Cool story but is there a shred of truth in it?

Londoners Against Transphobia

Unfortunately, we had to cancel the planned protest against Women’s Place UK and Fairplay for Women due to concerns about the safety of attendants. We heard rumour of a counter-protest by more….’radical’ elements of the anti-trans community. This would have put people attending at risk of physical and psychological harm. If you wish to organise your own protest, please keep in mind that Posie Parker and Dr Julia Long may organise a counter protest where the aim may be to incite violence. We apologise for the situation, this was not how this wanted to go. If anyone ever claims that TERFs are being intimidated and silenced,

Katie Herzog at The Stranger says Women’s Soccer is a Very Dykey Sport:

There’s a couple of major differences between women’s soccer and men’s soccer. One: The U.S. women are good at it. Two, women’s soccer is a hell of a lot gayer.

Yesterday, “content producer” Alex Binley from ITV News published an article about why, exactly, so many dykes excel at this sport.

Binley says it’s because there’s so much homophobia in the male version.

It’s hard to argue with that. Outside of the U.S., Canada, and a few other countries, soccer is both the most popular and the butchest sport on the block. Games tend to hyper-masculine environments, which are not exactly the most welcoming of men

But this Never Happens:

Toronto police say a 22-year-old man is facing charges after he allegedly recorded women in a changing room at a popular shopping mall in the city on Saturday.

Officers allege the man, who cannot be identified because of a publication ban, went into a clothing store at the Eaton Centre at about 4 p.m. and entered a unisex changing room.

They allege the man then placed a “homemade recording device” on the floor between change room stalls and recorded multiple women changing.

They say one of the women noticed the device and notified both security and police.

Investigators say they found numerous video clips of unknown women on the man’s device.

Must be a mistake. … Read the rest

The Epstein hearing is today.

Federal prosecutors in New York unsealed a criminal indictment Monday charging billionaire Jeffrey Epstein with having operated a sex trafficking ring in which he sexually abused dozens of underage girls, allegations that have circulated around the politically connected businessman for years.

…

Epstein, 66, was arrested Saturday night at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey aboard his private jet upon returning from Paris.

Later that evening, federal agents executing a search warrant of Epstein’s mansion in New York City recovered and seized a “vast trove” of lewd photographs of young-looking women or girls, prosecutors said in a bail memorandum.

Some of the photos were discovered in a locked safe along with compact discs with

It seems that Amherst issued a guide to woke language but had to withdraw it hastily because of the storm of derision. But it was preserved. It’s woke all right.

(Isn’t this where I came in? Writing a satirical version about 100 years ago.)

It’s in sections. There’s a section for -isms, starting with Ableism and Ageism. Then there’s…

CISSEXISM

The system of belief that cisgender individuals are the privileged class and are more natural, normal or acceptable than transgender, genderqueer, nonbinary and/or gender-nonconforming people. This belief manifests as the systematic denial of rights to trans and nonbinary people and their routine mistreatment.

Hmm yes very fair and impartial. Let’s tweak it a little:

REALITY

There are two sexes,

Time to equalize their pay, no?

… Read the rest

Following up on the Alexander Acosta angle – Raul Reyes at CNN says he should resign. (The url indicates the piece dates from last March, but the headline says it’s updated, so it’s a mix of then and now.)

Until recently, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta was probably one of President Donald Trump’s least controversial Cabinet members. But now he is facing rising pressure over his handling of a sex offender case involving a well-connected billionaire.

On February 21, a federal judge ruled that Miami prosecutors, led by then-US Attorney Acosta, broke the law when they arranged a plea deal for billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2008 without conferring with his victims. Although Epstein was accused of trafficking children for sex,

Opposing accounts are still opposing.

The National Theatre has denied accusations it refused to serve members of the LGBT community in its Green Room bar due to “gender or sexuality” discrimination.

No, it was due to “not flattering trans delusions” discrimination.

A group of lesbian women, straight women and men visited the bar on Friday  – the night before London’s Pride celebrations – and claim they were refused service and asked to leave by staff.

The “and men” is kind of interesting. I guess men are welcome no matter what and don’t have to fill out the form stating whether they’re gay or straight? But women do? Because _____?

The National Theatre confirmed it was investigating the claims although

Jeffrey Epstein’s hobby may have caught up with him at last.

Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. The arrest, by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force, comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.

For more than a decade, Epstein’s alleged abuse of minors has been the subject of lawsuits brought by victims, investigations by local and federal authorities, and exposés in the press. But despite the attention cast on

Another “prosecute the victim” story.

One evening last summer, Mikhail Khachaturyan decided that his living room wasn’t tidy enough, so he summoned his three teenage daughters one by one and doused each with pepper spray.

There was little unusual about this evening in the Khachaturyan household, according to court records, except for one thing: The sisters decided they couldn’t take the violence and abuse anymore.

They waited until their father fell asleep in his rocking chair and attacked him with a kitchen knife and a hammer. He put up a fight, but died within minutes.

The Khachaturyan sisters, now aged 18, 19 and 20, were charged last month with premeditated murder, in a case that has drawn outrage and

Male boss sexually harasses female underling. She records one of his phone calls. She is sentenced to six months in prison.

Indonesia’s top court has rejected an appeal by a woman who was sentenced to six months in prison for recording and sharing a phone conversation she had with her boss to prove that he was sexually harassing her.

The Supreme Court said Baiq Nuril Maknun was guilty of spreading “indecent” material.

Her boss reported her to the police in 2015 after the recording was circulated.

Rights groups condemned the ruling.

Nuril had complained of getting lewd phone calls from the head teacher of the school she worked at in Mataram, a city on the island of Lombok.

So … Read the rest

I hate it when I agree with Brendan O’Neill, but it does happen sometimes. He’s dead-on with this one.

It’s Pride Month, all month because it’s the anniversary of Stonewall, which was a fine thing.

The gains made by gay-rights warriors over the past five decades have been amazing and important.

But the melting of that great liberatory moment into today’s bland and virtually mandatory forced Pride shenanigans is depressing. It tells a broader story about the demise of radical politics. The riotous counterculturalists of the Sixties and Seventies demanded freedom. They didn’t give a damn what the ‘moral majority’ thought of them  — they just wanted the moral majority to leave them alone.

(It’s not quite that simple. … Read the rest

This happened yesterday:

https://twitter.com/sargesalute/status/1147176523092439040

The Green Room is part of the National Theatre.

The Guardian does a Both Sides:

The National Theatre has become embroiled in a bitter war of words after a group of lesbian friends was refused service in the venue’s Green Room bar in the run-up to the Pride in London celebrations.

The women and their supporters claim their treatment at the hands of staff, who called the police, was a response to their campaigning stance on gender identity. Other witnesses in the bar have described their behaviour as disruptive.

The small group, who arrived with placards, included Anne Ruzylo, a political activist and former member of the Bexhill and Battle Labour party, and on Friday

Which is worse – holding people captive in appalling conditions, or pointing out that people are being held captive in appalling conditions?

Adam Serwer discusses the issue:

The journalist Jonathan Katz argued in May that given the intent behind these facilities, and the conditions that migrants are being held in, they are best described as a concentration-camp system in the United States. That assessment was echoed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was promptly accused of trivializing the Holocaust. “Allegations that somehow the United States is operating in a way that is in any way a parallel to the Holocaust is just completely ludicrous,” Representative Liz Cheney wrote. Although Ocasio-Cortez did not mention the Holocaust, the association between the Shoah

Here we go again.

Brian Leiter points out an item:

Wollongong Undergraduate Students’ Association… (UPDATED)

…is a disgrace.  How can the Australasian Association of Philosophy permit such an event?  (And if the AAP isn’t hosting this event, why are they permitting the use of the AAP logo?)

What’s it done?

Scheduled an event for a conference on Monday with the thoughtful title “F**k off Holly Lawford-Smith”.

Under “Details” we get:

A well known TERF has been invited to speak at the Australasian Association of Philosophers conference at UoW. She has been overtly transphobic and is a huge supporter of the fake academic theories created by so called “gender critical” academics who use outdated terminology and ideas such