Now on to James Kirkup in the Spectator:

For context, the court heard that a significant number of transwomen in jail are there for sexual offences. In March/April 2019, there were 163 transgender prisoners, of whom 81 had been convicted of one or more sexual offences. 129 of those prisoners were allocated to the male estate, 34 to the female estate.

Many of them are there for sexual offences but hey let’s put them in with the women anyway, and then watch and laugh.

The judge acknowledged the risk, as we’ve seen. He acknowledged lots of things, all of which should have point to Nope Nope Nope.

The judge also found that female prison[er]s, who are disproportionately likely to

… Read the rest

So it is. Well spotted.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1411054443446116352

And even the “feelings” of said chattering classes aren’t that important. The feelings are seven or eight times removed. It’s not really any skin off the ass of the chattering classes if men in prison don’t get to pretend to be women in order to be housed in the women’s prison. It’s a political “feeling” of sorts, but not the kind we should feel either compassion for or solidarity with. It’s a feeling of fabricated and exaggerated “caring” about men who identify as women coupled with a brutal indifference to women. It’s not like the feeling of compassion for and solidarity with starving refugees fleeing violence in Nigeria or El Salvador, or for workers … Read the rest

The worst-case scenarios didn’t predict a Lytton. That’s scary all by itself. That tells us it’s going to be worse, faster, than the knowledgeable people thought.

The US president, Joe Biden, and Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, have warned worried populations to brace for more. Shocked climate scientists are wondering how even worst-case scenarios failed to predict such furnace-like conditions so far north.

Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the recent extreme weather anomalies were not represented in global computer models that are used to project how the world might change with more emissions. The fear is that weather systems might be more frequently blocked as a result of human emissions.

… Read the rest

David Paisely is trying to understand (or claims he is).

https://twitter.com/DavidPaisley/status/1410951390499946496

I wonder what it was that made him decide to be gender uncritical. I wonder if there was a particular thing that drove him towards that mode of thinking.

(I don’t really. I think he’s just dumb and conformist, and there’s nothing more interesting than that about it.)

https://twitter.com/DavidPaisley/status/1411015501485068295

Hm. So it’s not believing in magic swappable gender that’s like god-belief. Interesting.

And how do we “seek to harm” trans people? By our wicked failure to “validate” them? By declining to take their absurd reality-denying claims at face value? Are we really classifying that as seeking to harm people now? Just, not believing other people’s fictions and fantasies?

https://twitter.com/DavidPaisley/status/1411019311163097100… Read the rest

Women just don’t matter at all.

It is lawful for transgender women to be housed in female jails in England and Wales, the High Court has ruled.

A female prisoner, known as FDJ, had challenged the Ministry of Justice over aspects of the policy.

She claimed she had been sexually assaulted by a trans prisoner but the MoJ did not say whether it accepted this alleged incident had taken place.

The judge ruled barring all trans women from female prisons would ignore their right to live as their chosen gender.

But what about women’s right to live away from male violence?

Why isn’t that right vastly more important than some fanciful made-up “right” to live as a “chosen” i.e. … Read the rest

So…it looks as if this phenomenon could set whole continents on fire.

Storm-producing fire clouds threw out hundreds of thousands of lightning strikes over wildfire-stricken British Columbia and northwestern Alberta provinces in Canada Wednesday and Thursday, bewildering meteorologists. https://t.co/QnyZ9yPq7G

— SFGATE (@SFGate) July 1, 2021

Lightning strikes cause fires. The horrific fire season in California last year was partly caused by thousands of lightning strikes.

"This is a literal firestorm, producing *thousands* of lightning strikes and almost certainly countless new fires."

Read more: https://t.co/R7mUV6aglI pic.twitter.com/QwlAMRcIg0

— SFGATE (@SFGate) July 1, 2021

Fire clouds spark 710,117 lightning strikes in western Canada in 15 hours: The numbers shared by @COweatherman from a lightning siege in western Canada are mind blowing. https://t.co/hHUAd2OIxf via

… Read the rest

You got the science wrong no you got the science wrong.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700553668239360 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700558755827714 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700562597883908 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700570520850445

I think he has an extra “not” in that last sentence.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700574358654977

Why yes, it does. I thought so at the time, especially since he was so pissy to me during the DJ Grothe/TAM brouhaha. Allyship with Grothe and TAM then, and allyship with Our Trans Siblings now. Never allyship with feminists, because I guess that would just be too boring.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700579022774276 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410730408673615874 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410732371121373185

Why, what could go wrong? Apart from self-mutilation and whatnot.… Read the rest

Okaaaaay so now we’re just not bothering with any kind of consistency.

https://twitter.com/Red07859895/status/1410542908856483841

She totally sees the contradiction, yes? Not quite.

I stand by that.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) July 1, 2021

Nobody’s body is a threat, and the denial of the reality of male violence is as much a part of the way power operates as the violence itself.

If you can make those two claims consistent with each other, you get the Nobel Prize for Broken Reasoning Repair.… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/AliciaSmith987/status/1410506669226926080… Read the rest

More on Lytton:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1410619556700241928

Like those videos from Paradise when it burned to the ground.

Lytton mayor Jan Polderman tells CBC that "the whole town is on fire" #Lytton #BCwildfires #BC https://t.co/VugLfDNAkQ

— Georgia Straight (@georgiastraight) July 1, 2021

"We're hearing many reports and confirmations that the village of Lytton, there's a lot of structural damage. We've heard of the hospital, Main Street, the ambulance location as well. The core of the village has been devastated."https://t.co/WdRSASy8kf

— Global BC (@GlobalBC) July 1, 2021

Wildfire service says Lytton, B.C. blaze ‘out of control’ as residents flee https://t.co/UvPpCdW8OE

— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail) July 1, 2021

LATEST: The majority of #LyttonBC has been destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire, the area's

… Read the rest

An entire British Columbia town has burned up.

The fire started in the late afternoon and by 6 p.m., the mayor had issued an evacuation order for the entire town of Lytton. …

Ninety per cent the small B.C. village has burned in a devastating wildfire, the town’s local member of Parliament says. 

Brad Vis, who represents Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon, says the fire that tore through Lytton and forced the entire community to evacuate Wednesday has led to significant structural damage including in the town’s centre.

…

“We heard that we lost our hospital again, plus the ambulance, and it sounds like the whole town’s burning,” said Terry Wagner, an evacuee, late Wednesday.

Lytton Mayor Jan Polderman ordered an evacuation

… Read the rest

Does she understand anything?

No.
Nobody‘s body is a threat. Nobody’s body is morally superior to anyone else’s. No matter their race, sex, gender, ethnicity, age, ability, size or anything else, nobody’s body makes them worthy of contempt.
To suggest otherwise is the essence of supremacist thinking. https://t.co/RajAFuviZ7

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) July 1, 2021

If it were true that nobody’s body is a threat then rape would not exist. There would be no word for it because there would be nothing for the word to name. If it were true that nobody’s body is a threat then physical violence would not exist.

On this one I can’t even guess what she thinks she’s thinking. It’s not that she doesn’t … Read the rest

Glinner on the destruction of Green Party Women:

This, from Mumsnet, has been circulating on Twitter today. It concerns drug pusher and abusive male, Kathryn Bristow.

Graham shares a message from a Green Party member:

“I am writing with the latest antics of Kathryn Bristow, who has now declared themselves the sole chair of green party women.

A couple of days ago Kathryn Bristow decided that it was a bad idea for women to be able to interact and speak freely in the internal members-only  Green Party women discussion space. It began with him removing posts on LGBT issues, in order to make it a ‘safe space for all women and non-binary people’.

Women objected, Bristow made threats of … Read the rest

Ari Berman (author of the voting rights classic Give Us the Ballot) on the horrific ruling:

Breaking: Supreme Court upholds GOP voting restrictions in Arizona, further weakening Voting Rights Act & giving green-light to GOP voter suppression laws. 6-3 opinion by Alito. Kagan dissents https://t.co/YTt9hzew3n

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) July 1, 2021

5 of 6 conservative Supreme Court justices were appointed by GOP presidents who initially lost popular vote & confirmed by senators representing minority of Americans

American democracy completely broken

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) July 1, 2021

In 2013 SCOTUS gutted Voting Rights Act. Since then 26 states have enacted new voter suppression laws

Now conservative majority shredding what remains of VRA, giving green-light to greatest rollback of

… Read the rest

Nina Totenberg says the Voting Rights Act is basically dead.

The U.S. Supreme Court for all practical purposes rendered the landmark Voting Rights Act a dead letter on Thursday.

The 6-to-3 vote was along ideological lines, with Justice Samuel Alito writing the decision for the conservative court majority, and the liberals in angry dissent.

At issue in the case were two Arizona laws. One banned the collection of absentee ballots by anyone other than a relative or caregiver, and the other threw out any ballots cast in the wrong precinct. A federal appeals court struck down both provisions, ruling that they had an unequal impact on minority voters, and that there was no evidence of fraud that would have

… Read the rest

The right-wing Supreme Court approves voting restrictions.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday made it easier for states to enact voting restrictions, endorsing Republican-backed measures in Arizona that a lower court had decided disproportionately burdened Black, Latino and Native American voters and handing a defeat to Democrats who had challenged the policies.

So, that’s it, that’s the ballgame. We’re fucked. Republicans can now pass all kinds of laws that make it harder for poor people, working people, immigrant people, brown people to vote, thus expanding and consolidating their power from this moment on. We are fucked.

The Arizona ruling clarified the limits of the Voting Rights Act and how courts may analyze claims of voting discrimination.

The “mere fact

… Read the rest

Hello hello yes please do walk all over me, it’s what I’m here for, can I do anything else for you?

A retiree in Suffolk has made history as the first transgender woman to star on the front cover of the Women’s Institute magazine.

A man has “made history” as the first man to star on the front cover of the Women’s Institute magazine. It’s extremely history-making for men to appear on the front covers of magazines.

WI member Petra Wenham, 74, has spoken to WI Life – the publication for the group’s members – after she was asked to discuss her work as as a speaker and activist for a Suffolk chapter of the branch, Cake and Revolution.

… Read the rest

Another victory in the war on Karens:

Bill Cosby is being released from prison after the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania vacated his 2018 conviction on sexual assault charges and judgment of sentence. Victoria Valentino, one of Cosby’s accusers, told CNN she was “stunned” by the court’s decision.

Valentino said she had recently received a letter stating that Cosby’s parole was preemptively denied due to a lack of remorse and a refusal to participate in programs for abusers.

She said that when she first heard about Cosby’s release she was “shocked.” Valentino said her phone was bombarded with messages from media, loved ones and survivors.

“For this to come out of left field is — it’s a gut punch,” Valentino

… Read the rest

Laurie Penny tries to rehabilitate herself.

THREAD:
The question of how to balance different peoples’ needs in public spaces is important. It’s being had in bad faith right now, by people who want to make the case for excluding minority groups- but it speaks to something important that lots of communities are considering.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) June 30, 2021

That’s good, isn’t it? She accuses us of bad faith while in the same breath claiming we want to “make the case for excluding minority groups.” Way to have the discussion in good faith. No, Comrade, we don’t want to make the case for excluding minority groups. That’s not accurate or fair.

And often- too often- a request that a

… Read the rest

If it doesn’t convince anyone the first 500 times, try again.

I see a lot of ‘gender critical’ people frantically rules-lawyering here- all sorts of specious explanations as to why their ‘treat all trans women as potential sex criminals’ is different from homophobes’ ‘treat all gay people as potential sex criminals’. Seems I struck a nerve.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) June 30, 2021

The dishonesty battles with the stupidity for first prize.

As always, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s anxious adherence to the rules or genuine delusional belief – in fact it’s impossible to tell just as it’s impossible to tell if any given naked man in a women’s changing room genuinely believes he’s a woman or is just … Read the rest