An outstanding interview on Fresh Air with a law professor who got a part-time volunteer job as a cop in DC. Bonus: she’s Barbara Ehrenreich’s daughter. Highly recommended.… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1360895734757937152

Actually it’s literally objectively false that men do experience misogynistic sexism, on account of how the “gyn” bit means women, and men are men. Men don’t experience misogynistic sexism even if they are wearing dresses and crippling shoes.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1360980764377178114

It doesn’t happen, because he isn’t one. He doesn’t get “sexually assaulted for being a woman,” because he isn’t a woman. Of course he can “identify out of it,” because he’s not in it to begin with.

There’s something very very sick about this envy of and theft of misogyny and violence.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1360987669547876354

No. Misogynistic sexism and sexual violence don’t happen to trans women, because they are not women. Hostility and violence directed at trans women is not directed at … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey at Miscellany Room.

Speaking only for myself, I have no opinion on whether or not Murphy is a bigot or got what she deserved. Certainly I’m aware of the skewed nature of the debate over trans issues and the casual accusations of transphobia; on the other hand, I haven’t scrutinized her writings enough to form an opinion.

For me, it’s just a sense that this kind of thing doesn’t belong in court. I won’t go so far as to say this was a frivolous lawsuit, but it was an utterly predictable and correct result in my opinion, as both a descriptive matter (current law pretty clearly precludes it) and a normative one (that … Read the rest

Suzanne Moore in The Telegraph:

I was a bit worried, I must admit, that I was doing this womanhood thing all wrong. For my whole life I haven’t really got the hang of it. There are many things that women are meant to be interested in: shopping, baking programmes, thrillers in which other women get tortured that leave me cold. Ditto: weddings, dating, baby showers, celebrity gossip about torsos with pouts.

And that’s just to start with.

But I shouldn’t have worried because the United Nations has come up with a new slogan and tweeted “There is no wrong way to be a woman. There is no wrong way to be a woman.” They actually said it seven times,

… Read the rest

This will annoy Trump too:

The US top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, has been awarded a prestigious $1m (£717,000) Israeli prize for his commitment to science.

Dr Fauci, who was often at odds with former President Trump over how to handle the pandemic, was given the Dan David Prize for “defending science”.

He was also praised for advocating for Covid vaccines, and for his leadership on HIV research and Aids relief.

Why will that annoy Trump? Because he will take it as a rebuke to him, probably correctly. Fauci’s most conspicuous defending of science over the past year was defending it from Trump.

He was recognised for “courageously defending science in the face of uninformed opposition during the challenging

… Read the rest

The lawsuits are piling up on Trump’s gilded Lawsuits Table.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is suing former President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and two far-right groups — the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers — for allegedly conspiring to incite the deadly violence on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.

The lawsuit, filed on Thompson’s behalf by the NAACP and the civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, accuses Trump and the other defendants of violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act by trying to interfere in Congress’ certification of the Electoral College count. The legislation was part of a series of Enforcement Acts at the time intended to protect the enfranchisement of Black citizens from violence and intimidation.

… Read the rest

Yo, family values!

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., is being shunned and scorned by relatives after voting to impeach Donald Trump, according to a letter published in The New York Times this week.

Eleven members of his family signed a letter lambasting him for his vote last month to impeach the then-president, who they defended as a Christian.

As a Christian?

Come on, Kinzingers…it’s not azza Christian you’re defending him, it’s azza brutal sadistic racist misogynist authoritarian. That would be true even if he were clearly a Christian in some sense, but since he obviously isn’t, it’s even more true. It’s true with bells on.

He’s not a Christian in the sense of church-going bible-reading rigid conservative, and he’s … Read the rest

What law is that exactly?

Sorry but TWAW is actually the law so no false equivalence at all.

— Christina McKelvie (@ChristinaSNP) February 15, 2021

What law=trans women are women? What kind of law would that even be? Laws are not statements of fact, they are laws. They don’t take the form “rabbits are shoes” “beech trees are teapots” “men are women.”

She’s an MSP ffs. You’d think she’d know what laws are.… Read the rest

A comrade.

@ReadingsBooks I see you sell books by me. Please remove them, if you won’t apologise to @bindelj for your shameful trahison des clercs. Until you grow a backbone I don’t want to be on your shelves. pic.twitter.com/BAPLVnYq8e

— Francis Wheen (@FrancisWheen) February 15, 2021

… Read the rest

Regular commenter Arcadia sent me a correspondence she had with the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition.

How can we help you?: I was wondering if the proposed legislation utilises gender neutral language, similar to recent NSW legislation, which did not use “woman”, “girl” or “female” in order to be inclusive?

Thanks.

Reply:

Hi [Arcadia]

I have attached the Bill – it does use gender neutral language as do all government Bills since amending laws were passed by Weatherall government – maybe 2017?

regards,
Brigid

Reply:

Hi Brigid,

Who was consulted about the use of the term “person” throughout and zero references to “woman”, “girl” or “female”?

How was the decision reached that the bill would be worded this way?

Kind

… Read the rest

Well, if you’re a novice lesbian looking for advice on how to get started, I suggest not consulting healthline. Its guide for beginners is kind of…wrong.

Before we talk about lesbian sex, let’s talk about what the phrase means.

Ok – the phrase means female-female sex. It means same-sex sex for female people. What’s there to talk about?

Usually, people use the term “lesbian sex” to mean sex between two women.

Usually? If sometimes people use the term to mean something else, then they’re using the wrong term…unless you just mean “because hahaha it can be between two or three or ten women!”

If that’s the case, remember that those women might not identify as lesbian.

Ok, maybe they’re in … Read the rest

The conceit rises off him like steam.

Presumably the new psychiatrist affirmed this while asking Veronica Ivy to pop their arms into their friend, Mr Straightjacket pic.twitter.com/4VjmA9FMfV

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) February 15, 2021

Not a professor, not an athlete but a cheat, not world famous, barely mentioned by right wing media. Other than that, sure, bub, whatever you say.

Do psychiatrists in fact google patients during a session? Does that ring true? I think not.… Read the rest

The US is unusual among developed countries in that its life expectancy has gone down in the last few years.

In most high-income countries, life expectancy has been increasing, gradually but steadily, for decades. The last time that life expectancy in the United States showed a similar decline was in 1915–18, as a result of military deaths in the First World War and the 1918 influenza pandemic.

This time, the culprit has been a surge of drug overdoses and suicides, both linked to the use of opioid drugs. The death rate from drug overdoses more than tripled between 1999 and 2017, and that from opioid overdoses increased almost sixfold during the same period.

…

This crisis is often referred

… Read the rest

As a scholar of antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt finds Marjorie Greene’s claims about Jewish lasers in space all too familiar.

Greene’s claims were familiar territory. All of them – space lasers, 9/11, school shootings, Trump’s election loss and so much else – shared a common theme: conspiracy.

In her QAnon-inspired worldview, behind them all was a small group of inordinately powerful people who had global – not national – loyalties. They conspired against the common welfare to advance their own interests. They mutilated babies. They amassed power and money in order to harm good, hard-working and, one can fairly assume, Christian folks. This is the foundation stone of classic antisemitism. There are certainly non-Jews in the swamp Greene wants

… Read the rest

Congress is discussing doing an investigation on the riot.

Democrats and Republicans have made fresh calls for a 9/11-style bipartisan commission to investigate how rioters were able to breach the Capitol on 6 January. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, a commission reviewed how the incidents were possible and laid out plans to prevent them being repeated. Now politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for the deadly Capitol siege to be given the same treatment.

In a way the answer seems obvious – the Capitol is not normally fenced off and guarded by soldiers, so it wasn’t that day. On the other hand that day wasn’t a normal one, what with Trump’s well-advertised plan to do a … Read the rest

Crisis in Genderland:

Gender studies has become a lucrative and prestigious topic at the world’s leading institutions and universities have moved to lure its scholars, not least because of the insights they cast right across teaching and research.

What kind of insights? Into how gendered conventions keep women subordinated? Or into how much fun it is for men to say they are women and join their fellow women in sports and women-only prizes?

St Andrews is to part company with Alison Duncan Kerr, an American philosopher who is director of its Institute for Gender Studies (StAIGS).

People have signed a petition to keep her, the university has said calm down.

Kerr’s redundancy has had resonance, sparking a campaign called

… Read the rest

Michael Beschloss is doing a “Remember” today.

United States Senate Chamber –Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/bGMkzt2K4b

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 14, 2021

Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/oAcU0rm5SN

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 14, 2021

Office of Speaker of the House — Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/4OF0sIhirh

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 15, 2021

Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/ePlKfj4GEv

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 15, 2021

Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/kvDcvq2mlh

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 15, 2021

… Read the rest

Lindsey Graham suggests Kamala Harris will be impeached if Republicans take back the House next year pic.twitter.com/J68Or4k1la

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 14, 2021

… Read the rest

At least Boris Johnson is taking it very seriously.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Johnson was asked what signal the acquittal of a president who stoked violence while casting doubt on a free election would send to the rest of the world.

“The clear message that we get from the proceedings in America,” the prime minister said, “is that after all the toings and froings and all the kerfuffle, American democracy is strong and the American constitution is strong and robust.”

Huh. That’s not the message I get at all. Quite the reverse. The message I get is that American democracy is broken and feeble, and desperately vulnerable to murderous corrupt demagogues like Trump.

Constitutional experts have

… Read the rest

When politics and identity play bumper cars:

[S]ome lesbians have been denounced as bigots and deluged with rape threats for their views about gender and biological sex. Transgender people and lesbians are two groups that face hatred and discrimination, and differences of opinion exist within these groups. Some trans people and lesbians believe that being a woman has nothing to do with biological sex; others believe they are related, because female reproductive biology is the basis on which women have always faced structural oppression. Both perspectives have a right to be heard. Yet lesbians who believe the latter – many of whom have faced lesbophobia their entire lives – are facing persecution for their beliefs.

Take Julie Bindel, an

… Read the rest