Karen L. Blair asks the age-old question, Who will date a trans person?

Who is Blair?

Karen Blair is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia; an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia; and Chair of the Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity Issues (SOGII) Section of the Canadian Psychological Association.

So, not just a random activist on Twitter but an expert.

Regardless of your current relationship status, imagine for a moment that at some point in the future you were to find yourself single and looking. Under such hypothetical circumstances, which of the following people would you consider as a potential dating partner:

• a cisgender[1] woman
• a

The Guardian on Trump in Biarritz:

Senior aides in Donald Trump’s entourage have accused the G7 host and French president, Emmanuel Macron, of seeking to embarrass his US counterpart by making the summit focus on “niche issues” such as climate change, according to multiple US media reports.

Good scare quotes but there should be more of them, or else GIFs of scorn and derision.

Can we focus for just a second? CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT A NICHE ISSUE.

Not in any sense. Climate change is making the planet less inhabitable for most mammals, fish, birds, insects, and plants right now and it’s getting worse all the time, at a much faster clip than was predicted even a few years … Read the rest

Trump at the G7 is whining because Macron is doing things his way instead of Trump’s way. Isn’t the entire world supposed to do things Trump’s way? If not, why not?

Macron had ripped up the script before anyone even landed in the seaside resort of Biarritz: picking a fight with Brazil over Amazon forest fires, surprising the Europeans with a threat to block a trade deal with Latin America, and keeping allies guessing about what trick he would pull next.

Did Macron “pick a fight” with Brazil over Amazon forest fires, or is Bolsonaro picking a fight with all of us by clear-cutting the Amazon? Who is really the baddy here?

With mounting threats to the global economy, divisions

Trans activism does wonders for your feminism, I must say. Stamps it right out.

Sally Hines, Professor of Sociology and Gender Identities:

Re GC feminist protest pranks @ManchesterPride, please, just…[GIF of woman making the “sit down and be quiet” gesture]

Thing is, most of them are (at least!) my age and they really have only *just* discovered protest! Such a yawn. I don’t want to people watch them. They have nothing to teach me. I say, with #pride, Please. Just. Go. Away. You are not fun. You are not pretty (though yep, vacant)

Old, boring, and ugly, the professor of gender identities calls feminist women.

We get more progressive every day!

(It’s a Sex Pistols joke, the people … Read the rest

And he wasn’t even elected.

Boris Johnson has asked the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, whether parliament can be shut down for five weeks from 9 September in what appears to be a concerted plan to stop MPs forcing a further extension to Brexit, according to leaked government correspondence.

An email from senior government advisers to an adviser in No 10 – written within the last 10 days and seen by the Observer – makes clear that the prime minister has recently requested guidance on the legality of such a move, known as prorogation. The initial legal guidance given in the email is that shutting parliament may well be possible, unless action being taken in the courts to block such

Rebecca Kukla – Philosophy, Georgetown, and cop of all things trans – has a public Facebook post from last week about how her piece for the Institute of Art and Ideas was drastically cut without her knowledge and how the Institute of Art and Ideas didn’t tell her it was a multi-person piece and that she would be posting in the company of TERFs. She includes the uncut piece, and what she says in one of the cut parts is interesting.

There is no such thing as ‘the’ transgender experience and identity of course; the experiences of transgender folks are as varied as the experiences of anyone else, and transgender people also do not share a single identity. Some trans

Isaac Chotiner at the New Yorker introduces us to an academic who thinks white people are Superior:

Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, is the academic who perhaps best represents the ideology of the Trump Administration’s immigration restrictionists. Wax, who began her professional life as a neurologist, and who served in the Solicitor General’s office in the late eighties and early nineties, has become known in recent years for her belief in the superiority of “Anglo-Protestant culture.”…

Last month, in a speech at the National Conservatism Conference, in Washington, D.C., Wax promoted the idea of “cultural-distance nationalism,” or the belief that “we are better off if our country is dominated numerically, demographically, politically, at

Marina Hyde on Andrew Windsor’s claim to be shocked, shocked by the news about Jeffrey Epstein:

Or as Buckingham Palace finally put it in a statement denying any impropriety on behalf of the prince: “The Duke of York has been appalled by the recent reports of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes.”

I’m slightly sorry for the royal flunkies who had to issue this line, given that most of us are suffering eyeball strain from all the rolling we’re doing. Even so, I do feel we need further clarification on what precisely the Duke is appalled by. Is it just the “recent reports”? Because if we’re meant to believe that Prince Andrew is appalled by ALL of the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein

Back in June I did a post about a lawsuit by a trans woman against the Times.

The hearing at the Edinburgh Employment Tribunal, which began on Wednesday, could have far-reaching implications for UK’s news outlets. In addition to the standard employment law charges such as discrimination and victimisation, the case also rests on an argument that has never before been tested.

O’Donnell and her lawyer — Robin White of Old Square Chambers — allege that it wasn’t just what happened in the newsroom but also what those inside it published in the newspaper about trans people that constituted a hostile, anti-transgender place to work.

Sly. Very very sly. Bring one case and (if you win) make it so

The evil David Koch is dead but his evil will live on until planet death snuffs it out too.

While he certainly enjoyed the fruits of his labors to deregulate U.S. industry and reduce taxes on the super-wealthy like himself, he will never have to experience the consequences of his biggest achievement: putting the entire planet on the brink of crisis in the service of enriching himself and a few other fossil fuel billionaires. And we, the people and future generations who are going to live with the fallout, will never see him or the small cadre of wealthy conservatives who funded decades of climate denial face any form of justice.

Koch’s death was first reported by the New Yorker’s

The smoke from wildfires was bad here last summer but it didn’t actually get dark in the afternoon. Stinky and unhealthy, yes, but dark, no. São Paulo on the other hand…

In the middle of the afternoon on August 19th South America’s largest city went dark. Under a thick, black cloud at 3pm, the lights flickered on in São Paulo’s skyscrapers; on the motorways brake lights started to glow in the city’s bumper-to-bumper traffic, and many Paulistanos were worried. Social-media users posted pictures of the gloom, juxtaposing the dystopian afternoon sky with fictional apocalyptic places such as Gotham City from “Batman”, Mordor from “Lord of the Rings” and “the upside down” from “Stranger Things”.

Meteorologists scrambled to explain what

And there’s another one.

Meanwhile in the US, middle distance runner Jonathan Eastwood will be running as ‘June’ in the women’s races. Jonathan can run 800m faster than @damekellyholmes at her peak. Looks like we have another ‘exceptional woman’ about to hit the track. Sorry women, time to move over.

More joy of sport for you.… Read the rest