Ah this is nice – Cubans in Havana are lining up in their tends of thousands for a free concert by the Rolling Stones, who used to be banned as “decadent.”

Fans travelled from many parts of Cuba and other countries to witness what some described as a historic moment.

“It was forbidden. We couldn’t have the Beatles or some singers from Latin America. Now we are allowed to hear what we want to hear,” a fan told the BBC.

“The visit from Obama [earlier this week], and now the Rolling Stones. It’s just unique and historic. So, yeah, nice to be here,” said another one.

The Rolling Stones released a short video saying their concert was a sign

Alice Dreger has posted an open letter to Tony Valenzuela, ED of the Lambda Literary Foundation.

She thought a tweet telling her about the nomination was a joke at first, because this nominating for an award and then rescinding the nomination routine has happened before. Dreger wrote about it in her book.

In my book—as in the earlier article that led to the misery that led to me to doing that book—I had traced out what happened in 2003 to J. Michael Bailey’s book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, when it had been named a finalist for a “Lammy”: A group of transgender activists upset with Bailey for writing about autogynephilia—a sexual orientation that reasonably

Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon:

There are not two sides to every story. Not every issue requires us to legitimize an opposing view. Like, for instance, when the other perspective is totally crackpot. For example, if you’re a disgraced fraud, maybe you’re really not the best source for information about vaccines.

Totally crackpot and harmful as well. The crackpot in question is Andrew Wakefield.

This week the Tribeca Film Festival announced it’s debuting a provocative new documentary with the flamboyant name “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Controversy.” The film’s description promises, “Digging into the long-debated link between autism and vaccines, ‘Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe’ features revealing and emotional interviews with pharmaceutical insiders, doctors, politicians, parents, and one whistleblower

From last month – the Independent reports on a Danish aid worker who rescues Nigerian children who’ve been abandoned because someone thinks they’re “witches.”

An aid worker whose rescue of an emaciated two-year-old boy made headlines around the world has spoken about how she gave up everything in Denmark to help “the witch children of Nigeria”.

Anja Ringgren Lovén was pictured offering water and biscuits to a small and very thin little boy called Hope, who had been abandoned by his family because of local superstitions about witchcraft.

Ms Lovén took Hope in, and he is now one of 34 children being cared for at the African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation (ACAEDF) which she founded with her husband

Some nasty posturing self-righteous goon on Twitter is claiming to be one of the people who sabotaged Kate Smurthwaite’s Goldsmiths show yesterday, starting with a “statement” (actually just some screen grabs of a bunch of assertions) about how right they are and how much good they did by sabotaging Kate’s show.

Have you ever seen the like?

The goon is complaining that Kate didn’t RT that ridiculous “statement” and that no one is publicizing it so I told the goon I would publicize the fuck out of it. Here I am doing that now. There it is, in all its brainless glory.

First there’s the brazen claim that they didn’t intend to silence Kate by making sure she had no … Read the rest

The CBC reports (on its former employee):

Jian Ghomeshi has been acquitted on four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking by an Ontario Court judge who says the “deceptive and manipulative” evidence of the complainants raised a reasonable doubt in the guilt of the former CBC Radio host.

In a searing rebuke of the complainants, Judge William Horkins said the evidence from all three not only suffered from inconsistencies, but was “tainted by outright deception.”

“The harsh reality is that once a witness has been shown to be deceptive and manipulative in giving their evidence, that witness can no longer expect the court to consider them to be a trusted source of the truth,” Horkins said.

That … Read the rest

Karadzic has been found guilty.

A former Bosnian Serb leader was found guilty of genocide and other charges Thursday for his role in deadly campaigns during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, including the massacres of thousands in Srebrenica, as an international tribunal announced a long-awaited reckoning in Europe’s bloodiest chapter since World War II.

Radovan Karadzic was found guilty of 10 charges including genocide in connection with the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica enclave near the close of a three-year war.

Extreme nationalism is no more healthy or benevolent than theocracy or racism. All three motivate and justify loathing of The Other, and from there it’s just a step to persecution and, … Read the rest

… Read the rest

Pink News has reported on the NUS LGBT move to abolish gay male reps.

The National Union of Students’ LGBT Campaign has passed a motion calling for the abolition of representatives for gay men – because they “don’t face oppression” in the LGBT community.

The NUS LGBT+ Campaign discussed the issue at its annual conference, which took place in Sheffield this week.

At the event, delegates passed a motion that blames “cis gay men” for “misogyny, transphobia, racism and biphobia”.

It says: “Misogyny, transphobia, racism and biphobia are often present in LGBT+ societies. This is unfortunately more likely to occur when the society is dominated by white cis gay men.”

The only truly progressive people on earth are trans women. … Read the rest

Via Edna Adan University Hospital on Facebook:

Generosity means sharing the last drops of water with your baby sister during the ongoing drought in Somaliland…

Only about one-third of the Somaliland population has access to safe drinking water. In recent months, devastating drought exacerbated by El Nino weather patterns has left over 240,000 of our people without enough food and killed 35% to 40% of our country’s precious livestock.

For this little girl, her sister, and all of us, ‪#‎WaterGives‬ life. Health and hope depend on it. ‪#‎WorldWaterDay‬

 … Read the rest

The Guardian asked “young people” around the world how they “define” their “gender.” The result is what you would expect from such a ridiculous question directed at such a demographic.

Some days Daniela Esquivel Asturias, 21, wakes up feeling feminine and puts on a dress or lipstick. But on others Asturias feels much more masculine and the thought of wearing a skirt induces an overwhelming sense of dysmorphia.

“I would be equally comfortable with a male or female body. My male personality is more outgoing than my female one. It’s like having both male and female energies and some days a mix of both,” Asturias says.

GASP

Oh my god have you ever heard anything so original and fascinating … Read the rest

Jesse Singal on Twitter yesterday, with four tweets run together. (I still think it’s absurd that people use Twitter this way.)

@LambdaLiterary has withdrawn @AliceDreger’s book from consideration for its nonfiction literary award. The (very strongly) implied message here is that you can’t simultaneously be an advocate for social justice and care about the principles of truth, accuracy, and fairness in argument. It was a message I heard loud and clear after my Zucker/GIC article, and one that will, in the long run, harm all of us greatly. @LambdaLiterary @AliceDreger

He’s right you know. It is absolutely not permitted to try to get at the truth on certain subjects – trans issues in particular, right now – by thinking … Read the rest

Originally a comment by ZugTheMegasaurus on She had been brought up to make the people around her happy and comfortable.

I have been, at various times in my life, a rape victim, a legal advocate for domestic violence victims, and a survivor of domestic violence. This “why did she stay” question crops up in virtually every discussion of any man-on-woman violence, and there is one fact sorely lacking from the conversation: “she” did not think like an abuser. It’s so simple, and it doesn’t stop within gender lines, and that’s probably why people don’t see it.

Anyone who has been abused will probably agree on one thing: the abuse doesn’t make sense. We know this is true from … Read the rest

From The New Backlash, Introduction:

Now, the dialog around “transgender” issues is dense and confusing and emotional and often downright abusive. Transgender identity politickers cloud the issues on purpose, but feminists can also fail to express ourselves clearly when we are 1) grounded in decades of theory most people have not read and/or 2) feeling defensive due to the endless attempts of anti-feminists to vilify/silence us.

So, first some clarification on my part: for several decades now, feminist theorists have been using the word gender to refer to the social and psychological expectations thrust upon women and men, otherwise referred to as sex stereotypes or sex roles. However, feminists and pro-feminists outside of academic circles may use the word