And then of course the replies. Always the replies.

https://twitter.com/IreSappho/status/1363893591148486660

Amatonormativity!

https://twitter.com/PrideInLondon/status/1363432412932366337

Hey, I don’t like peanut butter cookies, do I get a week?

It's #AromanticSpectrumAwarenessWeek according to Stonewall. If you feel vulnerable to physical and sexual assault, homelessness, the loss of your children and loved ones, self-hatred and shame for no other reason than being aromantic, YOU ARE IN DANGER AND SHOULD SEEK SUPPORT!

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) February 22, 2021

… Read the rest

They’re really doing this? It’s not a joke? I saw a mention of it earlier today but thought it was a joke. I guess it’s not a joke?

Really?

https://twitter.com/stonewalluk/status/1363843446616719363

Tips? Support? Ally? Community?

They’re not joking?

Come on…… Read the rest

The Beeb gave the job of “analysis” on that Brighton NHS gendoo newtwoo wangwidge article to, of all people, Ben Hunte, their “LGBT correspondent” who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about women.

The hospital is currently receiving a huge amount of backlash following several misleading news reports and lots of misinformation on social media.

On Twitter, some have called the changes “misogynistic” or “an erasure of women”, and many have labelled them “ridiculous”.

Good start. Scare-quotes on misogyny; that’s Ben Hunte for you.

However, while some reports have stated that Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is entirely replacing any language related to womanhood, this is not the case.

We know, it’s women and blah blah blah, but we … Read the rest

What are they putting in the drinking water in Brighton?

An NHS trust is to use “gender inclusive language” for its maternity services, including terms such as “chestfeeding” and “birthing parent”.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust is thought to be first in the UK to adopt the language in its internal communications and meetings.

Let’s hope it’s also the last, and that it changes its mind.

The trust said it recognised “challenges” gender identity can have on pregnancy, birth and feeding.

It recognized what? You mean it recognized the challenges “gender identity” can present for pregnant women and mothers?

Let’s assume that’s what they mean. So what’s the point? That women who have delusions of being men find … Read the rest

Ominous headline:

Scottish misogyny law must protect all women, says Helena Kennedy

On the one hand, duh, obviously it must. But this being now, of course on the other hand are we using “all women” to mean “including men”? We are, aren’t we. It wouldn’t be a news story otherwise.

There should be no limits of the types of women protected from hate crime says Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, as she begins her consideration of whether Scotland requires a standalone offence to tackle misogynist abuse.

Of course that’s right…unless by “types of women” you mean “especially men who call themselves women.” A man isn’t a type of woman. There are many types of rabbit, but a dog isn’t a … Read the rest

Ni la violencia ni las amenazas tienen cabida en una democracia. Así no.https://t.co/U1fuBlN0K1

— Carmen Calvo (@carmencalvo_) February 20, 2021

From Woman’s Place UK:

“Women saying no to males is ‘vileness & cruelty’, so says the man.

In Spain,an effigy of a woman who opposes men self ID’ing into our spaces was hung from a tree.

The attacks only come one side of this debate. It’s not coming from women, it’s coming from men who hate us saying no.”

“”This is an effigy of Carmen Calvo, Spain’s vice-president & Secretary of Equality at the socialist PSOE party. A Constitutional Law professor, she voiced legal concerns about “gender identity” policies…”

Raquel Rosario Sanchez

The boot on the neck, always.… Read the rest

Pliny’s latest:… Read the rest

Where that “being offensive is a crime” billboard came from:

https://twitter.com/MerPolWirral/status/1363164937124773889

So apparently they parked outside an Asda with their police state billboard, and had rewarding chats positive discussion with the shoppers – the essential shoppers. I suppose by “essential shoppers” they mean people who were at the shop for essential goods only, not anything frivolous – like having a chat about the illegality of being offensive.

Mostly just women, probably, essential shopping at Asda to pick up the beans on toast, the tea, the chip butties, the Weetabix. That’s good, because women are the people who don’t matter when it comes to being offensive, and the people who need to be punished when anyone says a man is not … Read the rest

This one had me holding my breath for a bit as I read. A council took funding away from a domestic violence shelter to give it to one “that caters for the needs of people with all the protected characteristics.” Sorry, wimz, you don’t have enough protected characteristics, bye!

Brighton and Hove City Council has defended the decision that cost a Brighton domestic violence charity a £5 million contract.

Senior councillors shared their shock when the situation was raised at a budget meeting.

And they promised to look into the decision that will lead to RISE being replaced by Victim Support and the social housing provider Stonewater.

RISE has run refuge and helpline services in Brighton and Hove for the

… Read the rest

Speaking of the police…

There’s a lot to notice about that. First there’s the fact that women are excluded from the list, I guess because women are never the target of hatred or violence. Then there’s the muddle of starting with a set of people and then instantly switching to a list of categories. Then there’s the fact that pimps are sex workers so what kind of “crime against” pimps do Merseyside Police have in mind? Then there’s belief – what is a “crime against” belief?

The other side isn’t great either. “BEING OFFENSIVE IS AN OFFENCE.” Really? All “being offensive” is a police matter? Have they thought this through?

I don’t know. The cops have never cared this much … Read the rest

When the police are in on the scam…

https://twitter.com/LGBTpoliceuk/status/1363438746889314304… Read the rest

Gender isn’t limited to boys and girls, so it’s time to break the habit of assuming people must be one or the other. The best place to start? Teaching the right concepts to our children. https://t.co/NPxM0deZ5M

— Parents (@parents) February 20, 2021

Ah yes the “habit” of thinking there are two genders and we know which is which. It’s just a silly frivolous thoughtless habit, like dropping your coat on the floor or whistling.

Hooray that we’re so enlightened now we’ve broken the habit, and are in a position to teach children “the right concepts” – that you’re a girl if you feel like a girl and if you don’t feel like a girl you’re a boy or nonbinary or … Read the rest

More “include trans women in EVERYTHING” from Nora Imlau:

I'm not making a trans issue out of #fgm. I'm merely pointing out that it's never okay to not include trans women in the definition of women.

— Nora Imlau noraimlau@mas.to (@NoraImlau) February 19, 2021

Damn that’s a huge claim. Even if you think trans women should be “included” in the definition most of the time you can still think there’s no need to “include” them in discussion of bluntly physical matters like pregnancy and childbirth and genital mutilation.

It’s so officious, this interrupting of women to shout “INCLUDE MEN WHO CALL THEMSELVES WOMEN” any time anyone has the temerity to talk about women. Who made Nora Imlau, or … Read the rest

Norm Allen on the Black Church:

Henry Louis Gates’ two-part, 4-hour documentary on the Black Church was featured on PBS February 16–17, 2021. It focused on the Black Church’s role in combating racism. While it is clear that churches (or rather, church people) have always had some positive aspects, the bottom line is that theistic churches have at their center the belief in a perfect God.

So the question that instantly comes to my mind – as it did every time I saw a teaser for Gates’s doc on PBS – is why this perfect God allowed slavery, or any kind of race-based hierarchy, or any kind of hierarchy period.

For all of the talk of the role of

… Read the rest

I can’t vouch for the truth of this, couldn’t find anything else about it, but just in case it is true…

https://twitter.com/AlliaPotestas/status/1363174619163803654… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Just like.

What a vast amount of time and attention and energy people are squandering on this absurd caricature of social justice, when they could be doing something useful.

The fact that women are forced to respond to this bullshit when they could be directing their efforts towards other necessary projects instead of having to fight rearguard actions to protect rights they thought they’d won already. Just like firefighters, whose job is already difficult and dangerous enough without the added distraction of false alarms and arson.

Or, to put it in a cruder way, TRAs are pissed off at campaigns against genital mutilation because that’s how you get trans people.

… Read the rest

But…

The problem is not that she's centering women in her work and words. The problem is that she excludes trans women from it. 'I'm a woman. Get over it.' is what trans women say too. If everyone accepted that trans women are women just like cis women, no one would take issue.

— Nora Imlau noraimlau@mas.to (@NoraImlau) February 19, 2021

But.

But why should a woman who campaigns against female genital mutilation have to “include” men who identify as women? However they identify, they can’t possibly experience FGM, so why should Hibo Wardere include them in her work? Her work is not personally relevant to them (even if they do have enough concern for others to care about the … Read the rest

Billy Bragg, defender of the downtrodden.

You can’t claim JK Rowling is not powerful. And Susan Moore has the platform of a Conservative national newspaper from which to express her views

— Billy Bragg (@billybragg) February 18, 2021

I did. Apologies Suzanne. Were you not referring to the issue of trans rights, in which both have taken a stance and claimed that they have been 'cancelled'?

— Billy Bragg (@billybragg) February 18, 2021

How dare women take a stance? Their taking a stance proves that they are powerful and not downtrodden in any way. Bitches.

Hardly the context of 'the powerful' is it?

— Grace Hawthorn Poundshop Prefect (@grace_hawthorn) February 18, 2021

Selina Todd who was on Newsnight last night

… Read the rest

Why?

Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has said flags in the state will fly at half-staff for Rush Limbaugh, the hard-right talk radio host who died this week aged 70.

Is that a thing? Lowering flags for random entertainers?

DeSantis, a controversial governor known to some as a “mini-Trump” and widely thought to have presidential ambitions, called Limbaugh a friend.

What’s that got to do with anything? Do governors usually get to lower flags for their friends? I thought flag-lowering was meant to be an exceptional thing with some connection to public service.

Appearing with James Golden, longtime producer to the leading “shock jock”, the governor told reporters: “When there’s things of this magnitude, once the date of

… Read the rest

While he has a minute.

This dude is the mayor of Colorado City, Texas.

Good fucking god they're fucked. pic.twitter.com/kMDkYAFqEd

— Michael Paulauski (@mike10010100) February 16, 2021

It’s not a “handout” though to get electricity and water that you pay for. Public utilities aren’t “handouts,” they’re what it says on the tin. Water, sewer systems, garbage removal, recycling, electricity – we pay for them.

I also wonder how he thinks people are supposed to “think outside the box” to “supply water” on their own. Outside the box is likely to kill you, especially when you can’t boil anything because the power is out.

Word is he has decided to stop being mayor of Colorado City, Texas.… Read the rest