Owen Jones has another correction for us.

Anti-trans activists are accusing me of ageism with this tweet.

No, I’m saying the LGB Alliance is laughably unrepresentative of LGBTQ people and this picture underlines that obvious fact.

Keep grasping for those straws! https://t.co/XdZO6tlIbw

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) October 23, 2022

Unrepresentative how? Well for one thing where are the yoof???! But he’s not ageist.

So anyway. For one thing most of the people in the photo are in shadow, so he can’t actually tell what they look like, so he can’t even judge how “representative” they are because he can’t see them. For a second thing why does he think he can tell how “representative” they are just by looking at … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Queering queer.

Queerness, he argues, is a fashion and a political statement that not all gay people subscribe to. “Queerness is also self-consciously and purposefully marginal,” he told me. “Whereas the arc of the gay rights movement, and the individual lives of most gay people, has been a struggle against marginality. We want to be welcomed. We want to have equal rights. We want a place in our institutions.”

So he’s saying that there’s a difference between being marginalized (by others) and pursuing marginalization (yourself). That makes sense. The former group would want access to the legal rights they are being denied (housing, voting, health, etc.; what we think of … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Because Feminism is Hated.

The philosophy professor said that she will now speak from outside the academy so [that] she is not being constantly watched for a mistake.

It might be more accurately called a misstep than a mistake. The latter implies, as in logically implies, fault. The former allows for mere transgression.

Feminism is so disliked that apparently a large percentage of girls and young women refuse to wear the label. I suspect this’s primarily because they want to be cool, not the uptight fun police. Feminists are harpies, witches, bitches. They want to say yes, to be inclusive, to be liked. They don’t want to be “boomers”. Unfortunately, the … Read the rest

Chase Strangio is mad at the Times.

At this point I am just embarrassed for the NYT.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) October 23, 2022

Oh no, how will they go on?

A truly terrible column from PP on the word “queer”

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) October 23, 2022

Who tf is PP? Besides Posie Parker, who isn’t a Times columnist. So I had to go to all the trouble of Googling. It’s a column by Pamela Paul on Queering the LanGuage. Is Pamela Paul generally known as PP? Is she a household name? Not that I know of.

So anyway.

Last month, the new president of the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, Kelley Robinson, posted a six-and-a-half-minute video to

Speaking of hating feminism…

#LetWomenSpeak #LetWomenSpeakUSA pic.twitter.com/zNKW0b4hI4

— Let Women Speak Official (@StandingforXX) October 23, 2022

“We do not permit events etc that promote hate” and we’ve decided you promote hate.

But Standing for Women doesn’t “promote hate” of trans people, it promotes clarity on who is a woman and who is not. That’s not hate and it’s not promotion of hate…but It Has Been Decided that yes it is. How are these decisions made, exactly?

Consider the endless ongoing struggle against racism. Does opposing racism equal hatred of white people? Does opposing homophobia equal hatred of straight people? Does union organizing equal hatred of owners and bosses? Does pacifism equal hatred of the military and/or political leaders who trigger … Read the rest

The Telegraph reports on a conversation at the LGB Alliance conference yesterday:

Kathleen Stock said that academic institutions treat students like customers and the “grown-ups” no longer tell anxious young people that someone saying something that they disagree with is not actually harming them.  

The philosophy professor said that she will now speak from outside the academy so [that] she is not being constantly watched for a mistake. 

Or rather a “mistake,” i.e. a reasoned claim that some bile-infused teenager takes a dislike to.

She was joined by campaigner Julie Bindel who warned that the bitter debate is “about misogyny” which allows men to try [to] silence feminists.

“The reason why so many people have latched on to this,

The Guardian talks to Maggie Haberman:

The 45th president lived down to her expectations. She was on the receiving end of both his insatiable desire for attention and his poison-pen responses to critical coverage. A month after taking office, Trump, while developing a symbiotic relationship with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel, branded the New York Times and other outlets “the enemy of the American people”.

Haberman comments: “He has endangered journalists with that language and that language has been used by authoritarians in other countries to legitimise anti-press crackdowns. I don’t think Donald Trump has any sense of what the role of the free press is in a democracy. None.”

Naturally not. It’s not the kind of … Read the rest

There’s finally news on the damage to Salman Rushdie and it’s bad. He’s lost the use of one eye and one hand.

[I]n an interview with Spain’s El País, Andrew Wylie explained how serious and life-changing the attack had been.

“[His wounds] were profound, but he’s [also] lost the sight of one eye,” said Wylie. “He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut. And he has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso. So, it was a brutal attack.”

Allah is wise, merciful.… Read the rest

Maya Forstater tells us:

Last night, after the LGB Alliance Conference, Helen Joyce and I went to the Westminster Arms pub around the corner from the conference centre for a quiet drink. Helen had a glass of wine and I had a gin and tonic.

Before long around 20 protesters turned up, having broken away from the main protest outside of the QEII Conference Centre. We were told they were there because Helen was inside.

Ah well yes of course, two women in a pub talking – we can’t have that. Women must get permission from angry adolescents before they go somewhere, or talk, or think.

They stood facing the entrance to the pub chanting slogans for around

Attendees of the ‘LGB Alliance’ conference, shared without comment pic.twitter.com/jfUTBlwH1u

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) October 22, 2022

Owen Jones, hinting that people who attend LGB Alliance conferences are…what, not sexually attractive enough for his taste? Too ugly, too old, too informally dressed, too female? It’s hard to be sure, but “without comment” is definitely a juvenile sneer of some kind. Maybe we’re meant to take it as a juvenile sneer of every kind, for our own convenience.

Also, “without comment” makes it not without comment, so there’s that.… Read the rest

People need to stop dumping fishing gear in the ocean.

These guys get most of the lines off but the last bit is the riskiest, because they’re that much closer to the whale. In this instance the whale throws his head back (at 40 seconds) and sinks, thus escaping the snare.… Read the rest

You cannot just take off your master and senior tutor hats when sending a message to the college. You remain in post. This implies a corporate view on sex and gender from the institution.

This messaging produces a hostile environment for gender critical staff and students. https://t.co/hjGkS1vAB5

— Professor Alice Sullivan (@ProfAliceS) October 19, 2022

How about if you take off your hats and sign the letter with your first names? Will that do it?… Read the rest

Helen Joyce replies to Pipps and Andy:

Dear Pippa and Andrew (if I may),

Well they did say their poison letter was from Pippa and Andrew, so I think we all may, and especially Helen may, being as how she is the target of their venom.

I’m writing to respond to your ignorant and insulting characterisation of me to Caius students and academics, which you must have known would be shared more widely and then become public. [The text of that email is appended to this post.]

I am of course sadly used to people who should know better—people with high-profile posts in great academic institutions—making a show of defending free speech, open debate and academic standards out of

Ewan Somerville at the Telegraph takes a cold hard look at that letter from “Pippa and Andrew”:

A Cambridge college master is engulfed in a transgender row with professors after boycotting a “hateful” gender-critical speaker.

It’s about the letter rather than the boycott. No one would have cared if Pipps and Andy had just stayed away.

Gonville and Caius College, the university’s fourth oldest, is hosting a talk on Tuesday by Helen Joyce, an author and former journalist at The Economist, about cancel culture.

And as we all know, her views are Unacceptable, Unapproved, Unendorsed. Her views are, in short, evil, the most evil views anyone has ever had, views that make Hitler and Putin look like … Read the rest

Celebrating Salman:

Writers including Monica Ali, Hanif Kureishi, Julian Barnes and Nigella Lawson will gather this week at an event to celebrate Salman Rushdie.

An Evening for Salman Rushdie will be held at the British Library in London on 13 October, with members of the public invited to take part by attending in person or watching a live stream.

So we missed it, sorry, but it’s good to know it happened.

Others taking part by sharing readings or reflections include Mona Arshi, Melvyn Bragg, Mariella Frostrup, Meena Kandasamy, Kathy Lette, Pauline Melville, Margie Orford, Philippe Sands, Burhan Sönmez and Alan Yentob.

…

The British Library event on Thursday is being described as a gathering to celebrate

Jesus & idenniny.

It’s a nice elbow in the ribs to The Atheist Communinny and the Skeptic Communinny, because it is indeed true that way too many members of said communninnies laugh other absurd claims out of court but when it’s a man who idennifies as a woman suddenly they can’t recognize an absurd claim any more.

The Patreon is here.… Read the rest

Steve Bannon sentenced to not nearly enough time in prison:

Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted with criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.

The punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.

Bannon wanted favors.

Bannon, 68, had asked the court for leniency and requested in court filings

Judge nails DeSantis’s bullshit:

A Florida judge has rebuked Ron DeSantis’s much publicized “office of elections integrity” and dismissed charges against one of the defendants the Republican governor insisted would “pay the price” for criminal election fraud.

DeSantis staged a media event in August announcing what he said was an “opening salvo” in his administration’s efforts to crack down on election fraud, namely the arrest of 20 felons he said had illegally voted.

But it soon emerged that most had been sent voter registration cards by authorities and accordingly believed they were eligible to vote. And earlier this week, footage emerged of the bewilderment and confusion of law enforcement officers and those being arrested.

Bewilderment and shock horror despair … Read the rest

It turns out that buying children can get expensive.

A heartbroken Dublin dad “cried the whole plane journey home”, after he had to leave his surrogate triplets in Kenya.

His what? What the hell are surrogate triplets?

Edward O’Reilly, who lives in Santry Cross, left the African country with just the birth certificates rather than his three newborn daughters.

His? Isn’t there someone missing from this scenario?

Briella, Camilla, and Renesmee were born almost two months prematurely on September 1. Edward and his partner flew over to collect their children four days later. 

His partner? Their children? The children were born in Kenya while their parents were in Ireland? How does that work?

Also why were they thinking they … Read the rest

That was a different person.

A man in Spain who beat his female partner for opposing his transition has avoided charges of gender-based violence by legally changing his identification to “female” and adopting a woman’s name.

Well that seems only fair. Since he now has a woman’s name, he obviously can’t have beaten up his female partner in the past.

Earlier this year, Spain’s Cabinet of Ministers approved a new draft law on gender identity, one which allow anyone over the age of 16 to legally change their name and sex without any medical consultation or intervention. Minors between the ages of 14 and 16 will be allowed to change their name and sex with parental consent, and those