Oh dear, I thought that we “cis” people were not at fault for being “cis”; I thought it was just a fact about us, not a condemnation. How many times have I seen “Cis just means identifying with your assigned sex, that’s all it means”? Many. Many many. I’ve seen it a lot because I’ve seen a lot of conversations about the way “cis” is used as a pejorative, like “racist” or “misogynist”; orthodoxy-policers always rush to say no no no no it’s not a pejorative at all, it just means “not trans.”

Maybe there was a memo? Apparently that’s not the orthodoxy any more.

“Cis”, like “white” or “straight”, describes a privileged group with a history of oppressing a

Robert Reich asks how can we make sure Trump doesn’t get re-elected.

Most Americans hold a low opinion of Trump. He’s the only president in Gallup polling history never to have earned the support of majority for single day of his term.

Yet Mueller’s report probably won’t move any of the 40% who have held tight to Trump regardless.

So how to reach the 11% or 12% who may decide the outcome?

Reveal his moral loathsomeness.

Democrats and progressives tend to shy away from morality, given how rightwing evangelicals have used it against abortion, contraceptives and equal marriage rights.

I don’t. Abortion, contraceptives and equal marriage rights have nothing to do with real morality – they’re targets of fake, … Read the rest

The donations are rolling in.

The devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris led to an immediate outpouring of donations and an ambitious pledge by the French president to rebuild within five years. But a continent away, the blaze also spurred more than $1.8 million in donations to rebuild three historically black churches burned in suspected hate crimes in Louisiana.

The fires at the three churches in St. Landry Parish occurred over 10 days beginning at the end of March. Authorities said they were deliberately set and have arrested a suspect.

As of [last] Sunday, a GoFundMe campaign seeking donations for the churches had raised only about $50,000. By Thursday morning, donations had soared to more than $1.8

Morgane Oger continues to assert that it’s feminist women’s fault that Jessica (formerly Jonathan) Yaniv predated on young girls.

Amy hamm incites hatred against trans women because of who we are. Maybe she didn't get the memo, so I'll say it more explicitly: She and @FeministCurrent enabled Yaniv, creating social cover by inciting repulsive hatred instead of researching the facts and reporting. #DoYourJob https://t.co/orpUBQrLve

— Morgane Oger M.S.M. (@MorganeOgerBC) April 20, 2019

The reason Yaniv had cover was the methods used by TERFs

— Morgane Oger M.S.M. (@MorganeOgerBC) April 21, 2019

Two Feminist Current authors have been banned from Twitter over their anti-transgender campaigns.

There is no place on social media for supremacists.

— Morgane Oger M.S.M. (@MorganeOgerBC) April 21,

I remain fascinated by Sarah Sanders’s intransigence. There is something morbidly fascinating, at least to me, in that kind of determination to continue being evil and never relent.

After admitting to investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, that she delivered a false statement from the White House podium, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, defended herself in Trumpian fashion on Friday morning. She counterattacked.

It’s like Morgane Oger, blaming Meghan Murphy and other feminists for the predatory acts of Jonathan Yaniv. “I’m not the shameless liar, you’re the shameless liar!”

Asked on “Good Morning America” if the report had damaged her credibility, Ms. Sanders responded that she had made the statement in the

Seattle on a bright spring afternoon.

Don't look now, but there's some bluish skies moving into Seattle. Still looking into what causes this. 🤔 Oh yes, I remember now. Rayleigh scattering. And an absence of cloud cover. #wawx pic.twitter.com/Op18d1qcRJ

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) April 20, 2019

… Read the rest

Just a month ago, when the Vancouver City Council voted to withdraw future funding from Vancouver Rape Relief, Morgane Oger was one of those leading the charge.

The defunding is the latest flashpoint in an ongoing struggle between transgender activists and feminist organizations who maintain that female-born and male-born women should remain distinct groups.

One of the figures leading the defunding charge against Vancouver Rape Relief was Morgane Oger, a longstanding transgender advocate and vice president of the B.C. NDP.

In comments before a March 13 city committee meeting, Oger called Vancouver Rape Relief “noncompliant with Canadian law” and guilty of “systematic, consistent misbehaviour.” She also said that it is the last B.C. women’s shelter to continue denying

When Jordan met Slavoj:

The event was billed as “the debate of the century”, “The Rumble in the Realm of the Mind”, and it did have the feel of a heavyweight boxing match: Jordan Peterson, local boy, against the slapdash Slovenian Slavoj Žižek, considering “Happiness: Capitalism vs Marxism” in Toronto.

In other words the event was hyped, so as to bring in more gullible punters and thus more cash. Woopeedoo.

The great surprise of this debate turned out to be how much in common the old-school Marxist and the Canadian identity politics refusenik had.

One hated communism. The other hated communism but thought that capitalism possessed inherent contradictions. The first one agreed that capitalism possessed inherent contradictions. And that

"She lied about her lie to people who knew she was lying." https://t.co/hCEzAi57OE

— David Frum (@davidfrum) April 20, 2019

“She lied about her lie to people who knew she was lying. That, truly, is pathological lying.”

 … Read the rest

Jonah Mix has an absolute stemwinder of a piece on the hot fashion of guys lolling around on Twitter explaining how complicated biology is. I stashed a couple of sentences to remember and then I gave up because it was all that good.

It’s so easy to get sucked into this debate, to get that hot indignation in your stomach that comes when a foolish claim is so proudly asserted. And I don’t even have skin in the game — binary or not, my sex will still land me squarely in the “paid more, raped less” category.

That’s the first one I stashed, that second sentence.

The point is, debating “what is a woman, really?” is a luxury, given … Read the rest

Good grief. She’s still at it. She announces in this that Comey is “a dirty cop.” I despise the way Comey handled the emails issue, but needless to say that’s not what Sanders is talking about.

Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation notes several instances where Pres. Trump pressured his top aides to lie or mislead. One day after the president fired FBI Director James Comey, @PressSec told reporters Comey no longer had the confidence of Trump and other people. pic.twitter.com/8EiLL2Dn5E

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) April 19, 2019

I suppose I shouldn’t bother being surprised. Stephanopoulos explained it this morning: she was under oath when she admitted lying to Mueller’s people (admitted to Mueller’s people that she lied); she’s not … Read the rest

What do we mean by “above the law”?

I’m reading an Atlantic piece on the Mueller report as impeachment referral, and I stop at this paragraph:

But there is another, simpler way to understand Mueller’s report. A footnote spells out that a criminal investigation could ultimately result in charges being brought either after a president has been removed from office by the process of impeachment or after he has left office. Mueller explicitly rejected the argument of Trump’s lawyers that a president could not be guilty of obstruction of justice for the conduct in question: “The protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person—including the President—accords with the fundamental principle of our government that ‘[n]o

A slide from a talk at a recent European Professional Association for Transgender Health conference in Rome:

Notice anything?

It’s…everything. It’s a long list of feelings and behaviors that most people experience or perform at least occasionally (diagnosed conditions apart). Feeling lonely, feeling guilty, feeling of not fitting in – all could be gender dysphoria! Or, could be normal ups and downs of life. It’s like saying having two feet could be a sign of gender dysphoria.

This is not about helping people who feel acute discomfort with their gender or their sex, it’s about recruiting more people into a Movement. It’s about promoting and encouraging and bigging up a fashion. It’s a branch of advertising – got … Read the rest

The report paints an ugly picture.

The White House that emerges from more than 400 pages of Mr. Mueller’s report is a hotbed of conflict infused by a culture of dishonesty — defined by a president who lies to the public and his own staff, then tries to get his aides to lie for him. Mr. Trump repeatedly threatened to fire lieutenants who did not carry out his wishes while they repeatedly threatened to resign rather than cross lines of propriety or law.

At one juncture after another, Mr. Trump made his troubles worse, giving in to anger and grievance and lashing out in ways that turned advisers into witnesses against him. He was saved from an accusation of