And if the judge’s request for pronouns isn’t enough horror for one day, there’s a ruling from the Australian Human Rights Commission a few days ago:

Australia’s Human Rights Commission has released a preliminary decision prohibiting lesbians from holding events for females due to the exclusion of men who identify as “women.” The Commission’s decision comes after a lesbian rights group applied for an exemption under the [Sex] Discrimination Act 1984.

Lesbians may not hold events for women, because men want to intrude.

The application to the Commission was submitted by long-time Australian women’s rights activist Jean Taylor on behalf of herself and the members of the Lesbian Action Group, a collective established to address discrimination experienced by

… Read the rest

You have GOT to be kidding.

The Jo Phoenix v Open University hearing has started today.

So…

https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1708804037238202410

Words fail me.

Lawyers speak up.

When a senior silk openly discusses this drastic measure, you know something seriously irregular has occurred in court. https://t.co/o3ziTKzwuV

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) October 2, 2023

In over 20 years in the criminal division I have never once been asked for "my pronouns" in court by a judge or magistrate. https://t.co/ILDaCgmeB9

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) October 2, 2023

This was surprising conduct from the judge. https://t.co/BMmwhcfjx8

— Legal Feminist (@legalfeminist) October 2, 2023

But for a judge to ask counsel their pronouns at the opening of a case concerning these very issues is extraordinary.

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Steven on Their own load of unclaimed baggage.

There’s an interesting/funny circular logic concerning cryptids.

When people talk about cryptids, they mean BIG cryptids. If I claim there is an unknown species of bacteria, or lichen, or insect, or even a small bat in some jungle somewhere, well, sure. There probably is.

But the cryptids that people get excited about are the big ones. Sasquatch. Yeti. Nessi. And the thing about big cryptids is that there just can’t be any of them in lower Manhattan. We’d see them, right? There can’t even be any in Nebraska. The farmers would run into them with their tractors and there would be video on YouTube.

The big cryptids … Read the rest

The new know-nothingism.

https://twitter.com/Ka81/status/1708456967629308012

No one should be writing books on autism, which has to mean also that no one should be doing research on autism, who isn’t autistic? What sense does that make? Is it a rule for all such subjects? No writing or research about blindness if you’re not blind? No writing or research about cancer if you don’t have cancer? No writing or research about chronic depression if you’re not chronically depressed? No writing or research about alcoholism if you’re not an alcoholic?

I suppose this is an offshoot of the idea that white people should shut up about racism and listen to black people instead of doing all the talking. I think there’s some truth to … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on + Month.

A purity spiral in action:

In 1970 it was Pride Day.

By the mid-1990s it was Pride Week.

By the turn of the millennium it was starting to be called Pride Month.

By 2022 the Canadian government had declared all of summer, from June to September, as “Pride Season.”

And now, just a year later, of course, Diversity, Equity, and Incusion busybodies want to extend the season through October.

This will just about get queer people safely to the end of the second week of November, which is the start of Trans Awareness Week. And the day after that is of course the Trans Day of Visibility.

In case you’re worried … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The dog that didn’t bark.

Saying ‘we have evidence’ or ‘there is evidence’ is not the same as presenting evidence. There are a lot of people who claim to have evidence for bigfoot; sure. Show us the evidence. Subject it to rigorous review and repetition to see if the claims hold up. Then you’ll have evidence.

One of the things that many people who argue for the existence of creatures like bigfoot/sasquatch, Mokele-mbembe, or the Loch Ness Monster don’t seem to realize or appreciate is that their claims entail perforce the continued existence through time of an entire population of their preferred cryptid(s). A population and a history. One means … Read the rest

How many?

In October we celebrate 2SLGBTQQIA+ Month, recognizing the history of the diverse lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender & queer communities. We encourage our schools & students to become allies & stand up against discrimination, bullying & harassment. #acceptance #love #inclusivity pic.twitter.com/QuuP2nV53O

— Ontario Principals' Council (@OPCouncil) October 1, 2023

But…but…but…

Laurier has Pride

Each June, Pride Month recognizes and honours the experiences and history of Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual (2SLGBTQQIA+) and other identities and communities and celebrates the positive impacts 2SLGBTQQIA+ people have had around the world.

Isn’t that enough?

Meanwhile where is Women’s Month?

Wilfrid Laurier University aims to create safe and equitable campuses for all 2SLGBTQQIA+ members of its community. The university

… Read the rest

Seriously now. Take a good hard look at that cover.

What is the central image, the one that jumps out at the viewer? A very conservative Muslim couple, the woman in a burqa chador and a man with the regulation full beard, with a child between them, both of them wreathed in smiles as they walk a few inches behind an apparent gay couple.

That is not the real world.

Very conservative Muslims do not beam joyously on gay couples in the park. They don’t. Secular liberal Muslims yes, but the uniform-wearing ones, no. Theocrats, Christian or Jewish or Hindu or Muslim, do not beam approvingly on same-sex couples, not even when they’re actually not same-sex couples because one … Read the rest

Rich guy who shares some of his millions:

Hamish Ogston is one of Britain’s richest men…

He has spent the last five years building up his eponymous foundation, which has donated tens of millions to heritage projects, healthcare and women’s education in the global south.

He’s had dinner with Charles Windsor. Anne Windsor’s husband has had dinner with him. Heady stuff.

Today, a Sunday Times investigation reveals evidence that suggests for the last 15 years he has engaged in the exploitation of vulnerable southeast Asian sex workers. Documents suggest Ogston has trafficked or attempted to traffic Thai and Filipina sex workers, and hosted women who entered the country as tourists only to stay at his property and engage in

… Read the rest

Bahahahahaha behold the progressive paradise where men carry babies and women are muffled in burqas. Theocrats and gendercrats join hands to defeat the dreaded feminist monster! And everybody is smiling!

New fairytale just dropped. pic.twitter.com/9QHmoQHTNx

— iamyesyouareno (@iamyesyouareno) September 30, 2023

… Read the rest

Classic. Right-wing ideology in a nutshell. People must be allowed to do whatever they want, provided that what they want to do is expensive and destructive and dangerous.

https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1708067435612373195

Fuck public transportation yeah? Fuck pedestrians and cyclists yeah? The only decent people are the ones in cars, god damn it, so give everything to them and punish all those reckless lazy anti-capitalist people who don’t have six cars in their garages.

https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1708067438791622935

Freedom! Freedom freedom freedom!

For people who own cars, that is. Not for all those other people, the ones who refuse to support the automobile industry. Lazy irresponsible greedy buggers.… Read the rest

Queering the what now?

One year ago:

https://twitter.com/GeorgeWOxford/status/1573199209536389123

So naturally I had to find the source.

York Art Gallery: Queering the Burton

York Art Gallery and the York LGBT Forum have been working to queer the Burton Gallery by telling the stories and sharing the perspectives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) people. Art works from York Art Galleries collections will be ‘coming out’ from the stores as well as looking again at some of the art already on display from an LGBTQIA perspective.

Visitors will be able to explore the stories which draw on LGBT Forum participants original research, as well as creative responses to the art which are inspired by lived experience.

‘Queering the

… Read the rest

The Times on that canceled anthropology panel:

For a big annual conference on anthropology, Kathleen Lowrey, an associate professor at the University of Alberta, put together several panelists around a controversial theme: that their discipline was in the midst of erasing discussions of sex, which they believe is binary — either male or female.

So she collected a panel of speakers, only to have the profession…er…erase it.

That statement again, in case it’s faded over the past few days:

In a joint statement on Thursday, the two sponsors of the conference, the American Anthropological Association and the Canadian Anthropology Society, said that they wanted to protect the transgender community: “The session was rejected because it relied on assumptions that

… Read the rest

You know, it’s just occurred to me to wonder something. I don’t know why it took me so long. What I wonder is: if the trans ideology is based on truth – if it really is true that people can be born in the wrong body – why are there not whole bookshelves full of accounts of the experience? Why has this truth been hidden from us for so long? Why didn’t we already know about it, before 2010 or whatever it was? Why aren’t there memoirs and autobiographies and biographies and histories telling us about it?

There are of course memoirs and novels and so on that express discontent with the rules of gender, including some with a wish … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on What’s that smell coming from the basement?

…the sad reality is our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond…

We all know what happens to organisms whose ability to adapt fails to keep up with the pace of its changing environment. Humans are numerous and resourceful enough to be around for a long time (even if it is ultimately in only small numbers, in widely spaced patches). Civilization is another story. Its dependence on the combination of cheap, reliable energy, and immediate access to material resources on a planetary scale makes it vulnerable to disruptions of either. The unacknowledged and unprotected foundation of all of this economic activity is … Read the rest

Now to see if I can tolerate reading all of Grace Lavery’s Address to the Genderariat.

The emergence of a liberal ideology of trans rights over the last two decades has precipitated a crisis in higher education. The purpose of my lecture today will be to sketch the contours of that crisis as I see them, and to propose a couple of possible ways forward.

The trouble is though, it’s not a liberal ideology. Very much the opposite. It’s dictatorial and punitive, not liberal. It rests on bullshit claims and personal fantasies, which are not good foundations for a liberal ideology.

…there is in this room some number—perhaps a sizable number—of people who are perturbed by the growing conflict

… Read the rest

The second point-hiss in the Open Democracy hit piece on Kathleen Stock is a complicated but trivial story about Nathan Oseroff accusing Stock of “publicly advocating bigotry and intolerance” and Brian Leiter saying Oseroff should be fired from his job as an editor at the American Philosophical Association blog, which eventually he was.

Leiter defended his actions, telling openDemocracy that Oseroff-Spicer “repeatedly abused his position at the APA blog”.

The events led both Oseroff-Spicer and his partner, a trans man, to conclude “philosophy just was not the right place for either of us”.

Or to put it another way, he and his partner weren’t the right people for philosophy.

Next up:

Christa Peterson, currently a final-year philosophy PhD student at

… Read the rest

Oh please.

Open Democracy does the big Reverse:

Cancel culture? Trans-inclusive writers say they face abuse and censorship

They face abuse and censorship? You mean they engage in abuse and censorship.

Students and academics say they are bullied and threatened with legal action for opposing ‘gender critical’ views

And Open Democracy pretends to believe them.

Sussex English undergraduate Katie Tobin was among the first to experience such a backlash when she wrote an article in late 2018 for the Sussex branch of The Tab, a student newspaper conglomerate with a presence on dozens of UK campuses.

Tobin’s piece concerned an email Stock had sent the entire Sussex philosophy cohort defending her views on trans rights. In her article, Tobin said

… Read the rest

Not the future any more.

All drainage systems have their limitations and New York City’s is 1.75 inches of rainfall per hour. Unfortunately for many New Yorkers, the storm that deluged the region on Friday dropped more than two inches between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. — and then kept on coming.

The limit on the capacity of the city’s network of drains, pipes and water-treatment plants is the main reason New Yorkers across all five boroughs suffered through flooding. And this probably will not be the city’s last bout with heavy flooding as it plays catch-up with the pace of climate change, experts said.

“This changing weather pattern is the result of climate change, and the sad reality

… Read the rest

I feel like Stanley on The Office [US version] saying “Have you lost your damn mind?”

“Has someone said or done something that made you feel bad, upset or angry?”

Yes. Many times. We did not call the police.

The @CPSUK has lost its mind. pic.twitter.com/ORdqo3Ef2C

— WeAreFairCop (@WeAreFairCop) September 30, 2023

“Has someone said something that made you feel bad? Tell the police.”

It literally says that. It literally says that.… Read the rest