The ACLU pronounces:

Trans men are men.

No they’re not, and we all have the civil liberty to say so.

It made an image to illustrate its four word pronouncement.

Of course there’s no one way to be a man; it doesn’t follow and it isn’t true that men who get “their” periods are women, nor does it follow nor is it true that “men” who get pregnant and give birth are men. There’s no one way to be a man, but there are ways not to be a man, such as being born with a female body.

And we all have the civil liberty to defend that truth, and to say that it is truth and that what … Read the rest

It doesn’t appear that the Royal Institute of Philosophy is looking to fold in the face of Social Tutting. Jesse Singal:

Update on this: The head of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Julian Baggini, says the panel isn’t going to be changed. “I would rather wait until after the event before saying more. You ask about when a final decision will be made. We have no plans to change the panel.”

And, if I’m reading the subtext correctly, no plans to have plans to change the panel.

The subsubsubtext could be, though I’m only guessing, “Those who want us to change the panel are invited to take a long walk on a short pier.”… Read the rest

A pair of tweets:

Margaret Talev:

Vindman explains why a Soviet-born dad would worry about his testifying in way that could challenge/expose the president: “He deeply worried about it” bc in “his context” it was the “ultimate risk.”

Alayna Treene commenting on the above:

Each time Vindman reminds his dad — who is seated behind him — that he need not worry, his dad beams behind him

Meanwhile the White House and Trump are hard at work trying to be more like Putin.… Read the rest

Now the White House Twitter account is joining Trump in witness intimidation.

The White House Twitter account has just sent a message raising doubts about the judgement of Lt Col Alexander Vindman as the NSC official testifies in the impeachment inquiry.

Tim Morrison, Alexander Vindman’s former boss, testified in his deposition that he had concerns about Vindman’s judgment.

To repeat: that’s the White House Twitter account.

The Guardian adds:

The White House tweet raising doubts about the judgement of Lt Col Alexander Vindman is particularly shocking considering the Iraq war veteran still serves on the national security council.

Meanwhile, over on Trump’s Twitter account, the president is resharing messages from Republican accounts downplaying the testimony from Vindman and 

Another sniffy censor: TERFS OUT OF ART. They want to get feminists with unapproved opinions out of art, you see.

✊ Trans rights are human rights 👟 Working to kick transphobia out of art 📨 Tipoffs welcome 📣 RT / amplify us so we can get the job done 🏳️‍🌈 TERFs blocked

I’m blocked, so I guess I must be a TERF.

Here’s their “work” for today:

TERF artist Rachel Ara will speak at #OxfordBrookes university tomorrow.

Giving transphobes a uni platform is unacceptable. We encourage students & staff to picket & raise complaints with @obuarts at http://brookes.ac.uk/school-of-arts/about/ … – campus must be safe for everyone.

This account shows us two tweets that Rachel Ara retweeted, and for … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Women’s sports are prospering so it’s time to give them to men.

So, once again, we have one definition whereby people with physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers are “women” while people with physical traits more representative of fathers than mothers are not, regardless of anything that goes on inside their heads. And we have one definition (or would have if it not for the fact that the Genderspeak definitions of “women” are all circular) whereby people with physical traits more representative of fathers than mothers who think or feel a certain way are “women”, regardless of physical traits, while some…? most…? all…? of the people with physical traits more … Read the rest

Mimi Rocah and Karen Schwartz on Marie Yovanovitch and Christine Blasey Ford:

Like many Americans, we expected the testimony of the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to be powerful. We did not expect it to prove so emotional, or to feel so familiar.

…

But by midmorning, things took a turn. Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman asked her about how she felt after learning President Donald Trump had discussed her with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during the now infamous July 25 phone call. It was a chilling moment. Referring to Yovanovitch as “the woman,” Trump told his Ukrainian counterpart she was “going to go through some things.”

“It was a terrible moment,” Yovanovitch recalled Friday. She

Evil Don is mad at Pompeo.

Trump has fumed for weeks that Pompeo is responsible for hiring State Department officials whose congressional testimony threatens to bring down his presidency, the officials said. The president confronted Pompeo about the officials — and what he believed was a lackluster effort by the secretary of state to block their testimony — during lunch at the White House on Oct. 29, those familiar with the matter said.

Inside the White House, the view was that Trump “just felt like, ‘rein your people in,’” a senior administration official said.

Right, because that’s how everything works. It’s all personal, and it’s all about the guy at the top reining in the peons, and various guys … Read the rest

Trump is a big fan of torture, provided it’s the US doing it.

Trump has held the same views about war crimes and torture for years — and being commander in chief has not changed him. He believes that previous presidents have been far too eager to send Americans to war, but that once they’ve been deployed, these soldiers should be free to treat enemies brutally.

• Trump’s views on this subject flared up again last week. He clashed with Pentagon brass when he cleared three soldiers who have been accused or convicted of war crimes.
• Pentagon leaders had privately argued that the president’s intervention in these cases would undercut the code of military justice.

Trump has told advisers that

Books by Selina Todd (she’s a historian):

Young Women, Work, and Family in England, 1918-1950, Oxford University

Winner, Women’s History Network Book Prize ‘Young women emerge in this history as a critically important force…When we imagine a typical interwar worker, it isn’t as a bob-haired 14-year-old shop assistant wearing her first pair of heels’. LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS 

The People. The Rise and Fall of the Working Class, 1910-2010 2014Book of the Year in Observer and Guardian; one of David Kynaston’s Books of the Year; one of only three history books by women to be a bestseller in 2014. Now translated into Japanese, Korean, Catalan and Spanish.

Tastes of Honey: the making of Shelagh Delaney and a cultural

The headline:

Palatine School District Approves Full Bathroom Rights For Transgender Students

Had transgender students been denied “full bathroom rights” until now? What are “full bathroom rights” anyway? Do students who are not transgender still have them at Palatine School District?

The suburban high school district at the center of a national debate over transgender student rights voted Thursday night to gives its transgender students full access to school locker rooms and bathrooms.

So they can go into all of them? While students who are not transgender have to pick those for girls or those for boys?

The debate over transgender student access started four years ago when a student charged that the district’s practices discriminated against transgender students. The

Nick Robinson of the BBC tweeted a few days ago:

Should the law treat me as a woman if I chose to identify as one? Yes @lucianaberger
of the @LibDems told me on @BBCr4today despite criticism by some women that their rights are being ignored.

Jolyon Maugham QC commented about this wrongthink about self ID. (More on this post.)

A woman replied to Maugham:

If Nick says he’s a woman that doesn’t mean he is. The Lib Dem’s would believe and treat him as a woman. That is ludicrous.

Maugham QC:

If Nick says it he’d be lying. Which is why his tweet is so reductive, and loaded.

Oh. He would? How does Maugham QC know … Read the rest

Humanists UK warns against a stealth evangelical campaign disguised as Xmas presents for children in need:

Schools are being warned not to support the Operation Christmas Child appeal run by an evangelical US charity Samaritan’s Purse, which unbeknownst to many parents uses donors’ gifts to evangelise to vulnerable children, after it emerged that more schools are collecting donations for the scheme.

Operation Christmas Child sends shoeboxes full of toys, books, and other shiny presents to vulnerable children in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. But alongside the packages put together by schools, the charity also adds religious literature which aims to convert children to Christianity.

Can you say “strings attached”? Can you say “sneaky godbothering shits”?

Today it has emerged that