So as you’ve seen Harrop received a one month suspension.

Decision was handed down privately – 1 month suspension.

— Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) November 30, 2021

That sounds like nothing but word is it’s not. It’s on his record and will limit his career from now on.

2/ Suspensions are generally rare and this will have an effect on career prospects / insurance and reputation.

It's not the sort of thing anyone with any sense would celebrate as an outcome.

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) November 30, 2021

It’s on the record that he engaged in inappropriate, insulting and at times intimidatory communications on Twitter – in short that he’s a bully. … Read the rest

There’s an odd thing about Matt Dillahunty’s trans dogma though.

I'm sorry for you. Because I am smart, sassy and clear sighted – I'm just not a bigot and I'm able to tell the difference between biological sex and gender, which is a social construct.

My critical faculties are fine, thank you.

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) November 30, 2021

Ok so trans women are women in the sense of having (or being or living or some other verb) female gender, but not in the sense of being of the female sex. But in that case, what makes it ok for trans women “to access spaces where women and girls are undressing, such as changing rooms?” How does gender, a … Read the rest

From the Shut Up I Win files:

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1465492195901906947 https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1465489711825408003 https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1465505512334708736

I feel lucky that I never wasted any admiration on Matt Dillahunty. Never listened to the podcast, only ever heard him speak once, at the American Atheists jamboree in Austin, and found him obnoxiously macho-loud and overbearing. Stamped CONFIRMED.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on All the rights.

There is only one trans “right” being asserted by activists, and that is the “right” to have everyone else in the world affirm their particular religious beliefs, at all times and in all places.

The incoming government of Germany has recently signed an agreement in principle on their governing priorities, which must now be referred to the coalition parties at large for approval before that government can be put into effect. When the agreement is approved, the measures within it will not automatically become law, but they provide a roadmap for what the government wishes to accomplish during its reign.

Many of the proposals are undoubtedly an improvement over … Read the rest

The stars of Activism are really on fire today. Not entirely in a good sense.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1465392439322103823

Spaces set aside for other people aren’t a “right.” Puberty blockers and elective amputations aren’t “health care.” “Legal protections” that endanger other people aren’t “protections.”

He summoned the troops.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1465397550287106049

Well, really snarky, at least.… Read the rest

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

On a visit to Paris earlier this month, Harris reportedly spent more than $500 on cookware at E Dehillerin, a shop near the Louvre museum. 

Well, yes, that Le Creuset stuff is expensive.

Republicans and rightwing media outlets seized on the purchase, attempting to use it to show that the vice-president, a former California attorney general and US senator, was out of touch with ordinary Americans.

Ahhhh yes because 500 whole dollars, in sharp contrast to Donald Trump.

That’s his very own tasteful understated man of the people living room. … Read the rest

Points of view.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1465390135676125187

Oh what was that? thought I, and it didn’t take much hunting to find out.

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1465377334362574848 https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1465379296021725190

It was on PM on Radio 4, so I’ll be listening later.

https://twitter.com/TVpsychologist/status/1465379464838369291

Well that’s a stupid question for a psychologist, even a TV one. Of course we can debate what people claim to “know” and “feel.” If we couldn’t there wouldn’t be much debate about anything.

Surely one of the first and most basic things you learn in psychology is how very fallible human knowing and feeling are. It’s even a bromide – “the easiest person to fool is yourself.”

That is in fact one of the things that irritates me the most about this idiotic movement, the … Read the rest

I don’t understand what their point is, the people who write this kind of thing, whether in the Telegraph or on Fox News or on Twitter.

The PM says these measures are designed to prevent a lockdown, but I am utterly convinced they’re the beginnings of one. If they are necessary because the omicron variant’s mutations mean it travels fast, and it has already been spotted nesting in the UK, logic suggests that cases will jump – which means more pressure on the NHS and on ministers to act. How many times have we been told “thus far and hopefully no further”, only for the PM to appear on television days later and admit, with regret, that we have

… Read the rest

Other news:

At the hearing of Dr Harrop. A private session was held to hand down a decision. The decision found that Dr Harrop is presently impaired. Hearing adjourned until 1.30 for the next stage.

— SafeguardWomen&Girls (@safeguardwomen) November 29, 2021

After final submissions given by the GMC & AH Counsel on what they recommend; hearing now suspended until 2pm tomorrow whilst the tribunal makes their decision.

— SafeguardWomen&Girls (@safeguardwomen) November 29, 2021

The tribunal is deciding whether or not to suspend him.… Read the rest

Trans activist says what?

Selfish are those who demand society changes its way of life to accommodate their need to feel *safe. Demand what you want, it will not be happening. Many people are waking up to this nonsense.

— Stephanie Hayden (@flyinglawyer73) November 29, 2021

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha… Read the rest

Oh is that what they call it.

The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said on Saturday he had “reached out” to Democrats over Islamophobic comments made by one of his party, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, about the Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar.

Boebert apologised for the remarks, in which she likened one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress to a suicide bomber, on Friday, saying she wanted to meet Omar in person. 

No she didn’t. We saw this yesterday. She didn’t apologize. She did the “sorry you got so offended” thing. You don’t apologize for an insult by saying “Apologies to anyone who was offended by the insult.” That’s not an apology. It treats the insult as only … Read the rest

A tweet prompted me to look for sources.

https://twitter.com/jasonintrator/status/1464976971444723718

The Koch organization (only one of the two brothers is still present-tense) is notorious for funding all kinds of reactionary causes, though it also funds items like the PBS series Nova, but I don’t know specifics about an attack on US universities. So, here’s a Trotskyist site with details!

Joking aside, I think I have seen the details before, without properly filing them in the memory system.

Last month, the George Mason University protest group “UnKoch My Campus” released documents to the public through a Freedom of Information Act request detailing how the Charles Koch Foundation and the Federalist Society, groups dedicated to the promotion of ultra-conservative “free market” public policy

… Read the rest

It’s all “shut up and take it, bitch” at the rape therapy support group.

A rape victim who thought she had found a safe all-female space to help her come to terms with the sexual violence she endured has told how she was left deeply troubled by the arrival of a biologically male trans woman ‘with no obvious female attributes’.

…

Charity bosses insisted the trans woman had every right to be there as they allow people to define their gender for themselves, saying: ‘We do not police gender.’

Well they should. They’re an absolutely worthless, indeed harm-doing charity if they refuse to keep men out of women’s support groups.

Sarah, who was abused between the ages of eight

… Read the rest

LGBTQ Nation is furious at feminists who think women in prison shouldn’t have to be locked up with men. LGBTQ Nation doesn’t call them feminists, of course.

A group of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) have filed a lawsuit against the state of California for placing transgender women in female prisons.

Well, yes. It’s cruel and unusual punishment to place men in women’s prisons.

The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a group that opposes the extension of legal and civil rights to transgender people, recently filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Bakersfield.com reported. The lawsuit  claims to represent a group of incarcerated women as well as Woman II Woman, another TERF group.

Ah … Read the rest

Guest post by Bruce Everett

Been feeling oddly Kantian lately, on account of some considerations about the Drake equation, red dwarfs, and the evolution of the universe. The imminent launch of the James Webb telescope is bringing this on as well.

Several terrible documentaries and an awful lot of bad science fiction makes a bit of a fetish out of the idea of “Ancient Aliens”, largely because the narrative of some kind of idealized past that can return to save us addresses a weird but pervasive need…

I can’t relate to it. I find it a bit puerile to be honest; quit an over-reliance on Sky Daddy; start looking for Space Daddy. Couldn’t stand Stargate, sorry.

And the kookiness of … Read the rest

We’re steeped in violence.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood on the House floor and implored her colleagues to hold Paul Gosar accountable for sharing an altered anime video showing him killing her and attacking Joe Biden.

“Our work here matters. Our example matters. There is meaning in our service,” Ocasio-Cortez said in her speech last week. “And as leaders in this country, when we incite violence with depictions against our colleagues, that trickles down into violence in this country.”

House Republicans heard Ocasio-Cortez’s impassioned plea and responded with a collective shrug. All but three Republican members voted against censuring Gosar and stripping him of his committee assignments, while every House Democrat supported the resolution.

The Gosar incident served as the latest

… Read the rest

I would have left this self-humiliation alone but then she had to throw in a jab at “terfs” so…I couldn’t.

Trying to find some good faith writing and analysis on the allegations about Michel Foucault that apparently came to light early this year. Of course nothing is entirely unbiased, but I’d love to know how Foucault scholars/writers who use his work are thinking about it all.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) November 19, 2021

Early this year? Uh………..

But she goes on.

The question is how much one ugly facet of a theorist’s work (or life) taints the rest of it. I’m not sure there’s a single, universal answer to that question. >

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) November 19, 2021

Bad … Read the rest

Boebert is on the naughty step.

“I was getting into an elevator with one of my staffers,” Boebert told the laughing crowd. “You know, we’re leaving the Capitol and we’re going back to my office and we get an elevator and I see a Capitol police officer running to the elevator. I see fret all over his face, and he’s reaching, and the door’s shutting, like I can’t open it, like what’s happening. I look to my left, and there she is. Ilhan Omar. And I said, ‘Well, she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.’ ”

On Twitter on Friday, Omar called for Boebert to be disciplined by House leaders.

“Saying I am a suicide bomber is

… Read the rest

I guess self-mutilation is a civil right? And doctors encouraging and performing mutilations is also a civil right? Doctors giving 12-year-olds puberty blockers also a civil right?

Gender-affirming health care saves lives.https://t.co/NG5mYbIsDo

— ACLU (@ACLU) November 26, 2021

How many lives does “gender-affirming health care” (i.e. breast/penis removal, cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers) end?

I wonder if the ACLU really is that confident about the long-term joy and relief of these drastic physical interventions.… Read the rest

But it isn’t “a row over transgender rights” – nobody wants to take any rights away from trans people. It’s always framed that way, and the framing is wrong.

A ROW over transgender rights has broken out on the opening day of the SNP conference, with activists demanding the party whip be withdrawn from a prominent MP.

The party’s official LBGTQ+ wing, Out for Independence, signed an open letter to Nicola Sturgeon and Westminster leader Ian Blackford urging action against Joanna Cherry QC.

The signatories, who included SNP, Scottish Green and unaligned campaigners, also called on the SNP to launch an investigation into transphobia in the SNP’s ranks.

It isn’t transphobia, either.

They’re talking about the “conversion therapy” bullshit – … Read the rest