Brendan O’Neill, in one of his getting something right moments, points out the flaw in Laurie Penny’s “feminism”:

Penny writes an awful lot about women for someone who doesn’t know what a woman is. Ostensibly this is a feminist tract, about how humanity faces a terrifying choice – it either carries on down the road to fascism or it embraces the corrective of Laurie Penny’s feminism. (Talk about a rock and a hard place!) And yet it’s a strange feminist tome that thinks men can be women, too. Penny gets it out of the way early. ‘In this book, when I talk about “men” and “women”… I am including everyone who locates themselves in those categories’, she says on

… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/moleatthedoor/status/1495436103725289474… Read the rest

Andy Lewis pointed out this article (to Aaron Rabinowitz specifically) by a detransitioned young woman, and it’s got some strikingly explanatory observations. For her it all started with Tumblr.

A major aspect of Tumblr culture has always been social justice ideology. Things that are now being played out and witnessed by the general public on platforms like Twitter and TikTok, like dissociative identity disorder LARPers, demisexuals, neopronouns, otherkin, and everything you see on @LibsOfTikTok, have long existed in an uncannily identical form on tumblr.com. The oppression hierarchy of racial and gender identities now being written into law in many of our once serious nations was the state religion of the People’s Republic of Tumblr long before your political junkie

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Back in November “Grace” Lavery was pining for a debate.

I don’t like doing this, and I won’t mention it again unless I get a bite, but I’ve been trying to invite a GC activist to do an event with me, where they could decide on format. Nobody wants to. I’m only mentioning it to expose the shallowness of the “we want to debate” posture. pic.twitter.com/XMe7qjYZZr

— Prof. Grace Lavery (@graceelavery) November 7, 2021

Helen Joyce took him up on it.

That’s correct, I have Twitter set to show me notifications and mentions only from mutuals. I’m happy to do an event with @graceelavery – as I already said. @andrewdoyle_com has already offered to moderate this. I’ll drop him a

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Another thing about this – or maybe it’s the same thing but just louder –

https://twitter.com/Scholars_Stage/status/1494459409786761226

The other thing. There is no Harry Potter without its creator. Why? Because she’s the one who created it. That thing they love so much? (I don’t love it, myself, so I can take a detached view of the fandom and the ardor.) That thing they love so much is the work of the woman they think they hate so much. You can’t have a Harry Potter without its creator, because that would be something completely different. The creator isn’t incidental to the creation; she’s prior and essential.

Their adoration of Harry Potter means they adore her, whether they know it or … Read the rest

Shahrar Ali is suing the Green Party.

A Green Party spokesman is bringing legal action against his former colleagues after he was sacked because of his views on the transgender debate.

Shahrar Ali, 53, was removed as the spokesman for policing and domestic safety on February 5 after activists complained that his tweets about women’s sex-based rights were transphobic.

It’s a neat trick to label non-belief in your magical mystery woo “phobic.” I don’t believe extraterrestrials drop in on us now and then for a chat; that’s not “phobic.” I just don’t believe it.

Party officials ruled that “his decision to champion a highly controversial position in the trans rights debate is not compatible” with his role.

But it’s … Read the rest

No, really????

Trans inmates revert to males when they leave Scottish prisons

I’m stunned. It never ever occurred to me for a second that they would do that. I thought they were totally sincere.

A study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, also revealed that some of these prisoners may only have identified as women in order to have sex with female inmates.

Staggered again!

No I’m not. This is what women have been saying all along.

The SPS said it has no plans to make use of the new research.

Sure. It’s only women who are affected, so who cares.… Read the rest

This dreck is so maddening and frustrating. “We enlightened ones know how much better it is to just identify out of being women than to insist that women are not inferior.”

Vernon Lee published her first writing at 14 & went on to write over 40 books in fields including travel, philosophy, psychology, art history, feminism, politics, gardening, and music theory. ⁠Not only that, she has also been credited with popularising the word ‘empathy’.

— Ashmolean Museum (@AshmoleanMuseum) February 16, 2022

Here, and in the podcast episode, we use the pronouns she and her because that is what Vernon used to describe herself, but if she were alive today, she might well choose gender neutral pronouns.

— Ashmolean Museum (@AshmoleanMuseum)

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Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on To scour the text.

And, of course, it often doesn’t even work. Sensitivity readers are self-selected (if not to say self-identified), claiming to speak for a particular group or so-called lived experience. Yet nobody (but nobody!) can realistically claim to account for every perspective within a group or class of people who share similar life experiences, and so anyone claiming to offer this is selling a bill of goods.

All too often, despite having engaged one or more of these charlatans, a work is still held up for a roasting by professional rivals or overenthusiastic “fans” who’ve attempted to fill the void of meaning in their lives with obsessive policing of other … Read the rest

You don’t have to like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or even be to the left of Lindsey Graham to find it disturbing that Fox personalities single her out for sustained personalized bullying.

The Fox News host Tucker Carlson attacked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday night, claiming the US congresswoman was not a woman of colour.

“She’s a rich entitled white lady,” he said.

A “Karen.” It’s interesting how right-wing men and left-wing men join hands to abuse women.

Ocasio-Cortez’s mother is from Puerto Rico, her father from the Bronx. She has described herself as a woman of colour.

From the Bronx? That doesn’t tell us much. Puerto Rico at least hints at Hispanic, though of course it’s possible to be from … Read the rest

News from Ottawa:

Canadian police on Saturday deployed pepper spray and stun grenades in a continuing effort to break up the blockade of trucks and demonstrators that has occupied downtown Ottawa for more than three weeks in a protest against pandemic protocols.

More than three weeks seems like ample time to get a point across. It seems like way too much time when the point in question is such a selfish and dimwitted point as refusing to get vaccinated during a pandemic.

In a tweet addressed to the truckers, police said: “We told you to leave. We gave you time to leave. We were slow and methodical, yet you were assaultive and aggressive with officers and the horses.”

The … Read the rest

Peter Tatchell should look in the damn mirror before he yells “SHAME!” at women.

Most women in Scotland back some gender recognition reforms, poll confirms. Trans critics do not speak for all women. They demonise the oppressed #trans minority, with the false claim that trans women are predators & a threat to other women. SHAME! https://t.co/OQjwANGcqJ

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) February 18, 2022

… Read the rest

So tell us more about sensitivity readers.

https://twitter.com/john_boyne/status/1489523165151862788

The Times explores the question:

Joanne Harris*, the author of Chocolat, took umbrage: “I think you’re confusing sensitivity with weakness . . . It takes courage for an author to admit they may not have all the answers.” Dickens had revised his depiction of the Jewish character Fagin in Oliver Twist, she argued, removing many references to the character’s religion after corresponding with a Jewish critic, Eliza Davis. “He showed the capacity to grow. Perhaps that’s what makes a great writer.”

*The Joanne Harris who declined to remove a “fuck” from her latest novel for a US publisher.

But a Jewish critic who enlightened Dickens isn’t a “sensitivity reader,” … Read the rest

A cancel-cancel:

The bestselling author Joanne Harris has turned down a US book deal after the publishers demanded she take out an “f-bomb” from the novel.

Well done that woman.

The Chocolat author, who lives near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, tweeted on Saturday: “Today I turned down a book deal in the US because they wanted to edit out my use of ‘the f-bomb’. I refused for two reasons: one, because I don’t use words accidentally. They matter. And second, because I don’t believe my use of the word ‘fuck’ harms anyone.”

Exactly so. I do a bit of writing myself and I don’t use words accidentally. I thought we’d agreed as a society or a grown-up reading public … Read the rest

Indiana ACLU turning its back on girls and their civil liberties.

HB 1041 passed out of committee yesterday and is on its way to the full Senate.

We cannot and will not back down. #LetKidsPay #INLegishttps://t.co/AQXUq2FGIf

— ACLU of Indiana (@ACLUIndiana) February 17, 2022

Title IX protects ALL girls – including transgender girls. #LetKidsPlay

— ACLU of Indiana (@ACLUIndiana) February 17, 2022

Transgender girls aren’t girls.

https://twitter.com/ACLUIndiana/status/1494715308933849094

THE ISSUE ISN’T TRANS KIDS.

The issue is boys destroying girls’ sports.

Courts, educators, coaches and women’s rights advocates agree: trans students belong in sports. #LetKidsPlayhttps://t.co/PqDxL1h1U8

— ACLU of Indiana (@ACLUIndiana) February 18, 2022

Nobody is saying trans students don’t belong in sports. The issue is trans students who are male… Read the rest

If only this discussion could get out of the baby talk stage. Let trans girls play sports!! Yes thank you nobody is trying to stop them.

A controversial bill to ban transgender girls from playing girls sports in school has passed a key committee, signaling it’s on its way to becoming law.

…

Last week, lawmakers heard hours of testimony from individuals on both sides of the bill. There are supporters of the bill, who are concerned what impact the participation of transgender girls may have on girls’ sports. They say transgender girls may have unfair physical advantages that would make it harder to cisgender girls to secure a spot or compete on an even playing field.

Of course they … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Freemage on Imagine.

Okay, I’m gonna leap down this rabbit-hole for a moment, because I think it really gets at the critiques of Rowling and Harry Potter from the TRAs:

H. P. Lovecraft was the creator of the Cthulu “mythos”. He pretty much invented, whole-cloth, the idea of ancient gods who are so far beyond human experience that to apply mortal morals to them is absurd, and to contemplate them directly is to invite insanity. Just as Mary Shelly created the first real Sci-Fi Horror story, Lovecraft pretty much invented the whole genre of Existential Horror. His writings have inspired scores of other writers to produce work in the same genre, as well as art, … Read the rest

Another tantrum.

https://twitter.com/mewydman/status/1494734546339872768

“transphobic scholarship” “pain and suffering” “the damage caused” “injurious scholarship” “directly and indirectly harmed” – it sounds like something really terrible, doesn’t it.

https://twitter.com/mewydman/status/1494734757254545412

“harmful scholarship”

https://twitter.com/mewydman/status/1494735350434091008

How dare those traitors be unoffended by the content? How dare they not do everything they can to get it removed and rejected and forever silenced?

https://twitter.com/mewydman/status/1494735647705288706 https://twitter.com/mewydman/status/1494735995429953544

“personal safety” “harmful scholarship”

https://twitter.com/mewydman/status/1494736434577788928

“unwaveringly correct decision” “harmful and problematic”

Melodrama is a powerful drug.… Read the rest

Useful summary of state of play.

#462 to #1.#PennCheats #SaveWomensSports pic.twitter.com/myrNuOsUB9

— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) February 18, 2022

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Harriet Hall on Charles Windsor as self-proclaimed Enemy of the Enlightenment:

Edzard Ernst has a new book out: Charles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorized Biography. I wrote a full book review that will appear in the next issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, but I wanted to give my readers on Science-Based Medicine a heads-up.  Charles’ efforts to promote alternative medicine have been mentioned many times on SBM, but readers may not appreciate the depth of his folly. I know I didn’t, until I read this book. The full story has never been told until now.

Ernst uses Prince Charles’ own words to demonstrate his ignorance of science and medicine. He thinks conventional medicine is nothing but “pills and procedures”.

… Read the rest