Ooh I know this one, I can help.

The same people who are always very angry with Billy Bragg are simultaneously *outraged* that some other people are upset with Roisin Murphy

— Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera (@PantiBliss) September 2, 2023

Let me explain. Those are two different people, saying different things. So, to offer an analogy, you might like the novels of Natalie Haynes but not the novels of Lionel Shriver, or vice versa, because those are two different people writing different books. Do you see how that works? It’s quite a common occurrence, so it’s a good idea to get used to it.… Read the rest

LOVE the macramé bracelet.

Click on the image to see the classic Keds, too.

Aw look at the plucky lads overcoming the handicap of being male.

Aw, sad.

60,000 people trapped in sticky sludge-like mud, unable to move or even walk from place to place, with limited food and water and bathrooms, maybe not able to leave until Tuesday? And it’s raining again tomorrow? What could go wrong? pic.twitter.com/mmLLNb0s6e

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) September 2, 2023

This sounds like something they would say if there was an Ebola outbreak at Burning Man. pic.twitter.com/BnjXeMWtv4

— Luke (@luke_brocks) September 3, 2023

Vox has details:

[Last] Sunday was not a fun day for the thousands of people on their way to Burning Man. In the days leading up to the bacchanal, traffic is typically a nightmare on the two-lane highway that leads to the barren former lake bed

Men must be protected, but women are fair game.

Today's slow clap is for The Cube cafe in Croydon @JohnWhitgiftFdn – they've added a handy unisex sticker to the ladies loos, but the mens is still for, well, the menz. @FairfieldHalls tell us, pray, why men's privacy and dignity matters, but not women's? dying to hear it… pic.twitter.com/5GDdo3oqJm

— Con-She (@sheela_na) September 3, 2023

I doubt I’ll ever understand why the blatant absurdity doesn’t make them stop and think again. Why keep the men’s toilet for men but say “come on in!” on the women’s? And while we’re at it, why label the women’s the women’s, and then add a smaller sign underneath that says “Both”?

Also, the iconography is … Read the rest

Alabama Republicans are still battling Reconstruction.

Just a few months ago, the US supreme court issued one of its most surprising rulings in recent memory.

In a 5-4 decision in Allen v Milligan, the court said Alabama’s congressional map violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act because it diluted the influence of Black voters, who make up about a quarter of the state’s population, but comprise a majority in just one of Alabama’s congressional districts. The justices upheld a lower court’s decision ordering Alabama to redraw its map “to include two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it”.

It was widely seen as a major win for the Voting Rights Act,

Hmmmmmmmmmmno.

Gender identity is real

We all have a gender identity. Mine is male

Womens' gender identity is female

Trans women have a gender identity that is not the same as their biological sex

Their trans identity is different but equally as valid as the female identity of other women pic.twitter.com/wzuuf0sB1x

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) September 2, 2023

No gender idenniny isn’t “real” any more than the “soul” is real. Feelings about what sex one is can be real. Intense unhappiness about what sex one is can be real. Unhappiness of that kind can be both real and as it were manufactured – it can be a product of social manipulation or contagion, while still being an intense feeling. But … Read the rest

Hm. Interesting.

An unsafe environment, Comerford says. So unsafe that there is no choice: it is imperative that such an environment be prevented by canceling the entire gig in every case.

This is a big part of the pathology of this kind of “politics.” It’s pathological to be so extremely fragile that merely being in the presence of people who don’t share your delusions is “unsafe.”

But they’re not actually that fragile, are they. Hardly anyone is. It’s the ideology that’s fragile, and it’s the ideology that’s pathological.

It’s stupid and bad to keep telling people, over and over and in all-caps, that they are as fragile as a spider web, so fragile that they will drop dead or commit … Read the rest

Sigh.

The Telegraph:

Cricket is facing mounting criticism for failing to follow other sports in tightening women’s sport protections after it emerged a transgender player will make her international debut.

Danielle McGahey, an Australian-born player, is set to become the first transgender cricketer to play an official Twenty20 international, representing Canada.

That is, the first man to play on a women’s team.

Sharron Davies, the Olympic medallist swimmer who has been at the forefront of campaigns to protect the integrity of women’s sport, says the situation is “outrageously irresponsible”.

“We’ve been pushing the England and Wales Cricket Board for years to protect females from male biological advantage,” she told Telegraph Sport of campaigns in England to toughen rules. “There

Why would any college, let alone a women’s college, give money to Dylan Mulvaney to talk about women’s rights and women’s empowerment? When there are plenty of women who would do a much better job of it and have the added value of being women?

Dylan Mulvaney is a stunt, an act, a joke, a living cartoon. Why would any educational institution go near him? What is the purpose?

Dylan Mulvaney gave a speech at Emerson College last night to 100’s of young students discussing women’s rights and women’s empowerment.

He charges $40,000 per speaking engagement.

Do you think @EmersonCollege should be wasting money on brainwashing teens? pic.twitter.com/VvnUQX6kOh

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) September 1, 2023

He won an award. He … Read the rest

Victoria Smith on the surprising absence of embarrassment:

It has just been announced that Danielle McGahey, a biological male, will represent Canada as the first trans cricketer in an official international women’s match. What’s more, McGahey isn’t remotely ashamed to be stealing the place of an elite female cricketer. All the rules have been followed: blood tests, declarations of gender identity, and all the rest. As long as a series of arbitrary hoops — none of which turn males into females — can be jumped through, McGahey assumes the right to pose as the injured party should anyone object. 

The cricketer follows Lia Thomas, Veronica Ivy, Laurel Hubbard, Lindsay Hecox, Hannah Mouncey and CeCé

Jo Bartosch on the sudden cancellation of Róisín Murphy:

Murphy’s crime was to have been forthright about her views on the use of experimental puberty-blocking drugs on children who are confused about their gender.

…

Murphy’s views are certainly not unfounded. Medical opinion across the world is now shifting against the use of puberty blockers to treat childhood gender distress. And yet Murphy could not have put a larger target on her own back had she announced her engagement to President Putin, with Andrew Tate as celebrant.

…

This week, it was reported that Ninja Tune, the record label behind Murphy’s long-awaited upcoming album, Hit Parade, has halted all marketing and promotion of her work. It has

This guy is a medical doctor – it says so on the tin. And yet, he thinks a single word can change people’s sex.

Trans women are women.
Not “cheating men.”

Glad I could clear that up for you! #TransRightsAreHumanRights

— Alastair McAlpine, MD (@AlastairMcA30) September 1, 2023

He’s been trying to bully Martina.

When I was young, Martina Navratilova was accused of being too “butch and muscled” to compete against “normal women.” It was vile.

Now she’s bullying trans folk for being too “butch and muscled” to compete against “normal women.” Still vile.

The bullied become bullies.

— Alastair McAlpine, MD (@AlastairMcA30) August 25, 2023

Peak argumentative skills: put quotation marks on things people never said. Martina doesn’t bully … Read the rest

Proud dude sentenced to 17 years.

A leader of the far-right Proud Boys has been sentenced to 17 years in prison, one of the longest terms yet handed out over the US Capitol riot. US Army veteran Joe Biggs, 38, was an instigator of the storming of Congress on 6 January 2021, prosecutors said.

Another Proud Boys member, Zachary Rehl, was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years, also on a charge of seditious conspiracy. Rehl, a former US Marine and leader of the Philadelphia branch of the Proud Boys, was seen on video spraying a chemical irritant at officers outside the Capitol during the riot.

Biggs was convicted of a slew of charges in May, including seditious conspiracy, intimidation

He’s absolutely right.

Idea known perpetrator of violence can get off scott free consequences of their very public incitement towards women, said with conviction, because they were having a "larf" – as opposed to this betraying aggravated contempt for said group – so back to front preposterous & sick.

— Shahrar Ali (@ShahrarAli) September 1, 2023

But see women don’t get to cite aggravated contempt. We’re not eligible. Racial minorities are eligible, LGB people are eligible, god-botherers are eligible, trans people are super eligible, but women are not. Some women are of course included in racial minorities and religions, some of course are lesbians, but women qua women are not entitled to claim that misogynist abuse is aggravated anything. We’re … Read the rest

I wish Seattle would do the same.

Paris says au revoir to rental e-scooters

They’re a menace. It’s like allowing people to drive their cars on the sidewalks.

A ban on rental electric scooters has come into effect in Paris in response to a rising number of people being injured and killed in the French capital.

…

Paris is now one of the first capitals to have outlawed the rented electric vehicles, just five years after being one of the first to adopt them.

Come on, Seattle, do the same.

As a cyclist of the traditional variety, I am more than a little peeved by the way electric “personal vehicles” like e-scooters are crowding out our space. Forty years

Keith Olbermann really is a piece of dung.

Second team all-conference. Happily for nasty, stupid, unsuccessful transphobe @Riley_Gaines_ she has no reputation to ruin

Anyhoo, don't forget to listen to the Countdown podcast because Trump also sucks: https://t.co/IFzDwY6MdN pic.twitter.com/hkc52w4YOV

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) August 31, 2023

I guess that whole revival of feminism thing was a hallucination. It’s still 1960 and women are still a joke and a punching bag.… Read the rest

The BBC account of Baker’s girlish prank:

A transgender activist who told a crowd to “punch a terf” has been cleared of intentionally encouraging the commission of an offence.

Because telling a crowd to punch feminist women in the face is not encouraging the commission of an offence. It’s…something else. Crocheting, or rock climbing, or tennis. Something.

The court heard that during the arrest, which Baker live-streamed on to social media, she said “don’t punch terfs, I’m really sorry I said that”. The court was told she accepted she had said the words but denied any intent to incite violence.

See that’s the special kind of trans activist urging people to stab or choke or punch feminist women – … Read the rest

Of course it’s not.

There has been some confusion about prosecutorial decisions of late. What follows is not aimed at any particular case. I know not why some cases are prosecuted and other are not. But the points below are perhaps not widely known.

— Roddy Dunlop KC (@RoddyQC) August 30, 2023

3- the PF is not obliged to prosecute every reported crime. Again, there is a discretion.

4- once more, however, the discretion not to prosecute is removed, of at least tightly circumscribed, where there is an aggravation.

— Roddy Dunlop KC (@RoddyQC) August 30, 2023

7- likewise, being gender critical may be covered under the Equality Act. But it is not covered by aggravations under the criminal law.

From the Toronto Star:

Róisín Murphy’s record label ceases promotion of her new record following transphobic social media comments

Subhead:

The Irish singer-songwriter is facing heavy backlash following inflammatory social comments about the trans community.

Nice neutral reporting you got there – her comments are “transphobic” and “inflammatory” right out of the gate.

For the billionth time I have to point out that the news media have never reported on misogyny in this way. Femalephobic inflammatory comments and indeed whole articles are commonplace, and journalists don’t even notice, let alone shriek about phobia and inflammation.

Róisín Murphy’s record label is ceasing all marketing and promotion of “Hit Parade,” the Irish singer’s highly anticipated album just days before the project’s release