… Read the restThis is exactly the escalation in the simmering conflict between Iran, its proxies and Israel that everyone feared: a direct attack by one nation against another.
For nearly two weeks Iran’s security establishment has been mulling its response to the 1 April airstrike on its consulate in Damascus, widely assumed to be the work of Israel, that killed several top Iranian commanders. Clearly, a decision was reached that such a major escalation – an attack that flattened a diplomatic building and therefore sovereign Iranian territory – called for an escalatory response.
Israel has several layers of air defences and it has vowed to respond to any attack on its soil and it will. The risk now
All entries by this author
The escalation
Apr 13th, 2024 3:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonIncandescent with rage
Apr 13th, 2024 11:42 am | By Ophelia BensonRuth Hunt’s “Who, me?? Never!!” is not going down very well.
I found this interview with Ruth Hunt, former head of Stonewall, very hard to read—because I personally know so many people who have sacrificed so much to contradict the stances she once held, and now disowns.https://t.co/53HOh7XxLY
— Helen Lewis (@helenlewis) April 13, 2024
1/ When gay children abandoned to gender needed Stonewall to stand up for them, Ruth Hunt wasn't even absent from her post, it was worse than that. She conspired against them, joined and led enemy forces and today she sets out her defence. But this prosecution is overwhelming. pic.twitter.com/YCI7p36r8K
— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) April 13, 2024
https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1779159322666181054
… Read the restLGB people who tried so hard to
Often contending with other difficulties
Apr 13th, 2024 10:20 am | By Ophelia BensonHannah Barnes in The New Statesman:
[Hannah Barnes is associate editor of the New Statesman and author of “Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children” (Swift)]
… Read the restThe report confirms that the majority of children referred to Gids had complex needs, and alongside their gender-related distress were often contending with other difficulties: anxiety, depression, eating disorder and autism were all over-represented when compared with what you would see in the general children’s population.
It also vindicates what so many former Gids staff have been saying for years: that there was no consistency in its clinical approach; that some assessments – prior to referral for puberty blockers – could be just one
Always check the wording
Apr 13th, 2024 9:31 am | By Ophelia BensonAgain with the re-wording.
Doc Stock asked for examples of Stonewall doing its thing, which has made for a highly useful thread full of sources. One item gives us yet another lie about what the trans ideology is about:
https://t.co/8PTxeTcX68 I went looking for 2018, because that's the year Maria McLachlan was battered. And to my memory, weren't Stonewall going to participate in a debate, bailed due to TRA pressure, then women tried to have a conversation without them…. pic.twitter.com/3xMc0cX0xV
— womenopausal ✊♀️ (@womenopausal1) April 12, 2024
Second paragraph under “We stand up for people”:
“We do draw a line with regard to questioning whether trans people deserve the same level of equality as any other group.”
NOBODY SAYS trans … Read the rest
The revisionism is in full swing
Apr 13th, 2024 5:56 am | By Ophelia BensonWelp.
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!!”
… Read the restHowever, 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
Speaking of “disinformation and myths”
Apr 13th, 2024 4:30 am | By Ophelia BensonTalk about mission creep…
Amnesty International put out a press release announcing Cass review on gender identity is being ‘weaponised’ by anti-trans groups.
What does the Cass review have to do with Amnesty International? And what does Amnesty have to do with the Cass review? Does AI now see itself as simply The Correct Ones, there to rebuke the wicked and sanctify the good, “wicked” and “good” according to Amnesty itself of course?
… Read the restIn response to the sensationalised coverage surrounding the independent review of gender identity services for children and young people by the paediatrician Hilary Cass, Amnesty International UK and Liberty, said:
“All children have the right to access specialist effective care on time and must
The lesson is don’t just come right out and say it
Apr 12th, 2024 6:01 pm | By Ophelia Benson16 Candles felony charges:
I don’t think she’s out on bail.… Read the rest
Yet experienced professionals are increasingly scared
Apr 12th, 2024 5:35 pm | By Ophelia BensonCritical thinking and open debate are pillars of scientific and medical research. Yet experienced professionals are increasingly scared to openly discuss their views on the treatment of children questioning their gender identity. This was the conclusion drawn by Hilary Cass in her review of gender identity services for children this week, which warned that a toxic debate had resulted in a culture of fear.
Why are the professionals scared? Why is the debate toxic? Why is there a culture of fear?
We all know. We’ve been watching it for years. It’s because of the staggering level of bullying that the rah-rah-trans side goes in for.
… Read the restHer conclusion was echoed by doctors, academic researchers and
Guest post: So used to the mantra
Apr 12th, 2024 5:07 pm | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Screechy Monkey on 14 when he knew.
The BBC has gotten so used to the mantra that (clap) trans (clap) kids (clap) are (clap) who they say they are (clap clap clap) that they can’t shake it even when reporting on a story about how the medicine actually doesn’t say that.
Imagine if a report came out that said that it appeared that oncologists were over-prescribing chemotherapy, and that the medical evidence strongly shows that it’s not appropriate in many cases in which it’s being used.
Would the BBC rush to interview cancer patients for their “opinions” on the medicine? No doubt some patients would have opinions (“I had chemo, and I think it saved … Read the rest
14 when he knew
Apr 12th, 2024 11:32 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Beeb rushes to chat with a “trans man” about how hurty it all is.
Trans young people say they feel “disappointed” and “ignored” by the Cass Review into gender care.
No, really??!
They’ve been taught to feel that, Beeb. They’ve been taught by you among others. You’re teaching more people by writing this stupid story.
Sean Donovan was 14 when he knew he had gender dysphoria, but was not able to access puberty blockers which he said could have saved him “so much trauma”.
Or could have wrecked “his” life.
… Read the restThe review recommended a “holistic assessment” of a child’s needs, including “screening for neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism spectrum disorder, and a mental health assessment”. Mr Donovan said none
Without consent
Apr 12th, 2024 11:21 am | By Ophelia BensonThe German parliament has passed a law making it easier for citizens and residents to legally change gender. It’s also introducing hefty fines – in specific circumstances – for disclosing someone’s prior registered name or gender without consent.
Hefty fines for mentioning someone’s actual sex? Really? So men can force themselves on, say, women’s hostels or refuges or rape crisis centers and no one is allowed to “disclose” the fact that he’s a man?
… Read the restPreviously, changing your registered gender required a doctor’s certificate and the approval of a family court. Now over-18s can change to male, female or diverse, a third gender option that already exists under German law…The intentional and harmful disclosure of
Keep shtum
Apr 12th, 2024 4:31 am | By Ophelia BensonTrans ideologues refused to show their evidence.
The NHS’s most senior adviser on transgender health refused to share data about his clinic’s patients with the Cass Review. Dr Hilary Cass said efforts to track the journeys of around 9,000 children who went on to be seen by adult services were “thwarted” by the refusal of clinics to provide evidence.
Researchers were trying to establish the long-term consequences of medical interventions by seeking data from adult clinics, which take patients from the age of 16. Six of the seven clinics which run adult gender services refused to comply with the request.
Thus revealing themselves to be not “clinics” at all but political headquarters. Transitude is all in the head, … Read the rest
When in doubt, kick women
Apr 12th, 2024 4:07 am | By Ophelia BensonLabour Quislings stand by their hatred of women:
Angela Rayner has declined to apologise for endorsing a charter describing feminist organisations that raised fears about the treatment of trans children as “hate groups”.
When Ms Rayner stood to be the deputy Labour leader in 2020, she backed a trans rights charter that described bodies including Women’s Place UK, which campaigns for single-sex rape refuges for women, as “trans-exclusionist hate groups”.
In other words, prominent Labour woman backed a charter of “rights” for men who pretend to be women while she called women who defend women’s rights “hate groups.” In other other words she’s a contemptible traitor to women.
… Read the restHigh-profile Labour figures have previously made remarks endorsing the views of
Tony and Jack
Apr 11th, 2024 5:28 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Guardian thinks it needs to inform us that
CEO of female-only app would not address trans woman as ‘Ms’, Sydney court hears
That’s because he’s a man, Guardian. What’s your point? (I mean that in the largest possible sense, as well as the ordinary one.)
A court has heard that the founder and CEO of a women-only social media app will not address a transgender woman as “Ms”, saying “I don’t think it’s kind to expect a woman to see a man as a woman”.
It’s not “kind” and it’s also not reasonable.
… Read the rest[Tickle’s counsel, Georgina Costello KC] asked Grover if she would “call her Ms Tickle in real life?”
“No,” Grover answered. When asked if that was kind,
Guest post: Puberty blockers prevent their minds from being made
Apr 11th, 2024 2:15 pm | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Send us your best.
In reality, the problem has never been disagreement about how to care for trans children and young people.
Bullshit. If you can’t define it, how do you treat it? In reality, the problem has been in immediately deciding children with any degree of dysphoria are “trans,” desistance and detransitioners be damned. How do you decide who qualifies as “trans”? What’s the test? What are the criteria? Desistance and detransition are huge red flags showing that somebody has got it wrong. They should be a valuable source of refinement and calibration of “trans” diagnoses, not shameful failures to be swept aside and demonized. If someone “wasn’t really … Read the rest
Guardian takes thumb off scale, sits down on it instead
Apr 11th, 2024 11:52 am | By Ophelia BensonAnother Guardian piece today from the same reporter, Robyn Vinter:
Trans children in England worse off now than four years ago, says psychologist
As if it’s just settled fact that there are “trans children.”
… Read the restTransgender children are being left in a “far worse position” than before the Cass report, with a service that is “going backwards instead of forwards”, according to a psychologist who has set up a private gender service.
Dr Aiden Kelly, a clinical psychologist specialising in gender who was part of the team at the Tavistock and Portman NHS mental health trust’s gender identity development services (Gids), said he was “very, very worried” about the NHS’s ability to deliver a suitable gender service based on the findings
The convenient woman
Apr 11th, 2024 11:38 am | By Ophelia BensonWhile the Cass report’s 400 pages will be pored over and debated, one thing is certain – young trans people face an anxious future.
Because of the report’s 400 pages? So without the Cass report young trans people would have faced a happy calm confident future? Because pretending to be the opposite sex and trying to force the world to pretend along with you is such an easy simple fun way to live?
… Read the restThe mother of a 17-year-old trans girl who was a patient at the now-shut Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust said she had initially welcomed Cass’s inquiry, but had been left “disappointed”.
She had believed
Who, us? Advocate puberty blockers??
Apr 11th, 2024 8:07 am | By Ophelia BensonMermaids says what now?
Mermaids CEO Lauren Stoner responds to #CassReview:
“We’re not medical experts, we don’t advocate for any [medical] pathway.” pic.twitter.com/wIaATGJHwk
— John James (@JohnJamesNI) April 10, 2024
Really? Gosh, I could have sworn…
Absolute, total, shameless lies. Your ex-CEO referred children to the Tavistock gender clinic. Mermaids has repeatedly claimed puberty blockers are reversible, sent out breast binders to girls as young as thirteen and insisted publicly that unless children are affirmed in their… https://t.co/LViY2GJ1Zb
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 11, 2024
… Read the restAbsolute, total, shameless lies. Your ex-CEO referred children to the Tavistock gender clinic. Mermaids has repeatedly claimed puberty blockers are reversible, sent out breast binders to girls as young as thirteen and insisted publicly
Send us your best
Apr 11th, 2024 7:32 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Guardian sees fit to publish this brainless glurge from a Trans ActivIst:
Based on the coverage in the UK’s rightwing media, where equality for trans people is most loudly and regularly opposed, you might have been convinced that Hilary Cass agrees with them and them alone…
There’s brainless and then there’s lying. Nobody opposes “equality for trans people.” That’s a ridiculous claim. Trans ideology has nothing to do with equality.
… Read the restCass criticises the lack of broader mental health care provision, including treatment for eating disorders. The community agrees, as would anyone who knows the first thing about NHS mental health provision. Cass cites the lack of autism awareness and assessment. Again, the community – well aware and unafraid
A culture of secrecy and ideology
Apr 11th, 2024 4:01 am | By Ophelia BensonHealth Secretary Victoria Atkins says she has had “enough” of a “culture of secrecy and ideology” around gender care for children. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, she criticised NHS England practitioners, in response to a landmark review into gender care practices.
It is a very weird culture for a medical issue. We’ve been saying that all along. It’s more like a religion than it is like normal medical practice. There are taboos, heretics, inquisitions, expulsions, lies, bullying, slogans, blasphemy laws – none of which you want in a medical issue.
… Read the restThe Cass review said children had been “let down” by a lack of research on the use of puberty blockers. It called for gender services to match