There’s a very interesting thing here at the beginning.

This is why I fight so hard against this ideology. Those who are determined that people should call male adults 'she' end up defending the idea that a child should be free to identify as a wolf. Not because they believe it; but because they've cornered themselves. @jonlis1 https://t.co/lebrh0PP9b

— Helen Staniland (@helenstaniland) September 19, 2024

I haven’t watched the whole thing, but the bit that grabbed me is all I need. The guy on the left of the screen, apparently Jonathan Lis, says this:

This is an attempt, by people who hate trans people –

Sharp interjection from the woman in the navy blue blazer, who is (I think) one … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Steven on But every dot was connected.

Stories are what they have instead of thinking.

There are, perhaps, two fundamental ways that humans understand things

– tell me a story

– show me a picture

Republicans have always communicated in stories. Stories are accessible, and relatable, and compelling; far more so than, say, policy proposals or white papers. This is one reason that Republicans keep getting the votes of people whose interests they oppose: they tell them stories that they want to hear.

Even more powerful than stories are keywords or tropes: short phrases or words that have come to stand for a whole story. Willie Horton. There’s a bear in the woods. They’re eating … Read the rest

Skirts are not an invitation to stealth photography. Who knew?

Many people do not realise that upskirting is a crime and fail to take the offence seriously, a senior police officer has warned.

Detective Superintendent Kate MacLeod from City of London Police said upskirting is abuse, and can escalate into “far worse” behaviour.

She nabbed a guy doing it at the British Museum last month.

There were so many images on his phone that she believes members of the public must have seen him filming victims on previous occasions before he was finally caught. “Upskirting is still a relatively new offence, and a lot of people won’t be aware it exists,” she said.

Men, maybe. I doubt many women … Read the rest

The invisible accordion playing goes into overdrive.

OMG. Trump
Just said that the audience at the debate went “absolutely crazy” when the moderators fact-checked him.

There’s one problem: There was no audience at the debate. pic.twitter.com/UEJXfuCMWP

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 19, 2024

Also hilarious – he tells us he gets everything wrong.

And they didn’t correct her once, and they corrected me everything I said, practically –

Now why might that be, Bozo?

Sure, in theory, it could be because they are Unfair to donalds. But it could also be because YOU GOT EVERYTHING WRONG.

Think about it, accordion-boy. Put the hands down for a second and think. You’re ignorant and lazy, plus you’re dishonest, so how surprising … Read the rest

Ew. I missed this one.

The reactions from Republicans over Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris have ranged from sour to feigned disregard, but one particularly disturbing response from the right came from none other than Elon Musk.

On Tuesday night, the pop star announced in an Instagram post that she would vote for Harris in November. Swift, 34, signed off her statement as “childless cat lady,” a clear swipe at GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who has mocked and dismissed women without biological children.

Shortly after that, 53-year-old Musk — who has endorsed Donald Trump — inserted himself into the discourse in the sleaziest way possible, writing on X: “Fine Taylor … you

Originally a comment by Sackbut at Miscellany Room.

I came across this review in Inverse magazine about a Netflix movie called Uglies. The focus of the review is how this is a 2014-style movie that came out ten years too late, for reasons I don’t understand. Apparently there was a YA (“young adult fiction”) dystopian craze ten years ago?

The movie features a dystopian society in which all citizens are required at 16 to undergo cosmetic surgery to become “Pretty”, after which they move to City, an idyllic community where nothing goes wrong and everyone is happy. The central teen character starts questioning the merits of being Pretty, and the motivations of Dr Cable, the person in charge … Read the rest

Hoooooooooo-boy.

Trump: I don't think I've ever said this before. So we do these rallies. They're massive rallies. Everybody loves, everybody stays till the end. By the way, you know, when she said that, well, your rallies people leave. Honestly, nobody does. And if I saw them leaving, I'd say,… pic.twitter.com/ymSbz5mcXk

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 17, 2024

Trump: I don’t think I’ve ever said this before. So we do these rallies. They’re massive rallies. Everybody loves, everybody stays till the end. By the way, you know, when she said that, well, your rallies people leave. Honestly, nobody does. And if I saw them leaving, I’d say, and ladies and gentlemen make America great again and I’d get the hell

The ACLU explains:

Today, United States District Court Judge Richard Young granted the ACLU of Indiana a preliminary injunction in its case representing Autumn Cordellioné, a transgender woman currently in the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC). Ms. Cordellioné sued the state after the DOC’s denial of gender affirming surgery. 

The ACLU of Indiana argued in court earlier this year that Indiana’s law banning gender-affirming surgery in prisons, passed in 2023, violates the Eighth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  

The court agreed that Ms. Cordellioné and the ACLU of Indiana established that gender-confirming surgery is a medically necessary treatment option for some individuals with gender dysphoria.  The Judge issued an order

More excellent PR for the giant toddler:

“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

Definitely want that guy handling national security.

After the debate between Harris and Trump had wrapped on Tuesday night, Swift threw her support behind the Democratic vice president.

…

Swift said she was driven to publicize her “actual plans for this election as a voter” after she became aware that Trump had pushed misinformation suggesting that he was getting her vote.

Last month, Trump shared an AI-generated image of Swift in an Uncle Sam outfit giving a fake endorsement to his campaign, along with other images promoting the idea that he’d won over some of her fanbase. “I

The good news is it’s temporary. The bad news is…

Trans and non-binary faces unveiled on Fourth Plinth

Hundreds of plaster casts of transgender and non-binary people have been unveiled as the latest installation on the Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth in central London. Called Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant) the sculpture was created by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles and features the faces of 726 trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people.

The plinth was built in 1841 to display a permanent statue of William IV, but money ran out.

Which is just as well, because who the hell even remembers who William IV was? Or cares?

It was empty until 1999 when it became the location

Reduxx reports:

Indiana Department Of Corrections Ordered To Arrange Transgender Baby Killer’s “Gender Surgeries” After ACLU-Backed Lawsuit

Who knew baby killing was a civil liberty?

That’s a cheap shot, because the “civil liberty” is the gender surgery bit not the baby killing bit, but the horror of the contemporary ACLU brings out the cheap shot-monger in me.

The ACLU has successfully fought to have a transgender baby killer be given taxpayer-funded “gender affirming” surgeries. Yesterday, the United States District Court of Indiana ruled that Autumn Cordellioné, born Jonathan C. Richardson, had been subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment” by being denied the various plastic surgeries he had demanded.

When did non-medical plastic surgeries to change appearance become so essential that … Read the rest

If you’re going to make your profits by sending massive container ships darting around the world, you need to make sure you do it safely.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking more than $100 million from the two corporations that owned and operated the container ship that destroyed Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.

The two companies, Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Private Limited, “sent an ill-prepared crew on an abjectly unseaworthy vessel to navigate the United States’ waterways,” the suit reads. “They did so to reap the benefit of conducting business in American ports. Yet they cut corners in ways that risked lives and infrastructure.”

…

In the civil lawsuit, the Justice Department goes into detail about

Wadhwa admits. (Look at the size of those hands.)

This film of Mridul Wadhwa admitting he obtained his job at a rape crisis centre by deception has just been removed by YouTube for "copyright infringement", so please don't watch or share it. pic.twitter.com/XsfDBRcJTx

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) September 17, 2024

… Read the rest

Uh huh.

"Victoria" Bucholtz, aka Karla Marx, Professor of History at Mount Royal University and Queer Marxist explaining trans oppression is white supremacy. Naturally.https://t.co/bKpXtrN0ZD https://t.co/42DJeGtnF7 pic.twitter.com/bWrIzDlQ45

— Melanie Bennet (@finkledusty) September 17, 2024

If only all these stupid women would realize that our oppression in being seen as men is exactly the same as their oppression in being subordinated as women. Why can’t they grasp this very simple point??? Stupid cows.… Read the rest

This Victoria Bucholz/Karla Marx person is interesting, in an irritating way.

He’s in the history department at Mount Royal University, and a drag queen. (So if he’s a drag queen why is he trying to force people to call him a woman? Drag queens are, obviously, not women – that’s what the “drag” part means.)

Last February:

The newly formed QriTical Research Hub at Mount Royal University is hosting History with a Drag Queen next Thursday, February 8th at MRU’s West Gate Social. Doors open at 6:30 PM.

This event will be a teach-in hosted by the fabulous Karla Marx! 

Karla is a drag queen, burlesque artist, and comedian, using the art of drag to shed new light

Lauren Smith at Spiked:

Elizabeth Pitt was employed as a social worker by Cambridgeshire County Council. In January 2023, Pitt, who is a lesbian, attended a meeting of the council’s LGBT employee group. A colleague piped up to say that his dog is ‘genderfluid’.

What would that even mean? Dogs aren’t gendersolid so how can they be genderfluid? Dogs don’t know from gender. Dogs don’t know from ideology; dogs know what they smell.

Pitt decided to call this out as nonsense. This then sparked a heated debate about gender identity more broadly, during which Pitt and another co-worker shared their gender-critical views, criticising things like transwomen being allowed to compete in women’s sports or to enter female bathrooms.

For

Hmm. What’s the chain of reasoning here?

[Trump] accused President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of inviting assassins to target him when they warn that he is a threat to democracy.

He told Fox News Digital on Monday without evidence that the alleged would-be shooter “believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it.” Trump went on: “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.”

…

Trump’s running mate advanced an even blunter argument.

“The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that … no

More on the delicate flower “Karla Marx” –

Jennifer Johnson is a transphobe and does not have the support of the queer and trans community! She still refuses to acknowledge that trans women are women @ABDanielleSmith @TheBreakdownAB #ableg #abpoli pic.twitter.com/lRMb6Uy2oC

— Karla Marx (@KarlaMarx1917) September 16, 2024

No no, child, she declined to say that trans women aka men are women. This is because men are not women. She’s not a phobe for knowing that men are not women. You’re a buffoon and a bully for demanding that she say they are, and volubly scolding her when she declines.

Want to debate me on this? Or going to duck me again Blaine? Denying my reality as a woman because I’m

The essence of trans “activism” in under three minutes – actually in the first minute. Man asks woman if she will say men are women, woman says she wants to think about it, man proceeds to berate her non-stop for the next two minutes.

Man is big, man is tall, man has loud deep confident domineering voice, man does not hesitate to take advantage of all his male tools while upbraiding a woman for not instantly agreeing that men like him are women.

This disgusting struggle session of Jennifer Johnson makes me sick to watch. "Karla Marx," you are a man to your very bones. No one needs you for their "pink washing." You do not speak for our "community."

Now there’s a fun way to co-opt “progressive” language about affirmation and being ourselves and solidarity and acceptance and pride.

Last week, I was alarmed & disgusted to learn there was going to be a gathering of pedophiles in Vermont: "MAP Camp 2024," a "first of its kind" event. This week, their website is down & they're scrambling for cover. As they should be. pic.twitter.com/mFtJ6ADq4S

— brainsturbator (@brainsturbator) September 16, 2024

… Read the rest