Hateful conduct is it.

I replied to a tweet of Rob’s.

Your brain on gender identity ideology. Yep, this time I'm apparently right wing because *checks notes* I joked about a new flavour of Jaffa Cakes. pic.twitter.com/ITIjGRMIuI

— latsot (@latsot) August 27, 2024

Too many all-caps?… Read the rest

Amnesty finally fixed it…in the dead of night, in a closet three stories underground.

“Just for being women and girls” replaces “for the ‘crime’ of identifying as a girl.”

They've quietly changed it now. Welcome, but an acknowledgement and explanation would have been better. @amnesty https://t.co/v27BxJQSc1 pic.twitter.com/qJMmfoVT9d

— Helen Staniland (@helenstaniland) August 27, 2024

… Read the rest

Is it censorship to delete lies? Are lies free speech? Should lies be protected as free speech?

Mark Zuckerberg apparently thinks so.

[META] CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the Biden administration had pressured the company to “censor” COVID-19 content during the pandemic, apparently referring to White House requests to take down misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines.

Medical misinformation isn’t mere “content” – it’s misinformation.

In a letter dated Aug. 26, Zuckerberg told the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee that he regretted not speaking up about this pressure earlier, as well as other decisions he had made as the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp around removing certain content.

I have to wonder why he wishes that. Does he … Read the rest

It turns out medical organizations lose members if they make decisions based on politics rather than medical science.

Doctors are leaving the British Medical Association in revolt at its opposition to the Cass review, amid claims that the union has been taken over by an ideologically driven “vocal minority”.

See, “ideologically driven” is pretty much the last thing you want a medical association to be. Ideology is not going to cure your illness or mend your broken leg.

Hundreds of members, including NHS clinical leaders and former presidents of medical royal colleges, have gone public with their “dismay” at BMA leaders for voting to reject the Cass review into the care of transgender children and reverse a ban on puberty

Back to Rotherham:

The journalist who uncovered the Rotherham grooming gangs scandal has said that even he massively underestimated the scale of the abuse.

…

Mr Norfolk had been putting pressure on Rotherham Council and South Yorkshire Police to answer questions about child sexual exploitation by predominantly Asian men since he started receiving tip-offs in 2011.

There it is again, that meaningless “Asian” euphemism. What Asian? Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malayan, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Indian, Sri Lankan, what?

But this time the BBC does in fact admit the truth, albeit briefly.

He admitted that he had had to balance his instinct to reveal the abuse with concerns that the story’s publication would both stoke the reaction of the far-right and lead

Mother Jones reports:

I had traveled to the Silicon Valley headquarters of a startup called Qvin, pronounced “kwin,” derived from the Danish word meaning “woman.” Since receiving clearance from the FDA in January, Qvin has begun selling a new menstrual pad that it says will help people tap into the “power in your period.” Rather than undergo a blood draw, a woman (and anyone who menstruates, but for this story, I will sometimes refer to women because they dominate the group that does)…

No, women don’t dominate the group that menstruates; women are the group that menstruates. Men don’t menstruate; the end. For this story a sane journalist should always refer to women as opposed to “sometimes.”

The uterus

Apart from anything else, it’s so futile.

The Graun:

New Taliban laws that prohibit women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes have been condemned by the UN and met with horror by human rights groups.

The Taliban published a host of new “vice and virtue” laws last week, approved by their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which state that women must completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.

In other words to avoid leading men into thinking about sex. But guess what: they’ll think about it anyway. You might as well lock up all the food so that … Read the rest

Godalmighty. If only people would learn how to think. Just a little would do.

In concluding that that sex can change and that women cannot have sex based human rights, Justice Bromwich relied heavily on amendments the Gillard Government made to the Sex Discrimination act in 2013. Here is Gillard with her rationale for that change #TicklevGiggle pic.twitter.com/UUMUk7zNTg

— Edie Wyatt (@msediewyatt) August 26, 2024

“There are a number of people who genuinely believe that they are trapped in the wrong body and they want to be recognized as the gender that their mind and soul has always told them that they are.”

One, she doesn’t know how many people “genuinely” believe that. Two, so what? People can “genuinely … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Francis Boyle on What reward can genderists offer?

Spot on Sastra. I would just add that it works because that’s what moralists have always done – take the natural human desire to protect the weakest members of the tribe (without which we probably wouldn’t be here, being the weak defenceless apes we are) and by a series of metaphysical shenanigans identify protecting the interests of a power elite as the only “proper” realisation of that desire. It’s like an erotic target location error (i.e. a fetish) but culturally imposed on the entire community (except of course the most elite of those power elites – the pope can have as many “nephews” as he wants, not to … Read the rest

Heather Cox Richardson:

Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz will cross southern Georgia by bus next week to build on the momentum of the convention, working with the 35,000 volunteers, 174 staffers, and 24 campaign offices across the state.

Trump and the MAGA Republicans have not taken the Democrats’ momentum quietly. Trump has been frantically posting.

On Thursday morning he assured readers on his social media channel that “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” although he has boasted about ending the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that protected women’s access to abortion and suggested that women who obtain abortions should be punished. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote that his posts “were

I don’t understand why this is allowed.

An Australian “trans inclusive” Premier League women’s football team with five male players has secured victory in the grand final match after dominating games throughout the summer. During the 2024 season of the North West Sydney Football Women’s Premier Competition, The Flying Bats won all 17 games and scored 76 goals while only a total of 8 points were scored against them.

Why aren’t they just banned?

The Flying Bats, a football club for “self-identified women and non-binary people,” has attracted significant criticism that has escalated over the past year. 

Why was a club for women and some men allowed?

Earlier this year team was awarded a $1,000 prize after winning the

I was going to quote the Daily Mail story on this but it’s pointless: they refer to the male players as “transgender” instead of “male” so why bother to cite them? A women’s team with five male players won every game; you don’t say. Cathy reports honestly.

'Women's' soccer team containing 5 male players wins Women's Premier League.
'Six of the team's victories came as a result of the opposition team forfeiting, including the two semi-final fixtures.'
Pure male entitlement masquerading as 'inclusion'.https://t.co/7SQ1z0j0Zh

— Cathy Devine (@cathydevine56) August 26, 2024

The team went through the season undefeated on account of how they had five male players. On the women’s team.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on What reward can genderists offer?

I’m coming to the conclusion that what’s primarily fueling this mental social contagion isn’t misogyny, but the feminine attribute of nurturing run amok — and the responsible parties for the most part aren’t men, but women.

Sure, there are men identifying as women while thrusting themselves wherever they want just like men, but there have always been transvestites testing boundaries. The modern, ubiquitous warm, welcoming embrace of trans inclusion and acceptance, the generous impulse to say and mean “but OF COURSE you are a woman!” looks like it comes right out of the Woman’s Playbook on Being Agreeable and Helping Others. When our increasing sensitivity to minorities met Therapeutic … Read the rest

Remember Morgane Oger? He posted on Facebook yesterday:

Prove me wrong: No sports injury data in Canada supports the theory that trans women in sports put other women at risk.

So why is the concept even on the table?

There is no credible evidence to suggest that trans women pose a greater risk of causing injuries in women’s sports. The argument that trans women are inherently more dangerous in sports is not supported by data or research.

Sports injuries are influenced by a wide range of factors, such as the specific sport, the level of contact, the training and skill levels of the participants, and the safety measures in place.

Research on sports participation often focuses on these aspects

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on A historic victory.

I’m still amazed by how many are willing to sign up in support of the new Lysenkoism, oh-so-confident that its current favour and influence will continue for at least as long as the rest of their lives. How can so many people (women particularly) be so easily conned by vapid word games that have no basis in truth? Are they so easily bought, so easily convinced of the power of their language to carve and bend physiological reality? Karl Rove set his sights too low; he settled for playing in the squalid little sandbox of global geopolitics; this lot is (like Lysenko) out to rewrite biology.

I … Read the rest

Paula Gerber, a professor of law at Monash University in Melbourne, rejoices that “Roxanne Tickle” won his case.

Roxanne Tickle’s win in the Federal Court is a historic victory for transgender women

The fact that it’s historic disaster for women doesn’t seem to trouble her at all.

It’s been a case closely watched by the transgender community and legal minds alike. Today in the Federal Court of Australia, a judge ruled in favour of trans woman Roxanne Tickle in her anti-discrimination case against a social media app.

I just have to say, minds that have a taste for precision in language know better than to say a community and legal minds are watching something. Minds can’t watch things; that’s the … Read the rest

Rivkah Brown is truly horrible. Not just wrong, thick, delusional, sloppy in her thinking, but horrible.

I didn’t see all of her claims about Tickle yesterday so I failed to grasp quite how horrible she is.

Second, Tickle makes clear above that the app CEO Sall Grover's persistent misgendering made her suicidal. Knowing this, Bettiza allows Grover to repeat her claim that Tickle is a man. This is a flagrant dereliction of journalistic standards and ethics. pic.twitter.com/E6LWtj1wNr

— Rivkah Brown (@rivkahbrown) August 23, 2024

This is why journalists have (or at least ought to) ethical practices when covering vulnerable individuals – and few people are more vulnerable than those whose gender identity is publicly speculated about. Bettiza has a

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Like eating Pringles.

And why should we expect otherwise? Rationalizing consequences away is normal. After all, in the absence of real consequences, you’re free to play the status game, and you really want to play that game. There is status and prestige to be gained (within your tribe) by supporting your team. The more zealous your support, the more status you earn, which necessarily means that you earn less by having any reservations or criticisms. People have to be scared out of playing the status game, because only when repressing a concern obviously costs more status than voicing it do you allow yourself to even become conscious that you have any concerns in

This is silly.

For the most part, Ms Harris has shied away from describing in detail what her presidency would look like.

There’s talk of unity and a way beyond America’s divisive partisanship; a focus on strengthening the economy and reducing consumer prices; and a heavy emphasis on reproductive rights and abortion – an area of particular strength for Democrats.

But it is vague. And this vagueness may suit the Harris campaign just fine.

“Vague,” the BBC says. Have they heard of the other guy? Do they think he’s not-vague?

In other words, the vice-president’s policy vagueness has allowed her to cast as broad an appeal as possible in what is shaping up to be an election where every

Why not just fold women up into smaller and smaller bundles until you can’t see them anymore? Wouldn’t that be the simplest way?

Speaking forbidden

Women in Afghanistan have been banned from speaking in public under draconian laws announced by the Taliban.

The rules, which also stop women from showing their uncovered faces in public, were approved by Hibatullah Akhundzada, the country’s supreme leader, and represent some of the strictest measures imposed on women since the Taliban regained power in 2021.

Clearly women are a kind of poison that must be rigorously controlled – like plutonium for instance. The tiniest bit of exposure can lead to a miserable death.

A woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be