Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Combative on the stand

    This is a fun heads I win tails you lose Trump has going here. If he pitches fits in court and calls the judge names why that’s because he’s The Victim Of A Conspiracy. If he doesn’t, same deal.

    Mr Trump was combative on the stand. He took direct aim at the judge, leading to some heated exchanges, and drew his rebukes for airing broad grievances when they were not directly relevant to the question.

    Is this because he’s a goon who acts like that at all times? Or is it a cunning plan?

    “I think he is trying to goad the judge into doing something he can argue on appeal shows prejudice on his part,” Prof McMunigal said. “Maybe he makes a comment they can use to support a bias case later.”

    Or he can just do that regardless, as he always does.

    Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told the BBC that Mr Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, appeared to view the trial as an opportunity to campaign.

    “[His] behaviour suggests that he may view the trial as an opportunity to play the victim of an unfair justice system and, thus, attempt to capitalise on the trial to score political points,” Professor Tobias said.

    Head he wins, tails we lose.

  • Anne Frank wasn’t diverse enough

    Oh, good idea, Germany.

    A German kindergarten has said it will drop Anne Frank from its name in favour of a “more diverse” alternative, adding fuel to the national debate over anti-Semitism amid the Israel-Hamas war.

    More “diverse” than Anne Frank. (I have no idea what the German for the buzzword “diverse” is, or even if it’s comparable to the Anglo buzzword.) More “diverse” how? Adding anti-Semites? Nazis? Neo-Nazis? Fans of genocide?

    In what way is there a need for more “diversity” than a name that symbolizes the mass murder of European Jews by the Nazi regime? To put it another way, why is it a good idea to change the subject when the subject is Anne Frank/the Holocaust?

    “We wanted a name without a political background,” Linda Schichor, the kindergarten’s director, told a local newspaper.

    Ms Schichor said that the story of Anne Frank was difficult to explain to small children, while immigrant families had “often never heard of her” or her diary about her family’s attempt to remain hidden from the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam.

    Well yes, which is why it’s quite a good idea to teach about her/memorialize her. That’s not to say schools shouldn’t also teach about other persecuted groups, but once you have an Anne Frank kindergarten it’s kind of a bad look to erase her name.

    …coming at a time when Germany is engaged in soul searching over whether the lessons of the Nazi era are being forgotten, the name change has caused a national scandal.

    Christoph Heubner, the deputy head of the International Auschwitz Committee, appealed for the name change decision to be reversed in a letter sent to the local council.

    “If one is prepared to forget one’s own history so easily, especially in these times of renewed anti-Semitism and Right-wing extremism, one can only feel fear and anxiety about the culture of remembrance in our country,” he said.

    Quite so. Expand the history, but don’t hide or downplay the bit between 1933 and 1945.

    Jewish organisations have raised concerns in recent months about growing anti-Semitism from both the far-Right and immigrant communities from the Middle East.

    Germany’s Central Council of Jews has warned that the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is polling at over 20 per cent, “embodies Nazi ideals”.

    Senior figures in the AfD have played down the crimes of the Nazi era, with one leader calling it “a bird sh-t” on German history, while others have questioned why there is a memorial to the Holocaust in the centre of Berlin.

    Not a good moment to take down Anne Frank’s name.

  • Disaggregating the Leavitts

    Meanwhile let’s get this straight. There’s a prolific women-hater on Twitter named David Leavitt but he is NOT repeat NOT the novelist named David Leavitt. They are two different people.

    I don’t know if the novelist is on Twitter, but the journalist definitely is. He’s a very bad man.

    Also either dishonest or stupid. Rowling does not say what he claims she says in the tweet he singles out to demonstrate her saying the thing she didn’t say.

    A very bad man. Not the novelist.

  • When you say

    The most marginalized…

    But don’t ever ever ever suggest that trans “activism” is just a tiny bit inclined to abuse and threaten women. No no no no no don’t you dare or we’ll tell you cunts exactly how we want to slaughter you.

  • If you believe

    BBC yet again cheering on the destruction of women’s sports:

    Two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya says she is “not going to be ashamed” of being “different”, and will “fight for what is right” amid her ongoing dispute with athletics authorities.

    Some lede. Should read: Two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya, who competed against women, says he is “not going to be ashamed” of cheating women, and will continue to cheat amid his ongoing dispute with athletics authorities.

    Semenya, 32, was born with differences of sexual development (DSD) and cannot compete in female track events without taking testosterone-reducing drugs.

    What kind of differences of sexual development? Odd that the BBC doesn’t say. Why be so cryptic about it?

    In a wide-ranging interview with BBC Breakfast’s Sally Nugent, Semenya says:

    • She felt she was “different” from the age of five but “embraces” her differences
    • She will not conform “to be accepted”

    He “embraces” the differences that enable him to cheat women in sports.

    He will not stop cheating women in sports.

    • She wants to empower women to “have a voice”

    Fuck all the way off.

    “For me I believe if you are a woman, you are a woman,” said Semenya, who won Olympic 800m gold in 2012 and 2016 and is a three-time world champion over the same distance.

    Is that how that works? And if you believe you are a dolphin you are a dolphin?

    Anyway, that’s not a useful criterion, because no one can know what other people “believe.” It’s a black box. You could just be pretending to believe.

  • Respect, it seems, goes only one way

    JKR nails it again.

    The Honourable Chris Kourakis has issued a statement referring to my ‘anxiety’ about the use of female pronouns for men standing trial for violence against women and rape. He states that ‘a victim of crime would never be asked to address an accused person in a way which caused the victim distress.’

    That assurance is welcome, although I note that he’s addressed the matter only after it was raised publicly. No such exemption is mentioned in the Practice Note, which takes the ideological position that the ‘use of preferred gender pronouns is a matter of respect’. The natural inference is that a woman would be considered guilty of disrespect if she, alone in the courtroom, described her male attacker as a man, while all court officials were addressing and describing him as a woman. This is not a hypothetical situation. The judge will be aware, if he’s informed himself – as he implies I have not – that I’ve already cited an example where a 60-year-old woman was violently assaulted by a 26-year-old trans-identified male. She was chided by the judge for displaying ‘bad grace’ by not using her attacker’s preferred pronouns.

    The Practice Note does not acknowledge that in sexual and violent crimes committed by men against women, there is a clear clash of rights. The woman has a right – indeed, a legal duty – to speak truthfully about the male violence/sexual violence to which she was subjected. Meanwhile the Practice Note says that court officials should respectfully use female pronouns for the attacker if he says he identifies as a woman. The likely effect on a traumatised woman of hearing her attacker addressed and described as a female by the court is neither mentioned nor addressed in the Practice Note. Respect, it seems, goes only one way.

    Millions of women are losing confidence in judicial systems that have adopted an ideological position with which they do not agree. In the very place where they go to seek justice, a woman may now be obliged to listen to court officials asserting they were raped or beaten by a fellow woman. Such women are not merely ‘anxious’, they are furious, about the apparent inability of certain men, judges or not, to understand how dystopian this situation seems to those of us who have suffered male sexual violence.

    And about the equally apparent indifference to their own inability to understand. They just don’t care.

  • Centre for Sport & Human Wrongs

    Oh goody, an activist.

    Erm. So that’s “The transformative future of #womensports” in the sense of being women’s sports played by men? That’s “embracing intersectionality and solidarity” in the sense of embracing men who invade women’s sports and thus destroy them for women?

    Well why is there no solidarity with women? Can anyone explain?

    Who is this Natalie Washington?

    Natalie Washington is a British football player and activist, best known for her work as campaign lead for Football v Transphobia.[1][2] She also serves as a trustee for Trans Pride Brighton.[3]

    She began playing as a midfielder for Rushmoor Community FC in the Hampshire County Women’s Football League in 2017, after training with the team since 2015.[4][5] She also appeared in charirty matches for TRUK United FC.[6] She has spoken out about facing transphobia in the sport, including an incident where she had to be substituted off the field for her safety.[7][8]

    In January 2017, she was allowed to play in women’s football after she had six months off for genital reconstruction surgery. Her teammates on the women’s team were very supportive, this had helped her feel more welcomed and accepted.[9] This motivated her to become a trustee and organizer for the Trans Pride Bridgton & Hove and Campaign Lead for the Football v Transphobia campaign, which campaigns to make football a better place for transgender people.[10]

    Which campaigns to make football a better place for transgender people and a worse place for female people. Men win, women lose. How transformative.

    So much warping of buzzwords here. Human rights, activist, transformative, intersectionality, solidarity, Pride, supportive, welcomed, accepted. All those words hijacked to glorify a man spoiling a women’s sport when he ought to be condemned and rebuked.

  • The plans

    The Post on what Trump is planning for us:

    Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.

    In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymityto describe private conversations.Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.

    In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.

    To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.

    More like terrifying and unconstitutional. Not surprising, to be sure, but still terrifying.

    Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act…

    The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.

    We can only hope his head explodes first.

  • The judge is frowning

    The NY Times is live-reporting Trump’s testimony.

    Trump’s acknowledgement of some involvement in assembling the documents in question can’t be stressed enough. The modus operandi of Trump and most around him is to lay the blame at staff’s feet, or consultants’ feet or lawyers’ feet.

    Trump is being asked about why he decided to drop the value of Seven Springs, one of his properties in Westchester County, N.Y., on a financial statement. “I thought it was high,” Trump says, yet again admitting his involvement in the process.

    Trump appears not to realize that, because here the value was lowered, these admissions of his involvement in manipulating the financial statements are damning.

    But it was good manipulating. Surely he should get points for that.

    Trump was just asked his involvement in the 2021 financial statement. He tried to answer saying that he was busy with the presidency, focused on “China, Russia and keeping our country safe.”

    Wallace, the state lawyer, reminded him that he was not president in 2021.

    Picky picky picky.

    Trump is asked how big his triplex in Trump Tower is. He says that he wouldn’t know, except for the trial, but that it’s about 11,000 feet. That’s accurate, but then he started adding thousands, saying it may be 12,000 or 13,000 feet. This is Trump’s problem in a nutshell: He exaggerates.

    Hahahahaha and he even does it in court.

    At times, the late morning testimony has felt like travel brochure for Trump properties. When it happens, people around me sitting in the courtroom chuckle.

    Trump is mak[ing] a long ode to Aberdeen, calling it an “artistic expression,” and the greatest golf course ever built. The judge is frowning but again says nothing.

    Justice Engoron finally loses patience and breaks in as Trump is calling Aberdeen, Scotland, where he has a golf club, the oil capital of Europe. “Irrelevant, irrelevant. Answer the question,” the judge says.

    Trump is asked about what Wallace characterizes as an inaccuracy in a 2014 statement of financial condition. Trump ducks the question. And finally, the judge explains why he hasn’t been interrupting since the break: He is following Wallace’s lead, he says, and Wallace seems to be fine with Trump’s rambling. As we’ve noted, that rambling is helping the attorney general.

    To be continued.

  • Pronunciation of names & gender pronouns

    The protocol.

    The protocol “does no more than allow lawyers and others to inform the court of the correct pronunciation of their name and their preferred gender pronoun”

    Stop right there.

    That’s smuggling. That’s smuggling the concept of “preferred gender pronoun” concealed by “correct pronunciation of their name.” Those two items are not the same thing. Preferred is not the same as correct, and pronouns are not a thing one gets to customize.

    I suppose it’s possible to think of ways the correct pronunciation of their name could be misused the way luxury pronouns are. I suppose people could claim that “Alice” or “Fred” is pronounced “Fuck” or “Arthur Two-sheds Jackson” or similar. But if they did the court would say nope.

    The two things are not the same kind of thing. Pronunciations of names can vary, and there’s little or nothing at stake when they do. I suppose Americans could say “the correct pronunciation of my name is Charles, Charrrrles, not Chahlz.” I suppose if they did it would make no difference, because you can’t order people to speak in a different accent, but even more because it doesn’t matter. Pronouns, on the other hand, do matter, especially in a court of law. “She raped/assaulted/abused me” is very different from “He” did all that.

    So it’s very unnerving to see a judge bundling the two together.

  • Meanwhile the Best Actor category

    Of course.

    https://twitter.com/blablafishcakes/status/1721164440974799210

    I would have linked straight to the source but you have to click through eleventy times to get to that set of nominations…but by having done so I did get to learn (to my complete lack of surprise) that 1. the male nominations appear first and 2. the male nominations are all men.

    Yes, Yasmin Finney is a trans woman.

  • Sheep may safely graze

    Ahh poor Fiona the lonely sheep stranded at the bottom of a cliff has been rescued at last.

    The sheep, called Fiona and wearing a huge fleece, had been stranded at the foot of cliffs on the Cromarty Firth for at least two years, with an animal welfare charity having deemed rescue attempts “incredibly complex”.

    But five farmers managed to haul her up a steep slope, and now plan to deliver her to a farm park.

    A real farm park, not the pretend kind kids are told about when Flopsy dies in the night.

    Jillian Turner first spotted the sheep two years ago while she was paddling along the coast of Sutherland with her kayak club. She assumed the sheep would make it back to wherever home was by itself and thought no more of it.

    When she took the same journey again recently she was horrified to see the same animal.

    Recalling her first sighting of the sheep, Turner told the Northern Times: “About half a mile before turning into the Cromarty Firth we spotted a sheep on a shingle beach at the bottom of some steep, rocky coastline.

    “She saw us coming and was calling to us along the length of the beach following our progress until she could go no further. She finally turned back, looking defeated.”

    The sighting made an impression on Turner and she couldn’t quite believe it when she saw the same sheep on the recent trip.

    “She called out on our approach and once again followed the group along the shore jumping from rock to rock, calling to us the whole way,” Turner said.

    The sheep’s fleece was “huge” and touching the ground at the back, she said, with Turner describing the experience as “heart-rending”.

    “We honestly thought she might make her way back up that first year. The poor ewe has been on her own for at least two years. For a flock animal that has to be torture, and she seemed desperate to make contact with us on the two occasions we’ve gone past her.”

    And now she’s saved. Well done, five guys.

  • TW-IP Scale

    Science! Very sciencey science!

    You just divide the Transgender Women’s Importance of Pronouns Scale by the Narcissism of Transgender Women’s Timewasting Scale and BOOM, there’s your total rock-solid non-falsifiable proof that Transgender Women’s Luxury Pronouns matter more than anything else in the entire universe. That’s SCIENCE.

  • Guest post: You’re hostage to the integrity of those you let do your thinking

    Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Mile-high semi-free press.

    They were unfamiliar with the concept of people who had pursued so-called sex-change drugs and surgeries but later regretted these interventions and sought care to help remedy the results.

    You’ve taken one side of an issue, but haven’t researched the issue enough to realize its full ramifications and fallout? You’ve been reassured by reliable sources that the other side is made up entirely of genocidal, Nazi bigots, so you don’t have to listen to what they’re saying at all. That’s a good look for journalists. I guess this sort of thing is bound to happen when you outsource your ethics, morality, and values to “reliable sources”. Like that bartender. You’re hostage to the integrity and thoroughness of those you’re letting do your thinking for you. It’s all about quality control; if you never visit the factory, how can you be sure just what they’re putting in those cans with your name on them?

    Here’s another thought: perhaps something they haven’t heard of before might make a good subject for, oh I don’t know, maybe A NEWSPAPER STORY? Maybe they’ve only been reading their own paper and that’s why they’re so ignorant

    I said, because people aren’t getting the whole story. Worse, there’s a concerted effort to stifle discussion about detransition.

    DINGDINGDINGDING! LOOK, A STORY NOT BEING TOLD! You work for NEWSPAPERS!!! PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER!!!!

    If Paley and Cohn are not transphobes, why do people online accuse them of transphobia?

    “If Joe Biden is not a baby-eating, glue-sniffing Communist, why do people online accuse him of being a baby-eating, glue-sniffing Communist?” Jesus, the question answers itself. Dig deeper, look further; it’s only YER GODDAMN JOB.

    Also why does the bartender get to intervene in a discussion of that kind?
Who, in short, the fuck asked him?

    Maybe they were doing the whole “Undercover Boss” or “The Prince and the Pauper” thing, and the supposed underling was actually secretly in charge of everything. He felt so passionately about the issue he was compelled to break cover to put the Evil TERF in her place.

    Or, maybe the janitor wasn’t available.

    He accused them of manufacturing


    Yes, Paley and Cohn invented the whole idea of so called “detransition” and hired crisis actors to play “detransitioners” complete with fake mastectomy scars.

    
and profiting from controversy


    Yeah, and doctors offering “gender-affirming care” do it for free out of the kindness of their hearts. They only have the very best interests of their patients at heart and are very careful to screen them to ensure that only those very few people who actually need it are rushed into life-long medicalization given the life-saving treatment they so desperately need.

    and accused me of trying to conceal this “fact.”

    A trans activist upset by someone concealing facts?! HAHAHAHAHA, ha ha, hoheh. Well!. Oh that’s a good one! Your movement has declared reality itself to be “transphobic” and unmentionable, and you accuse someone else of suppressing facts! Wow. Are you altogether sure exactly which side of the bar you’re on? Sounds like you’ve been sampling a good few of the wares you’re supposed to be serving. Leave some for the paying customers!

  • Clear for a long time now

    Izzat right?

    What an idiot.

  • The rise of a new ideology

    Yascha Mounk on Hamas and idenniny:

    …the reaction to the worst murder of Jews since the end of the Second World War has continued to range from oddly muted to openly celebratory. Reacting to Hamas’s massacre in its immediate aftermath, Rivkah Brown, an editor at Novara Media, wrote that “today should be a day of celebration for supporters of democracy and human rights worldwide”. The Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter sent out an invitation to a solidarity rally with Palestine that featured a picture of the Hamas fighters on paramotors who murdered over 250 people at a music festival.

    During the following weeks, hundreds of prominent artists and writers, actors, academics and medical professionals, including Tilda Swinton and Steve Coogan, signed open letters in publications such as Artforum and the London Review of Books. Virtually all singled out Israel for criticism without bothering to condemn Hamas or calling for the release of the 200 hostages the group still holds.

    The reasons are several and complicated, he says, but one stands out.

    It is rooted in the rise of a new ideology that insists on seeing the world through the prism of simplistic identity categories. And it now gives many people a highfalutin excuse to indulge in their basest human instincts even as they claim to fight against injustice.

    Simplistic identity categories, but not all simplistic identity categories. Jews need not apply, nor need women.

    By the summer of 2020, a vulgarised version of what I call the “identity synthesis”, most prominently championed by the bestselling authors Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X Kendi, was being parroted by senior politicians and the chief executives of major companies, by directors of the world’s most renowned cultural institutions and in the pages of its most widely read publications.

    …

    The “identity synthesis” claims that the key to understanding the world is to examine it through the prism of group identities such as race, gender and sexual orientation. It argues that supposedly universal values and neutral rules — like those at the core of liberal democracies — serve to obscure the ways in which privileged groups dominate those that are marginalised. This explains why we have (supposedly) failed to make any progress in the fight against racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. And it concludes that the only way to build a better world is to adopt norms and laws that explicitly make the way the state treats each citizen — and the way citizens treat each other — depend on the identity groups to which they belong.

    …

    Four common themes of modern-day social justice movements are particularly important. First, many activists now seem to believe that the world can be split into two clear categories: white people and “people of colour”…

    Second, the world can simultaneously be split into another set of categories, which theoretically differ from but in practice overlap with those of race: settlers and their victims…

    Third, we need to dispense with traditional notions of racism…many activists have gone a step further, supplanting the older concept of racism with one that is exclusively structural in nature. Since racism has nothing at all to do with individual beliefs, they maintain, it is impossible for members of a (supposedly) marginalised group to be racist towards members of a (supposedly) dominant group…

    Fourth and finally, all forms of oppression are connected. 

    Aka “intersectionality.”

    Over recent weeks, these four ideological building blocks have been pressed into the service of discounting the suffering of Jewish civilians. According to the global left, Jews are white. Israel is a European settler colony repeating the crimes once committed by Americans and Australians. Since Palestinians are people of colour who have suffered settler colonialism, they are incapable of being racist and are justified in inflicting any amount of suffering on their oppressors. And if you want to be a good feminist or environmentalist — or merely an artist or academic in good standing with the juste milieu — it is your duty to sign an open letter, join a solidarity rally and make common cause with a theocratic terrorist group that happens to be diametrically opposed to every value you claim to cherish.

    See also: Charlie Hebdo. See also: some of the reactions to Does God Hate Women?

    The same loss of common sense is evident in the claim that all forms of oppression are interrelated. Even if this mantra is repeated ad nauseam, it cannot succeed in beating a stubbornly messy reality into submission. No matter how often activists continue to profess their belief that such causes as gay liberation and reproductive rights go hand-in-hand with the Palestinian cause, Hamas remains implacably opposed to both. Yet when reality does not comply with one’s wishes, there’s always the option to look the other way.

    But, oddly enough, not to emigrate to Afghanistan. I wonder why not.

  • Mile-high semi-free press

    Lisa Jones tells us about the Denver Press Club and its devotion to a free press:

    On August 21, 2023, I was hunting for a small, private venue in downtown Denver for a mixer. The Denver Press Club building seemed to fit the bill. It could accommodate 50 to 100 guests, serve drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and was available for rental on the evening of Thursday, November 2nd.

    On August 22nd, in an email exchange with the club’s executive director, I described the event I planned to host: an evening mixer where everyone is welcome to engage in honest and open discussion about free speech and gender identity. I said Nina Paley and Corinna Cohn, hosts of the Heterodorx Podcast, would speak at the event.

    The executive director replied, “Got it. All good.” He told me I needed to join the club to rent the venue. Further, my membership would need to be approved by the board.

    So she applied for membership and paid dues.

    On August 31st, with a reasonable expectation that the mixer would be happening at the Denver Press Club, I toured the building. During the tour, the club’s executive director generously proposed that the club would host the mixer as a club-sponsored event open to members and guests.

    On September 1st, the executive director and I exchanged enthusiastic email messages confirming this arrangement. In my message, I wrote:

    “As I mentioned, Nina and Corinna are not politically partisan and are not courting controversy. However, the topic of gender identity elicits strong opinions and poses challenges regarding free speech. I’m hoping this event can be an opportunity for civil, in-person conversation (rather than online flamethrowing.)”

    On September 2nd, the executive director abruptly informed me by email:

    “After some research about the program, Does Free Speech Have a Gender Identity and the speakers, we have decided the Denver Press Club is not the right fit. I am sorry, but we will not be able to host your event.”

    Oh is that what we’re calling it now – “not the right fit.” These shoes are too small; these gloves are too big; this subject sags at the waist.

    There was further discussion. There was a meeting with the president and the executive director.

    We talked about the Colorado governor’s tendency to say “transitioned” instead of “fired;” several people had “transitioned” out of his administration.

    I mentioned the word “detransition.” Neither Goodland nor Segall had heard it before. They were unfamiliar with the concept of people who had pursued so-called sex-change drugs and surgeries but later regretted these interventions and sought care to help remedy the results.

    This is why we need to talk about gender medicalization, I said, because people aren’t getting the whole story. Worse, there’s a concerted effort to stifle discussion about detransition.

    Segall wanted to know: If Paley and Cohn are not transphobes, why do people online accuse them of transphobia?

    As I tried to answer, I became aware that the club’s junior bartender was standing behind me as I spoke. Eventually, he sat down across the table from me. He accused me of lying to the club. I had discredited myself by using unethical tactics to trick the club into agreeing to host Paley and Cohn, he claimed.

    Specifically, he cited my statement that Paley and Cohn “are not courting controversy.” He accused them of manufacturing and profiting from controversy, and accused me of trying to conceal this “fact.”

    He vowed to write a letter to the board and solicit signatures of support from other club members to bar me from the club on account of my manipulative mendacity.

    I was taken aback by his vehemence. Also, I was baffled. Hadn’t anyone at the club done minimal due diligence and simply Googled Paley and Cohn sometime between August 22nd, when I explicitly stated that I wished to host them at the club, and August 31st, when the executive director offered to sponsor the event?

    Also why does the bartender get to intervene in a discussion of that kind? Surely his job description doesn’t cover interrupting a meeting between two administrators and a potential speaker to challenge and accuse and attempt to bully the potential speaker? Who, in short, the fuck asked him?

    On September 13th, I sent a message to Goodland and Segall:

    “Thank you for meeting with me yesterday. We have an agreement for use of the press club facility, an agreement upon which I have relied. The event will proceed as planned. Promotional materials will remain in circulation.”

    On September 14th, Goodland sent me a message:

    “I regret to inform you your membership has been denied by the board. The club’s policy is that only members have usage of the building, so your event cannot be held here.”

    Canceled by the guy behind the bar.

  • Both brothers pointed

    This week in Trump crime family news:

    Trump’s elder sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, took the witness stand in New York this week and testified they had little knowledge about the financial statements at the center of the case. Next week, Donald Trump is expected to take the stand on Monday, followed by daughter Ivanka Trump on Wednesday.

    In the middle of a school week.

    The New York attorney general’s office has been building its case that Trump, his adult sons and executives at the Trump Organization knowingly inflated the value of assets to boost the former president’s net worth when brokering deals. Judge Arthur Engoron ruled before the trial started that documents prove the family had fudged financial statements to do this. The trial has been about whether Trump will have to pay a fine of at least $250m for committing fraud.

    …

    Over the three days that Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump testified on the witness stand, both brothers pointed to the company’s accountants and lawyers as responsible for handling the financial statements at the center of the case.

    Ah yes, that’s how that works. Of course. It’s not the owners of the organization who are corrupt, it’s the people who work for the owners who are.

    This is despite multiple emails and signed documents that show the brothers, who serve as top executives of their father’s company, were consulted by employees preparing the statements and brokered deals in which the statements were used to confirm Trump’s net worth.

    All forgeries. The brothers weren’t even in the country at the time. They weren’t even on the planet.

    The attorney general’s office brought in an expert witness, Michiel McCarty, the chief executive of an investment bank, to testify about the losses lenders unwittingly accrued when making deals with the Trump Organization because it had inflated the value of its assets.

    McCarty explained that if lenders had been given accurate valuations for the assets, they could have charged the Trump Organization higher interest rates. McCarty calculated the lost interest for loans given for four properties in the case at $168,040,168.

    Oh, is that all. I thought this was about real money.

  • Guest post: Other terms of endearment

    Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Bad Behaviour??? Us???

    I can assure our US and UK readers that here in the Great Land of Downunder, cunt IS used as a term of endearment amongst some sub sets of men.

    That sub set of men being the drunken uncles at parties, the misogynist and homophobic, sexually insecure males. Not only do they call each other “cunt”, but they also use other terms of endearment, such as “poof” to assure themselves that while their best friend may be gay, they most assuredly are straight. They refer to their wives/girlfriends as “The Missus” in fear that if they use her name she will either appear and drag them home, or at the least, be acknowledged as a separate person. And they all end the night, standing around the lemon tree, tinnie in one hand, cock in the other, because nothing says “I’m no poof” like flashing your willy at all your mates.

  • Guest post: The manichaeism of oppressor vs. oppressed

    Originally a comment by Papito on Transing sisterhood.

    The manichaeism of oppressor vs. oppressed cannot be explained rationally. It is a form of religion. All that is good is on one side; all that is bad is on the other side, and we can always tell them apart. For folks who scream about the sex binary, they sure do like their binaries.

    Was Adolf Hitler an oppressor or an oppressed?

    When Adolf Hitler met with the Mufti Amin al-Husseini of Jerusalem and they made common cause to kill all the Jews in the Levant, was Hitler working in favor of the oppressor or the oppressed? How about the Mufti?

    When al-Husseini accepted 750K DM a month for the purposes of exterminating Jews, was he an oppressor or was he oppressed? When Himmler praised the Mufti’s efforts in doing so, was Himmler an oppressor or an oppressed?

    Hamas is pursuing the exact same goal – eradication of Jews from the Levant – that Hitler paid the Mufti to pursue, and which Himmler congratulated al-Husseini for doing. It is a continuation of the Nazi goal, and the same Muslim Brotherhood which helped al-Husseini escape arrest after WWII gave birth to Hamas. They still have the same beliefs, which precede the establishment of Israel:

    It is the duty of Muhammadans [Muslims] in general and Arabs in particular to 
 drive all Jews from Arab and Muhammadan countries
 . Germany is also struggling against the common foe who oppressed Arabs and Muhammadans in their different countries. It has very clearly recognized the Jews for what they are and resolved to find a definitive solution [endgĂŒltige Lösung] for the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that Jews represent in the world.

    -Al-Husseini, November 1943

    How very oppressed he sounds.