It doesn’t matter if a girl identified as a cat (she didn’t). The issue is how post-truth politics exploits it

‘Kemi Badenoch requested a snap Ofsted inspection, on the basis of ‘a teacher acting inappropriately regarding her pupils’ beliefs about sex, gender and a fellow pupil who claimed to identify as a cat’.’ Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

I apologise in advance, because this column is about something that didn’t happen. Too much is actually happening in the world that deserves our attention, but in this instance, it’s worth pausing, and then tracing, how fiction becomes fact.

By now, you may have heard that a girl in a school in Rye in East Sussex said she was a cat, that she “identified” as such, and that others who disagreed with her were chastised by a teacher. If you have come across this story, you would be entirely forgiven for thinking it was real. “Catgirl: today’s culture of affirmation is failing children,” wailed the Telegraph. Nick Ferrari on LBC hosted a whole phone-in segment about the story. The Mail unveiled an “investigation” that revealed this was not an isolated incident, but part of a larger phenomenon where children are identifying as cats, dogs, dinosaurs and “furries”.