Um…happy Labor Day.

Federal employees have had the right to join unions and collectively bargain over working conditions since the 1960s. Unlike private sector workers, government employees cannot negotiate wages or strike. But through collective bargaining, they do help shape disciplinary procedures, parental leave policies, how overtime is managed and much more.

Giving workers a say in workplace policies, the thinking goes, leads to less friction in the workplace and more effective government.

But President Trump has abandoned that idea. Instead, he’s argued that federal employee unions pose a danger to the country. In March, he issued an executive order ending collective bargaining rights for more than one million federal workers at about 20 federal agencies. Almost immediately,

Oh really?

That first bullet point is just so much blather, unless what they are sneakily doing is pretending that the rules and expectations around gender are the same thing as the categories female and male. I think that probably is what they’re doing, and it’s both pompous and deceptive. Of course “understandings of sex” have always been binary, which is not to deny that views on how women and men have to behave are contingent and various.

Yes of course the rules around gender are “open to political manipulation”; we know that; it does not follow that men can be women.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on A quiet senior.

Ms. Gaines’s approach to activism involves a weaponization of names, pronouns, physical descriptions and other language to undermine the legitimacy of transgender people’s mere existence in the world.

JFC. It was Thomas who was weaponizing all of that in order to undermine women and rob them of their safety, dignity, and awards.

In other words, she often seems to go out of her way to provoke those who are not already fully on board with her mission.

JFC. Anyone mentioning reality provokes these people. Gaines is not any different in this regard. Thomas is male; always has been, always will be. Maybe Gaines was just tired of … Read the rest

Now Trump is kneecapping Voice of America.

VOA was established in 1942, during World War II. Building on American use of shortwave radio during the war, it initially served as an anti-propaganda tool against Axis misinformation but expanded to include other forms of content like American music programs for cultural diplomacy. During the Cold War, its operations expanded in an effort to fight communism and played a role in the decline of communism in several countries. Throughout its operations, it has aimed to broadcast uncensored information to residents under restrictive regimes, even airing behind the Iron Curtain.

Ah; that will be the problem then. Trump doesn’t want anybody messing with his restrictive regime.

The

The Independent breathlessly reports:

Transgender men and women are increasingly having crucial hormone treatment withdrawn by NHS doctors, an investigation has found.

Trans patients and staff at NHS gender services have said that cases of people being refused hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or having the medication withdrawn are on the rise.

That’s one way of putting it. Another would be “Some men and women who think they’re the opposite sex are no longer able to get opposite-sex hormones on the NHS.”

In other words the Indy is very much stacking the deck by calling cross-sex hormones “treatment” and “medication”. Delusions about what sex one is are not a good reason to harm patients by fiddling with their hormones.

HRT

Disastrous Kennedy’s demolition of the CDC continues.

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) immunizations chief Dr. Demetre Daskalakis said Sunday that he’s concerned with the direction the agency is going and worried about public health going forward.

Daskalakis, who served as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, submitted his resignation from the CDC on Wednesday in protest following the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) removing CDC Director Susan Monarez from her position. In his resignation letter, Daskalakis denounced HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership of both the HHS and the CDC.

“From my vantage point as a doctor who’s taken the Hippocratic Oath, I only see harm coming. I may

The Telegraph:

A disabled child was banned from summer camp after his mother expressed gender-critical views, The Telegraph can reveal.

The eight-year-old was preparing for his first residential trip in July organised by Over the Wall (OTW) – a Derby-based charity that runs getaways for disabled children and their families. But he and his mother, 52, were turned away after she insisted, during a heated discussion with an organiser from the camp, that people could not change sex.

So now children have to believe in Magic Gender in order to go to summer camp?

But internal papers documenting the incident state that the eight-year-old was barred after the summer camp concluded that the mother’s “views on gender and inclusivity”

That doesn’t sound good…

Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood

The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.

Climate models recently indicated that a collapse before 2100 was unlikely but the new analysis examined models

An odd way to put it.

That night, the atmosphere in the arena was charged with a tension distinct from the usual intensity of athletic competition. “I’ve never felt a crowd root against anybody before,” said Dan D’Addona, who covered the meet for Swimming World Magazine.

The target was Lia Thomas, a quiet senior from the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Thomas swam competitively for years as a member of the men’s team, before beginning estrogen treatment to transition in 2019, and later switching to racing with the women. Over the course of the 2021-22 season, she became national news, an avatar for churning unease about gender, power, safety, sports, politics, feminism and biology.

First of all, what is a … Read the rest

Ok so let’s read SEEN in Journalism’s letter to the BBC.

We call on the BBC to embrace accuracy in its coverage of ‘transgender’ issues and adopt an editorial policy of accurately describing sex.

The BBC has a unique responsibility to deliver accurate, impartial, and transparent reporting to its diverse audience. The current default, of using preferred pronouns and the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ according to a person’s ‘gender identity’ is at best highly misleading and at worst a betrayal of the BBC’s public service remit.

And it does have that public service remit, not least because people are required to pay for it via the license fee.

Biological sex is an objective reality defined by gamete size, determined

Golly gee whaddya know, there are actually reasons women don’t want men in our toilets with us.

POLICE have swept Scottish Parliament toilets for hidden cameras after a suspended Labour MSP was charged with possessing indecent images and banned from the premises.

MSPs and workers in the Edinburgh Parliament were given an update on Friday after news broke that Colin Smyth, who has had his access suspended amid a police investigation, was accused of having installed recording devices in the toilets.

Huh. But we’ve been repeatedly assured that nothing like that ever happens so shut up.… Read the rest

Helen Joyce is pissed off at the BBC.

In May, shortly after appearing on Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, I wrote about what a depressing experience it had been. I mentioned that I would be putting in a formal complaint about the way the show misrepresented me in an interview the following week with Sacha Deshmukh of Amnesty, formerly of Stonewall, and predicted that my complaint would get nowhere.

And sure enough it got nowhere.

I’m really not joking when I say that I would like the BBC to be defunded – on my specialist subject, sex’n’gender, it has been nothing short of a propaganda arm. It’s directly responsible for much of the social contagion that has seen trans identification

Hey is it suddenly 1950 again? Did I miss the alert?

Aggressive energy is for men only. Women are supposed to have the Goddess energy, not the real kind. Them’s the rules.

A boyish prank?

An MSP has been accused of placing a secret camera in a toilet at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Colin Smyth was suspended by Labour earlier this month on a separate charge of possessing indecent images of children.

Holyrood’s corporate body told staff in an email that Smyth’s building access had been revoked during an “ongoing criminal investigation”.

Maybe he can save himself by doing a lightning-fast “transition” to being a woman.

Ahead of Holyrood returning from recess next week, Holyrood chief executive David McGill contacted MSPs to say Smyth would be denied access to the building.

He wrote: “We recognise the nature of the criminal charges and the ongoing investigation may be upsetting for colleagues and

The BBC stalwart as ever.

If BBC journalists can write about "people with periods/ cervixes" etc – and they do, oh they do – they can _definitely_ avoid pronouns as a bare minimum when talking about men who rape, murder, molest children etc but happen also to claim they are women. https://t.co/wf4PYBxWH2

— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) August 29, 2025

That’s the ticket. Mislead people into thinking mass shootings are something women do.

If you Google the question you get a long string of titles about explaining why women rarely (read: never) commit mass shootings. But hey, that’s no reason not to lie about it!

Tom Bateman and Max Matza reported yesterday:

The attacker, who died at the scene of

Well that’s ugly.

Trump has terminated former Vice President Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday that will end Ms. Harris’s protection as of Monday.

The Secret Service usually protects a former vice president for six months after they leave office, but President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had signed an order extending Ms. Harris’s protection for a year beyond that, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

Ms. Harris’s aides had asked Mr. Biden’s team for the extended protection because of security concerns. Without the order from Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris’s protection would have ended in July.

The White House memorandum, signed by

So while the Good Law Project is helping Sophie Molly’s effort to bully Sarah Phillimore it’s good to be reminded of his finest hour.

Maybe life would have remained the right way up for the "journalist who writes and campaigns on trans rights" if he hadn't called a woman "a torn-faced cow", or used a loudhailer to tell a crowd "we should all take a shite on you [JK Rowling], you heinous creepy auld bitch"? pic.twitter.com/utA87wlRuU

— Richard Dunstan (@Wonkypolicywonk) August 28, 2025

Sophie Molly Fluffy Bunny’s performance begins at 35 seconds. I found it worth viewing again to hear the venom with which he snarls “you heinous creepy auld bitch.” … Read the rest

He knows that’s not how our children are sposed to look.

RFK JR: I’m looking at kids as I walk through the airports today…and I see these kids that are just overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, inflammation—you can tell from their faces, movements, and lack of social connection pic.twitter.com/svfdIqAntK

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 27, 2025

… Read the rest

I saw want to ask this question straight to his face, or at least to his social face via social media, but he seems to have had the wits to make that not easy to do.

https://t.co/UBfxzOim47

— Irene BritUSA (@irenebritusa) August 28, 2025

“Disabled people’s spaces are designed for them. I don’t think it’s right, and nobody asked their permission to take their space.”

Yes. True. Spot-on. Nail on the head. Exactly right. And you know what other set of people that applies to?

WOMEN you absolute raving buffoon. Women’s spaces are designed for us. Nobody asked our permission to take our space. We don’t think it’s right.

DO YOU SEE IT NOW?

I genuinely cannot understand how he … Read the rest

The chaotic dismantling continues.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dissolved into further turmoil on Thursday when guards escorted three top officials [out of] the agency’s Atlanta headquarters during the continuing standoff with the Trump administration over whether the C.D.C. director would keep her job.

The White House said late Wednesday that Dr. Monarez, an infectious disease researcher who was sworn in less than a month ago, had been dismissed. But her lawyers, who said she had chosen “protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” insisted that she remained C.D.C. director until President Trump fired her personally.

The dispute now appears to be in the hands of Mr. Trump, who has not weighed in publicly. A spokesman