Dec 20th, 2019 4:29 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Ohhh I’ve just been reminded who Gregor Murray is – the guy Maya Forstater “misgendered” so outrageously that she lost her contract. I was reminded by Jarvis Dupont at The Spectator:
Yesterday we witnessed a stunning and brave victory of tolerance over reality. Vile TERF, Maya Forstater lost her case at an employment tribunal for, amongst other things, referring to former SNP councillor and non-binary transgender individual, Gregor Murray as ‘he’…
… Before quitting the party, Gregor had been suspended for ‘abusing a woman on Twitter’. They has obviously been targeted because in my opinion, calling an ignorant TERF a ‘cunt’ is a perfectly legitimate way for a non-binary politician to behave.
Oh, thought I, that’s familiar, … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
4 comments
Tags: Maya Forstater
Dec 20th, 2019 3:27 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Veronica Ivy (formerly known as Rachel McKinnon) has another piece on How Evil Are The Feminists. It’s almost as if this trans thing is an excellent grift for Veronica Rachel.
Still full of lies though. Lies are not a great look on a philosopher.
Hate speech has no place in a free and democratic society. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from the consequences of that speech. And yet, constantly, people in a position of relative power or authority seem to be saying that they should have the right to say or write rude, vile, violent or discriminatory things about their fellow citizens. But even more, they think that they should be legally protected from any and all consequences of
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5 comments
Tags: Maya Forstater, Rachel McKinnon, Trans dogma
Dec 20th, 2019 2:49 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
DOCTOR McKinnon did a piece for Vice attacking Rowling yesterday, because of course he did. The byline is Veronica Ivy, and a sentence at the end says:
Veronica Ivy, PhD, is a philosophy professor and athlete who has previously gone by Rachel McKinnon.
Before that he went by Rhys McKinnon. Anyway – the usual lies are summoned.
“Gender critical” is a neologism that refers to a loose collection of people focused on opposing equal rights for trans people, and specifically trans women.
Big lie. We do not oppose equal rights for trans people.
They claim that, for example, trans women are really male/men and should be excluded from women-only spaces, and should not have the legal protections against discrimination on
…
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3 comments
Tags: Maya Forstater, Rachel McKinnon, Trans dogma
Dec 20th, 2019 12:13 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
This bit of the ruling – the most crucial bit, probably – seems to have some ambiguity to it.
The total of what Forstater is saying there seems to be that she called Gregor Murray “he or him” on a particular occasion because she forgot that he was “non-binary” and wants to be called “they/them,” and that she doesn’t consider it “transphobic” to see men as men, and that she shouldn’t be punished for calling men “he or him” in general.
The judge says he concludes from that that she will refer to … Read the rest
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17 comments
Tags: Maya Forstater, Trans dogma
Dec 20th, 2019 10:19 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Another Witchfinder General points and hisses at Rowling.
It starts badly.
J.K. Rowling spent Thursday once again demonstrating a perplexing inability to pipe down and enjoy her millions.
Why the hell should she “pipe down”? Why should anyone? I bet Rachelle Hampton (the witchfinder in this instance) doesn’t want to be told to pipe down, so where does she get off telling Rowling to do so? What’s perplexing about the fact that Rowling, like god knows how many other people, says things on Twitter?
Rowling tweeted her support for Maya Forstater, a tax expert whose firing from a think tank over transphobic comments and subsequent court battle has generated a great deal of controversy in the U.K. In so
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6 comments
Tags: Maya Forstater, Trans dogma
Dec 19th, 2019 5:27 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
There’s much buzz about the fact that Billy Graham’s mag Christianity Today says Trump must go.
Much of what it says about why is wrong, of course, but not all of it.
We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across the political spectrum, and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.
That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray
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5 comments
Dec 19th, 2019 12:21 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
David Roth on what the Trump aesthetic tells us about the Trump:
As with most things about Trump, there’s not a lot to unpack here. Unrelenting artlessness has been Trump’s signature for as long as he has been a public figure, and that is something that cannot and will not change. The man himself cultivates and inhabits a world of luxury that’s frozen in the 1980s, and he’s spent most of his life doing the same things over and over again. They’re things that, as a friend once put it to me, are what a child thinks a rich person would do, like take a limo to McDonald’s or wear a suit to a baseball game.
Or have a … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
6 comments
Dec 19th, 2019 11:35 am |
By Ophelia Benson
James Kirkup points out that many people have been staying quiet despite concerns, some even despite having plenty of money and clout.
Yet slowly, slowly, things are starting to change. More people are starting to talk, calmly and sensibly, about a matter of policy and culture that needs more discussion. Bit by bit, more people are starting to see that this is an issue that can and should be talked about.
That turning of the tide has been slow and modest, but today the pace quickened, a lot. The gender debate has seen an event that many people have been waiting for. JK Rowling has spoken.
In a single tweet, the woman who gave us Harry Potter, has quite deliberately
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26 comments
Tags: Maya Forstater
Dec 19th, 2019 10:48 am |
By Ophelia Benson
https://twitter.com/AmnestyUK/status/1207683758725509121
Human rights are human rights. What are “trans rights” exactly? If they mean trans people should be free from persecution and oppression, then sure, of course trans rights are human rights, just as other branches-of-human rights are. But if they mean special “rights” crafted specifically for trans people, then it depends. The right not to be bullied for wearing “the wrong” clothes? Sure. The right to force everyone to agree you are the other sex? No.
Well, Amnesty UK? Are you?
H/t KB Player… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
7 comments
Tags: Trans cult
Dec 19th, 2019 10:20 am |
By Ophelia Benson
No. Absolutely not. No.
There’s my “absolutist belief” for you, if you want one.
No, Trump was not “just riffing.” They don’t get to brush off disgusting sadistic contemptuous cruelty that way, least of all coming from the president of the US.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Thursday on ABC’s Good Morning America that she did not know why Trump decided to suggest that Dingell was in hell. “You’d have to talk to the president about that,” she said.
But Grisham added that Trump is a “counter-puncher,” and suggested Trump was venting his frustration after being impeached by the House. “It was a very, very supportive and wild crowd and he was just riffing on some
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1 Comment »
Tags: Trump
Dec 19th, 2019 10:03 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Even The Guardian doesn’t seem entirely convinced by the judge’s ruling in Maya Forstater’s case.
A researcher who lost her job at a thinktank after tweeting that transgender women cannot change their biological sex has lost a test case because her opinions were deemed to be “absolutist”.
You can read that as straight-up reporting, but you can also think there may be a hint of skepticism that it’s really “absolutist” to think that people can’t literally change sex any more than they can change age or species.
In a keenly anticipated judgment that will stir up fresh debate over transgender issues, Judge James Tayler, an employment judge, ruled that Maya Forstater’s views did “not have the protected characteristic of philosophical
…
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9 comments
Tags: Maya Forstater
Dec 19th, 2019 9:11 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump’s latest befoulment.
The “maybe he’s looking up” is bad enough, but my disgust was already on Full from his sarcastic contemptuous mimicry of Debbie Dingell talking to him on the phone, in a breathy soft weak beseeching voice. It’s disgusting in its contempt for women, and it’s also disgusting in that what he was trying to convey and mock was her emotion over the, you know, death of her husband… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
1 Comment »
Tags: Trump
Dec 18th, 2019 3:53 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
How does this work in actual life?
Requiring women to call men women “is justified to avoid harassment” of men who call themselves women. The harassment of women who are just women, and who just are women, comes in a very distant second to the harassment of men who say they are women.
This is a judge telling women we have to call men women if the men claim they are women. Not should, not … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
20 comments
Dec 18th, 2019 11:06 am |
By Ophelia Benson
It seems Trump is not in a good mood.
Deeply aggrieved by the proceedings and mindful of how they will stain his legacy, Trump spent the 24 hours before the vote on the phone with top officials and Republican lawmakers, according to multiple people familiar with his calls, expressing outrage at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and looking ahead to what his trial in the Senate will look like.
As he watched conservative pundits on television bolster his views, Trump called for religious intervention.
“Send god to help!”
“This shoild never happen to another President again,” he wrote, the misspelling of “should” hardly masking his outrage. “Say a prayer!”
Ok. “Dear god, please let Trump be impeached and convicted, and … Read the rest
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7 comments
Dec 18th, 2019 10:29 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger issued a fine statement:
“As a former federal agent and CIA officer, I have spent my professional career in search of facts and evidence—the facts and evidence necessary to uphold the rule of law and protect our national security. Today, I am driven by facts and evidence to protect the integrity of our democracy.
“This week, the House of Representatives will vote on two articles of impeachment. In advance of casting my vote, I have read the articles and studied the evidence—including the majority and minority reports, deposition transcripts, and public testimony.
“The facts are not in dispute; witnesses, including those called by both parties, affirm these facts. The President has abused his power by
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