Why the blacklist?

There’s nothing as coarse as an official blacklist at the BBC. Our national broadcaster doesn’t ban people, it doesn’t forbid words or phrases, and it doesn’t proscribe certain stories.

It’s just that some words and phrases are never used, some stories never see the light of day — and some people never, ever get the call. This is true for domestic coverage at least, which is what I know about.

This struck me when the BBC on a single day interviewed not one, but three men whose behaviour has ranged from dubious to deplorable — Philip Schofield, TikTok star Mizzy and the misogynist Andrew Tate. The activities and views of these men didn’t prevent them from getting 

The Times on Oxfam’s ostentatious hatred for women:

Oxfam has been branded “utterly shocking” for releasing an anti-trans cartoon character apparently based on JK Rowling.

The charity’s animated #ProtectThePride video was issued to mark Pride month. It said it could not “ignore the cruel backdrop” against which LGBT people marked the celebration.

And to illustrate the “cruel backdrop” it threw in a Cruella Rowling caricature.

The woman [in the caricature], with blood-red eyes and face contorted in hate, was wearing a green dress – similar to one worn by Rowling at a film premiere – and was looking at the Pride flag. As she appeared on screen, a caption said that LGBT people were “preyed on by hate groups

A letter to Oxfam staff today:

The character wearing the “terf badge” didn’t resemble JK Rowling, it was adapted from a photo of JK Rowling. It’s wearing the same damn top ffs. Of course it was the intention of the designers.

Oxfam may say it’s committed to becoming feminist, but I don’t believe it for a second.

Updating to add: or as Simon Myerson put it much more crisply:

From the Holocaust Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia:

Der ewige Jude

As part of its heightened wartime attack on Jews, the Ministry of Propaganda turned to motion pictures as a medium for antisemitic messages.

Fritz Hippler, the president of the Reich Film Chamber, directed the film Der ewige Jude, with input from German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. A pseudo-documentary, it included scenes of Jews shot in the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos by propaganda company crews attached to the German military. This film was quite popular with audiences in Germany and throughout occupied Europe.

That image looks familiar somehow.

H/t Fred Sargeant… Read the rest

Oxfam’s unedited video:

“preyed on by hate groups online and offline”… Read the rest

Oxfam has issued a stupid resentful blamey OFFICIAL STATEMENT that says it’s transphobia’s fault.

OFFICIAL STATEMENT: pic.twitter.com/NbYKspgIuS

— Oxfam International (@Oxfam) June 6, 2023

One: there are no LGBTQIA+ communities. Those are different, sometimes competing things, and they can’t all be mashed into “communities” together.

Two, define transphobia.

But three, we know how you’ll define it, because of that vicious caricature of JKR. You mean feminists defending the rights of women and continuing to know that men are men even if they call themselves trans. You’re saying you want to stop women being feminists and defending our ability to enjoy our rights. You want men who claim to be trans to have the ability and the “right” to cancel … Read the rest

Have regained the use of speech somewhat. May still be slightly truncated and explosive.

The oh so clever Indy headline writer calls feminist women terrible people.

The propagandist who created the image goes for the gut.

The Indy scribbler, Ian O’Dell, pours on the verbal acid.

“Gender critical” activists – some of whom proudly brand themselves a ‘terf’ (short for trans-exclusionary radical feminist) in their Twitter bios – are now upset at the anti-poverty organisation Oxfam for an LGBT+ Pride advert painting ‘terfs’ as evil people.

Misogynist activists – some of whom purport to be journalists – have no qualms about displaying their own glaring throbbing misogyny.

[I]t was an illustration displayed as they spoke of “hate groups” which

Speechless.

Oxfam Pride advert branded ‘hateful’ for making ‘terfs’ look like terrible people https://t.co/81zPsezcDO

— The Independent (@Independent) June 6, 2023

… Read the rest

Oh come ON.

She actually says that – the damn fool in the clip.

“The misconception that lesbian means a woman who loves other women um and actually the definition is non-men who are attracted to and love other non-men.”

Is the definition of gay man non-non men who are attracted to and love other non-non men?

Second question: has it been officially ruled that the word “woman” is now 100% taboo?

“Throughout history there have always been gender-nonconforming lesbians? um and it’s interesting to see nowadays that there are folks who kind of try to gatekeep that identity? and only include folks who identify as women um and that’s not what being lesbian is all about, there are … Read the rest

More hilarity.

From the @Docstockk interview at the Oxford Union (https://t.co/6CKvULNt5V):

Kathleen "I still don't know what you mean by 'gender'. I give 4 definitions in the book. Which one is it?"

What follows is the poshest, funniest, most illuminating brain freeze I've ever witnessed. pic.twitter.com/BKpEOhC8xD

— Jack (@j4ppleby) June 5, 2023

…as in not not wot wot as in not not not not…… Read the rest

Actual gynecologist. And woman.

[Updating to say sorry, the tweet with the question to which the answer is yes was deleted by the tweeter. It was a pair of images of Dylan Mulvaney parodying girlyhood and the question “Is this a woman?”]

Gynecologist here. The answer is yes. And you’re a bigot. Not a good look for a physician https://t.co/YV74OBgDn8

— Michele Quinn, MD, FACOG (@drquinngyn) June 4, 2023

I have to wonder what part of her training as a gynecologist tells her Dylan Mulvaney is a woman.

I don’t just take care of vaginas. Also they’re not fake. They’re perfectly functional

— Michele Quinn, MD, FACOG (@drquinngyn) June 5, 2023

Not fake? An inverted penis is not a fake … Read the rest

The Public Discourse September 2020:

The American Journal of Psychiatry has issued a major correction to a recent study. The Bränström study reanalysis demonstrated that neither “gender-affirming hormone treatment” nor “gender-affirming surgery” reduced the need of transgender-identifying people for mental health services. Fad medicine is bad medicine, and gender-anxious people deserve better.

And that’s all the more true when the “medicine” isn’t medicine at all. The only purpose of “gender-affirming hormone treatment” and “gender-affirming surgery” is, well, to affirm gender, and affirming gender is a mental/emotional/psychological thing, not a medical thing. Gender-affirming hormones and surgeries don’t treat an illness or heal an injury, they attempt to make people feel less unhappy in their bodies. If people don’t even feel … Read the rest

Depends on how you look at it.

State laws restricting transition care for minors have surged over the past few months, as part of a Republican movement to regulate the lives of transgender youth.

But is there even such a thing as “transition care”? Trans ideology wants us to think so, of course, but trans ideology isn’t the same thing as medical knowledge. In other words “transition” isn’t really “care” – it’s a drastic intervention that may or may not help the patient psychologically. It should be a last resort, not a swiftly and eagerly performed tampering with a patient’s sex.

And it’s tendentious to call regulation of these interventions “regulating the lives of transgender youth.” Restricting drastic (and … Read the rest

The small but meaningful flare of rage at this…

Fellow Terven, I hope you are remembering to flutter your eyes in that secret-code way that only girls know how to. pic.twitter.com/a9y1o2Qwvh

— HocusPocusTheRealWitch KPSS (@TheRealPocus) June 5, 2023

I’ve never “fluttered my eyes” in my life, nor do I give any “slow, warm smile.” I don’t manipulate, I don’t play coy, I don’t pretend to be adorable or tiny or bashful or cute or kittenish or feeble or dim or helpless or half-witted. I don’t and I never have, even when barely hatched. I despise this kind of thing and it makes me want to vomit to see men pretending to be women and resurrecting all that stupid bullshit. … Read the rest

Let’s flop onto the couch and watch a good old cop show mystery comedy soap non-binary top surgery conversation.

The BBC has been criticised over an episode of Casualty which shows a non-binary character discussing top surgery.

A what discussing what? A woman discussing non-medical mastectomy.

The episode, which aired at 8.20pm on Saturday on BBC One, includes a character discussing their “top surgery” and being presented with a surprise cake shaped like breasts.

Her. Her top surgery. She has breasts. She couldn’t have them cut off if she didn’t have them.

Arin Smethurst, the non-binary trans actor who plays Sah, previously told Metro: “Sah is really interesting for me to play for a number of reasons. I think

Originally a comment by What a Maroon on What is wrong with this guy?

He needs to clarify when he’s talking about definitions, and when he’s talking about frames. For example, he claims that “your definition of what “big” means might not be the same as mine,” but I very much doubt that his definition of “big” matches my definition of, say, “green” or “lawn mower”. I suspect that we would all agree that “big” means something like “substantially larger than normal”. How we apply that definition, though, depends on the frame of reference: what’s big for a dog may be small for a horse. And when there’s a mismatch in our frames, we may disagree on whether an exemplar … Read the rest

Still pushing this line. Is he six?

People attacking Nina Turner for having an opinion should also answer:

– What is big?
– What is god?
– What is a Christian?
– What is right?
– What is wrong?

Yes a woman has traditionally been defined as a “female human.”

The problem is that male vs. female is not always…

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) June 4, 2023

“What is a woman?” is not the same kind of question as “What is big?” or “What is right and what is wrong?”

He must be confusing “What is a woman?” with “Tell me everything there is to know about women.” The first question is just a definitional question with a very concise … Read the rest

Speaking of religions and their impositions on human beings…yesterday I hopped a bus to the other side of the city to walk along the lake –

– and I paused to allow a woman in full hijab carrying a child to cross the sidewalk in front of me. She too paused to wait for me so we did the politeness standoff for a few seconds but I wouldn’t budge, because she was the one carrying a heavy child. I smiled implacably so she went ahead. She joined a family or maybe a couple of families with several kids. The boys were in shorts and nothing else and playing in the water…and the girls were all in full stifling hijab, and … Read the rest

Frank, you do realize that if you say this about one you’re implying it about all?

Apparitions of the Virgin Mary are “not always real”, Pope Francis has said, in what appears to be an indirect reference to a woman who drew thousands of pilgrims to a town near Rome to pray before a statue that she claimed shed tears of blood.

Right but so Frank how do we know which is which? How does the church know? How do you know? How does anyone know?

“Don’t look there,” the pontiff said during an interview with Rai 1 on Sunday when asked about apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

“There are images of the Madonna that are real, but the Madonna