Hmmm.

WATCH: Is biological sex binary?@JoanMcAlpine MSP says women are discriminated against because of their biological sex. @MaggieChapman argues that the issue of reforming the Gender Recognition Act, is about identity not sex. See the full #scotnight debate at 10.40pm tonight. pic.twitter.com/NEgOU0mHhh

— ScotlandTonight (@ScotlandTonight) May 23, 2019

JM: Women are discriminated against because of their biological sex, and we can’t erase that because if we erase that we’re erasing women.

MC: But we know that biological sex is not binary…Biological sex is not binary. We are talking about identity here Joan…

What is identity then? What are people using it to mean? It’s become a magic word that means whatever you need it to mean in the moment … Read the rest

Oh, Pakistan tells WordPress to block Jesus and Mo, does it?

Pakistan authorities ask WordPress to block posts showing J&M strips, and WordPress says "sure" https://t.co/9uZOAgCfTA

— AuthorJ&M (@JandMo) May 23, 2019

Okay then.

… Read the rest

The purge begins.

….during the 2016 Presidential election. The Attorney General has also been delegated full and complete authority to declassify information pertaining to this investigation, in accordance with the long-established standards for handling classified information….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2019

….Today’s action will help ensure that all Americans learn the truth about the events that occurred, and the actions that were taken, during the last Presidential election and will restore confidence in our public institutions.” @PressSec

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2019

Show trials. Executions at dawn. Reprisals.

Whoa. So Barr has the sole authority to declassify info related to the Trump investigation over the objections of the original classifying authority – CIA, NSA,

Oy.

Trump is unbelievably egotistical pic.twitter.com/eKm38oyjRZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 23, 2019

Oyy.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1131672516622209024… Read the rest

Also

https://twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/1131523362415624193

An associate editor of @VICE wants to milkshake me, @HadleyFreeman and @helenlewis, women journalists who disagree with her views on gender. Right. I’d quite like to see the rules on who deserves physical assault and why. Seems only fair. https://t.co/7oososR3ud

— Janice Turner (@VictoriaPeckham) May 23, 2019

Is Emma Garland embarrassed? Hahaha don’t be silly.

https://twitter.com/emmaggarland/status/1131527830817443840… Read the rest

The Guardian reports a policy change:

Transgender women have had their right to use Hampstead Heath ponds formalised in a new policy.

The City of London Corporation (CoLC), which manages Hampstead Heath and its ponds, announced that it had adopted a new gender identity policy to make sure services in the area “are fully compliant with the Equality Act 2010, and do not discriminate against trans people”.

In January, the City of London, confirmed that the ladies’ pond – which counts people such as the actor Helena Bonham Carter and novelist Esther Freud among its swimmers – was open to transgender women. That was formalised in an announcement on Thursday that the new rules would “ensure a robust

Hmmmm, really?

Morning @Womans_Place_UK . Being transgender is an innate part of the human condition. The only debate to be had about that is how best to deliver trans rights and healthcare.

You can have a thousand sweaty meetings in secret locations, and that will never change.

— Aidan Comerford (@AidanCTweets) May 23, 2019

Being transgender is an innate part of the human condition? So everybody is trans – which is pretty much the same as saying nobody is trans. If everybody is trans we just carry on as before.

But if that is true, why were we never told it before? Why in all this time, when humans were inventing agriculture and trade and alphabets and yoga and the … Read the rest

Men who have nothing but contempt for women have a gold mine in trans activism.

Oh wow @NewStatesman went full TERF. This article is one of the most bad faith hateful pieces of writing I've read in a while.https://t.co/ApphkebBf3 pic.twitter.com/1VjUx7f7SP

— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) May 22, 2019

He must not read anything at all, then, because it isn’t.

But never mind. He knows how to put women in their place.

the only upside to being astroturfed by radicalized mumsnet users is they think I'm actually capable of growing a beard https://t.co/phStWFAC0U

— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) May 22, 2019

Ooooooh radicalized mumsnet users – a tactful way of saying “stupid bitches.” Stupid women with their “babies” and “children,” what can … Read the rest

Meanwhile…

Remember the planned redesign of the $20 bill that was going to include the first African American woman to appear on U.S. currency?

Well, don’t expect to see Harriett Tubman on your $20 any time soon.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed Wednesday what had been apparent for some time: The currency redesign pursued by his Obama administration predecessor Jacob Lew not is going to happen during the Trump administration.

Well of course it’s not. Trump has a plan to put war criminals on your $20 so Harriett Tubman will just have to go back to Mexico where she belongs.

Mnuchin said a new design for the $20 bill will not come out until 2028. The $10 and the

Hey kids, let’s play Pretend Feminist for ten seconds before we go back to cheering for forced birth.

After Trump abruptly left legislative leaders meeting today, Kellyanne Conway asked Pelosi if she wanted to respond to what Trump had said. "I'll respond to the president, not staff," Pelosi said. "Wow, that's really pro-woman of you," Kellyanne Conway said back, per aides.

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) May 22, 2019

… Read the rest

Ursual Le Guin on abortion:

My friends at NARAL asked me to tell you what it was like before Roe vs Wade. They asked me to tell you what it was like to be twenty and pregnant in 1950 and when you tell your boyfriend you’re pregnant, he tells you about a friend of his in the army whose girl told him she was pregnant, so he got all his buddies to come and say, “We all fucked her, so who knows who the father is?” And he laughs at the good joke….

What was it like, if you were planning to go to graduate school and get a degree and earn a living so you could support

The Telegraph introduces the UK to Meghan Murphy:

As one of the lone voices unequivocally arguing that identifying as a different gender does not change one’s chromosomal sex (and, ergo, that trans-women are not actually women) Murphy was swiftly labelled a ‘radical’ feminist, as well as a bigot and a transphobe by her detractors, many of whom also accuse her of being Right-wing.

To Murphy, a once proud socialist with a Marxist father, it’s a laughable claim. But she feels betrayed by the Left. ‘The NDP [Canada’s equivalent to Labour] has fully vilified women who speak out about this,’ she says. ‘They won’t even have a conversation.’

On Monday evening she spoke at a sold-out event on women’s rights

The Times on Donnie’s tantrum:

President Trump abruptly blew up a scheduled meeting with Democratic congressional leaders on Wednesday, lashing out at Speaker Nancy Pelosi for accusing him of a cover-up and declaring that he could not work with them until they stopped investigating him.

He then marched out into the Rose Garden, where reporters had been gathered, and delivered a statement bristling with anger as he demanded that Democrats “get these phony investigations over with.” He said they could not legislate and investigate at the same time. “We’re going to go down one track at a time,” he said.

Before the White House meeting Pelosi had been meeting with Democrats to talk about impeachment.

She emerged from that

Boys’ Club gets boy in trouble yet again. Boys just wonder how come all the rules got changed alla sudden and nobody ever told them.

Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada, a Republican, said on Tuesday he plans to step down from his position after lewd and racist text messages between him and his former chief of staff were leaked to the media.

…

Opposition to his leadership snowballed after texts were leaked to the media in which Casada and his now-former chief of staff, Cade Cothren, traded lewd remarks. Sent in the summer of 2016, the messages show Casada egging on the aide as he bragged about a sexual encounter in a restaurant bathroom, as one example.

The leaks