Clair Woodward on “competitive womaning”:

Diana Thomas is writing in the Telegraph about her week. Whizzing from hairdressers to lunch with a friend, to a plastic surgeon to a doctor. It’s a whirl!

Diana, of course, is a trans woman.

This week, after a chat with the hairdresser, it’s that lunch with a girlfriend. “Conscious of the drive home, I only drink one small glass of rosé, but consume a delicious dish of hake in a stew of tomatoes and mussels, mopped up with freshly baked bread and followed by a gooey chocolate pudding with hazelnut ice cream. Amanda sticks to a strict bread and gin diet, which could become all the rage.”

That’s how women think and … Read the rest

Trump says he is declassifying all the things, and Boris Johnson appears to be hoping for a war with France.

Senior Conservatives have criticised Boris Johnson’s handling of the Brexit trade negotiations and his threat to deploy Royal Navy gunboats to patrol UK fishing waters in the event of no deal.

With the Sunday deadline for reaching an agreement fast approaching, the Ministry of Defence confirmed four 80-metre armed vessels had been placed on standby to guard British waters from EU trawlers from 1 January, in the absence of an agreement on fishing rights.

Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee, called the threat of deploying gunboats “irresponsible”, when attention should be focused on striking a

… Read the rest

Again – closing polling places in counties where there are too many of those people.

Four of the 10 most populous counties in Georgia are reducing the number of locations where people can vote early in the state’s Senate runoff races, prompting outcry from civil rights and voting rights organizations.

And who lives in those counties? Shhhhh – it doesn’t do to say it out loud.

In Cobb County, the state’s third most populous county with more than 760,000 residents, election officials have announced five early voting locations, fewer than half of the 11 used for early voting ahead of last month’s general election.

Advocates warned that the reduction of early voting sites will particularly harm Black and Latino

… Read the rest

The revelation in this Tavistock study – that “blockers” and hormone-switches don’t fix the psychological misery – is shocking and scandalous.

I’m still struggling to comprehend how GIDS could have sat on data for 9 years that showed puberty blockers do not improve children’s mental health & may in fact make it worse, when alleviating psychological symptoms is the basis for treatment. How is this not a scandal?

— Allison Bailey (@BluskyeAllison) December 12, 2020

Alleviating psychological symptoms is the basis for the treatment and the PR for it and the marketing angle for it and the political justification of it. It’s the tool the pro-trans fanatics grab to beat skeptics over the head with. It’s the whole thing.… Read the rest

This seems as if it could go wrong.

I have been doing this. I agree! https://t.co/1YTTGwxlxx

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2020

… Read the rest

The misogynist barrister again.

"The most vociferous, high-profile and politically influential anti-trans group has turned out not to be the well-funded religious right or the supporters of Nigel Farage but a phalanx of wealthy, white, middle-class cis women (of whom billionaire J.K. Rowling is queen)."

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) December 11, 2020

Wealthy white middle-class “cis” he says – but most are far from wealthy, and plenty are not white and not middle-class. Jolyon on the other hand…… Read the rest

Is the edifice starting to topple?

The BBC reports on a study the Tavistock clinic just published:

All but one child treated for gender dysphoria with puberty-blocking drugs at a leading NHS clinic also received cross-sex hormones, a study has shown.

…

The Tavistock and Portman Trust has argued the treatments are not linked.

The study began in 2011 and enrolled 44 children aged between 12 and 15 over the following three years. At the time, only those aged 16 and over were eligible for puberty blockers in the UK.

When BBC Newsnight covered the study and its preliminary findings last year it highlighted how previous research suggested all young people who took blockers went on to take cross-sex

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on SCOTUS to Trump: No.

OMG, I just came across the Most Trump Thing, Ever.

Remember that story a while ago about how Trump’s attorneys mistakenly filed a case in the Court of Federal Claims, instead of the District Court for the Western District of Michigan? The next day, they filed in Michigan, and the Federal Claims court dismissed the action there.

Well, apparently, Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to the Clerk of the Federal Claims court requesting a refund of their $400 filing fee, on the grounds that the federal courts’ electronic filing system had screwed up and caused the error.

Yes, the campaign that has raised many millions of dollars and … Read the rest

Now here’s something I didn’t know – that Trump tried to say it was the country who was slandering a woman he assaulted, not Trump the person bro. He tried to make all of us responsible for his lies and obstruction.

Lame-duck President Donald Trump has used “every stall tactic in the book” in a “desperate” attempt to avoid famed columnist E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit accusing him of defaming her by denying that he raped her, Carroll’s attorneys told a judge on Friday morning.

The remarks were made at a hearing that Trump lodged an eleventh-hour objection to avoid. At 7:57 p.m. on Thursday night, Trump’s counsel filed a letter to stay all proceedings while they appeal of a

… Read the rest

First, the attempt:

President Donald Trump and 17 U.S. states on Wednesday threw their support behind a long-shot lawsuit by Texas seeking to overturn his election loss by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the voting results in four states.

Dear Supreme Court: please throw out the votes in four states, love Don.

Trump, defeated by President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election, filed a motion with the court asking the nine justices to let him intervene and become a plaintiff in the suit filed on Tuesday by Republican-governed Texas against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

…

In a separate brief, lawyers for 17 states led by Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt also urged the

… Read the rest

Originally a miscellaneous comment by Bjarte Foshaug.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been reading up on the topic of democratic breakdown lately, if not to look for hope, then at least to move the sense of existential dread from a purely visceral “gut” level to something that can be understood and dealt with intellectually. These books include:

The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder

The People vs. Democracy by Yascha Mounk

Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

Snyder (who had a major best-seller a couple of years ago with his short pamphlet “On Tyranny”, another must-read!) spends a lot of time on the conflict between Russia and … Read the rest

Sneaky: if you just say “trans” then it sounds like another progressive breakthrough and occasion to celebrate.

To get a call up to your club’s first team is every Argentinian boy’s dream. Or so the traditional tango goes.

“Now it’s the girls’ dream … too,” Mara Gómez, who became the first trans footballer to play in a top-flight Argentinian league earlier this week, tells the Guardian. Gómez signed a contract with Villa San Carlos in the recently professionalized women’s Primera División, after years of journeying through the amateur leagues.

It’s all very confusing, and that’s not accidental. This is a man, taking a place on a women’s team. There’s nothing progressive about it.

Gómez’s achievement is not a global first

… Read the rest

Trump is no fun any more.

[TERRY] GROSS: Do you have any clues about whether it’s affecting his mental health?

[MAGGIE] HABERMAN: You know, I am of the theory – I know that there’s lots of portraits of him as the mad king and disintegrating and so forth. I think that he is depressed sometimes. I think that he has been very churlish with his staff. But I think that most of what you’re seeing was pretty clear that you were likely to see, or we were likely to see, all along. I do not subscribe to the theory that Donald Trump has changed, particularly. I think he is who he has always been.

GROSS: You say he’s been

… Read the rest

Trump is working desperately to kill more people before he’s thrown out of the building. Listen, it’s Krissmiss – you can’t expect a guy to give up the chance to kill people for Krissmiss can you?

Despite public health guidelines warning against indoor gatherings, the White House has pressed ahead with as many as two dozen of its traditional holiday events.

Not “holiday events” you god-hating socialists, Krissmiss events. With the holly, and the lights, and the turkey mac and cheese.

Oh yeah and that other thing, what’s its name. Jared will know, ask Jared.

On Wednesday night, Trump hosted about 200 guests for the annual Hanukah celebration. Photos and videos posted on social media showed most attendees wearing masks

… Read the rest

The things people will say on this subject…

https://twitter.com/KEBrightbill/status/1337326582852182020

Riiiiiiiight.

https://twitter.com/KEBrightbill/status/1337329196834623488 https://twitter.com/KEBrightbill/status/1337335661129510913

And pigs have wings.

Updating to add:

The scientist is Emma Hilton @FondOfBeetles, who has just co-published a paper on the subject, so naturally her reply has to be hidden.

I am delighted to announce that Hilton and Lundberg, 2020 is now published! @TLexercise

‘Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage’https://t.co/GseD8W2rUp pic.twitter.com/eJebU3rDhR

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) December 8, 2020

… Read the rest

Let’s learn a little about the spirit of Humboldt. Deutsche Welle on his 250th birthday in 2017:

He was fluent in the principal languages ​​of the old and new world, and lived through long periods of his busy life in the most important European cultural centers such as Paris, Rome, London, Vienna and Berlin. Even though he was sometimes in the shadow of his well-traveled brother Alexander, he was equally significant, especially for his pioneering work as an education reformer.

…

As he reformed an antiquated curriculum, Humboldt insisted that teachers and university professors should be an “advocate for the education of young people.” Systematic learning and holistic education through art and music were just as important as mathematics

… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1337075815834660866

The rest of that conversation:

Now, with regard to 1., abstracts normally undergo (blind) peer-review. They would never have made such an egregious error. This explanation is ridiculous. It is more likely that transactivists demanded the de-platforming of Prof. Stock, once her name appeared on the programme.

— Miroslav Imbrisevic (@Miroandrej) December 10, 2020

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1337072356095897603

I have also tweeted at the German Minister for Education, the Berlin Senator for Education, and three journalists who cover higher education for the top German papers.

— Miroslav Imbrisevic (@Miroandrej) December 10, 2020

I have always been proud of my German education, at school and at university. What the ZASBerlin is doing is contrary to the spirit of Humboldt.

— Miroslav Imbrisevic (@Miroandrej)

… Read the rest

The ZAS conference is on Oppressive Speech, Societies & Norms. “Silencing, Speaking up & Free Speech” is one of the themes. The irony of organizing such a conference and then booting one of the speakers is conspicuous.

https://twitter.com/EH6x/status/1337105349472563202

It reads to me as if it fits the theme of the workshop (which isn’t “scientific” in the first place – “oppressive” is not a scientific concept) perfectly.

ZAS elaborates on the theme:

Speech can be used to change societies in bad ways. It supports institutional oppression, establishes new oppressive norms, silences opponents, spreads disinformation and propagates feelings of hate. Online communities magnify the effects of individual speech acts. This workshop series, comprising five meetings, will dive into five different aspects

… Read the rest

One for the “you couldn’t make it up” file.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1336920834133340160

The series is about oppressive speech, so they…oppress one of the speakers they invited to speak about oppressive speech.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1336920837610483713

The Parliament item happened yesterday. One day that, next day this. Life is funny.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1337073559806459905

ZAS Berlin “explained.”

ZAS had to retract the abstract because it did not fit to the scientific theme of the workshop (oppressive speech & communication) and contained language that was inconsistent with the values of the ZAS. We regret that the abstract went online.

— ZAS Berlin (@ZASBerlin) December 10, 2020

Stinking coward rats.… Read the rest

Last week a Democratic state senator in Georgia, Elena Parent, went to a hearing organized by Republicans to tell lies about the election.

Trump attorneys, led by Rudy Giuliani, presented the hearing with a raft of conspiracy theories and baseless claims that tens of thousands of dead people and other ineligible individuals had voted.

The Republicans hadn’t warned Parent that the event would be attended by Giuliani, Trump’s henchman in his mission to undermine American democracy until this week when the former New York mayor came down with Covid-19. So she had no idea that a big crowd of far-right fanatics and the media outlets that feed them lies and falsehoods would also be in the chamber.

So … Read the rest