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Use them or else

Oh goody, pronouns guidance.

An NHS trust has said the pronouns “Xey/Xem” can be used by staff at work.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south London also urged staff to apologise if they used the “wrong” pronouns for colleagues.

Well don’t stop there. What about Mey/Mem? Zey/Zem? Key/Kem? Is the NHS trust being alphabetically exclusionaryist?

A training document called Pronouns and the LGBTQ+ Community lists several examples of pronouns, including I/me, She/her, He/him, They/them, Ze/Zir, Xey/Xem or It/Its.

The trust said it was “up to each individual to identify what their pronouns are”, stressing it was a great way “to create an inclusive environment and demonstrate inclusion in the workplace”.

But, as I’ve said a billion times, … Read the rest

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Use them or else
By Ophelia Benson, February 23, 2026

Oh goody, pronouns guidance.

An NHS trust has said the pronouns “Xey/Xem” can be used by staff at work.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south London also urged staff to apologise if they used the “wrong” pronouns for colleagues.

Well don’t stop there. What about Mey/Mem? Zey/Zem? Key/Kem? Is the NHS trust being alphabetically exclusionaryist?

A training document called Pronouns and the LGBTQ+ Community lists several examples of pronouns, including I/me, She/her, He/him, They/them, Ze/Zir, Xey/Xem or It/Its.

The trust said it was “up to each individual to identify what their pronouns are”, stressing it was a great way “to create an inclusive environment and demonstrate inclusion in the workplace”.

But, as I’ve said a billion times, … Read the rest

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

Use them or else 

Oh goody, pronouns guidance.

An NHS trust has said the pronouns “Xey/Xem” can be used by staff at work.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south London also urged staff to apologise if they used the “wrong” pronouns for colleagues.

Well don’t stop there. What about Mey/Mem? Zey/Zem? Key/Kem? Is the NHS trust being alphabetically exclusionaryist?

A training document called Pronouns and the LGBTQ+ Community lists several examples of pronouns, including I/me, She/her, He/him, They/them, Ze/Zir, Xey/Xem or It/Its.

The trust said it was “up to each individual to identify what their pronouns are”, stressing it was a great way “to create an inclusive environment and demonstrate inclusion in the workplace”.

But, as I’ve said a billion times, … Read the rest

Speaking of no talent or skills 

Trump is busy micromanaging…uh…Netflix?

Trump on Sunday threatened Netflix, suggesting it would “pay the consequences” if it didn’t “immediately” fire Susan Rice, who served as ambassador to the United Nations under the Obama administration.

I don’t think he’s the president of Netflix. I don’t think government bosses are supposed to order businesses to fire people the government bosses don’t like.

On Sunday, the president posted on Truth Social that Netflix should “fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences.”

  • “She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what???” he added.
  • The president’s words came in response
… Read the rest
Basic notions 

The fix is in.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permanently barred the Justice Department from releasing special counsel Jack Smith’s final report describing President Donald Trump’s stockpiling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and allegations that he obstructed government efforts to reclaim them.

Of course she did. She’s the underqualified judge who owes her promotion to Trump, so of course she’s going to reward him when she gets the chance.

The Trump-appointed judge said releasing the report now would “contravene basic notions of fairness and justice” and amount to a “manifest injustice” because the case never reached a jury. It could also risk revealing information protected by attorney-client privilege and grand jury secrecy, she said.

Speaking of basic notions of … Read the rest

This is very normal and fine 

A new crazy.

… Read the rest

The hospital boat is in his bathtub 

Greenland to Trump: No thanks.

Greenland has said it does not need medical assistance from other countries, after Donald Trump said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory he wants to acquire.

The US president said he would dispatch the vessel in a social media post on Saturday, claiming that Greenlanders were not getting the healthcare they needed.

“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“It’s on the way!!!” he added.

That’s so funny because here lots of … Read the rest

Department of living comfortably and fully in their truths 

Hmm. An article in the Nation assumes matters not in evidence.

Rather than do something, anything, about the abysmal state of healthcare in the United States, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has doubled down on its attacks against trans youth, their families, and the web of providers who work to ensure young people can live comfortably and fully in their truths.

Their whats? What does “in their truths” mean?

Aw come on, we know what it means. It means their fantasies about themselves. It seems to me that people’s fantasies about themselves are not something anyone else has to do anything at all to assist or affirm or publicize. They’re personal and individual; they’re the opposite… Read the rest

Public or political speech can too so be punished 

Daaaamn this is nuts. I can’t look away.

I’m visiting to read the full statement. It’s stark raving mad.

Commissioner welcomes decision protecting LGBTQ people from hate speech

For the millionth time: what on earth are LGBTQ people? There are no such people, because it’s not possible to be both a lesbian and a gay man, let alone be lesbian and gay and bi and trans and whatever … Read the rest

Either way, send cash 

Jolyon still grifting.

What does that even mean, “they don’t want to”? How does he know? Who are “they”? Is he claiming that every single woman in the Women’s Institute longs to have men in flouncy dresses take it over? What business is it of his anyway?… Read the rest

The worker who was born a man 

The underwear question.

A ruling that an NHS manager discriminated against a transgender employee by asking if they took off their underwear in a women’s changing room has “deeply worrying” implications, an MP has said.

The worker, who was born a man, successfully sued Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for gender reassignment discrimination in July. Employment judges heard that a manager had questioned the employee after concerns were raised that they had been naked from the waist down in the women’s changing room.

HE! That HE had been naked from the waist down. Don’t pander to this shit in the very act of reporting on it.

Sarah-Jane Davies, the tribunal judge, said in the ruling: “This was a

… Read the rest
Face 

Big Brudda has arrived.

A large banner featuring Donald Trump’s face was hung on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters on Thursday in a physical display of the Republican president’s efforts to exert power over the law enforcement agency that once investigated him.

While Trump banners have been hung outside other agencies across Washington, the decision to place one on the storied Justice Department building amounted to a striking symbol of the erosion of the department’s tradition of independence from White House control.

It’s not erosion, it’s seizure.

Trump officials have rejected accusations that they have weaponized the Justice Department for political purposes, saying the Biden administration was the one that politicized law enforcement with two federal criminal cases

… Read the rest
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth 

Huh. Denmark airlifted a US sailor from a US submarine because he needed medical care, and Trump responded with the usual.

It is not on the way. Trump knows it’s not on the way. … Read the rest

Netflix should 

This is all very completely normal.

Yes certainly, we always have presidents who tell media companies which people to fire because said people annoy him. That’s definitely part of his job and not in any way a violation of norms and laws and boundaries.

The Financial Times gives us some background:

Trump has called on Netflix to sack former Democratic national security official Susan Rice from its board or “pay the consequences”, as the streamer battles to buy Warner Bros Discovery.

The

… Read the rest
A different tune 

Trump is pitching a fit.

At this time last year, President Trump warmly shook hands with Chief Justice John Roberts at the State of the Union address, thanking him for the opinion he authored granting Trump and other presidents in the future expansive immunity from prosecution for their official acts after leaving office. But on Friday, after the Supreme Court invalidated Trump’s tariffs, the president was singing a decidedly different tune.

At a hastily called press conference, an agitated Trump railed against the conservative Roberts and two of the courts other conservatives, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both Trump appointees.

“They’re just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats,” Trump said.

… Read the rest
“I can do anything I want to do to them” 

Trump and the Supreme Court have broken up.

… Read the rest

To his own Board 

Yebbut he can’t do that.

Trump vows $10 billion contribution to his own Board of Peace

But not contribution of his money, contribution of our money. To his plaything. He can’t do that.

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday a $10 billion U.S. contribution to rebuilding Gaza at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace, describing the organization as the premier world body for international peace and harmony.

See there? U.S. contribution – our money, not his money. He’s not allowed to do that. He’ll do it anyway if he’s not stopped (and if he doesn’t get bored and wander off to do something else), but he’s not allowed to.

Trump has framed the board as a supplement —

… Read the rest
Pretty soon you’re talking about real money 

Dang. Has Canada gone stark raving mad?

Or maybe it’s just British Columbia.

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has ordered former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 for violating the Human Rights Code by publishing hate speech and discriminatory content against 2SLGBTQ+ people.

“Mr. Neufeld invoked negative and insidious stereotypes about LGBTQ people, especially trans people, which denied their inherent dignity and, in some cases, reflected the hallmarks of hate against them as a group,” the tribunal said in a decision Wednesday.

I wonder if that’s true. I wonder if they are in fact talking about T people only. We know from a million examples that they love to make it about the L and the G and … Read the rest

Disinhibition 

Useful.

Trump’s Bizarre Behavior Has a Clinical Name: Disinhibition

Colby Hall, January 20.

One of the earliest and most underreported warning signs of certain forms of dementia is not memory loss. It is disinhibition — a deterioration of impulse control, judgment, and social restraint that often manifests as reckless behavior, inappropriate speech, and diminished concern for consequences. By the time forgetfulness becomes obvious, the disease process is often well underway.

That framework matters because it closely tracks what President Donald Trump has been displaying with increasing frequency.

And increasing revoltingness.

Grievance has long shaped Trump’s behavior. His fixation on the 2020 election, anger over criminal investigations, and instinct for escalation remain constant. What has changed is the degree to which

… Read the rest
If Obama had invited Dolezal 

Meet Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender.

Imagine if Barack Obama had invited Rachel Dolezal, the would-be African American, to discuss the impact of Donald Trump’s policies on black America. Hillary Clinton did the equivalent this week at the Munich Security Conference where she moderated a town hall titled “Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights: Fighting the Global Pushback.” Clinton’s Rachel Dolezal figure was Sarah (né Timothy) McBride, celebrated as the first transgender member of the US Congress.

Why bring a man in to talk about women and fundamental rights? Why a man instead of a woman?

The problem is not McBride’s preferred pronouns but rather the lawmaker’s preferred policies, which elevate an ill-defined feeling known

… Read the rest
Sir sir you misunderstood 

He what now?

Trump said on Thursday that he had directed his administration to begin releasing files related to aliens, extraterrestrial life and unidentified flying objects, only hours after attacking former President Barack Obama for saying that aliens were real.

Well then why not release the files related to ghosts and goblins and angels and devils and people who can walk on water?

“Based on the tremendous interest shown,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, he had directed officials to “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important,

… Read the rest
He’s taking it well 

Tantrum.

Trump on Friday launched an extraordinary attack on the Supreme Court after it ruled against him on tariffs, describing justices in the majority as a “disgrace to our nation” and “very unpatriotic and disloyal to the Constitution.”

While praising the three dissenting justices in the 6-3 ruling that invalidated most of his tariffs, Trump suggested the majority was “swayed by foreign interests” and said the three Democratic appointees in the majority are “fools and lapdogs” to moderate Republicans and Democrats.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” Trump said in remarks

… Read the rest