Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Women deserve better:

The more I read this line, the more it bugs me.

Feminism is nothing without women of colour, migrant, disabled, queer, trans, Black and sex working women.

Feminism has included racists, xenophobes, eugenicists, homophobes etc… throughout its history.

And their bigotries did not render their calls for an end to gender inequality null, any more that MLK Jnr’s homophobia rendered his calls for racial equality null.

If you eliminated racism, xenophobia, homophobia etc… feminism would still have its place in fighting sexism.

To proclaim that feminism or any other social justice activism is “nothing without…” is an all or nothing fallacy that inherently demands a higher standard of behaviour … Read the rest

Whoopsie! Big surprise for Mister Barr.

A federal judge Thursday criticized Attorney General William Barr for his handling of the Mueller report when it was released last spring, saying Barr’s early description of the report didn’t match the special counsel’s actual conclusions.

This is a Republican judge, appointed by Bush.

Judge Reggie Walton asked if Barr’s actions were a “calculated attempt” to help President Donald Trump and opined the attorney general had a “lack of candor” with the public and Congress.

“The Court cannot reconcile certain public representations made by Attorney General Barr with the findings in the Mueller Report,” Walton wrote on Thursday. Barr’s initial publicly announced interpretation of the findings from former special counsel Robert Mueller “cause

Trump made some “remarks” yesterday at a coronavirus briefing with airline bosses, which the White House duly transcribed for us.

In a certain way, you could say that the borders are automatically shut down, without having to say “shut down.”  I mean, they’re, to a certain extent, automatically shut down. 

Impressive, isn’t it? We’re in good hands. But then he gets to the important part.

But it’s affecting the airline business, as it would.  And a lot of people are staying in our country, and they’re shopping and using our hotels in this country.  So, from that standpoint, I think, probably, there’s a positive impact.  But there’s also an impact on overseas travel, which will be fairly substantial.

That’s … Read the rest

This is horrifying. I mean really horrifying, as in you feel fear and horror.

.@Dr_Ronx has advice for Frankie, who wears too-tight binders causing his ribs to pop out. pic.twitter.com/Bi7Hl8SgFm

— BBC Three (@bbcthree) February 28, 2020

Some replies:

• This sounds like medical malpractice. The patient is in clear physical discomfort. A responsible doctor would tell them to stop and let their body repair itself. Does the @gmcuk have a view on this?
• Would this “doctor” give an anorexic teenager tips on how to starve herself further? This is shocking.
• I’m not sure how to express what the current output from you make me feel, but I do know the overarching reaction is terror. What are you doing? Why are

Dan Orr’s manifesto or campaign pledge or promo or whatever it is:

Women deserve better from our university. Sexual violence and harassment remain prevalent, and women are too often held back by misogyny and its intersections. As co-chair of Oxford SU’s Women’s campaign I helped bring women together to discuss feminism, establish support networks and campaign for change. From working with Irish activists in demonstrating and fundraising for the Repeal the Eighth campaign to tackling sexual violence on campus I learnt that the strength of the feminist movement is in its diversity and in the solidarity we have for each other. I want to bring the women at this university together to enact real lasting change. As a trans woman

Another one.

A university students’ union is under fire for rebranding International Women’s Day to include trans women.

Leicester students’ renaming of the celebration as International Womxn’s Day follows their election of a trans woman to the post of women’s officer. Dan Orr will represent the views of women on campus, speaking out about sexism and misogyny.

Which he doesn’t understand from the inside, on account of how he’s a man.

A female student at Leicester University told The Times that she was “very upset” by the election but feared speaking out publicly in case she was disciplined by the university.

“I am sure Dan Orr will try her best, but she has not grown up with the same

Last week:

Two of Scotland’s best known libraries are under attack for their conflicting stance on trans rights as the “culture wars” escalate in the country’s arts scene.

Feminists have railed against the Glasgow Women’s Library after a women’s campaign group opposed to gender self-declaration law changes were denied access.

Their fury was inflamed by news that trans rights activists had been permitted to hold a training day at the publicly funded venue, led by two men.

In a statement online, the Glasgow Women’s Library said: “We will only accept venue hire bookings from organisations that align with our values and we always do our best to make sure of this when bookings are made.”

So the values of … Read the rest

This one is in an area where I’ve actually been, so that’s new.

An Amazon employee in Seattle has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an internal message sent on Tuesday afternoon.

…

All other employees who came in close contact with the individual have been notified, according to the message. The employee worked out of the Brazil building, which is located blocks away from the Amazon Spheres, the company’s giant greenhouse domes in downtown Seattle. The company said it defined close contact as “closer than 6ft/2 meters over a prolonged period of time”.

The Brazil building is in South Lake Union, which has a pleasant park along Lake Union so I go there sometimes. Not that I’m … Read the rest

Another “conflict”:

A bitter conflict is escalating in the Scottish literary scene with the Scottish Poetry Library (SPL) standing accused of “institutional transphobia” after it said that it would not support “bullying and calls for no-platforming of writers”.

But first we need to know what “transphobia” is, because people and institutions “stand accused” of it all too often not because they have shouted their hatred of trans people but because they have, for instance, said that women should not be persecuted for not ticking every box on the trans list of boxes to tick.

The issue was raised in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday, where the SNP’s Joan McAlpine said it was “worrying that women such as feminist poets

Warren is out, so we have to choose between Biden and Sanders to get the sack of shit out of office. I’m disgusted.

The sack of shit thinks his random thoughts are more authoritative than the informed thoughts of people with relevant education.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday night spun a web of theories minimizing the coronavirus’ threat to Americans, accusing the World Health Organization of dispensing inaccurate facts about the outbreak, and suggesting that those with the disease could be safe going to work.

During expansive remarks on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s program, the president continued to break with public health officials’ more dire messaging regarding the international crisis and forcefully contradicted the WHO, which earlier in the

Oh please.

We agree with the Presiding Officer that debate should be without insult or abuse.

Cisgender is used by academics worldwide to mean not transgender. Like any word, it could, but should not, be used in an insulting context.

We often use “non-trans”.

— Equality Network (@LGBTIScotland) March 4, 2020

Academics? Why academics? That makes it sound as if it’s a technical term, and a product of expertise and research. It’s not. It’s a political label, and a very silly one. It puts a modifier on sex to make pretend-sex seem more legitimate and science-based and…you know…real. It puts it there to make it seem as if “trans woman” and “cis woman” are just two kinds of woman, when … Read the rest

Vaishnavi Sundar finds out what it’s like to be canceled:

I am a filmmaker, writer and a women’s rights activist. I spend my time advocating for equal opportunities, contraceptive rights, education and the empowerment of women and girls. I centre women in all my work. When I started screening my film on workplace sexual harassment across India, I was hoping to raise public consciousness. But What Was She Wearing? was India’s first feature-length documentary on the subject.

However, I encountered strong resistance to the film from liberal feminist gatekeepers. Women who would send me private messages asking for professional favours and contacts, and congratulate me on the film, refused to acknowledge my presence on their public timelines or retweet

Lisa Nandy did an interview with the Guardian the other day. She sounds quite good in many ways. But…

We are meeting a couple of days after Harvey Weinstein received his guilty verdict in a New York courtroom. Nandy says she is appalled that there are women in the Labour party whose sexual harassment cases have still not been resolved years after they made complaints. “We’ve failed a lot of women over recent years,” she says. “It’s very reminiscent of what happened with antisemitism where there are a number of cases which quite simply haven’t been dealt with. It gives the green light to people who harass women to believe they can find a home in the Labour party.” She

Labour MP Keir Starmer calls out the media for the ‘vilification’ of trans people pic.twitter.com/dHRy7zRWML

— PinkNews (@PinkNews) March 2, 2020

Keir Starmer talks a lot of crap and makes a lot of false analogies, as Allison Bailey points out.

1/ @Keir_Starmer, no, trans extremism has nothing to do with section 28. You were a white, heterosexual male at Oxford during s.28. I was a 17 year old black girl from Cowley, who realised I was a lesbian at a time when LGB youth were vilified & abandoned. https://t.co/QVUikRPhkD

— Allison Bailey (@BluskyeAllison) March 3, 2020

Cowley is an car-factory town just outside Oxford. The juxtaposition is rather like Columbia/Harlem or Yale/New Haven or Berkeley/Oakland.

3/ You could have

There’s something missing in this story…I can’t quite put my finger on it…

BBC reports:

A transgender man who has given birth to a child has begun an appeal to be legally registered as the “father” or “parent”, rather than the “mother”.

Freddy McConnell is fighting a decision made by a High Court judge last year that a person who carries and gives birth to a baby is legally a mother.

Mr McConnell, a single parent from Kent, lives as a man following surgery, having been assigned female at birth.

What is it, what is it…what is being left out…oh yes, I get it!

This shithead is suing to ensure that her child will have no mother.

Not “no … Read the rest

Iain Macwhirter at The Herald Scotland:

WHEN I started writing about the trans self-identification issue nearly two years ago it was with the utmost trepidation. Questioning, or even discussing, the proposal that men should be able legally to become women merely by making a declaration of such, was regarded as transphobia, homophobia, bigotry.

…

Cultural and health bodies, and even the Scottish Government, were ceasing to use the very word “woman” in case it offended male-bodied transwomen. Bizarre substitutes like “womxn”, “menstruators” and “ciswomen” were being deployed in the cause of inclusivity.

Which – to belabor the obvious – is a very warped way to use the word “inclusivity.” The word should mean not excluding people from public events … Read the rest

Now you want to know what damn fool or set of fools was doing a Womxn’s Day Speaker Series, right? Well it was the Gates Foundation, blast their eyes.

We’re celebrating International Womxn’s Day by hosting the United Way’s Emerging Leaders 365 Speaker Series here at the Discovery Center, featuring a panel of powerhouse womxn who are entrepreneurs and doing incredible work to give back to our community. Moderator: Mika Yamamoto with Panelists including Laura Clise – Founder & CEO of The Intentionalist, Nourah Yonous – Founder and Executive Director at African Women Business Alliance, and Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno – Co Founder of Future For Us. Admission is a suggested donation of $10 to United Way’s Emerging Leaders 365.

You can’t escape it even when it’s not the topic. I’m reading a piece from NBC on how the virus is affecting Seattle, and then thud.

Down a normally crowded hallway, Market Magic & Novelty Shop also remained quiet. A family bought a small keepsake and then walked out. No one came in after.

“We’re rethinking our business model, that’s for sure,” owner Sheila Lyon said. “People are scared. They don’t want to be in public spaces.”

…

Lyon and her husband make up a little money on the weekends, but every day seems to bring fewer and fewer customers. As a result, Lyon, who has owned her business for 47 years, is turning to social media to entice

This person didn’t like Suzanne Moore’s piece at all.

What’s next after what threat? There was no threat. There was a woman saying that Selina Todd should not have been told not to give her talk and that Woman’s Place UK clearly isn’t a hate group and that female is a biological classification that applies to all living species. None of that is any kind of threat, or anything like a threat, and women do have a right to organize and campaign as women without being screamed at and accused of terrorizing helpless male employees who identify as women. Jess was never in any danger from Suzanne Moore.

So today…

You know that person who had said Suzanne Moore’s

All about…her?

*bangs head repeatedly on desk*
Of my many many objections to this piece, the most personal is that I was trying to have a rare day off and am now digging out a proper actual response.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 2, 2020

So many people telling her to take as many days off as she likes.

Jane on the other hand has some tips.

Notes for Laurie.

1. No emotional blackmail
2. No hyperbolic statistics or claims
3. No blaming women for male violence against trans people
4. No amorphous manipulative claims about safety
5. No bullshit analogies comparing women who want to maintain their rights to racists,

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) March 3, 2020