What a difference a ______ makes.

The Guardian last June:

Edinburgh LGBT+ committee resigns in row over speakers at feminist meeting

• University network says opposition to event was censored
• Speaker Julie Bindel left ‘shaken’ after alleged abuse

The Guardian three days ago:

Owen Jones attacked outside London pub

Guardian columnist claims attack was ‘premeditated assault’

I wonder what accounts for the differences.… Read the rest

Peter Tatchell is permanently confused.

I speak out against transphobia. Gender is more than genitals. New science suggests that trans identity is rooted in different brain structures. As feminists USED to say: Biology is NOT destiny. Now some say it IS destiny. LISTEN 1 hr 3 min http://ow.ly/lt4S50vBsqk @MunroeBergdorf

No, we’re not taking instruction in feminism from Peter Tatchell thank you very much. He’s not a feminist and he knows nothing about feminism.

We’re also not taking instruction in anything from Munroe Bergdorf. Feminist women really don’t need or want instruction from men who think being a woman=being like Munroe Bergdorf.

No, feminism has not shifted from saying biology is not destiny to saying it is destiny. The … Read the rest

The Institute of Art and Ideas asked philosophers to say a little on How Can Philosophy Help Us Understand Transgender Experiences? Rebecca Kukla is one of the philosophers who said a little. It’s interesting.

Much of my own research is in the philosophy of language. What does this have to do with the lives and experiences of trans folks? I am interested in thinking about the pragmatic effects of speech acts such as calling someone by a name or pronoun – one that they identify with, one they have asked to be called by, or one they have asked not to be called by. Sometimes people act as though verbal disagreements over what name or pronoun to use for someone

A reckless claim for a philosopher to make:

Absolutely it means that we shouldn’t tell anyone who they are

I know I’ve pointed this out more than once before, but it’s just such an absurdity, and especially for a philosopher (or people in law enforcement, or psychologists).

Introspection is fallible. Self-knowledge is fallible. There are some kinds of knowledge that can only be gleaned from the knower in question, but it’s far from true that all knowledge is like that or that we have any obligation to pretend it is.

People can for instance claim to be the least racist person you’ve ever met. I’d be suspicious of people like that if I were you. That applies to most … Read the rest

Oh for god’s SAKE, people.

Professor who discussed James Baldwin in class allowed to keep her job:

Laurie Sheck, the poet and professor who was investigated by her university for quoting James Baldwin’s use of the N-word in a graduate class, has been cleared of charges of racial discrimination.

After assigning Baldwin’s 1962 essay The Creative Process to her class at the New School in New York, Sheck had asked the students to discuss how the 2016 documentary about the writer and civil rights activist, I Am Not Your Negro, altered Baldwin’s actual quote, in which he had used the racial slur. A graduate student, who, like Sheck, is white, had objected to her language.

TWO WORDS. THAT’S ALL, … Read the rest

Oh Pink News do stop lying.

Star cricket player attacked for being trans after scoring four centuries

No. Criticised for competing against women, i.e. cheating.

A rising star of women’s cricket has become the target of an anti-trans campaign group.

Because it’s women’s cricket, and the “rising star” has a large male body. The rising star has an unfair advantage, which is cheating.

Maxine Blythin has wowed cricket fans in her first season for Kent Women’s Cricket, hitting four centuries and amassing a batting average of 124.

Because of the male body. Makes it look easy, doesn’t it.

Her position on the team has led to anti-trans abuse from the group Fair Play for Women, who have misgendered her and

The controversy du jour is how dare the NY Times make a big deal of slavery and how dare anyone hint that slavery is any kind of blot on our record.

Newt Gingrich steps up:

GRIFF JENKINS (FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT): Newt, I want to ask you about The New York Times Magazine, I know you read it as much as you can, launching a new crusade to reframe America as defined by slavery and racism. Here’s the headline, I want to show it to you. The 1619 Project, and the quote inside says, “It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at

A review from the Edinburgh Festival:

This is a play of knives and fireballs. Marking the final show in Emma Frankland’s performance series None of Us is Yet a Robot, which explores the politics of gender identity and the process of transitioning, Hearty is a ferocious cry for the safety of trans women.

With an injured tail and wings made of knives, Frankland is our guide in the apocalypse. The trans artist hunts for safety in a burning world where trans bodies are policed, activism is commercialised and violence is fuelled by fear. She sharpens the knives protruding from her shoulder blades and builds herself a den to protect herself from the violence outside. This is about survival.

Rafael Shimunov points out some people who got to visit Israel while two American members of Congress were refused entry:

Sebastian Gorka, who wore the honorary medal of Hungarian nationalist organisation Vitezi Rend, a group with alleged historical links to Nazi Germany, visited Israel with no restriction for a conference in 2017. Andras Heisler, vice president of the World Jewish Congress, said at the time that wearing such insignia “isn’t a good message for a democratic society”.

Founder of the Proud Boys, Gavin McInnes, said during his trip to Israel that Jews in Israel have a “whiny paranoid fear of Nazis” and posted an article detailing “10 things I hate about Jews”. McInnes publicly claimed to have

An open letter from “feminists” in support of “birth certificate reform” in Victoria (the one in Australia):

We the undersigned stand in support of the Victorian Government’s proposal to amend the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996, to allow transgender and gender non-conforming people to change the sex recorded on their birth certificates without being forced to undergo medical or surgical intervention.

In other words to amend the law so that people can insert lies into their birth certificates. I can remember when birth certificates were nothing but cold, dull, bureaucratic statement of a few facts about a person. That’s all they were: just facts: not poetic invocations of personality or inner essence.

This amendment will provide transgender

Another thing global warming does: it cooks salmon to death before they can spawn.

Alaska has been in the throes of an unprecedented heat wave this summer, and the heat stress is killing salmon in large numbers.

Scientists have observed die-offs of several varieties of Alaskan salmon, including sockeye, chum and pink salmon.

Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, director of the Yukon Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, told CNN she took a group of scientists on an expedition along Alaska’s Koyokuk River at the end of July, after locals alerted her to salmon die-offs on the stream.

She and the other scientists counted 850 dead unspawned salmon on that expedition, although they estimated the total was likely four to 10 times larger.

They didn’t … Read the rest

PBS has an interesting show, via the BBC, about elephants migrating to a reserve for a few weeks. One plot line is about a 45-year-old bull and his struggle to find a female in estrus.

Cameraman Bob Poole follows, Matt, one of the largest, oldest tuskers in Kenya to see how a big bull in his prime goes about finding a mate and deals with the challenges from young bulls. Can he find a mate before the elephants begin to disperse in just 3 weeks’ time?

He can, of course, because if he hadn’t been able to, they wouldn’t have chosen him for the episode, but it’s still interesting to watch. When one cow finally does come into estrus … Read the rest

How many people were slaughtered at that wedding in Kabul?

63.

Burials are taking place in the Afghan capital, Kabul after a bomb exploded at a wedding hall killing 63 people and wounding more than 180.

The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind for the attack.

That tells you everything you need to know about any prospective “Islamic State,” doesn’t it. Oh, your state will be happy to murder people celebrating weddings to make a point? No thank you then, we’d like a better state than that. Much better. Infinitely better.

The groom who gave his name as Mirwais told local TV: “My family, my bride are in shock, they cannot even speak. My bride keeps fainting.

Sigh.

There is a new star in the Kent women’s cricket team — its first transgender player is opening after one season.

Maxine Blythin, who is more than 6ft tall and under England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rules can self-identify as a woman, has a batting average of 124 this season and has hit four centuries already.

Behold “Maxine”:

Fair Play for Women has said the policy is unfair, especially at a time when the game is improving opportunities for female players. A £20m semi-professional competition for women starts next year.

“Letting males who self-ID as women play in women’s competitions is demonstrably unfair,” the campaign group tweeted last week. “The ECB *knows* males have a performance advantage

The chair of the Federal Election Commission tells Trump to put up or shut up.

SAD: Last night, @realDonaldTrump again made unfounded claims about massive voter fraud in NH in 2016. In this letter, I ask him to back up his claims in terms a former casino operator should understand: “There comes a time when you need to lay your cards on the table or fold.”

 … Read the rest

As predicted, Margie Reckard’s funeral yesterday evening was massive.

“Never had so much love in my life,” Basco said on Friday as he beheld the crowds, many who waited in triple-digit heat, to attend Reckard’s memorial service and support a man they had never met.

When Reckard was killed, she left behind Basco, her partner of 22 years, who considered her his only close family. The couple had moved to El Paso a few years earlier and didn’t have many local relatives and friends.

Powerful images of a solitary Basco crouching and weeping in front of Reckard’s makeshift memorial had spread on social media.

Social media giveth and social media taketh away.

Harrison Johnson, funeral director at Perches Funeral

The wokeness of it.

Hey vancouver…… tear these down when you see them. This org lost their funding for refusing to include transwomen in their shelters and education, they are now openly a hive for terf nonsense. Dont let them recruit.

 … Read the rest

The Times on the trans Cultural Revolution:

More than a dozen academics, including several leading feminist professors, fear their freedom of speech is being silenced by students complaining they are transphobic.

They include Selina Todd, a professor of modern history at Oxford, and Kate Newey, professor of theatre history at Exeter. Rosa Freedman, professor of law conflict and global development, is believed to be under scrutiny at Reading University, and Kathleen Stock, professor of philosophy, has faced several formal complaints organised by students at Sussex. Some of the women, along with other academics, say questioning of transgender policies is being censored on campus.

Policies but also truth claims. It’s forbidden to say women have a right to their own … Read the rest