… Read the restBristol city council has been accused of offending women with “virtue-signalling madness” after claiming that legally defining sex as biological “misgenders trans people” and could lead to discrimination.
…
The comments were made in a 39-page response to a consultation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on updates to its guidance, following the Supreme Court ruling in April this year that sex in equality laws refers to biological sex.
The guidance, which is waiting final approval by ministers, is understood to state that trans women cannot be admitted to women’s single sex spaces.
…
Bristol city council, whose Green Party leader Tony Dyer has criticised the Supreme Court ruling, raised a number
All entries by this author
In a crowded field
Sep 23rd, 2025 7:02 am | By Ophelia BensonThe point is
Sep 23rd, 2025 6:37 am | By Ophelia BensonDerrick Jensen on making excuses for murder:
… Read the restPeter Boghossian is right. This is much of what is wrong with postmodernism, academia, and the postmodern left.
Edit:
I know this is facebook, so my expectations are low already, but Jesus, the responses disappoint me. I’ll make this clear: The point is that NOBODY DESERVES TO BE MURDERED FOR THEIR IDEAS. And more than half the fucking people responding to this post seem pretty clearly to be more appalled by his words than by the fact that he was MURDERED FOR SPEAKING. As a writer of controversial materials who has received boatloads of death-threats by the postmodern left, a postmodern left who calls ME a nazi and a fascist for not
Tough it out
Sep 22nd, 2025 5:29 pm | By Ophelia BensonDoctor Genius Trump explained about Tylenol and gestation today.
President Donald Trump announced Monday that the US Food and Drug Administration will be notifying physicians that the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy “can be associated with a very increased risk of autism,” despite decades of evidence that it’s safe.
“They are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary,” such as to treat fever, “if you can’t tough it out,” Trump said.
Yeah you whiny weakling cowardly bitches, and by the way never mind that maternal fever isn’t all that good for the future baby either.
… Read the restExperts say autism is caused by multiple factors, and the science concerning the connection between Tylenol use during pregnancy and
Escalating
Sep 22nd, 2025 11:30 am | By Ophelia BensonThe descent is going faster and faster by the day.
Trump has spent months chipping away at the barriers that have longprotected the Justice Department from political interference. But now federal prosecutors and legal observers are bracing for what comes next as he escalates that effort rapidly.
Veteran lawyers in a Virginia U.S. attorney’s office fear that the ouster of their bosslast week — after a White House push to prosecute two of the president’s political foes — could portend even more overt efforts by Trump to dictate the outcome of investigations.
…
“I just want people to act. They have to act,” Trump told reporters outside the White House Saturday evening, adding, “We have to act fast.”
Did … Read the rest
What is feminist
Sep 22nd, 2025 10:46 am | By Ophelia BensonPretending men are women isn’t feminist.
#TransphobiaIsntFeminist pic.twitter.com/zKL09YK3ed
— Lib Dem Women (@LibDemWomen) September 22, 2025
A nagging question
Sep 22nd, 2025 10:36 am | By Ophelia BensonI’m curious about why “Sophie Molly” does this.
People mostly don’t bare their teeth like that when smiling, and they even more mostly don’t grit them like that. In other primates a gritted teeth grin like that is a threat response.
Maybe he thinks it makes him look more womany.… Read the rest
Free markets and enslaved everything else
Sep 22nd, 2025 9:09 am | By Ophelia BensonThe metamorphosis of the Washington Post:
… Read the restLongtime Washington Post writer Karen Attiah says she has been fired from the publication’s Opinions department for “speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.”
The Post, which has been overhauling the entire department, declined to comment on personnel matters. But Attiah’s Post biography has been revised to say she “was” a columnist, indicating she is no longer employed.
…
Attiah posted a string of messages about political violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week. She criticized what she called “empty rhetoric” denouncing violence that hasn’t been matched by actions.
One of her posts asserted that “part of what keeps America so violent is the
Closing act
Sep 22nd, 2025 8:50 am | By Ophelia Benson… Read the restTrump told a crowd of tens of thousands at a memorial for Charlie Kirk that he “hates” his opponents, despite Kirk’s widow saying she forgives the man charged with fatally shooting her husband.
The president gave the last of more than two dozen speeches at a public event that reflected on Kirk’s impact within the Make America Great Again movement. He said Kirk told a staff member he was not afraid of students who disagreed with him in the crowd at Utah Valley University. “I’m not here to fight them – I want them to know them and love them,” Trump quoted Kirk as saying.
But Trump said he felt differently to the
“Her face hurt my hand”
Sep 21st, 2025 5:56 pm | By Ophelia BensonIllinois congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh said she was injured Friday as a result of getting knocked to the ground by a U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agent.
The incident took place during a demonstration outside of the Broadview ICE detention facility near Chicago. Abughazaleh, a Democrat seeking to represent Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, posted a video on X, writing: “This is what it looks like when ICE violates our First Amendment rights.”
… Read the restWhat ICE just did to me was a violent abuse of power — and it’s still nothing compared to what they’re doing to immigrant communities.
I’ve been fighting the right as a journalist and now I’m running for Congress to do the
An instrument
Sep 21st, 2025 11:35 am | By Ophelia BensonDemocrats on Sunday framed President Trump’s public demand that Attorney General Pam Bondi not “delay” in prosecutions of political enemies as a threat to American democracy.
I don’t think “framed” is the right word there. “Described” or “characterized” would be better. It’s not really all that controversial or debatable that a president leaning on an AG to prosecute people the president doesn’t like is not kosher. Is “not kosher” equivalent to “threat to democracy”? Good enough for government work, I’d say.
… Read the restSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that Trump is turning the DOJ “into an instrument that goes after his enemies, whether they’re guilty or not” and
Reason to be concerned
Sep 21st, 2025 10:55 am | By Ophelia BensonSo is Pam Bondi willing to be another John Mitchell?
… Read the restTrump is worried that Attorney General Pam Bondi is moving too slowly to prosecute his political adversaries on fake charges. Trump has good reason to be concerned. He is carrying out his project to consolidate authoritarian power against the trend of declining public support for his administration and himself…
Autocracies are headed by one man but require the cooperation of many others. Some collaborators may sincerely share the autocrat’s goals, but opportunists provide a crucial margin of support. In the United States, such people now have to make a difficult calculation: Do the present benefits of submitting to Trump’s will outweigh the future hazards?
As Bondi makes her daily decisions
Pam:
Sep 21st, 2025 10:28 am | By Ophelia BensonTrump wants his Attorney General to do something, so he yells at her in public on his personal social media toy.
He’s stupid but he can’t be so extremely stupid that he thinks this is normal and president-like and not at all cringe-worthy. So why does he do it? I suppose it’s because he doesn’t care about being cringe-worthy because we can’t get rid of him so why should he? So the libs think he’s childish and embarrassing and idiotic, so what?
CNN:
… Read the restPresident Donald Trump increased pressure on Attorney General Pam Bondi to bring criminal charges against several political foes, calling her out by name Saturday as he noted he had reviewed statements critical over what he says
There have been episodes
Sep 21st, 2025 8:57 am | By Ophelia BensonTrump continued his sweeping crackdown on immigration on Friday, turning his focus to a visa program for skilled foreign workers. He signed a proclamation that adds a $100,000 fee for new applicants for H-1B visas that allow foreign workers like software engineers a chance to be employed in the United States.
The H-1B visa is designed to help companies fill openings for which American workers with similar abilities cannot be found. But immigration hard-liners and far-right activists have long argued that the visa allows companies to replace American workers with foreign ones.
And, the Times inexplicably neglects to say, pay them less. It could be said that the H-1B visa is designed to help companies fill … Read the rest
who they really
Sep 21st, 2025 8:14 am | By Ophelia BensonNo. This is one of the items they get so entirely wrong.
‘If you go down the biological route, you will uncover a minefield’
Liberal Democrats in England Former Chair Lucas North says the Liberal Democrats have been ‘very clear’ that the view of the party is ‘trans-women are women’. pic.twitter.com/JFWXrZMsPK
— GB News (@GBNEWS) September 20, 2025
Starting at 1:07:
…and I think that recognizing that people know best who they themselves are and recognizing and taking at face value who someone says that they are is important and is the decent way to interact with other people.
In ordinary circumstances, yes, but it takes only a few seconds of thought to come up with exceptions.
These days, though, … Read the rest
Sanctify or else
Sep 20th, 2025 5:23 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh come on.
Mandatory sanctification of maga hero.
Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma introduced legislation this week that would require every public university in the state to construct “a Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza”, with a statue of the assassinated Republican activist and a sign calling him a “modern civil rights leader”, or pay monthly fines.
Just stop. He wasn’t any kind of civil rights leader. He was a talker, an advocate, an activist of sorts, but not a civil rights leader. Civil rights leaders don’t tell some kinds of people they are subordinate to other kinds of people. That’s the opposite of civil rights leadership.
And then making it mandatory to throw up a statue of him on every … Read the rest
Just say no
Sep 20th, 2025 1:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo very liberal and democratic.
The Lib Dem party conference has descended into a transgender row after members shut down a vote on biological men taking women’s roles.
Gender-critical activists had intended to force Sir Ed Davey into banning trans women from taking female positions with a debate and then vote on the issue. However, it was struck off the agenda after a rival campaigner warned it would be used to “legitimise bigotry”, calling the proponents an “extremist faction”.
Oh we’re the extremists. It’s extremist to know that men are not women, and not at all extremist to insist that men are women if they say they are and that women have no right to defend our own rapidly … Read the rest
Physician, heal thyself
Sep 20th, 2025 11:32 am | By Ophelia BensonSome Good Law Project blither from Jolyon:
A dangerous narrative that frames trans people as a threat to women has solidified its grip on public discourse in recent months. It’s a narrative built on fear, not facts, and it’s having devastating effects on the trans community.
It’s not a “narrative.” It’s trendy to sweep all the words into the category of “narrative” (except one’s own words of course) but it’s stupid and inaccurate and manipulative. It’s also not “framing.” Calling it “framing” implies manipulation at best, lying at worst.
We’re not telling a story when we point out that trans women are men and that men are barred from some women’s spaces for reasons of safety as well as … Read the rest
Leave the women to die
Sep 20th, 2025 11:14 am | By Ophelia BensonThe NY Times reported a couple of weeks ago that rescuers in Afghanistan don’t rescue women.
… Read the restThe first rescue workers reached Bibi Aysha’s village more than 36 hours after an earthquake devastated settlements across eastern Afghanistan’s mountainous areas on Sunday. But instead of bringing relief, the sight of them heightened her fears; not a single woman was among them.
Afghan cultural norms, enforced even in emergencies by the ruling Taliban, forbid physical contact between men and women who are not family members. In the village of Andarluckak, in Kunar Province, the emergency team hurriedly carried out wounded men and children, and treated their wounds, said Ms. Aysha, 19. But she and other women and adolescent girls, some of them bleeding,
Systematically dismantling
Sep 20th, 2025 9:14 am | By Ophelia BensonAre we seeing a pattern or no?
A top House Democrat on Tuesday accused Donald Trump of “systematically dismantling” efforts to prosecute sex crimes and hunt down traffickers, as the president faces continued pressure to make public investigative files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The memo from House judiciary committee ranking member Jamie Raskin and his staff, shared exclusively with the Guardian, said that beyond refusing the demands for transparency around Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, Trump has also undercut efforts to hold people accused of similar crimes accountable by “systematically dismantling the offices and programs we rely on to combat human trafficking and prosecute sex crimes”.
Are we sure it’s systematically as … Read the rest
The fix is in
Sep 20th, 2025 2:22 am | By Ophelia BensonLook, this isn’t complicated. Either you do what Trump tells you to do, or ya fiyad. It’s that simple.
… Read the restThe U.S. attorney investigating New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey said he had resigned on Friday, hours after President Trump called for his ouster.
Erik S. Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had recently told senior Justice Department officials that investigators found insufficient evidence to bring charges against Ms. James and had also raised concerns about a potential case against Mr. Comey, according to officials familiar with the situation. Mr. Trump has long viewed Ms. James and Mr. Comey as adversaries and has repeatedly pledged retribution against law
