Uh oh. Are terfs about to be shoved off the naughty step by merfs?

Mermaids, that’s what the M stands for. We take you now to Sydney for

There was a pivotal moment in Queen Pangke Tabora’s life that eclipsed all others: It was the moment, she says, when she first slid her legs into a mermaid tail.

She what? Where did she get it? Did she murder a mermaid? Did she buy it on the black market from someone who murdered a mermaid? Those things don’t just come off like a pair of jeans you know – they’re the mermaid’s below the waist body.

For the transgender Filipina woman approaching middle age, seeing her legs encased in vibrant, scaly-looking

Verso deleted the “womb carriers” tweet, and then tried to claw back a little of its credibility.

Key texts for understanding feminism at the intersection of class and race— 40% off!

— Verso Books (@VersoBooks) June 23, 2022

You first.… Read the rest

It looks as if the blockage has been dissolved.

The International Hockey Federation (IHF) and World Triathlon have joined a raft of governing bodies reviewing their policy on the involvement of transgender athletes in women’s sport following last weekend’s ruling by swimming’s top body FINA.

Yesssssssssssssss. Do that.

“We are conducting a review of our transgender policy and this is a current work in progress in consultation with the IOC (International Olympic Committee),” a spokesperson for the IHF told Reuters on Wednesday.

World Triathlon are working on their own guidelines which will be released after the approval of the Executive Board in November, following a review by the medical committee, women’s committee and equality, diversity & inclusion commission.

Once

Two different issues:

The Biden administration on Thursday proposed new rules governing how schools must respond to sex discrimination, rolling back major parts of a Trump administration policy that narrowed the scope of campus sexual misconduct investigations and cementing the rights of transgender students into law.

Sexual harassment and assault are one issue, and what “transgender” means is another. They shouldn’t be mashed together in a single sentence.

The proposal would also address discrimination under Title IX, the federal law signed 50 years ago today that prohibits the exclusion from, or denial of, educational benefits on the basis of sex in federally funded programs.

In other words, I think, the proposal would hijack Title IX’s protections for women’s rights … Read the rest

“Conservative.”

The US supreme court has opened the door for almost all law-abiding Americans to carry concealed and loaded handguns in public, after the conservative majority struck down a New York law that placed strict restrictions on firearms outside the home.

That’s not conservative – it’s reckless, it’s homicidal, it’s dangerous. It’s labeled “conservative” only because lefties have better sense about it than righties do.

The New York law struck down on Thursday required anyone wanting to carry a handgun in public to prove that they had a “proper cause” to do so.

…

The decision in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen renders the law an unconstitutional violation of the second amendment right to

Verso Books joins the competition to see who can insult women the best.

In the 1970s up to 50% of Native womb carriers were sterilized against their will by the Indian Health Service (IHS).

— Verso Books (@VersoBooks) June 23, 2022

… Read the rest

Hmm. Nine genders? Are we drawing close to precision and clarity at last?

I am glad @ReginaDo recognizes that there are two sexes. Would she & @FineGael now be happy to protect SEX as well as Gender ID under Equality law? https://t.co/b4wk6e43lP

— Iseult (@iseult) June 22, 2022

“About” nine. Interesting mix of precision and vagueness.

Starts here:

Delayed tweet thread based on this afternoon's oral evidence on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill from Senator Regina Doherty, Leader, Seanad Éireann. https://t.co/y7LuvbBxr8

— MurrayBlackburnMackenzie (@mbmpolicy) June 22, 2022

It was all going well at first, she says, but now there’s “the kind of debate, divisive debate that we have seen in the UK, America and Canada.” Sorry for being so divisive … Read the rest

Where Megan Rapinoe talked all this nonsense is in an interview with Sean Gregory in TIME that starts with a discussion of Title IX.

What does Title IX mean to you?

Oh, goodness. I mean, Title IX gave me the opportunity to play soccer in college and get a scholarship. I don’t think I even knew about it until probably I got to college, or a little bit after. It wasn’t in my consciousness. That’s kind of the amazing thing about my generation is, we didn’t have to think about it. It was just there for us.

Ok stop right there. Title IX gave her those opportunities as a woman, which she wouldn’t have had without it. Athletic scholarships … Read the rest

People allow themselves to say the most bizarre nonsense on this subject.

these comments from @mPinoe on #trans women in sport are so important.

what are we actually talking about here? why should success in sport trump someone's right & freedom to participate? why should a medal or a record take priority over someone's life?https://t.co/VQDCAFv6Oe

— Samantha Lewis (@battledinosaur) June 21, 2022

The thing is Samantha Lewis isn’t just a random bystander (like me for example). She’s a women’s football writer. This makes her questions extremely odd – like a doctor asking “What is the point of medicine? Why do we interfere with people’s right to be sick?”

Why should success in sport trump someone’s right & freedom to … Read the rest

I remember when Republicans talked about law and order. Must have been a long time ago.

State election officials testified before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, recounting how Donald Trump and his allies pressured them to overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election in the weeks leading up to the deadly Capitol attack.

Trump continued his efforts even after members of his own party repeatedly told him that reversing the election results would violate state laws and the US constitution, the officials testified.

As a result of Trump’s persistence, election officials and poll workers were subjected to violent, hateful and at times racist threats from the former president’s supporters.

And yet he’s still not in prison, … Read the rest

Speaking of the necessity of choice between competition and inclusion –

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on When you operate with the value of compassion first.

If participation in sports is now to be based on “compassion,” and “inclusion,” then trans-identified prospective athletes are going to have to line up behind the millions of boys, girls, men, and women who fail to make the team of their choice. Or is their “exclusion” somehow okay? The vast majority of these “excludees” are not going to be allowed to try to game the rules by trying out teams they’re not qualified for. High-schoolers aren’t going to be permitted to sign up for primary school teams. Adults aren’t going … Read the rest

About that World Athletics item – Sean Ingle yesterday:

The World Athletics president, Sebastian Coe, has hailed swimming’s decision to ban transgender women from elite female competition as in “the best interests of its sport” – and hinted that track and field could soon follow suit.

If it’s in the best interests of one sport it’s surely in the best interests of all of them.

Lord Coe was in Budapest on Sunday as swimming’s governing body, Fina, voted to bar from women’s events trans athletes who have experienced any part of male puberty. Within 24 hours he announced that the World Athletics council would also be reviewing its transgender and DSD (differences in sex development) athletes policies at the

Sean Ingle notes that finally the powers that be are having to pay attention.

The biggest battles in this summer of sport are being fought over in the boardrooms and backrooms, as federations wrestle with the thorniest question of all: should transgender women be allowed to participate in female sport?

It’s only “thorny” because fools made it thorny. It wasn’t thorny before. It was settled practice: men didn’t play on women’s teams or race against women or get in the ring with women.

For years most have regarded the issue as too dangerous to touch: the sporting equivalent of playing pass the parcel with a live grenade. Now, though, they have no choice. The emergence of elite trans women,

Jeez. Trump can’t even subjunctive.

“If I didn’t endorse him [DeSantis], he wouldn’t have won,” Trump told the New Yorker, which published an in-depth story profiling DeSantis’s rise.

Tsssss. No no NO. “If I hadn’t endorsed him, he wouldn’t have won.”

Anyway, the point is, the repellent governor of Florida Ron DeSantis is getting too much attention for Trump’s liking, so he very naturally announces that that attention is all thanks to him, the great and powerful Oz.

The governor’s rising star and declining interest in hanging out with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, are fuelling resentment among the former president’s inner circle. One Republican political consultant told the New Yorker, “Trump World is working overtime to find

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on When politics becomes identity.

Re. communist China, on of the main lessons I learned from Jung Chang’s biography of Chairman Mao was that the endless purges and show-trials were not even meant to smoke out any real dissenters. At least that wasn’t their main function. The real purpose was conveying the following message: “Someone is going to get it during the next purge whether they are in fact guilty or not. Make sure it’s not you!”. And of course the way to make sure it wasn’t you was by making sure it was somebody else. In other words, it wasn’t enough to be “innocent” of any heretical tendencies. In fact, … Read the rest

Gee, thanks, BBC. What star woman athlete did they book onto the Today program to talk about men in women’s sports?

Fallon Fox. A man who broke a woman’s skull.

What was @BBCRadio4 @BBCr4today thinking by inviting trans fighter Fallon Fox onto the show to talk about FINAs new trans policy for womens swimming .

Fox is on record saying “I enjoyed” fracturing a woman’s skull and “I love smacking up terfs’ @NadineDorries @JustinOnWeb https://t.co/ONbO561EC6 pic.twitter.com/M4S7IjeQFT

— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen) June 21, 2022

… Read the rest

Man who identifies as woman says it’s all a big mistake.

Those who support these moves sometimes argue that segregation between trans and cisgender women in sports is regrettable, but necessary for fairness.

It’s not “segregation.” That’s a loaded word in this context, and it’s not the right one in any case. Women and men are already separate categories – women and men. That’s not “segregation,” it’s reality.

Also, I don’t say keeping men out of women’s sports is regrettable. I don’t think it’s the least bit regrettable; what’s regrettable is not doing that. What’s regrettable is letting William Thomas and Rhys McKinnon steal all those wins from women.

They argue that the performance gap is so large that

Originally a comment by Artymorty on A broader range of social justice causes.

All across the left, we’re seeing this. It’s because the left have conceptualized the causes we hold dear — the environment, gay rights, anti-racism, women’s reproductive rights — not as fixed, external objectives we’re trying to achieve at this point in time in political history (reduction in greenhouse gases, equal rights for sexual and racial minorities, access to contraception and abortion, etc.) but as relative, internalized political identities on an ever-shifting political spectrum. When a progressive cause gains ground and enters the mainstream zeitgeist, it’s not seen as a victory but a loss: the cause is no longer appealing to the activists who championed it because … Read the rest

Two steps forward one step back.

British sports governing bodies are under mounting pressure to reform their policies after world swimming banned transgender athletes who reached male puberty from elite women’s events.

Although the policy could have been passed just by Fina’s executive bureau, endorsement was sought from national governing bodies at an extraordinary general congress in Budapest ahead of the World Swimming Championships.

More than 70 per cent of governing bodies agreed, with 15.3 per cent against, and 13.1 per cent who abstained.

Those are the forward. Now the back.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) announced a new policy on Thursday, opting to allow transgender women to compete if they have gone through puberty provided their testosterone

The thing about “the environment” is, we all live in it. We all depend on it for life. In that sense it’s not really political, and working to preserve it is not really political, because of the “all” bit.

But apparently activism to do that has become increasingly political.

When Aaron Mair ascended to the board presidency of the Sierra Club, he brought a new mission to the century-old environmental group: Where once it devoted itself solely to conservation issues, now it would embrace a much broader range of social justice causes.

That makes no sense to me. Social justice causes are fine, but conservation needs full attention all by itself.

Mair’s arrival accelerated then-executive director Michael Brune’s own