Genius.

Patreon… Read the rest

Gregor Murray three days ago:

Is this true, @ScoutsScotland ?

If so, please consider this my resignation, @freeby67 – clearly scouting is not a safe space for trans people. https://t.co/aSTl9e45nE

— Non Binary and all that. (@grogipher) December 19, 2021

Gregor Murray two days ago:

Also, my Office 365 account has been deleted, alongwith a whole load of data that was pretty crucial for Scotland's largest Scout event next year. That's going to be very awkward for the volunteers, and I really hope it doesn't negatively impact on the young people.

— Non Binary and all that. (@grogipher) December 20, 2021

He means (he clarifies in a later tweet) that the Scouts deleted his Office account, not that he did … Read the rest

A fossil of a dinosaur about to hatch.

Scientists have announced the discovery of a perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo that was preparing to hatch from its egg, just like a chicken.

Perfectly preserved skeleton, that is.

The researchers say it’s 66 million years old or more.

The discovery has also given researchers a greater understanding of the link between dinosaurs and modern birds. The fossil shows the embryo was in a curled position known as “tucking”, which is a behaviour seen in birds shortly before they hatch.

It's one of the most stunning dinosaur fossils I've ever seen. But it's also important: it tells us that the 'tucking postures' of today's birds–in which they curl their head under their

… Read the rest

The “you can’t tell me what to do!!” party continues to embrace death by suffocation.

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate, used the same week that the US passed 800,000 Covid-19 deaths to tell a rightwing gathering she would add to that toll herself before she would agree to be given a vaccine.

“It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot,” Palin told a cheering crowd. “I will not do that. I won’t do it, and they better not touch my kids either.”

Awesome! So brave, so defiant, so protective of her kids’ right to die instead of getting vaccinated.

Palin, who tested positive for Covid in March, was speaking at AmericaFest

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Let’s have a round of applause for You Cee ELLLL.

University College London has become the first university to formally cut ties to the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, saying its membership of Stonewall’s programmes could inhibit academic freedom and discussion around sex and gender.

UCL announced that it would end its involvement with Stonewall’s workplace equality index, which rates employers on their policies, and its diversity schemes, following a recommendation from the university’s most senior academics.

“Following a period of debate within our community and careful consideration of the issues, UCL has now taken the decision that we will not re-join Stonewall’s diversity champions programme or make a submission to the workplace equality index,” UCL said in a statement.

… Read the rest

From the Telegraph:

Trans people should be able to self-declare their legal gender, MPs have recommended despite warnings of impact it will have on single sex spaces.

That is, on spaces women need for safety and privacy.

A new report from the Women and Equalities Committee has found that the process by which people can legally transition is “unfair and overly medicalised”.

Women and Equalities Committee shafts women.

Drop many of the requirements, the MPs say. No need to live in the bespoke gender for two years first – just go for it.

The Government has also been urged to also remove the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria before a person can acquire a Gender Recognition

… Read the rest

Professor Alice Sullivan tells us why we would want to know.

https://twitter.com/ProfAliceS/status/1473234513039925252

3/ONS lost to @fairplaywomen at Judicial Review when they attempted to change the meaning of the word sex in order to undermine the collection of clear data on sex. https://t.co/UGV0vna96w

— Professor Alice Sullivan (@ProfAliceS) December 21, 2021

5/Those who use the claim that gender identity trumps sex as a justification for not collecting data on sex seek to make it impossible to test their assumptions. This demonstrates a radically anti-scientific approach to evidence.

— Professor Alice Sullivan (@ProfAliceS) December 21, 2021

7/The fact that the Women and Equalities Select Committee don't understand that sex matters is troubling. Even more troubling is their acceptance of the view that

… Read the rest

The Guardian tells us:

Women around the world will take turns to fast for 24 hours in an attempt to put pressure on the UK government to secure the freedom of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from detention in Iran.

The campaign by FiLiA, a female-led volunteer organisation working for the liberation of women, follows the 21-day hunger strike Nazanin’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, mounted outside the Foreign Office in London until mid-November.

Photographs of all the participants in the fasting relay, which begins on Monday, will be published on the group’s website day by day in a display of solidarity.

It’s important we lobby @BorisJohnson @trussliz to #FreeNazaninNow I will be fasting & supporting @FiLiA_charity with this global campaign #Women4Nazanin
Ive

… Read the rest

Joan Smith suggests that maybe just maybe on rare occasions we do need to know when someone is female or male.

Why is it important to know someone’s birth sex? The Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, who chairs the Women and Equalities Select Committee, evidently has no idea. ‘Why on earth would we want to?’ she asked during an interview on this morning’s Today programme.

Why would we want to know someone’s species? Why would we want to know whether someone is animal vegetable or mineral? I don’t know, it’s just part of the whole social thing, isn’t it? I mean if the someone is on the other side of the planet and you’re not interacting then meh, fair enough, … Read the rest

Originally a comment by cluecat on Pretty wild indeed.

This kind of thing was raised against the Suffragettes right from the beginning: a “class problem” of wealthy white women doing things – any things, it doesn’t matter what – and being a “problem” somehow because of Who They Were. Not sticking to approved “Charidee!” work, my dears? Oh no! Women running wild!

This ignores the very reason that wealthy white women were doing most of that work; because working class women were busy working. A 12-hour shift at the factory, plus all the work when they got home, does not leave much time for organising. Nor does the life of a maid-of-all-work. Some of those women did it … Read the rest

There’s a new one.

When Gregor Murray complained about me to the Scouts, Murray claimed not to be a man (and also not to have been suspended)

The Mail has now removed the "M" word from their headline.

Did they get a similar complaint?

We must be able to talk about reality without being bullied. pic.twitter.com/ZQDL4F0XOy

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) December 20, 2021

Original headline:

Scout leaders apologise to woman hounded after calling bearded man he

New headline:

Scout leaders apologise to woman backed by J. K. Rowling who was hounded for two years after inadvertently calling a bearded transgender scout leader he on social media

Apparently even the Mail is scared to call an obvious man a man.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Roj Blake on Feeble.

The current gender wars are not a fight against the binary roles that constrict our society,

Oh deary me, here I was thinking that it was gender roles that were restricting. Men tough, women caring. Men hunt, women cook and clean. Men talk to god, who lets them know how women should dress, behave, and be docile wives.

Women’s liberation didn’t fight to end the sex binary, it was to set women free from their gendered roles and to make them equal in all aspects of life. And by achieving that, they also helped some men break from their gender assigned roles so they could become better partners to women.

TRAs … Read the rest

Oh good – Trump is coming apart at the seams.

Donald Trump is increasingly agitated by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter, and appears anxious he might be implicated in the sprawling inquiry into the insurrection even as he protests his innocence.

Gee, Don, what was your first clue?

He’s pissed off that Mark Meadows said so much, he’s pissed off that his co-crooks are taking the Fifth instead of just ignoring the subpoenas like that swell guy Bannon.

When Trump sees new developments in the Capitol attack investigation on television, he has started swearing about the negative coverage and bemoaned that the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, was too

… Read the rest

Always reframing.

The current gender wars are not a fight against the binary roles that constrict our society, instead this particular manifestation of the culture wars is a battle against trans women in particular. Most of the debate concerns what services trans women should or should not be allowed to access, from public toilets to public services.

And why would that be? Because trans women are men, and women need protections from men in certain circumstances.

Perhaps all of this was to be expected, and perhaps it is just part of a larger backlash against the mainstreaming of LGBTQ+ rights over the decades.

No, it isn’t, because “LGBTQ+ rights” aren’t a big pudding, they’re a bag of rocks, and … Read the rest

This is a ruling that personally affects me and my life. I am incredibly grateful for people like Harry Miller who challenge ridiculous ideas like “non-crime hate incidents” https://t.co/xG1TTPdYXZ pic.twitter.com/JjcsiFLZGQ

— Prof. DR TheFamousArtistBirdyRose (@TheFamousArtBR) December 20, 2021

… Read the rest

So naturally I had to look it up.

Pretty wild stuff pic.twitter.com/KxnI6cX1lu

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 17, 2021

Oh yeah?

The Trouble With White Women:

(Let me guess. They’re all Karens. Do I win?)

Subtitle: A Counterhistory of Feminism with Kyla Schuller; author journalist Anne Helen Petersen.

I spent the first two decades of my conscious life figuring out how to confidently declare my feminism. I’ve spent the next (nearly) two decades of my life trying to figure out how to leave white feminism behind. That doesn’t mean that I’m trying not to be white and trying not to be a feminist: it means that I’m trying to leave behind the priorities of “white feminism” as a posture,

… Read the rest

The BBC:

An ex-police officer has won a legal challenge against a national policy for forces to record gender-critical views as non-crime “hate incidents”.

Almost as if it’s a bad idea to have the police recording that women who don’t believe men can become women have perpetrated a “non-crime hate incident.”

Humberside Police visited Harry Miller in January 2020 after a complaint over alleged transphobic tweets he made.

It was recorded on a national database as a non-crime hate incident.

But the Court of Appeal ruled on Monday the guidance was wrongly used and it had a “chilling effect” on Mr Miller’s freedom of speech.

And ours. Very much and ours. Mind you I suppose you could say … Read the rest

And there’s more.

This is a landmark victory for free speech in the UK.

The Court of Appeal has ruled that the recording of “non-crime hate incidents” by the police is unlawful.

Congratulations to Harry Miller, @WeAreFairCop and @SpeechUnion for making this happen. https://t.co/2onJKHOQRu

— Andrew Doyle (@andrewdoyle_com) December 20, 2021

It has??? If so that’s huge news. This “recording non-crime hate incidents” is utter bullshit, and a tool for bullies.

Legal eagles are all busy reading the full judgement.

Harry Miller -v- The College of Policing full judgment https://t.co/dJBA1uAOZj

— Judicial Office (@JudiciaryUK) December 20, 2021

Congratulations to Harry Miller

The Court of Appeal unanimously allowed the appeal against the College of Policing https://t.co/DfK2iHgwC6

"The Guidance clearly constituted a

… Read the rest

Yeeha – this just in – Harry Miller won.

https://twitter.com/ShahrarAli/status/1472906348669059074

Ex-police officer Harry Miller wins legal challenge after alleged 'transphobic tweets' https://t.co/OPBi5U0cDO

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) December 20, 2021

Harry Miller -v- The College of Policing full judgment https://t.co/dJBA1uAOZj

— Judicial Office (@JudiciaryUK) December 20, 2021

… Read the rest

A conference takes shape.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1472558140470222853 https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1472561023894769665

Let’s read it.

The first UK Workshop in Trans Philosophy will take place over two days on 24th and 25th March. Whilst nominally based at the University of Glasgow, the workshop will take place online.

Trans philosophy – philosophy that speaks to the experiences of, politics, and cultural production of transgender people – is one of the fastest-growing fields in contemporary philosophy. In addition to hallmark papers such as Kapusta (2016), Bettcher (2013, 2019), and Dembroff & Wodak (2018), last year saw the publication of the ground-breaking volume of trans political theory and philosophy Transgender Marxism (Gleeson and O’Rourke 2020). Beyond the realm of published work, a new generation of PhD and early career

… Read the rest