All entries by this author
Jun 4th, 2025 9:19 am |
By Ophelia Benson
What could possibly go wrong?
Mental health hospitals responsible for violent criminals have policies which allow biologically male patients to “self identify” as women, an audit has revealed.
Campaigners warned that NHS trusts are “playing Russian roulette with women’s safety” by placing transgender women — who were born male — on female wards.
Why don’t NHS trusts know that without being told? How is it not blindingly obvious?
In some cases, hospitals acknowledged that some trans patients may pose a “risk to a particular gender” or be “sexually disinhibited” and “very distressing for other patients on a single-sex ward”.
Lying obfuscating sneaky toads. They mean male patients obviously pose a risk to women. How dare they lie about it and … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Jun 3rd, 2025 4:40 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
I missed this a couple of weeks ago: Arty Morty started a post on his blog with a lavish torrent of compliments about this very place including yous guys. Skipping the first couple of sentences, I’ll share the part that’s about the whole thing, i.e. yous guys.
In case you haven’t noticed by now, Benson’s blog, Butterflies and Wheels, is my go-to salon — a digital Algonquin Round Table where clever commentary and thoughtful debate reflect the values of liberalism, feminism, humanism, and rational inquiry. For more than a decade, it’s been the first site I check in the morning and the last at night, a daily ritual marked by an embarrassing number of midday refreshes — which tells
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
38 comments
Jun 3rd, 2025 11:28 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Bromance over.
Elon Musk on Tuesday tore into the massive tax-and-spending-cut bill backed by President Donald Trump, calling it a “disgusting abomination” that will explode federal budget deficits.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media site X.
Is he though? Is he sorry?
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” added the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.
“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
I can think of some things Musk did wrong – like taking an axe to USAID for instance.
The White House quickly shrugged off the criticism from Musk, a vocal Trump supporter
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
10 comments
Jun 3rd, 2025 9:13 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Goddam Guardian:
Advocates for pregnant people said they are alarmed by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s unprecedented and unilateral decision to remove Covid-19 booster shots from the recommended immunization schedule.
WOMEN. Women women women. Pregnant women. No men get pregnant. “Women” is not a dirty word: use it. Erasing women is peak misogyny.
A vaccine’s inclusion on the schedule is important for patient access, because many private health insurance plans determine which vaccines to cover based on the schedule.
Bad Kennedy is happy to endanger pregnant women for the sake of his crank suspicions.
“Kennedy’s unilateral decision to change the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule for Covid-19 vaccines demonstrates once again why he is completely unqualified to be the HHS secretary,”
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jun 3rd, 2025 8:55 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Why?
The president of World Boxing has apologized after Olympic champion Imane Khelif was singled out in the governing body’s announcement to make sex testing mandatory.
Algerian boxer Khelif, who won gold at the Paris Games last summer amid scrutiny over her eligibility, was specifically mentioned when World Boxing released its new policy last Friday.
And? What’s the problem? He’s not shy, and he beat up a woman, and he cheated. I don’t think he’s an innocent victim here.
On Monday, its president Boris van der Vorst contacted the Algerian Boxing Federation to acknowledge that was wrong.
“I am writing to you all personally to offer a formal and sincere apology for this and acknowledge that her privacy should
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jun 3rd, 2025 8:47 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Sports Illustrated:
Just days after World Boxing declared that female boxers must complete a mandatory gender test in order to compete, directly challenging controversial Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif’s status in the amateur boxing arena, a new bombshell report has now shed light on the Algerian boxers true gender.
In an article published yesterday (June 1) by Alan Abrahamson of 3 Wire Sports, the leaked medical records from Khelif’s tests carried out in 2022 and 2023 ahead of the Paris Olympics have now been made public.
“Unless someone manipulates the evidence, the result is going to be crystal clear, déjà vu all over again, because in chromosome tests given amid the International Boxing Association’s 2022 and 2023 world
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jun 3rd, 2025 6:35 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Get the experts in. You’re going to talk about a man who pretends to be a woman? Bring in a man who pretends to be a woman to discuss it. Let everyone see how batshit crazy the ideology is.
I do recommend playing the clip – it’s a treat to hear “Joanne” speaking.… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jun 2nd, 2025 5:28 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
How can UN Women do anything about this when it doesn’t even know what women are?
https://twitter.com/UN_Women/status/1929629469116973436
But who are men? Who are women? Who is doing what to which? Do we even know? Is there any way we can tell?
Also, whoever wrote that doesn’t know what “purposefully” means. It’s not a synonym for “purposely” or “on purpose.”… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jun 2nd, 2025 11:53 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh good, another ten minutes hate.
Pop star Jade Thirlwall has led a crowd of thousands in an anti-J.K. Rowling chant during a music festival known for celebrating LGBTQ+ culture.
While performing on the Main Stage at Mighty Hoopla in London Saturday evening, Thirlwall ignited the crowd when she chanted “transphobes” and the crowd responded: “Fuck you!”
She then changed the prompt to “J.K. Rowling” to which the crowd responded with another enthusiastic “Fuck you!”
Great. Brilliant. Woman incites crowd to scream hatred toward a woman for the crime of knowing and saying that men are not women. What pleasant times we live in.
Rowling, author of the acclaimed Harry Potter series, has come under intense scrutiny during the
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
6 comments
Jun 2nd, 2025 10:32 am |
By Ophelia Benson
But what if it’s true?
British courts have been accused of reviving blasphemy laws after a man who set fire to a copy of the Koran was convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence.
Hamit Coskun shouted “fuck Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism” while holding the religious text above his head during a protest on Feb 13. The 50-year-old, who was violently attacked by a passerby during the demonstration in London, went on trial last week, accused of an offence under the Public Order Act.
At Westminster magistrates’ court on Monday, he was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence of using disorderly conduct, which was motivated “in part by hostility towards members of a
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
1 Comment »
Jun 2nd, 2025 7:23 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Lying pronouns are the tool that confuses the issue. BBC Sport:
Billie Sky has just helped her team to promotion but now she cannot play for them again.
She is one of 28 transgender women registered with the Football Association to play amateur football in England who are banned from playing FA-affiliated women’s football.
That is, he’s a man, therefore the BBC is deliberately lying to its readers by calling him “she”. And the BBC is very determined about it.
The ruling has forced Billie Sky to stop playing competitive 11-a-side football for one of her teams, London Galaxy. She will still be able to play informally for her other – Goal Diggers FC – as the club has
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
6 comments
Jun 1st, 2025 5:46 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
For the trans communniny? Maudlin hair-tearing anguish and apology. For women? Instant surrender of their rights and crawling self-abasement for attempting to act as if they had any.
Oh no oh no oh no they tried to have a sauna session for women, got caught treating women as people with rights, and all but pulled their own heads off in their anguished remorse. What kind of horrible brutal person treats women as if they have rights??????
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jun 1st, 2025 3:17 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh they’re not asking for much, only everything.
https://twitter.com/LGBTLD/status/1929120210713231745
See it? “Codify trans-inclusive meanings of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in law” – thus obliterating women’s rights.
That’s “doing better” is it? I would hate to see what doing worse would look like.… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
8 comments
Jun 1st, 2025 11:28 am |
By Ophelia Benson
There’s a lot of paradox here.
[Stephen] Miller told Fox News: “Harvard has engaged in decades of invidious, unlawful and illegal race-based discrimination against American citizens … The Democrat party’s philosophy right now is for foreigners, everything – for Americans, nothing.”
Jason Johnson, a political scientist at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, said: “Their goal is to intimidate and break down institutions of higher learning in America because that is where most of the resistance to their authoritarian tendencies is going to come from.”
…
Other commentators detect an element of class warfare. Trump won election last November with a base drawing largely on non-college-educated white men. Now he is stoking hostility towards the ivory
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
5 comments
Jun 1st, 2025 9:41 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Sigh. Every single news outlet that appears makes the same damn mistake.
In fact the same two damn mistakes. Each one says “trans” or “transgender” instead of “male” and each one fails to say “women’s” meet or event or championships.
For the billionth time, the problem is not being trans, the problem is being male and competing against females.
This endlessly repeated obfuscation benefits exclusively males who cheat females.
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
No Comments »
Jun 1st, 2025 4:59 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Mainstream newspaper refers to male athlete as trans athlete instead of male athlete in the eleventy billionth refusal to tell the truth about this relentless cheating of female athletes.
When East Valley of Spokane runner Verónica Garcia crossed the finish line at Mount Tahoma High School after winning the Class 2A 400-meter dash on Saturday, she looked over at the scoreboard, saw her time of 55.70, and smiled.
Ignoring the boos she heard from the crowd, Garcia took a moment to bask in her accomplishment of winning her second consecutive Class 2A 400-meter state title.
How sweet – except for the fact that he’s a boy and it was a girls’ race.
As a transgender person, Garcia has heard
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
May 31st, 2025 2:57 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Tucking breaks.
An LGBTQ+ group within an NHS hospital trust drew up plans to give trans staff extra breaks if they wore chest binders or had to tuck their genitals away.
In draft guidance seen by The Telegraph, an LGBTQ+ staff network within the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust (UH Sussex) said trans colleagues “may require extra scheduled breaks in their shift in order to have breaks from binding and tucking”.
Well now wait a second. If they get extra breaks from binding and tucking, why shouldn’t women get extra breaks from/for wearing high heels or makeup or tampons? Why shouldn’t men have extra breaks from/for shaving or not shaving? If one group gets extra breaks then all groups … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
5 comments