Lucian Freud, Paddington, 1963 - photo Antony Armstrong-Jones

I’m going to unpack some of this. 1. The premise that women are unknowingly carting around a Y (with SRY) is massively over exaggerated. The risk of Surprise SRY is minimal. 2. The risk of Surprise SRY is, however, non-zero. But in reproductively healthy women who have had periods and, more definitively, had kids is as near to zero as one can map in science. 3. That is, if you are a person who got a period before 16yo (ish), who has ever been pregnant or who has had the kind of screens that are offered to women (like cervical screening) without any drama, I’d bet my house you don’t have SRY. 4. If you have proof you have popped eggs and/or seen your ovaries, you would be almost singular (literally in the scientific record, the second case to my knowledge) if you also have SRY, functional or otherwise. If that’s me, with my entirely healthy reproductive system and physiology, I’m writing myself into a paper. 5. If you are born appearing female but actually carting around a Y with an SRY, it will almost always make it’s presence felt during puberty. You won’t menstruate, your GP might then discover unusual anatomy etc. Nobody in the U.K. should be getting Surprise SRY. 6. Ironically, Mums to boys are the most likely confounder (via fetal microchimerism). It should not need to be said that picking up some cells from the baby boy you’ve carried in your belly doesn’t change your sex. The carrying of the baby boy, almost certainly from your own egg, refutes that. 🙄 7. If, despite being an apparently healthy woman, you get a Surprise SRY, that means you’re an interesting woman, not a man. It also means that you won’t be excluded from female sport. Because whatever your genetics, sport is divided on bodies. 8. The lay person’s fascination with genetics and the cultural position that DSDs are “just normal variation” has led a fair amount of even normally-sensible people down a dumb rabbit hole. They are medical conditions that are really rare. 1/20k is a binned frequency that we use in genetics to describe things that are really rare. It’s not a measured number, it’s almost qualitative.

. @AnnMann01892250

Dear Lush (cc Chelmsford City Council), As a woman who had half a breast removed last year due to cancer, I am writing to raise my concerns about your “Proud of My Stripes” window display. I am also, on behalf of other women who have experienced breast cancer, respectfully requesting its removal. Because mastectomies are not a fashion statement, an identity marker or something to be celebrated. They are something women undergo because they are ill, because they are frightened, because they are trying to stay alive. Around 59,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK every year. Many will undergo surgery - a mastectomy, lumpectomy or other procedure. Others choose preventive mastectomies because they carry a high-risk BRCA gene mutation. If a woman chooses to have her breasts removed to affirm a gender identity, that is her personal choice. I honestly don’t know the number of women who have elective mastectomies for this reason. What I do know is that it is a tiny number compared with those for whom breast surgery is medically necessary and not something to be celebrated. I think I speak for many women who have experienced breast cancer - and for their families - when I say this: Breast removal surgery is not something I regard as cute, playful or empowering. Nor is it something I believe retailers should be celebrating. For that reason, I am requesting that the display be removed and that @ChelmsCouncil apologise for promoting it on social media. Yours sincerely, Janet Murray

"Real women" we think not. More like Manly Misters. "Real you" - no to men LARPing as women. This sends the wrong message, new WIs are not women only, but must include men as well, fundamentally undermining the concept of the organisation. @thirdsectorSEEN

Birds are amazing! I've learned today that, "Thrushes have a unique double voice box that allows them to sing two notes simultaneously and blend them into a clear, layered song." dl.allaboutbirds.org/share/h…

#Scotland🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿#worldcup2026

It’s been like a kind of national hypnosis, with no interrogation from the press at all until now. How did governments think this acceptable, and journalists treat it as routine, while transactivists claimed of over-funded women’s rights groups?

14th June 2026 04.49

Consider the calmness and sense of order evoked by Swiss artist Albert Anker’s ‘Still Life with Coffee’ (1877), with its porcelain cups, sugar cubes, coffee pot and liqueurs ~ and notice the subtle shadings of whiteness that the artist uses

He should not be anywhere near political power.

Will you stop accusing women that were focussed on safeguarding as being bigots and anti trans campaigners though. Will you stop reporting the belief in sex being immutable and protecting sex segregated spaces as right wing. We are waiting, and watching.

Whilst there is a focus on the activities of gender clinics, could I recommend taking an interest in the activities of the adult Welsh Gender Service? An independent investigation was ordered in July 2024. It hasn't started yet. genderblog.net/welsh-gender-…

I went to Chippenham Pride today. It was almost exclusively about gender identities and a speaker claimed that the EHRC guidance seeks to actively remove trans people from society and will cost them their lives. So I have written to the Mayor.

RT @andrewdoyle_com: So the Green Party’s official position is that fracturing a police officer’s spine with a sledgehammer ought not to be…

Nick’s gender blog is fabulous - take a look. These are untold stories.

A message for all @UKLabour MPs who have signed #EDM240

LUSH celebrating women who hate their bodies so much they cut their breasts off and pretend to be men. Yay. #LoveWins

I can see how it happened, but the why is very weird. Sterilising children with off label drugs without informed consent. Why would any health professional even consider it?

This is Samuel Corner, sledgehammer raised, ready to strike the police woman lying at his feet, arm held out in a vain plea for mercy. Samuel Corner is not a martyr nor a "young activist", he's just a common-or-garden thug.