The language of this dispute is so corrupted and twisted and inside-out that reporting on it is inevitably a tangle of weeds and thorns. The Telegraph does not escape this trap.

The Liberal Democrats are at war over trans rights after the leadership defied its members and banned biological men from taking women’s posts in the party.

But what are trans rights? Who says? What happens when they cancel the rights of other sets of people? Specifically, the rights of half the population? How do we know the purported rights are rights at all?

On Tuesday, the party banned trans women from taking women’s positions following the Supreme Court’s ruling on biological sex.

Because trans women are men. Men … Read the rest

Sinister

Two federal prosecutors were informed Wednesday that they will be put on leave after filing a legal brief that described the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as being carried out by “thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters,” sources familiar with their removals told ABC News. 

So they were put on leave because they filed the brief?

The two prosecutors, Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White, were locked out of their government devices and informed Wednesday morning they will be placed on leave, just hours after they filed a sentencing memorandum in the case of Taylor Taranto, the sources said.  

Were they told why? Were they told it was because they filed the brief?

It’s unclear

Police Scotland ignore the criminal and charge his victim with a crime. You’ll never guess which party is a man and which is a woman.

Parliamentary police officers have ordered a director of For Women Scotland to attend a police station to face vandalism charges over a broken brolly after a complaint by a trans activist.

Susan Smith, one third of the feminist group who took the Scottish Government to the Supreme Court on the definition of a woman and won, has been accused of minor damage to an umbrella at a rally outside the Scottish parliament last month.

But the incident, which could result in Mrs Smith, 54, appearing in a criminal court, has provoked fury and Police

Cracking down on the crackdown.

U.S. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, the face of “Operation Midway Blitz” cracking down on illegal immigration, must report daily to a federal judge after reports of combative enforcement, including using tear gas.

I don’t think “combative” is the right word. It’s what you say when someone is getting a little too intense when arguing over a newspaper headline or similar. I think the word should be “aggressive” or “violent”. If we’re talking about tear gas versus shouting, we need a less emollient word than “combative.”

Bovino appeared Tuesday for a tense hearing before U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago. She questioned him about reports of aggressive

The Guardian words this so carefully, and dishonestly.

At least 11 states and two territories are capitulating to a recent demand from the Trump administration to strip references to gender identity and the existence of transgender and non-binary people from a federal sex education program, officials confirmed to the Guardian.

…

Prep aims to educate adolescents on healthy relationships and how to prevent pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. In April, the Trump administration demanded all states and territories that receive money for Prep to send a copy of their curriculum to HHS and its agency the Administration for Children and Families for a “medical accuracy review”.

Four months later, the administration sent letters to 46 states

Lordy how people give themselves away.

You call whoever whatever you want whenever. But free speech means we can look on and think you are an ignorant, bigoted cow who is deeply unkind.

— Darren Styles OBE (@bydarrenstyles) October 25, 2025

There you have it. Women repeat that we are allowed to call men “men” and a man responds by calling a woman a cow. That’s balance! … Read the rest

What ever happened to due process?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that the U.S. military has carried out three strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean against boats accused of carrying drugs, killing 14 people and leaving one survivor.

This was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day. Carried out Monday, the strikes mark a continued escalation in the pace of the attacks in South American waters, which began in early September and had been spaced weeks apart.

…

Hegseth said “the four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics.”

The Trump administration has shown no evidence to support its claims about the boats, their connection to drug

Wat?

Someone get him a Doctor. He’s barking fucking mad. pic.twitter.com/uK0azezvhA

— Stuart Macintosh (@stueymaco) October 27, 2025

Erm…who is it we’re supposed to be grooming? What are we supposed to be grooming them into?

And if we’re “grooming” what is it that people like Jonathan Willougby are doing? Surely urging credulous teenagers and young adults to mutilate themselves in order to pretend to be the other sex is more like grooming than not doing that is.

Oh well. Brush your hair, all of you.… Read the rest

Ah yes, why don’t women who lose athletic competitions to men just try harder?

That’s a pretty sad take… where Riley ended up is not the point…

— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) October 27, 2025

… Read the rest

What next, badges with “no feminists” or “no women” in shops? Are we doing this all over again?

Not El Paso this time, but Dundee.

A Crieff  designer claims she was ordered to leave Dundee’s Hobbycraft shop after a gender rights row over a staff member’s “no terfs” badge.

Rebekah Chapman, 33, confronted the employee over the “unpleasant” slogan on Sunday in the Kingsway West Retail Park branch.

The badge also said “no Tories”.

Well, you know, maybe the employee was bringing her/his whole self to work.

I hate it when people do that. I don’t want your whole self, any more than you want mine.

What we want in brief utilitarian public interactions is basic politeness and/or friendliness, … Read the rest

News from the fens:

Three Cambridge University students have today launched the Cambridge University Society of Women (CUSW) with the ambition to “advocate for and raise awareness of women’s sex-based issues across the political spectrum and around the world, as well as provide a single-sex environment for women to discuss the issues that concern us most as women in the absence of men”

The CUSW’s constitution defines women as “adult human beings belonging to the female sex class”. In doing so, the founders – Thea Sewell, Maeve Halligan and Serena Worley (pictured) – believe they are the only student society at Cambridge University serving the interests and needs of biological women and biological women only.

Yes!! Let’s hope … Read the rest

Women’s Rights Network reports:

BREAKING: Word reaches us that @Cambridge_Uni has ordered its sports clubs to comply with national sports governing body rules that protect the female category.

In September, we highlighted the grossly unfair rules that allowed male rowers to compete in university college boat crews – in breach of the Equality Act 2010. In one egregious example, a town boat club affiliated to @BritishRowing allowed student clubs to include males in their female boats – against British Rowing rules.

We understand that sports clubs were told in no uncertain terms that if they continued to flout the law the university could dissolve the club and would not stand by any officers of clubs that might be on

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Any regrets?

To the extent that there is a causal pathway from “GC” to “MAGA”, it’s making people like Linehan so angry about the excesses of gender ideology that they no longer care who their bedfellows are

That’s an interesting point. Bedfellows is a lovely, poetic word for compatriots. I think there’s a deep-down, evolved need in most of us to situate ourselves within a tribe — within a safe, comfortable, familiar community of like-minded individuals, who have each others’ backs when we’re feeling besieged by a common enemy. In fact, that feels close to perhaps the biggest insight I’ve ever felt in my whole life: my whopping Eureka! moment. After several … Read the rest

Here we go again.

Two US House Republicans are pushing the federal justice department to investigate the path to citizenship of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate favored to win the 4 November election for New York City mayor.

Congressman Randy Fine of Florida and Andy Ogles of Tennessee – both staunch proponents of Donald Trump’s presidential administration – have been leading the push, which has been condemned by Democratic officials and Muslim civil rights groups as “racist and anti-Muslim”.

Again, as with trans ideology, the discourse carefully obscures the fact that Islam has content, and the content is not necessarily entirely benign. Yes it can be merely, or partially, racism or fear of the Other or just … Read the rest

Well, bitches, if you don’t like it you can work from home.

The BBC is allowing staff to work from home if they have concerns about the broadcaster’s policy allowing biological men to use women’s lavatories.

…

In its review of the policy the BBC suggests that, although there are “self-contained facilities or mixed-sex toilets” at most of its sites, staff who have “concerns” may be able to work from home as a solution, while it awaits Government guidance following the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of sex in the Equality Act.

The BBC is so confused. Mixed-sex toilets are the problem, not the solution. The “concerns” women have are about dealing with men in the toilets.… Read the rest

Oh really. Is that true?

Single sex spaces or services can be unlawful sex discrimination if they are not a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This is an objective test. You can't have a single sex space just because you want one.

— SpeakOutSister (@speakoutsister) October 26, 2025

That’s objective how exactly?

The trouble is, the two parties are not symmetrical. Men who want access to women’s spaces want the access in order to dominate or rape. Women want access to men’s institutions in order to have equality. The motivations are radically different. Women are locked out of men’s institutions because of entrenched sexist and misogynist attitudes. Men are locked out of women’s physical spaces for safety reasons.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Strange man.

“I believe, in the next couple of decades, there will be millions of people living in space. That’s how fast this is going to accelerate,” he said.

There’s a small problem with this. We don’t know how to live in space. I believe it was from someone posting here on B&W that I learned of the book A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith. Their conclusion? Not soon, not likely. The problem? It’s not only the Rocket Science, it’s the Us Science.

A short list of things we don’t know about (not all from the book, and in no particular order):

Part 1) Rocket science… Read the rest

Trump seems to think tariffs are like spankings or being sent to your room without dessert.

Trump has said he is increasing tariffs on goods imported from Canada after the province of Ontario aired an anti-tariff advertisement featuring former President Ronald Reagan. In a post on social media on Saturday, Trump called the advert a “fraud” and lashed out at Canadian officials for not removing it ahead of the World Series baseball championship.

“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” he wrote.

But that’s not what tariffs are for. They’re not punishments for being naughty. They’re really not punishments … Read the rest

Fiyaz Mughal on the disaster of communniny thinking:

Over half a decade of working with the Home Office on countering extremism, I saw it for myself, time and time again: a civil service culture that instinctively resists scrutiny of anything involving religion or ethnicity.

The moment you even suggest that the ethnicity or faith of perpetrators might be one factor among many worth examining, certain civil servants recoil. They tell you that looking into it might “inflame community tensions”, or “increase hate crimes against Muslims” or “cause policing issues”.

He doesn’t in fact actually mean religion or ethnicity as such, he means specifically that one religion, the one he names. I don’t think UK civil servants freak out … Read the rest

So bright.

Jeff Bezos says the future is so bright, he “doesn’t see how anybody can be discouraged who is alive right now.” Speaking at Italian Tech Week 2025 earlier this month with Ferrari and Stellantis chair John Elkann, the Amazon and Blue Origin founder laid out a plan to launch humanity into orbit — literally.

I wonder if being a billionaire makes it difficult for him to see how other people can be discouraged. Several of those people are not billionaires. Several people have no money at all. Several people have health issues. Several people have problems of various kinds, which can lead to being discouraged.

The conversation started on Earth but didn’t stay there long. Bezos dove