The Trans Agenda #21

[4 April 2024]

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Publications known for taking an anti-trans stance are and will be referenced and linked. Often, these are the most comprehensive sources for these stories because of their obsession with trans people. I give a summary for those stories so you can make the choice if you want to click the link or seek out more information elsewhere.

UPDATE: After some thought and feedback, I’ve made the decision to cut the Trans Agenda back to two days a week. There are a few reasons for this, but mostly it was taking over my life. As you saw, each issue was comprehensive and, due to my main job involving working most weekends, I was looking at less than one day off a month if I kept it five days a week. In addition, some people mentioned that it was a lot to digest on a daily basis. So, with that in mind, I’m hoping two issues per week will also allow me space to expand on some of the stories included in the Trans Agenda, allowing me to bring you a deeper look at the news behind the headlines.

As always, if you have any suggestions, I’m open to feedback and you can contact me using the links on this page near the bottom.

Transgender. How do you know? By Lee Hurley
Transgender. How do you know? By Lee Hurley

The Trans Agenda

NEWS & POLITICS

Easter arrives and everybody loses their shit

  • Through a quirk of the calendar, Easter Sunday this year fell on Trans Day of Visibility, something that is not due to happen again until 2086. So, at least you know you will likely only have to live through this batshittery once. Sorry, young ‘uns.

    As you will no doubt have heard or experienced for yourself, right-wingers were enraged by the latest thing they made up, blaming Joe Biden for declaring March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility, when he did no such thing. TDoV has been on this date since 2009. They claimed it was a disrespectful affront to their faith and an attempt to ‘turn the day Christ conquered sin into a day to celebrate sin.’ For a good overview, this short video by Caelan Conrad explains all you need to know. It’s also hilarious:

    The outrage didn’t last as long in the UK as it did in the US, but that’s probably got a lot to do with the media and the next story that took prominence…

 

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JK Rowling tries to get arrested by doing legal things, fails

  • Nothing screams bravery more than calling for the police to arrest you for doing something that isn’t illegal, all while making sure you are out of the country that has jurisdiction just in case.

    Yes indeed, JK Rowling made her ‘stand’. The great feminist leader showed the way. In order to protect women and girls you must – MUST – misgender trans women and imply that all trans people are rapists or sexual abusers. Now women and girls will be safe everywhere!

    Of course, nothing Rowling said was actually illegal. Abusive, mean and nasty, yes, but not illegal. I’m also fairly certain she would have taken legal advice before tweeting because, no matter what she says, there is not one inch of her that wants or is prepared to spend a single second in prison.

    Trans people said loudly that she wouldn’t be arrested but, as usual, nobody listened. Meanwhile, Sarah Vine declared her a hero from the front pages of the Daily Mail. What had this ‘hero’ done? She’d deliberately conflated a handful of the worst trans women with any others she could think of, tarring them all with her bigot brush.

    Those who have backed Rowling include the aforementioned Vine, Rishi Sunak and Nigel Farage.

Nearly 4,000 complaints made in first 24 hours of Scotland’s new hate crime law

  • With Scotland’s new hate crime law coming into force on April 1, The Telegraph reported that there were around 3,800 complaints in the first 24 hours. Of course, they imply they were all submitted by trans people, completely ignoring the racists and their campaign to report Humza Yousaf.

Reform suspend candidate for transphobia [The Ferret]

  • Reform have suspended two candidates for the General Election in Scotland after one shared anti-trans content and the other shared posts from far-right figures. Making decisive moves like this is both strange for a party like Reform, given their members, and also something both the Conservatives and Labour have a problem with doing.

    Stephen McNamara said that trans people have ‘severe mental illness’, while David McNabb “shared a video from far right commentator Katie Hopkins, and another post which said first minister Humza Yousaf should not be able to hold a rugby trophy because he is “more Pakistani than Scottish.””

Winsford councillor made to leave event at Storyhouse Chester [Norwich & Winsford Guardian]

  • Cllr Mandy Clare has given an interview in which she claims she was asked to leave this event because she asked a ‘gender critical question’. You will, of course, be surprised to learn that it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Attending a talk by feminist and staunch trans ally, Patsy Stevenson, Clare told GB News, “I’m kind of known locally as a councillor who raises concerns and issues around women’s rights, women’s dignity, our language, child safeguarding concerns etc, in relation to the debate around sex and gender.

    “I just asked her some reasonable questions. I asked her because she had earlier commented she was in favour of freedom of speech and the right to protest regardless of whether people agreed with her views or she agreed with theirs. In principal she was in support of that but then she denigrated these women [GCs who were protesting outside the event] and lied about them.

    “So I asked her, given that basis, ‘why did you do that? Are you aware they’re just outside leafletting because: they don’t want women to have to refer to their rapist as ‘she’ in court; they don’t want disabled women to be forced to have intimate care from men if that’s not what they want; and they don’t want women to be intimately strip-searched by male police officers who are claiming that they’re women.”

    That’s what Clare describes as ‘reasonable’ questions.

Ulster University: LGBT Pride ‘problematic’ for Qatar campus [BBC NI]

  • Ulster University is facing criticism due to its Qatar campus location. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, and some staff members believe information about LGBTQ+ Pride events should not be sent there as it might be ‘offensive’. Others argue that the university should consistently advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. Patrick Corrigan from Amnesty International said the university appeared to be “unwilling to even mention Pride in its communications with students and staff at the Doha campus. This looks very much like double standards – with a commitment to human rights and equality at home which then apparently gets jettisoned as soon as these come into contact with the harsh reality of discriminatory laws in Qatar.”

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Keep an eye out for

  • What JK Rowling’s next move will be as this war against trans people escalates in the dying days of the Tory government.

MEDIA & PAPERS

Petrol bombs thrown at media in Derry [Belfast Telegraph]

  • Violence erupted after a Republican Easter commemoration event in Derry, Northern Ireland. Youths threw petrol bombs at journalists after pursuing them. It should be remembered that it was dissident Republicans who shot and killed my friend, Lyra McKee, as she observed a riot in 2019, also in Derry.

Fox News Trans Easter

The Trans Agenda by Lee Hurley is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Emmerdale deal with ‘the trans issue’ [Clip on Twitter]

  • And they manage to deal with it well.

The Sun’s Hillsborough stories used to teach MPs how to recognise fake news [Guardian]

  • Parliament now offers a course to teach MPs how to spot fake news. Examples include fabricated stories by The Sun about Hillsborough and a Russian bot campaign using a photo from the Westminster Bridge attack to spread Islamophobia. The course also covers historical examples and techniques to identify misinformation. It’s not clear if The Telegraph features, nor the MPs who willing feed misinformation to the media.

THIS WEEK’S PAPERS

The Times

There was nothing about trans people in the Sunday Times, nor Monday’s edition.

  • Tuesday 2 April 2024
    Arrest me: JK Rowling challenges police over hate speech law David Leask, James Beal JK Rowling has challenged the police to arrest her under Scotland’s new hate crime law after making a series of posts on social media calling trans women men. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act created a new offence yesterday of stirring up hatred against protected characteristics including age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity. It was immediately tested by the Harry Potter author, who highlighted well-known transgender people on Twitter/X. These included the broadcaster India Willoughby — who reported Rowling to police in England for misgendering her last month — and the model and activist Munroe Bergdorf, along with convicted criminals such as the rapist Isla Bryson, who was initially sent to a women’s prison before being moved to one for men. Having sarcastically expressed her relief that the new law protected them, Rowling concluded the series of posts with the message: “April Fools! Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them.” She also included the hashtag “arrest me”. Scottish ministers had previously said that misgendering people would not be a crime under the new legislation. However, Siobhian Brown, the minister for victims and community safety, said yesterday that people risked being investigated for misgendering someone on the internet. She told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: “It would be a police matter for them to assess what happens. It could be reported and it could be investigated — whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland.” Rishi Sunak said of the law: “People should not be criminalised for stating simple facts on biology. We believe in free speech in this country, and Conservatives will always protect it.” Rowling wrote online that Scottish legislators had “placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness” than on the rights and freedoms of women and girls. Rowling, who lives in Edinburgh, said she was out of the country but “I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment”. Her earlier posts included one that read: “Munroe Bergdorf isn’t just a pretty face! Public campaigner for a children’s charity until safeguarding concerns were raised, she was appointed UN Women’s first ever UK champion. ‘What makes a woman “a woman” has no definitive answer,’ says Munroe. Great choice, UN Women.” She also mocked Willoughby, after Northumbria police lodged the author’s misgendering of the presenter as a non-crime hate incident last month. Responding to Rowling’s posts, Willoughby said: “What a sad pathetic sight. The best-known author in the world sitting up all night to write a mega-long troll post about me, because she’s consumed by a hatred of trans people. Completely deranged.” Experts said her tweets were unlikely to fall foul of the new hate law. James Chalmers, a law professor at Glasgow University, said: “It is provocative but hopefully ultimately reassuring by demonstrating — assuming nothing follows from it — that the act does not actually prohibit this kind of robust debate.” Police Scotland said that it had received no hate crime reports regarding Rowling’s tweets but could not confirm how many reports relating to the new law had been made. Someone convicted of stirring up hate could face a fine and a prison term of up to seven years. The characteristic of a person’s sex was omitted from the new law in favour of future standalone legislation to tackle misogyny. The human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told the BBC that the omission of women from the new law was an “astonishing exclusion”. He also criticised the legislation for allowing third-party reporting. More than 400 sites have been designated as reporting centres for complainants who feel uncomfortable dealing with the police, including at a sex shop, a mushroom farm and a caravan park. Humza Yousaf, the first minister, has repeatedly said that “disinformation” is being spread about the law. He has claimed there is a “triple lock” of protection for free speech, including a defence for behaviour being “reasonable” and compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights. A UK government source said the Scottish National Party was “taking Scotland down a very dangerous path, with potential for seriously chilling effects on free speech”. The Scottish Tories, who voted against the legislation when it was debated in 2021, have insisted that the act should be scrapped.
    Gender clinics ‘nowhere near ready’ James Beal - Social Affairs Editor Tweeting from her holiday Next image › New NHS gender identity clinics for young people are “understaffed” and “nowhere near ready”, it was claimed yesterday as they started taking on patients. A London hub, alongside a second in the northwest, will begin to see patients this week as they replace the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. The Gids clinic was ordered to close after a review by Dr Hilary Cass found it was “not a safe or viable long-term option”. However, whistleblowers described as senior staff at Gids have expressed concerns about the preparedness and expertise of the new hubs. One, who spoke to the i newspaper under the condition of anonymity, said: “It’s been shoddy, disorganised, messy and unclear. And at times, it’s felt unsafe.” Last year NHS England announced it would be closing the Gids clinic in north London following the Cass report. The clinic was also given an “inadequate” rating by the Care Quality Commission. Cass said a “fundamentally different” approach to treating children and young people with gender dysphoria was needed, amid significant concerns about the use of hormone treatments. NHS England promised two new centres, with regional hubs to follow. Great Ormond Street Hospital worked with the Evelina London Children’s Hospital and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to pilot one of the first hubs. They are opening a year later than planned. Some clinicians fear that the new hubs are insufficiently prepared to cope with the size and complexity of the cases, or the waiting list. They claim the handover of patient files has been “last minute” and are said to be baffled by a drop in numbers on the waiting list, from 7,000 to 5,000. The hubs and the workers were described as “not fully staffed” and “not fully trained”. There are 17 or 18 clinical staff across both clinics, with the majority having no experience of working with trans youth, the sources have claimed. There are also worries that there is still only an interim treatment plan in place. One source told the i: “This has been colossal mismanagement by NHS England. They need to be held accountable for this mess.” Puberty blockers will not be offered at the new hubs after the NHS announced a ban on prescribing them to under-18s, unless they are part of a clinical trial that is due to start this year. In January it was claimed that the opening of the new hubs had been hit by resignations and infighting. At least four members were said to have quit. An NHS England spokesman said: “In line with the Cass Review, NHS England took the decision to close the Tavistock and set up a fundamentally different and improved approach to children and young people’s gender services.” Great Ormond Street confirmed that the specialist gender service for children and young people would start today, with people offered appointments this week. Matthew Shaw, the chief executive officer, said of the London hub: “We exist to help children and young people with complex health needs fulfil their potential. This is exactly what this much-needed service is about.” Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust said it had used guidance set out by NHS England to develop “a new kind of service”. It stressed that all staff involved in the service had been given specialist training and it would “provide the care recommended by Dr Cass”.
  • Wednesday 3 April 2024
    Trans judge accused of getting law ‘badly wrong’ Jonathan Ames - Legal Editor, Catherine Baksi A leading women’s-rights campaigner has accused the UK’s only transgender female judge of misrepresenting a crucial court ruling that found in favour of those promoting gender-critical beliefs. Maya Forstater, who won a landmark employment law court battle in 2022, said that Victoria McCloud, a judge in the High Court, had “got the law badly wrong” in her social media comments on that ruling. The campaigner, 50, said that McCloud — who is to resign from the bench later this month — had claimed on social media that the ruling said a protected belief was not an “actual protected characteristic”, while “religion or belief” did fall into that category. In a letter sent yesterday to the lady chief justice, the most senior judge in England and Wales, and the justice secretary, Alex Chalk KC, she accused McCloud of “falsely contrasting a belief vs a protected characteristic”. Forstater told Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill and Chalk that “a belief is something you can keep to yourself, a characteristic is not”. The campaigner and her group, Sex Matters, have also accused McCloud of breaching social media guidelines for judges with her comments on LinkedIn. In a letter, they cite a section of the guide that says judges should not “disclose the fact of their judicial role on any platform or account with unrestricted public access”. According to Forstater, while McCloud did not use her proper title, “master”, on social media, she did describe herself as a “judge in the High Court”. And she claimed McCloud had breached the guidelines by failing to set her LinkedIn profile to private and thus discussing in public highly political topics around sex and gender. Last month, The Times revealed that McCloud had told the lady chief justice that she was resigning from the bench over concerns that she risked making the judiciary political. “I am now political every time I choose where to pee,” she said, adding that she was “a target”. McCloud, 54, has given rulings in cases involving Donald Trump and the MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Andrew Mitchell, and recently worked on a case involving a KGB double agent. She transitioned in the 1990s and was the UK’s first practising trans barrister. Neither the lady chief justice nor Chalk would comment on the letter. But one senior judge, who did not want to be identified, said there had been a “long-running campaign of complaints against Master McCloud by gender critics because she is trans” and that an earlier complaint had been dismissed. They described McCloud as “a very well-respected judge”, whose “reputation speaks for itself, and is unblemished”. McCloud posted on LinkedIn last night: “All complaints against me, from anyone, ever, have been unsuccessful. That includes any about to be published whatsoever.” She branded the complaint a “baseless attack”.

    Here, we have Maya Forstater, who famously doesn’t understand her own legal case, telling a judge that she doesn’t understand the law. Forstater demonstrates that by being wrong about her own case. Again.

    Rowling’s tweets are not a hate crime, police say John Boothman JK Rowling will not face prosecution under Scotland’s hate crime laws after she made a series of posts calling trans women men, Police Scotland has confirmed. On Monday she had challenged the force to “arrest her” after making the comments on Twitter/X. Rowling said that she hoped women in Scotland would be reassured. Police Scotland logged more than 3,000 complaints in 48 hours after the hate crime law came into force. A former union official said the true figure could be as high as 3,600. Calum Steele, former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said it was his “understanding” that the “number of online hate complaints recorded by Police Scotland in the past 24 hours” was more than 3,000, “more than half of them still to be processed”. Police Scotland said it would investigate every report made under the law, which became active at midnight on April 1. Meanwhile, Humza Yousaf said that it was “increasingly difficult” to shield his children from racism after he was targeted with Islamophobic graffiti near his Dundee home. Racist comments relating to the first minister’s Pakistani heritage were sprayed on the walls and fences of houses close to where he lives in Broughty Ferry with his wife and two children. Police are investigating. Yousaf, who became the first ethnic minority and first Muslim leader of the Scottish government just over a year ago, said on Twitter/X: “I do my best to shield my children from the racism and Islamophobia I face on a regular basis. That becomes increasingly difficult when racist graffiti targeting me appears near our family home. “A reminder of why we must, collectively, take a zero-tolerance approach to hatred.” The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act has prompted objections from freedom of speech campaigners, including Rishi Sunak, Elon Musk, Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil. The legislation consolidates existing laws and creates an offence of “stirring up” hatred on the grounds of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. Police Scotland said it had received complaints about Rowling’s posts, in which she challenged ten trans people’s claims to be women, including the broadcaster India Willoughby, the activist Munroe Bergdorf and convicted rapists. Responding to the confirmation that she would not be prosecuted, Rowling tweeted: “I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women — irrespective of profile or financial means — will be treated equally under the law.” She added: “If they go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I’ll repeat that woman’s words and they can charge us both at once.” Commenting on trans people in her thread, Rowling wrote on Monday: “April Fools! Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them.” Willoughby, who reported Rowling to police in England for misgendering her last month, said yesterday: “The confident and rampant transphobia today after JK Rowling’s latest hateful tweet is appalling.” On Monday Sunak said people should not be criminalised “for stating simple facts on biology”. A spokesman for Yousaf said: “The prime minister’s comments ignore the fact that the right to freedom of expression is built into the act and that it also has a high threshold for criminality. The legislation does not prevent people expressing controversial, challenging or offensive views, nor does it seek to stifle criticism or rigorous debate in any way.” Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, also defended Rowling yesterday, telling Times Radio that the new law was a “terrible piece of legislation”.
  • Thursday 4 April 2024
Police ‘change hate crime rules’ after Rowling tweets John Boothman Police Scotland have been accused of “making it up as they go” as discrepancies emerged in the recording of hate crime allegations about JK Rowling. The force confirmed on Tuesday that comments made by the writer, misgendering several trans people on social media, did not meet the criminal threshold under the new hate crime law which came into effect on Monday. Under Police Scotland’s hate crime national guidance, such comments may still be recorded as “non-crime hate incidents” (NCHI) if deemed to have been motivated by malice regarding a protected characteristic. Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Conservative MSP, was logged as committing an NCHI after he shared a post on Twitter/X in November critical of the Scottish government’s “non-binary action plan” and said “choosing to identify as ‘non-binary’ is as valid as choosing to identify as a cat”. Rowling wrote on X: “Again, I trust everyone will be treated the same way if they express themselves similarly. Nobody should have a ‘Hate Incident’ logged against them for accurately describing or asserting the importance and reality of biological sex. We must all be equal under the law.” The force has said it will investigate every report made under the new law. A police source told The Scottish Sun that the majority of complaints so far focused on Humza Yousaf and Rowling, with the first minister receiving more. The development comes as estimates suggest that 1.4 million complaints under the new law could be made in its first year. Calum Steele, a former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, claimed on Tuesday that the “number of online hate complaints recorded by Police Scotland in the past 24 hours” exceeded 3,000. Were that rate to continue, 1.39 million cases would be reported during the law’s first year. The Hate Crime and Public Order Act consolidates existing hate crime laws and creates a new offence of “stirring up” hatred on the grounds of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity, but not sex. Fraser is considering legal action against the police. Joanna Cherry, the SNP MP, said it appeared the police were revising their NCHI policy to avoid embarrassment.

Daily Mail

  • There were no articles about trans people in the Mail on Sunday.
  • Monday 1 April 2024
Fear that new Scottish hate crime law may be used to gag free speech Daily Mail1 Apr 2024By Michael Blackley and David Barrett HATE crime laws coming into effect in Scotland today could trigger a surge in politically motivated complaints. Police said they expect to be bombarded with a ‘ huge uplift’ in reports of alleged crimes, including from people trying to use the SNP legislation to silence anyone they disagree with. It follows widespread condemnation of the new law – the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act – amid fears it will be weaponised for political purposes. The legislation introduces offences for threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred, which in Scotland previously only applied to race. The law can even be broken within private family homes. It makes it a crime to show ‘malice and ill-will’ against individuals or groups on the grounds of transgender status, ‘variations in sex characteristics’ or sexual orientation, as well as race, age, disability and religion. Vocal opponents including Harry Potter author JK rowling have warned it will have a chilling effect on free speech. rob Hay, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, said: ‘Our concern is that it could impact through a huge uplift, potentially, in reports – some of those potentially made in good faith but perhaps not meeting the threshold of the legislation, or potentially in cases where people are trying to actually actively use the legislation to score points against people who ‘Lose trust in the police’ sit on the other side of a particularly controversial debate.’ Ch Supt Hay warned that public trust in police could be harmed. He told BBC radio Scotland’s The Sunday Show: ‘If you have hopes of the police intervening at a particular level and actually the criminal threshold isn’t met then potentially you are going to be disappointed and lose trust in the police. ‘And at the other side of that, if you know fine well that something you have said does not meet the criminal threshold and yet it is reported to police and the police come and investigate you, then you in turn might feel that you’ve been stifled, you’ve been silenced.’ Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell has insisted the law will be applied proportionately, upholding people’s freedom of expression. Last week Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser revealed he was considering legal action against the force after an activist complained about one of his social media posts. Officers decided the post did not amount to a crime but it was still classed as a ‘hate incident’ which will remain on record. The law was passed in 2021 and – after three years of wrangling – finally takes effect today. Scottish Conservative justice spokesman russell Findlay said: ‘Humza Yousaf’s Hate Crime Act comes into force on April Fools’ Day but it is really no joke for the people of Scotland. ‘What happened to... Murdo Fraser is sinister and unacceptable and the concern is that other innocent people will end up in secret police files. ‘No matter how these cases are dealt with by police and prosecutors, the law in itself will have a chilling effect on free speech.’ Humza Yousaf said: ‘I would say to anybody who thinks they are a victim of hatred, we take that seriously, if you felt you are a victim of hatred, then of course reporting that to police is the right thing to do.’ The First Minister has said the legislation includes a ‘triple lock’ of protection for speech, including a defence for the accused’s behaviour being ‘ reasonable’. Women working for the Office for National Statistics could face disciplinary action if they object to sharing toilets and changing rooms with trans women. The authority’s gender policy allows transitioning employees to decide when they want to use singlesex facilities in their newly identified gender, the Daily Telegraph reported. SCOTLAND’S Hate Crime Act contains so many threats to freedom of expression it’s hard to know where to begin. The legislation, which comes in today, creates an offence of ‘ stirring up hatred’ against various ‘protected characteristics’, including race, disability, and transgender identity. Stirring up hatred against anyone is, of course, vile. But the criterion for prosecution is that ‘a reasonable person’ would consider comments to be ‘threatening or abusive’ – and, in the case of race, ‘insulting’. The words could be spoken in a shop or bus queue, at home, on WhatsApp or even in comedy routines. With third- party complaints encouraged, it is a gift for activists to harass their opponents. Supporters say similar laws already exist in England, but they cover only ‘threatening’ statements. This Act criminalises giving offence, even inadvertently. And if we no longer have the freedom to offend, we no longer have freedom. Article Name:Fear that new Scottish hate crime law may be used to gag free speech Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Michael Blackley and David Barrett Start Page:11 End Page:11
£190,000 handout for trans group who made ‘KKK’ jibe Daily Mail1 Apr 2024By Martin Beckford Policy Editor A SUPPORT group for transgender civil servants that has likened women’s rights campaigners to the Ku Klux Klan has been handed tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money. The staff network, known as a:gender, received £110,000 from the Home Office last year and another £80,000 from the Cabinet Office. It is also thought to have received funding from the Ministry of Defence, Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs. A:gender says its role is to help transgender and intersex civil servants flourish by offering advice and support. But critics say it also carries out ‘inaccurate and divisive’ training to Whitehall departments. There are now calls for all staff equalities networks to be stripped of their public funding. Last night Tory backbencher Nick Fletcher, who obtained the figures, said: ‘Concerningly, we hear reports that these networks sometimes strive to influence policy advice given to ministers.’ Complaints about a:gender’s training were made to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case late last year by the civil service’s sex equality and equity network [SEEN]. In an apparent allusion to the KKK, a: gender states: ‘Racism won’t come into your workplace as hoods and burning crosses but as “nationalism” or “patriotism”. Transphobia is the same: “I’m just protecting women and girls”.’ Article Name:£190,000 handout for trans group who made ‘KKK’ jibe Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Martin Beckford Policy Editor Start Page:11 End Page:11
Fear that new Scottish hate crime law may be used to gag free speech Daily Mail1 Apr 2024By Michael Blackley and David Barrett HATE crime laws coming into effect in Scotland today could trigger a surge in politically motivated complaints. Police said they expect to be bombarded with a ‘ huge uplift’ in reports of alleged crimes, including from people trying to use the SNP legislation to silence anyone they disagree with. It follows widespread condemnation of the new law – the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act – amid fears it will be weaponised for political purposes. The legislation introduces offences for threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred, which in Scotland previously only applied to race. The law can even be broken within private family homes. It makes it a crime to show ‘malice and ill-will’ against individuals or groups on the grounds of transgender status, ‘variations in sex characteristics’ or sexual orientation, as well as race, age, disability and religion. Vocal opponents including Harry Potter author JK rowling have warned it will have a chilling effect on free speech. rob Hay, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, said: ‘Our concern is that it could impact through a huge uplift, potentially, in reports – some of those potentially made in good faith but perhaps not meeting the threshold of the legislation, or potentially in cases where people are trying to actually actively use the legislation to score points against people who ‘Lose trust in the police’ sit on the other side of a particularly controversial debate.’ Ch Supt Hay warned that public trust in police could be harmed. He told BBC radio Scotland’s The Sunday Show: ‘If you have hopes of the police intervening at a particular level and actually the criminal threshold isn’t met then potentially you are going to be disappointed and lose trust in the police. ‘And at the other side of that, if you know fine well that something you have said does not meet the criminal threshold and yet it is reported to police and the police come and investigate you, then you in turn might feel that you’ve been stifled, you’ve been silenced.’ Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell has insisted the law will be applied proportionately, upholding people’s freedom of expression. Last week Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser revealed he was considering legal action against the force after an activist complained about one of his social media posts. Officers decided the post did not amount to a crime but it was still classed as a ‘hate incident’ which will remain on record. The law was passed in 2021 and – after three years of wrangling – finally takes effect today. Scottish Conservative justice spokesman russell Findlay said: ‘Humza Yousaf’s Hate Crime Act comes into force on April Fools’ Day but it is really no joke for the people of Scotland. ‘What happened to... Murdo Fraser is sinister and unacceptable and the concern is that other innocent people will end up in secret police files. ‘No matter how these cases are dealt with by police and prosecutors, the law in itself will have a chilling effect on free speech.’ Humza Yousaf said: ‘I would say to anybody who thinks they are a victim of hatred, we take that seriously, if you felt you are a victim of hatred, then of course reporting that to police is the right thing to do.’ The First Minister has said the legislation includes a ‘triple lock’ of protection for speech, including a defence for the accused’s behaviour being ‘ reasonable’. Women working for the Office for National Statistics could face disciplinary action if they object to sharing toilets and changing rooms with trans women. The authority’s gender policy allows transitioning employees to decide when they want to use singlesex facilities in their newly identified gender, the Daily Telegraph reported. SCOTLAND’S Hate Crime Act contains so many threats to freedom of expression it’s hard to know where to begin. The legislation, which comes in today, creates an offence of ‘ stirring up hatred’ against various ‘protected characteristics’, including race, disability, and transgender identity. Stirring up hatred against anyone is, of course, vile. But the criterion for prosecution is that ‘a reasonable person’ would consider comments to be ‘threatening or abusive’ – and, in the case of race, ‘insulting’. The words could be spoken in a shop or bus queue, at home, on WhatsApp or even in comedy routines. With third- party complaints encouraged, it is a gift for activists to harass their opponents. Supporters say similar laws already exist in England, but they cover only ‘threatening’ statements. This Act criminalises giving offence, even inadvertently. And if we no longer have the freedom to offend, we no longer have freedom. Article Name:Fear that new Scottish hate crime law may be used to gag free speech Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Michael Blackley and David Barrett Start Page:14 End Page:14
Manifesto to end online harm ... by mother of tragic Brianna Daily Mail1 Apr 2024By Richard Marsden THE mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey has set out a five-point plan to save children from ‘toxic’ smartphone content and ensure her daughter’s death ‘wasn’t for nothing’. Esther Ghey wants to protect other youngsters from trolling and abuse, and more than 115,000 have signed her petition calling for legislation to help parents control what children can access online. Trans schoolgirl Brianna, 16, and her killers Eddie Ratcliffe and Scarlett Jenkinson, then 15, had all accessed harmful online content before the killing. Jenkinson had downloaded a special browser on her device to watch real-life torture and murder on the dark web, and she and Ratcliffe plotted through vile messages on WhatsApp and Snapchat. Ms Ghey told the Sunday Times that new phones should come with monitoring apps already installed, and that technology should alert parents if their children are searching harmful terms online. Separately, phones should not allow under-13s access to social media, and Ms Ghey also wants mindfulness lessons in schools to teach resilience, compassion and empathy. Lastly, she wants a public health campaign to limit children’s screen time. Article Name:Manifesto to end online harm ... by mother of tragic Brianna Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Richard Marsden Start Page:12 End Page:12

This was on the following page, after the anti-trans bullshit in the first two images.

  • Tuesday 2 April 2024
ARREST ME! Defiance of JK Rowling as she dares police over new Scottish hate crime law Rishi Sunak backs author’s right to free speech after she throws down challenge with series of posts labelling trans women as men Daily Mail2 Apr 2024By Dan Barker and David Churchill Standing up for free speech: Protesters against the new law gathered outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh yesterday on the day that it became law RISHI Sunak last night backed JK Rowling after she dared police to arrest her under controversial new hate crime laws. as the legislation came into force in Scotland, the Harry Potter author issued a flurry of social media posts declaring that a string of trans women were men. The SnP’s Hate Crime act has been widely condemned amid fears it could be used for political purposes. It introduces offences for threatening or abusive behaviour intended to stir up hatred, which in Scotland previously applied only to race, and includes a possible seven-year jail sentence. ms rowling, a prominent gender-identity critic, included trans campaigners and other individuals in her tweets, referring to them as women. But she ended the thread by saying: ‘april Fools! Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them.’ The author, who lives in Edinburgh, added: ‘Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal. ‘I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.’ She signed it off with the hashtag #arrestme. As the 58-year-old’s comments whipped up a social media storm, the Prime Minister entered the row, saying: ‘People should not be criminalised for stating simple facts on biology. ‘We believe in free speech in this country, and Conservatives will always protect it.’ A Government source said: ‘The SNP is taking Scotland down a very dangerous path, with potential for seriously chilling effects on free speech. We are clear that biological sex matters and gender- critical beliefs are protected in British law, and that won’t change while the Conservatives are in government.’ Despite the huge controversy Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf said he was ‘very proud’ of the Act. Ms Rowling’s comments came after Siobhian Brown, the SNP’s minister for community safety, said those who misgender others online, calling a trans woman ‘he’, for example, ‘could be investigated’ by police. Ms Rowling, who warned of the effect on free speech, was reported to Northumbria Police last month for calling trans TV broadcaster India Willoughby a ‘man’. Police later said the complaint did not meet the criminal threshold. In her social media post, the author listed ten high-profile trans people and denied their claims to be women. They included double rapist Isla Bryson, 31, who was initially jailed for eight years at a women’s prison before later being moved to a male prison following a widespread backlash. Bryson, who was known as Adam Graham at the time of the offences, began transitioning only in 2020 after being charged. Ms Rowling added: ‘In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. ‘The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single- sex spaces, the nonsense made of ‘We must be able to call a man a man’ crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex. ‘For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. ‘The re-definition of “woman” to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women’s and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors. ‘It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man.’ Police Scotland said, as of last night, they had not received any complaints about the post. Ms Rowling has won support from across the political spectrum. Russell Findlay, the Tory MSP who discovered he had a non- crime hate incident logged next to his name, said: ‘JK Rowling speaks for many women across Scotland who see Humza Yousaf’s hate crime law for what it is – another SNP attack on women’s rights.’ On social media, SNP MP Joanna Cherry said: ‘Pleased to see my good friend JK Rowling exercise her rights to freedom of speech and freedom of belief by tweeting in defence of women’s rights.’ But Ms Willoughby, one of those on Ms Rowling’s list, said: ‘ The onslaught against me and trans people generally today caused by a particular person is unacceptable. As is all of her acolytes saying they are entitled not to respect, and to disobey the law on protected characteristics. It’s nasty, vindictive bullying.’ The new laws sparked a furious response by concerned Scots outside the Scottish Parliament yesterday, with many holding up gender-critical slogans. Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘The big flaw in this Bill is it does not protect women against hate. There is no protection against misogyny and that is an astonishing exclusion.’ A Scottish government spokesman said women were already protected from abusive behaviour in law, adding: ‘The Hate Crime Act will help to tackle the harm caused by hatred and prejudice and provide greater protections for victims and communities. The right to freedom of expression is built into the legislation and there is a high threshold for criminality.’ RISHI SUNAK’S greatest mistake will probably turn out to be his pledge, made on January 4, 2023, to ‘stop the small boats’. They even put it up on the Government website. There were four other pledges. The fifth was: ‘Passing new laws to stop small boats.’ Not ‘ reduce’. Not ‘ do our utmost to lower the number’. Just ‘stop’. It’s hard to recall a more reckless promise made by a leading politician. No one forced Rishi to make such an unqualified undertaking. It was a gratuitous error, which is coming back to haunt him. Over the weekend, 791 migrants are known to have crossed the Channel in two days, bringing this year’s total so far to 5,435. That means that the number of arrivals has increased by more than 40 per cent compared to the same point in 2023. Perilous A fluke? I doubt it. The weather has been good, so more people than usual have come across. But the sea will be calm again, and we may be certain that large numbers of small boats will once more traverse the Channel to our shores. It’s true that in 2023 the number making the perilous voyage was just over a third less than in 2022, when there was a record high. But the signs so far this year are that 2024 could be worse than 2023, and possibly worse than 2022. What is clear is, firstly, that the French authorities are not succeeding in stemming the flow of migrants, despite being given £ 480 million over three years by the Government last March. This came after £232 million had been handed to Paris for the same purpose during the previous nine years. It’s also clear that the Government’s Rwanda Bill, which should finally become law in the next few weeks, is not yet deterring illegal migrants from coming here. As the plan is to dispatch hundreds rather than thousands to Rwanda in the first year, one may reasonably wonder how many asylum seekers will be deterred after the Bill takes effect. I dare say — though I’m not certain — that an aeroplane with migrants aboard may take off for Rwanda in the late spring, which would be a symbolic victory. But I’ll be very surprised if the number of small boats crossing the Channel is significantly less by October or November, when an election will probably take place. So Mr Sunak will be much mocked by Labour and Sir Keir Starmer, before and during the election, for failing to fulfil his pledge. He has walked into a trap of his own making. We can hardly feel sorry for him. But just because Rishi has made a hash of things, it doesn’t follow that Sir Keir will be any better. Almost all that Labour does is carp at the Government’s failures, which is easy enough to do. But the party has failed to persuade us that it will reduce the number of small boats. Its plans are pretty risible. Sir Keir has said that he would junk the Rwanda scheme. Fine — if he can come up with a better one. He could, for example, undertake to construct a camp in some British jurisdiction to which illegal migrants would be sent to be assessed. That is far too imaginative and daring an idea for Labour. Its plan, if that’s not too grandiose a word, is to try to negotiate a returns agreement with Eu countries to send back failed asylum seekers. Given that most of them are, like us, under enormous pressure from excessive immigration, they would be unlikely to sign a deal that reduced the number of migrants coming here. Sir Keir’s other idea is to step up cooperation with France. But the French government already appears to be trying harder than it did in order to justify the large amounts of money we are giving it. Patrolling 100 miles of coastline isn’t easy. Moreover, the French can be forgiven if they don’t want to bust a gut to prevent illegal immigrants — whom they are secretly pleased to get rid of — from turning up in Kent. Sir Keir and Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper are merciless in ridiculing poor Rishi. But the truth is they haven’t a convincing policy of their own to foil the small boats. Anyone who makes a bet that there will be more, not fewer, of them under Labour is unlikely to be risking their money. There’s a deeper reason why I don’t trust Labour to crack this problem. It is that the party has traditionally been extremely relaxed about immigration, legal and illegal. During Tony Blair’s time in office, net migration soared from 48,000 in 1997 to 273,000 in 2007. Cohesion Indeed, there’s evidence that Labour under Blair, and subsequently under Gordon Brown, actively encouraged migration. Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Blair and Home Secretary Jack Straw, has alleged that New Labour deliberately threw open Britain’s borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a ‘truly multicultural’ country. Many on the Left still think it racist to oppose uncontrolled immigration, despite the pressure it puts on housing, schools and the health service, as well as it undermining social cohesion. Sir Keir may well hold such views. He will be surrounded by many who do. We should remember that legal immigration dwarfs the illegal variety that so obsesses Rishi Sunak and the Tories. According to official figures, in the year to June 2023 there were 52,530 ‘irregular migrants’, while in the same period there were 672,000 legal migrants. That is a ratio of about 1 to 13. Of course, it’s not just Labour that historically favours mass migration. So does the Treasury for economic reasons. Yet last week Conservative MP Neil O’Brien produced a graph that demolishes the widely held assumption that high immigration powers economic growth. Error It tracks per capita GDP growth and rising net migration from 1965 to 2023, and demonstrates that there is no correlation between the two. In fact, since 2008 per capita GDP growth has been moribund or sometimes nonexistent, while net migration has been running at unprecedentedly high levels. Mass immigration is undesirable for all sorts of reasons. I’ve no doubt that in Britain and the rest of Europe it will be the most contentious political issue of the next 20 or 30 years. Mr Sunak’s failure to deal with either illegal or legal immigration has made him unpopular with many Tory voters, some of whom have defected to Reform uK. A new poll suggests that some 42 per cent of them would return to the fold if Rishi held a referendum on the issue. What would it ask? It’s hard to see how a referendum would help. The Government already has widespread public support to control immigration. It just hasn’t done it. Rishi may have seen the error of his ways, but he’s running out of time to do anything about it. All I can say is that voters who would trust Labour to bring down immigration are deluded. I doubt it would get a grip on the legal variety, and small boats would cross the Channel in greater numbers. Rishi Sunak has failed to control immigration. Sir Keir Starmer could be far worse. Article Name:ARREST ME! Defiance of JK Rowling as she dares police over new Scottish hate crime law Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Dan Barker and David Churchill Start Page:1 End Page:1
NHS gender clinics ‘not ready to open’ Daily Mail2 Apr 2024By Alex Ward Social Affairs Correspondent REPLACEMENT clinics for the NHS’s controversial gender identity unit are ‘nowhere near ready’ to begin treating patients, it was claimed yesterday. Hubs in London’s Great Ormond Street and Liverpool’s Alder Hey are due to carry out appointments this week, following the closure of the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock and Portman Trust. But whistleblowers – said to be senior staff at Gids – claimed the hubs’ opening has been shambolic. A source told the i newspaper: ‘It’s been shoddy, disorganised... At times, it’s felt unsafe.’ The Tavistock clinic in London was ordered to close following a review by Dr Hilary Cass, which said it was ‘not a safe or viable long-term option’. Around 50 patients from Gids will have their care taken over by the hubs, with around 5,000 on a waiting list. But sources claimed the hubs were ‘not fully staffed’, claiming there were just 17 or 18 clinical staff across both clinics, most with no experience with transgender children. One source said it was ‘colossal mismanagement by NHS England’. An NHS spokesman said: ‘Our focus is on ensuring continuity of care as we establish the new service.’ Last night, sources also claimed staffing levels were ‘sufficient’ to provide a safe service. Article Name:NHS gender clinics ‘not ready to open’ Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Alex Ward Social Affairs Correspondent Start Page:2 End Page:2
ARREST ME! Defiance of JK Rowling as she dares police over new Scottish hate crime law Rishi Sunak backs author’s right to free speech after she throws down challenge with series of posts labelling trans women as men Daily Mail2 Apr 2024By Dan Barker and David Churchill Standing up for free speech: Protesters against the new law gathered outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh yesterday on the day that it became law RISHI Sunak last night backed JK Rowling after she dared police to arrest her under controversial new hate crime laws. as the legislation came into force in Scotland, the Harry Potter author issued a flurry of social media posts declaring that a string of trans women were men. The SnP’s Hate Crime act has been widely condemned amid fears it could be used for political purposes. It introduces offences for threatening or abusive behaviour intended to stir up hatred, which in Scotland previously applied only to race, and includes a possible seven-year jail sentence. ms rowling, a prominent gender-identity critic, included trans campaigners and other individuals in her tweets, referring to them as women. But she ended the thread by saying: ‘april Fools! Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them.’ The author, who lives in Edinburgh, added: ‘Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal. ‘I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.’ She signed it off with the hashtag #arrestme. As the 58-year-old’s comments whipped up a social media storm, the Prime Minister entered the row, saying: ‘People should not be criminalised for stating simple facts on biology. ‘We believe in free speech in this country, and Conservatives will always protect it.’ A Government source said: ‘The SNP is taking Scotland down a very dangerous path, with potential for seriously chilling effects on free speech. We are clear that biological sex matters and gender- critical beliefs are protected in British law, and that won’t change while the Conservatives are in government.’ Despite the huge controversy Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf said he was ‘very proud’ of the Act. Ms Rowling’s comments came after Siobhian Brown, the SNP’s minister for community safety, said those who misgender others online, calling a trans woman ‘he’, for example, ‘could be investigated’ by police. Ms Rowling, who warned of the effect on free speech, was reported to Northumbria Police last month for calling trans TV broadcaster India Willoughby a ‘man’. Police later said the complaint did not meet the criminal threshold. In her social media post, the author listed ten high-profile trans people and denied their claims to be women. They included double rapist Isla Bryson, 31, who was initially jailed for eight years at a women’s prison before later being moved to a male prison following a widespread backlash. Bryson, who was known as Adam Graham at the time of the offences, began transitioning only in 2020 after being charged. Ms Rowling added: ‘In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. ‘The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single- sex spaces, the nonsense made of ‘We must be able to call a man a man’ crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex. ‘For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. ‘The re-definition of “woman” to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women’s and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors. ‘It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man.’ Police Scotland said, as of last night, they had not received any complaints about the post. Ms Rowling has won support from across the political spectrum. Russell Findlay, the Tory MSP who discovered he had a non- crime hate incident logged next to his name, said: ‘JK Rowling speaks for many women across Scotland who see Humza Yousaf’s hate crime law for what it is – another SNP attack on women’s rights.’ On social media, SNP MP Joanna Cherry said: ‘Pleased to see my good friend JK Rowling exercise her rights to freedom of speech and freedom of belief by tweeting in defence of women’s rights.’ But Ms Willoughby, one of those on Ms Rowling’s list, said: ‘ The onslaught against me and trans people generally today caused by a particular person is unacceptable. As is all of her acolytes saying they are entitled not to respect, and to disobey the law on protected characteristics. It’s nasty, vindictive bullying.’ The new laws sparked a furious response by concerned Scots outside the Scottish Parliament yesterday, with many holding up gender-critical slogans. Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘The big flaw in this Bill is it does not protect women against hate. There is no protection against misogyny and that is an astonishing exclusion.’ A Scottish government spokesman said women were already protected from abusive behaviour in law, adding: ‘The Hate Crime Act will help to tackle the harm caused by hatred and prejudice and provide greater protections for victims and communities. The right to freedom of expression is built into the legislation and there is a high threshold for criminality.’ RISHI SUNAK’S greatest mistake will probably turn out to be his pledge, made on January 4, 2023, to ‘stop the small boats’. They even put it up on the Government website. There were four other pledges. The fifth was: ‘Passing new laws to stop small boats.’ Not ‘ reduce’. Not ‘ do our utmost to lower the number’. Just ‘stop’. It’s hard to recall a more reckless promise made by a leading politician. No one forced Rishi to make such an unqualified undertaking. It was a gratuitous error, which is coming back to haunt him. Over the weekend, 791 migrants are known to have crossed the Channel in two days, bringing this year’s total so far to 5,435. That means that the number of arrivals has increased by more than 40 per cent compared to the same point in 2023. Perilous A fluke? I doubt it. The weather has been good, so more people than usual have come across. But the sea will be calm again, and we may be certain that large numbers of small boats will once more traverse the Channel to our shores. It’s true that in 2023 the number making the perilous voyage was just over a third less than in 2022, when there was a record high. But the signs so far this year are that 2024 could be worse than 2023, and possibly worse than 2022. What is clear is, firstly, that the French authorities are not succeeding in stemming the flow of migrants, despite being given £ 480 million over three years by the Government last March. This came after £232 million had been handed to Paris for the same purpose during the previous nine years. It’s also clear that the Government’s Rwanda Bill, which should finally become law in the next few weeks, is not yet deterring illegal migrants from coming here. As the plan is to dispatch hundreds rather than thousands to Rwanda in the first year, one may reasonably wonder how many asylum seekers will be deterred after the Bill takes effect. I dare say — though I’m not certain — that an aeroplane with migrants aboard may take off for Rwanda in the late spring, which would be a symbolic victory. But I’ll be very surprised if the number of small boats crossing the Channel is significantly less by October or November, when an election will probably take place. So Mr Sunak will be much mocked by Labour and Sir Keir Starmer, before and during the election, for failing to fulfil his pledge. He has walked into a trap of his own making. We can hardly feel sorry for him. But just because Rishi has made a hash of things, it doesn’t follow that Sir Keir will be any better. Almost all that Labour does is carp at the Government’s failures, which is easy enough to do. But the party has failed to persuade us that it will reduce the number of small boats. Its plans are pretty risible. Sir Keir has said that he would junk the Rwanda scheme. Fine — if he can come up with a better one. He could, for example, undertake to construct a camp in some British jurisdiction to which illegal migrants would be sent to be assessed. That is far too imaginative and daring an idea for Labour. Its plan, if that’s not too grandiose a word, is to try to negotiate a returns agreement with Eu countries to send back failed asylum seekers. Given that most of them are, like us, under enormous pressure from excessive immigration, they would be unlikely to sign a deal that reduced the number of migrants coming here. Sir Keir’s other idea is to step up cooperation with France. But the French government already appears to be trying harder than it did in order to justify the large amounts of money we are giving it. Patrolling 100 miles of coastline isn’t easy. Moreover, the French can be forgiven if they don’t want to bust a gut to prevent illegal immigrants — whom they are secretly pleased to get rid of — from turning up in Kent. Sir Keir and Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper are merciless in ridiculing poor Rishi. But the truth is they haven’t a convincing policy of their own to foil the small boats. Anyone who makes a bet that there will be more, not fewer, of them under Labour is unlikely to be risking their money. There’s a deeper reason why I don’t trust Labour to crack this problem. It is that the party has traditionally been extremely relaxed about immigration, legal and illegal. During Tony Blair’s time in office, net migration soared from 48,000 in 1997 to 273,000 in 2007. Cohesion Indeed, there’s evidence that Labour under Blair, and subsequently under Gordon Brown, actively encouraged migration. Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Blair and Home Secretary Jack Straw, has alleged that New Labour deliberately threw open Britain’s borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a ‘truly multicultural’ country. Many on the Left still think it racist to oppose uncontrolled immigration, despite the pressure it puts on housing, schools and the health service, as well as it undermining social cohesion. Sir Keir may well hold such views. He will be surrounded by many who do. We should remember that legal immigration dwarfs the illegal variety that so obsesses Rishi Sunak and the Tories. According to official figures, in the year to June 2023 there were 52,530 ‘irregular migrants’, while in the same period there were 672,000 legal migrants. That is a ratio of about 1 to 13. Of course, it’s not just Labour that historically favours mass migration. So does the Treasury for economic reasons. Yet last week Conservative MP Neil O’Brien produced a graph that demolishes the widely held assumption that high immigration powers economic growth. Error It tracks per capita GDP growth and rising net migration from 1965 to 2023, and demonstrates that there is no correlation between the two. In fact, since 2008 per capita GDP growth has been moribund or sometimes nonexistent, while net migration has been running at unprecedentedly high levels. Mass immigration is undesirable for all sorts of reasons. I’ve no doubt that in Britain and the rest of Europe it will be the most contentious political issue of the next 20 or 30 years. Mr Sunak’s failure to deal with either illegal or legal immigration has made him unpopular with many Tory voters, some of whom have defected to Reform uK. A new poll suggests that some 42 per cent of them would return to the fold if Rishi held a referendum on the issue. What would it ask? It’s hard to see how a referendum would help. The Government already has widespread public support to control immigration. It just hasn’t done it. Rishi may have seen the error of his ways, but he’s running out of time to do anything about it. All I can say is that voters who would trust Labour to bring down immigration are deluded. I doubt it would get a grip on the legal variety, and small boats would cross the Channel in greater numbers. Rishi Sunak has failed to control immigration. Sir Keir Starmer could be far worse. Article Name:ARREST ME! Defiance of JK Rowling as she dares police over new Scottish hate crime law Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Dan Barker and David Churchill Start Page:4 End Page:4
SNP thought police feel the wrath of JK Daily Mail2 Apr 2024 IN a typically courageous and combative intervention, JK Rowling comprehensively demolished Scotland’s flawed Hate Crime Act, challenging police to arrest her if they believed she was breaking the new law. We know from experience this champion of women’s rights isn’t easily intimidated, no matter how much abuse she’s subjected to. Yesterday she proved it again. Taking to Twitter, the novelist defied veiled SNP threats that her steadfast refusal to accept that a biological male can become a woman could be a crime and tore into the iniquity of the legislation. Risibly, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf had blamed ‘actors on the Right’ for whipping up opposition to the Act. This must have come as a surprise to Rowling, who once donated £1million to Labour. And to Peter Tatchell, dauntless campaigner for gay and trans rights over decades. And Joanna Cherry, a former frontbencher in Mr Yousaf’s own party. They all believe this Act to be at best misguided, at worst Orwellian. Even the police who are meant to enforce it have grave misgivings. How are they supposed to determine where passionate belief ends, and hatred begins? An equally vexed question is why trans women are included in the list of six protected groups, but biological women aren’t. As Rowling puts it: ‘ Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls.’ Then there is the issue of third-party complaints, which can be made by anyone at special ‘hubs’. Just imagine the glee with which activists will denounce opponents as haters on the grounds that they hold the ‘wrong’ opinions. How on earth has it come to this, where expressing legitimate personal beliefs can be construed as criminal? Scotland was once the cradle of the Enlightenment. Three centuries on, it’s becoming a repressive dystopia. Article Name:SNP thought police feel the wrath of JK Publication:Daily Mail Start Page:14 End Page:14
LITTLEJOHN Daily Mail2 Apr 2024Richard.littlejohn@dailymail.co.uk DAYS like this it’s difficult to know where to start. What’s an april Fool’s joke and what isn’t? search me. Is J.K. Rowling going to be arrested and charged with ‘hate crime’ for insisting that women don’t have willies? This time last year, that would have been a nailed- on april Fool. But as of yesterday, ‘ misgendering’ someone in scotland is now a criminal offence, carrying a prison sentence. In Jolly Jocko Land, you can get banged up for failing to use the right pronouns to describe a man who identifies as a woman, even though they/he/she’s wearing Lycra leggings so tight that you can’t only notice their/his/her biological sex, you can tell their/ his/her religion. Rowling has already gone into ‘you’ll never take me alive, copper’ mode, publishing a series of ‘offensive’ tweets and defying the police to feel her collar. How long before Jack Docherty’s Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson from the BBC’s scot squad mounts a dawn raid on Hogwarts and drags Harry Potter’s creator off to Barlinnie jail? J.K. would have been safer marching through central London, waving a swastika and chanting ‘Death to the Jews’. according to the Met Police, that’s perfectly acceptable behaviour. an extraordinary video emerged on sunday of a conversation between a policeman and a Jewish woman objecting to a pro-Palestine/ Hamas marcher brandishing a placard featuring a swastika. The woman wanted to know why the protester waving the swastika had not been arrested for committing an anti-semitic public order offence. she complains that the police have told her that a swastika is not, in itself, anti-semitic. PC PLOD tells her ‘everything needs to be taken in context’ and said the person involved had already been arrested for a public order offence in relation to a placard. The woman replies: ‘Why does a swastika need context? In what context is a swastika not anti-semitic and disruptive to public order?’ The copper explains: ‘I don’t have an in- depth knowledge of signs and symbols. I know the swastika was used by the Nazi party during their inception and the period of them being in power in Germany in 1934. I’m aware of that.’ she says: ‘ I can’t believe this conversation is actually happening.’ actually, I can, absurd as it may seem. From the moment the antiIsrael marches kicked off in the wake of the savage october 7 massacre, the Met has been bending over backwards, forwards and sideways to appease the pro-Palestine/Hamas mob. Two weeks after Hamas had murdered 1,400 Jews and taken 200 hostages, supporters paraded through London chanting ‘from the river to the sea’, and calling for ‘ jihad’ and the eradication of Israel — sorry, the ‘Zionist entity’. The fact that elements of the crowd were agitating for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth didn’t appear to unduly bother the Boys In Blue. The Met explained that while ‘jihad’ is usually taken to mean ‘ holy war’, it could also be interpreted in several different ways — for instance, ‘a personal struggle to be a good Muslim’. so that’s all right, then. and specialist officers had examined photographs of what appeared to be an Islamic state flag and concluded that the white squiggles on a black background weren’t an exact match for the IsIs version. Therefore, no case to answer. all a matter of ‘ context’, you understand. so you can now go to jail in scotland for getting someone’s genitalia in a twist. But call for genocide on the streets of London and you’ll get a free pass and a police escort. I don’t know whether to file all this under you Couldn’t Make It Up, or Mind How you Go. Elsewhere yesterday, it was reported that the Lord’s Prayer had been read in Urdu and swahili during the Easter service at Canterbury Cathedral to ‘celebrate diversity’. The Dean, The Very Rev Dr David Monteith, invited a congregant from Pakistan to make the first reading, with English subtitles projected on to a big screen. This had to be an april Fool’s gag, surely. apparently not. The reading was shown live on the BBC, which admittedly is no guarantee it was genuine. It might just have been a joke which backfired. In Liverpool, ‘Urdu’ is scouse for a shampoo and set. Then you recall last month, the Pakistani flag was flown from the roof of Westminster abbey and London’s Regent street was decked out in ‘Happy Ramadan’ bunting, with no room for Easter, and it all starts to make sense. after the reading of the Lord’s Prayer, the archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is reported to have used his Easter sermon to condemn ‘the evil of people smugglers’. That has to be a joke. This is the same archbishop of Canterbury who recently led the opposition in the Lords to the Government’s ‘stop the boats’ Rwanda scheme. To be honest, I don’t know why anybody bothers with april Fools any more. The joke’s always on us. Article Name:LITTLEJOHN Publication:Daily Mail Author:Richard.littlejohn@dailymail.co.uk Start Page:17 End Page:17
  • Wednesday 3 April 2024
Daily Mail front page The women of Britain are behind you, JK Police say author’s trans row remarks weren’t criminal as Labour is mired in confusion over Scottish anti-hate law Daily Mail3 Apr 2024SARAH VINE
The women of Britain are behind you, JK Police say author’s trans row remarks weren’t criminal as Labour is mired in confusion over Scottish anti-hate law Daily Mail3 Apr 2024SARAH VINE Trans storm: JK Rowling had dared police to arrest her over her views but was told yesterday she was in the clear JK Rowling says she hopes all women will be treated equally by Scotland’s new controversial hate crime laws – after police decided not to take any action against her. The Harry Potter author had dared Police Scotland to arrest her on Monday for describing a string of prominent ‘ trans women’ as men. It comes as as divisions within the Labour Party over the new legislation were laid bare – with Scotland’s Labour leader backing the measure and a London front bencher suggesting his party would not expand the law across Britain. Ms Rowling, a prominent critic of gender identity, has been targeted by trans activists who vowed to pursue her under the new law. The SNP’s Hate Crime Act introduces offences for threatening or abusive behaviour intended to stir up hatred, which in Scotland previously applied only to race, and includes a possible seven- year jail sentence. Last night, the legislable ‘She’ll back other women’ tion decended into chaos as Police Scotland confirmed that it had ‘received complaints’ about a social media post in which the writer had named ten ‘ trans women’ as men but said it would take no action. In a statement, the force explained: ‘The comments are not assessed to be criminal and no further action will be taken.’ Ms Rowling welcomed the decision, saying: ‘I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement and I trust that all women – irrespective of profile or financial means – will be treated equally under the law.’ She warned the police that she was ready to intervene if they pursued lower-profile women for making similar comments, adding: ‘If they go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I’ll repeat that woman’s words and they can charge us both at once.’ Meanshile, Labour front bencher Pat McFadden claimed his party would not extend the Scottish hate crime law to the rest of the country – despite backing its introduction north of the border. He said Labour was ‘not planning’ new legislation and suggested that Scotland’s law may prove impossito enforce. However, a Tory source pointed out the Scottish Labour Party had voted for the law, with leader Anas Sarwar saying this week it was ‘the right thing to do’. The source accused Labour of ‘saying different on different sides of the border’. Scotland’s hate crime law came into force in a blaze of publicity on Monday, when Ms Rowling signed off her defiant message on social media with the hashtag #arrestme. Downing Street yesterday warned that the legislation would have a ‘potentially chilling effect on free speech’ and said it would not be extended to the rest of the UK. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: ‘We’re not going to do anything like that here in England. ‘We should not be criminalising people for saying commonsense things about biological sex. Clearly that isn’t right. ‘We have a proud tradition of free speech and I think it just shows that whether it’s the SNP or Labour, these are the wrong sets of priorities for the country.’ Asked about Ms Rowling’s case, he said: ‘It’s not for me to comment on police matters, individual matters, but what I do support very strongly are people’s right to free speech, and nobody should be criminalised for saying commonsense things about biological sex.’ Championed by the SNP’s leader Humza Yousaf, the new Act was also backed by Scottish Labour and the Liberal Democrats when it passed through Scotland’s Parliament in 2021. Some 15 Scottish Labour members voted for the legislation, including Mr Sarwar, while only three voted against. Speaking at the weekend, Mr Sarwar acknowledged that there was a ‘huge gap in the legislation’ in terms of its failure to protect women. But the Scottish Labour Party leader defended his decision to support the law. He said the controversy had been overblown and police needed more training on its implementation. Mr Sarwar said the law would make Scotland a ‘more tolerant nation’. He told LBC radio station: ‘We supported the legislation going through Parliament and I stand by that being the right thing to do. ‘The challenge here isn’t whether the law is flawed, it’s whether the way it is being interpreted and implemented is flawed.’ Mr Sarwar added: ‘I don’t want us to get involved in trying to police thought.’ But Mr McFadden said that a future Labour government would not introduce the law to the rest of the UK, adding that Ms Rowling should not be arrested. He told GB News: ‘We want proper enforcement of the anti-hate crime laws that are there and to make sure that the right penalties are in place to protect people.’ Mr McFadden added: ‘It’s a law passed by the Scottish Parliament. I thought it was slightly strange that they didn’t include women in the law. ‘They’ve included a number of other categories... that seems like something that should be addressed.’ The Labour MP also questioned whether the new law could be enforced following warnings that it could lead to the police being asked to intervene in thousands of personal disputes and verbal spats. ‘ We will see how this can be enforced,’ he said. ‘It looks to me like this might not be an easy passage.’ THE absurdity of Scotland’s pernicious Hate Crime Act was laid bare when the police flinched at arresting JK Rowling for the supposed crime of saying a man could not become a woman. With police accepting she has not broken the law, the author has thrown a shield around those who hold the same beliefs but may have been too scared by the SNP’s Orwellian legislation to express them. Labour insists it would not extend the controversial law, which risks suffocating free speech, to the rest of Britain if it won the election. But can we believe them? In Scotland, Sir Keir Starmer’s party supported the Act, as it did gender self-ID laws, which would have allowed men into women’s changing rooms and prisons. Rishi Sunak rightly blocked that disturbing proposal to protect women and girls. The trouble is, Labour’s leader (who thinks women can have penises) can’t be trusted. He invariably tells voters what they want to hear, then does the opposite. Article Name:The women of Britain are behind you, JK Publication:Daily Mail Author:SARAH VINE Start Page:10 End Page:10
Complaints over trans judge taking part in debates on sex and gender Daily Mail3 Apr 2024By Alex Ward Social Affairs Correspondent A TRANS judge due to step down in the coming weeks is responsible for ‘engaging publicly and inappropriately in debates on sex and gender,’ it has been claimed. Victoria McCloud, a High Court master, announced her resignation in February, claiming that she could not stay on the bench ‘in a dignified way’. Master McCloud, the country’s first transgender judge, wrote ‘I am now political every time I choose where to pee’, in a letter to the senior judiciary. She went on to liken herself to US civil rights activist Rosa Parks adding it was ‘no longer … possible in a dignified way to be both “trans” and a salaried, fairly prominent judge in the UK’. Women’s rights campaigners have since written to the Lady Chief Justice and the Justice Secretary calling on them to act ‘to protect public confidence’. It has emerged Master McCloud is the subject of two complaints to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office relating to claims about her behaviour on social media. The letter, seen by the Daily Mail, referred to several instances where campaigners believe Master McCloud had breached rules governing judicial impartiality. Maya Forstater, co-founder of Sex Matters, says in her letter of complaint that the judge has been ‘ engaging publicly and inappropriately in debates on sex and gender’. Ms Forstater says, in her view, the judge’s posts on social media demonstrate ‘hostility against people with gender-critical beliefs’. Her letter maintains that Master McCloud brings into question her ‘willingness to comply with the obligations placed on judges’. Ms Forstater also requests the JCIO to intervene so as ‘to protect public confidence in the judiciary’. She added: ‘I ask you to investigate urgently why there has been no published outcome to the complaints against McCloud, to take steps to make it clear to Master McCloud that this behaviour is not in line with standards of judicial conduct.’ Official guidance for judges says social media ‘should not be used by individual members of the judiciary to communicate publicly about their judicial work, or matters related to the judiciary’. It also warns judges they face disciplinary action for using their office title on social media. Judicial discipline regulations state investigations into a judge’s conduct must cease once they leave office. Only the Lord Chancellor or Lady Chief Justice can intervene to continue an investigation in certain circumstances. Master McCloud transitioned in the 1990s and was the UK’s first practising trans barrister. She was the youngest Master in the High Court of England and Wales when she was appointed in 2006 as a deputy and then as a full judge in 2010. The Judicial Office declined to comment. Master McCloud has been contacted for a response to Ms Forstater’s allegations. ‘Standards of judicial conduct’ Article Name:Complaints over trans judge taking part in debates on sex and gender Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Alex Ward Social Affairs Correspondent Start Page:11 End Page:11
The women Britain of are behind her In a world where so few are prepared to risk their freedom for what they believe in, JK Rowling is an inspiration, an icon and a hero... Daily Mail3 Apr 2024SarahVine sarah.vine@dailymail.co.uk @WestminsterWAG JK Rowling has chosen her hill to die on, and it’s fair to say it’s becoming more crowded by the minute. What used to be an unspoken taboo – the notion that biological males, with their meat and two veg and their bodies shaped by testosterone, are not the same as biological women – is no longer something that women (or men) are afraid of pointing out, on pain of cancellation. For years now, a powerful, passionate and vocal trans lobby, led predominately by trans women (for some reason trans men aren’t quite so aggressive and territorial: I wonder why?) has attempted to impose its ideological belief that a human male can become a human female, using – somewhat ironically – the tactics traditionally deployed by male aggressors: intimidation, threats of violence, overt misogyny. What began as a legitimate movement designed to fight back against the prejudice traditionally experienced by trans people, and especially trans women, has spiralled into a vicious culture war. In their determination to eliminate anyone who stands in their path, campaigners have trampled over the lives – and livelihoods – of many who have dared to argue with them. Women like Maya Forstater, a business studies and international development researcher who was fired for her gender critical views and had to fight for years to clear her name; Sharron Davies, the former Olympic swimmer who stands up for women’s rights in sports; the journalist and writer Suzanne Moore, who was hounded out of her job at the scrupulously woke Guardian newspaper (also somewhat ironically edited by a woman). And let us not forget the men, such as Graham Linehan, the writer and creator of Father Ted, who was not so much cancelled as obliterated. Even prominent trans women such as Caitlyn Jenner and Debbie Hayton who have voiced their concerns have taken a metaphorical beating, accused of being traitors to their kind. NOT to mention the rest of us who, to a greater or lesser extent, have been branded Terfs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) or bigots merely for expressing the slightest batsqueak of concern at the way affording trans women open and unfettered access to shared spaces with biological women (or girls) might affect the rights and safety of the latter. Concern about how, for example, it might affect a young girl if she finds herself sharing a dressing room with a biologically intact teenage male. Or whether, for example, said teenage male’s intentions are entirely legitimate, given what we know about the desires of young men. Or how it might feel to be facing a strapping 6ft trans girl armed with a big stick on a hockey pitch. Or a victim of domestic abuse or sexual assault who suddenly finds herself sharing a bathroom in jail with someone with a penis who has been convicted of rape. Until recently, to raise these questions in even a non-accusatory way, tip-toeing through the minefield of trans-approved terminology, caveating every syllable with painstaking care, has been fraught with danger. Faced with the prospect of being branded transphobic (the 21st century equivalent of being accused of witchcraft), many women have understandably decided to just keep their heads down and hope it doesn’t happen to them. But not anymore. Author JK Rowling has changed all that. She has, through her courage and clear- sighted determination, fought back in the face of this Orwellian nightmare and, at no small risk to herself, stood firm in the face of the onslaught. She has spoken out where others would not, and she has used her voice to embolden more. Without JK, I could not write this column, we could not be having any kind of honest conversation about these issues. She is, in every sense, a trailblazer. WHAT makes her stance even more admirable is that she didn’t need to do any of it. Insulated by her (well- earned) wealth and fame, she could easily have taken the path of least resistance, lounging on some superyacht somewhere, safe in the knowledge that none of these issues were ever going to affect her or her family. Instead, she chose to stick her neck out and take a stand, and in so doing make herself a target of what can only be described as deranged fury on the part of her critics. She has been betrayed by the very people whose lives and careers she helped foster – not least Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe, leading cast members of the lucrative Harry Potter franchise, whose acting careers might well have sunk without a trace were it not for her. She was notably absent from a 20th anniversary special in 2022. On Monday, she took her bravest stance yet, which was to openly (and with characteristic wit, another thing that drives her critics spare) write a series of tweets in response to the Scottish Government’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act, which creates a new crime of ‘stirring up hatred’ relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. Rowling described several trans women – including Isla Bryson, a double rapist, and Amy George, a butcher who abducted and sexually abused an 11-year-old girl – as men and accused the Scottish Government of placing ‘ higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls’. SHE added that Scottish women are being forced to ‘ deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable’. She then challenged the authorities to arrest her. No one wanted this fight. The vast majority of women, myself included, have absolutely no objection to trans women living in their chosen gender. But when that right to self- expression begins to impinge on the hardwon rights of other women, that is where we all have an obligation to step in. By making criticism of trans or intersex people a hate crime, the Scottish Government has effectively made it impossible to question the actions and behaviour of anyone who self-identifies in that way – regardless of their motives for doing so. It is effectively barring women from being able to protect themselves against predatory males – and threatening to throw them in the slammer if they try to do so. It is, quite literally, insane. Whether JK’s defiance succeeds in changing this new law remains to be seen. As to whether the Scottish authorities accept her challenge, yesterday the Scottish police said JK’s posts did not break the new hate crime law. I suspect they’re ‘feart’, as my ex mother-in-law would say. But in a way JK has already won her fight. Because regardless of the detail now, what she has succeeded in doing is giving women back their voice, which for a time had been stifled. She has not only shown us how to have the courage to stand up for our rights, regardless of threat or intimidation, but given us permission to do so. In a world where so few people are prepared to stand up and be counted, or risk their own comfort and freedoms for something they believe in, she is an inspiration. What a woman, what an icon – what a hero. Be in no doubt, JK, the women of Britain are behind you. With clear-sighted determination, she has fought back in the face of this Orwellian nightmare Article Name:The women Britain of are behind her Publication:Daily Mail Author:SarahVine sarah.vine@dailymail.co.uk @WestminsterWAG Start Page:15 End Page:15
  • Thursday 4 April 2024
    • There are no articles about trans people in Thursday’s Daily Mail.

The Telegraph

  • Sunday 31 March 2024
ONS staff who back singlesex loos could be disciplined The Sunday Telegraph31 Mar 2024By Will Hazell, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT WOMEN working for the Office for National Statistics could face disciplinary action if they object to male-born colleagues using single-sex lavatories and changing rooms, documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph reveal. A cache of HR policies, internal communications and posts from the ONS intranet show that the statistics body has been subject to “institutional capture” by trans activists, gender critical campaigners have alleged. A set of ONS resources on “Gender Identity and Transitioning at Work” includes a manager’s checklist for supporting a transitioning employee with a section headed “use of single-sex facilities”. It says: “Have you agreed when the employee will start to use single-sex facilities, such as toilets and changing rooms, appropriate to their acquired gender? This will usually be on the first day of transition.” The document says that “if colleagues object to sharing facilities with employees going through transition, the situation should be dealt with through communication, discussion and education”. “If colleagues persist with unreasonable objections you may need to manage the situation via grievance or disciplinary procedures.” The ONS’s policy on gender identity, introduced in 2018, says that it is up to transitioning employees to decide when they want to use single-sex facilities in their acquired gender. It says: “As part of their transition process, the employee will have considered the most appropriate time for them to use facilities such as toilets and changing rooms that are appropriate to their gender. ONS recognises that it is up to the employee to decide when they feel comfortable using these facilities.” It adds that “a trans employee should not be expected or asked to use the disabled facilities, to expect this may impede the individual’s transition, be embarrassing or offensive and may constitute harassment”. Sex Matters, a gender critical campaign group, said the policies showed the organisation had “complete disregard for all other employees”. The ONS policy on single-sex lavatories also seems to go considerably beyond trans guidance currently being drawn up for the Civil Service. A draft update to the Cabinet Office’s trans guidance which was leaked last year stated that while an employee with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) would be “legally entitled” to access single-sex lavatories in their acquired gender, transitioning civil servants without a GRC could be asked to use alternative gender-neutral facilities. Another section of the ONS policy says that after an employee transitions, the organisation should carry out the “destruction of all information regarding Leaked documents reveal institution has been ‘captured’ by trans activists, campaigners say ‘The leaked ONS staff documents are inaccurate, ideologically driven and inflammatory.’ a person’s previous gender”. “Place any paper documents that cannot be destroyed in a sealed envelope and attach it to a new employee file, clearly marked as confidential, to be opened only if required,” it says. Sex Matters said the “extreme” policy would mean that a new line manager “might not be aware of an employee’s past performance, absence, sickness or disciplinary records”. Fiona McAnena, Sex Matters’ director of campaigns, said: “The ONS staff documents that have been leaked are inaccurate, ideologically driven and inflammatory. This is what institutional capture looks like.” The ONS said: “We value all of our colleagues and operate an inclusive working environment, focussed on delivering statistics for the public good. We have had no formal complaints about the relevant policies.” Article Name:ONS staff who back singlesex loos could be disciplined Publication:The Sunday Telegraph Author:By Will Hazell, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT Start Page:6 End Page:6
Biden attacked for marking trans day on Easter Sunday The Sunday Telegraph31 Mar 2024By Susie Coen US CORRESPONDENT THE Trump campaign has accused Joe Biden of wielding an “assault on the Christian faith” for marking an annual transgender event, which this year falls on Easter Sunday. The US president on Friday put out a statement proclaiming today as International Transgender Day of Visibility (ITDV) – an annual event that has been celebrated on March 31 since 2009. Marking the celebration, Mr Biden, a devout Catholic, told transgender Americans: “My entire administration and I have your back.” He also attacked the “extremists proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids and their families”. However, Mr Biden, who has put out a similar statement on March 30 in every year of his administration, has been attacked by Republicans who accused him of “betraying” the Christian holiday through his remarks. Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said: “It is appalling and insulting that Joe Biden’s White House prohibited children from submitting religious egg designs for their Easter Art Event, and formally proclaimed Easter Sunday as ‘Trans Day of Visibility’. “Sadly, these are just two more examples of the Biden administration’s yearslong assault on the Christian faith. We call on Joe Biden’s failing campaign and the White House to issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only – the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Vivek Ramaswamy, a former presidential candidate, also commented, saying: “I wonder how [Biden] came up with that date.” Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, accused Mr Biden of having “betrayed the central tenet of Easter”. “Banning sacred truth and tradition – while at the same time proclaiming Easter Sunday as ‘Transgender Day’ – is outrageous and abhorrent,” he wrote, adding: “The people are taking note.” Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox, between March 22 and April 25. ITDV will not fall on Easter Sunday again for at least another 20 years. The Telegraph has approached the Biden administration for comment. Article Name:Biden attacked for marking trans day on Easter Sunday Publication:The Sunday Telegraph Author:By Susie Coen US CORRESPONDENT Start Page:16 End Page:16
  • Monday 1 April 2024
£200k for group that likened gender critical feminists to the KKK The Daily Telegraph1 Apr 2024By Daniel Martin Deputy political editor TAXPAYERS have spent at least £200,000 on a Civil Service staff network that gave training in which gender-critical activists were compared to the Ku Klux Klan. The Cabinet Office gave the Whitehall staff network for transgender civil servants, a:gender, £82,000 last year. The Home Office gave the same group more than £110,000, with other departments spending unknown amounts. The gender-critical group Sex Equality and Equity Network (Seen) said the training provided by a:gender was creating a “culture of fear” across government which has led to the bullying of staff who do not subscribe to the entirety of the trans rights agenda. It comes a week after Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, wrote in The Telegraph that the UK’S diversity drive was “counterproductive” and criticised much equality, diversity and inclusion [EDI] training as “snake oil”. The group wrote to Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, in October 2023 to complain about a:gender training courses and a presentation which compared gender-critical activists to the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan. The presentation said: “Racism won’t come into your workplace as hoods and burning crosses but as ‘nationalism’ or ‘patriotism’.” It adds: “Transphobia is the same: ‘I’m just protecting women and girls’, ‘this undermines women’s hard-fought-for sex-based rights’, “What rights do women have that men don’t? None, because we have the Equality Act. There is no such thing as women’s sex-based rights and, even if there was, how would a man transitioning and getting that right stop women from having that right?” The letter said: “Together these statements repeatedly degenerate and ridicule gender-critical views by presenting them as ignorant or the direct result of anti-semitism ... they operate as an attempt to bully gender-critical people into silence by taking away the words we use to describe our protected belief. “It also creates a hostile working environment by painting our position as the moral equivalent of racism, even (perhaps especially) when presented as part of a civilised discourse. We consider that this constitutes a clear example of bullying and harassment.” Nick Fletcher, a Tory MP, asked the Cabinet Office how much it spent on the a:gender network, to which John Glen, the Paymaster General, replied that the figure in 2022-23 was £82,000. Mr Glen added: “A decision was made since then that no further funding will be provided.” A Freedom of Information request revealed the Home Office spent £111,846 in the same year. Maya Forstater, from the women’s rights group Sex Matters, said: “Unfortunately the Civil Service is using our taxes to pay its own staff to deliver unlawful and inaccurate training under the guise of ‘inclusion workshops’ but what these workshops really do is encourage civil servants to bully and silence anyone who understands that sex is real and sometimes it matters.” She said they promote such ideas as “sex is a spectrum consisting of 62 categories” and “transphobia comes cloaked in concern for women’s rights’”. Last night, a government source said: “The current funding arrangements for a:gender will cease with effect from April 1 2024.” Article Name:£200k for group that likened gender critical feminists to the KKK Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Daniel Martin Deputy political editor Start Page:8 End Page:8
SNP hate crime law ‘threatens trust in police’ Senior officers fear force could be caught in the middle as people try to score points off rivals The Daily Telegraph1 Apr 2024By Simon Johnson Scottish Political Editor SCOTLAND’S new hate crime law could damage public trust in police, senior officers have warned ahead of it coming into force today. Rob Hay, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS), warned of a surge of reports of hate crimes, driven by people wishing to score points against their opponents on social media. He said officers would be caught in the middle, with those accused of hate crimes feeling “aggrieved” if their details are kept by police, even if there is no prosecution. Similarly, he said public trust in the force could be damaged among those lodging complaints of hate crimes if officers concluded the legal threshold for a prosecution had not been reached. The ASPS has warned that an “activist fringe” would seek to “weaponise” the legislation. Police Scotland has pledged to investigate every complaint. Mr Hay also said a deluge of complaints would make it harder to “focus on those crimes and offences that cause the most harm and represent the highest risk to public safety.” Humza Yousaf oversaw the passage of the legislation at Holyrood in 2021 when he was Justice Secretary in Nicola Sturgeon’s government. However, it did not come into force until today as Police Scotland said it needed time for training. The Hate and Public Order (Scotland) Act creates a criminal offence for threatening or abusive behaviour that “stirs up hatred”, expanding on a similar offence based on racist abuse that has been on the statute book for decades. Offences are considered “aggravated”, meaning they could lead to stiffer sentences, if they involve prejudice based on age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. However, concerns have been expressed that the legislation’s definition of a hate crime is too ambiguous, potentially leading to a “chilling” effect on freedom of speech and a torrent of vexatious complaints. In particular, JK Rowling’s allies have suggested that trans activists have her “in their sights”. The author has regularly argued that trans women are not women and last week vowed to continue “calling a man a man” after this “ludicrous law” comes into force. Meanwhile, Sarah Phillimore, a child protection lawyer and advocate of women’s sex-based rights in England, said the law could be used against people in England. The barrister, who has offices in London and Bristol, argued comments posted on social media elsewhere could still be the subject of complaints to Police Scotland, if they could be read north of the Border. Article Name:SNP hate crime law ‘threatens trust in police’ Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Simon Johnson Scottish Political Editor Start Page:10 End Page:10
  • Tuesday 2 April 2024
Daily Telegraph front page - No 10 backs Rowling as she dares police to arrest her over trans tweets SNP fails to provide force with enough funding and 6,000 officers are still to complete two-hour course The Daily Telegraph2 Apr 2024By Simon Johnson and Daniel Martin RISHI SUNAK has backed JK Rowling after she challenged Scottish police to use the SNP’S new hate crime laws to arrest her over her views on transgender issues. The Harry Potter author had said she was looking forward to being arrested after describing a series of transgender women as men on the day the new law came into force. An SNP minister had earlier admitted that Rowling could be investigated under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act – which creates a new offence of “stirring up of hatred” for “misgendering” trans people. However, the Prime Minister gave his support to Rowling, saying that the Conservatives would always protect free speech. He said: “People should not be criminalised for stating simple facts on biology. We believe in free speech in this country, and Conservatives will always protect it.” Yesterday, Rowling posted pictures of 10 high-profile trans people and pointedly described them all as women. They included the “double rapist” Isla Bryson, whom she mockingly referred to as a “lovely Scottish lass”, and the TV personality India Willoughby. At the end of the list, Rowling tweeted: “April Fools! Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them.” She said: “Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal. I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new Act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.” Rowling used the hashtag #Arrestme. Rowling also said that the MSPS who voted for the new hate crime laws had “placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls”. She added: “The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex.” Humza Yousaf, the First Minister, oversaw the passage of the legislation at Holyrood in 2021, when he was justice secretary in Nicola Sturgeon’s government. The Act was supported by almost all SNP and Labour MSPS. When the Act came into force yesterday, Police Scotland said that a third of officers had still not completed their training regarding the new law. The force did not reveal how many reports of crime it had received on the first day of the Act. The legislation creates a criminal offence of “stirring up of hatred”, expanding on a similar offence based on racist abuse that has been on the statute book for decades. The legislation extends this to other grounds on the basis of age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. Someone convicted of stirring up hate could face a fine and a prison term of up to seven years. An amendment to add sex to the list of protected characteristics was voted down, despite cross-party MSPS raising concerns about why women were excluded. Concerns have also been expressed that the legislation’s definition of a hate crime is too ambiguous, potentially leading to a “chilling” effect on freedom of speech and a torrent of vexatious complaints being made to police. In particular, Rowling’s allies have suggested that trans activists have her “in their sights”. Rowling said Scottish women had been pressured by the SNP Government and the police to “deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable”. The policy of MORE than a third of Scotland’s police officers have not received training on Humza Yousaf ’s “confusing” new hate crime law, it has emerged amid warnings of a deluge of cases. The Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said they had been allocated only a “cheap” two-hour training course that was not sufficient. David Kennedy, its general secretary, said 6,000 of Police Scotland’s 16,000 officers had not even completed that yet and admitted he had not either. Mr Kennedy warned the legislation will mean a huge increase in workload for the force, with families, neighbours and work colleagues being “drawn into a criminal law environment”. He argued the Snp-green government at Holyrood had failed to provide the force with the funding it required to train officers properly if it wanted to pass such legislation. A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive”, with the intention of stirring up hatred based on the protected characteristics. But concerns have been expressed that the legislation’s definition of a hate crime is too ambiguous, leading to a torrent of vexatious complaints being made to police. Asked whether officers were ready for the Act being enforced, Mr Kennedy told BBC Radio Scotland: “Some officers might feel prepared but we’ve raised concerns because it’s only been a twohour online package that officers have been given. “There’s been various other webinars that Police Scotland have put on but they are not mandatory and we now know I think approximately 6,000 officers are still to go through the online training. “And we’ve been complaining for several years now about the online training and the lack of face-to-face training that’s required.” He said officers received two days of face-to-face training after the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry but “they haven’t had anything like this for this new law”. Attacking SNP ministers, he said: “Government have to, if they are going to pass these new laws, they have to provide the finances for the police officers to be trained properly so they can enact these new laws and they haven’t done that.” Officers in Scotland have also warned the new law could risk reducing the number of bobbies on the beat. Mr Kennedy said there would be “hours of work” for every complaint, leaving less time for officers to be visible in their communities. Asked if the additional hate crime workload would cut bobbies on the beat, he said: “It could do as officers will be attending other calls to do with hate crime – they won’t be out and about. There’s very few out and about anyway becuase numbers are so stretched. “The Chief Constable said the North East pilot (of not investigating ‘minor’ crimes) would increase patrols but I don’t see how that would work with the Hate Crime Act. You are robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Mr Kennedy said the Scottish Government had provided no extra money or officers for the police to enforce the Act, accusing them of having “not done any of the things that we actually require to make it a success”. “It’s going to bring difficult situations where members of the same family, neighbours, work colleagues, politicians, journalists, anyone you can think of is going to be drawn into a criminal law environment,” he said. “And that would never have confronted us before. The role of the police is we have to apply the law, and it’s going to be an extremely difficult time. I think it’s going to be confusing and fraught with difficulty.” Asked if the legislation could be “weaponised” by activists, he said: “Absolutely, you only need to go on X [formerly Twitter] to see. I think there’ll be groups lined up waiting to make complaints about certain individuals.” Pressed over whether the new law risked angering both sides in controversial debates, he told the programme: “That will cause havoc with trust in police in Scotland, it certainly will reduce that.” He contrasted Police Scotland’s pledge to investigate every hate crime complaint with a recent announcement that some “minor” offences will no longer be fully investigated. Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservatives’ justice spokesman, said: “Front-line officers and Police Scotland will pay the price for Humza Yousaf ’s hate crime law while he arrogantly thinks he knows best. “They will be forced to consider every complaint, no matter how petty or groundless, while telling people they don’t have the resources to investigate real crimes. “The SNP, with Labour backing, passed this law three years ago, so it’s staggering that thousands of officers have still not been trained.” Today Article Name:No 10 backs Rowling as she dares police to arrest her over trans tweets Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Simon Johnson and Daniel Martin Start Page:1 End Page:1
full page of anti-trans articles
  • Wednesday 3 April 2024
Fans supported my attack on puberty blockers, says Roisin Murphy The Daily Telegraph3 Apr 2024By Daily Telegraph Reporter ROISIN MURPHY has insisted the majority of her fans supported her after she voiced concerns about “vulnerable” and “mixed-up kids” being prescribed puberty blockers. The singer was criticised on social media and had two London gigs cancelled in August when she wrote on her Facebook page: “Puberty blockers are f---ed, absolutely desolate, big pharma laughing all the way to the bank. Little mixed-up kids are vulnerable and need to be protected, that’s just true.” Puberty blockers pause the physical changes of puberty and are used by those wishing to change their gender. The NHS announced in March that children will be banned from receiving puberty blockers on prescription and can only take them as part of a clinical trial set to start at the end of this year. The BBC had faced accusations it had “cancelled” Murphy after a day of programming on her back catalogue was wiped from the Radio 6 schedule in the wake of her comments. Archive interviews and highlights from her live shows had been due to air on Sept 26 following the release of her album, but these were replaced by a selection of appearances by rapper Little Simz. The BBC denied the accusations and said the decision had been taken to align with poetry, rap and spoken word programming airing in the same week. Last week, in an interview with France 24 English, a Paris-based TV news network, she said her fans’ reaction to her comments “wasn’t that bad”. She said: “The internet was not that bad. I didn’t get these death threats or anything like that. I got lots of support. I had three or four people ask for tickets back. So it really wasn’t terribly bad. “I don’t think what I said was seen as massively, massively difficult, you know, for people to understand where I was coming from, at the very least.” The singer later apologised for her comments in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying: “To witness the ramifications of my actions and the divisions it has caused is heartbreaking. I am so sorry my comments have been directly hurtful to many of you … I understand fixed views are not helpful but I really hope people can understand my concern was out of love for all of us.” Article Name:Fans supported my attack on puberty blockers, says Roisin Murphy Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Daily Telegraph Reporter Start Page:6 End Page:6
Over 3,000 complaints under Scots hate law Extraordinary response comes as force dismisses complaints against JK Rowling over trans stance The Daily Telegraph3 Apr 2024By Simon Johnson Scottish political editor MORE THAN 3,000 complaints have been made to Police Scotland under the SNP’S new hate crime laws since they came into force this week, it has been reported following warnings that the force would be overwhelmed. Calum Steele, the former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, said he understood that around 3,800 cases had been lodged over the previous 24 hours. Although the force said the number of complaints was still being collated, BBC Scotland reported the extraordinary total since Monday. Critics had warned the legislation would be “weaponised” by trans activists. But JK Rowling has warned Police Scotland against “going after” any woman for misgendering trans people after the force dismissed the first complaints against her under the SNP’S new hate crime laws. The Harry Potter author said she hoped “every woman in Scotland” would be “reassured” by the force’s announcement that her stance was not criminal. In a challenge to Police Scotland, she said that she expected all women who expressed such views would be treated equally “irrespective of profile or financial means”. Rowling, who lives in Edinburgh, said: “If they go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I’ll repeat that woman’s words and they can charge us both at once.” Only hours after the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into force on Monday, Rowling posted pictures of 10 high-profile trans people and ridiculed their claims to be women. They included the “double rapist” Isla Bryson, whom she mockingly referred to as a “lovely Scottish lass”, and India Willoughby, the television personality. She then dared the force to arrest her. Her supporters had expected that trans activists would use the legislation to lodge police complaints against her at the first opportunity. A furious Willoughby said Police Scotland’s announcement was a “joke”, before accusing the force of caving in to the author and making a “mockery of the whole hate crime Bill”. She asked: “What’s going on, Humza Yousaf?” Joanna Cherry KC, an SNP MP and ally of Rowling, said the author had done a “great service” but warned: “It’s a little early to be sure that the zealots who wanted to weaponise aspects of this new law against women have been thwarted.” She questioned whether Rowling would have a non-crime hate incident recorded against her and challenged Police Scotland on the matter. The force declined to comment. Humza Yousaf oversaw the passage of the hate crime legislation at Holyrood in 2021, when he was justice secretary in Nicola Sturgeon’s government. However, it did not come into force until Monday, April Fool’s Day, as Police Scotland said it needed time for training. A person commits an offence under the Act if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive,” with the intention of stirring up hatred based on the protected characteristics. The legislation extends long-standing offences around racist abuse to other grounds on the basis of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. However, an amendment to add sex to the list of protected characteristics was voted down when the legislation was being considered at Holyrood. Concerns have also been expressed that the legislation’s definition of a hate crime is too ambiguous, potentially leading to a “chilling” effect on freedom of speech. ‘If they go after any woman for calling a man a man, I’ll repeat her words and they can charge us both at once’ Article Name:Over 3,000 complaints under Scots hate law Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Simon Johnson Scottish political editor Start Page:6 End Page:6
Non-binary Canadian sues for op to have both penis and vagina The Daily Telegraph3 Apr 2024By Susie Coen A NON-BINARY patient in Canada is seeking taxpayer-funded surgery to create a vagina while also keeping a functional penis. If a court rules in their favour, the patient, 33, from Ontario, will travel to a specialist clinic in Austin, Texas, for the procedure. The patient, referred to in documents as KS, was born male but identifies as non-binary – “literally a mix”, according to court documents. They argue forcing them to undergo binary surgery “could be considered an illegal act of conversion therapy as well as a violation of the Ontario Human Rights Code”. Ontario’s Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) initially denied the request for the surgery in 2022 on the grounds that the procedure is experimental and is not performed in Canada. But the province’s appeals board overturned the decision on the grounds that vaginoplasty should not inherently include a penectomy. That decision prompted a counter-appeal and Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice is expected to issue a ruling in the coming months. It is unclear how much the surgery would cost, but the clinic, The Crane Center, told the National Post their surgeries range from £8,000 - £56,000. According to court documents, KS has suffered from gender dysphoria since they were a teen. They are non-binary but are more “transfeminine” and use she/her pronouns. KS’S doctor, an Ottawa endocrinologist, supports the request for the surgery. “It is very important for (KS) to have a vagina for her personal interpretation of her gender expression but she also wishes to maintain her penis,” the doctor said. Critics told the National Post the request illustrates “how far off the rails” gender-affirming treatment has gone. “Our public healthcare system is at the breaking point and really needs to focus on procedures that are medically necessary,” Pamela Buffone, founder of the parents’ group Canadian Gender Report, said. “The patient will not be physically healthier because of the operation, which is likely to result in complications and the need for corrective surgeries and further demands on the health system.” A similar case last June saw the OHIP fund surgery for a civil servant, 41, who had a penis constructed without removing their vagina and uterus. Article Name:Non-binary Canadian sues for op to have both penis and vagina Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Susie Coen Start Page:6 End Page:6
Yousaf has turned Scotland into a nation of snitches – Stalin would be proud The Daily Telegraph3 Apr 2024Allison Pearson Valiant: JK Rowling is helping others object to the SNP’s unjust hate crime law Did you have a laugh with your husband, wife or other family members home for the Easter weekend? We did at Pearson Towers. Himself is a brilliant mimic and often entertains us with his repertoire of accents, including the six counties of Northern Ireland and assorted movie stars, from Jimmy Stewart and his drawl (“Waaaarhhl”) onwards. His Frenchman-eating-a-piece-of-bread routine (no words, just gorgeous Gallic sounds) is legendary. On Sunday night, when we were still clearing up after our seven-hour lamb (delicious), I pointed out that, from tomorrow in Scotland, any banter like ours, taking place in our own kitchen, if overheard by a passing busybody, could be reported as a hate crime. Naturally, he thought I was joking. Monday was April 1, but, from now on, every day is April Fool’s Day north of the border. The ridiculous yet deeply sinister Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act has criminalised any speech which could be construed as “stirring up hatred”. It introduces offences for threatening or abusive behaviour which previously only applied to race, but is now extended to any “protected characteristic” including age, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. But not the female sex, funnily enough. No less than 411 Third Party Reporting Centres for Hate Crime have been set up across the country where Scots can dob their fellow citizens in for alleged offences against liberal groupthink. “Crimes motivated by prejudice will be treated more seriously and will not be tolerated by society,” the finger-wagging Overview of the Bill declares. And who, you might ask, gets to decide when prejudice curdles into “hate”? Will it be someone like that Metropolitan Police officer who explained to an incredulous young Jewish woman during Saturday’s pro-Palestinian march that the waving of a swastika was not necessarily illegal because everything “needs to be taken in context”? The internationally acknowledged symbol of the Third Reich which murdered six million Jews not hateful enough for you, officer? We never thought we’d live to see a Western government imposing subjective political preferences that criminalise the wider, law-abiding population as the Scottish Parliament has done. First Minister and SNP leader Humza Yousaf, a one-man protected characteristic, has simultaneously turned Scotland into a nation of snitches and effectively made any criticism of him or his religion illegal. Joseph Stalin would be proud of you, Humza! Hope the construction of the Hebridean gulag is proceeding apace; you’re going to need a lot of camps to house all those prisoners guilty of wrongthink. On Monday, JK Rowling pointed out that she could well be one of the first inmates in Humza’s hate prison. In a masterstroke for free speech, the Harry Potter author posted a series of “offensive” tweets (i.e. uncontroversial to any sensible person) and challenged police to arrest her when she returns to Scotland, the home, as she caustically observed, of the Enlightenment. Campaigners like Rowling, who dare to point out that rapists who self-identify as women (while still in possession of a penis) are clearly men, may now be breaking the law simply for stating biological fact (although, rather bizarrely, police announced yesterday they would not be taking any action against the author). And, no, you don’t have to be “anti-trans” to “misgender” a person calling himself Isla Bryson when his sex was clearly visible through his Lycra leggings. You just have to be someone with a working knowledge of DNA who doesn’t want to call a rogue “he” a “she”. The term Orwellian is overused, but I can’t think of any other that better fits this draconian scenario. Nineteen Eighty-Four was supposed to be a warning, not a kit for legislation in 2024. Yet, that is precisely what the woke zealots have imposed on poor Scotland, and what a Labour government may soon do to the rest of the United Kingdom if we don’t look out. As enlightenment gives way to authoritarian darkness, JK Rowling is using her vast wealth as a shield to fight on behalf of all those who would like to object but can’t afford the legal fees. A heroine as valiant as Hermione Granger using her wand to defeat Draco Malfoy, Rowling has offered herself up as a symbol of non-violent resistance to a crazy, unjust law. In a final twist worthy of the creator of Hogwarts herself, the police have been inundated by defiant Scots reporting a certain Humza Yousaf for stirring up hatred. Against white people. In an unpleasant speech dripping with dislike, made three years ago when he was justice secretary, Yousaf said Scotland had “a problem of structural racism”. He named several senior positions in the Scottish government and civil society which he said were “all filled by white people”. (Not particularly surprising when 95.4 per cent of the Scottish population report their ethnicity as “white”.) The clip was retweeted by Elon Musk who said Yousaf “openly despises white people”. Police Scotland says the First Minister has “no case to answer”. Millions of people who care about free speech, and who wish to be able to banter in their own kitchens without a chilling knock on the door, may beg to differ. How about as many Scots as possible report Yousaf for a hate crime and gum up the system? It would serve him and his fellow zealots right. The obvious, the silly and the true have to be defended. Two plus two makes four. We will not obey the party, we will not reject the evidence of our eyes and ears. I stand with JK Rowling. That rapist is not a woman. Article Name:Yousaf has turned Scotland into a nation of snitches – Stalin would be proud Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:Allison Pearson Start Page:7 End Page:7
  • Thursday 4 April 2024
Daily Telegraph front page with Lionel Shrive and 'transgenderism is a social mania'
Rape charity denies gender ‘heresy hunt’ The Daily Telegraph4 Apr 2024By Mark Macaskill A TRANSGENDER woman who heads a Scottish rape charity has been accused of presiding over a “heresy hunt” against a former employee who expressed gender-critical beliefs. Mridul Wadhwa, chief executive at the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) discriminated against Roz Adams, a support counsellor, when her views on gender became known, she claims. At an employment tribunal in Edinburgh yesterday, lawyer Naomi Cunningham, representing Ms Adams, claimed the ERCC mounted an “inquisition” after a female rape survivor said she would feel uncomfortable talking to a man and asked to know the biological sex of her support worker. Ms Adams said she was accused of being “transphobic” after suggesting in an email that they tell her that one volunteer at the charity was “a woman at birth who now identifies as being non-binary”. Ms Cunningham told the tribunal Ms Wadhwa held a “hostile attitude towards sex-realist beliefs” and used the incident to instigate a nine-month disciplinary procedure against Ms Adams. Ms Wadhwa, who was born male, was among a number of high-profile transgender people named by JK Rowling in a social media post this week. Ms Cunningham told the tribunal an internal investigation into Ms Adams was a “heresy hunt”. Ms Adams previously said she was “horrified” when she received a letter advising she was being investigated for gross misconduct and faced the possibility of immediate dismissal. She took sick leave but, after weeks of worry, was told she would face only a warning. She eventually resigned in March 2023. A lawyer for the ERCC denied claims of a witch hunt, and said Ms Adams’s conduct had contravened ERCC policy. The tribunal will make a decision at a future date. Police Scotland has said no action will be taken against JK Rowling under Humza Yousaf’s controversial hate crime law. Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act introduces offences for threatening or abusive behaviour intended to stir up hatred, which previously applied only to race. They carry a possible seven-year prison sentence. Article Name:Rape charity denies gender ‘heresy hunt’ Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Mark Macaskill Start Page:4 End Page:4
Trans inmate self-castrates after prison refuses surgery The Daily Telegraph4 Apr 2024By Laura Murgatroyd A PRISONER seeking to transition from male to female castrated themselves in a jail in Utah after they were denied access to hormone treatment. The Department of Justice is suing the state of Utah and its department of corrections for discrimination and violating the Disabilities Act. For two years the inmate, who has not been identified, asked for access to hormones and female housing as well as the ability to purchase women’s underwear and make-up. After being denied the accommodations, the inmate’s mental health began to decline which led to them performing the castration in May 2023. “Twenty-two months after entering custody, she performed dangerous self-surgery and removed her own testicles,” a press release said. A federal investigation has found that the state corrections department imposed “unnecessary barriers” blocking the inmate from receiving treatment for their intense gender dysphoria. The prisoner was diagnosed with the condition following an assessment carried out by a doctor contracted by the Utah Department of Corrections in June 2022. The doctor said that they were eligible for the treatment. However, treatment was not provided until January 2023, seven months after their assessment and 17 months after they first asked in July 2021. The inmate is said to have been made to jump through procedural hoops that would not be required of any other medical condition, according to the Department of Justice’s investigation. The investigation also revealed that correction officers had purposefully delayed the hormone treatment even as the prisoner’s mental health worsened. The Disabilities Act includes gender dysphoria as a disability, meaning that the corrections facility cannot deny appropriate care for those with the condition. Article Name:Trans inmate self-castrates after prison refuses surgery Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Laura Murgatroyd Start Page:14 End Page:14
‘Transgenderism is a social mania’ Controversial novelist Lionel Shriver talks candidly to Chris Harvey
‘Transgenderism is a social mania’ Controversial novelist Lionel Shriver talks candidly to Chris Harvey The Daily Telegraph4 Apr 2024 “You cannot survive as a civilisation in a state of cringing shame,” says Lionel Shriver, as she launches into a broadside at the self-loathing that people are supposed to feel about the colonial sins of the West. “I am very suspicious of this whole pose of guilt,” she says, explaining that it’s usually used by white people to “assert superiority over other white people”. I’m with the writer of We Need to Talk About Kevin at her house outside Lisbon; she moved there in October after living in the UK for 25 years. She’s not holding back. “Real guilt is a terrible sensation. It is not something that you parade, shame. That is not what these people are experiencing. It’s proud guilt. It’s used to shut people up.” She adds: “It’s all to do with heritable guilt. And I reject that out of hand.” We’ve been chatting about her latest novel, Mania, which digs into the way that social manias have come to dominate our world. They’re insidious, she believes, from the clamour for Covid lockdowns (“the biggest publichealth mistake in history. And the biggest economic mistake in history”) to the response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis (“they were marching down the street in Korea. They don’t have any black people. This was just social contagion”). Even the worldwide cult of Taylor Swift is not down to her “formulaic” music, in Shriver’s view. The 66-year-old lives with her husband, the jazz drummer Jeff Williams, who is off playing in Slovenia. She misses her friends in London, but spends so much of her time reading and writing that she doesn’t feel lonely – “not consciously… I am very comfortable spending long periods of time alone.” There’s a pool and a lemon tree in the garden. Inside, her home is unfussy, as is she, in a cardigan and boot slippers. She has an infectious laugh. “My sensibility has an element of wickedness,” she says. It surfaces in her books and columns, with their provocative edge. “It’s kinda the point,” she says. “Otherwise, someone else might as well write them.” The worldwide success of We Need to Talk About Kevin, which won the Orange Prize in 2005, made her famous. She has written other talked-about novels since, though none has captured the popular imagination in quite the same way. “I don’t know whether I will ever pull it off again,” she says. In her 2016 novel, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047, she imagined a near-future America, with its first Latino president, experiencing complete economic collapse. In Mania, she goes back in time to depict an alternative history that begins in 2011, “because I think that’s when things started really going to s---”. It’s a dystopian satire, dark and funny in uncomfortable ways, about how society is radically transformed by the Mental Parity movement – “the last great civil rights fight” – which maintains that “stupidity is a fiction” and that it’s “discriminatory” to suggest that anyone is more intelligent than anyone else. Uttering any words that suggest otherwise leads to public rebuke – calling something “dumb” can mean losing your job or having your children taken away. Of course, this mirrors the sort of changes made to existing works of fiction, removing references to anyone being “fat”, “nuts”, or even “rather pretty” in Roald Dahl, for instance. Has anyone ever suggested Shriver’s work be combed by a sensitivity reader? “No one,” she says. “I mean, I’ve been with HarperCollins for a long time, so nobody in that company is that stupid.” Beyond the comic set pieces, there’s a serious intent in how Shriver depicts society being hollowed out from within, and it’s clear that it is no imaginary world in her sights. “Things start falling apart because functionality no longer matters; all that matters is ideology. And that’s what we’re dealing with right now. You’re watching grand storied universities destroy themselves because they no longer believe in themselves, they don’t believe in the canon they’re supposed to be transferring to the next generation.” The students now have the power, she says. “The administration and faculty are now terrified of their own student bodies.” Cancel culture, Shriver believes, “is getting worse... there’s nothing moderate about it. It’s aggressive, hostile, angry… perhaps vengeful above all... it’s about hunting people’s careers for sport.” The goal, she says, “is to utterly destroy you. And that is the appeal of this stuff – that satisfaction of destroying other people’s lives. And also, in doing so, you don’t have to take any responsibility for being a destructive force. You are the force of righteousness.” We talk about JK Rowling, whom The Telegraph has described as “the woman who can’t be cancelled”. “Of course, they would have taken her down if they could,” Shriver says. “That’s why she’s been so important. Because she hasn’t apologised, which has been the format, traditionally. She’s stuck by her guns and has helped make it more possible for people who are in less powerful positions to also be forthright about their reservations about this consuming social mania for transgenderism.” What has particularly disturbed Shriver is “the personal disloyalty between individuals who maybe go back decades,” she says. In the case of the Harry Potter cast, “it’s been really hideous to watch. It’s almost always someone to the Left disavowing someone who’s a little bit to the Right,” she adds. It happened to Shriver after an appearance on Question Time in 2019: “There was one person in particular who ended our friendship… for purely political reasons. We’d been friends for 13 years, and then suddenly she couldn’t. I always thought there was an undercurrent of she couldn’t afford to be associated with me.” Mania openly risks offending more people. Its narrator, university lecturer Pearson Converse, revels in taboo language, such as “thickos”, “dummies” and “retards”. Shriver makes a defence of the latter – “it was used very casually [in the US] and it wasn’t a big deal... it was a schoolyard thing, but even when I was a kid, you wouldn’t have called someone whom the state had classified as retarded that.” She once “slipped up” and used it about herself at a literary festival, she says, “and boy, did I get it in the neck from a couple of audience members who were just outraged… but I was talking about myself – whom had I hurt?” The novel is about the phenomenon of cultural revolution rather than an attack on the less intelligent. “If there’s any single social mania that this book is based on, it’s really transgenderism,” Shriver says. “I don’t think it’s that much of an overstatement to say it feels like it comes right out of a Nazi concentration camp. Cutting off people’s healthy body parts. I have grown only more horrified.” I wonder if her decision to rechristen herself with a boy’s name at 17 was in any way influenced by a gender dysphoria of her own. “No, not really. I mean, I was a tomboy. I was sometimes envious of my brothers, because their lives were less restricted than mine. And my father himself admitted in his eighties that they probably underestimated me. I have never relished physically being female,” she says. “I don’t like being physically weaker. My mental image of myself is taller. I hated getting periods. I didn’t end up taking advantage of the biggest plus side of being female because I didn’t have any children.” She chooses her words carefully, seriously, apart from “taller”, which she delivers with a laugh. “There are problems with being male too,” she adds. “Right now, being male, I would say, is, on a career level, a disadvantage… because of the DEI business (diversity, equality and inclusion), which has been going on for a long time. I am very hostile to all this equality legislation,” she continues. “I believe in equality under the law, which is a primitive principle of liberal democratic government. And the UK has abandoned it… This hate-speech legislation is evil. It’s about controlling what you can and can’t say. I’m willing to make the sacrifice of living in a world where people are not always nice, because that’s the real world. “You know, racism shouldn’t be against the law, as an internal state. We all have our conceptions and sometimes misconceptions of groups of people. And we have a right to that. We are now well on our way to criminalising internal states. The Left thinks you should be able to say things that are insulting as much as you want, as long as it’s the ‘wrong person’, someone from the Right. I’m close to a free-speech absolutist, and that absolutism is partly reactive. But I would scrap all hate-speech legislation.” She is talking theoretically, not advocating racism as a lifestyle choice. In Mania, Obama fails to win a second term because he’s “too erudite”; Pearson’s most talented student is black. There’s a distinction to be made between the stridency of her opinions and the subtlety of her novels. She wanted Mania “to be fun and playful, and also to have a serious personal element… it’s not meant to be hectoring”. She’s still engaged with British politics, though she remains an American citizen. She’s imported her London routine, too. She still cycles but can’t run as she used to because “my knees are shot”. She continues: “I’ll do 500 burpees,” adding, “I have a whole set of callisthenics, sit-ups and pressups. It’s dreary as f---. I’m very, very dependent on the television.” She also sticks to her habit of eating one meal a day, at midnight. She doesn’t have an eating disorder, she says. “The meal that I eat is generous and well-balanced and healthy. I’m just a small person. I don’t require that much food, and if I did eat three meals a day, they would have to be ridiculously tiny. And I’d rather eat a substantial meal once, with wine. “If I ate as much as I wanted to, I would be very fat. With my genetic background on my mother’s side, I would easily become a butterball.” Her mother, she says, was “a noticeably less happy woman from her forties onward, because she always weighed more than she wanted.” Her elder brother, Greg, was 28 stone when he died from obesityrelated complications. She wrote a novel based on him, Big Brother, in 2013, which sidelined bodypositivity to deal with being “fat” as a health problem. In her essay collection Abominations (2022), Shriver wrote that “there have been three concerted attempts at my effective ‘cancellation’”. First, after she donned a sombrero at the end of a speech defending cultural appropriation in 2016. Next, in 2018, when she took issue with publisher Penguin Random House’s drive to diversify its staff. Third, when she questioned mass immigration to the UK in 2021. I mention the former deputy Labour leader Alan Johnson’s comment to me on how stopping migration across the Channel via France, Holland and Belgium got worse because of the loss of co-operation when we left the EU. “I don’t think Brexit has been very determinative of immigration,” she says. “The real problem in the UK is legal immigration, and the Tories, rather than tightening immigration policy, loosened it further.” She doesn’t want to get too deeply into that issue, she says, because “that’s the book I’m writing now.” A pause. “That’s the one that’s going to end my career.” A laugh. “Promises, promises.” ‘Universities no longer believe in themselves – they’re terrified of their own students’ ‘Mania’ is published by Borough Press on April 9 Article Name:‘Transgenderism is a social mania’ Publication:The Daily Telegraph Start Page:2 End Page:2

THIS WEEK IN PARLIAMENT

  • Parliament is in recess until April 15.

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AROUND THE WORLD

Bangladesh opens mosque for transgender hijra community [The Post]

  • Bangladesh has opened a mosque specifically designed for the hijra community, a transgender group that has historically faced discrimination in the country. The move is seen as a sign of growing acceptance for transgender people in Bangladesh.

Two transgender rights bills advance in Colorado House [Out Front]

  • Two bills aimed at protecting transgender rights in Colorado have advanced through the state’s House of Representatives. These bills address issues such as healthcare access and identification documents for trans people.

Chicago health department hosts transgender rights summit [Chicago Sun Times]

  • The Chicago Health Department held a summit to discuss issues and advancements in transgender healthcare and rights.

Federal court questions Florida’s pronoun restrictions [Tampa Bay Times]

  • A federal court has challenged Florida’s recent legislation restricting teachers’ ability to use students’ preferred pronouns.

Johnson County board approves task force for transgender community [Daily Iowan]

  • The Johnson County Board of Supervisors has approved the creation of a task force dedicated to supporting the transgender community.

Kansas legislature sends transgender healthcare ban to governor [The Kansan]

  • The Kansas legislature has passed a bill that would ban transgender healthcare for people under 18 and sent it to the Democratic governor’s desk.

ACLU sues Ohio over transgender healthcare ban [City Beat]

  • The ACLU of Ohio has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s recent ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

Trans swimmer Schuyler Bailar makes history at Harvard [USA Today]

  •  Schuyler Bailar, a trans athlete, has become the first transgender man to compete on Harvard’s women’s swimming team.

Mayo Clinic sees increased wait times for transgender care [Post Bulletin]

  • The Mayo Clinic‘s transgender care clinic is experiencing longer wait times due to a rise in demand for gender-affirming healthcare.

Mississippi bill targets transgender recognition [Mississippi Business Journal]

  • Mississippi lawmakers are considering legislation that would define sex as strictly male or female.

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ANY OTHER BUSINESS

The DWP are recruiting 25 covert surveillance officers as part of their “effort to tackle fraud in the welfare system” [Big Issue]

  • As we know, benefit fraud is but a teaspoon in the ocean of tax avoidance and tax fraud. There are no plans for covert surveillance on rich people.

NIO’s hidden secrets uncovered by the Belfast Telegraph: Ulster Resistance, IRA intelligence and more [Belfast Telegraph]

  • The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has been hiding files that by law should be released. These files contain sensitive information about the IRA, Ulster Resistance, and other paramilitary groups. The NIO says they are working on releasing the files but there is a backlog.

RECOMMENDED READING

  • For her many critics, arresting JK Rowling wouldn’t have made her anti-trans comments any less harmful [Independent]
  • JK Rowling is daring police to arrest her. I’m daring JK Rowling to get a life [Metro]
  • Out today! Doc Phoenix’s book, “I Heart Politics: How People Power Took Over the World,” is released today. Get it from all good bookshops, and Amazon.
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TRANSWRITES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

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