This seems strange. It’s an entry on the NHS website, under the subhead Conditions, for Gender Dysphoria. Most of the conditions under that subhead are quite medical – you know, sciencey. The GD one isn’t so much.

Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there’s a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity. It’s sometimes known as gender incongruence.

Biological sex is assigned at birth, depending on the appearance of the genitals. Gender identity is the gender that a person “identifies” with or feels themselves to be.

That, for instance. Notice the scare quotes on “identifies” – yes quite, so why use it? Identifying with something isn’t a medical term. What … Read the rest

Andy Lewis, Le canard noir, tweeted an interesting letter:

Actually untested, unknown issues,

But hey? Who cares? pic.twitter.com/JFisZfc5r6

— Andy Lewis (@lecanardnoir) January 20, 2019

Can you read it? Don’t forget to zoom in if it’s difficult.

The first point is that puberty blockers leave the young person in developmental limbo, without the pubertal hormones or secondary sexual characteristic that would tend to consolidate gender identity. One particular puberty blocker “promotes a continued desire to identify with the non-birth sex” while 73 to 88% of GD patients who don’t get blockers “eventually lose their desire to identify with the non-birth sex.”

What caught my attention there is the fact that that loss of desire to identify with the non-birth sex … Read the rest

Meanwhile in South Carolina –

A request to hang a group photo of the General Assembly’s female lawmakers in the State House led to an uncomfortable debate Tuesday in which a pro-life activist urged lawmakers not to endorse such symbols of “destructive and evil” feminism.

The 10-member State House Committee, made up of nine men and one woman, rebuked Columbia Christians for Life director Steve Lefemine, shutting down his testimony after three minutes.

Jeez, a guy can’t even testify about how evil feminism is any more, it’s political correctness gone mad.

By then, Lefemine had passed out packets of anti-feminist literature, expressed his view that the Bible says women are not fit for public office, and read aloud from

Updating to add: see the competing account by the kid in the cap.

More on the high school bullies who mobbed a Native American drummer in DC yesterday.

The images in a series of videos that went viral on social media Saturday showed a tense scene near the Lincoln Memorial.

In them, a Native American man steadily beats his drum at the tail end of Friday’s Indigenous Peoples March while singing a song of unity for indigenous people to “be strong” in the face of the ravages of colonialism that now include police brutality, poor access to health care and the ill effects of climate change on reservations.

Surrounding him are a throng of young, mostly white teenage boys,

Trump made his stupid “announcement.” He’ll extend DACA for awhile if he gets the 5 billion for Wall. No one took the bait.

Trump had indicated for weeks that he would not entertain an extension of DACA, which began in 2012 under President Obama and has offered renewable work permits to immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” who entered the country illegally as children. Trump had said he was hoping the Supreme Court would hear an appeal to a lower court’s injunction on his attempt to end DACA and, if the high court ruled in his favor, that ending the program would give him more leverage in talks with Democrats over the future of the Dreamers.

But the Supreme Court signaled Friday

Via Bad Cat.… Read the rest

Boys will be boys. White boys will be white boys. Racist white boys will be racist white boys. Racist white boys from all-boy Catholic high schools will be racist shits, apparently.

Covington Catholic High School faced backlash on social media Saturday morning after video was posted and widely shared showing a tense incident involving indigenous marchers and a group of young men in Washington, D.C.

The video shows a young man wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap standing near and staring at a man who is drumming as other young men surrounding them cheer and chant. Some of the onlookers appear to wear clothing bearing insignia from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills.

Covington Catholic High School … Read the rest

Pence is Offended. Deeply Offended. Profoundly Offended.

It’s about this Christian Skool where his wife has taken a job.

“My wife and I have been in the public eye for quite a while. We’re used to the criticism,” Pence said in an interview with Eternal Word Television Network. “But I have to tell you, to see major news organizations attacking Christian education, is deeply offensive to us.

“We have a rich tradition in America of Christian education and, frankly, religious education broadly defined. We celebrate it. The freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution prohibits a religious test for holding a public office and so we’ll let the other critics roll

Paul Farhi at the Post:

The fact that the normally buttoned-up special counsel’s office felt compelled to issue a statement suggests that the story’s conclusions were too baldly stated and too consequential to stay unchallenged. In effect, Mueller’s office seemed to be saying that BuzzFeed went too far and got some things wrong, though it did not say how or what.

In fact, what it didn’t say was important, too. It didn’t say Mueller had no evidence that Trump had sought to influence Cohen — just that BuzzFeed’s description of such statements was inaccurate. Nor did it spell out which reported statements were inaccurate and in what way. Further, it offered no details about how BuzzFeed had mischaracterized any

They never talk. They talked.

The special counsel rarely speaks. Whoa. https://t.co/nglu6h4Ney

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) January 19, 2019

We cannot underestimate the statement disputing Buzzfeed’s story from the special counsel. I’m sure it pained them to do this. I’m sure this went through many levels at the DOJ and FBI. They don’t talk. This is massive.

— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) January 19, 2019

https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/1086424301765574661

Shorter Special Counsel statement: ‘Your report may not be precise … but, more importantly WE don’t leak.’ #CarryOn https://t.co/SGBrOD4m3j

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) January 19, 2019

In other words they’re saying they didn’t leak anything?… Read the rest

Oh  now what?

Mueller’s team almost never comments on anything, but BuzzFeed reports that it is calling BuzzFeed’s Cohen story “not accurate.” https://t.co/0w2Y13gpgz

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 19, 2019

In other words: the Mueller team’s wording leaves open the possibility that some of the story might be accurate. But the fact that they called substantial elements of the story inaccurate should be taken seriously.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 19, 2019

Difficult to parse each and every word here, but it is extremely unusual for the Special Counsel's office to issue a statement disputing a story and should be taken very seriously. https://t.co/f0zB3Jaw4c

— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) January 19, 2019

… Read the rest

The state of this.

If you think that RTÉ shouldn't have men (Grah*m L*nehan in case you've managed to avoid it) who've been cautioned by the police for transphobic abuse on as experts in trans law then email primetime@rte.ie and let them know. It's more effective than tagging them on twitter

— Alan (@alan_maguire) January 18, 2019

Graham Linehan was not cautioned. The police came by for a chat because a couple of the usual Robespierres told them to.

This kind helpful fella even offers the aspiring Robespierres a model email they can send to the police about a guy having opinions on the internet.

Here’s the email I sent in case you need some pointers. Your’s will be better

Golf balls. Didn’t think of that, didja.

Two years ago, a 16-year old diver named Alex Weber was swimming off Pebble Beach along the Pacific near Carmel, Calif. “My dad raised me underwater,” says Weber, and she means it. She’s a free diver: no scuba tanks; she just holds her breath. She was diving in a small cove and looked down and saw something weird. “You couldn’t see the sand,” she recalls, still sounding incredulous. “It was completely white.”

White with golf balls.

Pebble Beach isn’t near Carmel, it’s in Carmel – or, if you prefer, immediately adjacent to it, but both are small places. Of course Carmel is a town while Pebble Beach is a resort, but anyway, … Read the rest

The security breach aspect is getting attention.

A point just made by @KatyTurNBC and @AliVelshi on @MSNBC, by releasing this "tit for tat" letter, the Trump administration also outed a foreign trip by the person second in line to the presidency. These trips are held close to the vest for reasons of operational security. https://t.co/ajuu9tRbWv

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) January 17, 2019

The details of Pelosi's planned travel to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan — particularly those destinations — had not been previously announced. Earlier today her aides asked news organizations not to report that the trip would take place, citing national security.

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) January 17, 2019

Point of fact: for security reasons, trips to active war-zones