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ome, car, career and marriage. All this, and yet I cannot sue the surgeon responsible—in part because there is no structured, tested or widely accepted baseline for transgender health care.

Read that again: There is no structured, tested, or widely accepted baseline for transgender health care. Not for 42-year-olds, and not for the many minors embarking on medical transition in record numbers. It is not transphobic or discriminatory to discuss this—we as a society need to fully understand what we are encouraging our children to do to their bodies.

Throughout transition, I second-guessed my decisions, but each counseling session and doctor's appointment amounted to one more push convincing me I could be cured of being born in the wrong body. The truth was that I didn't fit in as a dominant, aggressive, assertive lesbian. The dream of finally fitting in dangled like a carrot: The idea that I could fit in catapulted me to a time much like adolescence, with its drive for acceptance, inclusive peers and the fantasy of being normal.

During my post-operation 17 months of sheer survival, I discovered that transgender health care is experimental and that large swaths of the medical industry encourage minors to transition due, at least in part, to fat profit margins. I was gobsmacked. Each day I researched more and became increasingly appalled. As I jumped from ER to ER desperately seeking help, I realized that nobody knew what to do. Each physician told me to return to the original surgeon. I was trapped like a child with an abusive parent.

Obviously the situation here in the UK is very different, but the message is clear enough.

So here I am, a trans man, sifting through my good and bad decisions, and for the first time embracing who I am—what I have created, and the life I now lead. It took me 48 years to realize I transitioned because I never wholeheartedly accepted being a lesbian. Our children don't have a prayer to embrace the reality of something it takes a lifetime to understand. That's our job, as parents: to protect them from foolish, lifelong mistakes.

That's it: "I transitioned because I never wholeheartedly accepted being a lesbian".

And this is a woman-to-man transition. Imagine a man-to-woman transition, where – if you go the full monty, as it were – it must surely be as bad if not worse.

, from the 1964 TAMI Show, where the cape routine is worked almost to death.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vruy2GRUsV8&w=550&h=309]

Surprisingly, even the London Review of Books took notice:

Danny Ray, who died last week, spent forty-odd years as James Brown’s valet and body man. Off stage, he was in charge of the band’s uniforms. On stage, he was Brown’s master of ceremonies and ‘cape man’. It was a job that didn’t exist until Ray joined Brown’s entourage, in 1960 or 1961. When they recorded Live at the Apollo in 1962, Ray’s work with the cape may or may not have been a centrepiece of Brown’s act. By the time they appeared on the T.A.M.I. Show in 1964, it most certainly was.

The T.A.M.I. Show was directed by Steve Binder, who went on to make Elvis Presley’s 1968 ‘comeback special’. Shot at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and released in cinemas, the concert featured, among others, Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, and a few British Invasion acts. Brown had just scratched the Top Twenty, and then only once, a year earlier, with a cover of the old Russ Colombo song ‘Prisoner of Love’. Still, he expected to close the show. ‘Nobody follows me,’ he said. ‘Actually,’ Binder said, ‘we’ve got the Rolling Stones.’

Keith Richards said it was the biggest mistake of their career, coming on after James Brown.

On the T.A.M.I. Show, the frenzy and drive…coalesce near the seven-minute mark [that's the seven-minute mark of the whole 18 minute TAMI Show set – MH]. Back on his feet, Brown sings ‘Please, Please, Please’ – the title of the Flames’ first single, released nine years earlier. A minute later, he’s on his knees again. The backing singer Bobby Bennett walks over and pats Brown’s back, as you would a baby’s. Dressed in a dark, immaculate suit, Ray walks out of the wings and drapes a long cape over Brown’s shoulders. ‘You’ve done enough,’ the gesture says. ‘You’ve done more than enough.’

This is high drama: Brown takes nine or ten steps away from the microphone – and throws the cape off. The show must go on! Bennett leads him back to the mic, where he sings a few bars and collapses again. They repeat the process time and again. In the background, the audience loses its mind.

Is this an indication of how things will be now at the LRB, after editor Mary-Kay Wilmers has finally stepped down? That would be very welcome. Wilmers had a strong animus against Israel, publishing stuff about the Israel lobby, and under her the LRB became a mouthpiece for that kind of smug academic British anti-American sentiment exemplified by Mary Beard's letter after 9/11 suggesting that the Americans pretty much had it coming.

But I digress. RIP Danny Ray.

The Heath this morning:

e the issues swirling around Shi Zhingli, Wuhan’s famed expert known as “Batwoman” for her sample-gathering trips in southern China, that have raised suspicions after being winkled out by Drastic, a group of researchers and scientists. Her actions include claiming three miners died of a fungal infection in 2012, when it later emerged they died from a respiratory disease similar to Covid that they caught clearing bat droppings in one of those caves. She obscured a link to their fatalities when publishing an influential Nature paper about the closest known relative to Sars-Cov-2 — and altered the name of this virus without mention of her action in that paper, widely taken as indication of natural transmission. Now she pushes ideas of transmission by mink and, yes, frozen food. […]

That charade of a press conference — after 12 days wandering around Wuhan that included visiting a propaganda exhibition celebrating China’s recovery — was simply embarrassing. There is also a major flaw in the logic expressed at the event. The WHO stance is based on placing faith in China, despite all the evidence that this is a state that cannot be trusted — whether lying about its horrific treatment of minorities in Xinjiang, breaking a historic deal with Britain to protect freedom in Hong Kong or silencing noble doctors trying to alert the world to looming disaster. Yet if a leak was covered up, is it possible to trust such a government? So if WHO is ruling out the likelihood of a laboratory accident, it must immediately release all data and evidence supporting its case.

Not much chance of the doing that, I'm afraid. Case closed as far as the lab leak hypothesis goes.

Update: from the comments. That Ian Birrell article has been blocked by Facebook – "This post repeats information about Covid-19 that independent fact-checkers say is false".

Update 2: according to this Douglas Murray piece, Facebook have apologised and reinstated the piece.

p style=”padding-left: 40px”>A policy document released this week states that staff should not stop using the word “woman” or other terms describing motherhood but they should consciously start adding in the word “people” and other more inclusive language.

It says: “Gender identity can be a source of oppression and health inequality. We are consciously using the words ‘women’ and ‘people’ together to make it clear that we are committed to working on addressing health inequalities for all those who use our services….

“We also recognise that there is currently biological essentialism and transphobia present within elements of mainstream birth narratives and discourse. We strive to protect our trans and non-binary service users and healthcare professionals from additional persecution as a consequence of terminology changes, recognising the significant impact this can have on psychological and emotional wellbeing."

There's that "biological essentialism" again. Otherwise known as science.

Walker Evans – March 1936. "Photographer's window of penny portraits. Birmingham, Alabama."

[Photo: Shorpy/Walker Evans for the Resettlement Administration]

A notably white clientele, but I suppose that's no surprise.

Click on the image to view full size at Shorpy.

ne of 15 people killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in 2001. The female terrorist who masterminded the attack, Ahlam Tamimi, was released from jail in a prisoner exchange in 2011 and went to live in Jordan, where she became a celebrated media personality.

Last year, BBC Arabic broadcast a fawning interview with the convicted terrorist. Incensed, Roth complained and won an apology from Jamie Angus, head of the World Service. Roth suspected, however, that this was not an aberration but a symptom of a rotten culture at the heart of the licence-fee-funded Arabic channel.

The investigation appears to confirm this view. In one key finding, it emerged that while BBC English reported on 34 fatal terror attacks on Israeli civilians between 2015 and 2020, the Arabic service covered just 25 of these, seriously downplaying Palestinian violence.

One effect of this, of course, is that Arab-speaking audiences are groomed to react with magnified outrage when Israel mounts a military response, having been blinded to the provocations that caused it.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. In addition, the channel has used Hamas-inspired language, such as calling Jerusalem the ‘occupied city’ and the army the ‘Israeli Occupation Forces’. 

The situation isn't helped by, for instance, the employment of a journalist who had previously worked for Hezbollah in-house TV channel Al-Manar.

Across the Middle East, Arab countries are making peace with the Jewish state. So far, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have made the move, with others – including Saudi Arabia – strongly considering joining them. This has created a fresh atmosphere of cordiality in the region, with polls showing that Arab public opinion of Israel is beginning to thaw.

Many Arabic-language outlets, like Dubai-based Al Arabiya, are reflecting this new reality, properly informing the public of the historic change and allowing it to flourish. Sadly, it seems that the BBC – powered as it is by hard-earned cash from ordinary Britons – is standing in the way of this progress.

And using our money to do so.

nglish and helping me settle down," she said. "Until now, I have been working for the human rights of other defectors and now I want to work for all U.K. citizens."

However, her chances of winning are not high because Manchester is a staunchly Labour city and Holyrood has few Korean residents.

"I don't mind if I don't get elected," she said. "I just want to give hope to other defectors and refugees that they can do it too. I hope more people challenge themselves after I do."

Park was born in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province and fled North Korea in 1998, when the reclusive state was ravaged by famine. She was sold off to a farmer in China for W750,000 and gave birth to his son (US$1=W1,121).

But then she was caught by police and sent back to the North in 2004, where she ended up in a labor camp. She fled the North again six months later to see her son back in China, and together they went to the U.K. where they were given asylum in 2008.

Good luck to her.

ale experience and think it’s not just different to men’s but different for women of different ethnicities and classes, you will be called a bigot. Your job as a woman, unlike a man’s, is to include everyone, all the time.

Self-sacrifice always. Don’t speak for oneself ladies! Even if you are thick skinned enough to go into politics, questioning the idea that women should maintain legal right based on biological sex is a no- no. This is most definitely the wrong way to be a woman, and it is apparently not welcome in the Green Party, the SNP or the Labour Party. Joanna Cherry, a lesbian who has fought for women's rights all her life has been pushed out of the SNP for “unacceptable behaviour”.

Another very wrong way to be a woman is to think of yourself as more than a collection of body parts: lactators, menstruators, birthers, cervix havers. You do have to wonder what the word “woman” even means now that some organisations have banned us from saying it altogether.

One thing is clear though – if you are a woman the message you receive from birth is that you are pretty much always doing it wrong. That you will never be good enough. 

Of course we can unite around all kinds of differences, and let them flourish. But these are differences that need to be acknowledged and talked about. Not brushed away in a simple ‘inclusive’ virtue signalling slogan. Otherwise we are left with a regurgitation of patent nonsense and the denial of women’s embodied experience. Womanhood becomes reduced to just an individual choice.

I sure as hell don’t need the UN telling me that I am doing OK. I will keep challenging this utter gibberish because doing womanhood “wrong” is my absolute right.

and actors that created chaos and repression on the ground. Compared to the aggressive gambles of Iran, Saudi Arabia—which led the other Middle Eastern bloc and was engaged in a canny balancing of its own radicals while assisting the United States’ war on terror— was a small-stakes player. […]

The human detritus of Malley’s subordinations piled up quickly. Four-hundred-thousand people died in Syria; 4 or 5 million more were refugeed. Iranian protesters were jailed; its women stoned; relatives of dissidents coerced into denouncing them on camera. Hamas and Hezbollah continued to receive funding from Iran as they inflicted terror on Israel and disorder on Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia responded to Iran’s expansion of influence with pivots of its own. Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, has now been raised to de facto kingship, and this crown prince, at 35, plays an aggressive game with ambiguous outcomes: domestic liberalization, a war in Yemen that has cost 100,000 lives and counting, the sharp curtailing of the kingdom’s old intrafamily governing approach in favor of something more centralized, and the ostentatious execution of the former Saudi intelligence officer Jamal Khashoggi. Almost the only beneficiary of the Malley-McGurk-Obama plan in this region, ironically enough, turned out to be Israel: The Gulf states and the conservative monarchies have rushed to ally with the Jewish state to stave off the challenge of Iran.

Not quite what the progressives had in mind. Nevertheless the policies must be continued, it seems, despite the continued suffering of the people of Iran and Syria, and despite the evidence that ordinary Iranians, desperate to be rid of the mullahs, actually preferred Trump's hardline strategy.