None of the literal, physical, natal women were good enough. They never are, are they.
I think I can now announce that I have accepted the position of Director of Women's Studies at Rutgers University – Newark. Relatedly, we can finally answer the age-old question "how do I know when my transition is over?"
— Cat Fitzpatrick (@intermittentcat) May 21, 2019
Remember that story about the private Facebook group of male students at Warwick University that featured a lot of rape threats (virtual rape threats, since they were confined to the private group) against fellow students of the female persuasion? The BBC has a new documentary on it.
… Read the restEarly last year, Anna, then 19, was sitting on the sofa in her student house when a stream of explicit messages began popping up on her friend’s laptop.
As more came through, she asked him what they were about, and he laughed.
“He said: ‘Well, if you think that’s bad you might want to see our lads’ chat’,” Anna says. “That’s when he took me through a year and a half’s worth
I can’t help it, it made me laugh. I tried to scowl but I couldn’t sustain it – his solemnity, his toddler-careful word-saying, his little across-the-abdomen gesture, his use of the word “happy” – I crumbled and laughed helplessly.
To anyone unsure if Donald Trump was the dumbest human being alive…
He just wished a Happy Memorial Day to the JAPANESE Military pic.twitter.com/u5AIoL0Y2t
— Danny Ocean (@The_UnSilent_) May 28, 2019
One bit of good news though: UKIP did very badly in the elections and Tommy Robinson and (wait for it) yes Carl Benjamin got hosed.
… Read the restUkip candidate Carl Benjamin, also known as his YouTube name Sargon of Akkad, was also hit with milkshakes (and fish) on the campaign trail.
His policies were overshadowed by controversy over rape “jokes” he directed at Labour MP Jess Phillips, for which he refused to apologise.
Mr Benjamin appeared with right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been condemned for his remarks on subjects including feminism, paedophilia, trans people, race and religion, and has called for journalists to be shot.
He failed to win a seat in South West England, where Ukip won just
Eleven people have died on Everest so far this year.
Mountaineers have suggested difficult weather conditions, a lack of experience and the growing commercialization of expeditions as contributing factors to the backlog.
British climber Robin Haynes Fisher was one of those who had warned of the dangers of overcrowding.
“With a single route to the summit, delays caused by overcrowding could prove fatal so I am hopeful my decision to go for the 25th will mean fewer people. Unless of course everyone else plays the same waiting game,” he wrote in a captioned Instagram post on May 19.
He’s one of the eleven; he died on the way down.
… Read the restDuring the week beginning May 20, crowds of climbers became
What happens if the forced birth lunatics do prevail and Brett Kavanaugh & co do overturn Roe v Wade and all those state laws banning abortion become law?
… Read the restNone of the restrictions have gone into effect, either because of delays built into the legislation itself or legal challenges. If they do, they’ll spark an unintentional, vast experiment in public health. Already, states with the most restrictions on access to abortions are also those with the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality. The connection isn’t direct—abortion access can be a kind of proxy for access to all sorts of pre- and postnatal health care, not to mention correlating roughly with better-funded education systems, lower poverty rates, and tighter environmental regulation.
If you only ask someone’s pronouns if they ‘look trans’, you are expressing transphobia – EVERYONE looks transgender.
Tomorrow’s ratchet will be something about how transphobic it is to ask anyone’s pronouns.… Read the rest
Today’s blowup:
Apparently it’s ‘incendiary’ and ‘unpleasant’ to publicise the fact that males in women’s prisons commit sexual assault, and males in women’s sports dominate with the unfair advantage of male puberty. Thanks a bunch mate. Glad to know who our friends aren’t https://t.co/oY8mZnU4EG
— Helen Joyce (@HJJoyceEcon) May 27, 2019
What’s that? Jon Ronson? Surely not.
But yes.
Whether it's female people being excluded from sport or female people experiencing male violence, we're always told every single specific example is an "isolated story" hence it's unfair to subject it to the political analysis that might prevent it. Every single time. pic.twitter.com/AR4d4M1Yig
— Glosswitch (@glosswitch) May 27, 2019
A tragic headline:
Mumbai: Protests held over suicide of Dr Payal Tadvi who killed self due to abuse from seniors
Abuse why? Caste.
… Read the restPayal committed suicide due to alleged casteist abuse in a Mumbai hospital and demanded stringent action against the culprits here on Monday.
The Students Federation of India (SFI) and other student organisations staged vociferous protests against the recent suicide of a post-graduate woman medical student due to alleged casteist abuse in a Mumbai hospital and demanded stringent action against the culprits here on Monday.
“This is the first time in Maharashtra that any post-graduate medico has taken the extreme step of ending her life after alleged harassment on grounds of her caste background,” Maharashtra Association of Resident
Hope Hicks got a subpoena from the Dems last week. Now she’s apparently racking her brain to figure out whether she will comply or not, as if it were optional. It’s not optional. Ignoring a subpoena is contrary to law.
But the 30-year-old’s decision about whether to comply with the law is “an existential question,” according to a recent article by the New York Times.
Maggie Haberman’s piece — entitled “Hope Hicks Left the White House. Now She Must Decide Whether to Talk to Congress.” — has drawn intense scrutiny and raised questions regarding disparities in law enforcement.
The very title is stupid. (Titles are usually the work of editors, not the reporter.) No, it’s not the case that … Read the rest
Councillor Sarah Field at Leeds Civic Hall yesterday:
Our brilliant panel of academics will be speaking today about the Declaration of Sex Based Rights. But by way of introduction I am going to talk a little bit about Leeds and why I’m here.
So, I just want to start off by thanking the many women on the Mumsnet Feminism boards. You are a constant strength and inspiration.
About three years ago, not long after I was first elected, I was contacted by a woman in Leeds, for advice. Her six year old daughter had been verbally attacked and then subjected to a violent outburst by a 17 year old male who had been allowed to join a local girls group … Read the rest
The Biden speeches write themselves, don't they.
"I've never claimed to be a very stable genius. But I know enough not to trust Kim Jong Un to keep a promise – and if I ever meet him, I won't leave him smiling at me or anybody else"
— David Frum (@davidfrum) May 25, 2019
(Yes, I’m clearly going to be beating this to death today. It’s that astounding.)
It’s not just knowing enough not to trust Kim Jong Un to keep a promise – it’s another level of stupid even from that. It’s knowing enough not to be bounced into trusting Kim Jong Un because he flatters me.
How dumb and incompetent and undeveloped and practically fetus-level immature … Read the rest
Radio Free Tom sums it up.
It is time, yet again, to imagine how utterly insensate with rage Republicans would be if a Dem president were gleeful at an enemy dictator attacking one of his opponents. They would be calling not just for impeachment, but for invoking the 25th amendment. /1
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 25, 2019
I’ll just quote the rest.
Another thing about Trump’s bottom of the sewer tweet – a thing that’s obvious but needs underlining anyway.
It’s the “promise TO ME” bit. It’s the radiant, glowing conceit that burns out of those two words. You peasants just don’t understand, it’s between the two of us: he promised ME, and it’s intrusive and blasphemous for you to try to get between us.
It’s that and it’s also the conceit of thinking a promise to him is magically unbreakable because it’s to him. It’s the radioactive conceit and confidence of this bloated nitwit that is so astonishing, along with our helplessness to stop him. It’s as if Daffy Duck or Yosemite Sam were pirouetting in front of the cameras … Read the rest
The Post on Trump’s alliance with Kim Jong Un against Joe Biden:
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Sunday said President Trump and Kim Jong Un “agree in their assessment” of former vice president Joe Biden, after Trump prompted an outcry by leveraging his friendship with the North Korean dictator against Biden in a tweet.
Well now who ya gonna trust, a Democrat or Kim Jong Un?
Members of both parties sharply criticized Trump’s handling of North Korea on Sunday.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said she “certainly wouldn’t trust” Kim. She described herself as disturbed by both North Korea’s recent missile test as well as Trump’s reaction.
And on the other hand there are the packets of slime … Read the rest
In case Trump’s tweet yesterday saying he’s not worried about Kim firing all those missiles but he’s happy as a pig in shit that Kim called Joe Biden stupid WASN’T ENOUGH, today Sarah Sanders cheerily told us that yes that’s how he sees it and isn’t it awesome.
… Read the restAppearing on NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday morning, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubled down on her boss’s endorsement of a totalitarian dictator’s attacks on one of his political opponents—an opponent who also happens to be a former American vice-president.
While overseas during a four-day trip to Japan, President Trump tweeted that he wasn’t bothered by North Korea firing off “some small weapons” because the nation’s
Good god.
North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Bidan a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2019
A guy called Will Roberts has written a post disputing the article by Sophie Allen, Jane Clare Jones, Holly Lawford-Smith, Mary Leng, Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, and Kathleen Stock on bad arguments against gender critical feminism. The first item snagged my attention.
… Read the restSection one: fallacious arguments
- ‘Your position has been historically associated with far right-wing thought, and hence fails’.
The authors write: “Associating our intellectual position with a far right-wing one, because some far right-wing thinkers would agree with us in some of our conclusions, and insinuating that our position is all the worse because of it, is an ad hominem. Ad hominems are widely recognised as inappropriate in philosophy.”
Political arguments are different from purely philosophical arguments. The fact that one
The Telegraph on the awkwardness of having a new union boss who uses a blocker to block a hefty proportion of union members:
Feminist academics have complained that their new union boss cannot uphold free speech because she has refused to listen to opposing views in the transgender debate.
Dr Jo Grady, who was elected on Friday as the new general secretary of the University and College Union, used a controversial “Terf-blocker” which is a tool on Twitter that allows users to block a list of accounts.
A very long list of accounts. I’m on it, which I know because a lot of people I’ve never heard of or interacted with (before seeing “Has X blocked you too?” tweeted) … Read the rest
Also let’s get people in low-paid jobs fired or reprimanded or whatever we can successfully demand for Not Using The Correct™ Pronouns™ all power to the firing class yeah?
https://twitter.com/MelzDot/status/1132233737268269056
Did MelzDot ask “the security” (rather a dehumanizing way to refer to a person) what his pronouns were? Are Bespoke Pronouns only for the privileged few who speak at a TRANS Conference and not the riffraff who guard them?
There follows a long maudlin thread of people offering Mr Dot massive sympathy for this hideous unparalleled tragedy.
sending you so much love & i’m really sorry this happened to you. what an utter disgrace on their part.
— kamara. (@incognegraux) May 25, 2019
It’s all like that or worse.
This … Read the rest
