We’re not the ones who have “bought into the confusion.”

I'm sorry that you've bought into the fear mongering and confusion. Trans-women are women. Period.

Nothing about this is REMOTELY like believing in bread transforming to the literal body of christ. Trans people aren't claiming to be Cis. THAT would fit your analogy.

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) November 30, 2021

A stupid counter-factual assertion doesn’t become less stupid or less counter-factual because you add a “Period” to it. Matt Dillahunty is Lauren Boebert’s second-best espresso machine. Period. See? It doesn’t work. Trans women are men who say they feel like women inside. That’s what “trans women” means. It’s the word “women” that means “women”; the phrase “trans women” means something … Read the rest

Harrop was worse than I knew. Graham Linehan and ripx4nutmeg share some revolting details of what he and Stephanie Hayden did to Caroline Farrow:

Not your average caring GP.

Caroline’s husband is a Catholic priest at two parishes and in 2019 Harrop asked Stephanie Hayden for a game of golf, using a picture of one of her husband’s churches. Hayden famously has a conviction for attacking a man with a golf club.

Taunts and “jokes” that went on and on, and more. Targeted sadistic relentless harassment of a woman he disagrees with over trans dogma. One month really doesn’t seem like enough after reading all that. (The worst harassment shown here was by someone else, but Harrop’s was only … Read the rest

The BBC picks up a very long pair of tongs to talk about [whispers] hijab.

Europe’s top human rights organisation has pulled posters from a campaign that promoted respect for Muslim women who choose to wear headscarves after provoking opposition in France.

See it? The very long pair of tongs? It’s the “choose to” bit. It’s tendentious to talk about Muslim women “choosing to” wear hijab when in fact women are forced to wear it, and tortured or even killed for refusing to wear it, in many places where Islam has not liberalized even slightly.

It’s probably the case that many Muslim women in Europe do have a choice, but it’s also well known that many of them don’t… Read the rest

The Times quotes Stonewall:

A Stonewall spokesperson said: “It is not true that Stonewall looks to shut down debate. Meaningful, constructive debate and discussion around complex policy ideas are at the heart of what we do as a charity. The one thing we do not debate is whether trans people exist. They do, and what we need to discuss is how to make a world where all LGBTQ+ are free to be themselves.”

Even if it’s true that Stonewall doesn’t look to shut down debate, it sure as hell does muddy it. That spokesperson spokement is some very wet sloppy mud.

Nobody is saying “trans people don’t exist.” That’s not the issue at all. We all know there … Read the rest

Such a nice man, and (as he doesn’t mind saying himself) such a feminist.

You mean the people who called out her transphobic remarks? I call them "correct".

There is no canceling, just accountability.

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) November 29, 2021

Biologically female isn't relevant to being a woman.

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) November 29, 2021

Huh. Tell that to a woman giving birth. Tell it to a woman in her 35th week of pregnancy. Tell it to a woman who’s been raped. Tell it to the women who lost medals to Veronica Ivy and Laurel Hubbard. Tell it, as another person on Twitter said to him, to the Taliban.… Read the rest

So as you’ve seen Harrop received a one month suspension.

Decision was handed down privately – 1 month suspension.

— The Adrian Harrop Tribunal (@tribunaltweets) November 30, 2021

That sounds like nothing but word is it’s not. It’s on his record and will limit his career from now on.

2/ Suspensions are generally rare and this will have an effect on career prospects / insurance and reputation.

It's not the sort of thing anyone with any sense would celebrate as an outcome.

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) November 30, 2021

It’s on the record that he engaged in inappropriate, insulting and at times intimidatory communications on Twitter – in short that he’s a bully. … Read the rest

There’s an odd thing about Matt Dillahunty’s trans dogma though.

I'm sorry for you. Because I am smart, sassy and clear sighted – I'm just not a bigot and I'm able to tell the difference between biological sex and gender, which is a social construct.

My critical faculties are fine, thank you.

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) November 30, 2021

Ok so trans women are women in the sense of having (or being or living or some other verb) female gender, but not in the sense of being of the female sex. But in that case, what makes it ok for trans women “to access spaces where women and girls are undressing, such as changing rooms?” How does gender, a … Read the rest

From the Shut Up I Win files:

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1465492195901906947 https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1465489711825408003 https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1465505512334708736

I feel lucky that I never wasted any admiration on Matt Dillahunty. Never listened to the podcast, only ever heard him speak once, at the American Atheists jamboree in Austin, and found him obnoxiously macho-loud and overbearing. Stamped CONFIRMED.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on All the rights.

There is only one trans “right” being asserted by activists, and that is the “right” to have everyone else in the world affirm their particular religious beliefs, at all times and in all places.

The incoming government of Germany has recently signed an agreement in principle on their governing priorities, which must now be referred to the coalition parties at large for approval before that government can be put into effect. When the agreement is approved, the measures within it will not automatically become law, but they provide a roadmap for what the government wishes to accomplish during its reign.

Many of the proposals are undoubtedly an improvement over … Read the rest

The stars of Activism are really on fire today. Not entirely in a good sense.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1465392439322103823

Spaces set aside for other people aren’t a “right.” Puberty blockers and elective amputations aren’t “health care.” “Legal protections” that endanger other people aren’t “protections.”

He summoned the troops.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1465397550287106049

Well, really snarky, at least.… Read the rest

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

On a visit to Paris earlier this month, Harris reportedly spent more than $500 on cookware at E Dehillerin, a shop near the Louvre museum. 

Well, yes, that Le Creuset stuff is expensive.

Republicans and rightwing media outlets seized on the purchase, attempting to use it to show that the vice-president, a former California attorney general and US senator, was out of touch with ordinary Americans.

Ahhhh yes because 500 whole dollars, in sharp contrast to Donald Trump.

That’s his very own tasteful understated man of the people living room. … Read the rest

Points of view.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1465390135676125187

Oh what was that? thought I, and it didn’t take much hunting to find out.

So frustrated. Horrible experience today. Someone wants to eliminate you – and you’re not allowed to mention it? Don’t know what to do. Feels like I’m in shock. Need to think about this for a little while #BBC

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) November 29, 2021

If someone wants you “eliminated” there is no middle ground. Farce. #BBC

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) November 29, 2021

It was on PM on Radio 4, so I’ll be listening later.

https://twitter.com/TVpsychologist/status/1465379464838369291

Well that’s a stupid question for a psychologist, even a TV one. Of course we can debate what people claim to “know” and “feel.” … Read the rest

I don’t understand what their point is, the people who write this kind of thing, whether in the Telegraph or on Fox News or on Twitter.

The PM says these measures are designed to prevent a lockdown, but I am utterly convinced they’re the beginnings of one. If they are necessary because the omicron variant’s mutations mean it travels fast, and it has already been spotted nesting in the UK, logic suggests that cases will jump – which means more pressure on the NHS and on ministers to act. How many times have we been told “thus far and hopefully no further”, only for the PM to appear on television days later and admit, with regret, that we have

… Read the rest

Other news:

https://twitter.com/selfcommit2othe/status/1465291696971952140 https://twitter.com/selfcommit2othe/status/1465325730456297484

The tribunal is deciding whether or not to suspend him.… Read the rest

Trans activist says what?

Selfish are those who demand society changes its way of life to accommodate their need to feel *safe. Demand what you want, it will not be happening. Many people are waking up to this nonsense.

— Stephanie Hayden (@flyinglawyer73) November 29, 2021

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha… Read the rest

Oh is that what they call it.

The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said on Saturday he had “reached out” to Democrats over Islamophobic comments made by one of his party, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, about the Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar.

Boebert apologised for the remarks, in which she likened one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress to a suicide bomber, on Friday, saying she wanted to meet Omar in person. 

No she didn’t. We saw this yesterday. She didn’t apologize. She did the “sorry you got so offended” thing. You don’t apologize for an insult by saying “Apologies to anyone who was offended by the insult.” That’s not an apology. It treats the insult as only … Read the rest

A tweet prompted me to look for sources.

You’re simply ignorant if you laugh at the possibility that the Koch brothers have been funding an attack on US universities. Shrug.

— Jason Stanley (@jasonintrator) November 28, 2021

The Koch organization (only one of the two brothers is still present-tense) is notorious for funding all kinds of reactionary causes, though it also funds items like the PBS series Nova, but I don’t know specifics about an attack on US universities. So, here’s a Trotskyist site with details!

Joking aside, I think I have seen the details before, without properly filing them in the memory system.

Last month, the George Mason University protest group “UnKoch My Campus” released documents to the public

… Read the rest

It’s all “shut up and take it, bitch” at the rape therapy support group.

A rape victim who thought she had found a safe all-female space to help her come to terms with the sexual violence she endured has told how she was left deeply troubled by the arrival of a biologically male trans woman ‘with no obvious female attributes’.

…

Charity bosses insisted the trans woman had every right to be there as they allow people to define their gender for themselves, saying: ‘We do not police gender.’

Well they should. They’re an absolutely worthless, indeed harm-doing charity if they refuse to keep men out of women’s support groups.

Sarah, who was abused between the ages of eight

… Read the rest

LGBTQ Nation is furious at feminists who think women in prison shouldn’t have to be locked up with men. LGBTQ Nation doesn’t call them feminists, of course.

A group of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) have filed a lawsuit against the state of California for placing transgender women in female prisons.

Well, yes. It’s cruel and unusual punishment to place men in women’s prisons.

The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a group that opposes the extension of legal and civil rights to transgender people, recently filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Bakersfield.com reported. The lawsuit  claims to represent a group of incarcerated women as well as Woman II Woman, another TERF group.

Ah … Read the rest

Guest post by Bruce Everett

Been feeling oddly Kantian lately, on account of some considerations about the Drake equation, red dwarfs, and the evolution of the universe. The imminent launch of the James Webb telescope is bringing this on as well.

Several terrible documentaries and an awful lot of bad science fiction makes a bit of a fetish out of the idea of “Ancient Aliens”, largely because the narrative of some kind of idealized past that can return to save us addresses a weird but pervasive need…

I can’t relate to it. I find it a bit puerile to be honest; quit an over-reliance on Sky Daddy; start looking for Space Daddy. Couldn’t stand Stargate, sorry.

And the kookiness of … Read the rest