Here’s a shining example of the kind of thing that is sundering so many friendships and alliances: Aaron Kappel on why women and feminists are so horrible.

The piece starts with an unpleasant fantasy about peeling off a strip of skin, unpleasant enough that I skipped over most of it.

The fluidity of gender is complicated; it is messy and it is beautiful. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I cannot say with any real sense of authenticity or certainty that I know who or what I am–not fully. I lived as a cis heterosexual man for the first 22 years of my life. I then lived as a cis homosexual man for another decade. Today I am something

In Oklahoma City:

A former Oklahoma City police officer was convicted Thursday of 18 of the 36 counts he faced, including four counts of first-degree rape, related to accusations that he victimized 13 women on his police beat in a minority, low-income neighborhood.

Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, sobbed as the verdict was read aloud. He could spend the rest of his life in prison based on the jury’s recommendations, which include a 30-year sentence on each of the first-degree rape counts. Among the other charges he was convicted of were forcible oral sodomy, sexual battery and second-degree rape.

…

The allegations against Holtzclaw brought new attention to the problem of sexual misconduct committed by law enforcement officers, something police chiefs

Hooray for tolerance and acceptance and general friendliness, right? Including for parents who don’t vaccinate their children, including when you are a parent with children in the same school, right?

It’s right according to the principal of Brunswick North West Primary in Melbourne, Trevor Bowen. Slate quotes from his message to parents:

We expect all community members to act respectfully and with tolerance when interacting with other parents and carers who may have a differing opinion to their own. This includes an opposing understanding about child immunisation.

People from both sides of the discussion have expressed their thoughts in terms of the wellbeing and ongoing health of the children they care so much for. This is most admirable. I

The Independent has a heartwarming story about a little girl in Toronto.

A Canadian transgender father left behind a wife and seven children to begin a new life as a six-year-old girl.

Stefonknee (pronounced ‘Stephanie’) Wolschtt, 46, had been married for 23 years when she realised she was transgender.

She’s now living with an adoptive family, and says she does not “want to be an adult right now”.

She realized she was transgender and six years old? How? How does an adult age 46 realize she is six years old? What’s that like? What does it mean? How does it work? Six year old girls, for instance, don’t have seven children, so doesn’t having seven children interfere with realizing … Read the rest

Via IKWRO on Twitter, those dedicated campaigners:

… Read the rest

The press release on the One Law For All event today:

On Thursday 10 December 2015, Southall Black Sisters (SBS), One Law for All, Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), Centre for Secular Space and British Muslims for Secular Democracy will attend 10 Downing Street to hand deliver a letter signed by nearly 400 individuals and organisations urging David Cameron to hold an inquiry into the discriminatory nature of Sharia ‘courts’ and other religious arbitration forums.

These women’s and human rights organisations also led successful campaigns preventing public authorities such as the governing body of UK Universities (UUK) and the Law Society from incorporating aspects of Sharia laws into their public policies. With regards the question of parallel legal … Read the rest

I guess Donald Trump is to the Right what George Galloway is to the Left. Galloway considers himself on the Left in some sense, but I (along with of course many others), despite being on the Left, consider him a terrible person. So it apparently is with Peter Suderman, a senior editor at Reason magazine, when it comes to Trump. His article is elegantly titled Donald Trump Is a Bad Person.

His declaration yesterday that he would close the United States to all Muslim immigrants, including tourists and Muslim American citizens abroad trying to return home, confirmed both his fascistic tendencies and his undisguised bigotry, and made something else clear in the process: that he is simply a bad

Mother Jones reports on a brilliant plan for next weekend:

Gun rights activists in Texas are planning to stage a mock mass shooting at the University of Texas this weekend in protest of both gun-free zones and President Barack Obama’s continued calls for tougher gun control legislation.

According to the website Statesman, gun rights supporters will begin the day by marching through Austin with loaded weapons and conclude their walk with a “theatrical performance.”

A spokesman for the two participating gun rights groups, Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com, told the site the event will involve using fake blood and bullhorns to mimic gunshot noises.

By way of persuading the people of Austin and perhaps the Texas … Read the rest

There’s a new Fellowship for young writers in Australia.

The Kat Muscat Fellowship

Express Media is honoured to announce the inaugural Kat Muscat Fellowship to support and develop female-identifying young writers and editors from around Australia.

The annual Kat Muscat Fellowship offers professional development up to the value of $3,000 for an editorial project or work of writing by a young person. The Fellowship aims to continue Kat’s legacy and further develop the future of defiant and empathic young Australian women.

Kat Muscat was a brilliant young mind of the Australian writing community, whose formidable talent was demonstrated through her incisive writing and perceptive editing. Kat was an integral part of Express Media for many years, before becoming Editor of

The linguist Deborah Cameron dissects the damaging allure of neuroscience for non-scientists who write books about female and male brains.

For every scientist doing her best to communicate the complexity of contemporary brain research, there are a hundred non-scientists—self-help gurus, life-coaches, marketing consultants—churning out what has been labelled ‘neurobollocks’, a species of discourse that purports to be scientific, but is actually, in the words of one article on the subject, ‘self-help books dressed up in a lab coat’.

You can picture them on the shelves at Barnes & Noble or Waterstones, in the Men Are From Mars section.

The language connection explains why over the years I have felt obliged to read such classics of neurosexism as Why Men

And now for something completely different from Saudi Arabia – the Independent reporting that they did indeed lie about the numbers of people who were killed in the crush at Mina during the hajj. Only a little – only by a factor of 3.

A stampede during the hajj in Saudi Arabia killed three times the number of people acknowledged by the Kingdom, according to the Associated Press.

A new count reveals at least 2,411 people died during the crush at Mina on 24 September, despite the official Saudi toll of 769 deaths not changing since 26 September.

That’s only 1642 people not reported. That’s only Saudi officialdom treating the pointless deaths of ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED FORTY TWO … Read the rest

A note from Maryam:

Delivered letter today to 10 Downing Street calling for end to parallel legal systems with one law for all, southall black sisters, Iranian Kurdish women’s rights organisation, centre for secular space and British Muslims for secular democracy.

 … Read the rest

A very worrying alert from Ensaf Haidar:

TOP URGENT: Saudi Prison administration transferred Raif Badawi to a new isolated prison and Raif started a hunger strike since Tuesday

The prison administration transferred today my husband Raif Badawi to a new isolated prison called Prison Shabbat Central, located in a deserted and isolated area – around 87 KM from Jeddah City.

This prison is designed for prisoners whose verdict has been confirmed with a final Adjudication. The Saudi government has repeatedly declared that Raif’s case is under review and is yet to be decided by the Supreme Court.

We express our surprise at this decision especially after the Swiss Secretary of Foreign Affairs Yves Rossier announcement on 28 November that … Read the rest

More on the Michelle Goldberg article.

Cohn estimates that there are about 20 gender-critical trans bloggers, though their Internet presences tend to wax and wane; some who were active just a few months ago have pulled back, while others have just begun. Among the most prominent are Snowflake Especial and Gender Minefield, as well as Gender Apostates, a group blog run by both trans and cisgender women. Like many other trans people, the trans writers behind these blogs have experienced a searing conflict between their physiognomy and their self-conceptions. Like the broader trans rights movement, they believe in fighting violence and discrimination against trans people. But they reject the idea that biological sex is mutable, though sex

Michelle Goldberg has written an article about heretical trans women – you know, the ones who don’t buy the ever-shifting but always-binding Current Dogma of how one is allowed to understand and talk about gender.

Last month, a 42-year-old English accountant who goes by the pseudonym Helen Highwater wrote a blog post disputing the idea that trans women are women. Helen is trans herself; in the last few years, she says, she has taken all the steps the U.K.’s National Health Service requires before it authorizes gender reassignment surgery, which she plans to have in 2016. Yet she has come to reject the idea that she is truly female or that she ever will be. Though “trans women are women”

The case of the Sri Lankan woman who was scheduled to be stoned to death in Saudi Arabia for “adultery” is going to be reviewed. That’s good news. Let’s hope they “review” the case so thoroughly that they decide to send her home instead of torturing her to death.

Harsha de Silva, the deputy foreign minister [of Sri Lanka], told parliament on Tuesday that an appeals court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, has decided to hear the case again following pleas by Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry.

…

The 45-year-old woman, who is married with two children, was working as a maid in Saudi Arabia. She was sentenced to death in August. The unmarried Sri Lankan man convicted alongside her

The NSS reports:

A coalition of Muslim writers, activists and politicians has launched a “Muslim Reform Movement” rejecting violence and calling for a defence of secularism, democracy and liberty.

The reformers have issued a Declaration defending gender equality, freedom of speech and freedom of religion, stating that they are for “secular governance” and “against political movements in the name of religion.”

They have called for the separation of “mosque and state” and emphatically reject the “idea of the Islamic state”.

Activists from the group stuck their Declaration of Reform on to the front door of the Islamic Centre of Washington, a mosque the movement described as “heavily influenced by the government of Saudi Arabia”.

The preamble to the Declaration

The president of the Goldsmiths ISOC has resigned, because too many people had saved his homophobic tweets and were giving him grief about them.

Goldsmiths Islamic Society (ISOC) President Muhammed Patel has resigned from his position after a motion of no confidence.

The society released a statement via its Facebook page today and although the group did not say what allegations were attributed to Patel that led to his resignation, it is believed that the President published a series of homophobic messages via his Twitter account, which has recently been deleted.

The committee have elected an interim leader who has yet to be named. Patel declined to comment when approached by The Leopard but an ISOC member assured The

Another resolution from the NUS Women Conference:

Motion 512: Dear White Gay Men: Stop Appropriating Black Women

Conference Believes:

1. The appropriation of Black women by white gay men is prevalent within the LGBT scene and community.
2. This may be manifested in the emulation of the mannerisms, language (particularly AAVE- African American Vernacular English) and phrases that can be attributed to Black women. White gay men may often assert that they are “strong black women” or have an “inner black woman”.
3. White gay men are the dominant demographic within the LGBT community, and they benefit from both white privilege and male privilege.
4. The appropriation of Black women by white gay men has been written about

The filmmaker Jennifer Hall Lee asks why British women are being called “Islamophobes.”

“We are in the ISIS era.”

Houzan [Mahmoud], a Kurdish woman who is a representative of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, made that proclamation at the recent Feminism in London conference. She was on a panel of four feminists called, “Unlikely Allies: Religious Fundamentalism and the British State,” that focused on the connection between Islamic fundamentalism and British law.

I attended this panel to hear Maryam Namazie, an Iranian Muslim-born woman who lives in London and is a spokesperson for One Law for All, a group that opposes Sharia law in Britain. I was unprepared for the bluntness of the talk about ISIS and