I run away for a few hours and come back to find

2/4
“Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century" is the title of a recently announced workshop organized by the author and her colleague at Yale (link below). It is designed to provide mentorship to early career researchers who “are studying any aspect of…

— Carole Hooven (@hoovlet) August 6, 2025

In it, she asserts that the “gametic definition” of sex—roughly, that there are two sexes, defined by whether the organism produces sperm (male) or eggs (female)—is not only “harmful,” but also “sophistry, not science.” (Lancet piece is below.)

I hold the gametic view. To the best of my knowledge, this is the view held

Victoria Richards at the Independent bravely stands up for male employees handling the breasts of teenage girls seeking their first bras.

…when I recently took my daughter for her first bra fitting, I was peculiarly gratified to see that she acted pretty much the same way I did. Teenagers may have smartphones and TikTok and all the tech and street smarts we didn’t, but some things really do never change.

You don’t say. Rain is still wet, ice is still cold, the earth still rotates on its axis. Thanks for the vacuous banality which warns us that you don’t really have much to say.

The one thing that has changed, on the whole, is Gen Alpha’s greater understanding and empathy

Liar liar liar liar.

India Willoughby:

A mother and a daughter went to a Marks & Spencer store to buy a bra – um – a trans member of staff went over and said “Do you need any help?”

Liar liar liar liar. He is shameless.

A mother took her very young daughter to M&S to buy a bra for the daughter and a male member of staff toddled over and offered to help with fitting a bra for the very young daughter.

The man is scum.… Read the rest

Victoria Smith in The Critic:

When Mary Ann Stephenson was announced as the government’s preferred candidate to take over from Baroness Falkner as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, every feminist I know was delighted. With three decades’ of experience, working for organisations including the Women’s Budget Group, the Fawcett Society and Liberty, plus advising the British Council, the UN and the TUC on human rights, Stephenson was the perfect pick — a serious candidate, with serious, in-depth knowledge across multiple areas of interest. Who — other than someone who objected to the existence of the role altogether — could possibly object to that? 

And yet some people did. Within days of the announcement, a petition

Yet again the issue is concealed behind layer after layer of dishonest language. In the Telegraph ffs.

M&S apologises over trans employee in bra department

Male employee. The issue was not trans but male.

‘Biological male’ caused a mother and teenage daughter ‘distress’ by approaching them in the lingerie area

What’s with the stupid scare quotes? He is a biological male, so why pretend it’s odd (or worse) to say so?

Marks & Spencer has apologised to a mother for causing her teenage daughter “distress” after she was asked if she needed help by a transgender employee in its bra section.

Male, damn you.

The retailer said it was “truly sorry” after the mother complained that her 14-year-old daughter

What was that I was just saying about Joyce Carol Oates being not intelligent?

sorry, can you give examples: are there really prisons in the US where a convicted man can just say, "I am a woman," & be transported to a women's prison?
so often this claim is made on Twitter, but never any
substantiation.
so, just answer: what are the statistics of men… https://t.co/7N242AIMqA

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) August 4, 2025

“so, just answer: what are the statistics of men currently incarcerated in women’s facilities?”

Replies providing said stats are many. She will never acknowledge them, and she will never adjust her views accordingly. … Read the rest

Joyce Carol Oates plays dumb.

what is it about transgender persons that so upsets/alarms/baffles/offends persons who presumably believe themselves "normal"? really, have you ever wondered? why the choices of other people should matter to you personally? how are you personally harmed? is this "harm"… https://t.co/KIRyO6KLRR

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) August 4, 2025

Yeah and what’s all this fuss about Trump’s war on immigrants? Why is everybody yelling about Elon Musk? What’s the big deal about global warming? So what if Trump is corrupt and incompetent and stupid? Who cares if California burns to the ground? Why do people even need food?… Read the rest

Labour MPs resist.

Labour MPs have deemed the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of a woman as “completely unnecessary” and a “backslide” on rights, months after the judgment.

Oh yes, it’s completely unnecessary to remind people that women, and women only, are women, and men are not, repeat not, women. It’s completely unnecessary despite the fact that a shocking number of people are insisting that some men are women and that non-men women are strictly forbidden to say otherwise much less act otherwise.

Although many letters sent by MPs, and seen by The Times, featured generic stock responses, an analysis of more than 50 pieces of correspondence revealed how some MPs continued to push back against the ruling and

No.

“I’m not an expert on trans people, all that I know is that everybody should be treated with humanity and decency.”

Reform UK’s justice adviser @VanessaFrake says trans women should be “assessed on an individual basis” rather than automatically removed from women’s prisons. pic.twitter.com/RWe3SeaB9J

— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) August 4, 2025

No. Of course not. Women’s prisons are women’s prisons. That has never meant that each man should be “assessed on an individual basis” before being sent to a men’s prison. It has always meant that women’s prisons are for women, and as such they are not for men. The end. There is no “humanity and decency” in forcing trapped women to share their spaces with men.

Why are … Read the rest

Behold, UN Women goes out of its way to erase women and girls from its little homily about the stigma around – wait for it – menstruation.

I, you, we, they, but not she she SHE.

If we need to be able to talk about menstruation without fear or shame then we need to be able to start with the fact that it’s something women do, women exclusively, women and not men. Being so “inclusive” that you include men in menstruation is an inclooosive too many.

You can’t break a stigma by lying. You can’t speak openly about menstruation by pretending that men menstruate. You can’t make it possible for women to talk about menstruation without fear or shame … Read the rest

Things the BBC is not reporting on.

Very Don’t Mention the War, isn’t it.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on #No BeKind for you.

Because trans identity tops an all-important oppression hierarchy and the purest form of virtue is being a “trans ally”.

I think it’s the purest form of virtue because it’s the costliest dogma to uphold. That’s always been the way with religion: the more preposterous and ostentatious the display of commitment — i.e., the harder it is to merely casually dabble, which is to say, the more expensive the dues are in that particular membership “tier” — the more virtuous one is seen to be, at least among fellow aspirants to that particular religion. That’s why the most committed members of any religion demonstrate it by wearing conspicuous articles of … Read the rest

It’s true.

I couldn’t quite believe this so double checked.
The BBC does not normally shy away from reporting that an MP’s office has been vandalised. Here are four examples.
Yet search for the story about Wes Streeting’s office being attacked by trans activists and there is nothing. pic.twitter.com/V64L24YCEL

— Jill Foster (@JournalistJill) August 2, 2025

Can confirm. I did a search too and got bupkis.

Will the adults ever come back?… Read the rest

The obligatory opaque headline:

Transgender pool player loses discrimination case

He’s a man, of course.

A transgender pool player has lost a discrimination claim against one of the sport’s organisers.

The English Blackball Pool Federation (EBPF) banned players who were not born biologically female from its women’s competitions and teams in August 2023.

Professional player Harriet Haynes took the organisation to court, saying the rule was “direct discrimination” against her on the grounds of her gender reassignment.

It’s all dishonest and sneaky. A male “transgender” player has lost his claim. Players who were “not born biologically female” are men. One three-letter word as opposed to six long-winded words. Professional player “Harriet” is a man. He claimed the rule was … Read the rest

Ah yes, the old “if you don’t like the stats, fire the statistician” ploy. Always good advice. See also: if you don’t like the diagnosis, fire the doctor. If you don’t like the weather, fire the National Weather Service. If you don’t like the distance from New York to Miami, fire the mapmakers.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a monthly jobs report that included weaker-than-expected numbers for July, plus major downward revisions of May and June’s numbers.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, the president said the jobs numbers were “rigged” and that he’d asked his team to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer.

“We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on What no excuses?

“I wish they could have found another way to promote their cause without causing damage.”

All the women who have suffered at the hands of this “cause” would agree. But “causing damage” was the goal of this cause. Getting what transactivists wanted was only possible by destroying women’s rights. Unfortunately there were far too many people eager to do exactly that, knowing full well what the consequences for women would be, and became, because women told them. It should always be remembered that this was a price that activists and their allies were willing to force women to pay. This was not an accident, or an unforeseen, … Read the rest

Well I’ll be. The BBC doesn’t say a single mollifying word to excuse the vandalism.

The cost to repair an almost 300-year-old mausoleum which was graffitied with the words “trans rights” is expected to be more than £2,000. The message was sprayed on the side of Dashwood Mausoleum near West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

James Parker, the West Wycombe Estate land agent, said the Dashwood family would bear the cost of the cleaning and restoration work, which has yet to be completed. He said: “This site holds deep personal and historical significance not only to the estate, but to others with loved ones buried nearby. Many feel this as a personal violation of a sacred

Janice Turner on magic gender and snobbery:

Of all such cases — and I’ve followed many — none encapsulates the shibboleths, snobberies and magical thinking of our age so well. Day after day we heard doctors and managers of Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, relate how they unashamedly closed ranks against a working-class nurse, whose rights, feelings or even basic humanity fell beyond their #BeKind purview.

It’s true you know. “Be kind” is never ever about listening to women who want to preserve the rights we’ve worked so hard to declare and defend; “be kind” is only for men who claim to be women and the few women who cheer on their claim. The rule for non-compliant women is sit down … Read the rest

This makes no sense.

A local government press release. In London. In England. In 2025. pic.twitter.com/g57fMAAkyo

— Matt Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) August 1, 2025

The burqa and all the rest of it are not for life at home, they’re for outside. Women who are forced to cover up aren’t going to be nursing their babies in the park, are they. It’s bad enough that Tower Hamlets is apparently promoting Islamist subordination of women, but it’s even worse that they get the rules wrong.… Read the rest

But who is the real threat here?

‘Trans rage’ protesters vandalise Wes Streeting’s office

Windows at the Health Secretary’s Ilford North Office were smashed, and the words “child killer” daubed on the front in paint.

Trans Bash Back, a “trans-led direct action project”, claimed they were responsible for the vandalism in a post on the social media platform BlueSky.

Sharing an image of the front of the office shortly after it had been vandalised, they wrote: “Don’t want action? Don’t kill kids.”

Taking “kill” as hyperbole for injure, harm, damage, endanger and the like, who is really doing that? Which is the most harmful and damaging: urging interfering with people’s puberties, or advising not interfering with people’s puberties?… Read the rest