Nick Robinson interviews Iain Anderson on Political Thinking, under the subtitle

How will the new chair of Stonewall approach the heated debate around gender politics?

We know the answer of course. With the complete indifference to the concerns of women that Stonewall has been demonstrating all along.

They start by talking about Stonewall, and Anderson cites “the LGBTQ+ community” – so right at the beginning we know we’re not going to get clarity, because there is no such community and there can’t be such a community, because they are at cross-purposes. The T is not the same as the LGB and they don’t belong together because the T is destructive of human rights, especially women’s rights, while the LGB … Read the rest

Originally a comment by As The Smoke Rises Upwards on Permits for brothels.

I claim no expertise on the subject, but my understanding is that legalizing prostitution increases trafficking of women. Once would-be johns no longer fear the legal consequences of paying for sex, demand for prostitutes soars. For some reason, however, not too many women are eager to sign up for a highly stigmatized job that will require them to have sex with an endless line of strange men who may or may not have STDs.¹ And so women are brought in from Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia to fill the gap between supply and demand.

I’ve also read that even legal prostitution—or perhaps especially legal prostitution—generates a … Read the rest

Amsterdam is trying to “manage” the rental of women.

In their latest effort to rein in carousing visitors, Amsterdam officials announced plans this week to tamp down disruptive behavior in the city’s Red Light District, including barring pot-smoking on the streets, reducing hours for restaurants and brothels, and tightening some alcohol restrictions.

What is a “red light district”? It’s a euphemism for an area where women are rented.

The city issues permits for brothels and sex clubs to operate. Under rules that had already been decided, brothels will only be able to stay open until 3 a.m., not the 6 a.m. closing time in place now.

So get your cash on the counter by 2:59 boys or you’ll … Read the rest

The Federalist (sorry) on the different tune that detransitioners hear:

After being swarmed by health providers who enabled her to medically transition as a minor, Prisha Mosley now says she’s been abandoned by the medical community as she attempts to navigate a complicated and painful detransition.

Transition is new, exciting, glam, “woke”; un-transitioning is un-all that.

Prisha has a slew of medical complications dating back to the more than five years she spent on testosterone and a double mastectomy that a plastic surgeon performed shortly after she turned 18. Many of those complications surround her endocrine system, which encompasses the hormones that regulate nearly every process in the body, from metabolism to growth and development, emotions, mood, sexual

But they just might possibly conceivably game the system.

Transgender applicants are being offered “ethically dubious” preferential access to a university, raising fears that fraudsters could game the system to get ahead of straight-A pupils.

Dundee University includes transgender status in its widening access policy, which lowers the admissions criteria for applicants who are deemed to be disadvantaged.

In the US it’s called affirmative action (and it’s highly contested and has been since it came into being decades ago).

Preferential access, widening access, affirmative action, whatever; why would trans people need it? What trans-specific barriers to higher education do they face?

Vikki Boliver, a sociology professor who sits on the Scottish government’s access delivery group, warned that fraudsters could

Male reporter talks to three women about their work, fails to avoid sneering.

Lisa Mackenzie, Kath Murray and Lucy Hunter Blackburn call themselves “a policy analysis collective”. They wince slightly when they hear this description spoken out loud.

“It was the best descriptor of ourselves we could come up with,” Mackenzie says apologetically. Known collectively as Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (MBM), they have consistently provided the most cogent criticism of the Scottish government’s attempts to make it easier to change your legal gender.

In policy papers, blog posts and evidence to parliament over the past five years they have offered clarity where there was muddle. With intellectual ruthlessness they have identified key weaknesses in Sturgeon’s proposal. They have provided a

Breathtaking.

Uterus transplants for transgender women will soon be possible, doctors say.

So what? It’s possible to cut people’s heads off, but it’s not desirable. Sticking a uterus in a man is not desirable. Human beings have more urgent things to do at this time.

Several teams are “actively working” to make uterus transplants for transgender women a reality, according to an article published in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility, with the first such procedure likely to happen “within the next few years, if not sooner.”

Why stop there? Why not transplant zebra legs onto humans? Why not transplant dog tails onto sharks? Why not remake The Fly?

If the anatomical challenges in transgender women can be overcome —

Makes no sense.

Legacy blue checks will be removed soon. Those are the ones that are truly corrupt.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2023

Literally zero sense.

His new blue tick is simply a thing you buy. You pay $8 a month, it’s yours. It means nothing.

The old blue tick was a verification of identity and (at least sometimes) “notability.” It was free, and it required documentation.

How is the second “truly corrupt” and the first not corrupt?

Maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe to him “corrupt” just means “not giving Elon Musk money.”… Read the rest

Here’s a thing that makes me angry.

In this video for example. You can hear people bellowing “Allahu akbar” as the boy is pulled out – that’s all you can hear them bellowing.

Allah is great because he (definitely he) allowed them to rescue one child? Why not just not do the earthquake???

It’s so Stockholm syndrome. This guy who has killed my whole family and most of the people in my city and 20 thousand and counting total – he’s great because he cut me a tiny break.

It’s not just Allah, either. I notice myself blurting “thankgod” in moments of intense relief. I’ve never been able to think of any good substitute, either – “thank fuck” is all … Read the rest

Speaking of Trump and criminality and how he totally had no idea it’s not legal to steal an election, Mark Pomerantz was on Fresh Air a couple of days ago.

Our guest today, Mark Pomerantz, has written an insider’s account of the year he and others at the Manhattan district attorney’s office spent on a criminal investigation of Donald Trump’s finances and business practices. Pomerantz was a retired prosecutor and lawyer in December 2020 when he was invited to join then DA Cyrus Vance’s team looking into Trump. In his book, Pomerantz calls the investigation the legal equivalent of a plane crash where the principal cause was pilot error.

At the end of 2021, as District Attorney Vance approached

Pence has had the heavy arm of the law descend on his shoulder.

Former Vice President Mike Pence received a subpoena from the special counsel investigating key aspects of the sprawling probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and former president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, according to a person familiar with the matter.

It’s about January 6th, the Post tells us.

It is unclear whether Pence will comply with the subpoena. His advisers had previously said he was not interested in appearing before the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Yyyyyeeeeeah it’s not really about whether he’s “interested” or not.

Pence has publicly suggested Trump got bad

This is why we can’t do anything about global warming.

China seeks ‘bold’ steps to lift birth rate

So that more people will have to deal with the horrors in the future. Never mind what’s good for people already born, and the climate they depend on, and the resources they need – just keep doing more and more until everyone is gone.… Read the rest

News outta Scotland:

The Scottish Green Party has suspended Beth Douglas from the role of Rainbow Greens co-convener, after a series of “violent” tweets.

Douglas has been accused of using derogatory language on social media, supporting controversial protests against women, inflaming debate by calling feminists ‘fascists’ and posing with weapons for Twitter pictures that threaten “cis” people.

Oh is that all.

Douglas, who still has the job title in her Twitter bio, has been in the “public facing” representative role for LGBT+ members of the Scottish Greens and attended Holyrood equality committee evidence sessions.

The use of the offensive word Terf -Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist- used to describe women who criticise gender ideology, features heavily on Douglas’s social media,

I hopped on a bus to Carkeek Park this afternoon. It’s basically a chunk of forest with streams, and it ends up at the beach, which is accessible only via a pedestrian overpass. I stood on the overpass to take in the scene for ten minutes or so. There was a great blue heron standing in the water, and a bald eagle flew up to perch in a tall cedar. Then, the cherry on the cake, I heard a train approaching from the south, so I got to watch it chug around the curve at the far end of Golden Gardens and then come thundering along and under the overpass. It gave a little blast on the horn as it … Read the rest

Dale He/Him has spoken.

Stupid liars. Maya didn’t break any of those rules. They’re such liars.… Read the rest

The Independent tells us:

Vulnerable female patients have been sexually “exposed” on a mixed gender ward deemed not “fit for purpose”, the NHS watchdog has warned.

The Care Quality Commission found that sexual incidents had occured at Hill Crest, a 25-bed mixed gender mental health unit in Redditch, as male and female were being put at risk.

It found male patients are able to walk into female bathrooms and bedrooms, leading to risks of sexual assault and relationships. It found that sexual incidents had taken on the unit because of the risks.

Duh. Are people really having to re-learn what they’ve known since puberty? Or are they just pretending?

The rate of assaults on mixed sex wards is significantly

Originally a comment by Sastra on The lack of formal protocols.

I’ve recently started trying to come up with a scenario where Genderism and the belief in medicalizing “trans kids” was originally produced, promoted, and popularized not by the Progressive Left, but by the Conservative Right. Can it be done?

It’s hard because there are so many contributing elements — such as critical theory in academics and unsupervised teenagers on Tumblr — which don’t fit easily into the conservative mindset. But there are I think other elements that either do or could have done.

Consider a hypothetical revisionist history where, back in the early 2000s or so:

1.) A few respected and prominent conservative pundits start floating the idea … Read the rest

Continuing the Gender Apostate’s Tale:

Many encounters with patients emphasized to me how little these young people understood the profound impacts changing gender would have on their bodies and minds. But the center downplayed the negative consequences, and emphasized the need for transition. As the center’s website said, “Left untreated, gender dysphoria has any number of consequences, from self-harm to suicide. But when you take away the gender dysphoria by allowing a child to be who he or she is, we’re noticing that goes away. The studies we have show these kids often wind up functioning psychosocially as well as or better than their peers.” 

Note the “allowing a child to be who he or she is” part – … Read the rest

At The Free Press (founded by Bari Weiss) we get a long piece by a gender apostate on why she has transitioned to apostasy.

I am a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders. My worldview has deeply shaped my career. I have spent my professional life providing counseling to vulnerable populations: children in foster care, sexual minorities, the poor. 

So, not just your average social media “activist” but someone who does the gritty hard work. For several years she worked with HIV-positive teenagers and young adults.

Many of them were trans or otherwise gender nonconforming, and I could relate: Through childhood and adolescence, I did a lot of gender questioning