Nicola Sturgeon’s last laugh

I was delighted to discover that the University of Bristol has been advising students how to address those who identify as ‘catgender’. These are people who ‘strongly identify with cats’ or may have ‘delusions relating to being a cat’. Apparently these individuals ‘may use nya/nyan pronouns’. Nya is the Japanese word for ‘miaow’. I am not sure why they should use the Japanese word for miaow, rather than our own perfectly good word, although I understand that a lot of young people are very interested in certain aspects of Japanese culture, such as anime and manga (although not other aspects of Japanese culture such as discipline, deference and fortitude). Perhaps this is where they have got it from, then.

I was also pleased that the university noted that catgender people were deluded and rather hoped that this word might be used to describe transgender people who really believe they are now a different sex. Perhaps this is why the trans activists have reacted with a certain pique towards Bristol’s innovation. The wider and wider the net is cast in search of adolescent delusions, the more it seems that the entirety of them consist of people who are not quite right in the head. ‘A bit light’, as my father used to say, in a kindly manner, of the mentally disturbed.

It does seem to me that there are two possible causes for insisting to people how you wish to be addressed: the first is narcissism and self-importance and the second is lunacy. The Journal of Psychosomatic Research has published a study suggesting that more than 70 per cent of people with gender dysphoria have had a mental health diagnosis in their lifetime and a later report in the reliably entertaining Schizophrenia Research and Treatment (2014) suggested that the rate of neurological disorders and schizophrenia was much higher among people with gender identity issues than among the general population.