Graham has an encyclopedic post on the former Mermaids trustee which includes this fascinating item:

LSE's "I hold a knife to your throat" guy was a student of Jacob Breslow, who was recently given a platform by Cambridge Uni to hold an anti-TERF online event.

Besides "anti-terfing," Breslow also holds highly problematic views on children and sex. https://t.co/IjkeCHMtZL

— 4W (@4WPub) January 27, 2022

I wonder if this will be the end of the road for the fishy ones.… Read the rest

“Gender research” scholar resigns from Mermaids under a garish cloud:

A trustee of the transgender charity Mermaids resigned last night after it emerged that he had spoken at a conference hosted by an organisation that promotes services to paedophiles.

Aka child rapists.

Dr Jacob Breslow was a graduate student in gender research at the London School of Economics when he gave a presentation at an event for the US-based B4U-ACT in 2011.

Breslow’s presentation appeared to be a critique of how paedophiles were understood.

You mean as child rapists?

He’s now an assistant professor of gender and sexuality at LSE. He became a trustee of Mermaids in July.

After The Times approached Mermaids about Breslow’s talk, he tendered his resignation

Originally a comment by iknklast on A protean concept.

DiAngelo is following the pattern of other consultants. In corporations, and in academia, it has been a pattern for a long time to hire consultants who tell people if they are unhappy, it’s because they “let” themselves be. Not making enough to buy food for your family? Just think positively! It isn’t the fault of the boss, or the system, but you for finding that problematic.

Bosses ate it up, and hired these consultants to come tell their employees what was wrong with them – the employees, I mean. Wage too low? Don’t ask for a raise, that’s complaining. Figure out why you think it’s too low, and realize it … Read the rest

Hari Kunzru wrote a brilliant piece on “whiteness” for the New York Review of Books a couple of years ago.

One idea inherited from 1960s radicalism is that of “white privilege,” a protean concept that has found its way into conversations about political power, material prosperity, social status, and even cognition. Invoking whiteness can stand in for older leftist ideas about class and power, or it can be a way of modifying those ideas. Whiteness can name a specifically American caste system—a historical product of plantation slavery—or a set of unexamined beliefs about a person’s own centrality, neutrality, authority, and objectivity. It can also take on a transhistorical, even transcendental quality, naming something more like a spiritual condition, a

A funny item in Pink News last January:

Trans Joy: 23 trans and non-binary people share what’s making them feel hopeful for 2022

Anonymous, Brighton: “In 2021, I and my Sussex Uni peers kicked up enough fuss about TERFism in academia to get the whole nation talking, and I couldn’t be more proud of Brighton’s trans community.

“We’ve started a long-overdue conversation about humanity and dignity that I want to continue throughout 2022 and beyond.”

So much dignity and humanity!… Read the rest

Sorry for late appearance! Internet problems again. I’ll be scarce for a couple of days.

Update: Just one day as it turns out. I’m ba-ack!… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Rob on Not needed on voyage.

I’m not a fan of constitutional monarchies, but I’m not convinced that democracies that place significant power in the hands of presidents or similar posts have covered themselves with glory either. Ceremonial presidencies seem just as pointless as a constitutional monarch, although I guess it’s less likely to become hereditary.

Getting to my rambling point, if Charles is ‘just another guy’ then why shouldn’t he have and express a view? If he’s technically head of state, then why shouldn’t he display leadership – even if we feel distaste for why he’s head of state? The point in this specific case is that now he’s head of state he’s by … Read the rest

Mermaids instructs children on how to change their names. Obviously this is something some random goons on the internet should be doing rather than children’s parents. This is serious business, way too serious for parental units.

 What obligation does my school or workplace have if I change my name?

Changing a name is almost always a momentous moment for trans and non-binary people and it is becoming more and more common for trans people want to change their first name during childhood and adolescence. The changing of a name is often an indicator that an individual is taking steps to, or proposing to move towards presenting as their true gender identity. 

Sic. Mistakes theirs, not mine.

Any request

The government has told King Choss it doesn’t need his help at the environment summit.

I’ll say right up front I’m not consistent on this point. I think Choss has no standing to say anything on any subject, other than the ordinary human one. On the other hand turning the climate ship around is more important than keeping the monarchy in check. I think both that Choss should keep his opinions to himself because he has an arbitrary megaphone via birth, and that Choss should be allowed to warn about climate change because he has an arbitrary megaphone via birth.

Before his accession to the throne last month, the King – then the Prince of Wales – had indicated he

What happens when the weather tries to kill you.

Suzie Mack, a Fort Myers resident, told the BBC that her brother’s mobile home park saw water as high as 8ft during the storm.

Remember that stationary camera in Fort Myers? It was at 10ft and the waves kept submerging it.

“They got on their air mattresses inside their house, because it was too late to leave, and by the time the surge got to its peak, they had about a foot of air left in their homes,” she said. “Nobody died there, but it was a horrific story to hear.”

That’s what happened in Katrina. The water rose and rose and rose and people had to break through their … Read the rest

Yellow stars ffs.

Where do you think all prejudice starts? With concentration camps? It started with yellow stars and, yes, exclusion from sporting clubs. Please, read some history.

— Jane Caro (@JaneCaro) October 2, 2022

I have read some history.

Nobody is pinning yellow stars on trans people, or advocating for doing so, or advocating for anything that looks like pinning yellow stars on trans people. Knowing that men are not women is not comparable to pinning yellow stars on Jews.

Also, of course, it didn’t start with yellow stars, it started centuries before Hitler, with religious rivalries and popes and inquisitions and all the rest of the poison brew.… Read the rest

Two of these today.

Us, our, we, us.

Who?

US I tell you! WE!… Read the rest

Janice Turner on girls and those bumps:

Female puberty is like being bundled into a runaway car. Let’s put aside periods, the shock of blood, the tsunami of emotions. Let’s concentrate on a girl of 12 or so, who until now has wandered the world thinking little about her body, suddenly acquiring breasts.

At the same time, though, she is suddenly acquiring periods, the shock of blood, the blurghy achy feeling every month, the mess and tedium of it all, the risk of showing – all this and tits. It’s way too much. It’s too much and too early – the brain and the emotions are nowhere near adult. Honestly there ought to be a law. It’s widely … Read the rest

Stupidity and credulity are spreading like a poison gas.

Because he says he is; that’s good enough.

So, saying something=that something is true. Always, because saying is good enough.

So nobody ever lies.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Update seconds later: Apparently it’s a parody account. And yet, people do say that, if perhaps not quite so baldly.… Read the rest

More credulous bilge pours out of people at the University of Southern Maine:

USM grad students in Professor Christy Hammer’s class say recent discussions on social gender and biological sex identifications got heated when Hammer told the class only two biological sexes exist, male and female.

All but one student walked out of class, feeling the professor’s comments were a personal attack on trans, non-binary and intersex students.

An utterly basic biological fact was interpreted as a “personal attack” on people who share the mass delusion that they can soar free of that basic biological fact.

“I believe that everyone should be accepted based on their identity,” [student Liv] Petersen said. “And I think the professor was in the wrong

LGBTQ Nation insults women not once but twice…or probably even more than that, I haven’t checked the whole list yet.

We’re in the FINAL stretch!!! It’s the LAST WEEK to make your voice heard and vote for @SecretaryLevine LGBTQ NATION POLITICAL HERO. Vote for all your #LGBTQNationHeroes once a day, per device, until voting closes on FRIDAY September 30th: https://t.co/6VoxvjoAst pic.twitter.com/KTSFnVaz8e

— LGBTQ Nation (@lgbtqnation) October 1, 2022

Secretary Levine is a man scooping up plaudits for being “the First Openly Transgender Four-Star Officer and First Female Four-Star Admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.”

Why is he a nominee? For having it both ways? Being first ever trans and first ever female? The fact that he’s trans=he’s … Read the rest

Insult & injury=

We’re in the FINAL stretch!!! It’s the LAST WEEK to make your voice heard and vote for #LiaThomas LGBTQ NATION SPORTS HERO. Vote for all your #LGBTQNationHeroes once a day, per device, until voting closes on FRIDAY September 30th: https://t.co/tDxJf3ypCk pic.twitter.com/IJ62dNr453

— LGBTQ Nation (@lgbtqnation) September 30, 2022

… Read the rest