The Fawcett Society is continuing the “who can possibly know what to think in such a complicated disagreement??” approach. If they’re going to go that route in spite of everything, why are they even the Fawcett Society? Why aren’t they the Everybody Society? Being a feminist society is taking a position, it’s not throwing up one’s hands and saying “You’re both wrong and you should both apologize and start over.” Feminism isn’t about splitting the difference.

Another @fawcettsociety Trustee (Liz Moseley)making a virtue of cowardice – (HT @SVPhillimore )

"Both sides" didn't just pop up randomly this week. It was a response to yr fellow Trustee calling those w bravery to speak up "idiots" pic.twitter.com/AGXAOUMpPj

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) June

… Read the rest

The Law Society? Really?

Under HR and people management:

Using pronouns in the workplace

I think you’re supposed to learn that in the very early grades, or even earlier, as you learn to speak the local language. I don’t think it’s something adults need a refresher on.

Judging by name or appearance is not always an accurate method for determining a person’s pronouns.

Yes it is. Being able to tell who is which is another very early skill.

We frequently, and likely subconsciously, interpret or ‘read’ a person’s gender based on their outward appearance and expression, and ‘assign’ a pronoun.

However, our inference as to that person’s gender identity may not be correct.

Getting it wrong is extremely rare. This … Read the rest

Sarah Phillimore is scathing about the cowardice and malice of Ayesha Hazarika.

[T]here was only strange and timorous silence from the Fawcett Society following [Maya] Forstater’s victory, until it was finally broken by an article in the Evening Standard on Wednesday.

Hazarika calls for “more moderate voices” to overcome the toxicity of the current debate, and an end to “cruelty and polarisation”:

As with so much right now, extremist, unforgiving, rigid voices on both sides dominate the online war in a fight to the death of who can scream and shame the loudest. And all it does is alienate people in the middle who want to find a solution which is humane, modern and common sense. But more moderate

… Read the rest

More It Must Not Be Allowed, this time from LSE staff in solidarity with Open University staff and students.

We, the LSE Department of Gender Studies, write this letter in solidarity with the scholars, researchers, members of staff, and students at the Open University who are facing an unwelcoming and antagonistic environment because of the newly created Gender Critical Research Network. We support and wholly endorse the Open Letter from OU Staff and Postgraduate Research Students, written in response to the launch of the Network. Reiterating the demands of our colleagues at the Open University, we ask that the Open University urgently rescind its support for this network, and that it actively re-commit to supporting trans rights and the

… Read the rest

Empowerment! Yet another institution for female people has found a new way to erase female people. Progress!

The alma mater of a long list of distinguished women, from Rosalind Franklin and Dame Kate Bingham to Emily Mortimer and Rachel Weisz, is to rename the role of head girl because it is too “binary”.

In other words a girls’ school finds the word “girl” too “binary.” So will it become a persons’ school now? If so it will wait a long long long time for Eton and Harrow to do the same.

The head girl of St Paul’s Girls’ School, one of the country’s leading private schools, will be known as head of school after calls from pupils to make

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They always frame it deceptively.

The fight over the rights of transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s athletics has spilled over to more than a dozen states as lawmakers in Idaho, Montana, West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and most recently Florida have passed legislation since the beginning of 2020 to ban them from the field.

There are no such “rights.” Imagine saying “the fight over the rights of adult athletes to compete in children’s athletics has spilled over” blah blah – nobody would say that because the absurdity would be too obvious, but for some reason it’s not obvious when it comes to men trampling women.

Chase Strangio, a transgender man who serves as the ACLU’s

… Read the rest

“Perceived” by whom, you damn fools?

@royalacademy have responded regarding @JessDeWahls to confirm they will cancel my membership

They hope to see me again, they won’t.

Positioning women who acknowledge women’s rights are sex based as transphobic is woman hate.@AxelRuger we see you@SexMattersOrg pic.twitter.com/9AIJkYWAKJ

— alliap (@alliap2) June 19, 2021

… Read the rest

How does it feel to be cancelled? You're threatened, slurred, friends are blackmailed to disavow you, rivals seek to destroy your reputation & livelihood. Ask the artist Jess De Wahls. https://t.co/oCOclPQ0Z7

— Janice Turner (@VictoriaPeckham) June 19, 2021

Here is the embroidery I mention in my column of my mother’s hands, made by @JessDeWahls. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/UePAxPUN0n

— Janice Turner (@VictoriaPeckham) June 19, 2021

… Read the rest

Janice Turner on the Royal Academy’s venomous censorship of a woman artist starts with the fact that Jess DeWahls sent her an embroidery of her mother’s hands six months ago.

A photo I’d posted on Twitter of my first care home visit in many months had moved her to sew. She didn’t want payment, just for me to have it. Now this touching work sits by my desk.

De Wahls is no cosy cross-stitcher: she deploys her needle for political, especially feminist purpose. She embroiders fallopian tubes giving the finger, had a show called Big Swinging Ovaries, ran a vagina sewing workshop at Tate Modern. She’s funny, outspoken, has bright red hair and lavish tattoos. As all artists should be,

… Read the rest

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops trying to rule us all again:

The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States, flouting a warning from the Vatican, have overwhelmingly voted to draft a statement on the sacrament of the Eucharist, advancing a political push by conservative bishops to deny President Biden communion because of his support of abortion rights.

They’re bishops. They’re not senators or representatives or part of the executive branch, they’re bishops – clergy of one particular religious sect. They’re not the boss of us. They’re not the boss of Biden either.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, an assembly of the country’s 433 active and retired bishops, can issue guideline statements, but it does not have the

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Hmm.

Last weekend in East Dulwich:

Three more women were violently attacked in East Dulwich over the weekend after police failed to respond to a 999 call from a woman who was strangled in the street in front of her child.

As the News reported earlier today, a woman was left waiting for a response car that never arrived last Friday night after calling 999 four times. 

She said she had been approached and strangled by a stranger in front of her ten-year-old son shortly before 9pm. 

She reported that the unknown man had attacked her out of the blue on Wood Vale and tried to smash her head against a wall while her distraught child ran to try

… Read the rest

Stonewall wants to launder all the brains.

Teachers should drop the terms boys and girls in favour of “learners”, and mix up the sexes in PE classes, Stonewall has told schools.

The controversial LGBT charity is urging teachers to ditch all gendered language and gendered uniforms and suggests that children should compete against the opposite sex in sport.

Great idea! That way boys will always win! (Just don’t call them boys. Small price to pay.)

There are awards for schools that follow the most slavishly.

Those wishing to win are directed to a guide which tells them that “it is unnecessary to say ‘boys and girls’ when referring to learners of all genders, you could instead say ‘learners'”. 

They

… Read the rest

The New Yorker on anti-anti-anti-racism. I think. I lose count after a while. It centers on a guy called Christopher Rufo.

… an employee of the city of Seattle documented an anti-bias training session and sent the evidence to a journalist named Christopher F. Rufo, who read it and recognized a political opportunity.

I’ve been an employee of the city of Seattle and I’ve attended one or two of their training sessions of that type and I have to say I found them stupid. Not too lefty but too stupid. In a way they weren’t lefty enough – they were more like self-help sessions.

When Rufo received the anti-bias documents from the city of Seattle, he knew how to

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Mission creep creeps again.

YNnB? #20

Exactly, it’s roughly analogous to saying “I am entitled to get for free what you have to pay for”.

If they had better arguments, they would use them.

Indeed, and as you have correctly pointed out several times already, if they had any real examples of feminists stirring up “hate” against trans people, denying their “rights”, advocating “violence” etc. they would use it for everything it was worth. It should be a huge red flag to anyone when an ideological pressure group keeps making such outrageous accusations without providing any specifics apart from the words that they themselves put into the mouths of their opponents (like … Read the rest

Abigail Shrier has a couple of thoughts on the subject.

Here's how @ScienceBasedMed works:
1) Publish positive book review of a controversial book, written by a well-published physician
2) Editors deluged w emails from angry activists
3) Editors panic & delete review
4) Editors assert that they will "never cave to outside pressure." pic.twitter.com/Akm16rMO5t

— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) June 18, 2021

Here is the editor at @ScienceBasedMed who retracted Dr. Harriet Hall's favorable review of my book, claiming her review "was below the minimal acceptable standard for SBM."

Yes, clearly, they're very serious about Science at SBM.

"OK Karen." pic.twitter.com/fFkyfJFCm3

— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) June 18, 2021

Ok, Karen with eyeroll and facepalm is very science.… Read the rest

The feud widens.

So a certain prominent Skeptic has claimed that we at @ScienceBasedMed "have long openly displayed a far-left progressive political bias that has compromised their otherwise stellar reputation as a trustworthy source." Yet he cannot give any concrete examples from SBM.

— David Gorski, MD, PhD (@gorskon) June 18, 2021

The certain prominent skeptic is Michael Shermer.

The review by Harriet Hall, MD of @AbigailShrier book at @ScienceBasedMed that was pulled under pressure from readers can now be read at Skeptic. We don’t cave to ideologues & its not transphobe to discuss the science. https://t.co/rsA4wdaWgu

— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) June 17, 2021

Harriet Hall’s review is in the Skeptic reading room.

To be honest I can kind … Read the rest

David Gorski’s statement on why he retracted Harriet Hall’s review of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage:

After careful review, the editors of SBM decided to retract this book review. Because we allow trusted authors to publish without prior review for the sake of efficiency and timeliness, occasionally corrections need to be made post-publication. In this case we felt there were too many issues with the treatment of the relevant science, and leaving the article up would not be appropriate given the standards of SBM.

Already there are false accusations that this move was motivated by pressure from readers. This is not the case. SBM had and never will cave to outside pressure. We have endured a great extent of

… Read the rest

Suzanne Moore on the RA shop v Jess DeWahls:

Her work is desirable and sold in the shop of a prestigious museum. Yet her thoughts which she sometimes blogs about, these terrible thoughts mean that now this work must be banned from the museum’s gift shop because it “conflicts” with the values of “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion” that the institution stands for.

You know, I would have thought that the values the institution stands for are values that relate to art. It’s not a social work institution or a political institution, it’s an artistic institution. There are basic, background values that we generally assume public institutions adhere to, like not barring The Wrong Kind of People, but they’re basic … Read the rest

It’s really extraordinary. That tweet has been sitting there since January 4 (with replies turned off, gee I wonder why). Why does Twitter permanently ban women who reject trans dogma while leaving a machete threat alone?… Read the rest

On the one hand and on the other hand –

Today:

https://twitter.com/LGBTfdn/status/1405559049203163137

Six months ago:

https://twitter.com/azemezi/status/1346268453221658624

People who will pick up machetes to chop up Adichie & Rowling – and the LGBT Foundation is whining about non-existent “transphobia.”… Read the rest