Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Australian law is now set in stone

    Ok well that’s insane.

    The High Court has refused Giggle for Girls app founder Sall Grover special leave to appeal the case brought against her by transwoman Roxanne Tickle, meaning that without new legislation, Australian law is now set in stone: men can become women, and sex is not purely biological.

    Except, the law can’t do that. It can force people to say it, but it can’t make it true.

    It’s an odd kind of law then. You have to say things that are not true if you discuss this subject, but they remain untrue even though we require you to say them. Sorry, but that’s the law!

    Ms Grover had been seeking to overturn a finding by the Federal Court that she directly discriminated against Ms Tickle on the basis of her “gender identity” when she barred the transwoman from the female-only networking Giggle app. However the High Court announced on Thursday that it was refusing special leave to appeal, with costs awarded against Ms Grover.

    The court had been expected to accept the case, which raised fundamental questions about the legal rights of women and transgender people. In a two-sentence explanation of its decision, the High Court said: “There is no reason to doubt the Full Court’s construction of s. 7D (1) and (2) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). Any appeal dependent on the demonstration of error in the Full Court’s construction of those provisions has insufficient prospects of success to warrant a grant of special leave to appeal.”

    So lies win and truth loses.

    Ms Grover told The Australian she was “absolutely devastated” by the decision.

    “We now have confirmation that the High Court is captured by an ideology, as is the Federal Court, and so we need politicians to fix this. We have a government that won’t, but we have rising opposition to this kind of ideology being imposed upon people.

    “Everybody is now at the mercy of Australian Human Rights Commission Complaints if you don’t go along with this – no one is safe because if you are deemed to have discriminated against a man who claims to be a woman, you have no legal recourse.”

    It doesn’t make one want to up sticks and move to Australia, does it.

  • Always been always will be

    Why?

    Why has she always been a trans ally? For that matter how has she always been a trans ally? Trans people haven’t always been around, so how could she have always been their ally?

    But more urgent is the question why will she always be an ally. She can’t be a trans ally without being an enemy to women. Why be an enemy to women?

    Men who pretend to be women are absolutely hell-bent on taking everything from women and keeping it for themselves. Being an ally to men of that kind is like taking a baseball bat to women’s skulls.

    Men don’t need allies as much as women do. Men are not as vulnerable as women are. I don’t say that because I like it – I hate it – I say it because it’s the infuriating truth.

    So why is Samantha Niblett rushing to cuddle and console men while helping to demolish women’s rights?

  • Wreathed in smiles

    It’s turned into fume at Stella Creasy day but if she will be such a fool it can’t be helped.

    The camera pans the room. Notice anything?

    It’s all men. Most of them look bored or hostile or both.

    She’s all bubbly and cheery and they look as if they’d like to throw her off a tall building.

    The thing is, religions are not just another innocent physical attribute. Religions have content, and some of that content is bad for many people. Snuggling it is not always a wise move.

  • On them, yes, but in them, no

    More on the “filming in toilets” issue.

    Now wait just a damn minute.

    Filming people actually using the actual toilets (not the room but the appliance) is a sick and twisted thing to do. Filming people in the room where the toilets can be found is not necessarily a sick and twisted thing to do.

    For example: filming a man in the room that contains toilets for women is a useful thing to do. He shouldn’t be there, and it useful to have records of men doing this.

  • Their own march

    More on the Stella Creasy conundrum, aka the tension between wanting to appear to have some respect for the rights of women and girls and wanting to pretend that Islam is a benign friendly egalitarian religion and we all ought to embrace it as a friend.

    “Why is this fine?” Jenni Russell asked.

    Women have their own march and event. Yes: it’s called the back of the bus.

    When X kind of people have “their own” public celebration that arrangement tends not to be a privilege but an exclusion. Muslim women have “their own” everything because they are ferociously excluded from public spaces and institutions thanks to the misogynistic suspicion and hatred that is so central to Mohammed’s religion.

  • The absence of women

    Joan Smith disputes Stella Creasy:

    Stella Creasy is giving Muslim misogyny a free pass

    Some ideas are just incompatible. For example, it makes no sense to support the separation of men and women in public spaces and in the same breath describe yourself as a “proud feminist”. Trying to do so, as the Labour MP Stella Creasy has been doing on X, hollows out the word’s meaning.

    On Sunday evening, Creasy posted footage of Muslims celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad in her east London constituency. Watching the video, one is immediately struck by the fact that the procession through the streets of Walthamstow appears to consist entirely of men. “Food, sweets and roses all shared by those marching with the local residents,” Creasy trilled, without acknowledging the absence of women from the video.

    The women are in the kitchens preparing the food and sweets.

    Challenged by Times columnist Jenni Russell, Creasy shared a video of herself with a group of Muslim women, wearing black robes and the hijab, whom she described as “the future optometrists, lawyers, accountants, surgeons and leaders of our community and country”. She insisted that they also celebrate the prophet’s birthday, only acknowledging yesterday that “the women have their own march and event.” She went on to say that “many religions do have separate events and structures.”

    Yes, they do, and that’s the problem. Hint: “separate but equal”. When that’s white kids in this school and black kids in this other school, it turns out that’s not equal at all, it’s separation, aka apartheid. The same applies to men parading and women nowhere to be seen.

    That is exactly the problem. Multiple religions insist on separation of the sexes, including at public events, which is a practice opposed by feminism pretty much since its inception. Women have always had to fight for unconditional access to public space, without having to be accompanied by a male relative or observe a discriminatory dress code. There are countries where such prohibitions are taken to an extreme, such as Afghanistan, but the underlying assumption — that women don’t have the same rights as men — is the same.

    The male god has suspicion of and contempt for women.

    It’s not the first time that women have been excluded from a public event on religious grounds. In October last year, women and teenage girls were excluded from a charity run in Victoria Park organized by the East London Mosque Trust. A statement on the trust’s website said that “our inclusive atmosphere ensures that every individual, from the youngest to the oldest, can take part and make a difference.” Without missing a beat, it went on to say that men and boys “of all ages” were welcome, but only “girls under 12” could participate. After fierce criticism, this year’s run will be divided into male and female events — on different days and at different venues.

    Because otherwise those pubescent girls will be spreading their legs for the poor innocent boys, because those girls are sluts and whores and need stoning to death. Understood?

  • Leaders with no faces

    MP Stella Creasy posted this:

    [The “more” in “show more” is one word: fantastic.]

    That’s an extremely infuriating post. Future lawyers and surgeons? Wearing niqabs? Really? Will the men allow them to do what it takes to become lawyers and surgeons? Come on. The niqab is not some neutral article of clothing, it’s a stifling inhibiting conspicuous shroud that is forced on women by a religion that despises women. The girls in that photo are not free to decide to be lawyers and surgeons, and Creasy must know that. And the issue is not what they think, it’s what they’re free to do. If Creasy doesn’t know that she sure as hell ought to.

  • Fancy meeting you here

    Update: Sorry, sources went private after I posted this so that’s why there are dead ends. Summary: Robin “Moira” White was spotted in a women’s toilet and he was filmed.

    Women don’t like it but hey who cares about that.

    At least one person objected to filming him, but I don’t buy it – he should not be there, he’s committing a crime by being there, and he has zero respect for women’s privacy or safety. He has the opposite of that: he likes making women uncomfortable and afraid. We know that because if he didn’t like it he wouldn’t do it. He’s not being compelled in any way, so he must like it.

  • Because you’re a man

    Aw, diddums.

    Whether it’s a crime or not, it is a very shit thing to do, to run for a reserved female space when you’re a man. Zero sympathy here.

  • Efforts to reshape

    Trump drives out another public servant.

    Lonnie Bunch III said he will retire as the head of the Smithsonian Institution, a role that placed him at the center of President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape the world’s largest museum organization.

    “It is with very mixed emotions and heartfelt gratitude that I announce my retirement from the Smithsonian,” Bunch said in a statement on Tuesday, adding, “I leave with pride and sadness, gratitude and joy, and with enormous confidence in the people who will carry this remarkable institution forward.”

    Bunch, 73, said in multiple interviews that his retirement was not related to pressure from the Trump administration to make changes to the institution.

    Instead it was about Trump’s being an asshole.

    It still comes as the Trump administration has increased pressure on the institution, including saying in an August 28 letter that federal agencies may stop working with the Smithsonian if its leadership does not change. The letter cited an earlier report that accused the Smithsonian of moving “toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”

    Wouldn’t that make a person want to get away? I think it would.

    Trump has taken issue with the Smithsonian’s telling of the past, describing it as “woke” and tasking aides with rooting out what he considers a rewriting of American history at the museums. For example, in a July executive order, the president directed the National Park Service to install temporary signage near the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, warning of “inaccurate information.”

    And by “inaccurate information” Trump means information he doesn’t like. Never mind slavery, never mind the century of blatant racism that followed emancipation, never mind the Japanese internments, never mind all those CIA-backed coups, just shut up and salute the flag.

  • Central Park is not Wall Street

    Also, no he wasn’t.

    He wasn’t there. He was in Manhattan, but he was not down there at the bottom of the island where the towers were. He was uptown. Nobody had to schlep him anywhere.

  • Marlowe today

    Trump’s busy day:

    Trump spent Sunday posting pictures of himself nuking the planet from a space station, guarded by giant robots, over a caption announcing that the United States now owns the moon. He did this for thirteen hours.

    Between 9:10 in the morning and 10:35 at night, Donald Trump fired off more than sixty posts. Memes, rants, endorsements, personal attacks, and a steady stream of AI-generated pictures of himself. He announced he wants to rename New Mexico.

    Stating that it is “one of the great vote cheating states of all time,” a casual proposition by the President of the U.S.A. to rename a state that has existed since 1912 and call it “New America” was accompanied by a video of him dancing to Y.M.C.A.

    He posted himself as Hulk Hogan. He posted himself in a Space Force uniform that critics pointed out looks like the outfit the villains wear in Star Wars. He posted himself palling around with George Washington, drawn by the same software that cannot reliably render a hand.

    He bragged about making billions trading stocks, while under scrutiny for exactly that, and added that the billions were “for the U.S.A., not myself,” which is what a man says when both halves of the sentence are for him.

    Somewhere in the thirteen hours he found the time and audacity to mock congresswoman Debbie Dingell for weeping over her dead husband, calling her a “third rate loser.”

    Why this is hell, nor are we out of it.

  • Separate but

    The BBC reports:

    An investigation has been launched in France after female staff at the Eiffel Tower were replaced by male colleagues for the visit of a Hindu religious group.

    A delegation of around 100 people linked to the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) group visited the iconic landmark in Paris on Saturday.

    People? I think they must mean men. If women were allowed to be in the delegation they would surely be allowed to be in the Tour Eiffel staff.

    “Women were asked to leave their places of work” and felt “humiliated”, staff union representative Diane Davoine said. The tower closed on Monday as staff went on strike to show their outrage.

    Damn right. Allons enfants.

    BAPS – a movement whose beliefs originate in the 18th Century – strictly separates men and women, including in temple activities and building entrances.

    No, that’s wrong. That’s a prettification. BAPS excludes women. Separation is one thing and exclusion is another. The women were excluded from the visit to the tower.

    In a statement reported by AFP news agency, staff at the monument said that during Saturday’s visit, female employees were also “instructed not to go through or cross certain areas while the delegation was present”.

    Because women are filth, you see. Women are filth who deliberately make men think about sex instead of holy whatever.

    In a statement on X, BAPS said the trip was “arranged in conjunction with the Eiffel Tower team at the start of normal opening hours to avoid disrupting or inconveniencing others”.

    It apologised “for any pain or inconvenience caused”, adding “we believe in the universal values of mutual respect and service”.

    No you don’t. You exclude women; that’s not mutual respect. Fuck off.

  • Sir not a good look sir

    You’d think even he would be able to figure out that pretending to be a sojer when you were not ever a sojer is a really dumb and insulting thing to do. Mr Bone Spurs is a civilian.

  • Urban glamor

    Local Seattle news…

    A 17-year-old boy died in a shooting in Belltown late Sunday, and a 21-year-old man suffered serious injuries from a gunshot, according to Seattle police.

    It marked seventh person shot in the Belltown neighborhood in three separate incidents over 24 hours on Labor Day weekend. Three have died.

    Seven people shot in 24 hours, 3 of them fatally. Belltown is at the bottom of the hill where I live, so I traverse it most days because the bus route is through Belltown. At the west end it’s next to Seattle Center/the Space Needle, and at the east end it traverses a kind of ground zero for addicts. There’s one stop where people sell stolen goods all day – there are tables and chairs, and a boombox, and rows of random items for the discerning shopper to choose from. It’s very bizarre – everyone knows the goods are stolen, but nobody does anything about it. The city government policy is hands off – let the addicts slowly kill themselves on the street, and let the people who shoplift random merch sell it on the sidewalk right next to a brand new posh skyscraper that appears to be standing empty gee I wonder why.

    A couple of blocks west, closer to the Needle, there’s a small grocery store that appears to have zero clientele other than the addicts who spend the day slumped outside it. I always wonder how that works – how does it not go bankrupt? I have no idea.

    And Belltown isn’t even the worst. 12th and Jackson in Little Saigon is notoriously the worst. The police do a sweep now and then, and hours later the addicts are back.

    Thanks, fentanyl.

  • Worse every day

    This one is charming, especially when you play it.

    Hit the play button. It’s no good ignoring these things.

  • Toddler’s busy day

    He makes Bush 2 look like Carl Sagan.

  • Wossinna name?

    Well why not just speed things up and rename every state, every city, every town, every river, every lake, every mountain, every forest “America”?

    The tinfoil king would love to.

    Trump appeared to suggest on Sunday that New Mexico should be renamed “New America,” prompting swift backlash from the state’s Democratic leaders over his latest effort to put an American stamp on geographic names.

    Sir, America is already the name of the whole country. Naming everything “America” would be like naming everything “Trump”. It would look silly. You don’t want to look silly do you? Vulgar, yes, a bully, yes, but silly? What would your uncle who taught engineering at MIT say?

    On social media, Mr. Trump shared an image of a map of New Mexico with the word “Mexico” crossed out with a red X and replaced with “America.” The White House re-shared the image shortly after on its official X account.

    The president posted again several hours later, with what appeared to be an A.I. video of him placing a label with the word “America” over “Mexico” on a “Welcome to New Mexico” road sign.

    Mr. Trump has no legal authority to rename any state, which in New Mexico’s case is written into its Constitution. Any proposed change would have to originate within the state, a prospect that New Mexico’s Democratic leaders rejected forcefully on Sunday.

    The words “Trump has no legal authority” don’t mean anything to Trump. They might as well be in Urdu.

  • Oh go on, why not

    Reduxx tells us:

    An ongoing lawsuit against Correctional Service Canada (CSC) has forced the federal government to admit that female inmates have been raped by at least two trans-identified male transfers since the implementation of a gender identity housing policy in 2017. Despite the official admission, the Attorney General of Canada claims, in a statement of defense, that housing violent male convicts in women’s prisons “does not infringe the rights guaranteed to cisgender women inmates.”

    Very true, unless you think that women have a right to avoid potential rapists. I for one do think women have that right.

    In 2017, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) adopted an interim policy (Bulletin 584: Bill C-16) which allowed male inmates to be housed according to their “gender identity” rather than according to their biological sex. 

    Which is a very very very stupid thing to do. Female vulnerability to the strength and sexual equipment of men is not a matter of “identity” but of brute physical facts.

    Five years later, in 2022, the CSC finalized its approach and formally enacted the policy titled Commissioner’s Directive 100: Gender Diverse Offenders. The guidelines detail the CSC’s “commitment to meeting the needs of its gender diverse offender population in ways that respect their human rights and ensure their safety and dignity.”

    And disrespect women’s human rights and ensure their loss of safety and dignity.

    Why? Why do that? Why make things easier for the sex with much greater strength and an external sexual organ at the expense of the sex with much lower strength and an internal sexual organ?

    I await explanations which will never arrive.

  • Bad man says what?

    So progressive.

    We’ve encountered Mr Felker-Martin before. He really does not like women.

    H/t Mostly Cloudy