this is very important to do this work and expose bad science, but i don't want us to get trapped on a losing battlefield the issue here isn't scientific at all it is not a matter of medical evidence there is no "correct" way to do this sort of reviews a 🧵

They are going to ban or severely restrict care for trans adults in the UK , getting exactly the outcomes MAGA wants in the US, but they'll be more successful because they're tying it up in process and review and 'science' and 'dignity and respect'.

The trans moral panic, and related issues around neurodiversity, chronic illness etc, is an attempt to reassert a patriarchal understanding of power where patriarchal ('adults' and 'experts') get to define reality for others by virtue of their position.

The reviews searched over 12,000 references. They screened 547 full-text papers for inclusion. They included 17. That's a 96.9% exclusion rate at full text. 530 studies were relevant enough to survive initial screening, then rejected by the review criteria. 6/10 reviews found 0 included studies.

Do get involved in this - super exciting to be helping organise, and looking forward to seeing what people come up with!🕯️

Yesterday the NHS banned all under 18 prescriptions of HRT for trans young people. This ban was justified by 10 new studies that largely stated NO EVIDENCE for under 18s HRT exists. The study underpinning this played one particular trick. Let's briefly look at how the NHS rigged the game 1/5

thank you to Sharon for brining to my attention that since at least 2012, Marco Rubio has confused Chiang Kai-shek for something he imagined: www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/m...

'We think' doing a lot of work here. There's a version of the Christian platonism vs Gnosticism argument in the background here, where Cass et al see themselves as understanding the proper ends of bodies as opposed to the distorted, heretical view they attribute to 'trans activists'

Bleak week for news again, eh?

Oh, wait, this is the dynamic. Cass et. al. think that 'gender questioning' young people can be made 'trans' by coddling them, just as conservative Christians think 'young people with same sex attraction' can be made 'gay'.

Again reminding people that until very recently 'same sex attraction' was a term you only really found in conservative Christian circles as a way to mark people 'struggling with same sex attraction' as something different and better than 'gay people'

Oh, look where the 'biological womanhood' framing is cropping up now...

What's being proposed is horrific, demeaning, and ostracising for trans kids, and it's still not enough for these people becuase it allows a sliver of possibility for existing as a trans child. They wouldn't even be satisfied with a full ban because the concept of transness would still exist.

pure elite capture - the uk just folded to a hardline anti-trans campaign pushed by a tiny number of people www.thepinknews.com/2026/02/11/n...

Just imagine, today, if children got referred to "clinical support" if they expressed any interest in "gay feelings" with the Government saying that approval for them to be allowed to express being homosexual at school would only be likely in very limited circumstances. That's what this guidance is

Just feeling all kinds of ways about younger me and how much I wish I'd had language for what I was feeling and how awful it must be to have that language and reach out to an adult and then be told explicitly 'actually, no, we know better and are going to do deliberate social punishment'

So it took me until I was in my 30s to realise that the chronic depression and dissociation was gender dysphoria because of how effectively schools in the 90s and 00s seeded cisness as destiny. Guess that's better than allowing kids to be who they are.

We (trans safety network) met with Cass during her research on the Cass review and explained how clearly ridiculous it would be to try and bring haircuts and self expression under the authority of being a "medical intervention". She went away from that meeting and produced this crap anyway.

It's not just 'oh, the schools guidence discourages social transition' it's that the entire logic underpinning the thing is that it's somewhere between bad and impossible for a child to be trans, >

Literally saying that being gender critical overrides protections against harassment.

Oh ffs

It's worth noting that this was also a pretext to open up new services designed and run by people who push an unproven pseudoscientific "Gender Exploratory Therapy" model that has been likened to conversion therapy by international experts.

Transphobia is misogyny is transphobia is misogyny is transphobia is misogyny...

One aspect of FWS that has not been widely remarked on is the bald assertion by UKSC (para 178) that trans women can’t breastfeed. This is, of course, false. But this falsehood was part of the reasoning behind the claim that the Equality Act obviously has a trans-exclusionary understanding of sex.

Just had this served to me by Google - it's the BBC's 'guide to the debate' about trans rights and it is entirely framed in the language of gender criticism. Just entirely designed to make the GC arguments seem reasonable while being able to claim 'balance' www.bbc.com/news/article...

Also there's this thing where every time a woman is on to talk about sports she gets asked about inspiring a new generation of little girls to take up sports as if the function of women in sports is child rearing while the function of men in sports is celebrating after being a badass.

Lol. Lmao.

Manuscript: Submitted Brain: Fried As long as it's actually good, you might be able to read about Sacramental Trans Feminism in an honest to goodness book!

Genuinely think I might actually meet this deadline...

Genuinely think I might actually meet this deadline...

Don't suppose anyone will admit to having a Spectator subscription who can also tell me the artist of this cartoon? spectator.com/article/the-...

Read transphobic bbc report. Complain. Get told where to stick my complaint. Read transphobic bbc report. Repeat.

Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, post the second sentence. "What does the future hold for Snow White, however?" The Madwoman in the Attic - Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar.

Like 20 pages to go of this edit and I am exhausted. Also I really want to do another read through/edit but am worried that's pushing it before the deadline

Super excited to announce that I'm running another online trans theology conference, this time with @cdjtheology.bsky.social ! We're looking to connect theology with contemporary research in trans studies. 20th-21st Aug, with US-friendly timings londonjesuitcentre.churchsuite.com/events/wevpt...

Why are all online resources suddenly in ebook form? I need page numbers to cite!

Deadline is the end of this month and it's making my brain a bit strange.

So much of this book is like 'hey, here's a thing. It can be used in ways that lead to freedom and ways that leaf to oppression. Let's try deliberately using it for freedom?'

Me: carefully analysing the underlying logic of conservative theology and gender anxiety. This guy: just literally saying it out loud.

Thought I was done with this chapter. Actually needs a major restructure because I keep coming back to take bites out of Charles Kingsley and I should probably...eat him all at once? Gross.

Concerned that the rhetoric of the terrible article pitting trans rights against women's rights in the Church Times ensures that the pushback will be taken to prove the article's point (rather than as evidence that a broad base of people reject its premises...)

Seventeenth Century Danish Witch (or possibly 'wax effigy of a child')

Black Lace Veil Brides

I have a month to turn this into something coherent and rigorous. More coffee.

Hwæt! Tis the season when I repost my epic mashup of Beowulf and Dr. Seuss.

'audience research suggests that the language preferred by this group is confusing to some people, so instead we're just going to say slurs'

What does protection from discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment mean if the national broadcaster can determine that language near universally used to harass and exclude is the most neutral way of talking about trans people?

This isn't surprising, as I've already seen this kind of language used in statements aiming to be supportive following the SC ruling. Apparently we're all supposed to now pretend that the average person doesn't know what a trans person is without reference to agab.