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Speaking of taking back

Take back the night 4 men.

Women can’t have anything any more. Not even protests against male violence against women. … Read the rest

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Speaking of taking back
By Ophelia Benson, December 8, 2024

Take back the night 4 men.

Women can’t have anything any more. Not even protests against male violence against women. … Read the rest

Archives
Bad Moves
Articles
Flashback
In Focus
Latest News
Letters
Notes and Comment Blog

Speaking of taking back 

Take back the night 4 men.

Women can’t have anything any more. Not even protests against male violence against women. … Read the rest

Which twin has the propaganda coup? 

Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan waves the flag for Magic Gender:

The politicization of transgender children in the US is one of the most astounding coups of propaganda and organized animus in recent history. Rarely has so much attention and rage been directed at such a minuscule number of people, and more rarely, still, have those people been the most vulnerable and blameless among us: kids and teens.

That’s so distorted it borders on lying. It’s not “organized animus” to try to stop people mutilating children at the behest of an ideology that claims sex is switchable. The rage is not, of course, directed at the children, but at the adults messing up the children’s bodies. Donegan can’t … Read the rest

New boss 

Now there’s a headline.

Syrian government falls in stunning end to 50-year rule of Assad family

(If only we could say the same about the Trump family.)

The Syrian government fell early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a sudden rebel offensive sprinted across government-held territory and entered the capital in 10 days.

Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar Assad has been overthrown and all detainees in jails have been set free.

…

Soldiers and police officers left their posts and fled, and looters broke into the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense.

“My feelings are indescribable,” said Omar Daher, a 29-year-old

… Read the rest
Cake gender 

What were we saying all along? That people are confusing personality with “gender” with sex.

Meet…fluffgender.

https://twitter.com/Serena_Partrick/status/1865410148614685070 Profound misunderstanding of what “cake” is, too. The best cakes are not soft and fluffy at all, but dense and rich (cue the “like my cousin Tim” jokes). Soft fluffy cakes that taste of sugar and not much else are not so much cake as crap.

Anyway. The hell with personality. Focus on morality, dedication, generosity, altruism, effort. Stop trying to be a cartoon character and do something with your life.… Read the rest

Feminism is for everyone tralala 

The “Feminist” Library has (of course) a whole long statement on twanzfobeea.

As an organisation founded 46-years ago, the Feminist Library has evolved through different periods in the history and political landscape of feminism, as well as through different members contributing to the collective. No individual member of the collective represents the group’s views as a whole and we feel it important to note that we come from different political histories as well as cultural and class backgrounds. 

Yadda yadda blah blah BUT there is one subject on which nobody gets to be “different.”

Over the past year, we have conducted a number [of] internal “Organisational Culture” meetings amongst members of the core collective intended to address a wide

… Read the rest
Who they are today 

There’s a thing called The Feminist Library in Peckham, London. It tells us it has a long history and has [cough] changed over the years.

The Feminist Library was founded since 1975, and we have existed in many different forms since then. This is who we are today:

That’s not a good sign. People running a library should be more literate than that. The point appears to be that the library was founded way the hell back in 1975 when the barbarians were unaware of the spiritual glory of trans ideology, and now the library is Uplifted and Perfected.

So you know already what their “principles” are going to be.

  • We are intersectional Feminists.
  • We are trans-inclusive and transfeminist.
… Read the rest
Such is the experience 

It’s not that publishers are boycotting Jews, it’s just that they aren’t publishing books by Jews.

Such is the experience of so many Jewish people in British publishing today. In interviews with The Telegraph, authors, agents, scouts and publishers spoke of the growing sense of discomfort and [ostracism] they have experienced in their industry since the October 7 attacks. Many say a quiet but pervasive anti-Semitism – a sense of “Jews don’t count”, as one author put it – has begun to creep in.

Mind you, that’s generally the case with all kinds of rejections, failures, not happenings. Is it because the book or article or movie or play is not good enough or is it because … Read the rest

Rushed 

Lawsuit.

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the nation’s leading practitioner of transgender youth medicine, faces a medical-negligence lawsuit for the irreversible treatments she administered to a former patient, who has since detransitioned.

It’s interesting that even the National Review endorses trans ideology by using trans ideology language. What exactly is “transgender youth medicine”? In what sense is it “medicine”? Why is TNR calling it medicine in the same breath as “medical-negligence lawsuit” and “irreversible treatments”? Also whaddya mean “treatments”?

It’s nuts. How can we even talk about this if the language is so corrupted that even critics get it wrong? Shocker: maybe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones aren’t always “treatment” at all.

Kaya Clementine Breen, 20, alleges Olson-Kennedy, Children’s Hospital Los

… Read the rest
Lookada pitty twain 

It would be quicker to list what’s not “transphobia.”

The Telegraph:

LNER spent £58,000 repainting one of its trains with a rainbow-themed Pride livery, it has emerged.

The cost of the Pride rebranding was revealed after a passenger sent a freedom of information (FoI) request asking the government-owned train company for more information about it.

58 THOUSAND quid. Just think of all the useful things one could do with that kind of money.

But instead of answering Carol Fossick’s other detailed questions, a senior LNER manager wrote back and labelled her “transphobic” after trawling through her social media posts.

I’m not a Mormon. I think the content of Mormonism is silly. Is that phobic?

I don’t take part in … Read the rest

Guest post: In the light of rational inquiry, queer theory withers and dies 

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on It’s A or B or both or neither.

These people really don’t know what a definition is, do they?

I’m not so sure. There’s a difference between not knowing what a definition is, and not having one, or not daring to offer one for fear of getting it wrong. It’s a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of ecumenicalism, wherein everybody under the infinitely elastic “trans umbrella” refuses to examine anyone else’s credentials for being a member. As soon as any kind of binding, coherent definition is offered up, somebody will be “excluded” or excommunicated, because so many of the posited attributes of the myriad gender possibilities are completely contradictory. By … Read the rest

Oops he forgot to pretend 

Hoooooooooo-boy.

Sarah Pascoe really does really “correct him” to say that. She does it at high speed, aka a gabble, so you have to listen closely to catch it.

Ince: …how much further d’you think we’d be with understanding embryology if it was [sic] men that gave birth?

Pascoe: [cozy chuckle] Um well first [??] really boring [??] trans men can … Read the rest

A handful of dust 

I’d say this one should have stayed in the “too pretty to demolish” category.

Then again, Oxford Street itself is a horrible place, best avoided, so I suppose I should keep my opinion to myself. Won’t, but should.… Read the rest

It’s A or B or both or neither 

More fun with JKR versus a bowl of oatmeal Sally Hines.

‘Gender identity refers to each person’s internal sense of being male, female, a combination of the two, or neither; it is a core part of who people know themselves to be.’

However, this core of what we know ourselves to be may change, possibly several times in a single afternoon:

‘Genderfluid people experience

… Read the rest
Cut all the things 

Musk is busy urging slashing funds for worker safety, consumer safety, and silly Marxist nonsense like that.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy head to Capitol Hill on Thursday to present their ideas for President-elect Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE.

The new group is expected to recommend drastic cuts to the federal workforce and to slash regulation. To achieve those goals, though, the group will have to work through Congress.

Regulation is bad, you see. Mustn’t regulate capitalism. Profit is the only goal.

In social media posts, podcasts, op-eds, books and speeches, Musk and Ramaswamy have sketched out what they have in mind: a 75% reduction in the

… Read the rest
Step aside little lady 

Reclaim the night for women…

…oh and also of course for men who pretend to be women.

He’s a man.

Alexa Moore is a director of Transgender NI, a newly formed not-for-profit organisation focusing on supporting and campaigning for the human and civil rights of trans people in Northern Ireland.

Which is not what Take Back the Night is about, but never mind that, forget women, we have to talk about men with curly blonde hair instead.… Read the rest

Throwing the masts overboard 

They want to get rid of NOAA and the National Weather Service. Good plan; who the hell needs weather forecasts?

Partisan jostling aside, what does Project 2025 say about NOAA and the National Weather Service?

A [Rep Jared] Moskowitz spokesperson, Keith Nagy, said “while Project 2025 does not call for the complete dismantling of the NOAA, it intends to undermine the agency’s independence from the executive branch and eliminate many of its internal departments. Any threats toward the NOAA or NWS jeopardizes life-saving information about hurricanes, heat waves, and other extreme weather events.”

…

Project 2025 includes about four pages on NOAA and the National Weather Service. That part was written by Thomas F. Gilman, who was an

… Read the rest
Osteoporosis is not harm? 

Sigh.

Siiiiiiiiiigh … Read the rest

Identifying as medicine 

The Nation should be embarrassed that it published this.

Trans Medicine’s “Merchants of Doubt”

Before we read any further, what is “trans medicine”? Fake medicine? Real medicine that trans people take? Reckless experimental attempts to change people’s sex?

Someone called Joanna Wuest wrote the article. He/she looks male to my jaundiced eye, but not so unmistakably male that I can claim to be sure she/he is male. Google turned up a lot of content but not a single bit of information on what sex he/she is.

So, what does she/he tell us?

Gender-affirming care is based on dangerously uncertain science. So say lawmakers in the 26 states that have banned medical interventions for minors ranging from puberty-suppressing and hormonal replacement

… Read the rest
Guest post: With a clear conscience and an empty head 

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Affirming 4 kidz.

How do otherwise reasonable adults convince themselves that maiming teenagers is a good idea?

With many individuals, I’d be tempted to ascribe it to a tendency to outsource moral judgement, in this case deferring to some authority who has deemed trans “rights” to be a “progressive” cause. Once somebody higher up the food chain has blessed it, they don’t have think about it any more themselves; they can climb aboard the bandwagon with a clear conscience and an empty head. Once the bandwagon starts rolling faster and farther, passing ethical and prudential boundaries one might have baulked at, it becomes harder to get off without seriously lacerating … Read the rest

Reachy Reachy 

Oh that’s outreach, is it? Not a stone-cold insult but outreach? Doesn’t reach me, I must say.

Do they have Race Outreach Workers?

… Read the rest