Oh has he now.

A male teacher at a primary school in the UK has told off a nine-year-old boy for calling him "sir". The teacher says he is 'non-binary' and demands to be called 'they / them'. He also sometimes wears women's clothing from the waist down at the school pic.twitter.com/PwwlQCMEKZ

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) May 12, 2025

That teacher is in the wrong job then. The very very very wrong job. Teachers are not there to teach the children how to focus all their attention on the teachers’ idenninies. That’s not what school is for. Teachers are conduits for learning, not the subjects of learning. Nobody should be burdened with having to remember someone’s luxury idenniny, and that goes … Read the rest

Bill Kristol on Trump and emoluments:

I’m old enough to remember when this was a republic. A proud republic. We were proud to be different from the principalities and powers of the old world. We were confident of our superiority to the hereditary aristocracies and monarchies that had dominated political life everywhere on the globe, and that still did in many places.

…

Now, the president of the United States is boasting of receiving as a gift a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane from the Qatari royal family. The plane will be upgraded to serve not as the Air Force One but as his Air Force One, since it will only be available for use by the government of the

BBC Woman’s Hour today talked to trans “woman” Robin Moira White about the Supreme Court ruling on whatisawoman. The chat is the first in what it says will be a series of such chats. I have to wonder why the Beeb starts this series with a man who pretends to be a woman. Why is he at the head of the queue? Why not talk to women first and men last? Or indeed why talk to men at all?

So anyway, obviously I’ll have to listen to the whole annoying thing and share the worst bits.

First question – what’s his opinion on the Supreme Court ruling that woman means woman?

Well – I don’t think the Supreme Court ruling

Completely normal. Not corrupt at all. No risk of favors in exchange for a tiny gifty. Just a kind gesture from a dear friend. Clean as a whistle.

Trump to accept luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One

Sure; why not? Heads of state accept little prezzies from other countries all the time. A huge luxury airplane isn’t worth much at all – not as much as a nice dinner at the local Chipotle.

Given the massive value of a Boeing 747-8, the move is unprecedented and raises substantial ethical and legal questions. A Qatari official said the plane is technically being gifted from the Qatari Ministry of Defense to the Pentagon, describing it more as a

Enough.

Enough. No more putting the needs of men who identify as female – and want to be validated in that identity to the extent of demanding access to women's changing rooms – above the needs of women who've been sexually abused as children. Enough.https://t.co/kBY8ekSHs5

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) May 11, 2025

And that's not even the worst part of this story. pic.twitter.com/dwYLv8Twv2

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) May 11, 2025

Every so often I feel incensed with anger that the needs of these men have been so blatantly prioritised over the needs of women, especially when it's women who are far, far more vulnerable than them, and reading this story was one of those moments.

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha)

It seems there’s a thing called the Met Gala. The two words together are very slightly familiar, but I can’t say I’ve ever paid much attention to it. Hadley Freeman was caught in Manhattan last week while the Gala was galaing.

What was once a low-key fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in Manhattan has become an annual warning about the dangers of being too rich, too thin and too obsessed with Instagram. Every year there’s a jaunty dress code “theme” — shudder — but most of the female celebrities simply do what they always do at these things, which is look as naked and/or uncomfortable as possible.

Ya. That’s a thing that’s been bugging me forever … Read the rest

The arrests have begun.

It all went down on Friday afternoon when Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark and Democratic candidate for New Jersey governor, was arrested outside an ICE facility alongside three members of Congress.

While the congresspeople—New Jersey Democratic Reps. Rob Menendez, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and LaMonica McIver—were inside the Delaney Hall detention facility waiting to be given a tour, Baraka waited outside in a fenced-in parking lot as protestors gathered on the other side of the fence. He was told to leave the fenced-in part of the parking lot and, despite complying with the request, was then detained by ICE agents.

Interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and Trump advisor Alina Habba said on X of

Sweet.

There’s just one small problem.

A boy is ranked #1 in the girls’ long jump, triple jump, & high jump in California.

His mother? Proud

Proud her son dominates girls.

Proud they look to him for “guidance.”

She even tells the girls: Don’t sit out.

Give it your all, girls! Then he can humiliate you properly. pic.twitter.com/vEVySYHpnS

— WomenAreReal (@WomenAreReals) May 10, 2025

… Read the rest

Forced teaming and Vatican rags:

In the eyes of many LGBTQ Catholics

I have to stop you right there. Seven words in and you’re lying already. There are no LGBTQ Catholics. There can’t be. It’s not a thing. LGB is sexual orientation, Q means nothing, T is genner idenniny which is 1. bullshit and 2. incompatible with LG.

NBC of course found someone to explain with all due ponderous verbiageification what the new pope means to him her them us you insert chosen pronoun somewhere.

Jason Steidl Jack, a gay Catholic and an assistant teaching professor of religious studies at St. Joseph’s University, New York, described his reaction to the election of Pope Leo, the first-ever American to lead

I see I’m not the only one who wonders.

The Supreme Court ruling correctly interprets the Equality Act, giving effect to our intention when drafting it. Single sex spaces for women are important & can exclude trans women but only where necessary. The Act, & ruling, protects rights of women while also respecting the…

— Harriet Harman (@HarrietHarman) April 16, 2025

…while also respecting the rights of trans women.”

Of course.

Plenty of irritated women were on hand to say no, you damn fool, that’s not the ruling.

Wrong! That’s not what the law ( today) & sex discrimination law says. Single sex spaces have to be single biological sex. That was the whole point of the court case.

Ok what does this mean?

Meanwhile Labour peer and former women and equalities minister Harriet Harman, also chair of the Fawcett Society, said the verdict “correctly interprets” current legislation and ministers’ intentions when it was drafted under the last Labour government. ”

She added: “Single sex spaces for women are important and can exclude trans women but only where necessary. The Act, and ruling, protects rights of women while also respecting the rights of trans women.”

It’s at the end of a piece about a “trans Labour councillor” who “has resigned from the party, accusing it of having ‘“thrown transgender people under the bus.'” It’s the usual nonsense, but what I want to know is what does “but only where … Read the rest

Of course it is.

White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller said Friday that the Trump administration is “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus — the constitutional right to challenge in court the legality of a person’s detention by the government — for migrants.

Miller’s comment came in response to a White House reporter who asked about President Donald Trump entertaining the idea of suspending the writ to deal with the problem of illegal immigration into the United States.

Asked when that might happen, Miller responded: “The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended

Sigh. Of course he is.

The first group of white South Africans who[m] the Trump administration is classifying as refugees are expected to arrive in the United States on Monday.

President Donald Trump suspended refugee admissions from most other nations when he took office. But in a February executive order, Trump said the U.S. would establish a plan to resettle “Afrikaners” and their families as refugees in the United States.

Afrikaners are mainly of Dutch descent. The Trump administration has accused the South African “government-sponsored race-based discrimination” and pledged to cut off all aid and assistance.

Other refugees can fuck off, but the racist ones with the loathsome history are more than welcome.

According to the New York

Trump has given yet another Fox News “personality” an important government job.

Trump has appointed Fox News host and former New York prosecutor Jeanine Pirro as interim US attorney for Washington DC. The announcement comes after Trump withdrew his first pick for the job after he lost key Republican support in the Senate, which votes on such positions.

After Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden, Pirro made false statements about the election that were part of a lawsuit against Fox News by a company that makes voting machines. The case was settled for more than $787m (£594m). Trump called Pirro “a powerful crusader for victims of crime” in a social media post announcing his selection. Meanwhile, critics described her as

The Beeb reports that men are banned from women’s toilets in Holyrood. In other news, water is wet and fire is hot.

Trans women will no longer be able to use the women’s toilets in the Scottish Parliament building.

Facilities designated as male or female-only would now be interpreted as meaning biological sex, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) said.

So strange, to go by actual physical sex as opposed to the pretend fantasy in the head kind.

Decent governments don’t do things this way. If people identify as horses, we saddle them and ride them to work. If people identify as cars we jump in and drive them to work. If people identify as chocolate we eat them on … Read the rest

I like the title.

The Green Party is a sinister mob. Take it from me, its former deputy leader

Shahrar Ali, that is.

After the resignation of Carla Denyer, the Green Party is facing a leadership contest for which the membership has had their opportunity for genuine debate about its policy platform and electoral priorities artificially restricted. No activist or spokesperson who dares to stand up for the rights and protections of women, girls and children – especially, in the context of a decade of trans rights overreach – will escape the wrath of the totalitarian mob within.

I should know. In 2024, I won a landmark gender critical protected belief discrimination case against the Party, the first of its

Well doesn’t that just sum up the whole problem.

MPs seek assurances from UK equalities watchdog over gender ruling

Exclusive: transgender activists concerned that a literal approach is being taken to supreme court decision

Boom. Literal. A literal approach. A literal approach to the law is a bad thing. What we’re supposed to do is take a metaphorical approach, a fairy tale approach, a daydream approach, a play along with my fantasy approach.

Wrong. Wrong wrong wronigitty wrong. Life is literal. Sex is literal. Bodies are literal. Fantasy and fiction are very good things in their place, but the law is not that place. Laws need to be literal. The supreme court decision was not a bit of … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Trump plans to buy the pope.

It didn’t take long for right-wing media figures and MAGA provocateurs to cry out in rage over the election of Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV after it was revealed that he’d publicly criticized Vice President JD Vance and expressed sympathy for immigrants and George Floyd.

1

I think we all knew that just about any Pope would be antipathetic to MAGA and all it stands for. After all, the Pope holds sway over a far bigger crowd, a more beautiful crowd, the greatest crowd anyone has ever seen.

Now, data shows American Catholics are split unlike any other major religion.

Because for decades, the

Hmmm. Well, I think the vast amount of attention the news media pay to popes and all their doings is absurd and bad, but having said that…if the new guy is going to annoy Trump, I can’t help a little bit of (entirely secular) schadenfreude.

The first American-born pope is not a fan of the Trump administration.

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who is now Pope Leo XIV, has multiple posts on his X account that criticize or outright rebuke the words and policies of President Trump.

In February, he shared an article from the National Catholic Reporter titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” in response to Vance’s bastardization of the

Ok that is funny.

When Trump met Carney:

Trump, who in the meeting with Carney said he considered himself a “very artistic person”, insists that he is inspired by the potential beauty of a unified continent.

“When you look at that beautiful formation, when it’s together … you know, I said, ‘That’s the way it was meant to be’,” the president said.

Ahhh yes, that does indeed demonstrate that Trump is a very artistic person. It works the same way with packets of hundred dollar bills, and barrels of diamonds.

Mind you, there is some truth to the idea that the straight-line borders that appear so often in US maps are kind of irritating. We all know damn well … Read the rest