They haven’t retrofitted everything though, at least not yet. If you go to the abortion access page whoopsie women make a return appearance. I wonder how long that will last.

The right to choose abortion is essential to ensuring a woman can decide for herself if, when and with whom to start or grow a family. We’ll never stop fighting to protect and expand this fundamental human right.

The Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that affirmed abortion as a constitutional right for all was supposed to be the beginning of the fight for women’s equality and autonomy, not the end. Since then, we’ve been forced to defend it over and over again as anti-choice politicians and

On NARAL’s front page:

“Reproductive rights are essential for achieving gender equality.” What do they mean by that? What does that sentence mean? What is gender equality?

Gender equality means an end to the social and cultural and mental arrangements by which women are seen as inferior to men in every way, and as subordinate to men as a law of nature (and nature’s “God” for the many people who believe in such a thing).

That’s what gender equality means, so that has to be what NARAL meant by it.

So then why are they trying to tell us that abortion rights are for everyone? Why are they talking about people needing abortions instead of women? Why are they … Read the rest

Golly, it was less than a month ago that NARAL was telling us (“reminding” us) that it’s not only women who get abortions. I must have given them some lip, because I now see they’ve blocked me. The big national abortion rights organization is blocking feminists who tell them to stop erasing women – that’s useful.

Anyway, they’re really pushing the “exclude women from abortion rights” line.

When we talk about birthing people, we're being inclusive. It's that simple.

We use gender neutral language when talking about pregnancy, because it's not just cis-gender women that can get pregnant and give birth. Reproductive freedom is for *every* body. https://t.co/9E9qKRMJTu

— Reproductive Freedom for All (@reproforall) May 6, 2021

No it’s … Read the rest

Jesse Singal on Chase Strangio’s casual defamation of him and subsequent evasive maneuvers to avoid blame for the defamation:

Yesterday, GQ ran an interview between Saeed Jones and Chase Strangio, one of the highest-profile attorneys at the ACLU, about trans kids that contains the following passage: I think what we’re seeing now is this moment where there are these loud voices who feel so empowered and emboldened to speak out with just utter hatred for trans people. And a lot of it emerging from the UK anti-trans discourse in JK Rowling and then that sort of being an impetus for this Substack brigade, asI [sic] like to call them—that idea of the self-victimized, well-paid writer who wants nothing more than

Hahahaha Loser Trump is trying to get around the Twitter ban, and failing.

Twitter has suspended an account replicating posts from former President Donald Trump’s new blog, saying it violated the company’s rules against ban evasion.

…

The account profile for @DJTDesk — an abbreviation for the former president’s new “From The Desk of Donald J. Trump” web page — was taken down after tweeting posts identical to his messages on the blog, according to screenshots tweeted by NBC News and other users. The account featured branding identical to Trump’s website, including the same profile picture and banner, according to the images.

Pure coincidence. Nothing to do with Trump.

It was not immediately clear if the account was

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany 6.

I recently finished reading A Lot of People Are Saying – The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum. In it the authors make a distinction between “classical conspiracy theories” and what they call the “new conspiracism” which they describe as “conspiracy without the theory”. Where the former were at the very least attempts to explain real events and appealed to supposedly “scientific” data and “rational” arguments (e.g. the obsession of 9-11 truthers with the temperature of burning jet fuel and the melting point of steel), the new conspiracisms don’t attempt to explain anything (more often than not, there isn’t even anything to … Read the rest

Queen’s University promotes Gegi the leering unicorn, which is perhaps less surprising when you see that one of the “researchers” behind Gegi is at Queen’s University, and that the author of the promo is Julie Brown, Queen’s University Media Relations Officer. In other words it’s a literal promo.

Queen’s researcher Lee Airton has created Gegi.ca, an online resource that helps students advocate for their gender expression and gender identity human rights.

But why do students need to “advocate for their gender expression and gender identity human rights”? God only knows what that even means, but in any case why do they need to advocate for whatever it is?

I don’t think there’s any such thing as “gender expression human … Read the rest

Hmm.

.@gegi_ca is an online resource for K-12 students & educators seeking info about gender identity & gender expression human rights protection developed by @LeeAirton & @kylekirkup & their teams at #queensu & @uOttawa.

Learn more ➡️https://t.co/1NUHv0EeX3 | #QueensuResearch #OntEd pic.twitter.com/ic63Ipos8K

— Queen's University (@queensu) May 5, 2021

That looks…kind of creepy. Also K-12? The content looks too old for the younger ones and the style looks too young for the older ones.

But also…

What?! That’s a new one to me, but if true…well, one wonders what the thinking is. (It doesn’t come up on the top results on Google.)

Scrolling through its tweets it seems to be about pushing “gender expression” in schools, because … Read the rest

Won’t someone spare a thought for the exiled and silenced Josh Hawley?

Since Jan. 6, when the Missouri Republican was photographed fist-pumping his support for some of the very fine people who would later storm the United States Capitol, Hawley has been all but banished from the media. Other than his frequent appearances on some of the most popular cable news shows in the country, his biting Twitter account, the Instagram account where he posts family snapshots and clips from cable hits, and his YouTube page collecting his nearly every utterance on the Senate floor, Hawley has suffered the worst fate known to a modern American politician: cancellation.

But as Nelson Mandela wrote while imprisoned on Robben Island, “Difficulties

Sex Matters live-tweeted another judicial hearing on whether or not men can force themselves on women. R is respondent, J is judge.

R: it may be justified to exclude trans people, but that question would have to be asked 

The proportionality test will always depend on the particular facts. How could you possibly decide that every women’s refuge and every women’s changing room must always exclude transwomen? 

Well that’s easy. You could decide it the way you decide that every women’s refuge and every women’s changing room must always exclude men, because that’s what calling them women’s refuges and changing rooms means. If you don’t exclude men then they’re not women’s any more. We already know that women … Read the rest

More fawning coverage of “Laurel” Hubbard’s successful cheating:

Weightlifting has been at the centre of the debate over the fairness of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, and Hubbard’s presence in Tokyo is set to attract huge media attention as well as criticism from fellow lifters and coaches.

Her gold medal wins at the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa, where she topped the podium ahead of Samoa’s Commonwealth Games champion Feagaiga Stowers, triggered outrage in the island nation.

Australia’s weightlifting federation sought to block Hubbard from competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast but organisers rejected the move.

In other words organisers said a big “fuck you” to women in weightlifting.… Read the rest

Stark raving mad.

A 25-year-old from Huddersfield has implored people to help them become comfortable in their own skin by donating money for life-changing gender reassignment surgery.

Pan Hollingworth, who was born in Leeds and moved to the West Yorkshire town in 2010, came out as non-binary 10 years ago after previously identifying as genderqueer.

They realised during childhood there was a “disconnection” with either gender as they did not conform to being male or female. After researching online, they then found a term which they could relate to.

“I was online quite a lot as a 16-year-old and I just came across this phrase,” Pan said. “I came out as genderqueer first as I knew I wasn’t a

Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre – the one that just made a trans woman its CEO – offers no women-only services.

We respect the courage and strength it takes to speak out about your experience whether it has been a recent assault or it happened a long time ago. When you contact us we will offer you a face-to-face support session. You can use this time in any way you choose, and we can talk through what support we offer. 

Our specialist trauma-informed support services are open to women, all members of the trans community, non-binary people and young people aged 12 – 18 who have experienced any form of sexual violence at any time in their lives, by abusers

The new Jesus and Mo –

“You’re either non-binary or you’re not”… Read the rest

No room for radical feminists in the feminist movement. Interesting. I wonder what they think feminism is, exactly.

(I don’t really wonder. I don’t think they think much at all, I think they just parrot the slogans they’re told to parrot.)

❌ There is no room for TERFs in the feminist movement. ❌

Join us and 100+ feminist and social justice organizations in declaring your support for trans inclusion and liberation: https://t.co/BFpMjhX2qT pic.twitter.com/7RS9ApDRaf

— Action Canada (@actioncanadashr) May 4, 2021

Supporting the rights of trans people really isn’t essential to protecting all women. It’s beside the point. The rights of trans people appear to be 1. the right to force everyone to agree that you are the sex you … Read the rest

Well, “make history” is one way to put it. The Guardian gushes:

Trans weightlifter Laurel Hubbard set to make history at Tokyo Olympics

Laurel Hubbard is a man, and what he’s set to do at the Tokyo Olympics is steal a medal from a woman. The Guardian doesn’t admit that.

History and controversy is expected to be made at the Tokyo Olympics this summer after the transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard was effectively guaranteed a place in the women’s super heavyweight category.

Why controversy? Because he’s a man, so it’s cheating. Blatant, shameless, piggy cheating.

It means Hubbard, who won silver at the 2017 world championships and was sixth after a severe injury in 2019, is almost certain to become the

Last July Stonewall posted some advice on “how you can better support non-binary people.”

Is this a reciprocal type thing? Is there advice to non-binary people on how they can better support binary people?

And what is it to “support” people anyway? When it’s parents of minors, for instance, it means paying their expenses. When it’s non-binary people…?

So let’s see what Stonewall tells us.

There are many ways to be inclusive of everyone, regardless of their gender identity. Our language and the way we speak is often embedded with hidden gendered cues.

So to support non-binary people we should get rid of all those embedded hidden gendered cues, yes? Only, then, won’t trans people wonder what happened to our … Read the rest

Another item from the annals of “kink” –

A man was today found guilty over the death of his partner after a bondage game went wrong at a North Wales holiday resort.

That is, a man killed a woman during sex.

Warren Martin Coulton, 52, tied-up Claire Wright, 38, during a drug and drink fuelled session at a luxury lodge.

However, he fell asleep while she was still restrained and she suffocated to death.

Coulton found her dead when he woke up but fled the scene.

During his seven day trial, the court heard Coulton had put a sock in her mouth and may have taped it up.

In other words he killed her.

Ms Wright’s body was found in

Trump is hopping with fury at Facebook and Liz Cheney.

Donald Trump has just released a new statement, but the former president focuses his ire on congresswoman Liz Cheney, not the Facebook oversight board.

“Warmonger Liz Cheney, who has virtually no support left in the Great State of Wyoming, continues to unknowingly and foolishly say that there was no Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election when in fact, the evidence, including no Legislative approvals as demanded by the U.S. Constitution, shows the exact opposite,” Trump said.

He’s still illiterate as well as a liar. “Unknowingly” is not the right word there. Most of the words are wrong or in the wrong place or lies or all three. He … Read the rest

Sure but they got away with it anyway.

Judge says Barr “misled” aka lied about the Mueller investigation.

A federal judge in Washington accused the Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr of misleading her and Congress about advice he had received from top department officials on whether President Donald J. Trump should have been charged with obstructing the Russia investigation and ordered that a related memo be released.

That’s a terrible opening sentence/paragraph. The Times should worry less about wiping out the Oxford comma and more about a too-long one-sentence opening paragraph with too much context-free information lumped all together with no punctuation. I know the idea is overview first then details but the overview in this … Read the rest