Janice Turner on the closing down of the Tavistock Gender Identity clinic:

Writing on this topic, I’ve often encountered facts so dangerous and beliefs so bizarre, so beyond science or reason, it’s been hard to convey their existence.

Listen, you say, British doctors are prescribing a drug used to chemically castrate rapists to halt puberty in children as young as 11. The drug isn’t even approved for child gender dysphoria. It reduces growth and bone density, sterilises and kills future libido. And, get this, we don’t know what it does to teenagers’ developing brains, or even if it works and they become happy, fulfilled trans adults. Because there’s no data, no long-term research.

Well when you put it like … Read the rest

Originally two comments by Bjarte Foshaug on These two loudmouth mammals.

I’m not at all a cult expert, but as an interested lay person who has read both Lifton, Singer, Ross, and Hassan, I think the importance of “saving face” can hardly be overestimated. How cult members respond to a major crisis depends heavily on how easy or difficult it is backpedal without too much public humiliation and loss of face. Those who haven’t made too much of a public commitment tend to just slip away quietly and pretend nothing ever happened. The people you really need to worry about are the ones who have made a strong commitment in public, invested everything they have in the cause, burned … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Comparisons are odious.

…more blunt than the Guardian.

The Guardian left that bit out. It’s rather important.

The Guardian left that bit out too.

It’s impossible to view this editorial decision making as anything but ideological. Newspapers aren’t usually in the business of “being kind,” but in this case they’re soft pedaling the story (perhaps for their own sake as much as for anyone else’s). It’s like the unspoken agreement between the press and JFK in regards to his infidelity and womanizing. But this isn’t about turning a blind eye to a politician’s extramarital affairs, it’s a story about the health and safety of children. It’s not just word … Read the rest

Pink News is eager to see men taking over women’s sports.

A women’s rugby union team has explained why it is passionate about including trans women as the RFU votes on banning them from the sport.

No the RFU doesn’t vote on banning them from the sport. As usual.

The York RI Ladies team took to Twitter ahead of a Rugby Football Union (RFU) vote on an outright ban on trans women and girls, taking place on Friday (29 July).

No it’s not an outright ban on women and girls. That’s the usual lie. It’s a ban on men in women’s rugby.

The RFU, which governs rugby union in England, will vote on a recommendation for a “policy change

The jargon always distorts the “journalism.” Haroon Siddique at the Guardian doing a legal analysis of the Allison Bailey ruling:

The most significant ruling came in the Forstater case when, in June last year a panel led by the president of the employment appeal tribunal (EAT) held that gender-critical views were a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act.

The decision paved the way not just for Forstater winning her case, which was then sent back to an employment tribunal to be heard in full, but also Bailey’s victory against her chambers, Garden Court.

Lucy Lewis, employment partner at Lewis Silkin, said: “If you want to engage in public debate, if you are clear you are doing that

The NY Times tries hard to minimize the bad news:

The National Health Service in England announced on Thursday that it was shutting down the country’s only youth gender clinic in favor of a more distributed and comprehensive network of medical care for adolescents seeking hormones and other gender treatments.

“Seeking hormones” as they might seek a new phone or beans on toast. Hormones aren’t like vitamins, you don’t seek them as if they were harmless and benign. People don’t seek diabetes medication or cancer drugs, they get prescribed them if they have diabetes or cancer.

The closure followed an external review of the Tavistock clinic in London, which has served thousands of transgender patients since the 1990s. The review

Dennis raises an interesting point at about 29 minutes into The Mess We’re In: he says he used to do some family law work and that meant some work with Munchausen’s parents. Funny thing about that: it seems to have dried up. He asked someone else who said Oh yes that’s all gone.

Hmmmm.

Parents who like the limelight just a little too much, he said.… Read the rest

1./ The Tavistock and the idiocy of Jolyon Maugham and Benjamin Cohen. Endocrinologist @will_malone points out a crucial finding that contributed to the Tavi's closure: its failure to research properly the risks of puberty blockers. So what did Jolyon and Benjy say?👇
1 of/13. https://t.co/vaZFm1oaHO

— Malcolm Clark (@TwisterFilm) July 28, 2022

3./ He implied that Professor Evans's work could be discounted because it was later quoted by a Christian outfit with which Evans has nothing to do. Benjamin Cohen's lying rag Pink news then picked up the baton, scorning @KLBfax for quoting the animal trial in her case 👇 pic.twitter.com/s2j3doD66G

— Malcolm Clark (@TwisterFilm) July 28, 2022

5./ It's gender identity fanatics who argue it's unethical to run a

The Telegraph is, to the surprise of no one, more blunt than the Guardian.

The Tavistock transgender clinic is to be shut down by the NHS after a review found it is “not safe” for children.

NHS England will move young people who believe that they are trans into regional centres which will take a more “holistic” approach to treatment and look at other mental health or medical issues they may have.

Emphasis mine. The Guardian of course wouldn’t dream of putting it that way. Yet.

The decision is a response to the interim Cass Review, which warned that medics in the Tavistock had felt “under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach” to gender identity rather than going through

The Guardian on the Tavistock:

But in recent years, concerns have repeatedly been raised about the service. Inspectors rated it “inadequate” after complaints raised by whistleblowers, patients and families.

The service was criticised for its care of patients both inside and outside the clinic, and it also had record waiting lists. Doctors reported concerns that some patients were referred on to a gender transitioning pathway too quickly.

The waiting lists might be seen as a good thing, given the quality of the “service.”

It followed recommendations from Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading an independent review of gender identity services for children and young people.

She said there was a need to move away from a model of a

Graham reminds us of the video that should destroy Mermaids:

Now that the Tavistock is to shut down, at such speed that we can only guess the Cass report is to deliver a ferocious verdict on their operations, it’s time to look again at Mermaids, the organisation that has had such a malign influence over the centre.

Even the Alder Hey organs scandal didn’t lead to the hospital having to close. This is an extraordinary moment.

I believe that Susie Green’s Ted Talk provides all the evidence needed to shut Mermaids down.

“My husband wasn’t happy with our gender nonconforming son. So we put him on hormones and then castrated him. “ Not quite how she phrases it but that’s

This is a must-watch – Dennis Kavanagh explaining what the closure of the Tavistock means.

Updating to quote:

Dennis: Mermaids and Co. telling kids they’ve got the wrong bodies and they should hate their bodies – which I consider a cruelty without equal – I don’t know why they’re allowed to maraud around and do that, but they are it would seem – they succeed by pushing lies. You cannot have gender without lies, it needs lies like a fish needs water.… Read the rest

Is that right?

It’s worth noting that being “gender critical” has the same basis in the English courts as believing that the universe was created 5,782 years ago

— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 27, 2022

The English courts consider people who know which sex is which comparable to biblical literalists? Really? Can that possibly be true? Wouldn’t it drive a bulldozer through all English law that relates to women and men? … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Seanna Watson on Then whydja do it?

I find the amount of deference granted to Franky (often even by avowed atheists) to be somewhere between inexplicable and infuriating. Despite all the pomp and ceremony of the apologetic visit (costing Canadian taxpayers ~$35 million), there has been precious little actual action taken by the church – in fact there is continuing resistance by the church to pay any sort of compensation.

Case in point: Parishioners in a Catholic church in Ottawa that is being sold had requested to have the proceeds directed toward reconciliation and residential school survivors. This seemed like a just and reasonable request, especially in view of the fact that the construction of the … Read the rest

The Tavistock is shutting down!

The Times reports:

The NHS is shutting down its gender identity clinic for children after a review found that it failed vulnerable under-18s.

The gender identity service at Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust has been ordered to close by next spring.

It will be replaced by regional centres at existing children’s hospitals offering more “holistic care” with “strong links to mental health services”.

Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic has been accused of rushing children into life-altering treatment on puberty blockers.

In other words into making changes to their bodies they will be stuck with for life.

The paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading a review of the service, issued

Marjorie Taylor Greene is proud to be a Christian nationalist.

Greene was accused on Monday of being a “Nazi” by Twitter users commenting on her defense of Christian nationalism while speaking on Saturday at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida. The Georgia Republican later shared a clip of her speech alongside the comment, “Nationalist isn’t a bad word” because it “means you care about your country.”

No, sport, that would be “patriot.”

“I am being attacked by the godless left because I said I’m a proud Christian Nationalist,” Greene said in a statement sent to Newsweek, which was also shared on Twitter. “These evil people are even calling me a Nazi because I proudly love

Originally a comment by learie on Damages, including aggravated damages.

It was so brave of Ms.Bailey to do this, and I’m so glad she’s won.

The Employment Tribunal usually awards a max of 5000 pounds, and they awarded her 22 000, including aggravated damages.

I have already seen TRAs saying it’s not much money, but if Ms.Bailey had wanted money she wouldn’t have done this. The point was to set a precedent and to expose what’s going on with Stonewall- and that’s been done very effectively.

Companies and legal bodies now know Stonewall gives advice that will see you losing at the Employment Tribunal. That is very bad news for an advisory group.… Read the rest

Found it at last – the yes or no one. Glasgow Pride says no drag comment 42:

News outlets so far seem to be ignoring the Allison Bailey win. Personnel Today is understandably interested:

The barrister Allison Bailey has today won her case for discrimination at tribunal after she claimed her employer victimised her for upholding a gender critical belief. 

She had launched claims against Garden Court Chambers and Stonewall after the charity complained to her employer about her involvement in the LGB Alliance Group, of which she is a co-founder. LGB Alliance opposes the view held by Stonewall that transgender women are women in the eyes of the law.

…

The tribunal, which began in April, found that by upholding the complaint against her, GCC had victimised her for a protected act – the fact

Two more rescued:

The Nigerian army says it has found two more of the female students abducted by Boko Haram militants from a secondary school more than eight years ago.

There was global outrage when Islamists seized nearly 300 girls in Nigeria’s north-eastern town of Chibok in 2014. Most of the victims have either been freed or escaped since then, but dozens remain unaccounted for.

It appears the two hostages gave birth while in captivity, as the army said they were both found with children.

Naturally. That’s what they’re for.

In total, 276 girls seized were from their school dormitory in the middle of the night on 14 April 2014. Within hours of their kidnapping, 57 managed to escape