The convicted murderer, Scarlet Blake, previously known as Fangze Wang, is male. This is why he is going to a men’s prison, after being found guilty last week of strangling Jorge Martin Carreno in what was described in court as a sexually motivated killing. And yet, Thames Valley police have recorded Blake’s crime as having been committed by a woman: “Blake identified as a female in custody. As such, Blake is recorded as female in our recording system,” a spokesman for the force said.

But why not record Blake as a cat? This is not a facetious question, although I know gender activists will see it as such. Yet rather awkwardly for them, Blake literally identified as a cat, to the point that he told police he had a pet microchip in his body and “would meow when happy”. This suggests Blake’s real issue is seriously poor mental health — he previously killed a neighbour’s cat and put it in a blender, which is another pretty good indicator — and maybe identifying as a woman is another expression of that.

Yet because gender ideologues have energetically promoted the idea that gender identity is sacred, and that a man who says he’s a woman should be treated with the same respect as one who comes out as gay, the media, the police and even the court have dutifully referred to Blake as “she”. Pronouns are respect, activists insist. And I agree, which is why I generally refer to trans people by their preferred pronoun, as I would use anyone’s requested nickname. Be who you want, live your life. But what I can’t understand is this: why are the police and media respecting a convicted murderer who made cat soup and strangled a stranger for sexual kicks?