Author: Mick Hartley

Janice Turner in the Times today:

It took under a minute for the Mermaids CEO, Susie Green, to declare on Newsnight that the High Court judgment on puberty blockers will cause a wave of child suicide. When Emily Maitlis replied that the Tavistock GIDS’ (gender identity development service) own website says that, thankfully, suicide is extremely rare and such talk is dangerous, Green replied: “I don’t think so, not when this is anecdotal.”

“Anecdotal” is all that Mermaids have left, along with fearmongering and quasi-religious belief. The judicial review was headed by the president of the Queen’s Bench Division, one of the country’s top judges, it considered thousands of pages of expert testimony, legal precedent and scientific data, before deciding that children lack capacity to consent to treatments which will remove their fertility and future sexual fulfilment.

No matter. Green put her own child on puberty blockers at 13, before genital surgery in Thailand at 16. To disavow this treatment now would be to admit a grave mistake. So she ploughs on, insisting other people’s children too need their bodies “correcting” before their minds are fully formed. Like 1950s lobotomies, paediatric transition is increasingly exposed as a grotesque medical fad. The temple is crumbling, but the high priestess retains her zeal.

One day, no doubt, someone will tell the extraordinary story of how Mermaids came to occupy such a powerful position here, influencing schools, businesses, and even the government with their trans nonsense. Never mind the turning around of years of gay liberation success with the homophobic notion that same-sex-attracted youngsters or youngsters not fitting gender stereotypes should undergo irreversible medical procedures to convert them to the other sex, there are the constant drum-beat claims  – as seen in this Newsnight interview – that denial of medical treatment will lead to mass suicides. How grotesque is that? – troubled children struggling with adolescence being told that if they're really serious about being gender dysphoric then they should prove it by being really serious about killing themselves, or threatening to kill themselves, if they don't get their way.

s considered his [legitimate] choice that must be respected, and you are not allowed to oppose this. However, if a man marries two women, it is considered backwardness. Yet, if he marries a woman along with a she-donkey it is considered to be artistic ingenuity. It is allowed for a woman to marry a man and a dog. […]

"What kind of a religion is this and why must we respect it? How are the Muslims expected to respect a civilization that unites humans with animals?"

"The dogs were shown into the bedroom"? What on earth has he been watching?

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Denying the religious element in Nigeria’s conflict defies credulity. We are writing to nullify this immoral status quo; the time has come to demand that those who promote this accepted narrative prove that religion plays no role in the ongoing slaughter.

Even efforts to acknowledge the complexity and “nuance” of the conflict convey more than a whiff of denialism. Take what John Campbell, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in 2019:

When Christians or Muslims are killed in the Middle Belt, it is not clear exactly why. Is it because they are a farmer or a herder? Or because they are ethnically Fulani, many of whom are herders, or of a small ethnic group, who are often farmers? Or is it because they are Muslims, which most Fulani are, or Christian, which those of many small ethnic groups are? These questions are not easily answered.

Perspectives such as Dr. Campbell’s unintentionally befog the facts on the ground and allow the world to avert its eyes from the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing. After all, there are virtually no Christian raids on Fulani to report. We were able to identify only one incident when the Christians under attack were even able to defend themselves. This is a one-sided, violent campaign, with the Fulani attacking the innocent in the dead of night. […]

Whether the Fulani are violent criminals or jihadi terrorists—or both—there is one indisputable fact here: The Nigerian government is failing to stop the bloodshed, and the determined apathy of the international community is aiding and abetting their indifference.

And, talking of Suzanne Moore, here are her reflections on yesterday's Keira Bell verdict:

Again, we must ask what is causing this misery for girls and why suicide rates are rising. Why are female bodies such an uncomfortable place to be?

That question needs to be thrown back to society and not always located in the psyche of the individual. This is why I find parts of trans activist discourse so totally conservative. There is no analysis of how gender operates, of how bodies and definitions do not exist in isolation, how the notion of a true self may itself be false.

So much thinking that underpins the trans ideology of selfhood, is that selfhood is sovereign rather than social. It has much more in common with right wing thinking than it does with left wing thinking. That so much of the left has rushed to embrace it is a sign of the times.

Yep. As has been said here often enough, the whole trans activist movement is a misogynist reaction dressed up in progressive clothing.

In Suzanne Moore's UnHerd piece, setting out at length why she felt she had to leave the Guardian, there's this tidbit about an unnamed "fellow columnist":

By 2018, the atmosphere was poisonous. A fellow columnist at The Guardian replied to a message I sent about being civil at the Christmas do with: “You’ve prompted the most sickening transphobia, for which you have never apologised, you called islamophobia a myth and you publicly abuse leftwingers.” This person went on to say that I felt insecure “because a new generation of younger leftists have caught the public mood”. I didn’t even understand the accusation of Islamophobia. More broadly, I understood that the possibility of a left-wing government was exciting, but unlike half the paper, I didn’t believe that Corbyn had actually won in 2017. I also didn’t like the macho, bullying culture around him propped up by writers at my place of work.

I complained to my editor about this person at the time but was told that as neither of us were on staff, nothing official could be done. Really?

So there we have it. Here comes the “new generation”: the new Left, same as the old Left. Full of misogyny, utter pricks and those with the emotional intelligence of whelks. Misogyny in the name of socialism. Again.

The latest Private Eye, out today, provides us with the columnist's name: Owen Jones. Of course.

at treatment does not itself understand the implications of giving that treatment?"

The reason being it does not collate data on that treatment.

Another question. In what other branch of medicine would an NHS be allowed to get away with such sloppy practice around data and evidence?

Why are children with gender dysphoria exempted from the usual safeguards?

Not only contrary to all notions of medical ethics, then – like "first do no harm" – but, it would seem, grossly incompetent as well.

See also, Transgender Trend:

The judgment is a damning indictment of clinical practice at the GIDS. The case was decided on facts and evidence known to the Tavistock, and ultimately on the lack of facts and the weakness of the evidence in the Tavistock’s defence. The GIDS lacked even basic data on children who had been given puberty blockers. […]

This is the result of a service that operates on the basis of ideology in place of clinical standards. The judgment raises the issue of medical negligence and our immediate concern is for the children who have already been through this medical system.

This case has shone a light on the worst and most unforgivable result of the institutional capture throughout society by the gender lobby: the medical experiment on children’s healthy bodies, with serious irreversible and lifelong consequences.

judgment showed "that a culture of unreality has become embedded in the Tavistock.

"This may have led to hundreds of children receiving this experimental treatment without their properly informed consent."

But not everyone's happy.

Lui Asquith, from trans children's charity Mermaids, said the ruling was a "devastating blow" and "a potential catastrophe for trans young people across the country".

What they mean is, a potential catastrophe for trans activist organisations like Mermaids. For confused young people, overwhelmed by the nonsense about gender dysphoria pumped out by Mermaids, Stonewall UK and the like, this is a welcome return to reality.

There's an interesting interview with Keira Bell at Woman's Place UK, published before today's ruling.

Russell Lee – May 1940. "Famous old bar in Tombstone, Arizona."

[Photo: Shorpy/Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration]

Still there.

se of stability. 

“With the situation being what it is, people are spending less and tightening their belts, despite going hungry,” said the source. “There are even wretched scenes of entire families starving to death in the streets, as poor residents have no choice but to sit around hungry.” 

According to him, a family of four froze to death in front of Musan Station on Nov. 24, their bodies lying on the ground in a line. Alerted by Ministry of Social Security personnel at the station, members from a county-affiliated patrol team wrapped the bodies in cloth and took them away to an undisclosed location.

The source said that security officials at Musan Station feel like the “cries of children from cold and hunger are never-ending around the station,” and that recently in Onsong, “Six urchins who snuck aboard a train heading south to where there’s food starved to death in the train as they were returning back to the province, after being caught by security personnel.”

A not very fairyland village in Musan County, North Hamgyong Province:

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Butlin’s Holiday Camp. County Meath. Mosney. Ireland. 1994. © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

County Mayo. Knock. Ireland. 1996. © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Dublin. Ireland. 1986. © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Dublin. Ballymun. Ireland. 1986. © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Innovation district. Dublin. Ireland. 2019. © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Flat White. Dublin. Ireland. 2019. © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Also included, some of Parr's images of Abandoned Morris Minors in the West of Ireland, which I covered here.