The CBC on the suppression of Robert Wintemute’s talk at McGill:

Trans rights advocates stormed into a talk Tuesday afternoon at McGill University led by a speaker associated with a group they say is “notoriously transphobic and trans-exclusionary.”

Not a great lede. “Trans rights” always need to be specified, because most readers will think just “human rights for trans people” when in fact what’s meant is a set of novel “rights” that are incompatible with other people’s rights. The people storming the talk weren’t so much “advocates” as an angry shouty mob who physically prevented people from going in. The way they libel the speaker shouldn’t be just slapped down there in the first sentence as if it were … Read the rest

What. the. hell.

Really @britishlibrary you should know & do better than this. It’s a disgrace & an insult to #women. pic.twitter.com/7IoXi5G4QP

— LGB Alliance Cymru (@LGBAllies_Cymru) January 12, 2023

I magnified to read the sign between the two so that you wouldn’t have to: it says “The nearest female WC is on the other side of the floor.”

PS fuck you and have a nice day.

Why do they do this? How can they not see how insulting and unfair and grotesque it is? How can they think it’s ok to give men toilets just for men while opening women’s toilets to anyone who feels like dropping in?… Read the rest

They promoted the “protest” on Facebook:

Also shared photos:

Small space filled with people; event cancelled; success!!… Read the rest

The dishonest reporting files:

Truthout:

Students at McGill University in Montreal Protest Anti-Trans Speaker

The speaker, Robert Wintemute, is a member of the anti-trans hate group LGB Alliance.

The students did more than “protest” and the speaker is not “anti-trans” and the LGB Alliance is not anti-trans and not a hate group. That’s a lot of lies for just the headline and subhead.

The story seems to have been written before the “protest” happened.

Lawyer Robert Wintemute is giving a speech at the university entitled “The Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate In the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T.” Wintemute is a member of the United Kingdom-based LGB Alliance, which claims to advocate for lesbian, gay

Why we can’t have anything nice ever:

Schools across the UK are encountering increasing numbers of pupils who admire [social media misogynist Andrew] Tate – and so teachers are having to work out how to respond.

Some are actively putting out guidance on how to talk about him, as part of a concerted attempt to tackle his influence.

…

“A lot of the boys can see that there’s parts of Andrew Tate that they respect and admire, and then there’s parts that they don’t – they know that he says a lot of terrible things,” says Ms Carson, 46, who teaches Learning for Life and Work – Northern Ireland’s equivalent of PSHE in England’s schools.

They know he says … Read the rest

Male barrister who claims to be a woman calls Helen Joyce “this numpty”.

He also claims she got the spelling of “trans women” wrong because a third party quoted her as saying (not writing) “transwomen.” How can the male barrister be sure she didn’t say “trans women”? How can the male barrister be sure the third party didn’t misquote her? How can the male barrister be such a numpty?

I’d love to know what this numpty thinks qualifies her to express such a view. A degree in psychology, perhaps. And it’s trans women (two words). https://t.co/HA6lg9BUTj

— Robin Moira White (she/her) (@moira_robin) January 11, 2023

… Read the rest

Steal everything. Steal the oppression and subordination of women, and when women push back, steal the genocides of the Nazis.

I've had this conversation with nearly all of my trans friends. Many are making backup plans to flee if things get worse. It feels like 1929 Berlin. https://t.co/iKxC3EG4Bo pic.twitter.com/3GRo4IDzYF

— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) January 11, 2023

… Read the rest

The porn-soaked kind.

Victoria Derbyshire reads some of Andrew Tate’s misogynistic words to Men at Work founder Michael Conroy, and asks what kind of young man is attracted to the influencer’s message #Newsnight | https://t.co/P0zxS1Elwd | @vicderbyshire pic.twitter.com/56MCpPXLxt

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) January 10, 2023

… Read the rest

Eliza Mondegreen has, fortunately for us, written up her experience of trans activist “protest” yesterday.

At first it was just a few saddos, and she felt almost sorry for them.

But just as I was stuffing the flyers into my backpack, feeling a little pity for the poor turnout, a surge of protesters arrived and the energy turned menacing all at once. The mob blocked access to the lecture hall. A friend and I tried to get to the doors and were pushed around as though lives depended on turning us back. We just wanted to hear a human-rights lawyer talk about a conflict in human-rights law.

It’s surreal, honestly, to be pushed and shoved and grabbed by people who

You don’t make law based on people’s fantasies about themselves, either.

"You can get a certificate on the basis of self-ID… of course men are going to use that, it has happened," says Guardian's Sonia Sodha on Scottish gender reforms

"You don't make law based on single instances," says barrister Robin Whitehttps://t.co/qYN5CQIcHv #PoliticsLive pic.twitter.com/F9OjSPErZz

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 10, 2023

… Read the rest

And in another part of the forest –

I generally don’t comment on these sorts of petty insults as I think they say a lot more about those who make them than those they’re aimed at. But this is coming from a practicing barrister who appeared on a news programme with me yesterday. Deeply unprofessional. pic.twitter.com/XTX4Ospyhh

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) January 11, 2023

… Read the rest

Here they are in “action”:

1./ This is mass delusion.
10 years ago if you'd imagined the scene when a distinguished professor of human rights turned up to a leading university to discuss gay rights…would it have resembled this? A crowd of jeering bullies? Flour thrown? Placards shoved in his face? pic.twitter.com/ACNxQhtfLS

— Malcolm Clark (@TwisterFilm) January 11, 2023

… Read the rest

McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism advertised a discussion scheduled for today:

The Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate In the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T

About

By Professor Wintemute: Since 2018, there has been a debate in the United Kingdom about whether or not the law should be changed to make it easier for a transgender individual to change their legal sex from their birth sex, and about exceptional situations, such as women-only spaces and sports, in which the individual’s birth sex should take priority over their gender identity, regardless of their legal sex. This debate inspired the foundation in 2019 of an organisation, LGB Alliance, which rejects the political coalition of LGB

Sigh. Washington State health department. It couldn’t be California or Wisconsin or New Jersey, no, it has to be Washington.

#DYK? If you have COVID-19 and would like to breastfeed/chestfeed, your breast milk is not likely to spread COVID-19 to your baby.

➡️ Wash your hands
➡️ Wear a mask while breastfeeding/chestfeeding and within 6 feet of your baby.

Learn more: https://t.co/7tms8eO7yB pic.twitter.com/G4xospWBZQ

— WA Dept. of Health (@WADeptHealth) November 25, 2022

… Read the rest

Speaking of aquifers drying up…the Ogallala aquifer is one of them.

After decades of irrigation, the aquifer that makes life possible in dry western Kansas is reaching a critical point. Several counties have already lost more than half of their underground water. But a new plan could save more of what’s left.

…

Fly over these dry plains and you won’t see many rushing rivers or glimmering lakes. You’ll see circles. Mile after mile of green geometric crop fields spun into the near-desert landscape by wells that tap water hidden beneath the surface and the center pivot irrigation sprayers splayed around them.

Which could make you think “Dang, human ingenuity, aren’t we clever.” Or it could make you … Read the rest

When words have more than one meaning…

Today, @uscsocialwork sent out this letter announcing that they will no longer use the word “field” (as in “conducting field work”) because it’s perceived as racist. Is this with merit or empty virtue signaling? @elonmusk @IngrahamAngle pic.twitter.com/kgM9p4MAb5

— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) January 10, 2023

Yes, language can be powerful, but it can also be complicated. For instance the word “field” can mean something other than a piece of land where a crop is planted. I have a feeling that migrant workers and descendants of slaves aren’t really all that bothered by anthropologists who talk about their field work.

And speaking of words being powerful, I think it’s something of an … Read the rest

Oops, we’ve broken Great Salt Lake.

Emergency measures are required to avert a catastrophe in Utah’s Great Salt Lake, which has been drying up due to excessive water use, a new report warns. Within years, the lake’s ecosystems could collapse and millions will be exposed to toxic dust contained within the drying lakebed, unless drastic steps are taken to cut water use.

Will drastic steps be taken? Of course not. They never are. We just sit here stupidly watching the lions and wolves and hyenas and tigers approach.

A team of 32 scientists and conservationists caution that the lake could decline beyond recognition in just five years. Their warning is especially urgent amid a historic western megadrought fueled by

On the one hand this is just a typically infuriating usurpation aka “appropriation”; on the other hand it’s an interesting point about an outsider point of view.

TERFs say trans women do not understand the experience of womanhood.

It is the opposite; No one understands woman better than those who came to it the long way around.

— TERFs aren't women (@Saeko_Cut) January 9, 2023

Men who call themselves women of course don’t “understand the experience of womanhood” better than women do. On the other hand they do have the advantage of the outsider point of view, which is at least different from the insider one, and has at least the potential to offer insights.

It’s like being a foreigner … Read the rest

Someone looking for a libel suit, I’m guessing.

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on We cannot even manage those minor changes.

Even IF we can slow, or reverse the rising temperatures, we are still doomed.

The world may come to run on 100% renewable electricity and 100% hydrogen, but there are still limits.

We will still need oil, not for ICEs, but for plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilisers, etc.

We will still need plastics, not for excessive packaging, but for all its other myriad uses in medicine, science, engineering, etc.

We will run out of silica sands for making solar panels. Fraser Island has enormous deposits of almost 100% pure silica, but mining has been banned since the 70’s. But will that ban hold as silica supply … Read the rest