From the Times:

“In public, at least, her supporters claimed victory. Sandie Peggie had, after all, been found to have been harassed by her employer, NHS Fife, in four different ways. But the veteran nurse’s win was a relatively narrow one. It was far from the slamdunk gender-critical campaigners had hoped for and had, in truth, expected after their landmark Supreme Court win in April.

“A load of sexist shite,” was how one leading activist privately described the 312-page ruling. “I didn’t think the judge would fall for his [Beth Upton’s] schtick. I was wrong.”

It means an employment tribunal which has divided opinion for the best part of a year is unlikely to be the end of the case. An appeal, well-informed sources said, is now a “near certainty”.

The Dundee employment tribunal upheld four of Peggie’s claims against NHS Fife. It found that the health board had harassed Peggie including by failing to revoke Upton’s permission to use female changing rooms “on an interim basis” after the nurse complained, and had taken an “unreasonable” amount of time to investigate the issue. But it dismissed other allegations against NHS Fife and the entirety of the case against Upton.

Among the most contentious findings was that it “is potentially but not necessarily lawful” to still allow trans women — biological men who identify as women — to use female-only spaces in the workplace. The tribunal suggested that rather than a blanket ban on trans women in female spaces, permitting access would become unlawful only if a woman complained. Even then, various factors, such as the trans woman’s efforts to appear feminine, would have to be balanced when deciding whose rights took precedence.

Are you SERIOUS???

Who gives a fuck about men’s “efforts to appear feminine” so that they can follow you into the toilet or the changing room or anywhere else they feel like following you whether you like it or not?

“This ruling just shows the reason we need the guidance from Westminster to be published urgently,” Trina Budge, a director of For Women Scotland, said. She noted that the Supreme Court ruling stated that provisions required for the protection of women “necessarily exclude men”, yet this appeared not to have been considered. Unfortunately, this judgment is all over the place and, in parts, littered with nonsense and the language of trans activism,” Budge added. “This is a perfect example of how in the absence of any leadership from the UK government, the water has been muddied further. Public bodies are still being allowed to cling to the ridiculous notion that putting on make up and wearing a dress is what defines a woman.”

News flash: ANYBODY can put on makeup and a dress. It’s extremely easy.

News flash 2: I never put on makeup and a dress. And yet, I am a woman, and Jonathan “India” Willoughby is not.

The BBC is so shitty on this subject.

The campaign group Sex Matters, which backed Sandie Peggie in the case, said it was very disappointed in the approach taken by the tribunal.

Maya Forstater, the organisation’s CEO, said it should have provided employers with clarity regarding single-sex spaces and that should have meant giving them the confidence to refuse to let trans women use those spaces. She added: “It is a travesty that a woman can be judged as having expressed herself in the wrong way when she objects to finding a man in the women’s changing room.”

Ms Forstater said there was an “urgent” need for the Health and Safety Executive to provide clear guidance to employers regarding workplace toilets and changing rooms.

However, discrimination lawyer Robin Moira White – who works with Translucent, a trans-led advocacy and human rights organisation – said the ruling was a “very sensible, balanced judgement”. She said the tribunal had found that Sandie Peggie had harassed Dr Upton, not the other way around.

Oh look, there’s the BBC failing to say that Robin Moira White is a man who pretends to be a woman, and in fact calling her “she” which means that anybody who doesn’t know Robin Moira White is a man will get a very distorted view of the matter.

Ms White added: “It recognised that both trans people and gender critical people have rights in the workplace and employers have to balance those.”

Oh fuck off, dude. No employers don’t have to “balance” women’s right not to change clothes with men in the room and men’s right to watch women changing clothes. Just fuck all the way off.

Partial victory for nurse in NHS trans changing room row

A nurse who objected to sharing a female changing room with a transgender doctor has won a claim for harassment against NHS Fife but other allegations of discrimination and victimisation were dismissed.

…

An employment tribunal judgement outlined four ways in which NHS Fife harassed Ms Peggie but dismissed the other allegations against the health board and all claims against Dr Upton. Ms Peggie welcomed the decision and said the past two years had been “agonising”, while NHS Fife said it would take time to work through the details.

…

In a written judgement on Monday, the tribunal found that NHS Fife had harassed Ms Peggie in a number of ways. It said that when she complained to her employers about Dr Upton using the women’s changing rooms, permission should have been revoked on an interim basis. It said the NHS should have stopped allowing Dr Upton to use the changing area until different work rotas took effect – at which point they wouldn’t be working together.

The tribunal also ruled that the health board had taken an unreasonable time to investigate the claims against her and that officials were wrong to tell her not to discuss the case. The health board’s reference to unproven claims that Ms Peggie had put patients at risk was also deemed to amount to harassment. However, Ms Peggie’s claims of discrimination and victimisation by NHS Fife did not succeed and were dismissed, as was her claim against Dr Upton.

That last part is annoying.

Trump and his goons are wrong about almost everything, but not about Admiral Levine.

As you walk down a particular hallway on the seventh floor of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., you’ll find a line of photographic portraits of all the people from years past who have led the Public Health Corps at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Only one of those portraits is of a transgender person: Adm. Rachel Levine, who served for four years as President Biden’s assistant secretary for health. She was the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation, and her portrait has been displayed in the hallway since soon after she was confirmed in 2021. 

They say “the first transgender person” as one might say “the first working class person” or “the first neglected orphan” – as if this Levine fella were some kind of persecuted minority.

Levine’s official portrait was recently altered, a spokesperson for HHS confirmed to NPR. A digital photograph of the portrait in the hallway obtained by NPR shows that Levine’s previous name is now typed below the portrait, under the glass of the frame.

“During the federal shutdown, the current leadership of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health changed Admiral Levine’s photo to remove her current legal name and use a prior name,” says Adrian Shanker, former deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Biden administration who worked with Levine and is now her spokesperson. He called the move an act “of bigotry against her.”

Hey, you know what? Pretending that men are women is an act of bigotry against women. Pretending that a man is the first woman to [whatever] is a rank insult.

An HHS staff member who asked not be identified for fear of professional retribution called the change “disrespectful” and added that it exemplifies “the erasure of transgender individuals by this administration.”

But trans ideology is a massive erasure of women. Not just one greedy man, but all women.

Since taking office, Trump has moved aggressively to curtail the rights of transgender and intersex people through many federal agencies, including the Departments of Health, Justice, Education, and others.

Yes but what rights? There is no “right” to pretend to be the opposite sex, let alone a right to force everyone else to agree that pretender really is the opposite sex.

Hiya!

It’s just that the connection stopped working. Maybe the whales get in the way somehow.

On the other hand here’s the beach I walked to at sunset yesterday:

Today Seattle is under an atmospheric river. It is WET out there.

Is this a joke?

President Trump wins inaugural Fifa Peace Prize

The guy who kills civilians in lifeboats wins a peace prize? The guy who responds to protests by sending soldiers to terrorize the protesters? The guy who is helping Putin gobble up Ukraine? The guy who cheers on violence provided it’s his team perpetrating it?

Trump is not a good symbol of peace or peace seeking or peacemaking.

Trump received the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize before the draw for the 2026 Fifa World Cup.

The award has been introduced this year by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, designated for a person who has “taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace” and “united people across the world”.

Description does not match perpetrator.

As well as receiving a large golden trophy, Trump was also given a medal and certificate by Infantino before making a speech.

Are we sure this is not a transcription of Trump’s diary?

Just so you don’t think I’m ignoring you – I’m at my employer’s other place, on the Monterey Peninsula, doing strenuous employee activity like taking a puppy out for walks. The internet connection is slow as frozen molasses in Greenland, so posting may be a bit sparse for a couple more days.

This morning while puppy was sleeping off the first morning walk I zoomed off to Asilomar State Beach, and there staring out at the ocean I saw little white puffs in the distance so I looked harder and you know what, I think they were whales blowing. I’ve never seen THAT before. I watched and watched, and there were a couple that just had to be that, so the others – not quite as distinct or high or emphatic – must have been too. Whales do hang around here, so it’s not a supernatural claim.

More on the ballroom saga – or should that be the ballsroom saga?

Trump has hired a new architect to oversee the construction of a vast ballroom at the White House, officials said.

Following reports that Trump had clashed with the previous architect, James McCrery, over the size and scope of the addition, the White House said architects Shalom Baranes Associates will take over the project. Mr McCrery will remain as a consultant.

Ah the size and scope. Do they think it’s too small and modest? Do they think it ought to be huger and more self-aggrandizing?

According to US media, Mr McCrery was concerned the ornate 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sq m) project would overshadow the rest of the White House. The house where the president lives and entertains is 55,000 sq ft while the West Wing, which includes the Oval Office and other work spaces, is 40,000 sq ft, according to the White House Historical Association.

Well of course it would – and will. It will be grotesque.

On Thursday, Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill that would require NCPC approval before tearing down a historic federal building.

Blumenthal pledged that the bill, the No Palaces Act, “prevents future presidents from recklessly destroying historic sites like the East Wing without approval from the independent National Capital Planning Commission or consideration from Congress.”

Door potentially closed. Horse long gone over the horizon.

When in doubt, punish the nearest women. Don’t ask any questions about who did what to whom, just punish the nearest women. It saves time in the end.

Bristol city council has banned two gender-critical women from stepping foot in City Hall after they asked Green Party councillors if the Supreme Court judgment on trans identity was “offensive or transphobic”.

The council alleged the questioning of the two councillors in the public lobby after a heated council meeting last month, in which Green councillors staged walkouts and held trans rights placards, was carried out “in a way that they found intimidating”.

Did they though? Or did they just say they found it intimidating?

Men don’t usually find women talking back intimidating. They find it outrageous, yes, but intimidating, no. Broadly speaking, men are not fearful of women’s voices.

The council has banned Wendy Stephenson, chair of the council’s independent remuneration panel, and Phoebe Beedell, a retired academic researcher, from attending any council meetings for six months because of their “unacceptable behaviour”.

But Greens staging walkouts is not unacceptable behaviour?

A number of “trans activist” placards were raised by Green councillors during a full council meeting on November 4 whenever a member of the public asked a question about women’s safety and the council’s criticism of the Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case that “woman” and “man” in the Equality Act refer to sex at birth.

The placards read “trans women are women”, “trans men are men”, “protect the dolls” [a reference to hyperfeminine trans women], “trans rights are human rights”, “trans is beautiful” and “trans people always have and always will exist”.

In short the placards brandished the usual collection of falsehoods and flattery.

Trans journalist: not a real journalist.

He writes things. Nobody pays him to do so. He’s not a journalist.

Ah the good old days.

President Donald Trump uploaded a series of wistful posts on Thursday evening that included photos of a younger Trump standing next to celebrities, civil rights leaders, musicians and artists during “the good old days,” some of whom he said no longer want to spend time with him.

Well, Don, think about why that might be.

I can just tell you why: it’s because you’re a bad man who does bad things. It’s also because you’re not a good (or wise or amusing) man who does good (or wise or amusing) things. Sensible people don’t want to spend time with you because you do harm and because you’re not quality company.

Breaking from his line of Truth Social posts earlier in the day about immigrant-related conspiracy theories, Trump appeared to end his Thursday by reflecting on bygone encounters with left-leaning cultural figures, including artist Andy Warhol, Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and singer James Brown. His apparent fondness for a time in which he was friendlier with creatives and activists contrasted with his ongoing campaign as president to topple arts institutions and wage war against political figures who oppose his agenda.

Trump followed his post on Thursday featuring Sharpton, Jackson and Brown with a photo of himself and Warhol walking alongside a horse as Trump holds its reins.

“Donald Trump talks with Andy Warhol as he holds the bridle of a polo pony, Nov. 4, 1983,” read the photo’s description, written by social media poster MythoMAGA. “Trump was often seen at Studio 54, the infamous New York celebrity club.”

Warhol met with Trump on several occasions in the early 1980s, when Trump attempted to commission a painting from Warhol to hang over the entrance to a residential portion of his Trump Tower, which was still under construction. Their relationship soured, however, when Trump rejected Warhol’s paintings for not being color-coordinated and never paid for them, according to The Andy Warhol Diaries, a published collection of the late artist’s personal journals.

Well, yes, that will sour things.

Over the next few years, after the commission fell through, Warhol repeatedly expressed disdain for the Trumps. When he was invited to judge cheerleading tryouts at Trump Tower in 1984, he slighted them by intentionally showing up late.

“It was the first tryout, and I was supposed to be there at 12:00 but I took my time and went to church and finally moseyed over there around 2:00. This is because I still hate the Trumps because they never bought the paintings I did of the Trump Tower,” he wrote.

Poor lonesome Don.

Hmmm.

One of the arguments defense officials have been quietly pushing in response to heavy criticism of the killing of the two survivors in a second strike on 2 September, is that they were legitimate targets because they appeared to be radioing for help or backup.

But Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the GOP chair of the Senate intelligence committee, admitted to CNN this morning that he didn’t see evidence of the men on the boat trying to use a radio to call for help.

He went on to defend the second strike, saying:

They were clearly not incapacitated. They were not distressed.

They were trying to get the boat back up and to continue their mission of spreading these drugs all across America.

That’s what they were doing and that’s why Admiral Bradley ordered the second strike.

They were not distressed?

Whether you interpret that as the ordinary “unhappy” meaning or the narrower meaning of in distress/in trouble/in danger – how can you possibly think they weren’t it?

Jill Lepore has a good essay in the New Yorker on living in trumpworld.

Peer into the dark. Earlier this fall, Trump reposted on Truth Social a four-minute news clip generated by A.I. The clip purported to be a segment from Lara Trump’s Fox News show, reporting on Trump’s announcement of the launch of “medbeds . . . designed to restore every citizen to full health and strength” at special hospitals about to open all over the country. Medbeds, which can cure all ailments and reverse aging, appear regularly in science fiction. (Think of the “biobeds” in the “Star Trek” sick bay.) They began featuring in online conspiracy theories in the early twenty-twenties; QAnoners claim that medbeds exist, and have existed for years, and that the rich and powerful use them (and that J.F.K. himself is on one, still alive), and that soon Trump will liberate them for use by the rest of us, as if Trump were Jesus opening the gates of Heaven and medbeds eternal life.

Take out your flashlight and ask the inevitable question: Is there any precedent for a President of the United States doing such a thing? Is American history any guide to understanding why Trump, or someone on his staff, posted (and soon afterward deleted) a fake video about a nonexistent news report concerning a fictional miracle cure, an episode whose political significance strikes me as asymptotically approaching zero?

I missed that. I’m ignoring much of Trump news, because I’m a brat.

Even if early American Presidents had wanted to speak directly to the public, they would have found it exceedingly difficult, not to mention exhausting. But, with the rise of railroads, travelling to meet your constituents soon got easier. John Tyler went on a thirteen-day tour in 1843, during which he made seventeen speeches. Trump, of course, likes to make speeches, too, and for hours on end. But the likeness ends there because, to be clear, Tyler did not use the occasion to tout patent medicines. After the Civil War, Presidents travelled more, not least because they had to try to stitch the country back together. That meant, in particular, touring the South. In 1878, Rutherford B. Hayes went on a speaking tour, whereupon an account was published that included every word he said, titled “The President’s Tour South. A Triumphal March Through the ‘Solid South.’ Enthusiastic Reception of the President and Cabinet at All Points Along the Journey. Speeches, Sayings and Doings of Those Who Participated in the Ovation to the President.” And, still, he hawked neither gold coins with his face stamped on them nor silver ones.

Yes but who remembers him now?

Historians will need to account for Trump when, as Gerald Ford said when he succeeded Nixon, “our long national nightmare is over.” Analogies won’t help them. Because nothing in American history anticipates or explains the way Trump speaks to his supporters at his rallies—or his use of Twitter, between 2015 and 2021, and Truth Social, beginning in 2022. He riffs; he cusses; he dodges; he weaves; he raises money; he spreads lies. He is lurid and profane. He targets his political opponents, threatening them with prosecution, prison, and execution. He is the world’s most outspoken troll, and its most dangerous. He posts day and night, about everything from taco bowls to possible ceasefires. He is getting worse. In his second term, he has posted three times as often as he did during his first. Tonally, nearly everything he posts is unhinged, even when it’s a simple endorsement or amplification of a policy, like tariffs:

THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE – AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!

Maybe, and maybe not.

Ugh.

This is indeed magic.

OJ is very sarcastic about women’s rights.

Boys booted out of Girlguiding – I’m not seeing the problem. Girlguiding is for girls. There are organizations for children and adolescents of both sexes, and there are organizations for one or the other sex. That’s ok; we can do that.

We probably ought to do that. It’s just a fact that humans are sexually dimorphic and that male humans have a lot of physical advantages over female humans. That’s not the case for all animals, but it is for humans. If we female humans had had a vote we would have voted for “make us equal in strength!!” but we didn’t. Nobody consulted us. Nobody consulted men either. Who knows? Maybe men would have preferred equal strength too. It must have its downsides, being the physically dominant sex. Being subject to the draft is a biggy.

But we didn’t have a choice. It is what it is and we’re stuck with it. Given that fact, it is permissible for girls and women to meet without any boys and men around. It’s permissible and it’s not an injustice. Men should not try to get around it by claiming to be trans women.

She “thinks” in slogans and blurts.

Is there a “right” to change sex? No, just as there is no “right” to fly like a bird or live underwater or run faster than a cheetah. It’s absurd to blather about rights to do the impossible.

Trans people have human rights. Nobody says they don’t. Trans people don’t have a right to force us all to agree with their fictions. It’s pretty simple.

Originally a comment by maddog on Utmost regret and sadness.

Never mind that WI can celebrate and fawn over the completely ignored part of the “transgender communinny,” the transgender people who are actually women, i.e., the “trans men.”

They wail and gnash their teeth about how tragic and unfair it is to make them exclude “trans women,” who are men, and pretend that the new landscape forces them to discriminate against the “trans communinny,” as if there weren’t an existing component of the “trans communinny” who actually belong in the Women’s Institute: the women who so deeply feel the oppression of women that they seek to escape it by pretending to be men.

The Women’s Institute can be incloosive of the trans communinny by welcoming the trans people who actually are women, but no, they ignore the women’s branch of the trans communinny as if it doesn’t exist.

Transgender ideology is a men’s rights movement.

Ashley Louise James is resigning as Girlguiding ambassador.

Yes, these spaces make a difference to girls. What about these spaces makes a difference to girls? The fact that they don’t include boys. Boys can bully or intimidate or out-compete girls in ways that are generally out of reach to girls. That means girls need to be away from boys at times in order to do their best work.

The fact that boys are every bit as bright, joyful and deserving as any other child is beside the point. The point is that boys are not every bit as strong as girls: they are stronger.

It’s not entirely true that boys who claim to be trans girls, and their families, never asked to be part of the “culture wars” over whether or not it’s fair for boys and men to invade all spaces for girls and women on the pretext that they are trans. Nobody forced them to invade all spaces for girls and women on the pretext that they are trans. Lots of people asked them not to.

The thing is, the unfairness of it is obvious. The pro-trans ideology team pretends it isn’t, but of course it is. Why are there not women clamoring to be included in men’s football? Everybody knows why. Now apply that to all the sports.

The fact that the trans communinny simply want to live their lives, be included, and have access to safe, supportive spaces shows that they know the girls’ side is safer and more supportive – and they want to help themselves to that. By doing so, they make it much less safe and supportive for its original members – the girls. Girls are not shields for boys.

Thank heaven for little girls, yeah?