19th July 2030

Well, what did you think was going to happen?

As the dust settles, we can reflect upon how much of what we have gone through the last eighteen months was foreseeable, was any of it avoidable, and what now for Blighty?

Of course, the Patriots were always going to defeat their better funded crypto-communist Globalist opponents, that much was predictable, so why did the Globalists prod the bear until they got this?

Who knows, but they certainly picked the wrong fight. Some might say that as a rerun of the Brexiteer versus Remoaner wars of words, the well-funded, ‘educated’ Globalist caucus had a score to settle, and that while they lost the popular vote, they never lost their pompous assertions of superiority. Proof if ever that education does not equal intelligence.

One only has to look at the stereotypical Leave voter of 2016 and compare to the soy drinking, lanyard-class Europhiles to know which side would win if it all turned into a bar room brawl. And so it came to pass.

Maybe the Globalist ‘uniparty’ were not expecting it. Maybe they thought they could keep squeezing the middle until there were only two classes, and they had the cars and we had to use the bus. We cannot say with any certainty what was the exact trigger. The shift from discontent through increasingly brave acts to outright bloody violence was as gradual as the thirty-year build-up since Blair came to power.

Speaking of Blair, the international outcry over the manner of his demise shows a complete lack of understanding of just about everything, although, granted, there are those in the Mercian Brigade deserving of a reprimand, he was neither a combatant nor active protagonist, merely an emblem. Just as the French Revolution is remembered with images of the guillotine, so we shall in future centuries know the symbolism of the woodchipper.

It took a while for the Police to reorganise once the rank-and-file started to rebel. Those Patriot Chief Constables who let it be known they would take transfers inward from other forces showed great bravery and sense. Curious that their offer to facilitate outward transfers was, to the best of our knowledge, never taken up. Makes one proud to be British.

As for the armed forces, well, we should look at them in turn. The Navy remained inscrutable throughout, although insiders say their loyalty to the Patriot cause was never in doubt. All the same, there was not much call for them given this was a fight within the borders. By the time those in Whitehall decided it was time to use air power against its own people, there was enough momentum against them for the information to leak enabling swift preventative action. A very impressive coup by our D-Gangs operating as one. Let’s face it, the RAF was the biggest risk both in terms of loyalties and potential for mass casualties. As for the Army, well given all the Generals seemed behoven to the Globalists, it was always going to be a messy affair. The junior ranks though, well-done them. A bit of a surprise that it started with the Welsh Fusiliers, but no complaints. It is pretty clear that the turning point came when the Paras joined the Essex Brigade.

For me, one of the biggest surprises was what happened in Liverpool and Manchester. For every turn that was foreseeable, having the Scousers turn up like that was not in any reputable analysis. Clearly the stereotypes that have led to a hundred years of mickey-taking were as unjustified as the associated perpetual state of grievance seemed to imply. Hats are being eaten.

There is of course, the elephant in the room. Those who dream of, and advocate for, a United States of Britannia will have to wait a while yet. Those jokes about it being a good deal to lose Scotland to gain Ireland will have to get old first. There is hope, though, the federal model of Principalities is getting serious consideration North of the border, and those Nationalists who did not side with the Globalists might yet get the win-win we all know is within Scotland’s grasp. It is the way of things that when peace arrives, neither the borders nor the politics are exactly where one would expect them to be. Most wars end prematurely in some form or other, and this was no exception.

This is no time for recriminations, although nobody is expecting anyone who ever did a ‘Common Purpose’ course to ever get employment above the menial. Instead, this is a time to commiserate with the defeated, and if they accept your offer of beer and bacon butty (or cider and pasty if you are Wessex Brigade), embrace them. It is time to rebuild, safe in the knowledge that truly liberal democracy has been re-established - oh, the just irony that those who called themselves Liberal Democrats were on the defeated side!

Stonewall – the UK organisation which started out campaigning for LGB rights has been at the forefront of adding the T (for trans) to make their cause about LGBT.

So they’re the experts, right? Let’s see what they say:

Trans – An umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth. Transpeople may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including but not limited to, transgender, transsexual, gender-queer, genderfluid, non-binary, gender-variant, crossdresser, genderless, agender, nongender, third gender, bi-gender, trans man, trans woman, trans masculine, transfeminine, and neutrois.

The second half of this statement covers what transpeople might describe themselves as, so if we accept that people have the right to describe themselves as they see fit, we can leave that part as uncontentious.

So, now we are left with:

An umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth.

What do they mean by gender? Does everyone have a gender, or just some people?

Let’s check the dictionary:

Gender is a word used in the field of linguistics to describe pieces of grammar that are loosely associated with being masculine, feminine or neuter.

Great! That’s what we all knew, it meant.

Also, (colloquially), one’s sex.

We know that, too, right. Some people are a bit too prudish to use the word sex, so they use the word gender instead. But that is only a colloquialism, so it wouldn’t be used in any formal or academic writing.

And anyway, if it does mean sex, then Stonewall means:

An umbrella term to describe people whose sex is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth.

Let’s try this one for size.

Is your sex ‘not the same as’ the sex you were assigned at birth?

Well if you are reading this, then you know your sex. You might well have even used it for recreation or procreation. Your sex is which one of two classes of human you belong to – the class that is equipped to produce the large gamete (egg) is female, and the class that is equipped to produce the small gamete (sperm) is male. In humans, sex is immutable – it cannot be changed.

So, now we need to know what sex you were ‘assigned’ at birth. We have conducted extensive research and have found absolutely nobody who was assigned a sex at birth. The general consensus is that sex is determined when the egg is fertilised by the sperm and identified sometime thereafter, with birth being the most common moment sex is observed. Moreover, if anybody was assigned a sex at birth that was different to their actual sex, then they could just reject any such assignment. Sex assigned at birth is not recorded anywhere, it is a made-up idea. It is your actual sex which is recorded on your birth certificate and passport (unless you get them changed, which, despite the immutability of sex, you can do in jurisdictions which have accepted the idea that gender is equivalent to sex on some, yet to be scientifically established, level).

From this analysis, it is possible to draw two hypothetical conclusions from Stonewall’s definition of trans.

a) Stonewall’s definition of trans is wrong

b) There are no transpeople

So which is it?

If Stonewall’s definition of trans is correct, then it literally denies the existence of transpeople. Note the use of the word literally here, it means ‘the exact interpretation of the words’ rather than the colloquial use as a mode of exaggeration.

Also, there are people who describe themselves as trans. So let’s accept that transpeople exist.

That leaves only one remaining conclusion. Stonewall’s definition of trans is wrong.

Maybe, they are not the experts in transpeople that they set themselves up to be.

Previously, we have accepted that people can describe themselves how they want, so why don’t we ask some transpeople what the word means to them?

Setting aside the first response ‘anyone who says they are’ – with the response that we are seeking a non-circular, unambiguous definition.

The first was a simple ‘transsexual’ – those answering in that manner had as little idea as to what transgender meant as the rest of the world. The Oxford English Dictionary defines transsexual as somebody who has the physical characteristics of one sex and the psychological characteristics of the other. Exploring the psychological characteristics of a sex sounds like it has all the potential of a long and tortuous journey through a deep and complex and dark rabbit hole. Let’s not go there. Instead we shall remind ourselves that those who write dictionaries are entomologists and lexicographers, and not psychologists; thankfully. We know the new breed of trans people do not generally refer to themselves as transsexual. What of them?

This is when we start going around in circles. A lot. Until one is thoroughly dizzy – and one suspects that could be the intention. Bamboozlement, discombobulation, and obfuscation do seem to come naturally to those promoting this new gender ideology.

The circle was always the same – the first half of this article – where we start with the Stonewall definition of trans and finish with Stonewall either erasing trans people or being wrong.

Except one. On one occasion, gender was not conflated with sex. It was said to mean ‘gender identity’.

We could, then propose a simpler, clearer definition:

people whose gender identity is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, their sex

The concept of gender identity has been heavily promoted by the United Nations. The UN is an organisation which is accepted by nations across the world as being the arbiter of what is good national practice.

There is a big debate to be had as to whether it still deserves this status, but it has a noble history especially in the production of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The United Nations defines gender identity thus:

Gender identity is defined as a person's internal, deeply felt sense of being male or female or something other or in between. A person's gender identity may or may not correspond with their sex (HRC, 2008).

So, it is a feeling.

The United Nations and Stonewall and legions of other Alphabetti Spaghetti organisations are seeking to enshrine a feeling in every nation’s laws.

We are getting somewhere, though, we have now got a distilled definition of trans:

People who have an internal, deeply felt sense of being different from, or uncomfortable with, their sex.

It is impossible to change one’s sex. One can change one’s feelings. Cheer up!

Why are governments, at the behest of the United Nations, seeking to protect these feelings in law?

Why are organisations championing the largely irreversible medical alteration of secondary sex characteristics to align with something as vague and capricious as a feeling?

Why do people who have these feelings deserve extra protections in law?

I feel exasperated – where are the extra rights for the exasperated?

The stark observation that, in the UK, “the Rule of Law is broken” is not hyperbole. Increasingly, we are witnessing a breakdown of trust in the legal and judicial systems. It is not simply that laws exist and are not enforced. The deeper problem is that justice is not seen to be done—and in many cases, is objectively not done at all. When citizens perceive that the law no longer functions as a shield for the innocent and a sword against the guilty, a primal and dangerous alternative begins to surface: the instinct to take the law into one’s own hands.

Let’s look at the evidence. Alleging that the rule of law is indeed broken is as serious as it gets, and so, the proof has to be conclusive. I first consciously encountered a hole in the rule of law when I, along with other parents from Our Duty, went to the Tavistock to hold its executive to account. We told them they were hurting our children, we asked them to stop, they denied it, we asked them to investigate. We returned, three months later in December 2019 to follow-up, again just a denial. At this point, the urge to administer justice was overwhelming; however, the rule of law would work for us, wouldn’t it? No chance. The former chief executive, Paul Jenkins, he who claimed to know nothing of the maiming and sterilising of our children, could have stopped it. He chose not to, he remains unpunished for that crime. Today, he is swanning around, living off the fat of a hefty and over-generous NHS pension, instead of languishing in jail where he belongs. Others guilty of harming our children include James Barrett and Leighton Seal and James Bellringer, Helen Webberly and Susie Green, all similarly in need of justice that seems not to be forthcoming.

This is a breach of contract: the unwritten, social covenant in which we citizens delegate the administration of justice to the state in return for not administering it ourselves. What then, are we expected to do now the state has declined to fulfil its half of the bargain?

But the gender scandal is just my pet peeve, there are other realms where the state is in dereliction of its duty.

We could look at other examples where justice is not done or is not seen to be done, such as the sexual abuse of countless teenage girls in those towns overrun by culturally incompatible immigrants. From Rotherham to Ballymena, the law is not keeping our children safe from rapists.

If the law will not protect our children from these abusers, then at some point, parents will realise that they are obliged to step in and fill the void left by the ineffectual, broken state apparatus.

We have probably needed a child-protection militia for decades, it might be a wonder to some as to why one has not emerged. The truth is that the law-abiding citizen believes in the Rule of Law, such a militia might well bypass it. But that belief, that article of faith is being tested as never before. Who is safeguarding our children if the state has abrogated its responsibility and parents are denied the authority?

Respect is earned, and that holds true for the Rule of Law. Respect can be lost in an instant, too. Lady Justice’s fall from grace seems to have become just another emblem of the decline of the West.

The Implied Contract: Law in Exchange for Restraint

Society rests on a foundational compromise: we renounce personal retribution on the understanding that the state will act in our stead. We do not take up arms against thieves, murderers, or fraudsters because the police will apprehend them, and the courts will deliver judgment. This is the moral glue that prevents lynch mobs and keeps vigilantes in fiction.

That moral glue has been dissolved.

This unwritten contract has been broken by those charged with its maintenance. The growing chasm between legal principle and lived reality is breeding a dangerous cynicism. When victims are ignored, when criminals go unpunished—or worse, protected—and when legal institutions become politically selective, the Rule of Law ceases to function as a universal principle and becomes a privilege of the powerful.

Take the case of Lucy Connolly - a mother imprisoned for expressing her opinion.

One need not look far to find examples of two-tier policing and two-tier justice in UK (a simple Google search for those terms will provide much material). We see justice being administered to uphold political ideology instead of natural law. Thus when it is administered, it is not done so fairly, and when it is not administered, that too is unjust. Consider the numerous high-profile cases in which justice has not only been delayed but ultimately denied. Consider the repeated failures of police to act on clear threats to children, women, or vulnerable groups—whether in grooming gangs, medical scandals, or elsewhere. Consider how courts are increasingly unable—or unwilling—to enforce the law without regard to identity, ideology, or influence.

Do you remember reading about sentences commuted because the perpetrator is transgender, or when he did not understand that raping little girls was illegal?

Lady Justice is portrayed as blindfolded, carrying scales in one hand and a sword in the other. In today’s Britain she sees “identity”, the scales are unbalanced by political interference, and the sword is wielded capriciously.

The Rule of Law has become unruly.

What Comes After Trust Is Gone?

The danger here is not merely the decay into uselessness of the institutions of justice, the great peril is societal collapse. When the Rule of Law is no longer credible, people will not tolerate these injustices indefinitely. Human beings are moral creatures, and when formal systems fail them, informal ones take their place. This is how vendettas begin. This is how mobs form. This is how the social contract disintegrates.

To acknowledge this is not to advocate for it—it is a warning. A society in which citizens feel they must take justice into their own hands is a society on the verge of anarchy. And yet, that is precisely where we are headed if this trajectory is not arrested.

“If I knew that I could get away with it, I would administer justice.” is a sentiment that I have heard many times talking with parents whose children have been abused by the state. The only fix to this mindset is to administer justice on their behalf, for the urges they are suppressing are as righteous as it gets.

The principle is simple, even primal: if the law will not protect the innocent, the innocent will be forced to protect themselves. And if justice cannot be obtained through due process, it will be sought outside it.

The Remedy: Repair or Ruin

This is a crisis of legitimacy. Fixing it requires more than funding or managerial tweaks. It requires a moral recommitment to impartial justice. It means removing ideology from police procedures, rooting political bias out of prosecutorial decisions, and returning the judiciary to its role as servant—not sculptor—of the law.

If this cannot be done, we must accept the consequence: a permanent erosion of civil peace, the rise of parallel systems of power, and the reversion to the ancient, brutal rule of might. Indeed, it might well be necessary to pass through a phase of populist law to demonstrate the need to refresh the covenant of state law. There has been a Cold War waged against the innocent and the righteous, it might well have to turn hot to stimulate a renewal.

The philosopher John Locke, writing in the aftermath of England’s civil unrest, put it plainly: when law ceases to be the common rule of right and wrong, “force becomes the umpire.” And when force is the arbiter, the future is not merely uncertain—it is ugly, chaotic, and irreversible.

The choice is clear and stark. Either we re-establish the Rule of Law so that it truly serves the common man, or we resign ourselves to a world in which he will no longer abide by it. This is not a threat; it is a diagnosis. And time is running out for a cure.

With that in mind, we can look backwards to a time when one salary was enough to sustain a family, and we relied on our neighbours and extended family more.

In another talk at the ARC Conference, Stephen Shaw outlined the demographic crisis facing us as birth rates across the world fall below replacement levels. This is a real problem, but one that is difficult to engage with if one lives in a palpably overcrowded nation.

Across the UK, the housing crisis is not merely one of supply and demand but of vision and purpose. We are building more homes but not building communities. Property prices soar, and young families are priced out of areas where they grew up, pushed into cramped apartments or distant commuter belts. Meanwhile, family farmers are squeezed out by taxes inspired by envy allowing asset funds to buy up their land, their inheritance lost to corporate greed. We are losing not just homes but roots.

High Density, Low Humanity

Urban planners often cite the need for high-density housing to meet demand, but density need not mean dreariness. The elegant Georgian crescents of Bath or the Regency terraces of Hove demonstrate that high-density living can be beautiful, functional, and humane. These areas thrive because they are designed with people in mind. Contrast this with the harsh, impersonal high-rises that now define much of urban Britain. In Glasgow, the destruction of tenements could have been an opportunity for renovation, preserving community networks and architectural heritage. Instead, they were replaced by brutalist tower blocks that isolated families and eroded social cohesion.

High-density housing has its place – for those starting out in life or downsizing in later years. But most people in their prime do not dream of raising children in a poky flat. They want a detached family home, with a decent sized garden or even a couple of acres. There is no good reason why this should be out of reach for so many.

Fragmented Families, Fragmented Communities

The decline of the village – both as a physical space and a social construct – has fractured the extended family. In the past, multigenerational living provided support networks crucial for raising children and caring for the elderly. Today, young families are scattered, elderly parents live miles away, and community ties are severed. If an emergency arose, could you rely on a neighbour to look after your toddlers for a few days? Would you even know them well enough to ask?

This fragmentation is not merely inconvenient; it undermines societal trust. When we do not know our neighbours, when they are not of our ‘tribe’, we retreat into isolation. The bonds that once held communities together are frayed, and loneliness is epidemic. A return to village life – to roots, not diaspora – could restore this trust.

Overpopulation or Underpopulation?

The current population of Earth is about 8 billion. While our planet can easily feed that many, the real challenge is not about food sustainability but about societal structures. If you live in a clearly overpopulated country such as the United Kingdom, you can feel the problem. Overcrowding is uncomfortable. Raising a multigenerational family is difficult. Fragmentation of communities leads to a breakdown of trust. We don’t know our neighbours, and they are not even of our tribe.

Interestingly, countries where tribal and clan structures remain intact tend to maintain birth rates above replacement levels. This suggests that a sense of rootedness, community cohesion, and shared identity play significant roles in sustaining population growth. In contrast, the atomisation seen in Western societies contributes to demographic decline.

The challenge for Western nations is stark. Declining birth rates mean fewer people to support social welfare systems, including pensions and healthcare. Yet, this demographic shift also presents an opportunity to reimagine society. As demand for housing decreases, the cost of living could fall, enabling a more balanced, community-centric way of life. Advances in technology mean fewer people need to live in urban centres, potentially reversing the trend towards high-density city living. After all, it was industrialisation that drove the mass migration from country to city. The post-industrial age offers the possibility of returning to more dispersed, sustainable communities.

This shift is not without its challenges. As Stephen Shaw eloquently argued at the ARC Conference, societies facing rapid population decline must find ways to stabilise birth rates to avoid collapse. Yet, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While Shaw emphasises the urgency of reversing the birth rate crisis to sustain current societal structures, this article suggests a complementary perspective: embracing demographic change as an opportunity to rethink how we live, work, and relate to each other.

If done thoughtfully, a world with fewer people could be a better one – not through enforced population control but through a natural, voluntary rebalancing supported by sustainable community models. This requires bold leadership, innovative policies, and a cultural shift towards valuing multigenerational family life, community ties, and long-term sustainability.?

Amidst alarmism about declining birth rates, little attention is paid to how housing and community impact family formation. In the UK, overcrowding and high living costs discourage childbearing. The irony is stark: developed nations fear underpopulation, yet the lived experience is one of overpopulation – not of raw numbers but of density, congestion, and competition for space and resources.

The Case for Optimism

There is hope. Making it easier for people to reproduce at or beyond replacement levels, while targeting an optimal global population of about four billion, is achievable. It begins with rebuilding community support structures. Free childcare in the form of aunts and grandmothers. Proper tax breaks for families, as seen in Hungary. Restoring and upholding men's role as primary providers and risk-takers, ensuring they can support their families without the fear of financial ruin. A cultural shift towards early motherhood – beginning, on average, in a woman’s mid-twenties – supported by marriage stability and responsible sexual behaviour. Unwin's research demonstrated civilisations collapse when their sexual mores descend into hedonism.

People need to live in houses the right size for their stage of life, in a village with their extended family nearby, safe in the knowledge that they shall be supported by their immediate community from birth until death at a ripe old age. This is not nostalgia; it is pragmatism. The future of our societies depends on it.

Sustainable Villages: A Blueprint for Community Revival

We should embrace population decline and use it to destroy bad housing and reconstruct a world of villages.

It is possible to build sustainable villages that balance high-density and low-density housing, integrating functional community spaces and local amenities. Imagine villages centred around a primary school, a convenience store, and a couple of pubs – places designed to foster community interactions and social cohesion. High-density housing can accommodate young families and downsizers, while low-density homes with gardens support growing families. Small-scale farms and green spaces around the village provide food security, recreational opportunities, and environmental benefits. This blend encourages multigenerational living, reducing isolation and building trust..

The village model is not merely nostalgic; it is an adaptable, sustainable solution to modern societal challenges. By rethinking zoning laws and planning regulations, we can create communities that are walkable, liveable, and resilient. Such villages can maintain high population densities while preserving personal space and community identity, striking the right balance between privacy and social interaction.

Towards a Policy Agenda

To achieve this vision, policies must encourage:

• Housing Reform: Zoning laws that prioritise community over profit, enabling the building of family homes with gardens. Incentives for multigenerational living arrangements.

• Tax Incentives and Family Support: Substantial tax breaks for families, particularly those with young children. Support for stay-at-home parents and flexible work arrangements.

• Community Rebuilding: Urban planning focused on village-style communities with local schools, shops, and social spaces. Encouragement of localism and place-based identity.

• Cultural Change: Promotion of marriage stability, responsible sexual behaviour, and societal respect for motherhood and fatherhood.

This vision is not utopian. It is achievable, but it requires courage from policymakers and cultural leaders. It requires a rejection of transient consumerism in favour of rooted communities. And, above all, it requires a return to the fundamental truth that people are not economic units or social experiments. They are human beings, born to belong. We should look to a future when the UK population is about 50 million people, then it can stabilise at that level with sustainable birth rates, and those people (for I shall be long dead) will live in high-trust communities in the spaces that they want (and need). This is doubtless a centuries long project, but the sooner we start, the sooner we can get there.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

The founders of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) understand this truth, and it drives their mission to create a better story around which Western civilization can be revitalised.

I have just returned from their conference at London’s Excel Centre and need to process my thoughts. So, here is the first in a series of articles. In each one, I shall offer a solution to a problem identified at the conference.

A Question of Faith and Modernity

Michael Shellenberger’s talk about AI contained a slide that resonated deeply with me. It made me think of Fuller’s insight and how, thirty years ago, I—a committed atheist—chose to be married in a church without compromising my principles.

G.K. Chesterton was right when he observed that people will believe anything when they stop believing in God. But if the traditional religions of old are at odds with modern sensibilities, how do we discard the scummy bathwater while preserving the baby? How do we keep God so as to avert the moral decline highlighted by Shellenberger?

Some assume that belief in God requires slavish adherence to one or other of the published religious doctrines. This is not true. The moral crisis stemming from the decline of religion is real, but it does not have to be. It is possible to embrace the ethical and communal benefits of religious belief while maintaining a commitment to reason and science. If the God of Judaism was version 1.0, and the Christian adaptation version 1.5 (now with added Jesus), then our contemporary understanding of the world demands God 2.0—an update that honours ancient wisdom while aligning with modern knowledge.

Encountering Faith Without Losing Atheism

On the first evening of the conference, I found myself in a Chinese restaurant, surrounded by a group of warm and welcoming Christians. Before the meal, grace was said. My only discomfort was in being caught off guard—such rituals are uncommon in secular Britain. But this moment reminded me of my own reconciliation of faith and rationalism.

I was raised an atheist. My parents instilled in me a strong moral compass, rooted in the cultural Christianity that defined England in my youth. As a child, I recoiled at certain aspects of organised religion—the supernatural, the authoritarian structure, the legal requirement for daily religious education in schools. And the hypocrisy of some Christians I encountered fuelled my distrust. I was bullied at school, and the bullies were, ironically, the same ones sitting in chapel.

As a consequence I developed a prejudice beyond mere scepticism that was only resolved when I was engaged to be married. Well, almost resolved, I still have a visceral aversion to men in frocks.

At school, we were taught the Ten Commandments. The second of which is:

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” (Exodus 20:4-5)

And yet every church you could visit had people bowing down to crosses or statuettes of Jesus or Mary or both.

It’s a good job Michelangelo was a sinner.

To my teenage mind, Christianity was a system that permitted, maybe even encouraged, flouting the commandments with the promise of divine forgiveness.

A Wedding Dilemma: Can an Atheist Marry in Church?

When I met the woman who would become my wife, I realised that marriage is not just a contract but a covenant—a solemn commitment requiring deep understanding, conviction, and sacrifice. The UK civil ceremony lacked the gravitas I needed to make such a commitment. If we were to marry, it had to be in a church.

But how could I do this without becoming the hypocrite I had spent years despising?

Fortunately, 1993 provided an answer. That year, Anthony Freeman, an Anglican priest, published God in Us: The Case for Christian Humanism, arguing that God is not an external being but a human construct—a metaphor for the highest ideals of humanity. Armed with this perspective, we approached our local vicar, Stephen Terry of St. Philip’s in Hove, and explained our position. To our relief, he embraced our honesty, and together, we crafted a service that respected both tradition and belief.

For this to work, I needed to construct a meaningful concept of God—one that I could genuinely swear upon when taking my vows. So, I embarked on a mission to define what ‘God’ meant to me.

Introducing God 2.0

After much reflection, I arrived at my own holy trinity: Luck, Nature, and the Collective Wisdom of Mankind.

• Luck: Life is inherently unfair. Some are born into privilege, others into hardship. Circumstances can change in an instant—be it a stroke of misfortune or a lucky break. While we cannot control luck, we can influence it by working hard, taking calculated risks, and forging connections.

• Nature: The universe operates by its own laws, indifferent to human desires. From the principles of physics to the processes of evolution, nature sustains us, and understanding its workings is essential for progress.

• The Collective Wisdom of Mankind: Humanity has spent millennia accumulating knowledge, building civilizations, and developing ethical frameworks. The ARC conference itself highlighted this, with its exhibition featuring The Syntopicon—a compendium of 102 ‘Great Ideas’ drawn from history’s greatest minds.

This trinity became my version of the divine. So, when I prayed for my mother’s cancer to be cured, I was appealing to all three elements: luck, in the hands of fate; nature, in the resilience of her body; and human wisdom, in the skill of her doctors.

When we give thanks to God for our dinner, we are thankful for the luck involved in a bountiful harvest provided by nature and the accumulated wisdom of the farmers, food logisticians, and chefs.

A Model for the Future

At ARC, Shellenberger pointed out various societal ills that Chesterton had presaged with his diagnosis of the problem: the erosion of shared values has left Western civilization unmoored. But Jung, Fuller, Aristotle, and—if I may be so bold—I offer a solution: God 2.0.

This new framework retains the communal and moral strengths of traditional faith but updates it to align with modern understanding. It respects the narratives that have shaped our cultures while ensuring that belief remains compatible with reason.

And crucially, God 2.0 is backwards-compatible. It works within the structures and rituals already in place, bridging the gap between faith and scepticism, tradition and progress. And just like any good software, God 2.0 is open-source. Feel free to download, modify, and share responsibly.

I first met Kathleen Stock in Brighton on 16th July 2018. In our brief encounter, I recall mentioning that simple predicate logic was all that was needed to get us out of the gender mess. Dr Stock probably thought I was hopelessly naïve, mansplaining, an idiot, or all three of the above. Now, I mention this meeting for two reasons, the first is that our heroic philosopher has (as I was in the midst of writing this article) just expressed some frustration with the process of the Supreme Court in its deliberations over the meaning of the word woman.

https://x.com/Docstockk/status/1861757995891224787

Yes, a flowchart would be helpful.

The second reason is that I, too, had become a little antsy with our learned Lords and Ladies holding sway over the highest court in the land. Specifically, the judges’ collective inability to apply basic rules of logic to the problem they were charged with resolving was, as when I first wrestled with it in 2018, turning me into a gibbering imbecile.

In the six years since I made the bold claim that all we needed was logic, I have learned a great deal. When I first resolved to join in with sorting out the gender mess, I assumed everyone could see what I could see - especially those on the side opposing self-identification of gender identities. This was hopelessly naïve. We all come to this with wildly different experiences, different educations, different ways of seeing the world. My background includes a first career as a software engineer. Back in the days when computer programs were often written at machine level, expected to be correct, and debugging was a very costly exercise, a great deal of importance was placed on logical correctness. Consequently, computer engineers of the 1980s were taught Boolean logic, mathematic (to manipulate binary arrays) and electronic (to understand chip design) as well as predicate logic (to write correct programs).

We were told philosophers learned logic, too. So of course, Professor Stock would know what I was wittering on about, right? Probably not. Logic is the study of correct reasoning, but it is a surprisingly broad field. There are formal and informal methods. Informal logic is associated with logical fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. Informal logic examines arguments expressed in natural language whereas formal logic uses formal, almost mathematical, language. Our shared understanding of logic was likely less than the shared medical understanding of a chiropodist and a dentist.

Anyway, back to the Supreme Court, where our judges seemed to be learning the hard way that they need a crash course in logic. Their often clumsy interjections had already reminded me of my wild claim that logic was the answer. In the six years since, computer science has advanced such that today’s artificial intelligence software, in the form of Large Language Models, can perform useful tasks that would hitherto have forced me to blow the dust off old textbooks and do some hardcore revision. And so I was minded to ask ChatGPT to perform the following:

The response is reproduced at the end of this article.

What drew me from turning my curiosity, and idle ChatGPT query, into this article was a combination of Kathleen Stock’s post on X - wasn’t that a coincidence? And prior musing on the nature of logic as used in these three differing professions.

While formal logic is the realm of the computer scientist, and philosophers might employ some predicate logic but are more likely to pursue the informal logical analysis, lawyers, if they use any logic at all, will almost always do so from the informal toolkit. One easy way to comprehend these differences is to consider the differences between Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning you might have encountered in school (or in getting a child into a selective school).

Logic becomes a part of one. If obliged to use it regularly, it becomes internalised. After a while there is no need to show workings, you can just see the correct answer in the mind’s eye. This is a skill that is less prevalent now than it once was, we live in an era when feelings are considered to be at least as important as facts. Logic does not work on feelings, its raw materials are hard facts. Computer programming has been lifted far away from the machine. What of philosophy and law?

Of course, the law is as much about rhetoric and precedent as it is about demonstrable proofs. And it might be assumed by the profession that maybe the criminal law might benefit from more logic - “my client cannot be in two places at once, your honour” - than other branches. I would disagree.

The evidence from the last two days is that highly paid arbiters, presumed to be at the pinnacle of their realm, are struggling with both the black-and-white of formal logic and the inferences one can draw if versed in the informal variety.

In fact, there is often merit in performing a more formal logical analysis of what might be usually considered an informal exercise. One such technique is the “decision tree”. These are useful, and often called flowcharts, for determining what decisions are required and how to make them. This particular decision tree only partially addresses the specific question raised in court today in that it points to the women in question having access to the standard treatment under the Equality Act.

The judge asked “if a natal man has GRC as a woman who do not present as women then they may not be discriminated against if the employer is discriminating against women, does that affect the women being able to identify a comparator, then can they bring a discrimination claim?”. To which the barrister’s response was “can I look at that over lunch? I think I need a flowchart to work it out.” [ per ]

In that example, it would seem that there is positive discrimination in favour of the man because he is a man and thus the women are being discriminated against on the basis of sex. Nevertheless, the law would benefit from more flowcharts!

We might also surmise that had the government of 2004 applied a little logic when considering the Gender Recognition Bill, we might never have acquired such a poor Act.

Both formal and informal logic should be expected of senior lawyers and of legislators. Formal logic for abstraction, informal logic for rhetoric and real-world problem-solving.

Computer engineers and philosophers are quite correct in expecting more from those making and interpreting law.

The Fundamentals of Logic should be part of any course to qualify those aspiring to legislate or to judge.

ChatGPT Response to “use predicate logic to disprove gender identity ideology”

Here is the response to the challenge (a key to symbols used is provided at the end) :

Gender identity ideology asserts that an individual's subjective experience of gender is the definitive criterion for determining their "gender" or legal/biological sex. Using predicate logic, this ideology can be challenged by demonstrating internal contradictions or conflicts with established facts. Below is a structured disproof using predicate logic principles.

1. Core Proposition of Gender Identity Ideology

• Claim: Gender identity is self-defined and supersedes biological sex.

  • Symbolically: ∀x (GI(x) → SD(x)), where GI(x) represents the proposition "x's gender identity is valid," and SD(x) represents "x’s self-declaration is sufficient for determining gender."

2. The Principle of Non-Contradiction

• In classical logic, a proposition cannot simultaneously be true and false:

  • ¬(P ∧ ¬P).

• If gender identity ideology leads to contradictions when applied consistently, it cannot be a valid framework.

3. Disproof Through Contradiction

Argument 1: Biological Facts vs. Self-Declaration

• Biological Reality:

  • Biological sex is determined by observable traits such as chromosomes (XX, XY), reproductive anatomy, and gametes. Let B(x) = "x is biologically male or female."

  • B(x) is immutable: ∀x (B(x) → ¬C(x)), where C(x) represents "x can change biological sex."

• Gender Identity Ideology:

  • GI(x) asserts that self-declaration alone (SD(x)) determines gender, irrespective of biological sex. Thus: ∃x (SD(x) ∧ ¬B(x)).

• Contradiction:

  • If SD(x) determines gender, then B(x) is irrelevant. However, physical reality (chromosomes, reproductive functions) consistently asserts ¬C(x), contradicting GI(x).

Argument 2: Gender Identity Is Non-Falsifiable

• Falsifiability Requirement:

  • A valid scientific proposition must be testable and falsifiable: ∀P (¬T(P) → ¬V(P)), where T(P) represents "P is testable," and V(P) represents "P is valid."

• Self-Declaration as the Criterion:

  • GI(x) asserts ∀x (SD(x) → GI(x)). However, SD(x) is entirely subjective and lacks external validation, making it unfalsifiable.

• Result:

  • If gender identity cannot be falsified, it violates the basic principles of scientific and logical reasoning.

Argument 3: Logical Conflicts with Legal and Biological Frameworks

• Scenario: Legal and medical contexts rely on biological sex (B(x)) for safety, fairness, and functionality. For instance:

  • In sports: ∃x (GI(x) → Adv(x)), where Adv(x) represents "x gains an unfair advantage."

  • In prisons: ∃x (GI(x) ∧ Risk(x)), where Risk(x) represents "x poses a safety risk in sex-segregated spaces."

• Contradiction:

  • If GI(x) allows ∃x (SD(x) ∧ ¬B(x)), it undermines frameworks built on B(x), leading to conflicts in law, safety, and fairness.

4. Predicate Logic Summary

1. ∀x (B(x) → ¬C(x)): Biological sex cannot change.

2. GI(x) → SD(x): Gender identity ideology hinges on self-declaration.

3. ∃x (SD(x) ∧ ¬B(x)): Gender identity contradicts immutable biological sex.

4. ¬T(GI(x)) → ¬V(GI(x)): If gender identity is unfalsifiable, it lacks logical validity.

5. GI(x) ∧ Legal/Medical Frameworks: Leads to contradictions in fairness, safety, and policy.

5. Conclusion

Gender identity ideology relies on subjective, unfalsifiable claims that conflict with biological and logical frameworks. Using predicate logic, we see that this ideology violates the principle of non-contradiction, fails the test of scientific validity, and leads to inconsistencies in critical societal domains like law and medicine. Thus, it is logically untenable as a framework for determining sex or gender.

Symbols and Their Meanings

1. ∀ (Universal Quantifier)

   • Meaning: "For all" or "for every."

   • Usage: Indicates that the statement applies to all elements in a given domain.

     • Example: ∀x (B(x) → ¬C(x)) means "For every individual x, if x is biologically male or female, then x cannot change biological sex."

2. ∃ (Existential Quantifier)

   • Meaning: "There exists."

   • Usage: Indicates that the statement applies to at least one element in the domain.

     • Example: ∃x (SD(x) ∧ ¬B(x)) means "There exists at least one individual x whose self-declaration conflicts with their biological sex."

3. → (Logical Implication)

   • Meaning: "If...then..."

   • Usage: Represents a conditional relationship where if the first statement is true, the second must also be true.

     • Example: GI(x) → SD(x) means "If x has a valid gender identity, then it is based on self-declaration."

4. ¬ (Negation)

   • Meaning: "Not" or "It is not the case that."

   • Usage: Negates the truth of a statement.

     • Example: ¬(P ∧ ¬P) means "It is not the case that both P and not P are true."

5. ∧ (Logical Conjunction)

   • Meaning: "And."

   • Usage: Combines two statements such that both must be true for the conjunction to be true.

     • Example: SD(x) ∧ ¬B(x) means "Self-declaration of gender and the absence of alignment with biological sex."

6. ∨ (Logical Disjunction) (Not explicitly used in the original text but relevant for predicate logic)

   • Meaning: "Or."

   • Usage: Combines two statements such that at least one of them must be true.

     • Example: P ∨ Q means "Either P or Q is true, or both."

7. T(P) (Testability Predicate)

   • Meaning: Indicates that a proposition P is testable.

   • Usage: Used to evaluate whether a statement or theory can be empirically verified.

     • Example: ¬T(GI(x)) → ¬V(GI(x)) means "If gender identity is not testable, then it is not valid."

8. V(P) (Validity Predicate)

   • Meaning: Indicates that a proposition P is valid.

   • Usage: Used to assess the logical or empirical truth of a statement.

     • Example: ¬V(P) means "Proposition P is not valid."

Key to Variables

1. x: Represents an individual or subject within the domain (e.g., a person).

2. P: Represents a proposition or statement.

3. B(x): Indicates that x has a specific biological attribute (e.g., male or female).

4. SD(x): Indicates that x has made a self-declaration of gender identity.

5. GI(x): Represents that x’s gender identity is considered valid.

6. C(x): Indicates that x can change their biological sex.

The concept of a belief being “worthy of respect in a democratic society” is defined in English law in the context of employment discrimination and human rights under the Equality Act 2010. This legal principle arrived in the public consciousness with Forstater v CGD Europe [2021] the result of which brought us the hashtag #WORIADS - Worthy of Respect In A Democratic Society, and was primarily clarified in the case of Grainger plc v Nicholson [2010]. So, let’s take a look at these cases and how to test whether a belief is worthy of respect:

In Grainger plc v Nicholson [2010], the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) established criteria for determining whether a belief qualifies for protection under the Equality Act 2010. The case involved an employee, Tim Nicholson, who claimed he had been discriminated against due to his philosophical belief in climate change.

In his judgment, Justice Burton described how Mr Nicholson’s conviction could be tested for it to qualify as a protected belief under the Equality Act 2010, these five tests are now referred to as the Grainger criteria:

1. Belief must be genuinely held: It cannot be an opinion or viewpoint based on current information; it must be sincerely believed by the individual.

2. Belief must be a belief and not an opinion: It must relate to a substantial aspect of human life and behaviour, rather than simply an intellectual position or viewpoint.

3. Belief must be cogent, serious, and cohesive: The belief must be clear and have a certain level of importance and substance.

4. Belief must be compatible with human dignity: It must not conflict with the rights of others or be incompatible with fundamental human dignity.

5. Belief must be "worthy of respect in a democratic society": It should not be harmful or incompatible with the principles of democracy, tolerance, and respect for human rights.

In Forstater v CGD Europe [2021], the tribunal applied these criteria to Maya Forstater, a researcher who claimed her contract was not renewed because of her gender-critical beliefs—namely, that biological sex is immutable and should not be conflated with gender identity. The tribunal ruled that her belief met the Grainger criteria and was thus protected under the law.

In particular, it was ruled that while gender-critical beliefs might offend or upset others, they were worthy of respect in a democratic society, provided that the expression of these beliefs did not amount to harassment or discrimination against others.

Our thought experiment, then, is to attempt to turn the Forstater case on its head, and apply the Grainger test to the opposing belief, the conviction that some people can have a gender identity that is at once equivalent to yet different from one’s sex.

In the first test, the belief must be genuinely held. The nature of indoctrination that is prevalent in society is such that a great many people who do believe in genderwoo would seem to do so sincerely. A pass, then.

The second test is that a belief must be a belief and not an opinion. The difference between the two in this test is that a belief relates to a substantial aspect of human life and behaviour, and an opinion is an intellectual position or viewpoint. Given that ‘gender reassignment’ is already recognised in English law (a grave error), it seems reasonable to grant gender identity ideology belief status on this test (no matter how undeserving).

Thirdly, a belief must be cogent, serious, and cohesive. Well, here is where we can have some fun! A certain level of importance is undisputed (it is one of the biggest issues of our time). As for substance, there is none. Gender identity ideology is almost entirely incoherent. If its proponents were serious, then they would engage in serious debate - their capacity for that seems to be undetectable (curious then, how some aspects became enshrined in law!). Genderwoo should not pass this test, but if MPs cannot think straight, the same can be said of some judges.

The fourth test is: Belief must be compatible with human dignity: It must not conflict with the rights of others or be incompatible with fundamental human dignity. A slam-dunk for Team Reality! Gender identity ideology is patently incompatible with human dignity, it conflicts with children’s right to grow up healthy in body and mind, it conflicts with women’s rights. A clear fail.

Finally: a belief must be "worthy of respect in a democratic society": It should not be harmful or incompatible with the principles of democracy, tolerance, and respect for human rights. Gender identity ideology is harmful. Gender identity ideology is intolerant. Gender identity ideology does not respect human rights.

Genderwoo almost certainly fails test number three, and clearly fails tests four and five.

Gender identity ideology is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.

It is unworthy. #UORIADS

The belief in genderwoo is infringing women’s rights, it is harming children, it is corrupting our very sense of reality. Gender identity ideology does not meet the criteria to be a protected belief. There is a burning imperative for society to eliminate it entirely. We can start by not affording it any respect whatsoever, wherever you might encounter it. And if that means more court cases, then bring them on.

So-called ‘lived’ (is there any other kind) experience is subjective, making it less reliable than objective sources. In the realm of gender medicine this unreliability is compounded with powerful cognitive biases.

It is an objective truth that the normalisation of transgenderism is a contributory factor in the epidemic of adolescents adopting trans identities. This is because transgenderism is an ideation.

The essay Autogynephilia at 35 by Dr Anne Lawrence provides a retrospective examination of autogynephilia (AGP), a paraphilia characterised by male sexual arousal at the thought or image of oneself as a woman. While Lawrence's work aims to explore the personal experiences of those living with AGP, it largely frames the condition sympathetically, overlooking critical safeguarding concerns.

It was the line in that paper: “AGP will inevitably become part of the curriculum” that prompted me to write this article. AGP must never be taught in schools as if it is somehow equivalent in status to heterosexuality or homosexuality. That was not the only red flag in the paper. On examination, there are concerns that highlight the need for society to adopt a far more cautious approach to AGP as part of safeguarding vulnerable populations, particularly women and children, as well as protecting individuals from irreversible harm.

One of the primary safeguarding concerns with AGP is the potential for individuals manifesting this ideation to undermine established sex-based protections in public spaces, particularly in environments such as bathrooms, changing rooms, or women’s shelters. In Lawrence’s retrospective view, the focus remains largely on the individual’s experience of AGP without addressing the broader societal implications. Exactly the sort of perspective that hindered Cass. Safeguarding measures are primarily designed to protect vulnerable groups, such as women and children, by maintaining clear boundaries based on biological sex. Manifesting AGP in public, particularly through transitioning or accessing female-only spaces, threatens these boundaries by blurring the lines between real sex and its imitation.

Such blurred boundaries can create opportunities for exploitation or abuse. Safeguarding policies, especially in educational settings or places that involve intimate care, rely on biological distinctions to protect individuals from harm. Allowing individuals with AGP, a male paraphilia, into female spaces undermines these protections. The fact that AGP is tied to sexual arousal heightens the risk. Beyond these well-documented risks is the effect any acceptance of AGP in the public realm will have on children’s perception of reality. The push to destigmatise and affirm all forms of transgenderism, including those rooted in paraphilic ideation like AGP, risks exposing young people to confusing messages about sexuality. The risk is especially acute during the critical years of identity formation. Adolescents may internalise these messages and be led toward life-altering decisions based on what may only be transient feelings. Safeguarding children and adolescents requires promoting clear, stable sex-based distinctions rather than affirming paraphilic behaviours that could lead to psychological or physical harm. Lawrence’s paper takes no account of these safeguarding concerns, and so overlooks vital aspects of public safety and wellbeing.

The rising trend of medical interventions in youth struggling with transgender ideation—such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries—can be exacerbated by the normalisation of paraphilias like AGP. If AGP, with its strong sexual component, is presented as a valid expression of identity, it could further complicate the treatment of transgender ideation in youth, encouraging them to pursue irreversible medical transitions based on ideations that might otherwise have been managed through psychological support.

The concept of autogynephilia as an ideation—persistent, ruminated thoughts or fantasies that can become compulsive—should be viewed similarly to other forms of cognitive distortions or paraphilic disorders. Ideations, when repeatedly ruminated upon, can become ingrained and potentially harmful if acted upon. Lawrence's work primarily focuses on affirming AGP as part of the individual’s identity, yet this perspective fails to recognise the potential dangers of reinforcing these ideations. When AGP is treated as an inherent part of one’s identity rather than a modifiable thought pattern, it opens the door for harmful behaviours to be legitimised and enacted publicly.

The Role of Taboo in Safeguarding

Society often uses taboo as a cultural safeguard, signalling that certain behaviours, while perhaps present, are best kept private and managed through therapeutic interventions rather than normalised in public. In the case of AGP, maintaining a taboo around its public manifestation serves an important safeguarding function. It protects both individuals experiencing AGP and society from the potential harms associated with acting out ideations that could be better addressed in private settings.

Lawrence’s retrospective analysis of AGP largely glosses over the importance of this taboo, treating AGP as a condition that should be publicly accepted and normalised. However, by removing the cultural safeguards that come with taboo, we risk encouraging behaviours that could lead to broader harm. Instead, AGP should be treated as a private issue—something to be managed therapeutically rather than displayed or affirmed in public spaces. This would not only help prevent individuals from making irreversible decisions, such as medical transitions, but also protect vulnerable groups from being exposed to potentially harmful behaviours rooted in paraphilic ideations.

Conclusion

Tellingly, Dr Anne Lawrence’s Autogynephilia at 35 includes the following sentence:

If adolescents with AGP and severe gender dysphoria can be identified in middle childhood they can be offered puberty blocking and feminizing hormones in their early teenage years, allowing them to develop the bodies they desire and to move through the world more comfortably as adults.

AGP in adolescents is, in my experience, vanishingly rare (possibly because one likely hypothesis is that AGP comes about after prolonged exposure to pornography). Adolescent transgender ideation (which can lead to feelings of gender dysphoria) is predominantly a social phenomenon, although there will be some exceedingly effeminate young homosexual men among their number. However, worse than treating gender dysphoria as the valid diagnosis that it is not, Lawrence’s advocacy for the medical ruination “to develop the bodies they desire” puts the wants of the deluded ahead their mental and physical wellbeing needs.

It is unfortunate that Autogynephilia at 35 has received the attention that it has, it deserved to be kept in private shame. Like those with autogynephilia.

By maintaining a cultural taboo around the public manifestation of AGP, society can protect vulnerable populations, such as women and children, and susceptible individuals from making irreversible decisions that may stem from compulsive thought patterns. Cognitive-behavioural approaches, rather than affirmation, provide a more responsible and effective framework for managing transgender ideations.

The well-being of all society requires safeguarding, and it requires taboos.

When I started out on Twitter (now X) way back in its infancy, I quickly adopted two accounts, one in my real name @KeithHJordan and one anonymous @Sensatus. I built quite a following, particularly around the time of the Libyan uprising. Fast-forward to the gender wars and these accounts did not last long, both succumbing to the blue-haired moderators at Twitter HQ who seemed to have a pathological dislike of the truth. My third account, then, was required and fishing around for a name I landed upon @Buttinghill. This account commenced in June 2018 at the time when I was in the midst of establishing parent peer support for families with child thinking of themselves as transgender. The disruption, then, was not insignificant. Annoyingly, this new account only lasted until April 1st 2019 when some fool saw fit to ban it.

Buttinghill is the old name for the part of the country where I live. Technically, it is a hundred which is a subdivision of a rape. The meaning of the word rape in this context is akin to a county, each had a sheriff in what was once the Kingdom of Sussex.

There are a few ideas around for how Buttinghill got its name, but I prefer the simplest explanation: If you follow the line of the South Downs, there is a hill that butts out from the main escarpment, now called Wolstonbury Hill, and it forms the Southern limit of Buttinghill. At the end of the First World War, the Armistice documents were prepared at a house called Danny, an Elizabethan pile less than a mile North of Wolstonbury Hill. British Prime Minister Lloyd George lived in Danny, in a menage a trois with his wife and mistress, and would frequently walk to the summit of Wolstonbury Hill where he would survey Buttinghill.

Once Elon Musk took over Twitter and rebranded it X, it made sense to see if I could get my Buttinghill account reinstated. After a few months of trying, I succeeded. But then I had an anonymous account that I had no immediate use for.

Mr Musk sees Substack as direct competition, so links to it are downgraded. However, those Substack sites which have their own name, so look a lot like independent websites, don’t seem to get treated so badly. This prompted me to think about what website name I could get to take advantage of this, buttinghill.com was the obvious choice. So here we are.

But what is it for?

Well, for a start, I could make it look more like a magazine, if I have guest authors they’ll not be posting under my name, and it is more likely to push me to make something of it.

Buttinghill is currently divided into three sections, and you can subscribe (or unsubscribe) to them separately. The three sections are:

Manifest, Oh!

Where common sense and blue-sky thinking collide in the world of policy formation. Ideas that could end up in the manifesto of a truly wonderful political party.

Duty Calls

Articles concerning the prevention and cure of transgender ideation. Typically, interesting pieces that would not work on the Our Duty website but that need some outlet.

Occasional Musings

The original style of article, mainly contributions to the fight for truth, goodness, beauty, liberty and justice. The aim is to provide food for thought.

Other sections will be added in due course, maybe even recipes!

Anyway, I hope you like these developments. When posts become more frequent it shall be easier to discern what sort of article you’re getting.

If you are a paid subscriber, let me know what you think in the comments.

The UK’s pub industry is on life support. If there’s any hope of saving this centuries-old institution, it lies in restructuring the way pubs and the drinks they sell are taxed. For years, supermarkets have been edging pubs out of the market by offering alcohol at prices pubs simply can’t compete with. But the solution is simple: remove alcohol duty from ‘on-sales’ and VAT from all drinks sold in pubs, allowing them to level the playing field against the supermarket giants.

To grasp the urgency of the situation, one need only look at the numbers. Back in 1990, the UK had around 63,500 pubs, which equated to 111 pubs for every 100,000 people. Today, that number has plummeted to roughly 47,200, or just 58 pubs per 100,000 people. In less than 30 years, the number of pubs per capita has halved, and the decline continues. The first quarter of 2023 alone saw 138 pubs shut their doors for good, a trend that shows no sign of abating.

Why Are Pubs So Important?

Pubs aren’t merely businesses; they are the lifeblood of many communities. In countless towns and villages across the UK, the local pub is the last communal meeting place, offering more than just a pint. It’s a venue for family gatherings, social events, and maintaining a sense of belonging. A report by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) pointed out that pubs serve as vital hubs for social cohesion, especially in rural areas where other social amenities are scarce.

When a pub closes, the community loses an important space for people to interact, connect, and engage with one another. For some, especially the elderly or those living alone, a visit to the local pub may be their only social interaction for days. The pub has traditionally been a place where issues are debated, where friendships are formed, and where local traditions are kept alive. Without pubs, we risk further fragmenting already isolated communities.

Competition from Supermarkets

While pubs are closing at an alarming rate, supermarket alcohol sales are soaring. Between 2010 and 2019, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) recorded a staggering 50% rise in supermarket alcohol sales, a trend that directly correlates with the decline in pub sales. Supermarkets can sell alcohol at significantly lower prices, thanks to economies of scale and lower operational costs. Pubs, meanwhile, are burdened with higher expenses—rent, staff wages, utility bills—and, crucially, taxes – VAT, business rates, and alcohol duty, which hit ‘on-sales’ much harder than ‘off-sales’ in supermarkets. While the alcohol duty is 37 pence for a pint of 4.5% beer in a supermarket, and 34p for draught beer in pubs, VAT on a £2 supermarket pint is only 33p compared with 83p for a pub pint, overheads are higher for pubs, as is the profit margin necessary to sustain the business due to disparity in volume. There is already a difference in alcohol duty between off-sales and draught sales. At Spring Budget 2023 the government announced legislating to increase the new Draught Relief from 5% to 9.2% for qualifying beer and cider products, and from 20% to 23% for qualifying wine, spirits based and other fermented products. This indicates a recognition that rates of alcohol duty can be used to support pubs, but the amount is so inadequate as to have a negligible effect.

Currently, alcohol duty in the UK contributes around £13 billion annually to the Treasury, about 70% of this from supermarkets. Supermarkets can sell alcohol at far cheaper prices, encouraging people to buy in bulk and drink at home. As a result, pubs are fighting a losing battle, and the community suffers as social drinking shifts from a controlled, moderated environment to binge drinking in private.

The Case for Reducing the Tax Burden on Pubs

If pubs are to survive, one clear policy solution is to remove alcohol duty from ‘on-sales’ as well as to zero-rate the VAT for all drinks sold in pubs. This would allow pubs to price alcohol and soft drinks more competitively, giving them a chance to win back customers. Pubs are unique in that they provide a regulated space for alcohol consumption. The publican has the legal responsibility to ensure patrons don’t drink to excess, creating a safer environment for social drinking. By contrast, supermarket alcohol is consumed without any oversight, often leading to higher levels of binge drinking and associated public health risks.

Eliminating alcohol duty and VAT on pub sales would help pubs stay afloat in an increasingly competitive market. More than that, it would preserve the social and cultural value that pubs bring to their communities. For many towns and villages, the pub is the only remaining public space where people can gather. By alleviating the tax burden on pubs, the government can protect these vital community assets while ensuring that alcohol is consumed in a more responsible and socially constructive environment.

Cultural Value and Economic Impact

The cultural value of pubs cannot be overstated. From local traditions to fostering social bonds, pubs are integral to the fabric of British life. The phrase “meeting down the pub” is as much a part of the national lexicon as a cuppa. But beyond their cultural significance, pubs also contribute enormously to the economy. The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) estimates that pubs support around 430,000 jobs, many of which are in economically vulnerable rural areas​.

When pubs close, these jobs disappear, and the local economy suffers. Empty pub buildings become eyesores, property values drop, and local councils lose vital business rate revenues. In the long run, this also affects tourism, as visitors to the UK often seek out traditional pubs as part of the quintessential British experience. Thus, saving pubs isn’t just about protecting a way of life; it’s about supporting the economy and safeguarding jobs.

Business rates charged to public houses need to re-appraised taking into account the importance of such hostelries to the local economy and community.

The Human Cost of Pub Closures

Beyond the economic statistics and community impact, there’s a human story at the heart of pub closures. Publicans who have spent years—sometimes decades—running their local pub are being forced to give up their livelihoods. Families who have owned pubs for generations are being driven out of business by mounting costs and unsustainable competition from supermarket chains.

The human cost isn’t limited to the publicans either. Regular patrons—especially the elderly—who rely on the pub as a social lifeline are being left isolated as their local closes. A 2019 study by the Royal Society for Public Health found that regular pub-goers were significantly more likely to report feelings of social connection and wellbeing than those who drank at home.

Conclusion

Saving pubs is about preserving the social and cultural fabric of the UK. The current tax system unfairly penalises pubs while allowing supermarkets to dominate the alcohol market. By eliminating alcohol duty and VAT from drinks sold in pubs, the government would give them the breathing space they need to survive, protect vital jobs, and maintain the community spaces that are so integral to British life.

The UK cannot afford to lose any more pubs. These institutions are more than just places to drink—they are the heart of communities, a source of social cohesion, and a vital part of the nation’s cultural heritage. If the government is serious about levelling up the economy, protecting jobs, and safeguarding community spaces, it must act now by radically reducing the tax burden on pubs and giving them a fighting chance. The alternative is a future where the pub is a thing of the past, replaced by cheaper, impersonal drinking at home, devoid of the rich social interaction that has characterised British life for centuries.

[i] Economies of ale: changes in the UK pubs and bars sector, 2001 to 2019

 Office for National Statistics

[ii] Research Briefing Pub Statistics House of Commons Library

In this short talk, Keith explores how parents can support their children in reconnecting with reality through peer support and practical activism. He discusses the importance of raising awareness, and of advocacy efforts, explaining how Our Duty empowers parents to navigate legal battles, school interventions, and social services.

The podcast doesn’t stop at the immediate crisis; it also examines the broader cultural implications of transgender ideation. Drawing on the insights of thinkers like Jordan Peterson and Helen Joyce, Keith offers a powerful critique of how cultural shifts over decades have led to this moment. For anyone seeking to understand the roots of this issue and how we can make a meaningful change, this episode is essential. Tune in to learn how we can defend the values of truth, beauty, liberty, and justice for the future of our children.

So what are the culture wars? Who are the belligerents? Who are the commanders and leaders? What exactly is being fought over? How did the wars start? And, crucially, how will they end? In short, what would the Wikipedia page on “The Culture Wars” say were Wikipedia itself not entirely captured (as indeed it is) by an army in this very conflict?

The original culture war was Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Mao aimed to remove the "Four Olds": old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. He believed that these elements were preventing China from achieving true socialism and needed to be eradicated to build a new communist culture. This was no mere battle of ideas, millions died.

By 1991 the culture wars had flared up in the United States and was written about in James Davison’s "Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America". Davison portrayed the wars as Progressivism versus Orthodoxy, but makes the classic American mistake of attributing liberalism to the left. Now, of course, liberalism does exist on the left, the late Tony Benn was a great example. And I think we can all accept that a little socialism - the safety net - is a good thing. So when we see the culture wars being waged by the left, it is specifically the authoritarian tendency that is in the van.

Simon Heffer wrote in The Telegraph:
“The great lie about the culture wars is that the Right started them. It didn’t. It lacked the requisite intolerance to do so [my bold]. The cult of virtue-signalling, whereby earnest liberals curry favour with their co-religionists by seeking people and things to denounce, is rooted in Orwellian bullying by the Left.”

And while Heffer makes the same mistake as Davison in his use of the word liberal, he is right, the 21st century culture wars are waged by the far-left. As with all newspeak the term ‘culture wars’ is constructed to frame things in a manner that benefits the Left, usually by attempting to portray themselves in a good light, or those that oppose them in a bad one. The leftist meaning of the word “progressive” is a case in point and a particular bête noire.

Many of the core tenets of classical liberalism—such as individual liberty, free markets, and limited government—came to be associated with what we now call conservatism. The left’s hijacking of the word liberal for their own cause is perhaps an even more egregious example of newspeak than ‘progressive’. The preference for state intervention, regulation, ‘hate speech laws’, equality of outcome over equality of opportunity, and so forth, are all antithetical to true liberalism.

Liberals want a small state and for it to be a referee and not a player. The Left want the state to be large and controlling, and for corporations to adhere to their orthodoxy - this, by the way, is the very definition of fascism.

So, in this Orwellian world, we might call the aggressor in the Culture Wars “The Party”, by which I mean all the sympathisers of woke causes rather than paid-up members of any of the leftist political parties, although there is considerable overlap. Members recognise each other by their declared adherence to articles of faith such as the use of pronouns. The list of beliefs will be familiar to many, as well as the belief that “trans people” are a distinct category worthy of recognition and protection in law, we have the notion of “white privilege” with its particular brand of racism re-branded as anti-racism (newspeak, again). Then there is “queer theory” which seeks to rid the world of the old taboos around sex, especially paedophilia. These behaviours have come to be known as ‘virtue signalling’, but yet again we see an example of newspeak. These are not virtues in any sense of the word that are being signalled, this is allegiance signalling. They clamour for equity unaware that their leaders only want it for the masses so they might be controllable. They want you to give up your car and take the bus, but don’t think for a second that they would.

Nandy declares the wars over, then encourages men to compete in women’s sports. Phillipson declares the wars over, then stymies free speech. What should we make of this?

It would seem that Nandy and Phillipson want the culture wars to end by way of an outright victory for the invading army of the authoritarian left. That, simply, is not going to happen. Far too many people realise what is at stake, here. If “The Party” wins we shall be living in tyranny. The party elites will be doing fine, the champagne socialists will survive and thrive, but the rest of us plebs will not be able to get well-paying jobs, and we shall not be able to complain, and we shall see our children’s futures ruined by indoctrination, immigration, and iatrogenic harm. Somehow, I don’t think the ordinary Brit will stand for it. But then, the people have not woken up to these threats yet, and maybe they’ll just lie back and take it. With over 50% of the British population reliant on the state, maybe there are already too many people scared of losing their jobs for standing up for themselves. If you are in “The Party” you can get a very lucrative gig being a “Diversity and Inclusion Officer” for one of the countless branches of the ever expanding state machine. If you are not, then it is cancellation for you. Your CV sifted out by woke AI, or by entrance tests with the wrong right answers. This has been happening for years, and the last administration did nothing to stop it. Their only attempt at pushback was the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, and that lies dead in the water.

If we can extend the “wars” metaphor to one most of us know about (although I suspect they don’t teach about in school anymore, after all the bad guys were authoritarian socialists then, too), then those people who know that what is happening is wrong, but have yet to speak up out of fear, can be likened to the refugees from Dunkirk. The recent General Election left many bloodied and no longer in the theatre they need to be in. Nevertheless, there remain operatives behind enemy lines. About a year ago, I could probably name every single one, they were so few in number, and their commitment so enduring. However, in the last 12 months, we have seen quite an explosion in numbers, I can no longer keep up. This is a good thing.

So, we shall call these defenders “The Resistance”.

Baroness Clare Fox, founder of the Academy of Ideas, commented on Phillipson’s betrayal writing in The Telegraph:

”In an interview on Monday, Bridget Phillipson declared “the culture wars on university campuses end here”. Now on Friday, she has declared war on the culture of free speech on campus. Let me assure her, as a parliamentarian and the Director of the Academy of Ideas, surrender is not on the cards. The fight-back starts here.”

The culture wars could end, or they could continue for another 60 years. If they are to end, it shall not be via the victory of the authoritarian; the human spirit will not allow it. Victory, then, will occur when the liberal values, established via the collective wisdom of all humanity over millennia, are once again revered. Those new-fangled ideas that have been wrecking the education of our youth since the 1960’s will die as bacteria under sunlight. The first step, then, is to remove the shadows of oppression from education and academia. Free speech has to become the norm in Universities. Its protection is necessary. From that all else will follow.

Phillipson has enjoined a war that she cannot win, although she might keep it going for another five years. The cost will be measured in another generation unsure of themselves, their place in the world, their value, their sex, and oppressed by the racism of anti-racism. A generation reliant on, and subservient to “The Party”.

This is no time for an armistice.

D-Day is some way off. Those of us prepared to fight for enlightenment values, for freedom, for democracy, need to regroup and plot our conquest of Berlin. Except, for this metaphorical Berlin, we must get there long before Stalin’s lot.

.

The Role of Social Media

The rise of social media platforms such as Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok has been instrumental in spreading the notion that one can 'identify' out of their biological reality. Influencers and users on these platforms propagate the idea that gender is fluid and subjective. Hannah Berrelli and Shay Woulahan discussed this extensively in their presentation for the LGB Alliance Conference in 2022. In their discussion, they emphasise how social media has become a breeding ground for gender identity ideology. The algorithms that govern these platforms prioritise content that generates engagement, often sensationalist or radical viewpoints which can become normalised, thereby exacerbating the take up of these ideas.

Influence of Computer Gaming

Online gaming environments, particularly platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, also play a significant role. Often the games themselves contain features, like avatar customisation, which uphold the false legitimacy of incongruent identities. These games can also include private chat spaces where the idea of being 'trans' is promoted as a social identity rather than an inherent trait. In these spaces, a phenomenon known as "trans grooming" can occur, where children are referred to as 'eggs'—a term implying they are trans but have yet to realise it. This reinforces the notion that one's true identity is hidden and must be discovered through community validation rather than personal introspection.

Failures of the Educational System

Schools, institutions that should act 'in loco parentis', are failing in their duty. Many young teachers, indoctrinated by gender ideology during their own education, are actively or passively encouraging students to explore and adopt transgender identities. Instead of providing stability and clarity, these educators are allowing, and sometimes facilitating, the spread of gender ideology among impressionable students.

In this article that I wrote for The Critic Magazine, I discuss how bullying related to gender identity is handled inadequately, often pushing students further towards identifying as transgender as a means of seeking refuge and validation.

Complicity of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK

UK’s National Health Service  is another significant actor promoting transgenderism to adolescents. The Care Quality Commission’s report on the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service highlights serious shortcomings and a failure to provide safe and effective care. Consequently, a review into child services, The Cass Review, was instigated. 

However, with an average age of presentation to a gender clinic of 15.5 together with long waiting lists and gender affirmative consultations prior to any treatment, the majority of young people with transgender ideation in UK get treated in the adult clinics when they reach 18 (the Cass Review which reported in May 2024 raised this from 17). Over 70% of patients in the adult clinics are under 25. Despite the Cass Review recommending an additional review into adult services, the underlying practices there remain singularly gender affirmative. The medicalisation of Transgenderism is promoted as if it were an unalloyed good.

Medical schools in the UK have exacerbated the problem by signing a pledge promoted by GLADD (Association of LGBTQ+ Doctors & Dentists) to prioritise gender ideology over biological reality in their training programs. This approach undermines the scientific method and compromises the quality of care provided to patients.

Unsafe Practices in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

The NHS  provides Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the UK. These, too, are fundamentally unsafe for adolescents at risk of transgender ideation. Many of these services maintain connections with dubious 'affinity' groups like Allsorts and Mermaids, which are ideologically driven rather than evidence-based. The training provided to CAMHS professionals is steeped in gender ideology, compromising their ability to offer unbiased and effective care. Moreover, NHS England along with many bodies that regulate talking therapies, are signatories to a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ contrived by gender ideologues to limit the provision of proper exploratory therapies.

If the recommendations of the Cass Review, and any subsequent review into adult services of similar standing, are to be implemented effectively, then the cognitive capture of the NHS must be thoroughly reversed and any lingering vestiges of gender identity ideology thoroughly expunged. This is going to be a long, long haul.

The Culpability of Legacy Media

The BBC was once revered as an organisation trusted to tell the people what was going on in the world with due impartiality. However, when gender identity ideology started being actively promoted from about 2014, it, and many other longstanding media outlets, quickly succumbed to the infiltration by activists. There are very few organisations that are honest in their portrayal of the issues. Most frequently, men are portrayed as if they were women. Transgenderism is always portrayed as if it is something worthy of celebration - despite the fact that they are reporting on victims of psychological and physical harm.

Reclaiming Institutions for Truth and Reason

Despite the pervasive influence of gender ideology, there is hope. Our institutions can be recaptured for truth, reason, and the scientific method. This requires concerted effort from individuals and communities to call out and challenge gender ideology wherever it manifests. Diligence, thoroughness, and a commitment to reality are essential in this endeavour.

There is no doubt that this is a war for freedom. A war that was almost lost before Elon Musk acquired Twitter, now X, with a mission to defend free speech. In an article for the Australian Spectator, Edie Wyatt explains how pivotal this event was: "The new establishment Left are worried about their inability to create universal regulatory capture. If Twitter doesn’t submit, that is a big deal, and gender identity is a vital cog in a very authoritarian wheel." 

The family is the most important institution. Through our work with families, we have observed that traditional parenting approaches—rooted in love, consistent boundaries, and honesty—are effective in countering the influence of gender ideology. Holding the line for reality not only supports the affected children but also sets a standard for wider society.

A Call to Action

We have the opportunity to reclaim our society from the grip of gender ideology. Our first priority must be the truth—no compromises. Protecting children from the harms of gender ideology is paramount. Following this, we must reclaim academic institutions and defend free speech. By securing these pillars, we ensure a foundation upon which future generations can build.

For further reading, I recommend the following:

• My articles in The Critic Magazine on bullying and the Tavistock report.

• Transgender Trend’s report on the Memorandum of Understanding

• Rebecca’s Substack analysing GLADD’s Affirmation Only Medical Schools Charter.

• Edie Wyatt’s “Twitter’s free speech threatens radical trans activism”

This article is an updated work-up of a Twitter/X thread I posted in January 2023

The phrase "zero tolerance" gained popularity during the New York Police reforms of the 1990s, inspired by the "broken window theory." This theory posits that visible signs of disorder, like broken windows, lead to higher crime rates. Implementing zero tolerance for broken windows made neighbourhoods appear more orderly and safe, instilling pride and reducing crime. Thus, intolerance can have its place.

The Connection Between Identity and Influence

Just as broken windows correlate with higher crime rates, there is a direct link between individuals identifying as transgender and children adopting this identity. This social contagion aspect is based on testimonies from hundreds of parents who describe the psychological and physical harm their children have experienced.

The Limits of Tolerance

Some advocate for tolerance towards those who identify with a 'gender identity' different from their sex. One such example is the “Acceptance without exception” campaign run by Stonewall. However, I argue for intolerance toward such identities.

As a liberal person, I have historically embraced a 'live and let live' philosophy and despised authoritarianism. During the 'New Atheist' movement of the early 2000s, I criticised religion for its dishonesty and authoritarianism. While my views on religion have softened, I still oppose its coercive aspects. For example, I am against obliging women to wear religious coverings.

Intolerance and Extremism

Islamism's intolerance has corrupted many countries, the Muslim Brotherhood has ruined Egypt, the Revolutionary Guard has oppressed Iran, the Taliban has done the same in Afghanistan. 

Nassim Taleb, in his book ‘Skin in the Game’, describes how an intransigent group will influence the behaviour of a flexible group. The relevant chapter is published on his Medium page ‘Incerto’.

The Virtue of Intolerance

"The minority rule will show us how all it takes is a small number of intolerant virtuous people with skin in the game, in the form of courage, for society to function properly."

Women, in particular, have led the charge against gender ideology, protecting spaces reserved for females. It is hard to imagine any other group having more skin in the game than parents of children who think they are transgender. Taleb points to courage as a means of becoming similarly invested. Such courage is very well exemplified by Graham Linehan. 

The Importance of Truth

Truth is paramount. "Legal fiction" is just a euphemism for lies. Gender identity ideology is built on lies, and the quickest way to protect adolescents and women is to expose these falsehoods. Honesty is a virtue, and we must be intolerant of lies.

Aristotle believed virtue stems from reason, while Kant argued that morality relies on truth. 

Reasoning is simply the deduction of new truth from existing truth. Failures in policy formation always stem from an absence of sound, complete reasoning. Hence, it is immoral to defend unsound policy.

Legal and Societal Reforms

Our children are being harmed. The Cass Review may have slowed this process but it hasn't stopped it. The societal norms that led us into this mess, driven by the #BeKind brigade, need to be challenged. The gender identity movement succeeded through vicious intolerance while pretending virtuous tolerance, and we must learn from this. Social flourishing occurs when there is one set of norms for everyone. Such norms must be based on sound reasons, not airy-fairy beliefs. The Gender Recognition Act is perhaps the greatest example of tribal beliefs overriding reasoned logic in British legislative history. Hansard exists as testament to that claim. Its repeal cannot come soon enough.

Legal Missteps and Remedies

The protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ must be removed from the Equality Act 2010.

The legal protection for gender reassignment began with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) case P vs. S and Cornwall County Council (1996), which amended the Sex Discrimination Act. This decision was a mistake, as it conflated transsexualism with sex.

Discrimination can be valid if it achieves a legitimate aim. We must question whether 'gender reassignment' deserves protection as a characteristic. We could argue that hair colour or musical taste deserve more protection.

A potential solution is to replace protected characteristics with the concept of 'unmerited discrimination,' ensuring protections for the disabled and oppressed minorities without explicitly recognising gender in law.

Upholding Truth and Integrity

Our entire legal system needs improvement. Better laws, better interpretation, and less discrimination are essential. Advocates for change must demonstrate clarity, logic, and a virtuous intolerance of harmful policies.

We cannot accept the status quo. Laws must change, and compromise is unacceptable. How many regretted mastectomies are tolerable?

Freedom from harm and lies is a fundamental human right. Our position is one of liberty, not religious orthodoxy.

Conclusion

It is virtuous to be intolerant of lies and harm. Therefore, we must be intolerant of laws, actions, and behaviours that facilitate them. Be virtuously intolerant.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Cass Review could have gone further in its demolition of opposite-sex imitation medicine (I have written previously on this):

For a start, there is the clear ethical position “First Do No Harm” which seemed not to play as big a role in the four years of study as perhaps it might have. And then there is the precautionary principle – if we don’t know whether this patient will benefit why should we go ahead with a harmful procedure?

There is enough evidence, and also evidence of lack of evidence, to point to a complete moratorium on opposite sex imitation medicine being not only justified, but an urgent necessity.

So why was this defensible safeguarding position not taken? Why was this opportunity missed? Why will young people continue to be maimed and sterilised on the NHS without any clinical justification?

One thing that constrained the Cass Review was its terms of reference. It was not within the remit of the review for it to take a position on adult opposite-sex imitation. Indeed, there was a challenge to get the review to accommodate adolescents all the way up to age 25, and the report is to be commended for managing to address this cohort, something I advocated for. 17-25 year-olds are the largest group at risk of ideological iatrogenic harm from gender identity ideology. While the medical evidence is clear that the administration of wrong sex hormones is unconvincing (a NICE review classified the research that sustains this treatment it as low quality and low probability), the Cass Review was not tasked with taking a view outside its terms of reference, so Recommendation #8 reads:

“NHS England should review the policy on masculinising/feminising hormones. The option to provide masculinising/feminising hormones from age 16 is available, but the Review would recommend extreme caution. There should be a clear clinical rationale for providing hormones at this stage rather than waiting until an individual reaches 18.”

Importantly, then, there is to be a review of wrong-sex hormones. The review could not take a position itself, so it delegated the task to a subsequent review. Let us all hope this gets underway with the sense of urgency that current damage being done demands. However, 16-18 year-olds were within the terms of reference, so we must ask why the Review recommends ‘extreme caution’ rather than a complete prohibition. Demanding a ‘clear clinical rationale’ should in any case (assuming an absence of ideology) result in no wrong-sex hormones being prescribed to this cohort. In which case, has the desired outcome been achieved by applying three Band-Aids (the review, the call for caution, the requirement for clinical rationale) instead of the bandage that would have been ideal? Well, maybe, but that metaphor has further value if one imagines the efficacy of such bodge jobs.

There are other recommendations where a mealy-mouthed paragraph stands in the stead of something clearer and unequivocal. There is a theme.

The Cass Review, then, seems to have been compiled as if it were a major trauma unit equipped only with sticking plasters. It is my view that this was deliberate, rather than necessary. And the reason?

Politics.

It was a stated objective of the Cass Review from the outset to seek consensus. However, anyone familiar with the concept of binary will soon realise that there is no consensus to be had. And that is why the review was a fudge in the Great British tradition of political fudges. This was a review straight out of the Theresa May playbook, something that tries to please everybody and succeeds in only pleasing the gullible and otherwise soft-headed. It was not entirely a project to kick the can down the road. Already, we have seen the Sandyford Clinic in Scotland halt prescription of puberty blockers. Yippee doo. There are less than 100 children on puberty blockers for reasons of gender (there should be zero of course), yet thousands of adolescents on wrong-sex hormones, both via the NHS and via private, cowboy outfits.

The review succeeded in setting in motion the inevitable end of opposite-sex imitation medicine. Yet it was not nearly as emphatic as those of us with skin in the game needed it to be. We needed action when the scandal emerged. Such opportunities came when Sue Evans blew the whistle, when Transgender Trend was established, when parents including those from Our Duty, tried to hold the Tavistock board to account. There really must be an inquiry into the failure of governance at the Tavistock. The children at risk needed decisive and urgent action as soon as the scandal was identified, they still do.

Whatever the Cass Review said, it was only to be expected that advocates of opposite-sex imitation medicine would object to it. It was inevitable that the report would bring the most rabid promoters of gender identity ideology and its associated medical interventions, out of their basements, frothing at the mouth all blue hair and spluttering nonsense from the same hymn sheet (“98% of studies were ignored!”). This was to be expected, regardless of how hard or soft the Review reported its findings. However, in pitching the report so as to minimise the total uproar volume, it failed (at least in the short term) the very children it was established to protect.

The report was sufficiently short-measured to attract the support of the Labour Party. This result, considering the Labour Party was hitherto an enthusiastic promoter of child abuse, might on its own be considered to justify the unnecessary loss of children’s futures that such equivocation has guaranteed. This is especially the case when it looks likely that Labour will form the next government. Would the Labour Party have embraced the review’s findings had those findings been more emphatic, had the language in the report been more objective? Perhaps not, and then we would have had to endure at least five years of enthusiastic butchery. In any war, and this is one, a general must weigh up the lives he is willing to sacrifice against the lives that might be saved.

We have no way of knowing whether there was political input into the review. Were there ‘Special Advisers’ signalling what Wes Streeting (Shadow Secretary of State for Health) would find acceptable or beyond the pale?

And then there was the half-hearted welcome from Stonewall. Was that a target for the Cass Review, or a pleasant surprise? Frankly, we should not care.

As I predicted at its establishment, the Cass Review was a sop, and it was the political long grass. However, is that because it had to be?

If it had been the best it could be from an objective perspective, would it then have failed to be well-received by those open to persuasion?

And while it was inadequate and incomplete from an evidence-based medicine perspective, and from a safeguarding perspective, it did contain some crucially important and very welcome positive developments. Possibly the most important of which is the review into adult services.

In the UK 70% of those in adult services are under 25. Moreover, the largest age group at referral is the 17 year-old passed up from child services. In another, very welcome move, there will be follow-on services for 17-25 year-olds currently in the child system. Whether these adolescent services will be available for new referrals 17-25 is not known, but they should be.

When you are haggling over the purchase of a car, and the deal is done, and everyone walks away with smiles on their faces. The seller might be thinking “could I have got more for it?”, the buyer might be thinking “could I have paid less?”. Such thoughts are, of course, moot once the deal is done, but they are, I am sure, commonplace. In the following weeks, the buyer realises the brakes need replacing, as does the cambelt and clutch, and the tyres, too. Well, what then?

Perhaps the most important recommendation of the Review as regards the framework for dealing with children presenting with transgender ideation is in Recommendation #2 which says “The framework should be kept under review and evolve to reflect emerging evidence.” One would like to think that the missing objectivity can find its way into medical practice via this route. However, that does rely upon an NHS free from ideological influence. And removal of the ideologues from the NHS was, if anything, the biggest missing recommendation.

The Cass Review Final Report has been published. Recently, I published a checklist against which we could measure it. Here is that list again, with commentary as to whether the review made the grade:

1. Will it perpetuate the lie that some people can actually *be* transgender? This is used as an excuse for the availability of medical interventions despite there being no evidence of clinical justification or net benefit. 

Yes, sadly, it did.

2. Will it continue to rely on gender incongruence (aka gender dysphoria) as if it were a valid diagnosis? We know these "diagnoses" are in fact collections of feelings, and we've known for years they are frequently faked.

Patients 'coached to fast-track sex change treatment'

Vulnerable patients are being "coached" on how to outwit a psychological evaluation in order to gain access to hormone treatment and gender-related surgery, it has been claimed.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/patients-coached-to-fast-track-sex-change-treatment/38543409.html

Yes, sadly, it did.

3. Will it acknowledge the existence of transgender ideation as a precursor adopting a factitious "gender identity"?

Lifecycle of Transgender Ideation | Our Duty

Our Duty Lifecycle of Transgender Ideation

https://ourduty.group/education/lifecycle-of-transgender-ideation/

No, sadly, it did not.

4. Will it acknowledge that its terms of reference were inappropriate in that it did not include adolescents over 18 years of age (or even vulnerable adults over 25)?

Surely the review was intended to deal with the phenomenon of adolescent transgender ideation? Why did it not? 

Hurrah! This point was addressed adequately. Un point.

5. Will it recognise that Early Intervention can be very successful at preventing the rumination that can lead to transgender ideation becoming persistent, and sometimes intractable? If so, will such help be resourced appropriately? 

Nope, no understanding of the aetiology of gender distressed was evident.

6. Will it recognise the ideological capture of the NHS by gender identity ideology and make recommendations for the wholesale removal of that ideology, and a return to evidence-based medicine? 

No, sadly, it did not.

7. Will it use objective language?

Or will it use the language of gender identity ideology and so perpetuate the lies of the gender identity advocacy movement? 

No, sadly, it did not. The language of the ideologues peppered the entire report.

8. Will it make recommendations that render CAMHS and the NHS safe for children and young people with transgender ideation?

This is the most crucial question. If medicalisation remains an option (at any age on the NHS), then young people will not be safe. 

No, criminally, the medical pathway remains an option.

9. Will it uphold the rights of parents to refuse to accommodate the tenets of gender identity ideology to the extent that it renders moves to embed transgenderism into society via 'conversion therapy' laws untenable? 

No, the review did not address this important issue. Although parents’ role was referenced in a positive manner. Maybe half a mark.

10. Will it recognise the value of 'Supportive Waiting' (watchful waiting with added timely, targeted counselling interventions) as the best course for chronic transgender ideation? 

No, the review did not look at current best practice at all.

11. Cass has previously stated we ought to accept gender identity ideology because of a 'generational shift'. She was wrong to do so. Will her final review reject the Zeitgeist in favour of objectivity? 

Sadly not. The validity of generational trends was not questioned yet they appeared to inform the report.

12. Will the final Cass Review address the ethical case for banning opposite-sex imitation medicine?

It was touched upon “one of the most challenging ethical questions is whether and/ or when medical intervention is the correct response”. But the question was left unexplored.

13. Will there be recognition that transgender ideation affects different cohorts in different ways, and that the science for pre-pubescent boys, or middle-aged men, does not apply to adolescents of either sex? i.e. transgenderism is not homogenous. 

Hurrah! Yes, the Cass Review got there in the end. Un point.

14. Will the Cass Review offer recommendations for holistic treatment of detransitioners?

The victims of the trans medical scandal deserve the best possible remediation. 

Hurrah! Yes, the Cass Review got there in the end. Un point.

15. Will there be acknowledgment that social norms are a significant contributory factor in transgender ideation and that their management requires a similar approach to that taken with diesel particulates when they were implicated in childhood asthma?

There was acknowledgment that social factors were at play. However, there were no public health recommendations to address this craze. Half a point. 

So there we have it.

Out of a possible score of 15, the Cass Review garnered the grand total of 4 points.

So we are 4/15ths the way to resolving this medical scandal.

The fight goes on.

If you can, please subscribe, or make a donation to Our Duty, thank you. 

This story has been sat in my disk drive for four years. I have steadfastly resisted telling it because I could not see the point. Partly, I guess, is that I have wished to focus on helping society rid itself of gender identity ideology and helping parents work out how to save their children from that sick cult. Every so often, however, another straw is added to the camel’s back. When I read a lie. As they say, the truth will out. Frequently I get asked something that prompts me to tell this story. I would rather not, it still makes my blood pressure rise. However, if I don’t tell it, then others tell their versions.

This isn’t a “he said, she said” - there are witnesses, including an accredited journalist.

This isn’t about who gets the credit. I have spoken with Harry Miller of Fair Cop and with Chris Elston, aka Billboard Chris, about Harry Truman’s idea that in great enterprises, such as the one that we are embarked upon, it matters not who gets the credit. The truth is, of course, that correctly placed credit does serve to add extrinsic motivation to the oodles of intrinsic motivation pioneers already have. And in the dark months, that external acknowledgment of one’s contribution can help things continue at a better pace. The last thing we want is anything that can slow down the progress we could have made in saving children from the harms of gender. All the same, any lack of progress cannot be blamed on those who fail to recognise. Selling one’s self has to be part of the mix, that and top advocacy. How did I fail to persuade those with whom I disagreed that I was right (and I was right, and I have been vindicated)? Being a Cassandra is a curse.

In Autumn 2016 my daughter, having been groomed by her school and Allsorts Youth, declared she was transgender.

I spent 2017 knowing it was wrong and desperately trying to find out why, and what could be done, and who shared my point of view.

I spoke with Stephanie Davies-Arai at Transgender Trend, and asked whether parent-peer support was something they did or would do. They did not have the capacity or intent, so I volunteered to establish something. Peer-support is clinically proven to be useful in communities affected by grief and the sorts of challenges that can affect mental health, so I knew it was needed.

I started to bring together parents affected by having a child think of themselves as transgender.

As part of this project, I set about educating myself as best I could, and I attended my first event – A Woman’s Place in Brighton – it was the presence of a detransitioner, Gill Smith, which drew me. Kathleen Stock was also speaking there.

The hardest part of building any enterprise is the bootstrapping, the first eighteen months. There is no brand to act as a magnet, no reputation, the ideas are still new and forming and beyond the core, often difficult to sell.

On 5^th December 2018 I hosted a meeting at the Marquis of Cornwallis pub in Bloomsbury for parents of ROGD kids and any other interested parties. This was the day parent peer-support in UK moved from online and into the real world.

The group started growing. We used a Slack community ‘Critical Critters’ which allowed us to grow an online membership of about 60.

In the Spring of 2019 my daughter started taking testosterone, I was wrecked.

By the Summer of 2019 we decided to have a business meeting to decide upon a name and become properly established. The meeting was scheduled for October 12th in a hotel in Bayswater.

Shortly prior to that meeting one member, let’s call her ‘B’ asked me whether another member, let’s call her ‘A’ could chair the meeting. I am always keen for others to step up, so I agreed. It did not dawn on me until it was too late that in such an important meeting it was always me who should have been in the chair. Nevertheless, as the meeting got underway, I stood at the front and started to do a brief introduction. In a move that still stuns me to this day, ‘A’ physically elbowed me in the ribs to push me aside. I genuinely did not know what to do, and I was at a complete loss for words. Thus, the tone of that fateful meeting had been set.

Why did I not respond immediately? A man would expect instant retaliation. Women, on the other hand rely on men to be socially conditioned to restrain themselves. Some abuse this privilege.

I had invited journalist Joani Walsh to attend and observe the meeting. Another member, let’s call him ‘C’ objected, supported by ‘A’ and ‘B’. It was becoming clear there was a trio seeking to run the show, my show, and they didn’t want any witnesses.

Charlie Evans, the detransitioner du jour, was our guest speaker that day.

The chairing of the meeting was so amateurish that the chair, ‘A’ did more speaking than our guest. This served to further foul my already deteriorating mood.

On the agenda was the choosing of a name, and I suggested Bayswater Support Group, as the meeting progressed, it became clear that a ‘boardroom coup’ was in progress and that the people who now run the group with that name had been conspiring behind my back to takeover that which I had started.

I had gone into the meeting assuming my position as leader was unquestioned. After all, everyone was there because of the group that I had established, from scratch, over many months. That the others had hitherto asked for my input for anything material gave me a sense of security as to my role that, it turns out, was unfounded.

The irony was that if they had done this honestly and involved me, I would have let it happen, I was wrecked by what was happening to my daughter. I would have happily taken a non-executive director type role. However, two significant factors meant that I could not let this slide. I had to regain control of the group. Both reasons were principles.

My principles were borne out of my contempt for lies.

Lies are toxic. In an organisation they lead to distrust and resentment. I was not going to have liars running an organisation that I founded. This trio had used deceit and dishonesty to wrest control.

The first principled stance was that we should be founded on truth and honesty. It is truth and honesty that will, should they prevail, end the crazy gender identity ideology harming our children. I simply could not allow significant control of this most important endeavour fall into the hands of those whom I knew to be dishonest and deceitful.

They had also expressed an intention to present themselves as a moderate voice looking for consensus. I had always known that no consensus was possible. Arguing that the Earth is discus-shaped is just as daft as arguing that it is completely flat. Transgenderism is a lie, and the Earth is a sphere (slightly flattened at the poles). The only honourable position to take is that which involves no lies. No, it cannot be said that ‘gender affirming care’ can be beneficial for some people. Mental distress resolves with time, amputated body parts do not. There is no merit in being ‘cautious’ about the medicalisation of vulnerable young people in the name of gender, one has to be completely opposed to it. Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, and the illogicality of any perceived ‘benefit’, it is simply unethical.

The second principle, then, is that we should be driven by ethics, by duty, “First Do No Harm”; the proposed ‘cautious and pragmatic’ approach, rejecting the founders’ consensus, was a betrayal of these principles. I could not in all conscience go along with it.

I had spent over a year bringing people together and creating a community. This was ‘my baby’ and I was being bullied. The stress of my daughter being on testosterone, having just been literally elbowed aside, and seeing my hard work undermined, put me well out of my comfort zone. Nevertheless, I tried to keep a level head. It took about two months for the resulting nervous breakdown to arrive, and a good few more afterwards for it to pass. Contracting Covid did not help.

The group I had assembled could be roughly divided into two halves. The newbies who had not quite worked it all out yet. And the old hands who knew that the NHS gender operation, including CAMHS, was wrongheaded and profoundly unsafe. What hurt me most was the few old hands who sided with the deceitful upstarts.

There were policies, too, that those of us who had been involved for a while had assumed were givens: The NHS was unsafe, no child was transgender, Kellie-Jay Keen (aka Posie Parker) was marvellous, this was an international endeavour (how could we turn down an overseas parent coming for help), all opposite-sex imitation medicine should be classified as cosmetic and elective. You get the idea.

The upstarts rejected all of these.

My principles informed the new name I had for our group: ‘Our Duty’. To this day I do not know why I did not keep the Bayswater name (I had taken a dislike to the name despite it being my suggestion), it would have been strategically advantageous retaining it because there were many at that meeting who had no idea what was going on. Again, I assumed that everybody could see the crime for what it was and would swing behind me. I was wrong. I was also mistaken to have confidence in the idea that any grouping built on a foundation of deceit would not last long.

Our Duty launched that same month with an article in The Sunday Times.

By my reckoning, this episode set our movement back by at least one year. The NHS is removing adolescent women’s breasts at a rate of one operation per day. If you ever wonder why I can be so bitter and angry at what happened in October 2019, there is your answer.

I have seen four different origin stories for the Bayswater Support Group, none of them are true. A group with about 60 members laboriously gathered over 18 months is not ‘founded’ when it splits in two. It was the publication of one fictitious account in Dr Az Hakeem’s book Detrans that finally tipped me into telling this story. Dr Hakeem is a good man, so I am sure he was oblivious to the lies in the chapter contributed by ‘A’.

Over this last six years I have seen the effect that parent peer-support can have. Yes, we help families help their children desist from transgender ideation, and that is hugely satisfying when it happens. Our detractors call it conversion therapy, we call it reconnecting with reality. Very many of our parents have had their children suffering the transgender delusion for too long, and their need to relate to others who understand can be as raw five years in as it was on day one. We could always do more, more support, more activism, more advocacy and more education.

We tell it as it is. No, your child is not transgender, they just think that they are.

That old saying “the truth shall set you free” is something everyone in this mess needs to hear and believe in.

So said the Japanese General Miura Gorō of his decision to assassinate Queen Min of Korea.

The Japanese had sought to influence Korean affairs with varying degrees of success for centuries prior to the events of 8th October 1895.

In the months leading up to the assassination, Japan fought China for control over Korea in the first Sino-Japanese War.

Japan's interest in Korea was strategic. The Korean Peninsula served as a buffer zone between Japan and its main rival, China. Moreover, Korea's geographic proximity to Japan made it a crucial link in Japan's expansionist ambitions in East Asia. As Japan modernised and industrialised in the late 19th century, it sought to assert its dominance over Korea to secure its own geopolitical interests.

Japan had already won Korea from China, it did not need to assert its control in the manner Miura Gorō chose.

Queen Min's resistance to Japanese encroachment stemmed from her commitment to preserving Korean sovereignty and independence. She recognised the threat posed by Japan's expansionist ambitions and sought to counterbalance Japanese influence by fostering closer ties with Russia.

In the late 19th century, East Asia was a main area of focus for a great many countries seeking to expand their spheres of influence. Japan, with its modernised military and aggressive foreign policy, and Russia seeking to establish a foothold in East Asia with Korea as an ideal location for warm water ports. The English, French and Germans were all active in the region, too.

Queen Min's efforts to align Korea with Russia and resist Japanese influence incurred the wrath of the more hawkish Japanese officials who saw her as an obstacle to their expansionist agenda.

In 1895, a group of Japanese assassins, acting on orders from General Miura Gorō, infiltrated the royal palace and brutally murdered Queen Min.

With her death, Japan effectively gained control over Korea's foreign policy and internal affairs with the Treaty of Shimonoseki paving the way for its eventual annexation of the peninsula in 1910. The remnants of the Korean royal court sought refuge in the Russian legation. The Korean people’s sympathies were with the royal family, Russia’s influence grew significantly. As a political assassination, that of Queen Min backfired greatly, with the people granting her the status of "Empress Myeongseong" posthumously.

Japan’s enmity with Russia which had commenced with the Tsushima incident of 1861 had just escalated a significant notch.

Manchuria was another region in which Japan and Russia were competing for dominance, although the Germans were really upsetting the natives. Killing those who protested the building of a railway was never going to win hearts and minds. The Boxer Rebellion in 1900 in which a Chinese tribe versed in martial arts (hence the ‘boxer’ epithet) sought to expel foreign powers carving up the region, raised the temperature further.

By 1905 Japan and Russia were involved in a full-blown war, a war in which Russia was soundly defeated.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 was expensive for Russia in money, in lives, and politically, in that it weakened the Tsar’s legitimacy as absolute monarch. The war, coupled with the socioeconomic hardships endured by the Russian populace, created fertile ground for political dissent. It was amidst this backdrop of disillusionment and unrest that Marxism gained traction as a revolutionary ideology promising liberation from oppression and exploitation.

The writings of Marx had attracted the attention of scholars and dissidents, however for it to succeed as an ideology beyond academia and trade unionism it needed a country-sized petri dish.

World War I, further destabilised Russia and precipitated the collapse of the Romanov dynasty. The February Revolution of 1917 ushered in a period of political upheaval, culminating in the Bolshevik seizure of power in October of the same year. Led by Vladimir Lenin and inspired by Marxist principles, the Bolsheviks established the world's first socialist state, fundamentally altering the course of history.

Despite the socialist experiment in Russia being an abject failure by any measure, its one success (if it can be called that) was outside its borders. The ideology behind socialism was exported worldwide. Idealists lapped it up. Even the Communists called these credulous souls “useful idiots”.

The Soviet Union, under Lenin's successor Joseph Stalin, sought to export communist ideology and extend its influence beyond its borders. The KGB, the Soviet Union's notorious intelligence agency, played a pivotal role in this endeavour, employing covert tactics to promote communist revolutionaries and undermine capitalist regimes around the world.

The testimony of Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB agent turned defector, offers insights into the clandestine efforts of the Soviet Union to advance Marxist-Leninist ideology globally. Bezmenov's accounts reveal the extent to which the KGB manipulated political movements, fomented unrest, and disseminated propaganda to further Soviet interests.

The Eastern Bloc political alliance controlled by the Soviet Union might have been broken up at the conclusion of the Cold War in 1989, but it cannot be said that the war was ‘won’ by the west. Russia might have moved from soviet socialism to authoritarian dictatorship, but just about every Western country is now paralysed by excessive socialism.

The key word here is ‘excessive’. Few would be so cold as to deny the basic principle of “to each according to their need”, however the concept of ‘need’ seems to have expanded gradually up Maslow’s pyramid such that the wants of party members exceed the capacity of society to pay for them. No longer do we restrict the role of the state to supplying the basics of food, education and security to those who cannot provide for themselves. Now the state has to control your self-actualisation.

That which was cultivated in a petri dish in Russia has escaped the laboratory and become a global pandemic.

Would Tsar Nicholas have succeeded in turning Russia into a constitutional monarchy along the lines of that of the United Kingdom had he not had his political capital wrenched from him by the Japanese?

Would Japan’s enmity with Russia have been lessened or been resolvable had General Miura Gorō taken a few more puffs on his cigarette, and concluded that a bloody despatch of Korea’s Queen was not such a great idea?

Who knows?

But when people ask me how we got here, I tell them: “Japanese General Miura Gorō took three puffs on his cigarette”. It’s as good a story as any.

We are led to believe that the final Cass Review is imminent. I have previously stated I think it will be a sop, and was just 'the political long grass', four years of dodging the issue. When it is published, what should we look out for? Here's your checklist... 

1. Will it perpetuate the lie that some people can actually *be* transgender? This is used as an excuse for the availability of medical interventions despite there being no evidence of clinical justification or net benefit. 

2. Will it continue to rely on gender incongruence (aka gender dysphoria) as if it were a valid diagnosis? We know these "diagnoses" are in fact collections of feelings, and we've known for years they are frequently faked.

Patients 'coached to fast-track sex change treatment'

Vulnerable patients are being "coached" on how to outwit a psychological evaluation in order to gain access to hormone treatment and gender-related surgery, it has been claimed.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/patients-coached-to-fast-track-sex-change-treatment/38543409.html

3. Will it acknowledge the existence of transgender ideation as a precursor adopting a factitious "gender identity"?

Lifecycle of Transgender Ideation | Our Duty

Our Duty Lifecycle of Transgender Ideation

https://ourduty.group/education/lifecycle-of-transgender-ideation/

4. Will it acknowledge that its terms of reference were inappropriate in that it did not include adolescents over 18 years of age (or even vulnerable adults over 25)?

Surely the review was intended to deal with the phenomenon of adolescent transgender ideation? Why did it not? 

5. Will it recognise that Early Intervention can be very successful at preventing the rumination that can lead to transgender ideation becoming persistent, and sometimes intractable? If so, will such help be resourced appropriately? 

6. Will it recognise the ideological capture of the NHS by gender identity ideology and make recommendations for the wholesale removal of that ideology, and a return to evidence-based medicine? 

7. Will it use objective language?

Or will it use the language of gender identity ideology and so perpetuate the lies of the gender identity advocacy movement? 

8. Will it make recommendations that render CAMHS and the NHS safe for children and young people with transgender ideation?

This is the most crucial question. If medicalisation remains an option (at any age on the NHS), then young people will not be safe. 

9. Will it uphold the rights of parents to refuse to accommodate the tenets of gender identity ideology to the extent that it renders moves to embed transgenderism into society via 'conversion therapy' laws untenable? 

10. Will it recognise the value of 'Supportive Waiting' (watchful waiting with added timely, targeted counselling interventions) as the best course for chronic transgender ideation? 

11. Cass has previously stated we ought to accept gender identity ideology because of a 'generational shift'. She was wrong to do so. Will her final review reject the Zeitgeist in favour of objectivity? 

12. Will the final Cass Review address the ethical case for banning opposite-sex imitation medicine?

13. Will there be recognition that transgender ideation affects different cohorts in different ways, and that the science for pre-pubescent boys, or middle-aged men, does not apply to adolescents of either sex? i.e. transgenderism is not homogenous. 

14. Will the Cass Review offer recommendations for holistic treatment of detransitioners?

The victims of the trans medical scandal deserve the best possible remediation. 

15. Will there be acknowledgment that social norms are a significant contributory factor in transgender ideation and that their management requires a similar approach to that taken with diesel particulates when they were implicated in childhood asthma? 

I am sure that I have missed some checks from this 'off the top of my head' list. Which checks would you add?

If you know any journalists who will be covering the Cass Review when it comes out, please make sure they have this list so they can do a proper job.