That therapist sounds nuts.

I agree wholeheartedly with this:

...some experts are fearful that our creeping therapeutic culture – that labels everyday stresses and strains as mental health issues – could be doing more harm than good, particularly when it comes to children.

Prof Dr Sami Timimi, a consultant psychiatrist, psychotherapist and author, says: “We have created a whole panic around the concept of mental health.”
He points out that problem behaviour or feelings are “not like cancer, where early intervention will make a huge difference”.

“You are more likely to create a long-term problem [with early intervention] than head it off at the pass... Once you start looking at things through a certain lens, you become convinced that there is something problematic going on; it is very hard to get out of that mindset.”

I caught this penis article in the Telegraph

https://archive.ph/NARCg

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/29/i-read-my-therapists-notes-and-she-needed-help/

Worked at the Tavistock! I have no idea if it's relevant to how things developed there but 😳

That's an excellent response. I wonder if Emma Watson will read it.

On point, as always.

JKR responds directly to Emma Watson....

x.com/jk_rowling/status/1972600904185483427

Thanks, NoBinturongsHereMate, I've signed it and can see the numbers going up.

There's a petition to be signed:

https://x.com/StigOfTheDamp/status/1972022602698052080?

(Link to tweet because I believe there's a problem with linking directly to petitions. But if you prefer an alternative route, go to the government petitions site and search for 'Inquiry into sexual violence in NHS hospitals'.)

Intel Lady on X has done her own version of what EW said and it's pretty good.

https://x.com/intel_lady/status/1971310795335340484

Wow - that's painfully slow.

If you really believe something do you need to weigh each and every word so carefully, or is it only when you're battling cognitive dissonance with one hand while frantically calculating career effects with the other?

I'm assuming everyone's seen Emma Watson's modest mea culpa and JKR's oblique response? Just in case, enjoy below.

https://x.com/nypost/status/1971285234529292761

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1971191971709587676

I read that as 52% of men believe that being female is an important part of their identity.

😂

I hope 52% of men weren't saying 'being female' was an important part of their identity. Perhaps the men meant they believed 'being female' was an important part of a woman's identity? 🤔

Sorry, just visiting from Pedant's Corner.😊

I think it depends exactly how the question is worded, and how people interpreted 'being female' and 'identity'.

Being female certainly shapes aspects of my existence, but I'm not especially feminine and put no particular stock in that. So i might have answered either way depending on exactly what they asked.

I just read this in a Sex Matters update:

Also in The Times, Sanchez Manning reported that two-thirds of women believe that being female is an important part of their identity according to the British Social Attitudes Survey, with 52% of men saying the same. Fiona McAnena said that women are more aware of the significance of sex because our biology shapes the experience of our daily lives in a way that is profoundly different from men.

It was like this presented as a relatively good thing. IIJM, but I thought, only two-thirds? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

There was an astonishing interview of Gordon Guyatt by Mia Hughes and Stella O'Malley on X yesterday. https://x.com/_CryMiaRiver/status/1965155081038561553

They asked him why he'd signed a statement saying that 'gender affirming care is necessary' and he furiously denied it. Mia Hughes then gets out the statement to show that he did indeed sign it and he starts complaining that he didn't write that part and anyway it's only a few words, so it doesn't matter. The difference between him, red faced and blustering, and the calm, polite women is something to see.

Agreed x 2 rayon.

I empathise with her, and she (along with all the other, mainly women, who stuck their necks out early and were immediately set on) have every right to be angry. I do think this article is slightly missing the point about Gladwell’s very late admission, though.

Already the mob pile-on has started on him. Character assassination (very JKR - he’s never been a good person, he has supported wrong think in the past, his books are all shit, he is pro-genocide/actually racist, etc), he shouldn’t be listened to, everything he says is wrong, there’s no reason for him to be afraid so he’s really just transphobic, and so on and on and on.

They are demonstrating exactly what kept him silent for so long, but they’re too high on their own supply to recognise it. The fact he’s broken cover is genuinely a useful sign of which way the wind is blowing though, even if he’s far from a leader (!) on the path back to reality.

I met Maxine Peake a few years ago, in the beer queue at Castleford Tigers! We had a long chat, she was such a sweetheart.

Older TRAs always bang on about this man as if he’s the second coming.

Has anyone listened to yesterday's Front Row with Maxine Peake on Mary Whitehouse and (Briefly) JKR. And Lucy Hunter Blackburn on the WWWW and library controversy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002j5r9

Sorry to read that about Malcolm Gladwell.

Victoria Smith kicking arse as always.

https://thecritic.co.uk/why-malcolm-gladwells-trans-retraction-wont-ever-be-enough/

I love Jill Bearup. She suffered her 2 minutes of tra hate a few years ago iirc. Anyway I thought this was interesting but wasn't sure if it warranted its own thread

AI does that. It will take ages to fix, if it’s even possible.