The shame of a nation.

“Would you like some nice ISIS fighters?” President Trump asks.

“Let’s be serious,” President Emmanuel Macron of France replies.

Watch the tense exchange between the leaders ahead of this week's NATO summit in London. https://t.co/AY5isJOIy8 pic.twitter.com/C7OIV1kX4v

— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 3, 2019

Macron talks like an adult on a serious subject, in an informed way – in a language not his own. Trump can’t even talk like an adult in his own language, let alone an informed one.… Read the rest

Ooh, good question, that’s a tough one.

So a gynaecologist office that I got referred to literally told me today that "we don't serve transgender patients."

And me, being me, I'm shocked.. and confused… and hurt.

Are they allowed to do that, legally? Isn't that against the college practices? @cpsbc_ca

— Jessica Yaniv (@trustednerd) December 3, 2019

Yes it’s probably the law that they have to put you on the table and put your feet in the stirrups and tell you to let your knees fall wiiiiide apart and then…um…I guess give you a good hard poke in the balls with the speculum? … Read the rest

UCU is the University and College Union; UoE is University of Edinburgh.

The UoE UCU Branch is aware of a teach-out scheduled for Wednesday morning discussing gender and sex. While the branch supports academic freedom, this event will not be held under the UCU banner as it contravenes national and local equality and inclusion policy.

— UCU Edinburgh (@ucuedinburgh) December 3, 2019

Many have asked how, exactly, the event contravenes national and local equality and inclusion policy. Explanation has not been forthcoming.

You are an utter embarassment to #UCU and clearly have no understanding of what academic freedom is there for.

— Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) December 3, 2019

Even another branch of the UCU is taken aback.

Can you clarify

Trump, in London, making a spectacle of himself.

Trump on Adam Schiff: "I think he's a maniac. I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being. I think he grew up with a complex for lots of reasons that are obvious. I think he's a very sick man." pic.twitter.com/Ta591vESgj

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2019

If you want to get the full glory –… Read the rest

Another gender-discussion event shut down (“postponed”) by people making threats:

An Edinburgh University event discussing how gender issues are taught in Scotland’s schools has been cancelled amid claims that the safety of women speakers and attendees was at risk.

The research seminar on schools and gender diversity, organised by the university’s Institute for Education, Teaching and Leadership, was due to be held next week, but despite plans for increased security staff, the event has been postponed.

…

Organisers had arranged the event in light of the Scottish Government’s plan to produce new schools guidance on supporting transgender pupils, after it announced that previous advice, written by charity LGBT Youth, was to be replaced as it risked “potentially excluding other

Oh, brilliant, Trump is in London lecturing other people on being “nasty” and “disrespectful.” Trump is.

Macron had tried to galvanise the agenda for the summit in London by calling the 70-year western alliance “brain dead”, but Trump said: “Nato serves a great purpose. I think that’s very insulting.”

He added: “Nobody needs Nato more than France. It’s a very dangerous statement for them to make.”

Macron made his criticism of Nato in an Economist interview partly to reflect his frustration that Turkey, a Nato member, had entered northern Syria in October without coordination with any Nato partner apart from Trump. Macron believes the invasion has undermined the fight against Islamic State.

But Trump appeared to side with the

Girls’ school head thinks girls preferring trousers means they could well be identifying as boys #progressive pic.twitter.com/1xhVRnT6qn

— Elle (@elleandback) December 2, 2019

Oooh yes, so it might, thank you for spotting that. Feeling more comfortable in trousers is definitely likely to mean not that you want to be warm enough, or don’t want bare skin chafing, or want to feel free to run or do headstands or sit on a bus without worrying about showing your bum, it’s likely to mean you want to “identify as male” despite being female and having the body to prove it, either now or in the future or indeed in the past. Never mind those silly body things, nobody cares about those, they’re … Read the rest

Anti-vaxxing makes it hard to remember how to word.

1/When we get down to brass tax of #vax I think those of us looking objectively at the science of vaccines take issue with the abundant absence of mind paid to the clear and obvious disruption in the function of other bodily systems in the pursuit of stimulating the immune system

— Andrew Schoenecker (@realSchoenecker) November 27, 2019

… Read the rest

James Kirkup at the Spectator addresses the “how did this become mandatory dogma so fast?” question.

Well, thanks to the legal website Roll On Friday, I have now seen a document that helps answer that question.

The document is the work of Dentons, which says it is the world’s biggest law firm; the Thomson Reuters Foundation, an arm of the old media giant that appears dedicated to identity politics of various sorts; and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Youth & Student Organisation (IGLYO). Both Dentons and the Thomson Reuters Foundation note that the document does not necessarily reflect their views.

The report is called ‘Only adults? Good practices in legal gender recognition for youth’. Its purpose

Originally a comment by iknklast on The medical paradigm establishment narrative.

I am so sick of the anti-scientific, anti-expert obsession, especially in women’s health issues. Challenging the patriarchy does not mean rejecting every single thing any man has ever done or said. It does not mean branding science as a “male” field, or branding medicine as something “men” do to oppress “women”. It means getting rid of the things men do to oppress women, while maintaining the things that are in our best interests. It does not mean abandoning all rationality and reason, though I have seen that argued (in my playwriting program, I protested parts of one book my mentor had me read because they implied women don’t … Read the rest

So we might as well read that open letter to Jen Gunter by Jennifer Lang.

There is nothing the patriarchy likes to see more than a good cat-fight. I read your open letter to Ms Paltrow when it was published in 2017, and at the time found it very unfortunate. I, too, struggled with whether it was worth my time or mental energy making a public response as urgent social, environmental and political events piled up around us. I decided to classify your letter as yet one more public beat-down of a female voice offering an alternative narrative to the monopoly-on-truth claimed by the western medical model. I ignored it. However, the publication of your new book and in

A couple of comments on Jennifer Block’s Facebook post reporting and denouncing the removal of her hit-piece on Jen Gunter:

Maya Shetreat You hit a nerve because you’re taking aim at the misogyny of medicine and of patriarchy in general. How dare you imply women are capable of making educated decisions on their own?! You are describing a paradigm that is deeply threatening to the establishment.

It doesn’t feel good when the haters swarm, but know it’s because what you’re saying is deeply important and resonates with many people. Otherwise they’d ignore you…

Jennifer Lang Maya Shetreat It’s nice to see you here. I KNOW you understand what happens when the dominant narrative gets challenged in a poignant and insightful

News from Pakistan:

A ten-year-old girl in rural Pakistan was stoned to death by family members after a tribal council decided she had been planning to elope, according to local reports.

Gul Sama, a resident of the village of Shahi Makan, in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, was killed on November 22. Local activists and residents were threatened with death by the tribal council, or jirga, if they spoke about it. However, social media posts showing the girl’s grave went viral with activists calling for justice. The police stepped have arrested the dead girl’s parents and Mushtaq Laghari, a cleric who conducted the funeral in secret.

“Her face and head were unrecognisable and she was brutally killed,” a resident of

Trump is on his way to London to embarrass us and disgust everyone else some more. He told some more lies before getting on the plane.

Speaking to reporters before he left for London, Trump falsely claimed the Ukrainian president had cleared him of wrongdoing in a recent interview with Time magazine.

“The Ukrainian president came out and said very strongly that President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. That should be case over,” Trump told reporters. “But it will never end it because [Democrats] want to do what they want to do.”

In reality, Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticized Trump for holding up Ukraine’s military assistance and said that the US president had harmed his country’s economic propsects by calling it corrupt.

No.

Dear Media,
Please retire the use of the term “Anti-vaxxer.” It is derogatory, inflammatory, and marginalizes both women and their experiences. It is dismissivemy simplistic, highly offensive and largely false. We politely request that you refer to us as the Vaccine Risk Aware. pic.twitter.com/WtAyFOhLuv

— Crazymothers (@Crazymothers1) December 1, 2019

How does the word “anti-vaxxer” marginalize women specifically? There are plenty of male anti-vaxxers, and there’s nothing sex-specific about being an anti-vaxxer, so I’ll thank her not to rope us into her bullshit.

But Steelclaws said it better.

Request denied. pic.twitter.com/MIKC9pVFh9

— Steelclaws (@Steel_claws) December 2, 2019

Updating to add:

“Antivaxer” is a the most respectful name I can think of for them. It has the added bonus of

Hmm.

It's true, I did say that. https://t.co/eet6B01Gzg

— Alister McGrath (@alisteremcgrath) November 30, 2019

Is it simplistic or just simple?

Sure, “there isn’t one” is simple, and easy to say, and kind of bare bones – indeed boring, but that’s not really much of a reason to abandon atheism for christianity is it? Baroque complication may be more fun but that doesn’t make it true.

I don’t know. There’s too much empty space. Everything is way too far apart. None of it is cozy or manageable enough to make the human idea of a “God” at all believable. It even smells weird in space – a burnt metal sort of smell. That’s simplistic, if you like.… Read the rest

Again with this crap.

Can trans women and radical feminists find sisterhood? https://t.co/QQd5l1K1EM

— Morgane Oger MSM BASc (@MorganeOgerBC) December 1, 2019

No, they can’t, because trans women are male people, so they can’t be sisters so we can’t find “sisterhood” with them. Men are not our sisters. That’s not some terrible thing, it’s just reality. White people shouldn’t run around flapping their hands and trying to force people of color to accept us as fellow people of color because we’re not. Same with women.

What ever happened to “respect boundaries”? Wasn’t that a thing for awhile?… Read the rest

You what now?

Appalled to recieve a call for help from board members of a women's centre being overrun by transphobic extremists trying to roll back its decade-long work helping all women and non-binary people. Laws exist to protect us all from hatred for a reason, #NelsonBC#bcpoli @BCNDPWRC

— Morgane Oger MSM BASc (@MorganeOgerBC) December 1, 2019

So the problem is that boardmembers of a women’s center want the women’s center to be for women?

The Nelson and District Women's Centre is facing a coordinated and well-funded litigious campaign aiming to undo over a decade of trans-inclusion work by two members in what seems to be yet another episode of TERFs v Society. Rolling back services would have harmful

Where does Goop come in?

Here, for one:

This person was one of the doctors GOOP used to attack me in 2017 and she identifies as a colleague of Block. pic.twitter.com/mRLQD5lVOQ

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) December 1, 2019

A mouthpiece for conventional obstetrics and gynecology, eh? As opposed to being a mouthpiece for Goop?… Read the rest

Jennifer Block is rallying her troops on Facebook.

Hey all, yes, my piece got pulled. You can still read it in the archive (see link in comment) and read The Daily Beast’s take on what happened (also in comment). It’s been a wild Thanksgiving! I need to say more and figure out in what forum. Meanwhile, Dr. Gunter has blocked me on Twitter (@writingblock if you want to follow me, though be prepared!) I managed to stay present, connecting with people in the real world for much of the holiday, and just this evening posted some responses to the criticism (some reasonable) and unfounded accusations. I guess I hit a nerve. Anyway, thanks for being here.

Uh huh the … Read the rest