Julie Bindel on “conversion therapy” and the laws.

The [Scottish National] party has proposed a new law that could criminalise parents for refusing to fully validate their child as transgender.

Among the actions that could be criminalised are preventing someone from “dressing in a way that reflects their sexual orientation or gender identity”, even if that decision were to be taken by a parent acting to protect their child from gender ideologues.

The SNP proposed a law to force parents to encourage their children to believe in a delusion.

Five or ten years from now will the SNP be writing laws to force parents to let their children dress up as dogs, sheep, dolphins? Not for parties or giggles but … Read the rest

The left continues to blast away at its own feet.

Labour’s London region has suspended the party’s candidate for a closely-contested council by-election in Hackney following allegations of “transphobia“.

…

A Labour source has confirmed that the candidate, Laura Pascal (front right in photo), has been “administratively suspended”, which means a complaint has been made about her by another party member and a decision taken to investigate it.

The timing of the suspension means there is not enough time to nominate a different candidate in time for the by-election, which will be held next Thursday. This means that if Pascal wins, she will sit as an independent councillor. The source confirmed that Labour will do no further

Déjà vu all over again eh Hahvahd?

Several Jewish students have filed a lawsuit against Harvard University, accusing it of becoming “a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment”.

Harvard already was anti-Jewish, for generations, but in the other way – the Waspy snobby ew ick way, not the wokey trendy pro-Hamas way. It’s weird to see them make the full circle.

The lawsuit filed earlier this week mirrors others submitted since the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel, including legal action against the Art Institute of Chicago, New York University and the University of Pennsylvania.

In the Harvard lawsuit, the plaintiffs include members of the Students Against Antisemitism. They accuse Harvard of violating Jewish students’ civil

But this isn’t parody. Should be but isn’t.

The diktat by bosses at data watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office suggests that it is not enough to call employees by their chosen gender pronouns.

It says staff can show their support for trans colleagues by ‘thinking of the person as being the gender that they want you to think of them as’. 

Compliance not enough; visible actions not enough; you must think what we tell you to think.

Oh yeah? Well how are you gonna know? Magic?

The ICO’s Trans Policy and Guidance says its staff should ‘be guided by your trans colleague and their preferences’ in an effort to support them and they ‘must call a person by their

Aw come on, that has to be parody, doesn’t it?

Transhausen by Proxy mom versus sane, rational father. This guy needs to divorce his wife and file for sole custody!

And of course she wants to transition her kid, who is already having doubts, for money and fame. Evil woman. Pray for this kid that the dad prevails. pic.twitter.com/EeFjQKiHCB

— Gays Against Groomers (@againstgrmrs) January 12, 2024

Daughter wants to pretend-transition to boy so that she can transition to girl in a few years? That can’t be real. Can it? (And “we’ll lose the deal with TLC” sounds parodic too.)

AnnLesby – that’s a known parody-maker, right?… Read the rest

Trump owes the NY Times:

Former President Donald Trump has been ordered to pay the New York Times nearly $400,000 (£313,900) in legal fees for a failed lawsuit.

Mr Trump’s $100m lawsuit accused the newspaper and Mr Trump’s estranged niece, Mary Trump, of “an insidious plot” to obtain his tax records. A judge dismissed it last year, saying its claims “fail as a matter of constitutional law”.

Free press? Ring a bell, Don?

The lawsuit, over a 2018 investigation that alleged the former president was involved in “dubious tax schemes”, accused three journalists who reported on the story of working with Mr Trump’s niece as part of a “personal vendetta” against him. It claimed they relentlessly pursued her and

This is a point that should be made more often. A LOT more often.

Males who identify as women do not want to share private spaces with other males. But women don't want to share those spaces with men however they identify. So the transwomen insists on the very same right that they maintain we must deny women.

— Prof. Gary Francione (@garylfrancione) January 12, 2024

Indeed. “We men don’t want to be around men in private spaces, so you have to let us be around you in private spaces, even though you don’t want to be around men in private spaces either.”… Read the rest

Trump threatens:

There will be “bedlam” in the US if criminal cases deny Donald Trump a White House return, said the former president who incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress but who is the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination this year.

Why will there be bedlam? Because Donald Dictator will foment it.

“I think they feel this is the way they’re going to try and win, and that’s not the way it goes,” Trump told reporters, referring to Joe Biden and Democrats, after a court hearing in Washington DC on Tuesday.

Hey, you know what’s not the way it goes? A guy who loses an election sending an armed mob to attack the government, that’s … Read the rest

Jerry Coyne on the decline of Science Based Medicine:

Lordy, how many of us used to love the Science-Based Medicine (SBM) site? I did! It was the go-to place for enjoying the debunking of medical quackery and the scrutiny of dubious medical claims. Started in 2008 by Steve Novella and David Gorski (“Orac”), SBM is affiliated with the Society for Science-Based Medicine.

Sadly, it’s now going down the tubes, having bought heavily, like the ACLU and FFRF, into gender activism. It started with an incident I reported here, involving Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage and a positive review by SBM editor, skeptic, and physician Harriet Hall. 

Let’s let Wikipedia sum it up:

On June 15, 2021, Science-Based Medicine

From Reduxx:

The World Health Organization is under fire for choosing a group of trans activists to develop its first global guide to “gender-affirming care,” with particular concern surrounding an appointee who advocates for halting children’s puberty. 

Why is the WHO doing that at all? Why is the WHO promoting a stupid fad that urges people to ruin their own bodies? Why do people in Nigeria and Laos and Afghanistan need to adopt this brainless destructive fad?

On December 18 of 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) formally announced the individuals who had been selected to make up its guideline development group (GDG). According to the global health body’s website, the GDG will create “implementation guidance on health sector

Kath Murray, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Lisa Mackenzie write:

This week the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee will consider the Scottish Prison Service revised policy for transgender prisoners, finally published after a five-year hiatus…

As before, the revised policy is based on self-declaration principles. Prisoners seeking to be accommodated and/or searched based on their gender identity are required to “demonstrate” their identity, but this is not essential. As the SPS explain, the “policy is also explicit that decisions should not be made based on an individual’s ability to provide a wealth of evidence and there may be many reasons why an individual cannot provide this evidence and should not be penalised for this”.

Because the people of gender … Read the rest

Pathetic NPR:

“I think just a few years ago, before Roe was overturned, it was unimaginable for people to tell their stories about traumatic pregnancy loss and about abortions without the fear of public stigma,” Molly Duane of the Center for Reproductive Rights told NPR.

For people to tell their stories? Avoiding something?

Now, it’s different. “Women and pregnant people in this country are so angry and so shocked at the treatment that they are receiving at the hands of the state that they have been compelled to tell their stories,” she says.

Go to hell, NPR. There are no pregnant men in this or any other country; we don’t need you erasing us in the very act of … Read the rest

Awww look at that adorable cutesie-wootsie kittycat and look how stabby it is and how threat-makey it is. I always love that combination of violent threat and cuddly diddums.

I didn’t know about this guy:

A beluga whale that turned up in Norway wearing a harness in 2019, prompting speculation it was a spy trained by the Russian navy, has reappeared off Sweden’s coast.

First discovered in Norway’s far northern region of Finnmark, the whale spent more than three years slowly moving down the top half of the Norwegian coastline, before suddenly speeding up in recent months to cover the second half and move on to Sweden.

On Sunday [May 22, 2023], he was observed in Hunnebostrand, off Sweden’s south-western coast.

…

Norwegians nicknamed him Hvaldimir – a pun on whale in Norwegian, hval, and a nod to its alleged association with Russia.

When

Man tells world he can’t understand why women don’t want men strip-searching them.

The assumed criminality of trans people is getting out of hand and is completely irrational.
A trans person doing their job does not make them an abuser or criminal.
We don’t assume a lesbian officer wants to “feel up women”, so why trans women? It’s absurd. https://t.co/GVeedmi2dS

— Thomas Willett (@ThomasWillett9) January 11, 2024

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Papito on Relating to coercive behavior.

Since “changing gender” doesn’t really mean anything, how can one prevent it? If you are “assigned sex at birth,” but you are born with an inherent, inalienable gender, then it never changes, so you can’t prevent it changing. For example, once upon a time, in a deleted universe, there was an actress named Ellen Page, but in our more valid universe you can see that a fellow named Elliot Page has credits for Juno, where he played a pregnant girl, and Hard Candy, where he played a 14-year old female vigilante. Because he was always Elliot, he never changed gender. He played those roles as a remarkably talented young … Read the rest

Yes, yes they would. Next question?

So in short, the answer is "Yes". pic.twitter.com/tG6rQTSxUQ

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) January 11, 2024

Parents are allowed to talk about gender identity, but they are of course not allowed to say it’s not a real thing. It’s like the church. Parents are allowed to talk about the religion, but they’re not allowed to say it’s bullshit.

Furthermore parents will be jailed for seven years only in the case of coercive behavior, like telling their sons they’re boys and can’t change themselves into girls.

How very liberal.… Read the rest

Dave Hewitt is brilliant.

There is a phenomenon I’ve noticed in political discourse many times in recent years, which goes like this:

• An existing term is colonised and its meaning subverted to new political ends
• Previous users of the term are forced to try to come up with a new term to replace the old one
• The new occupants demonise the old, and deny political legitimacy to any new terminology

The best description I can think of for this process is semantic gentrification, in which users of a word’s original meaning are forced out by newcomers who consider themselves morally enlightened in comparison to the older population, who completely change the character of the term in service of

Originally a comment by Francis Boyle on Too many organisations have let them get away with it.

Our generation had Punk. They practised what we’d probably now call “trolling” and got the desired response. That was their passport to seeing themselves as lonely misunderstood romantic heroes. Then came Goths and most people were a just little wiser and pretty much let them get on with mooching about in cemeteries at midnight and writing bad poetry. We’d been there. Then came what? We’d reached a point when nothing anyone could do in terms of presentation or “lifestyle” could shock or even slightly perturb the older generations. We, who had become those older generations, were all too busy desperately denying the … Read the rest

Is that really true though?

Nice bit of homophobia from anti-trans activist Maya. As a gay man, the ability to be myself at work is vital. I shouldn’t have to hide who I am. DEI schemes help foster an inclusive work environment, something Maya doesn’t understand because she works to create division. https://t.co/y5aBsJ0h1d

— Thomas Willett (@ThomasWillett9) January 10, 2024

Is Thomas Willett’s ability to be himself at work really vital? Is it true that he shouldn’t have to hide who he is?

I don’t mean specifically the azza gay man part, I mean the generalization. Is it vital for people to “be themselves” at work?

I’ve always taken the truth of this claim for granted, but today I paused … Read the rest