Originally a comment by Sastra on To promote well-being.

Phoenix has regular counselling with the psychologist, who judges that Phoenix’s distress is significant and enduring, and is not a symptom of an underlying psychopathology.

No, it appears that the psychopathology is draped right over the top, holding sparklers and dancing the Can-can.

I remember when the goal of enlightened feminism was for women, and the society they lived in, to minimize the significance of their sex and emphasize instead the importance of their character.. Yes, you are a woman, but that says little to nothing about your interests, capacities, talents, and goals, which constitute who you are. To constantly worry about whether you are WOMAN ENOUGH in the way … Read the rest

So the Lee statue is down and cut in half.

A crowd erupted in cheers and song Wednesday as work crews hoisted an enormous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee off the pedestal where it has towered over Virginia’s capital city for more than a century.

One of America’s largest monuments to the Confederacy, the equestrian statue was lowered to the ground just before 9 a.m., after a construction worker who strapped harnesses around Lee and his horse lifted his arms in the air and counted, “Three, two, one!” to jubilant shouts from a crowd of hundreds. A work crew then began cutting it into pieces.

Two pieces, that is: it was too tall for transport so they … Read the rest

An item from the Journal of Medical Ethics:

In this article, we analyse the novel case of Phoenix, a non-binary adult requesting ongoing puberty suppression (OPS) to permanently prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics, as a way of affirming their gender identity. We argue that (1) the aim of OPS is consistent with the proper goals of medicine to promote well-being, and therefore could ethically be offered to non-binary adults in principle; (2) there are additional equity-based reasons to offer OPS to non-binary adults as a group; and (3) the ethical defensibility of facilitating individual requests for OPS from non-binary adults also depends on other relevant considerations, including the balance of potential benefits over harms for that specific

… Read the rest

No trespassing:

HOLYROOD is changing its legal status to make it easier for the police to remove protesters.

Scottish Parliament bosses have asked the Home Office to designate the building and its grounds as a “protected site” in the interests of national security.

Of course protests and protesters aren’t a threat to national security. Insurrectionists are, as we’ve recently seen all too vividly, but protesters, no.

Legislation has now been laid in Westminster under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which is due to come into force on October 1.

At present, the police have limited powers to intervene if there is no substantive offence taking place, such as protesters making a prolonged noise outside the entrances.

… Read the rest

DoJ gonna sue.

The Justice Department plans to file a lawsuit against Texas over its restrictive anti-abortion law that critics say is unconstitutional and has brought a halt to women’s reproductive rights in the state, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

…

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Monday the department was urgently exploring all options to challenge the Texas law. The department will use powers under the so-called FACE Act to provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack, Garland said.

Note that Bloomberg News said “women’s reproductive rights,” something which is apparently out of reach of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.… Read the rest

A genealogy of Foucault: pic.twitter.com/Tt4hCQuC4W

— Brian Leiter (@BrianLeiter) September 9, 2021

… Read the rest

AND another:

Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has struck back after critics mocked her for using the phrase “menstruating person.”

In a CNN interview regarding Texas’ new anti-abortion law, Ms Ocasio-Cortez had carefully used the phrase to include trans men, non-binary Americans, and others who menstruate in addition to women. Some conservatives ridiculed her choice of words, but AOC fiercely defended it.

She “used the phrase” in talking to Anderson Cooper, and what she said is that she thinks Texas Governor Abbot “doesn’t understand a menstruating person’s body.” This isn’t a matter for ridicule but for outrage. Governor Abbot is ruining the lives of women; he’s waging war on women; he’s using state power to grind women into … Read the rest

You can’t fire us, we’re incompetent!

The White House confirmed on Wednesday that 11 Trump appointees to military service academy advisory boards, among them former press secretary Sean Spicer and adviser Kellyanne Conway, were asked to step down – or be fired.

Imagine putting Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway on any kind of advisory board, unless it’s for the Institute of Lying Hacks.

Conway released a letter in which she criticised Biden’s performance in office and said: “I’m not resigning, but you should.”

She tweeted it, too.

President Biden, I'm not resigning, but you should. pic.twitter.com/HuRYM4bLYP

— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 8, 2021

What’s the “Honorable” doing in front of her name? Is that a usual title bestowed … Read the rest

You could pay for quite a few school lunches with $160 billion.

The wealthiest 1% of Americans are responsible for more than $160bn of lost tax revenue each year, according to a new report from the US treasury.

And they’re the ones who need it least.

The wealthiest 1% of Americans are responsible for more than $160bn of lost tax revenue each year, according to a new report from the US treasury.

Aw, spoilsports. All those nice billionaires do so much for the country, inflating the price of housing and useful shit like that.

Republicans in Congress and lobbyists for business are united in opposition to the proposal to shore up tax enforcement.

Law and order? Fiscal responsibility? One … Read the rest

H/t Dave Ricks… Read the rest

They just can’t get it right.

On Tuesday, the Guardian published an interview with the American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler, which included a scathing critique of so-called “gender critical” transphobes and trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who don’t believe trans women are women, and oppose the right of transgender people to exist in gendered spaces, such as a bathrooms.

We don’t oppose anyone’s right to exist anywhere. That’s a sly way of putting it that nudges people to think we want trans people dead. Trans people don’t have a “right” to be in women’s spaces if they are men. Men don’t have a “right” to intrude on women, no matter how they define their “gender.”

Then the … Read the rest

Ok so I have to read the Nussbaum essay again, for the ___th time. I have to share some of the particular gems.

Left: Butler

Right: Nussbaum on Butler pic.twitter.com/P7Z2DBTedt

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) September 8, 2021

Many young feminists, whatever their concrete affiliations with this or that French thinker, have been influenced by the extremely French idea that the intellectual does politics by speaking seditiously, and that this is a significant type of political action.

See also: tweeting seditiously.

Trained as a philosopher, she is frequently seen (more by people in literature than by philosophers) as a major thinker about gender, power, and the body.

Much more. Much much much more. People in literature and people on Twitter.

It

… Read the rest

No, LP, anyone who is paying attention doesn’t know that, and neither do you.

Yes, but anyone who is actually paying attention knows that GC/Terf talking points feed directly back to the language of right-wing extremists. If she wasn’t talking about Bolsonaro/Orban, she should have been.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) September 7, 2021

Mind you “feed directly back” is confusing in itself – does she mean gender critical feminist talking points nourish right-wing extremist discourse, or does she mean they draw strength from them? Are we supposed to be aiding and abetting right-wing extremist discourse or is it supposed to be aiding and abetting us? Or both?

Or neither? Probably what she means is just that there is some overlap … Read the rest

JL at the Glinner Update has details on the guy who asked Judith Butler those leading questions.

Butler has, not surprisingly, become a pin-up girl of the gender identity cult. She can always be relied upon to throw proper feminists under the bus when gender zealots like those at the The Guardian need to wheel out a talking head who has at least a veneer of academic authority.

On this occasion, Butler was interviewed by Jules Gleeson, a trans identified male.

Gleeson is the co-editor of a book called Transgender Marxism. He has written in the past about the ‘noxious views’ of lesbians trying to defend their sex-based rights and has likened gender critical feminists to religious reactionaries

… Read the rest

Quite a large chunk was cut, as it turns out.

https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1435357430217646086

Here’s one I can actually read. Thanks Roz!

In a truly shocking moment of bigoted dishonesty, the Guardian has censored Judith Butler. pic.twitter.com/G6UZInA1av

— Roz Kaveney (@RozKaveney) September 7, 2021

There were “developments” you see.… Read the rest

It seems the Guardian edited that interview with Judith Butler.

https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1435352561087885317

It did?

https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1435353052601589763

So first thing I did was find that bit in my post from this morning, so that I could see how much was cut.

The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers have also rejected the important work in feminist philosophy of science showing how culture and nature interact (such as Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, EM Hammonds or Anne Fausto-Sterling) in favor of a regressive and spurious form of biological essentialism. So they will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times. So

… Read the rest

Oops you’re not supposed to say it out loud.

"It's quite challenging to LGB people, because if gender is on a spectrum, then homosexuality doesn't really exist, 'cos it can only exist in a binary…sexuality is redundant." So sayeth the UK's first trans minister. This is #newhomphobia #lesbianerasure #gayerasure #bierasure pic.twitter.com/Wrla5zJSvl

— SexNotGenderNI (@SexNotGenderNI) September 7, 2021

Joy Everingham is a Methodist deacon in Canterbury. This isn’t a parody.… Read the rest

Now there’s a headline.

NWHL changes its name to remove ‘women’s’ from title

Yayyyyyyyyyyy wait what?

The National Women’s Hockey League is history. Welcome, Premier Hockey Federation.

North America’s first women’s professional hockey league to pay players a salary announced on Tuesday it is adopting the new name as part of a rebranding strategy.

Well then why not name it the Hotties Hockey Federation? Or how about the Pumpkin Spice Latte Hockey Federation?

“We felt it’s time for our players to be defined by their talent and skill,” Tumminia said. “It’s not like they’re female phenomenal. You’re just phenomenal.”

And the way to underline that point is, as always, to delete the word “women.” Sure.

Metropolitan Riveters captain Madison Packer

… Read the rest

Greg Olear starts with the Texas law and the Supreme Court’s “Sure, go right ahead.”

After a day of excruciating silence, the Court voted 5-4 to let it be, citing some pusillanimous procedural technicality. Chief Justice Roberts sided with the three “liberal” justices, but the five other Federalist Society stooges on the bench—Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh—gave Texas the green light to go full Fascist, thus confirming what most of us feared all along: that Roe v. Wade is not safe, that the government is at war with women, that the radical Catholics who took over the Court are pro-tyranny.

We’re stuck with them except maybe for Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh is different.

… Read the rest

I’m reading Jesse Singal’s review of Helen Joyce’s book in the Times, and I’m interrupting my reading to say this one thing.

A primary goal of those who adhere to gender-identity ideology is to enact “gender self-identification,” or the idea “that people should count as men or women according to how they feel and what they declare, instead of their biology,” into norm and law. According to self-ID, as I’ll call it henceforth, once an individual reveals their gender identity, that trumps anyone else’s understanding of it. If you say you are a man or a woman, or both or neither, that is exactly what you are.

When followed faithfully, gender-identity ideology has important implications. 

Yes, it does, but … Read the rest