Does this make any sense?

In other words, they are trying to "protect" c i s women by choosing a strategy that is LESS protective of them than simply acknowledging the reality of trans women and saying why sports are an exception where sex matters.

And this is because they enjoy insulting trans folks.

— Dilan Esper (@dilanesper) August 16, 2025

One item: mentally ill and deluded are not the same thing. It’s horribly easy to be deluded without being mentally ill. It happens to everyone, all the time – we can get things wrong at first glance, we can have bad or incomplete information, we can have loyalties or hatreds that push us toward mistakes, und so weiter.… Read the rest

It’s hard to believe we have to keep litigating this crap.

A gender-critical lawyer has avoided punishment from the barristers’ watchdog for “misgendering” a trans person in court.

Naomi Cunningham, an employment barrister, said she had been told by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) that she will face no further action over the “meritless” complaint that she repeatedly referred to a transgender female by a male pronoun during a hearing.

In other words that she repeatedly referred to a man by a male pronoun. Gee, you don’t say.

The BSB’s decision is significant because it signals the watchdog does not view it as professional misconduct to “misgender” a person during a court hearing, she told supporters.

“It has been

Punks do what punks do.

A British female sailor has criticised a musical based on her life story after the cast members used their platform to stage a pro-trans fundraiser.

Tracy Edwards made history in 1989 when she captained the Maiden, leading the first all-female yacht crew in the Whitbread Round the World Race.

But she has criticised the musical based on the race, called Maiden Voyage, after cast members used a curtain call to fundraise for a charity that supports transgender inclusion in women’s sports on the night she attended.

That is, a charity that supports male inclusion in women’s sports. Note that a policy of male inclusion in women’s sports would end up removing women from women’s … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Tim Harris on What has made it fester.

In the early nineties of the last century, Prime Minister Hosokawa Morihiro made formal apologies to a variety of Asian nations for Japan’s having conducted wars of aggression in East and Southeast Asia, and for the brutal manner in which these wars were waged.

There are, however, strong nationalist forces in Japan, and in particular the influence of families of soldiers who died in that war is strong over the Liberal-Democratic Party, which won back power after Hosokawa’s coalition, which was difficult to hold together, and fell.

I am in no way seeking to excuse the atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese, which were appalling, but, all too … Read the rest

Classic.

CNN news item: global warming is giving us bigger faster hurricanes.

Advertisement: Cruises are awesome!!

One weird little tidbit from yesterday’s picnic in Alaska:

The Russian leader’s transparent manipulation of the US president and Trump’s credulity will worry Ukraine. On Fox, Trump said Putin praised his second term, saying the US was “as hot as a pistol” and he had previously thought the US was “dead.”

Putin also publicly reinforced Trump’s talking point that the invasion three years ago would “never have happened” if he had been president. “I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that,” said Putin.

And we all know that Putin would never lie about anything.

Trump told Fox’s Sean Hannity that he was “so happy” to hear validation from Putin and also that the Russian leader

Trump just wants Ukraine to surrender, that’s all.

Russian officials and commentators were especially enamored by Trump’s unusually warm red-carpet greeting to Putin on Friday in which they saw an opening to pull America away from its traditional allies in Europe. 

Of course they were. Every time Trump goes belly-up to Putin, that “opening” gets wider.

Within hours of the meeting, Trump had discarded his previous position — and that of Ukraine and Europe — that a full ceasefire was required to allow the details of a peace agreement to be hammered out. The move enables Russia to keep fighting without the risk of U.S. sanctions, and puts pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to Russian terms

Donny’s Day Out in Anchorage:

The two leaders took no questions. Perhaps Mr Trump knew he would be asked about his pre-summit threats of “very severe consequences” if Russia did not end the conflict. Just before landing Mr Trump had told Fox News: “I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of ceasefire.” There was no immediate sign of a three-way summit with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, that Mr Trump had previously floated.

…

Ever the showman, Mr Trump took care to impress Mr Putin. Their planes parked close to each other; the two men stepped out more or less simultaneously, shook hands warmly and walked towards a rostrum as a B-2 bomber, escorted by

Great.

Trump says he agreed with his Russian counterpart in talks Friday that the Ukraine war will end with land swaps and some type of security guarantee from the US.

Asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity about territorial concessions that would give Russia land it didn’t have previously and potential US security assurances for Ukraine, Trump said it was a point of agreement with Vladimir Putin.

“Well, I think those are points that we negotiated, and those are points that we largely have agreed on,” he said. “Actually, I think we agree on a lot. I can tell you, the meeting was a warm meeting.”

He called Putin a “strong guy” and “tough as hell,” but said the meeting

Taliban celebrating:

Thousands of men gathered across Kabul on Friday to watch flowers being scattered from helicopters to mark the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power – a celebration that women were barred from attending.

Naturally. Men are people, so they get to attend; women are things that make people, and of course things are not invited to parties.

Three of the six “flower shower” locations were already off-limits to women, who have been prohibited from entering parks and recreational areas since November 2022.

For obvious reasons. If women were allowed to enter parks and recreational areas they would always be flopping down and spreading their legs, and then their husbands might find themselves raising other men’s … Read the rest

Another preening withdrawer steps up.

Last week, I withdrew my nomination from the longlist for the Polari first book prize. The awards had become mired in controversy due to the nomination of the Irish author John Boyne, best known for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, for the main prize for his novel Earth. Four days before the longlist announcement, Boyne had written in the Irish Independent, celebrating JK Rowling “as a fellow terf” and saying of women who had “pilloried” her for her gender activism: “For every Commander Waterford, there’s a Serena Joy standing behind him, ready to pin a handmaiden down as her husband rapes her.”

I think such a viewpoint is abhorrent, but

Daniel Kodsi and John Maier say Philosophers Shouldn’t Duck the Gender Debate.

Over the last decade, elite academia has uncritically embraced gender-identity ideology, according to which self-identification as a boy or girl, or a man or woman, takes priority for all practical and legal purposes over whether one actually is male or female. No doubt a contingent of true believers in gender-identity ideology exists within academia. But mantras like “trans women are women” became accepted in universities in part because many academics who don’t agree with gender-identity ideology failed to speak up against it. However expedient or harmless it may have seemed to give gender-identity ideology a free pass, doing so was a serious mistake.

I can’t really figure … Read the rest

Is the tide turning?

An NHS board has admitted breaking equality rules by allowing a transgender doctor into a women’s hospital changing room without assessing the consequences.

NHS Fife has confirmed it carried out no impact assessment regarding the provision of single-sex changing facilities for staff, the UK’s equalities watchdog has disclosed.

…

Baroness Falkner, who chairs the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), has now said an impact assessment was a requirement to meet the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). In an unprecedented intervention, she said the EHRC had ordered the board to produce an assessment, and anticipates it will be published by Sept 30.

She said the watchdog had also made clear that NHS Fife must comply with

And then there’s China-Japan.

Japanese vlogger Hayato Kato’s 1.9 million followers are used to his funny clips about exploring China, where he has been living for several years.

But on 26 July he surprised them with a sombre one.

“I just watched a movie about the Nanjing Massacre,” he said, referring to the Japanese army’s six-week rampage through Nanjing in late 1937, which, by some estimates, killed more than 300,000 civilians and Chinese soldiers. Around 20,000 women were reportedly raped.

…

For China, Japan’s brutal military campaign and occupation are among the darkest chapters of its past – and the massacre in Nanjing, then the capital, an even deeper wound.

What has made it fester is the belief that

It’s not easy being the National Library of Scotland.

Scotland’s national library has been accused of “cowardice” after removing a bestselling gender-critical book from a major exhibition following staff complaints.

The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, co-edited by Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn, features more than 30 essays from contributors including JK Rowling, former MP Joanna Cherry KC, MSP Ash Regan, and former prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss.

It charts a five-year campaign opposing Nicola Sturgeon’s bid to reform Scotland’s gender recognition laws to allow so-called self-ID law.

Well not “reform” so much as “change” – because “reform” implies improve.

The collection received four public nominations for the National Library of Scotland’s Dear Library exhibition, twice the number

It turns out the disheveled person in a T shirt who (incorrectly) told us it was not true that The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheest was censored is not a random intern or even a junior reporter at The National; she is the editor.

A lot of good publicity for The Women Who Wouldn't Wheest today – all of it based on misleading claims about book "banning".

The truth is it was one of over 200 books nominated for one exhibition at the library that didn't get selectedhttps://t.co/mNk1lMnYaa

— Laura Webster (@LauraEWebsterr) August 13, 2025

She’s the editor and she’s casual about the truth. Not a good look, even before we talk about the T shirt.… Read the rest

Remember this from…uhh…yesterday?

Scotland’s national library banned a book about feminists’ fight against Nicola Sturgeon’s gender self-ID law after staff complained its contents were “hate speech” comparable to racism.

The National Library of Scotland (NLS) has been accused of a “shameful” capitulation to censorship after it emerged that The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, a collection of essays by gender-critical women, had been cut from a major exhibition celebrating the institution’s centenary.

Now we’re told it was all lies, lies lies lies I tell you!

Check out what the slob in the T shirt has to say, because she’s remarkably annoying.

You may have heard that a gender critical book has been “banned” from an exhibition by the National

Exclusive: Medical journal rejects Kennedy’s call for retraction of vaccine study

Aug 11 (Reuters) – An influential U.S. medical journal is rejecting a call from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to retract a large Danish study that found that aluminum ingredients in vaccines do not increase health risks for children, the journal’s editor told Reuters.

That’s the US Health Secretary.

He has no medical training of any kind, nor does he have any upper level science education. He’s a random crank with a famous name. If you’re a random crank with a famous name you can set about endangering the lives of a huge population and get away with it.

Kennedy has long promoted doubts about vaccines’ safety

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Why not indeed?

I don’t think we’re really seeing a wave of trans suicides in Scotland. But it’s plausible that some people with trans identities may commit suicide as they reckon with the new reality, which is that their invented identities are not going to be accepted across society and law.

People with transgender identities are typically already in very poor mental health, and the suicide rate has always been high with that group. I have a lot of sympathy for such troubled people, especially the ones who were misled into doing irreversible damage to their bodies. Some of them surely will end up dead. I’m obviously far less sympathetic to the chancers — … Read the rest

The Guardian claims:

Caz Coronel was standing in the queue for the ladies’ at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank when she registered a male voice shouting across the vestibule: “The men’s toilets are on this side!”

At first the composer and producer paid little attention, until the man – whom Coronel describes as tall and in his late 60s – approached and touched her shoulder. He continued to challenge her about being in the wrong queue until she asked him bluntly: “Do you want to see my tits?”

Really? Did that really happen?

It doesn’t sound very plausible. Two queues outside the rooms where the toilets are, and a guy shouts from one queue to the … Read the rest