Mick Hartley

A Scottish mental health clinician speaks out, in today's Sunday Times:

I have worked for 20 years with mental health patients in Scotland. Before the pandemic I saw only two people who were transitioning. Both were men who identified as women.

My caseload is small because my patients have complex problems. Over the past two and a half years, however, I have looked after nine female patients who wish to be men. Most are in their late teens to early twenties. Emotionally they are quite young.

They are in fact among the most vulnerable patients I have seen, often struggling with multiple mental health issues after difficult childhoods.

Dr Hilary Cass, who wrote the report on the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service in England, addressed the Scottish parliament last week.

Just as she says, some of my patients are on the autistic spectrum, others have survived childhood trauma including neglect and sexual abuse. Among those transitioning are patients with eating disorders, patients using self-harm to cope and patients with borderline personality disorders who struggle with distress.

During our appointments some patients have described growing up without clean clothes or help with basic personal hygiene. They have talked about their poor social circumstances and being unable to afford the normal things most children have. They grew up feeling they were on the outside, ostracised by their parents and their peers.

They have endured all of this, pouring their energy into surviving at the cost of maturing. And then, with little idea of their own identity, they have found the camaraderie of a trans peer group and embraced the idea that they were born in the wrong body.

They now believe it is their body that is wrong and needs to change. This view has then been endorsed by the NHS, schools and even politicians. No one has said to them: “You are fine just the way you are. Let’s help you.”…

Professionals seem too frightened to question whether changing gender is what these patients really need….

I worry that many will look back at the NHS in a few years and think: “What have you done to me? I have no breasts and I cannot have children. My life is wrecked just like my childhood was wrecked.” I feel I am seeing a medical scandal unfold before my eyes.

No surprise here, sadly:

A director of an Islamist group who described the Islamic State executioner known as Jihadi John as “a beautiful young man” has been giving advice and support at pro-Palestine encampments at British universities.

Asim Qureshi, the research director of Cage, which has regularly campaigned on behalf of terrorism suspects, was invited to give a “teach-in” at a camp set up by students at University College London (UCL) on Friday evening.

He later went on to pray with Muslim protesters occupying the green at the nearby School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas).

Posting photos of his activities on Twitter/X yesterday, Qureshi wrote: “I was really honoured to provide a teach-in to the brave students from @UCLAFP [Action For Palestine] encamping at UCL.

“I spoke on the Qur’anic ethics of disobedience in times of structural violence. I was also really glad to bring some food cooked for the camp by my wife.”

Well he wouldn't have cooked it himself, would he? That's a woman's job. He's too busy studying the Qur’anic ethics of disobedience in times of structural violence. And lauding ISIS executioners.

Rape in a women's prison? How could that possibly be? We know the answer of course – it's gender identity, innit? Men with penises can get into women's prisons just by saying they're women. Why wouldn't they?

Natalie [not her real name] had been housed with Tremaine Carroll in a prison cell in Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) for just a few days when she says he attacked her in the shower and raped her. According to charges filed by the Madera County District Attorney’s office – which includes enhancements because Tremaine has prior sex offenses – there was at least one other victim at the prison besides Natalie.

Before California passed SB 132, “The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act”, the law already allowed males who had surgery, and were deemed to not pose a “management and security risk”, to request housing in women’s facilities. However, the law did not allow men with penises, or those who were considered too dangerous, to be housed with women, regardless of gender identity. That all changed when California passed SB 132, which went into effect in 2021.

After serving nearly two decades of his sentence, Tremaine began identifying as a woman and seeking transfer to a women’s facility shortly before SB 132 went into effect. The law was intended to facilitate the transfer of male inmates like Tremaine, who had penises and did not meet security standards for “gender identity” based housing in the women’s prison.

SB 132 is being challenged by four women who have already experienced harm from this policy: Janine Chandler, Krystal Gonzales, Tomiekia Johnson, and Nadia Romero, who are represented by the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF).

Tremaine is one of four intervenors in the lawsuit, represented by the ACLU of Southern California and other advocacy groups supporting the right of male prisoners to self-identify into women’s prisons. Even if they have ordinary male anatomy. Even if they are sex offenders. In a sworn declaration to the court, Tremaine stated, “I am not a threat” to the women at CCWF. Now, he is charged with forcibly raping two of them and has been moved back to the men’s facility.

The ACLU – now committed to enabling rapists. It's been a long way down under Chase Strangio.

Tremaine is just one of the many dangerous men with whom the women in California prisons are now forced to live. One-third of the men requesting transfer into California women’s prisons are sex offenders. According to FOIA records, 50% of men in federal prison who identify as women are sex offenders. This is likely understating the problem – Tremaine himself is not considered “sex offenders” under this definition, despite his first- and second-strike offenses being for a kidnapping which included “forced oral copulation.”

Amie Ichikawa, Executive Director of Woman II Woman, revealed that there are now 16 pregnant women housed at California Institution for Women (CIW), another one of California’s women’s prisons. Some women may enter prison pregnant, but CDCR has confirmed via a new Public Records Act request that at least one woman this year has already become pregnant while incarcerated at CCWF where the male rapist was also housed.

"I wish I could say that Tremaine was abusing SB132/TRADA or that it’s being taken advantage of in some way," said Amie, "but I can’t. The law is being used exactly the way its author intended it to be: without guardrails and with complete disregard to the safety and well-being of women.”

Advocacy groups like Woman II Woman and WoLF have warned the California Department of Corrections of Rehabilitation (CDCR) for years about the risk of pregnancy and rape when women are forced to be housed with men. The state acknowledged this risk by providing condoms to the women’s facilities for the first time in 2021, immediately following the implementation of SB 132. In 2023, a Special Review by the Office of the Inspector General reiterated this concern, stating: “Because not all transferees have undergone gender-affirming surgery, the potential exists for pregnancies… in prison.”

Providing condoms?? Jesus. Isn't there a slightly more obvious way of avoiding pregnancy in women's prisons? It's like they don't care about the rapes per se, just the occasional embarrassing consequence.

“We don’t need the state or anybody else to acknowledge the risk, because we all know how babies are made,” WoLF Executive Director Sharon Byrne told 4W.

“Housing men in women’s prisons is California’s progressive patriarchy. The state has an obligation to keep everybody safe to the best of its ability. It cannot throw incarcerated women under the bus when there are alternative ways to keep men at risk of sexual violence safe in men’s prisons, such as by getting a waiver to provide a third space.”

Rowling again:

When I was young all the football managers were straight, white, middle-aged blokes, so it's fantastic to see how much things have changed. https://t.co/jx9zp0hRyU

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 11, 2024

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Yep – Chase Strangio finally gets it:

Astounding how often militant trans activists tell the rest of us, ‘so what you’re saying is, trans girls aren’t real girls’. Yes, that’s exactly what we’re saying. Girls are being robbed of honours and opportunities by mediocre, uber-privileged, establishment-enabled boys. pic.twitter.com/3iPOmpO5s4

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 11, 2024

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Another Jewish student at Oxford speaks out:

Growing up, I had a strong Jewish upbringing celebrating festivals such as Passover and learning about my own family’s history of persecution in Egypt, Holland and Russia. I take great pride in my heritage (Harry Hatwell, 26, studying for a masters in civil law at St John’s College, Oxford, writes).

This week at Oxford University, one of most prestigious university in the world, I felt I have had to hide who I am.

My accommodation is two streets away from the camp. If I walk to the end of my road I can see the tents, the signs, and hear chants of “from the river to the sea” and “Israel is a terror state”. Even outside the camp, it emboldened people — I watched as my friend, who wears a kippah, was told “Zionist crazies should go back to America”.

My final exams start next week and my commute to the faculty takes me past the protesters. I cross the road before I walk past them, I’ve avoided doing my normal running route. My partner is anxious about me wearing my kippah in public. We’ve been scared. It feels like a hostile environment.

However, the protesters claim that this “liberated zone” is inclusive for all. So, on Wednesday I and a group of Jewish students attended a “teach-in” at the camp on the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

I have family in Israel and believe in the right to a Jewish homeland. This makes me a Zionist. But at the talk, a protester told me the camp’s purpose was to “defeat Zionism”. For me this was antisemitic, she was denying Israel’s legitimacy as the only Jewish state, denying the Jews alone a homeland, and calling for its destruction. That isn’t a call for peace.

Given the microphone, I told the 40-strong crowd my experience of antisemitism. But after I spoke, I was shouted at and the panel said I was mistaken. They said she’d just made a political statement and denied my experience of antisemitism. I was being gaslit.

Earlier in the talk, a speaker had said that the British Jewish community had been fed a lie by “powerful forces within British Jewry” to convince them that anti-Zionism was antisemitism. It was antisemitic trope on antisemitic trope.

For these people, their personal experience of victimhood cannot be questioned and is used to show the world what antisemitism means, whereas when I stand up to give my experience, I’m made to feel it doesn’t exist. They could easily define what antisemitism wasn’t but never what it was. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life.

Oxford University is allowing its space to be used to teach and instruct people on how to be antisemitic through anti-Zionism on campus. Its own academics are signing letters of support — one of them is my own tutor.

The university’s idea of what the camp is there for and what it is trying to achieve — reminding us of tolerance — is pure fantasy. By allowing the camp on its property, Oxford is implicitly endorsing it.

I emailed my college on Thursday to tell them the situation is intolerable. I’m a student at this university and I’ve been made to feel there isn’t a place for me here.

An idiosyncratic historical take from Lebanese University Professor George Harb:

"After the so-called annihilation of the Zionist Jews by Hitler – which is in doubt to begin with – they gained the sympathy of all the people in Europe, and fled to France, and when Hitler entered France, most of them went to Britain.

"The so-called Balfour Declaration, which promised the Jews a state… During World War II, Balfour was Britain's Home Secretary. Balfour oppressed the Jews much more than Hitler and Nazism did. He threw them in prison. Why? Because when the Jews arrived in Britain…

"What have the Jews been doing throughout history when they arrive somewhere? They join the banking and media sectors, and take control of them, and then they turn against their religious institutions, because historically, the Church fought the Jews. The Jews do not believe in the Church and want to destroy it, and wait for the Messiah. This is a long story and I do not want to get into it.

"So the Jews turned to destroying the Church in Britain – both the Protestant church and the Catholic church – and they moved to destroy the banking sector and control the media. They urged the British media to start a war against Hitler, in order to get rid of him. The Jews live off the European conflicts.

"Balfour was smart, so he senses this danger. He said to them: 'The best thing is for us to found a state for you.' This is because he was on his way to annihilate them again. So they promised them a state in South Africa. They took them to South Africa, but at the time, there were savages there, and they said that Israel could not survive there. Nobody mentioned the historic and religious roots of Israel or whatever.

"Then they checked out Palestine, and found a sect of Jews living in Jerusalem, and thought that since they had holy places there, they could use them as a emotional basis and bring the Jews there. In short, they brought them to the East in order to get rid of them."

Classic.

Nadia Murad, a Yezidi girl, was 19 years old when lSlS kidnapped and held as a slave for 3 months, tortured and raped.
lSlS kiIIed her mother and 6 brothers.

Nadia's book event was cancelled in Canada because organizers felt 'her story could promote Islamophobia' pic.twitter.com/5GW6ZEaFXK

— Azat Alsalem (@AzzatAlsaalem) May 10, 2024

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A depressing report in the Times from Eliana Silver:

When I was accepted last year to do a master’s degree at a prestigious university in London I was excited. Being the daughter of a diplomat I had spent my life travelling and had never felt particularly linked to my Jewish identity. There is a thriving Jewish community in London and I was thrilled with the prospect of making some Jewish friends. Along with being ready to connect with my fellow students, I was also enthusiastic about the film course that I had been accepted on to. Then, the week after I started, Hamas perpetrated the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

While the events of October 7 unfolded, I was glued to the television, tears rolling down my face. As the death toll rose and before Israel even began to think of retaliating, thousands of people spilt on to the streets of London celebrating “the Palestinian resistance”. And so instead of seeing empathy for those who lost their loved ones, I found myself at an epicentre of hate in London.

When I opened Instagram I saw students I had met the week before on my course posting messages in support of Hamas: “Resistance is justified”, “Free Palestine”, “Freedom fighters”. It was surreal.

I deleted them all right away because I didn’t want to be connected to the hate they were promoting. In addition, I was terrified that they would learn from my account that I was Jewish or, God forbid, a Zionist. But I was so furious that a few days later I brought a “F*** antisemitism” sticker to class on my laptop. It was then that I saw a shift in their attitude towards me. Our conversations went from amicable to none at all. I noticed the eyerolls every time I spoke in class, and I could hear their voices drop as I passed by….

One friend was cornered by another student after a seminar and questioned if she claimed Israel as a Jew. This student then went on to call her a baby-killer. The same friend was also spat at on campus while speaking about Israel on the phone.

A friend from a different university in London told me how she was shunned by her peers and kicked out of the class group chat. She had not shared her views on Israel — she was ostracised for simply being Jewish. She was told later that students she had considered her friends had celebrated her departure from the group chat with images and emojis.

I wish I could say things quietened down over time, but they didn’t. Students wore keffiyeh scarves and displayed “Free Palestine” phone cases and pins. Many of my classmates, despite having no personal stake in the conflict, adopted this new fashion trend in solidarity.

A new fashion trend. Yep. The new fashionable antisemitism.

Autistic children are believed to be particulalry vulnerable to the siren song of trans activists, so this is not good news:

A school for severely autistic children has signed up to a controversial LGBT charter pushing “pseudoscientific” transgender ideology.

Experts accused Kaimes School in Edinburgh, which takes children from age five, of “breathtaking” recklessness over how it teaches concepts of biological sex and gender to vulnerable pupils.

There is a strong, but as yet poorly understood link between autism and young people reporting gender identity issues.

Studies suggest “transgender and gender-diverse individuals” are up to six times more likely to be autistic, as reported in the Cass Review.

Documents show that Kaimes School has overhauled its curriculum to become “trans inclusive” in a bid to win “charter status” from activist charity LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS).

Examples include the Spanish language being adapted to become gender-neutral in lessons, to address what was seen as an “unfortunate” grammatical dependence on masculine and feminine terms.

Messages on school notice boards dedicated exclusively to LGBT issues tell pupils to “come out for LGBT”. Other slogans include: “LGBT+ matters, be a part of us”. Statements such as “trans women are real women” have also been put on display.

Pupils have been shown an image of a “gingerbread person” in assemblies, designed to teach them about the difference between gender and sex, and are told it is “fine and valid” if they do not match.

Reading materials in the school include a book titled Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl? written by the trans activists Sarah Fisher and Fox Fisher and endorsed by LGBTYS and Stonewall.

Carolyn Brown, a retired former educational psychologist who helped the Scottish Government draw up a national autism strategy, described the approach taken by the school as grossly irresponsible.

“This is the opposite of what a specialist school in autism should be doing,” she said. “These youngsters will interpret things very literally and see the world in black and white.

“If you tell them they can be a member of the opposite sex, then they will really believe that. Showing them nonsense like the gingerbread person, which is highly regressive and misleading, is only going to make them very confused.

“You would expect schools, especially ones that specialise in autism, to respond very cautiously and with great care in this area. Instead, youngsters are being fed pseudoscience, presented as fact, and so are the staff. It is shocking and breathtaking.”

LGBT Youth Scotland, as we've heard, are Scotland's answer to Stonewall, infiltrating Scottish primary schools with gender woo. Infiltrating a school for autistic children marks a new low.