Councillor Sarah Field at Leeds Civic Hall yesterday:

Our brilliant panel of academics will be speaking today about the Declaration of Sex Based Rights. But by way of introduction I am going to talk a little bit about Leeds and why I’m here.

So, I just want to start off by thanking the many women on the Mumsnet Feminism boards. You are a constant strength and inspiration.

About three years ago, not long after I was first elected, I was contacted by a woman in Leeds, for advice. Her six year old daughter had been verbally attacked and then subjected to a violent outburst by a 17 year old male who had been allowed to join a local girls group … Read the rest

The Biden speeches write themselves, don't they.

"I've never claimed to be a very stable genius. But I know enough not to trust Kim Jong Un to keep a promise – and if I ever meet him, I won't leave him smiling at me or anybody else"

— David Frum (@davidfrum) May 25, 2019

(Yes, I’m clearly going to be beating this to death today. It’s that astounding.)

It’s not just knowing enough not to trust Kim Jong Un to keep a promise – it’s another level of stupid even from that. It’s knowing enough not to be bounced into trusting Kim Jong Un because he flatters me.

How dumb and incompetent and undeveloped and practically fetus-level immature … Read the rest

Good god.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1132413516063870977… Read the rest

A guy called Will Roberts has written a post disputing the article by Sophie Allen, Jane Clare Jones, Holly Lawford-Smith, Mary Leng, Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, and Kathleen Stock on bad arguments against gender critical feminism. The first item snagged my attention.

Section one: fallacious arguments

1. ‘Your position has been historically associated with far right-wing thought, and hence fails’.

The authors write: “Associating our intellectual position with a far right-wing one, because some far right-wing thinkers would agree with us in some of our conclusions, and insinuating that our position is all the worse because of it, is an ad hominem. Ad hominems are widely recognised as inappropriate in philosophy.”

Political arguments are different from purely philosophical arguments. The fact that one

The Telegraph on the awkwardness of having a new union boss who uses a blocker to block a hefty proportion of union members:

Feminist academics have complained that their new union boss cannot uphold free speech because she has refused to listen to opposing views in the transgender debate.

Dr Jo Grady, who was elected on Friday as the new general secretary of the University and College Union, used a controversial “Terf-blocker” which is a tool on Twitter that allows users to block a list of accounts.

A very long list of accounts. I’m on it, which I know because a lot of people I’ve never heard of or interacted with (before seeing “Has X blocked you too?” tweeted) … Read the rest

Also let’s get people in low-paid jobs fired or reprimanded or whatever we can successfully demand for Not Using The Correct™ Pronouns™ all power to the firing class yeah?

https://twitter.com/MelzDot/status/1132233737268269056

Did MelzDot ask “the security” (rather a dehumanizing way to refer to a person) what his pronouns were? Are Bespoke Pronouns only for the privileged few who speak at a TRANS Conference and not the riffraff who guard them?

There follows a long maudlin thread of people offering Mr Dot massive sympathy for this hideous unparalleled tragedy.

https://twitter.com/incognegraux/status/1132271161872662534

It’s all like that or worse.

This isn’t good. It’s not healthy. Even if you agree that people can change sex by assertion, it’s still not good or healthy. Frenzied maudlin over-reaction … Read the rest

Political discourse today, state of.

good morning @the_point_mag i do not appreciate criticism of my work being put in the same category as the deplatforming of a full blown card carrying terf!!!!! whose “comments on sex and gender identity” you do not even bother to describe!!!! pic.twitter.com/LzjDNro67m

— wife of the mind (@andrealongchu) May 25, 2019

There’s a card you can carry? An official card, with your name on it, issued by the head office? Why wasn’t I told?

deplatforming isn’t predicated on some elitist notion of “protecting” the public from “threatening” ideas, it’s about taking money and resources away from our OBVIOUS ENEMIES, milo’s deplatforming was literally about bankrupting him AND IT WORKED

— wife of the mind (@andrealongchu)

Originally a comment by cluecat on We are talking about identity here.

How people cannot see that this is a male-supremacist idea/movement is beyond me, I’m afraid.

If it was really about Identitay, and everyone being able to force others to see them as they see themselves, women & girls would be able to make everyone see us (and therefore treat us) as Real People. This would mean much less sexual violence committed by males against us, the obvious fact that bodily autonomy trumps anyone else’s wants regarding using us as brood mares, the pay gaps/work gaps would vanish (the Second Shift would be a thing of the past), and so on.

What we get instead is this deliberate … Read the rest

Facebook isn’t helping.

Facebook says it will continue to host a video of Nancy Pelosi that has been edited to give the impression that the Democratic House speaker is drunk or unwell, in the latest incident highlighting its struggle to deal with disinformation.

What struggle? Saying “no” isn’t a struggle. Saying “no” is dead easy.

The viral clip shows Pelosi – who has publicly angered Donald Trump in recent days – speaking at an event, but it has been slowed down to give the impression she is slurring her words. Several versions of the clip appeared to be circulating.

The president’s personal lawyer, the former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, was among the Trump supporters who promoted the

Naomi Wolf has a new book out. In it she says that a teenage boy was executed for sodomy in 1859, but in fact he was paroled two years after he was convicted.

Silver, who was 14 when he was convicted, is just one of several cases cited in the book but, according to the writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet, the error stems from a simple misreading of a historical record and raises wider questions about the argument Wolf puts forward.

In Outrages, which was published by Virago, Wolf examines the effect of 19th-century legal changes on the lives of Victorian poets such as John Addington Symonds and argues that the Obscene Publications Act of 1857 marked a turning

Seen on Facebook:

How to strangle a woman during sex SAFELY. (Funny how it’s the woman getting strangled, isn’t it.)

Nah, I say forget strangling people SAFELY, don’t strangle them at all.… Read the rest

What is a doula? Ask the Google.

dou·la
/ˈdo͞olə/
noun
a woman, typically without formal obstetric training, who is employed to provide guidance and support to a pregnant woman during labor.
“from admission through delivery, a doula stayed at her assigned patient’s side”
a woman employed to provide guidance and support to the mother of a newborn baby.
“my mother-in-law hired a postpartum doula to help me for a couple of weeks”

So what do we find?

That Doula Guy

That’s not a “taboo,” it’s a fact. Men can’t give birth; just a fact, ma’am.

Tell us about yourself, Mac Brydum.

“That Doula Guy” is Mac Brydum.

Specializing in comprehensive doula support, including labor support, postpartum care, infant sleep

Meanwhile Trump is also abusing his power by trying to muscle the Army Corps of Engineers to buy its new border wall from a company he favors because he’s a corrupt mob boss.

The Post reports:

In phone calls, White House meetings and conversations aboard Air Force One during the past several months, Trump has aggressively pushed Dickinson, N.D.-based Fisher Industries to Department of Homeland Security leaders and Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the Army Corps, according to the administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions.

It may be a not-very-subtle sign of the frustration in the Army that the news leaked to the Post the same day that

Oh, really?

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1131964691746574336

Edward Lord is the boss of the move to take women-only spaces away from women in London. Edward Lord has also blocked every single obstreperous woman on Twitter whether he’s ever interacted with them or not, in other words he uses a sweeping block list. Women who object to having women-only spaces taken away may not tell Edward Lord of their objections; he won’t allow it. Lord indeed.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1131966804778213376

So I’m reading the Telegraph article.

The architect of a gender identity drive who campaigns for transgender rights has been forced to defend their membership of the Freemasons amid accusations of hypocrisy.

Edward Lord chairs the City of London’s establishment committee, which has launched a consultation on

Quinta Jurecic on why Trump has to be impeached:

Here are the facts: The president is unsuited to his office. That should have been obvious well before the release of the special counsel’s report, but the text of the report, even with a smattering of redactions, makes his unfitness brutally clear. He shows no understanding of the responsibilities of the presidency. He delights in the abuse of his power. As Memorial Day approaches, he is reportedly planning to celebrate the holiday by pardoning, among other service members accused of war crimes, a Navy SEAL scheduled to stand trial for the murder of multiple unarmed Iraqi civilians.

Because hooray for murdering unarmed civilians in foreign countries; that’s what we stand … Read the rest