May 25th, 2021 9:44 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Scary Doctor Jack Turban again.
Chase Strangio and Jack Turban are the ones causing harm.
Yes how dare they talk to radical feminists who don’t believe the new ideology of Magic Gender? How dare they not talk to … Read the rest
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May 25th, 2021 8:46 am |
By Ophelia Benson
MTG is doing outrage theater again.
House Republican leaders have condemned incendiary remarks from GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene five days after she first publicly compared Capitol Hill mask rules to the Holocaust, amid a wave of criticism from Republican and conservative critics as well as Jewish groups aimed at the Georgia congresswoman and the party leaders’ silence.
I missed it; what did she say?
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during an interview on a conservative podcast this week, compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to continue to require members of the House to wear masks on the chamber floor to steps the Nazis took to control the Jewish population during the Holocaust.
Let’s think about that. Is … Read the rest
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May 24th, 2021 6:03 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Interesting – the Biden admin met with some secular groups.
Representatives of atheist and secular groups held their first meeting with White House officials last week, marking a willingness by the Biden administration to work with the growing networks of religiously unaffiliated Americans.
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Leaders of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Secular Coalition for America, American Atheists, Center for Inquiry and Ex-Muslims of North America also attended the virtual gathering that included Josh Dickson, deputy director of the office, and program specialist Ben O’Dell.
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Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the FFRF, welcomed the first meeting with the new administration.
“With more than a quarter of the population identifying as a ‘None’ (no religion), it’s vital that our
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May 24th, 2021 9:48 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The Scottish Sun also reports on The Great Controversial Stickers Controversy.
POLICE Scotland faced anger and ridicule after a clampdown on stickers from a feminist group opposed to the relaxation of gender self-ID laws.
The national force was accused of a “chilling” attack on free speech after announcing it was probing the matter as a “hate” crime.
Officers in Kirkcaldy also urged members of the public to contact them or Fife Council if locals saw any more “controversial stickers”.
Without specifying the nature of the controversy.
The move came after cops were alerted to “Women won’t wheesht” stickers that had been placed on lampposts in Kirkcaldy, promoting activists For Women Scotland.
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Following the backlash, Police Scotland deleted the
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May 24th, 2021 9:24 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The Times reports on the zealous policing in Scotland:
Marion Calder, spokeswoman for [For Women Scotland], said Millar had been overwhelmed by the support she had received.
“Marion still has no idea of what she is being accused of and won’t know until she attends the police station on Thursday,” she said. “This is exactly why we raised concerns about the new hate crime legislation.
“It was obvious that if complaints were made they would be followed through — no matter how vexatious or politically motivated. Serious questions have to be raised about how Police Scotland has handled this.
“The public are finally waking up and getting worried about what is happening to freedom of speech. Police Scotland
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May 24th, 2021 8:01 am |
By Ophelia Benson
About those “femmes”…
If you have been on the internet recently, then you’ve likely seen the phrase “women and femmes” floating around. Maybe you read it in this article from Everyday Feminism concerning emotional labor or maybe in this takedown of white feminism from Wear Your Voice. You’ve almost certainly seen it pop up on your Twitter or Facebook feeds, at least if you’re someone who has links to queer and/or feminist communities. While it might seem innocuous, the phrase has been irritating me for the last two years or so. Why? Because it is, to put it lightly, incoherent nonsense.
…Femme is a term that comes from working-class lesbian culture. It was originally used to describe lesbians who
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May 24th, 2021 5:12 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Chelsea Mitchell on what fun it was having to compete against two boys in her sport:
It’s February 2020. I’m crouched at the starting line of the high school girls’ 55-meter indoor race. This should be one of the best days of my life. I’m running in the state championship, and I’m ranked the fastest high school female in the 55-meter dash in the state. I should be feeling confident. I should know that I have a strong shot at winning.
Instead, all I can think about is how all my training, everything I’ve done to maximize my performance, might not be enough, simply because there’s a runner on the line with an enormous physical advantage: a male body.
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May 23rd, 2021 5:20 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Women are being ordered to wheesht about that man taking a woman’s place at the Olympics.
Former Olympic weightlifter Tracey Lambrechs says females are being told to “be quiet” when they complain about the [un]fairness of transgender New Zealand athlete Laurel Hubbard competing in women’s competitions.
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“I’m quite disappointed, quite disappointed for the female athlete who will lose out on that spot,” Lambrechs, who won a bronze medal for New Zealand at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, told TVNZ.
And not just disappointed, but also angry at the injustice of it. But wheesht.
“We’re all about equality for women in sport but right now that equality is being taken away from us.
“I’ve had female weightlifters come up to me
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May 23rd, 2021 10:34 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Siva Vaidhyanathan on UNC and Nikole Hannah-Jones and special insults:
When the prestigious Hussman School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – the oldest public university in North America – went searching for a Knight chair – funded by the Knight Foundation to promote journalism education by putting some of America’s finest practicing journalists in the classroom – a distinguished alumna of that school was the obvious choice.
Nikole Hannah-Jones is just such an alumna and just such a journalist.
It did not turn out as planned. On Tuesday we learned that conservative activists on the University of North Carolina board of trustees took the unprecedented step of withholding tenure from Hannah-Jones’ appointment as
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May 22nd, 2021 5:02 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Press Release from Sex Matters:
Equality and Human Rights Commission cuts ties with Stonewall
Now there is a headline.
In a letter to the campaigning group “Sex Matters”, the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Baroness Kishwer Falkner has disclosed that the equalities watchdog has quit the Stonewall Diversity Champions Scheme.
Yes yes YES.
Falkner was writing in response to an open letter sent by Sex Matters calling on the EHRC to quit the scheme.
Sex Matters campaigns for clarity about sex in law and policy. It argues that membership of the Stonewall Scheme conflicts with public service independence and in particular with the EHRC’s mandate to protect everybody’s rights.
Organisations that join the scheme pay Stonewall
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May 22nd, 2021 10:27 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Joanna Moorhead at The Guardian interviews Kathleen Stock:
Stock, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, says the key question she addresses – itself offensive to many – is this: do trans women count as women?
Whatever else about her views is controversial, she is surely on firm ground when she writes that this question has become surrounded by toxicity. But the problem for her is, at least partly, that many people do anything they can to avoid answering it. “Very few people who are sceptical talk about it directly, because they’re frightened,” she says. “It’s so hard psychologically to say, in reply: ‘I’m afraid not.’”
Maybe it’s easier if you just say no, of course … Read the rest
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