Is There a “Fixed, Biological Basis for Gender Identity”?

[A PDF version of this article can be downloaded from this link. Links to papers referenced this article are included at the end of the online version of this article only] There is a short and easily overlooked passage in the Endocrine Society’s recent Scientific Statement on “Considering […]

Debunking the Bimodal “Sex Spectrum” Graph

I have long had a particular interest in the field of “zombie statistics”, statistics that are widely circulated as factual information but which have become entirely detached from their original source to the extent that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to establish their validity. Some zombie […]

Pubertal Suppression and the Tavistock Study – More Questions than Answers

I want to return to the High Court judgment in Bell v Tavistock and take a closer look at one of the more contentious issues that was put before the court, this being the question of the exact purpose for which puberty blockers are prescribed to adolescents presenting […]

Why Jolyon Maugham should stick to battering foxes

A few days ago I tweeted a few somewhat sceptical comments on the proposed intervention by the “Good Law Project” in the Tavistock Clinic’s upcoming application to appeal the High Court decision in Bell v Tavistock. This is, of course, the recent case dealing with the issue of […]

Decriminalising Abortion won’t be like getting Jane Austen on the £10 Note.

It’s time to go whomping some dodgy statistics again, and our target for today is one that’s starting to crop up pretty regularly in commentaries on UK abortion law. You’ll find it in this fairly recent Guardian article by Caroline Criado-Perez: Polls show 62% of the British public […]

Superheroes, Sci-Fi and the “insert minority here” trope.

As I noted in my previous article, just about the least interesting thing about the leaked Sony/Marvel memo is the section detailing Sony’s “Character Integrity Obligations” which stipulated that the film version of Spider-Man must be straight – at least until Marvel gives the character a gay/bisexual/non-binary alter […]

Decoding Sony’s leaked Spider-Man Memo (Pt. 1)

Occasionally I get accused of doing proper journalism and I suspect this may turn out to be one such occasion. At the very least what I hope I’ll achieve with this article is a clear illustration of the difference between click-bait “journalism” – specifically last week’s “No Blacks, […]

How Moving the TV Money Goalposts cost Burnley FC £1.2 million last season.

Okay, so let’s get quickly back on to the subject of the Premier League’s TV rights deal and the manner in which the money is distributed to the League’s 20 clubs. As I pointed out in my last post pretty much the first that stood out from the […]

Premier League TV Money: Not Quite As Equitable as They’d Like You to Think.

Although the big football of the week has undoubtedly been the PR resignation of FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who has announced that he’s standing down but not for at least six months and not without continuing to make noises about pushing through “reforms” of the organisation that will […]

The BBC, Charlie Hebdo and Jesus & Mo

If, like me, you were watching BBC Question Time on Thursday evening then you will have undoubtedly noticed that the venerable Dimbers dropped something of a bombshell during the opening debate on the Charlie Hebdo murders by referring to BBC editorial guidance which explicitly prohibited the use of […]