Glinner is explaining to David Baddiel about peaking, and I saw this reply.

The bit about first you climb up believing all kinds of nonsense.

I never did actually believe it.

What did I do? Kept my mouth shut. Watched and waited. Avoided. Evaded. Bracketed. Ignored.

I guess to be more precise what I never did actually believe is that people are or can be the other sex, but I thought maybe possibly it could be that it’s to their benefit to pretend they can. I was far from passionately convinced even of that, but I thought it might be the case, and that I didn’t know much about it.

So I just kept quiet about it for several years. One specific occasion I remember is when Michelle Goldberg wrote a (very good) skeptical piece on the subject in The New Yorker and some people I was then friends with called her every name in the book. I thought they were wrong, but I wasn’t sure enough to disagree with them, so instead I just said nothing.

That was a million times easier to do then. The subject hadn’t devoured everything yet.

“For all the hypersensitive whiny little cis women”

Summing up – “You know because womanhood, it doesn’t really have a meaning – you know it’s kind of what you want it to mean – it’s a social construct – I know that’s complicated for y’all”

A piquant NY Times headline:

Carlson’s Text That Alarmed Fox Leaders: ‘It’s Not How White Men Fight’

A text message sent by Tucker Carlson that set off a panic at the highest levels of Fox on the eve of its billion-dollar defamation trial showed its most popular host sharing his private, inflammatory views about violence and race.

The discovery of the message contributed to a chain of events that ultimately led to Mr. Carlson’s firing.

His views aren’t all that private.

In the message, sent to one of his producers in the hours after violent Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Carlson described how he had recently watched a video of a group of men — Trump supporters, he said — violently attacking “an Antifa kid.”

It was “three against one, at least,” he wrote.

And then he expressed a sense of dismay that the attackers, like him, were white.

“Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously,” he wrote.

“It’s not how white men fight,” he said. But he said he found himself for a moment wanting the group to kill the person he had described as the Antifa kid.

Even though he’s a white man.

The Fox people were worried about this not because it’s poisonous but because it would make Fox look bad (i.e. poisonous) and they had that trial to worry about. It was just all too much.

The text message added to a growing number of internal issues involving Mr. Carlson that led the company’s leadership to conclude he was more of a problem than an asset and had to go, according to several people with knowledge of the decision. In other messages he had referred to women — including a senior Fox executive — in crude and misogynistic terms. The message about the fight also played a role in the company’s decision to settle with Dominion for $787.5 million, the highest known payout in a defamation case.

It must be very delicate work, figuring out how poisonous is poisonous enough without being too poisonous. “Does this poison make my butt look too big?”

It remains unclear how the text escaped more notice earlier, given that the Fox legal team was aware of it and other offensive texts written by Mr. Carlson.

Well quite! How shocked can they be? Being “offensive” is his whole thing.

A recurring theme of his show during the six years that it ran in prime time on Fox News was the displacement of white Americans by people of color. Mr. Carlson often framed topics in the news as part of a larger struggle between “us” and “them,” with immigrants and other marginalized groups steadily and surely taking from whites what had long been theirs: political and cultural power in the United States.

He attacked Black social justice activists and portrayed immigrants from Central America as a blight on the nation. He said in 2018 that immigrants make the country “dirtier.”

I guess that’s how white men fight.

Joan Smith notes politicians’ refusal to stand up for Joanna Cherry.

Starmer is a KC, like Cherry, and leading lawyers have spoken out about the decision to cancel her appearance at The Stand. Roddy Dunlop KC, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, wrote on Twitter the decision was “plainly unlawful”. Michael Foran, lecturer in law at the University of Glasgow, agreed that it was “unlawful discrimination”. 

Such things should not be happening in a democratic country, governed by the rule of law. On this occasion, the venue has put out a mealy-mouthed statement, blaming the cancellation on the fact that a number of key staff, including management and box office personnel, “are unwilling to work on this event”. They say they are ensuring that their employees’ views are respected, a position that suggests those views are reasonable.

They are not. Every time this happens, the objections are based on things the victims of no-platforming have not said. None of the individuals who have been targeted, who include poets and authors as well as politicians, have called for legal rights to be removed from transgender people. They have not demanded that trans people should lose their jobs, be prevented from holding meetings or stopped from carrying out academic research. They are simply upholding the rights of another group, women and especially lesbians, to whom all these things are being done in the name of “trans rights”. 

Let me repeat that key point. None of the individuals who have been targeted have called for legal rights to be removed from transgender people. We keep being told that’s what’s happening, and we keep pointing out that it’s not.

The framing is deliberate because the reality — forcing women to accept biological males in women’s sports, refuges, changing rooms, toilets and prisons — doesn’t sound so appealing. At protests organised by trans activists, we don’t see placards demanding “let men use women’s toilets now” or “make women share cells with rapists”. Instead, we see banners claiming that feminists are calling for “genocide” and comparing a belief in biological sex to Nazi eugenics. 

The truth is not a crowd-pleaser, so they lie about us instead. How progressive.

Lauren Smith at Spiked tells us:

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ordered the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust to release details of its communication with Mermaids. In 2021, a concerned parent made a Freedom of Information request to see what, if any, correspondence there had been between the Tavistock and Mermaids – including emails or minutes of meetings. Initially, the Tavistock refused to comply, arguing that doing so would cause ‘a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress’. When the ICO asked the Tavistock to justify its refusal, the Tavistock took back its original excuse and instead claimed that there was no relevant information to hand over.

I’m fascinated to learn that the Tavistock thinks it can refuse a Freedom of Information request on the grounds that it’s irritating. No you’re irritating.

In a judgement published at the end of March, the ICO ruled that the Tavistock most likely does hold information relevant to the request. And if it does not present this information by the end of this week, the Tavistock trust could face a fine for contempt of court.

But that would cause irritation.

Whistleblowers at the Tavistock have long tried to warn the public about its relationship with Mermaids. Sue Evans, a mental-health nurse and psychotherapist at the Tavistock between 2003 and 2007, claimed that Mermaids and similar charities were always ‘involved in helping formulate the materials that the service used, [and] how to talk about things’.

Another Tavistock whistleblower, Sonia Appleby, also mentioned Mermaids by name during an employment tribunal in 2021. According to Appleby, there were a number of Tavistock staff who were concerned about the influence of Mermaids and similar organisations. Pressure from the trans lobby, she said, had led clinicians to become increasingly ideological. This made them more likely to affirm children in their belief that they were ‘born in the wrong body’.

See that’s the whole damn thing in a nutshell. On the one hand the ideologues insist being trans is a real, documented, physical, in the body thing – read this Scientific American article, it proves it!! – and on the other hand the medical people are coached and lobbied and pressured and pushed by the pack of deranged fundamentalists that is Mermaids. It’s real, it’s science, and Mermaids is our Leader.

MPs acting like high school bullies. In public.

They’re snickering about Joanna Cherry.

The Sydney Morning Herald is distraught because a man is not allowed to join a women’s basketball team.

Transgender athlete Lexi Rodgers will be given advice and support by Basketball Australia if she chooses to reapply to join a women’s semi-professional league after her application was denied on Tuesday.

That is, a man who claims to be a woman will be given advice and support by Basketball Australia if he chooses to reapply to join a women’s semi-professional league after his application was denied on Tuesday.

Why? Why should he be given advice and support? He shouldn’t be trying to join a women’s league in the first place. Tell him to knock it off and go away. Support the women for a change.

Look at what a deplorable terf I am. How did I get this way? Why am I so heartless and cruel toward my trans sisters?

I can explain how. It’s this shit, repeated a billion times over the past ten years or so. How did the people who think all this is just fine get this way? Why are they so indifferent about the women who are being harmed by this bizarre belief system?

Rodgers said on social media that she was saddened by the decision, but says it is not the end of her journey as an athlete. Basketball legend Andrew Gaze backed Basketball Australia’s process, but said he was disappointed for Rodgers.

Why? Men don’t get to play on women’s teams. Everyone knows why.

Rodgers put out a statement on Instagram saying his passion for basketball motivates him to play to the best of his abilities “against the toughest competitors at the highest levels.”

But if that were true he wouldn’t be trying to join a women’s league. Women are smaller than men, and not as strong, and not as fast. That’s why sports have to be divided by sex. Women aren’t “the toughest competitors,” because their bodies have to do the work of childbearing rather than the work of getting balls into nets. Rodgers is just lying when he says his love of the game inspires him to take on the toughest competitors.

Australia v women part 2.

In the article targeted by the eSafety Commissioner, Reduxx had revealed that Dennis was one of as many as five trans-identified male players currently competing against women in Football New South Wales competitions. An initial report from The Daily Mail Australia had chosen not to identify him when reporting on the injuries he was alleged to have caused, censoring images of him and declining to provide his name.

Thus making it easier for Riley Dennis to continue injuring women, and making it harder for women to know how to avoid injury from him. Protect the man doing the injuring at the expense of the women being injured – outstanding police work there chief!

In addition to Smith and Reduxx, pro-woman Reddit alternative Ovarit also received a censorship notice from the eSafety Commissioner.

Nothing is too good for Riley. Riley must be protected from the evil women at all cost.

In addition to the censorship experienced by Smith, Reduxx, and Ovarit, concerned citizens and parents who have been participating in online discussions of Football New South Wales’ (FNSW) gender self-identification policy have been sent threatening “notices” urging them to remove social media posts.

A community that opposes the admission of males into female sports categories has congregated at the Facebook-based NSW NPL Banter Page.

A representative for the page spoke anonymously with Reduxx to confirm that there had been multiple reports from concerned individuals that the sporting authority had been warning critics that they may be “sanctioned” for their comments and posts on social media.

Men should stay tf out of women’s sports. Come at me, Australia.

Now we’re not allowed to talk about it. Genevieve Gluck at Reduxx:

An Australian woman was reported to police after making posts on social media about a male who identifies as transgender participating in the women’s football league. Kirralie Smith was visited by New South Wales Police after speaking to media about Riley Dennis, a trans activist who had been the subject of mass complaint last month after reportedly injuring female players.

Police visited Smith on March 30 and handed her an Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) requiring that she does not discuss or approach Dennis – despite the fact that Smith lives over 200 miles from Dennis. The AVO acts as an interim order that will stand until a hearing later this month, at which point the court will decide whether it is justified.

So now the police are ordering women to shut up about men who are invading women’s sports and physically harming them.

It’s insane. Just fucking insane.

Included among the stipulations of the AVO lodged against Smith by Dennis are prohibitions against electronic harassment. As a result, her statements on social media have come under legal scrutiny and, in some cases, have been censored by an arm of the Australian government dedicated to combatting “cyber abuse.”

On February 20, Smith’s public Facebook page was removed at the request of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant. Smith had set up the page in 2016 and used the platform to advocate for the rights of women and girls being harmed by gender identity policies. At the time of its deletion, Smith’s page had over 47,000 followers.

What about the eSafety, and real world safety, of women? What about the threat Riley Dennis poses to women? Why aren’t the police and Julie Inman Grant worried about that? Why are men allowed to steal women’s sports and bash the women who persist in continuing to play, while women are punished for talking about it?

The actions taken against Smith by eSafety Commissioner Grant are not the first instances of a government-endorsed push to digitally protect Dennis.

Last week, Reduxx was contacted by the eSafety Commissioner and advised to censor or delete an article naming Dennis as having been the subject of complaint after he was alleged to have injured female players during a match in March.

Riley Dennis is a current active threat to women. Why is Australian officialdom intent on protecting him and thus putting women at even greater risk?

The Times has more on Killips’s cheating.

A victory by a transgender cyclist in an elite women’s race has prompted renewed criticism of the UCI’s eligibility rules.

Austin Killips took the title of “Queen of the Mountains” after winning the Tour of the Gila in the United States, a five-stage race that is sanctioned by the UCI, cycling’s international governing body. It is the biggest cycle race won by a transgender rider so far.

Unlike swimming or athletics, the UCI permits trans women who have gone through male puberty to take part in elite women’s events if they have had reduced testosterone levels of 2.5 nanomoles per litre for the previous two years (men usually have ten to 35nmol/l, while a woman’s natural level is usually 0.5 to 2.4nmol/l).

It’s so stupid. Reduced testosterone doesn’t erase all the physical advantages, to put it mildly. This never should have been allowed, not for a second. It just underlines the fundamental indifference to female people that seems to be baked in.

Alison Sydor, a Canadian who was a cycling cross-country world champion and Olympic silver-medal winner, said on Twitter that the UCI’s transgender rules “are not fair to female athletes” and were “passed with no discussion [or] consultation with the people who have to live with these rules today”.

Naturally not; they’re female, so [yawwwwwwn]

[Killips] said on Instagram after winning the tour: “After a week of nonsense on the internet I’m especially thankful to everyone in the peloton and sport who continue to affirm that Twitter is not real life. I love my peers and competitors and am grateful for every opportunity I get to learn and grow as a person and athlete on course together.”

Pig. That “nonsense on the internet” is women objecting to the unfairness of this horrible man taking their prizes.

Another American cyclist, Hannah Arensman, said in a document submitted to a US court that she had retired from the sport after finishing in fourth place behind Killips in the US’s National Cyclocross Championships in November. Footage of the race shows Killips at one point pushing Arensman over as she attempts to overtake.

But that’s just “nonsense on the internet,” right?

Oliver Brown at The Telegraph on the latest outrage:

In what has been described as a “Lia Thomas moment” for cycling, Austin Killips, a 27-year-old transgender rider, has won first prize for women at the Tour of the Gila, the premier road race in New Mexico.

It marked the most significant result yet for Killips, a trans-identifying biological male from Chicago, who also won a medal in women’s cyclo-cross at the US National Championships and who is now tipped to challenge for a place at the Tour de France Femmes and at next summer’s Paris Olympics.

Another man steals another prize from women, and hopes to steal more.

This year’s running of the Tour of the Gila marked the first time in the event’s 36-year history that equal prize money had been offered, with a total purse of $35,350 (£28,145) in both the men’s and women’s races. Killips, who only took up cycling in 2019 before starting on hormone replacement therapy, earned almost £8,000 for finishing top of the women’s general classification, plus an £800 bonus as “Queen of the Mountains”.

Equal prize money for men and women but hahahahaha we’re counting men as women if they tell us to so actually all the money goes to men hahahahaha sucks to be you, bitches.

Killips’ name first came to wider attention in March, after being cited by former cyclo-cross champion Hannah Arensman in a Supreme Court filing explaining why she was retiring from the sport at 24. Arensman had lost out on a podium place to Killips in the national finals in December, later accusing her transgender opponent of repeatedly shoving her during the race – a claim Killips denied.

He denied it despite the existence of video clips showing him doing it.

“I have decided to end my cycling career,” Arensman said. “My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him during the race. I feel for young girls learning to compete, who no longer have a fair chance at being the new record-holders and champions in cycling because men want to compete in our division.”

Amid the Killips controversy, Thompson, who came third at the women’s Tour de France in 1986 and 1989, argued that the pattern was becoming more common. “These women are young, and there’s a lot of bullying,” she said. “They get cancelled, they get silenced, their jobs are threatened. They get put on the TERF [trans-exclusionary radical feminist] list. If they say anything, they are eviscerated. And so, instead of fighting this, they just walk away.”

…

With results rapidly improving, Killips is allowed to compete as a consequence of the UCI’s liberal [anti-woman] transgender policy, which stands starkly at odds with World Athletics’ approach of banning all post-puberty males from the female category.

Flagrant injustice.

Dear _____, it has come to our attention that there is a show going on next month in your basement showcasing three women. Why is this being allowed in your venue? Why did you not seek our permission before inviting these witches to say words? Who do you think you are? Who do they think they are?

The Inquisitor General will be paying you a visit shortly. Have all your papers ready.

It’s like mission creep on steroids, or to put it another way, it’s like doing the opposite of your mission while pretending to be still doing the mission. It’s flashing a surface version of the existing mission while in reality throwing the mission out of a window at the top of the Burj Khalifa.

The WI’s new incloosion policy is what I mean.

I wonder who came up with it, and forced it on the entire organization. I wonder how much dissent and fury there was. I wonder how many women left. I wonder why the people who did this thought it was necessary. I wonder why guilt and shame didn’t stop them.

Why have a women’s institute at all if you’re going to turn it into a people’s institute? Why go on calling it a women’s institute when you’ve issued a policy statement saying it isn’t? Why try to have it both ways? Why go on calling it the WI when it isn’t for W any more?

Revisiting the EDI Policy…

The WI was founded on democratic ideals over 100 years ago and this commitment
to equality is still central to our ethos today. The WI – the UK’s largest women’s
membership organisation – is an inclusive, welcoming, supportive and progressive
organisation for all women who live as women, including transgender women.

First sentence. Democratic ideals are not the same thing as commitment to equality. Being founded on democratic ideals isn’t the same thing as having a commitment to equality. Policy statements should be clear and precise, not woolly and obscure.

But above all I want to know what they mean by “live as women.” It’s irritating me, not knowing. I for one don’t “live as a woman” so I guess I wouldn’t be eligible for the WI. I am a woman, but apparently that’s not good enough?

But since I don’t know what “live as a woman” means I guess I could be wrong; I guess it’s possible that I do live as woman without knowing it.

I wonder if it means checkable externals? A list of things like what you wear, how you talk, how you spend your time? Or does it mean you have announced that you are a woman, and bullied a minimum of twenty people into saying yes indeed you are a woman?

I don’t know. I don’t know what the WI means. I wonder if the WI knows what it means.

Yes sure it’s fine for staff to refuse to work if Those People are on the premises.

So, like this?

The Women’s Institute has a new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy as of this month.

NFWI Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy

1. Introduction
   The WI was founded on democratic ideals over 100 years ago and this commitment
   to equality is still central to our ethos today. The WI – the UK’s largest women’s
   membership organisation – is an inclusive, welcoming, supportive and progressive
   organisation for all women who live as women, including transgender women.

So there you go. It’s explicitly spelled out. Women are people who “live as women” and that includes men. It also excludes a fuck of a lot of women.

WI membership is open to all women who live as women, including transgender
women. The WI welcomes and celebrates a diverse cross-section of women, offering
a space where they can be themselves surrounded by other supportive women. We
do not ask members any personal questions as part of the joining process and are
committed to ensuring all members are treated fairly and equally whatever their
background or individual circumstances

Or sex. The WI is for women and it’s committed to pretending men are women and to protecting men from rude women who might ask rude questions about what men are doing in the WI.

Being a WI member means:
• Upholding the core values and ideals of the WI which are fellowship, truth,
tolerance, and justice.

Truth?

They’ve certainly fallen down on that one.

We also have a duty of care to all WI members, who have the right to feel safe and
protected within our organisational structure.

Except women, of course. Women don’t have the right to feel safe and protected within the organisational structure of the WI.

The WI is an inclusive, supportive, and progressive organisation for all women who live as women, including transgender women. Transgender women are those [who are] assigned male at birth but live as women, and are welcome to join the WI and participate in WI activities in the same way as any other woman.

But transgender women aren’t “any other woman”; they are men.

What does “live as women” even mean?

The WI provides women with educational opportunities and the platform to campaign on issues that matter to them and their communities whilst always celebrating what it means to be a woman. Therefore, including transgender women furthers our objectives and enriches our membership to ensure we are a place for all women to celebrate who they are and influence positive change in their communities.

“Therefore”? I’m not seeing the logic.

The WI is focused on supporting women through every stage of their lives. Therefore, our members will include women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or who have recently given birth, and it is important these women are supported. For example, this may mean ensuring women feel able to bring their baby to WI meetings and providing a quiet space where members can breastfeed or express milk where possible. Talking to members about this is the best way to ensure their needs are met.

Such women will surely welcome men joining them in the quiet space to watch them breastfeed or express milk, as long as those men are “living as women.”

I hope millions of women leave the WI over the next few weeks.

Stephen Daisley at the Spectator notes that trans ideology is more religion than it is political activism.

The censoring of Adult Human Female dramatises a tension between how progressives see themselves and the material reality of their ideology. By progressive, I don’t mean left-wing or radical in the traditional sense, but a political inclination that crosses party lines and places inordinate emphasis on identity, language, subjectivity and emotional fragility.

Especially emotional fragility. Trans people – especially trans women, i.e. men – are framed as crystal-like in their fragility. Maudlin anguish flows everywhere at the possibility that a trans woman might have to hear the word “No.”

These impulses are sometimes conflated with wokeness but I prefer the term ‘coercive progressivism’, because it leans into the tension I am talking about. While progressives believe themselves to be in the vanguard of modernity, advancing equity and autonomy, both their ideology and their methods are reactionary and authoritarian. They represent the loudest and most influential moral crusade Britain has seen since the days of Mary Whitehouse and her campaign to ‘Clean up TV’. 

The new progressive orthodoxy on gender is really an old orthodoxy repackaged. Womanhood is reduced from material fact to emotional feeling — plus dresses and hair and make-up. Men who identify into womanhood not only get to rewrite the boundaries of that sex-determined class but are sometimes said to be ‘more of a woman’ than women who reject gender ideology. Female sex-based rights are undermined by redefining ‘sex’ to mean a legal fiction that is conflated with sex. Women’s legal advancements are a threat to men and children once again, with gender dysphoria replacing marriage and family as the victim. 

The methods used to advance this ideology are familiar: revealed truth, historical revisionism, institutional power, regulation of speech and conscience, and the shaming of heretics. Coercive progressivism is a forwards-facing reversion and nowhere more so than in the politics of sex and gender.

I would add to that list of methods extreme frantic histrionic rage and grief, hatred and contempt for women, and relentless lying.

Having confronted the sins and hypocrisies of organised religion, and partly dismantled the culture it shaped, we are now erecting a new culture shaped by faith. The new moral code has its own catechism, saints and unquestionable priests. Its gospel is taught in schools and its doctrines enforced by law and social convention. It preaches the supernatural as inerrant truth, assails empirical inquiry as blasphemy, demands deference to unfalsifiable claims, and, of course, has a major problem with women who don’t behave themselves. 

…
The new moralists use different language – demanding affirmation rather than virtue, damning hatred instead of obscenity – but the impulses and the effects are not dissimilar. Where the Society for the Suppression of Vice seized ‘obscene’ books, the Society for the Suppression of Terfs tries to prevent ‘hate’ books being published in the first place. Where the National Legion of Decency got American Catholics to pledge to boycott ‘all indecent and immoral motion pictures’ and the cinemas that screened them, the National Legion of #Kindness blocks the entrances to theatres showing hateful and phobic flicks. Mary Whitehouse never died, she just got younger and coloured her hair pink. 

He’s right.

Another day another burn the witch!! cancel the woman!!

Let’s read the Times article.

An event featuring a prominent MP who has been outspoken in the bitter debate about trans rights has been cancelled by the Edinburgh Fringe’s biggest comedy club.

Joanna Cherry was due to take part in an “In conversation with . . . ” discussion at The Stand’s New Town Theatre during the summer.

But she has been “no platformed” after staff at the venue, including management and box office personnel, said they would not be comfortable working at the show.

Otherwise known as the heckler’s veto. Normally hecklers are in the audience as opposed to on the staff, but the effect is the same.

Last week, the screening of Adult Human Female, a women’s rights documentary, was cancelled for a second time at Edinburgh University. The film, which asserts that women are defined solely by their biological sex, was disrupted by hundreds of pro-trans protesters.

Heckler’s veto in advance.

I see Joanna Cherry calls it that herself, but I hadn’t read that far down the page when I said it. I’m so tired of all these hecklers vetoing feminism.

The Telegraph:

The NHS Tavistock gender clinic has been threatened with court action by the information regulator after failing to reveal its relationship with Mermaids.

The Trust claimed in response to Freedom of Information requests from a parent that it “does not hold” emails or minutes of meetings between staff and the controversial charity, which has been accused of putting pressure on staff to transition children.

The matter was referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which has now ruled that “on the balance of probabilities”, the Trust does have relevant emails.

Well that’s a good look. It seems the Tavistock is not just refusing to hand over requested information, but also lying about it. Gender ideology is not good for the morals.

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has until the end of this week to conduct fresh searches and provide a new response or the ICO could write to the High Court and the issue “may be dealt with as a contempt of court”. If found guilty of contempt the Trust could face a fine.

And, one would hope, yet more damage to its reputation.

The trans clinic is due to close after concerns were raised about its treatment and an independent review found that it was “not a safe and viable option”.

It has since emerged that staff from the controversial clinic will be involved in setting up and training staff at the new regional centres which will replace it. The Tavistock was originally ordered to close this spring but is still operating.

Jeezus. “We’re shutting you down because you are fanatics bent on destroying children’s futures; please train your replacements.”

Mermaids’ influence on the Tavistock was cited by some whistleblowers as one of the reasons why it lost its way, with claims that activists put pressure on clinicians to affirm children’s belief that they were trans and to prescribe potentially life-altering drugs.

If only Mermaids had instead named itself Goblins or Child-eating Dragons.

The FOI request asked for details of emails sent between Ms Green and Trust staff and records, notes, or minutes of any meetings with the charity boss between 2014 and 2018.

The Tavistock originally refused to provide the information under a section of the law which allows them to deny “requests which have the potential to cause a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress”.

But when the ICO asked them to justify that refusal, the Trust withdrew it and said instead that following “an extensive search of emails … the Trust does not hold the requested information”.

Jeeeeeeeeeeeezus. How do they get away with this crap??

“We don’t want to give you these emails, you won’t like them.”

“You have to.”

“We can’t find them!”

Very convincing.

It is not the first time issues with the Tavistock’s FOI responses have been raised, and in 2021 the Board of Directors was told that all requests relating to the gender identity clinics for both adults and children were being “hampered”.

Communications staff had to clear all requests and they had “not approved GIC responses with waiting list data due to poor performance and the potential reputational impact”, meeting minutes show.

A spokesman for the Trust said: “We have noted the ICO’s recent decision and are proactively working toward supplying the relevant data before the deadline.”

Why weren’t they “proactively working toward” doing that already? What do they mean “proactively”? What do they mean “working toward”?

Man steals first prize in women’s cycling race.

Austin Killips (Amy D Foundation) won the fifth and final stage of the Tour of the Gila women’s race on Sunday, sealing the overall victory in the process.

Of course he did: because he’s a man.

Marcela Prieto (Pato Bike BMC), who won the opening stage and wore the leader’s jersey until Killips moved into the lead after the stage 3 time trial, settled for runner-up honors on the final stage. 

She had to, because Killips was allowed to compete in a women’s race.

Women speak.

Men assault.