Rosie Duffield on the bullying:

I have lived through an abusive relationship and have spoken about it in Parliament. I was reminded of making that speech earlier this week — the daily trauma that inspired it, how hard it was to make and, afterwards, the overwhelming support of my colleagues. That was the Labour Party I joined.

On Tuesday, when two of those colleagues traded that sympathy for aggression, shouting down women in the Chamber, it felt like a very different Labour Party. I was defending the need to protect vulnerable women in single-sex spaces, and had just criticised Scotland’s Gender Reform Bill, when Ben Bradshaw yelled his disapproval at me. Sitting nearby, Lloyd Russell-Moyle went puce — 

The Lloyd Russell-Moyle ragefest was even worse than I knew. He wasn’t satisfied with just shouting at Miriam Cates and stabbing his finger at her and making rage-face at her; he got up and went to sit close to her and stare at her. Sicko.

This morning I suggested that @RosieDuffield1 was mistaken – I’m happy to correct that – she wasn’t
Here is the intimidation and bullying in three screenshots
I hope @CommonsSpeaker @Keir_Starmer and @UKLabour will now investigate Lloyd Russell-Moyle’s behaviour in parliament pic.twitter.com/fwv2BOtQDc

— Tim (@forwardnotback) January 20, 2023

I was there and saw Lloyd Russell Moyle bizarrely go and sit close to Miriam Cates on the Conservative side of chamber after his extraordinary outburst. So I

There are so many gaps in information to this story that it’s hard to form an opinion on it.

Florida Rejects A.P. African American Studies Class

Florida will not allow a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies to be offered in its high schools, stating that the course is not “historically accurate” and violates state law.

In a letter last week, the Florida Department of Education informed the College Board, which administers A.P. exams, that it would not include the class in the state’s course directory. Rigorous A.P. courses allow high school students to obtain credit and advanced placement in college.

“As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational

The Baroness raises some interesting questions.

Why drag queens? Is there any equivalent butch woman story hour? Prostitute story hour? Stripper story hour? Kink story hour?

We don’t view minstrel shows as entertainment any more, let alone as entertainment for children.

How is it that we can see at a glance how insulting and destructive that is, but are fine with men mocking women?… Read the rest

Hmmmm.

An elderly man spotted wearing a girl’s school uniform near a Leigh secondary school and on a bus “does not pose a risk”, according to police who have urged the public to stop sharing photos of him.

Social media has been flooded with reports of the man wearing Belfairs Academy uniform in the vicinity of the Highlands Boulevard school this week, as well as on a bus in the area while children travelled home. 

Photos have also been posted online of the man wearing a Milton Hall Primary School uniform.

Photos not of this man wearing girls’ school uniforms at home, mind you, but wearing them in public while loitering near the schools and riding the bus the … Read the rest

A bit of good news at last:

Former president Donald Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habba, have been fined almost $1 million by a federal judge in Florida for what was ruled a frivolous lawsuit brought against his 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton and others.

Trump is a “prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries,” wrote U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks in his searing 46-page judgment published late Thursday.

“He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer. He knew full well the impact of his actions,” said Middlebrooks. “As such, I find

Priyamvada Gopal outdoes herself again.

Three white people and one dominant caste middle-class British Asian discuss the lives of the marginalised and how to further marginalise them. Inspirational.

— Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) January 20, 2023

Caste?????

Wait there’s more –

I didn't know about the Islamophobia bit but again, goes with the terrain of dominant caste Hindu background. Combined with British mainstream discourse.

— Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) January 20, 2023

“Islamophobia” in this context means skeptical or critical of theocratic Islam.

And “dominant caste Hindu background” is a snide (worse than snide) hint that Sonia Sodha is an ally of Modi and his Hindutva goals. It’s outrageous.… Read the rest

Dr Em at Wings Over Scotland last year on Why woke blokes abuse women:

The woke bloke contempt for women is clear, and abusive behaviours are on full display. Reading through Lundy Bancroft’s pivotal work “Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men”, the full cast of characters is present on Twitter, in the news and in our political parties and institutions.

…

Bancroft’s work, sometimes criticised for being too inclusive and easily applied to any man, is corroborated by what women know personally from relationships with abusive men, the patterns we recognise and which are analysed by domestic violence charities such as Refuge and charities attempting to end violence against women such

At long last, Willoughby, have you no shame?

The “trans community” is not, repeat not, being subject to anything resembling what Jewish people were, and Willoughby of course knows that perfectly well. He didn’t say “Holocaust” or “genocide” or “8 million” but he invoked it with “state demonisation and stripping of rights.” Sleazy dirty creepy deniability.

Why isn’t it more obvious to more people that this kind of ludicrous and wildly offensive appropriation of actual genocide is a massive red flag? Why is the deranged hyperbole of trans activism embraced with such enthusiasm by people who only a few short years ago appeared to be adults?… Read the rest

He doesn’t want to use the both sexes gym, he wants to use the women’s gym. There’s no thrill in using the both sexes one, it’s only the women’s that provides the creepy invasive threatening you don’t get to say no to me vibe.

A transgender woman in Parksville is speaking out after she was allowed to sign up for a women-only gym, then later told she would only be allowed to access the co-ed gym due to the fact that she is trans.

No, due to the fact that he is male.

Brigid Klyne-Simpson says she previously had a rocky relationship with exercise because she didn’t feel comfortable going to gyms and working out with mostly men.

So … Read the rest

The Chronicle of Higher Education discussed the Hamline issue last week.

Hamline administrators, who have previously shared information mostly through written statements, granted an interview to The Chronicle. In it they defended their handling of the controversy, in which Erika López Prater, the lecturer, saw her contract go unrenewed after the course ended.

The CHE is reminding us that non-renewal of an adjunct’s contract is different from firing, because adjuncts are always subject to non-renewal of contract – they don’t have tenure. It’s a well known academic scandal that colleges and universities take advantage of that difference more and more, because it’s so much cheaper and more convenient for them.

Hamline administrators told The Chronicle on Friday that what happened

The Washington Post tells us Erika López Prater is suing Hamline.

On Tuesday, attorneys for the professor, Erika López Prater, served Hamline with a lawsuit that, among other claims, alleges religious discrimination and defamation by the school. López Prater, through her lawyer, and Hamline University declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.

The religious discrimination issue is interesting. It is religious discrimination to punish people for not obeying the orders or rules of a religion. It’s religious discrimination to act as if one’s own religion is binding on everyone else.

At a news conference on Jan. 11, CAIR’s local Minnesota chapter described the incident at Hamline as Islamophobic.

The chapter’s executive director, Jaylani Hussein, said that showing images of the

Facebook showed me a sponsored promotion of a conference at Radcliffe (I bet even Facebook doesn’t know my sister was a Cliffy) titled The Age of Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion in America. Hm, thought I, I wonder if they managed to tell us about the conference without ever saying “women” so I took a look.

Finding:

Of course they did. How? Like so:

Harvard Radcliffe Institute will hold a major public conference January 26–27, 2023, to probe the complex and unpredictable ways that Roe v. Wade and its aftermath shaped the United States and the world beyond it for nearly half a century. The existential issue of abortion—and the galvanizing impact of Roe in particular—transformed the

The BBC on Lloyd Russell-Moyle’s bullying:

In the Commons on Tuesday, Lloyd Russell-Moyle accused Tory Miriam Cates of making “transphobic” comments.

Shouting, with features contorted by rage.

[Cates] said the proposed changes would make it “vastly easier for a predator to get access to children, to change their sex, to change their gender, with an eye to exploiting loopholes of accessing children and women in particular”.

In response, Mr Russell-Moyle, who was the next speaker, told the Commons: “Goodness me, that speech was probably one of the worst transphobic, dog-whistle speeches that I have heard in an awful long time. The idea of linking trans people with predators, frankly, is disgusting and you should be ashamed.”

He said the … Read the rest

Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP does a classic “that bitch made me do it” pretend apology:

“Passion and anger” because a woman thinks women should continue to have single-sex spaces. Male MP can’t control his rage when a female MP seeks to protect women’s rights.

He limited replies to people he follows, but there are many angry quote-tweets.

Yeah, we get it, you failed to control your passionate misogyny. A lot of other men can relate. https://t.co/NQSqIn0hiX

— Violet (@violet___0_0_0_) January 18, 2023

So…a man who can’t control his temper around women.

Which is kind of the problem Lloyd…#Labourlosingwomen https://t.co/vk5GBCM7mo

— Posh And Proud (@PoshAndProud1) January 18, 2023

‘It’s your fault that I hit you. You made me do it!’

More from the “people in Arizona don’t seem to grasp what an arid climate is” department:

Rio Verde Foothills, a suburb of Scottsdale, was cut off from the city’s water supply on 1 January. The controversial move left hundreds without access to running water, prompting residents to file a lawsuit demanding that services be restored.

Scottsdale argues that it bears no responsibility for Rio Verde. In a statement published on 16 January, the city of Scottsdale said that it had for years “warned and advised” Rio Verde – which is governed by nearby Maricopa County – that it could not depend on the city’s water supply, particularly during periods of drought.

Yes but the people in Rio Verde really need… Read the rest

Well that god sure as hell hates women.

A man who beheaded his 17-year-old wife has been sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran, the judiciary says.

Images of Sajjad Heydari carrying Mona’s severed head in Ahvaz after the so-called “honour killing” last year caused widespread outrage.

Nah it’s fine. Women have to be disciplined.

Mona had been married to her husband since the age of 12 and had given birth to their son when she was only 14.

That is, Mona was given to a man like so much livestock when she was 12 years old.

Local media reported that she had fled to Turkey after allegedly being subjected to domestic violence by her husband, who had

Originally a comment by tigger_the_wing on Not equal treatment but elevated status.

As I was reading this, I was simultaneously engaged in a territorial dispute with my cat. Wherever I made room for him on my bed, he kept trying to lie on my shins. No amount of moving him, moving my legs, pleading with him that other parts of the bed are more comfortable, or explaining that he can’t lie on my legs because it hurts me was going to dissuade him from trying, because he’s a cat, and lying on my legs was the point. He’s intellectually incapable of understanding anything more complex than “I want to lie there, because that’s warm.” My legs radiate heat; … Read the rest

An academic paper from 2013:

Boycunts and Bonus Holes: Trans Men’s Bodies, Neoliberalism, and the Sexual Productivity of Genitals

One author is an anthropologist, the other is a linguist.

You want to read the abstract, right? Of course you do.

Recent theorizations of trans embodiment have brought attention to the ways neoliberalism limits the productivity of nonnormatively gendered bodies. This article deals with the discursive framing of embodiment and sexual desirability among trans men and other transmasculine persons negotiating Internet-mediated homoerotic spaces. Micro-level analysis of discourse structure and macro-level analysis of socio-political context together show how trans men navigate homonormative sexual economies by linguistically recuperating their bodies’ sexually productivity. Instead of undermining claims of embodied masculinity and homoerotic value, potential

Argumentum ad fake comparison:

It’s not a “difference of opinion.” Try using that line when suggesting Black or Jewish rights are a threat to the public eg “I think Black people should be kept separate because they’re a threat – just my opinion, my free speech. “

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) January 18, 2023

I don’t have enough eyes to roll here.

He’s trying to jostle us into thinking men like him are comparable to Black people in majority-white societies or Jewish people in Nazi Germany. They’re not. Just being an identifiable group doesn’t make that group comparable to all other groups.

But they’re a demographic you see. As long as you’re a demographic you get to claim persecution … Read the rest