Canada’s answer to Dylan Roof:

A 20-year-old man was charged Monday with four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in a hit and run Sunday involving a pickup truck, in what London, Ont., police believe was a targeted attack on a Muslim family of five.

Evidence indicates it was premeditated.

The family members who died are: 

• a 74-year-old woman.
• a 46-year-old man.
• a 44-year-old woman.
• a 15-year-old girl.

The youngest, a 9-year-old boy, is in the hospital with serious injuries.

Police say that at 8:40 p.m. ET, the family was walking along Hyde Park Road and were waiting to cross the intersection, in northwest London, when the truck mounted the curb and struck them. 

Horrible.

Via … Read the rest

Sonia Sodha’s piece on Stonewall has been much discussed. I had one problem with it, in the conclusion.

Two of Stonewall’s founders have accused the charity of losing its way. An independent review by a barrister into the unlawful no-platforming of two female academics found that Essex University’s policy on supporting trans staff, reviewed by Stonewall, misrepresented the law “as Stonewall would prefer it to be, rather than as it is”, to the detriment of women. And following the Equality and Human Rights Commission leaving Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme, the equalities minister, Liz Truss, has reportedly pushed for government departments to follow suit.

Stonewall pretends it’s all right-wingers who object, which is just another example of how shamelessly they … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on Catching them early.

Kids are more likely to understand a wide spectrum of gender…

Kids are more likely to “understand” that if you put a dress on a Ken doll he becomes a girl. Children are notoriously sexist in that they learn what they think are rules about what the sexes can and can’t do and apply them strictly.

I read one of those “gender guides” aimed at the elementary grades — with the teacher’s notes — and the first few lessons were exemplary basic feminism. Boys can play with dolls and they’re still boys; girls can roughhouse and they’re still girls. Reject gender roles and assumptions! Teachers were warned how children are … Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknklast on Catching them early.

I didn’t realize I needed before I started using “them,”

Rare moment of honesty. I didn’t realize I needed…until…the need was created. Until I insisted. Why didn’t she know she needed these pronouns? Because she didn’t need them. It is a need created by media hype, trans activists, and societal contagion.

What is this need? Not the need to be non-binary; we are all pretty much that, if you talk about gender stereotypes (and in spite of all their denial, that is exactly what they are talking about). The need is to be special, to be noticed, to have everyone else paying attention to her, catering to her fragility, taking … Read the rest

This is so infuriating.

States that have passed six-week bans also have other restrictions in place, which can make the deadline even harder to meet.

– In Missouri, people must wait 72hrs between initial visit and the actual abortion.

– Ohio, Kentucky, Texas, South Carolina and Louisiana: 24hrs.

— 19thnews (@19thnews) June 6, 2021

…almost two thirds of people haven’t yet terminated their pregnancy.

…people must wait 72hrs between initial visit and the actual abortion.

On the other hand –

About three-fourths of the health care workforce is women.

An exodus of women from health care could have ramifications not just for the industry, but for the nation at large. https://t.co/qi0ZTwV8Y0

— 19thnews (@19thnews) June 6, 2021

But then … Read the rest

Maybe Jameela Jamil will see the point now?

I won’t hold my breath though.

Just we are clear. They will never mandate vasectomy for males as that would mean interfering with the bodies of males. It would NEVER happen. Only female bodies can be controlled, harmed and interfered with, by LAW. Even though the vasectomy is far lower risk than forced birth.

— ❤️ Jameela Jamil ❤️ She/Her ❤️ (@jameelajamil) June 7, 2021

Exactly. EXACTLY. This is what we’ve been telling you for months.

Notice that in this instance she’s done better than 19th News, which talks of “people” realizing they’re pregnant and a person’s last period and many people having irregular periods.… Read the rest

Even TIME is issuing Gender Instructions.

It’s only been a week since Katherine Locke’s newest book was published, and they’ve already received messages from parents of trans and nonbinary children saying how much it spoke to them.

The very first sentence, and already we see what a dog’s breakfast bespoke pronouns can create. Who is the first they? Who is the second? You’ll just have to guess!

The book, What Are Your Words?, tells the story of a kid named Ari, who is gender fluid and nonbinary and tries out different pronouns depending on how they feel on different days.

Why is this kid both gender fluid and nonbinary? And why is TIME repeating this nonsense with a … Read the rest

On the one hand “anyone with a cervix,” on the other hand drop your pants. Insult in ALL the ways.

This year the Bailiwick’s Cervical Screening Awareness Campaign will launch today (7 June) and run for 3 weeks.
This encourages anyone with a cervix to have their free screening appointment when invited.
More info at: https://t.co/e69W29HJqU#WeAreAllSmearReady#DropYourPants pic.twitter.com/SDjpBZvgTG

— States of Guernsey (@Govgg) June 7, 2021

Why not “Spread’em, honey”?… Read the rest

Libby Purves isn’t taking Stonewall’s instructions.

The lobbying charity Stonewall has advised that the M-word is not “inclusive” and should not be used by the bodies it advises and lists on its “Workplace Equality Index”.

…

It’s been going on for a while, the pious new word-world that cannot content itself with mangling a plural pronoun into singlehood but calls biological females “menstruators” and coins the insulting word “chestfeeding”. That was a Brighton maternity department, as keen as any Victorian divine to avoid the wicked word “breast” . It spoke of distress at the way “biological essentialism” was polluting the “mainstream birth narrative”. Makes one feel quite guilty at the reckless and rather messy essentialism of having given birth

… Read the rest

That Times piece by Michael Powell on the ACLU, part 2.

Less than two months after that terrible day in Charlottesville, Claire Gastanaga, then the executive director of the A.C.L.U. chapter in Virginia, drove to the College of William & Mary to talk about free speech. One of her board members had resigned after Charlottesville, tweeting, “When a free speech claim is the only thing standing in the way of Nazis killing people, maybe don’t take the case.”

Ms. Gastanaga planned to argue that by defending the rights of the objectionable, the A.C.L.U. preserved the rights of all.

Does it though? Is that how it worked in Charlottesville?

She walked onstage and dozens of students who proclaimed themselves allied

… Read the rest

The ACLU has changed.

At a celebratory lunch in 2017 Daniel Goldberger, one of its star lawyers, found the speeches disconcerting.

A law professor argued that the free speech rights of the far right were not worthy of defense by the A.C.L.U. and that Black people experienced offensive speech far more viscerally than white allies. In the hallway outside, an A.C.L.U. official argued it was perfectly legitimate for his lawyers to decline to defend hate speech.

Mr. Goldberger, a Jew who defended the free speech of those whose views he found repugnant, felt profoundly discouraged.

I find reporting and commentary on this issue frustrating, because it always (at least so it seems) evades the real issue. The issue isn’t … Read the rest

Sing it!

Another absolute heroine on Tiktok – this time defending birthing mothers ♥️. Tiktok username jothemama pic.twitter.com/HAkXZwPhNL

— Cherry McSciencey (@mcsciencey) June 5, 2021

… Read the rest

When guest talks go bad:

A psychiatrist said in a lecture at Yale University’s School of Medicine that she had fantasies of shooting white people, prompting the university to later restrict online access to her expletive-filled talk, which it said was “antithetical to the values of the school.”

The talk, titled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind,” had been presented by the School of Medicine’s Child Study Center as part of Grand Rounds, a weekly forum for faculty and staff members and others affiliated with Yale to learn about various aspects of mental health.

The title doesn’t sound entirely reasonable or well judged.

“This is the cost of talking to white people at all — the cost of

… Read the rest

How can we ever match their eloquence?

https://twitter.com/Lubchansky/status/1401577928551505926… Read the rest

On the one hand Trump is more absurd than ever, on the other hand he’s more dangerous than ever.

Donald J. Trump, the former president of the United States, commutes to New York City from his New Jersey golf club to work out of his office in Trump Tower at least once a week, slipping in and out of Manhattan without attracting much attention.

The place isn’t as he left it. Many of his longtime employees are gone. So are most of the family members who once worked there with him and some of the fixtures of the place, like his former lawyer Michael D. Cohen, who have since turned on him. Mr. Trump works there, mostly alone,

… Read the rest

Trump issued a solemn Statement. Short, but solemn.

Cool. Zuckerberg requested no more dinners, and Trump is complying. Whatever.

It is however quite rude and dismissive to refer to anyone as “his wife” and nothing else. Most women are not as empty and useless as Melania Trump, or indeed Donald Trump.… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1401468874579603462

Tell me more about the residential accommodation one.

That’s so interesting, because by giving a trans woman the option of being in a single sex flat that is an all women flat, they remove that option from the women in the flat. He gets his preferred option and they lose theirs.

Why is that fair, again? I just can’t seem to grasp it.… Read the rest

It’s been sorted and Marion has what she needs for now.

https://twitter.com/millar_marion/status/1401464837029470211 https://twitter.com/millar_marion/status/1401464840087117824

What a glorious progressive movement, am I right?… Read the rest

Excellent post by Lily Maynard on The Curious Case of Marion Millar.

It’s all good; I’ll just whet your appetite with her take on Joss Prior:

Joss’s attack on women is a triple whammy, the epitome of bigotry – attacking women for their age, their politcs (entirely speculative) and their perceived intellectual capacity.

I imagine Joss’s idea of a feminist protest would have been a parade of 20-year-old bikini girls sporting full make-up and perfectly coiffed hair, chanting ‘transwomen are women!’

While explaining astrophysics to the people in the bleachers.

Prior- no spring chicken himself- is also disparaging about the number of women in the photo. I’m told that others were present who were not photographed, but bloody hell

… Read the rest

Susan Dalgety in The Scotsman:

Why have I spent the last 24 hours sharing despairing texts with some of Scotland’s most successful women, each as bewildered as I am? Women who have won awards for their work, women who have spent their entire adult lives overcoming prejudice, women who are the social, economic, and political equal of any man. Warrior queens every one of them. And now scared to speak out.

I could point to a Coatbridge police station, where on Thursday, Marion Millar, a 50-year-old feminist, was charged with malicious communications after posting allegedly “homophobic and transphobic” tweets, but the story doesn’t start there.

I could direct you to Johann Lamont’s powerful parliamentary speech where she argued successfully

… Read the rest