The old “right to have access to a woman’s genitals” take.

https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1387733202983440384

How sensitive and humane to frame women as a resource men have a right to use.

https://twitter.com/wwwritingclub/status/1387861486236848135 https://twitter.com/tkingdot/status/1387866307941609475 https://twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1387780570328014854

In other news, one of the 87 Duggar kids from the “87 and counting” tv show about religious fanatics trying to break world records on how many children one woman can push out – one of those kids has been arrested.… Read the rest

But he was just joking joking joking. When Tucker Carlson scowled into the camera and told his dupes to call child protective services if they see any kids in masks, he was just JOKING.

After the Erik Wemple Blog posted a Twitter thread with updates on the states’ responses, some Carlson allies claimed we were taking all of this too seriously. “It should go without saying that no, you should not, in fact call the police or CPS on parents with kids in masks outdoors. It should also go without saying that Tucker Carlson is not, in fact, seriously telling his viewers to do that,” wrote the author of a piece on Twitchy that helpfully aggregates the sentiment.

… Read the rest

It’s Mary Beard’s turn to get some random policing and name-calling, it seems.

Exceptionally eminent classicist Mary Beard “spouting her nonsense”?! Honestly, just fuck off. Fuck very far off. Being allowed to be successful as a woman without ridiculous caveats lasted all of 5 minutes. Well done all! pic.twitter.com/jyjxyrKa0P

— Victoria Freeman (@v_j_freeman) April 29, 2021

What “nonsense” has Beard “spouted”? As far as I can tell, none. As far as I can tell (people have been locking accounts or deleting them altogether, so some evidence is missing) someone whined at her for followcrime, and others rushed to join the fun.

One day the ‘progressive’ left will need to have a reckoning with how their reforming zeal has resulted in

… Read the rest

New homophobia much like the old.

Thick and fast come the apoplectic accusations from the LGBT+ lobby against members of the authentic and historical lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) community and other gender-critical people. We are repeatedly told that we are guilty of transphobic “hate” and that our organisations are “hate groups”. Simply insisting that sex is a biological and immutable characteristic, and that the settled definition of “sex” underpins LGB and women’s rights, is even enough to get you accused of being a terrorist or a neo-Nazi sympathiser, no less.

…

We must ask ourselves, however, how much damage the LGBT+ lobby is doing to the mental health of the young LGB people who gravitate towards it, given

… Read the rest

This business of saying (as Index on Censorship did) that we have to “build bridges” with people who say men are women if they say they are made me think there must be a handy label for that, like “gaslighting” and “sealioning” and similar, but I couldn’t think of one. I did what any sensible person would do and asked Twitter. “Motte and bailey” is close but it leaves out the building bridges bit.

This at least names the Index on Censorship part.

Those third parties are the "flying monkeys".

— Medusa's Butter Dish (@RenterNomads) April 29, 2021

Ahhh yes. I haven’t incorporated that label into my vocabulary, and maybe it’s time I did. Wikipedia:

Flying monkeys^[1] is

… Read the rest

People have only been saying that trickle-down economics is crap for decades.

To be more specific, trickle-down economics is just lovely for Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk but not so great for people at the bottom of that trickle.

Still, it is surprising to see Biden get a clue. He’s been a very conservative brand of Democrat most of his career.

The US president was a young politician when the idea that cutting taxes on the well off would be good for the poor first came into vogue in the 1970s. Now he has used his first address to a joint session of Congress to call on the US’s top 1% to pay for his $1.8tn American families plan

… Read the rest

Index on Censorship steps up:

This week Index on Censorship took the unusual step of legally intervening in an employment appeal tribunal.  As always our focus was on the core principle of free expression and protecting free speech in law. The tribunal has now concluded and has reserved judgment – we expect to learn the result in the coming months.  Much will be discussed and written about in the coming days regarding the Maya Forstater tribunal, but for your information on what Index provided to the court please access our skeleton argument here.

Whatever the outcome of the Employment Appeal Tribunal the toxic nature of the current conversation on gender and trans rights is doing little to build

… Read the rest

More eccentric claims from Maya’s appeal.

Because she thinks trans people are deluded.

— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) April 28, 2021

I don’t see how that can be slander. I think people who believe in a god are deluded; is that slander? They think people like me are deluded because we don’t believe in a god; is that slander? I don’t think so. Discussions can get rude, sure, but just thinking a belief is deluded isn’t slander.

Dolezal was NACCP president, white but pretended to be black.

MF said someone trans "is passing in their new Identity."

— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) April 28, 2021

It is submitted that her belief is an existential threat to trans people and in rooted in

… Read the rest

The threats were just playful.

A New York City man charged with making online threats to murder members of Congress told a jury on Tuesday that the threats weren’t meant to be taken seriously.

Brendan Hunt acknowledged he had written the online statements but dismissed them as “blather” produced under the influence of marijuana and alcohol.

“I was really just letting off steam,” Hunt said, according to The Associated Press. “It was really more online blather than anything else.”

…

On Dec. 6 he allegedly wrote on Facebook: “Trump, we want actual revenge on democrats. Meaning, we want you to hold a public execution of pelosi aoc schumer etc. And if you dont do it, the citizenry will. We’re

… Read the rest

There was a guest appearance by the Holocaust, because of course there was.

Quotes ¶88: "If part of the belief necessarily will result in the violation of the dignity of others, that is a component of the belief, rather than something separate, and will be relevant to determining whether the belief is a protected philosophical belief."

— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) April 28, 2021

See also lack of belief in the Holocaust.

— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) April 28, 2021

Is it a violation of the dignity of others to fail to pretend they are something they are not?

I think you could make a case that it’s the other way around. It’s not all that dignified to be humored in your … Read the rest

Why Rudy is trending.

Federal agents executed a search warrant Wednesday at the Manhattan apartment of Rudy Giuliani, advancing a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors that has been underway for months, according to two people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for the Manhattan US Attorney’s office declined to comment. The New York Times was first to report the search.The Times reported that investigators seized Giuliani’s electronic devices, according to one person with knowledge of the matter.

Trump may have to testify in another matter.

Trump may have to testify in court to address claims that his personal bodyguards assaulted protesters outside Trump Tower in 2015, following a Tuesday court ruling cited by The Daily Beast and

… Read the rest

From the Maya Forstater hearing day 2:

The judge has joined us.

— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) April 28, 2021

Tayler J wrote in his judgment "She positively believes that TW are men, and will say so whenever she wants."

— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) April 28, 2021

Let’s stop there to talk about this business of “the enormous pain of misgendering a TW.”

These are adults we’re talking about, not children. This is a workplace we’re talking about, not a nursery school. These are grown men, not toddlers with soggy diapers. These are grown men with a fantasy of being women. Why are we talking with such solemnity about the putative “enormous pain” they feel when other people don’t join them … Read the rest

Katha Pollitt on Philip Roth and Blake Bailey and dudely misogyny:

By now the whole world knows why Norton made its decision. Four former students from [Bailey’s] days in the 1990s teaching middle school have accused him of showering them with sexualized attention in eighth grade and after, and then pouncing on them as young adults. One has accused him of rape. (Another subsequently came forward to accuse him of attempted rape in 2005.) A few days later, Valentina Rice, a New York publishing executive, went public with a claim that he raped her in 2015.

Just the guy to write a biography of Philip Roth, frankly.

I have so many questions. Could the Times have dug deeper?

… Read the rest

Hey did you know Jolyon Maugham had been on a humbling journey away from know-it-all-ism? Because I sure didn’t know that. I have to say I think he must have gotten off at the wrong stop.

A kind piece from @vicparsons_ about my humbling journey away from the know-it-all-ism that turns too many like me into opponents of the progressive change they think they want. https://t.co/li6mvkAOFq

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) April 27, 2021

… Read the rest

First it’s Tucker Carlson on Fox ranting that wearing masks is a crime against human rights, now it’s a New York Post reporter quitting after she was forced (she says) to write a lie about Kamala Harris. The right-wing “news” media really aren’t very scrupulous, are they.

The New York Post reporter whose byline was attached to a false story that kicked off a days-long right-wing media outrage cycle has quit.

“Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post,” reporter Laura Italiano posted to Twitter on Tuesday afternoon. “The Kamala Harris story—an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against—was my breaking point. It’s

… Read the rest

Is this “cancel culture”? Or is it something else?

More than 200 members of staff at Simon & Schuster have signed a petition calling for the publishing house to cancel its seven-figure book deal with former vice-president Mike Pence and commit to not signing any more book deals with members of Donald Trump’s administration.

I think it’s something else. Mike Pence is no intellectual giant or eloquent advocate or free spirit with a lifetime of experience to enlighten us with. He’s a pipsqueak and a religious fanatic with nothing of interest to say, and he’s also a coward. Nothing of value is lost if Mike Pence doesn’t write a book. (In any case he will write a book, of course: … Read the rest

Naturally the reporting on Maya Forstater’s appeal has to be dishonest. Robin Moira White and Molly Mulready in the Independent:

Maya Forstater is at the heart of a controversy about transgender people, free speech, and harassment at work. Her view is that transgender women are men and the law should protect her right to say so at work, including if a transgender woman happened to be her work colleague.

Forstater wants to refer to that woman as “he”, regardless of the pain that would cause.

That’s a deceptive way of putting it though. Maya isn’t appealing for the freedom to call trans women “he” at all times no matter what, she’s appealing for the freedom to do so … Read the rest

The Daily Beast transcribes much of Tucker Carlson’s anti-masking rant.

“Masks have always been incompatible with a free society,” he fumed. “We used to know that. Masks strip people of their identity as individuals, transform people from citizens into drones. They isolate us and alienate us to shut us off from one another, they prevent intimacy and human contact. If I can’t see your face, I can’t know you.”

You know what does that even more? A ventilator. More again? Being dead.

It’s a temporary measure to slow a pandemic, not a totalitarian plot to hide all our faces forever. Get a grip.

“The rest of us should be snorting at them first. They’re the aggressors. It’s our job to

… Read the rest

This is batshit crazy.

Tucker Carlson is now telling his audience to harass people who wear face masks outside.

If they see children wearing masks, Tucker says the response should be no different than when you see a kid being abused — "call the police immediately, contact child protective services" pic.twitter.com/4svVH0JY3s

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) April 27, 2021

… Read the rest

I’m reading Joshua Rozenberg’s post on today’s hearing and I stopped to re-read one bit from the original ruling.

In a judgment he delivered at the end of 2019, Tayler held that Forstater’s belief in the difference between sex and gender was not a philosophical belief protected by the Equality Act:

I consider that the claimant’s view, in its absolutist nature, is incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others. She goes so far as to deny the right of a person with a gender recognition certificate to be the sex to which they have transitioned.

Stop right there. She what? How would that even be possible? What does it mean? People in the legal profession choose their words … Read the rest