The Glinner Update

Ann Widdecombe was found dead at her home in Haytor on the edge of Dartmoor on 9 July. She had missed a television interview the previous afternoon. Police described serious injuries and a brutal attack on a 78-year-old woman in her own house. By 13 July, counter-terrorism officers had taken over the investigation, and a 28-year-old man from Rotherham was in custody under a warrant of further detention. At some point in the days that followed, Hope Not Hate deleted its page about her.

On 8th July, Amnesty International UK published a report naming the “anti-rights organisations” it had identified operating in Britain. The list included a rape crisis centre, two gay rights charities, a child safeguarding group and a network of NHS doctors. On the 10th, Amnesty took it down. Then the letters started. Twenty-two of them at the last count, collected in one place by Sex Matters. Not one of them raises its voice, which is what makes them such a pleasure to read.

The same thing happens to nearly every woman in this book. She is young, she is a tomboy, she finds her way to other lesbians, and then one by one the women she loves announce they are men. Elisabeth from Sweden puts it best, and it’s worth quoting her at length because it sets the tone for everything that follows. “Most of the women I’ve had romantic relationships with, now identify as men. It felt like an epidemic, as if some kind of virus was spreading through the community.

WPATH paid a team at Johns Hopkins to find out whether transitioning children actually works. The team, led by Dr Karen Robinson, did the reviews, graded the evidence and reported back. It found “little to no evidence.” That was not the answer WPATH wanted, so WPATH made sure the answer never got out. After all, it had written into the arrangement that the research be used “for the benefit of advancing transgender health in a positive manner”.

The original This Never Happens documented 236 cases of trans-identified males — biological men — committing acts of violence, sexual assault, and predation against women and children. Of course, these cases continue to pour in and we’ll continue to record them. Photo credit: News 12 / South Wales Police (reproduced by the New York Post). In reporting on the sentencing, the New York Post used a mix of plural and male pronouns to refer to Marcelin.

The men who destroyed women's rights in my home country Error Varadkar built the regime. Kielty refused to question it. O’Gorman gave it Amnesty’s blessing. O’Neill made dissent feel like bigotry. In October 2015, my ex-wife and I were campaigning for abortion reform in Ireland. The man driving us up the east coast from Dublin to Belfast was Colm O’Gorman. Sound man, brave man, I thought. Founder of One in Four and, of course, the face of Amnesty International in Ireland.

“Who radicalised you?” is something we TERFs and TERF allies hear a lot. The question takes for granted that the radicalised parties are us, and not the people who believe men can become women by saying so, that children are born in the wrong body, and that men belong in women’s changing rooms, shelters and sports. Still, I’ll take the question on its own terms. I’m not sure I can safely say any one person was responsible. The one who looms largest is Magdalen Berns.

It’s all free but a paid subscription really helps us keep going! I’ve been writing more than ever lately. For the first time in years, it’s creative work rather than journalism and I’m having a blast. But the scandals keep coming, whether I write about them or not. Another court case. Another safeguarding story. Another detransitioner telling her story, another woman arrested for a tweet, another person hounded out of a job.

Entering the foyer of the King’s Head Theatre, I am greeted by a huge, vertical “Progress” flag on the wall. The sickly pink and blue chevron at the top, pointing down at the rainbow pride colours which are hidden behind high tables and stools. A slight, young usherette with a pixie haircut similar to my own unsmilingly asks me if I am here to see “Rowling In It”, I am indeed.

Helen Joyce has observed that one of the most reliable ways gender ideology captures an institution is through the single employee with a trans-identified relative. That employee becomes the resident authority on all matters of sex and gender, and cites the "lived experience" of their trans-identified brother or non-binary niece as a way of foreclosing any argument. Their presence in a room makes sensible discussion impossible.