he intends to make a ban on the private prescription of puberty blockers permanent. Streeting has faced abuse and name-calling, being accused by former Mermaids boss Susie Green of having “blood on his hands”, and by lawyer Jolyon Maugham of killing trans children.

Because trans is a religion. It’s fighting heretics and blasphemers.