… Read the rest

I don’t usually link to the Washington Times, but there are exceptions to (almost) everything. Andraya Yearwood is a junior at Cromwell High School in Connecticut, and is trans.

She recently finished second in the 55-meter dash at the state open indoor track championships. The winner, Terry Miller of Bloomfield High, is also transgender and set a girls state indoor record of 6.95 seconds. Yearwood finished in 7.01 seconds and the third-place competitor, who is not transgender, finished in 7.23 seconds.

In short, they have a physical advantage and they’re not ashamed to exploit it. They should be, but they’re not.

(Imagine you felt like a child in an adult’s body. Set aside the problems with that idea [what … Read the rest

The Times is barely concealing its laughter.

President Trump has talked for years about hosting a patriotic parade in Washington, and on Sunday he announced that something of the sort would take place in a Fourth of July “gathering” at the Lincoln Memorial.

“HOLD THE DATE!” Mr. Trump said in a tweet about the event, which he said would be called “A Salute to America.”

The president, who is also fond of hosting rallies for his supporters, added that the celebration would include a “major fireworks display, entertainment and an address by your favorite President, me!”

Very po-faced, very solemn.

Mr. Trump said at a meeting of his cabinet at the White House this month that he was

Oh look, a poll.

Graham Linehan has threatened to sue me for calling him a bigot. It is a view many would agree with. I am going to do a poll, if I lose I will retract my tweets & apologise. Is @Glinner a bigot for his transphobic views YES or NO?

— Anthony Watson CBE (@AnthonyWatson) February 23, 2019

Hahaha I’m kidding, of course; a question on Twitter is not a real poll because the respondents are not randomized. It’s a poll-within-a-set, if you like, but it doesn’t demonstrate anything.

And yet…

Please help @AnthonyWatson with his research poll … it’s important. https://t.co/JpIqYtjYRs

— Jan Gooding (@Jan_Gooding) February 24, 2019

His research poll. His research poll. Come on. It’s … Read the rest

Speaking of men and sex and consent and men who send other men photos and videos of women without consent…Joan Acocella wrote about New York City Ballet (of Balanchine fame) in the New Yorker last week. One story she tells jumped off the page at me.

She starts with a rumination on ballet at its best as an emblem of truth, beauty and the good.

The better the dancer’s first arabesque penché—the more exact, the more spirited, the more singing its line—the more he or she will embody the promise of the ancient Greeks, lasting at least up to Keats, that beauty, truth, and virtue are inseparable, that we live in a good world.

Such thoughts, however, are unlikely

Peggy Orenstein in the Times notes that men tend to define “consent” to suit themselves (which misses the point by quite a large distance, doesn’t it, since the whole point of consent is that it involves the not-self).

The truth is, men are not the most reliable arbiters of whether sex was consensual. Consider: When Nicole Bedera, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Michigan, interviewed male college students in 2015, each could articulate at least a rudimentary definition of the concept: the idea that both parties wanted to be doing what they were doing. Most also endorsed the current “yes means yes” standard, which requires active, conscious, continuous and freely given agreement by all parties engaging

Meanwhile…

https://twitter.com/lesbianleftie/status/1099359254266421248

Labour Students elect a boy National Women’s Officer, because girls are just girls, while boys who “identify as” girls are infinitely more significant and interesting and woke. That’s feminism.

https://twitter.com/Lsgirlgang/status/1099342880630558720

Happy to announce your next @LabourStudents Women’s Officer will be a boy.… Read the rest

Perhaps the tide is starting to turn.

The chief executive of the campaign group Stonewall, Ruth Hunt, has resigned after a growing protest by leading gay and lesbian supporters against her stance on promoting transgender rights.

Two of the charity’s former ambassadors and donors revealed this weekend they had withdrawn their support in protest because “Ruth Hunt called it wrong and Stonewall is no longer a worthy champion of our rights”.

Maureen Chadwick, creator of hit television programmes including Bad Girls, Footballers’ Wives and Waterloo Road, said that she and her partner, Kath Gotts, quit after Stonewall embraced what they called “the ‘trans’ cause”.

They were big donors until Stonewall went all trans all the time.

This weekend she

The Manafort sentencing memo has been made public.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort committed crimes that cut to “the heart of the criminal justice system” and over the years deceived everyone from bookkeepers and banks to federal prosecutors and “members of the executive branch of the United States government,” according to a sentencing memo filed Saturday by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.

The memo, in one of two criminal cases Manafort faces, does not take a position on how much prison time he should serve or whether the punishment should run at the same time or after a separate sentence he will soon receive in a Virginia prosecution. But it does depict Manafort as a longtime and unrepentant

Of course they have.

Even before Democrats finish drafting bills to create a single-payer health care system, the health care and insurance industries have assembled a small army of lobbyists to kill “Medicare for all,” an idea that is mocked publicly but is being greeted privately with increasing seriousness.

How could we possibly want universal health insurance instead of the thrillingly frightening risk of losing insurance along with a job or never being able to get it in the first place because your job doesn’t provide it or because you’ve been unemployed for too long or because there’s an R in the month?

The lobbyists’ message is simple: The Affordable Care Act is working reasonably well and should be

Ah, this is charming: male sports writer tells women it will be inspiring if trans women do completely take over women’s sport. He does it with plenty of contempt, too.

They’re coming! Over the horizon, they’re coming! They’re coming for your medals and your trophies and your endorsement contracts. They’re coming, with their giant bulging muscles and enormous flapping penises, to ruin everything pure and good. Nothing will ever be the same again. Nothing means anything any more. For the trans people – and let’s call them what they are, men in sports bras – are coming. And all is lost.

Great first para; lets us know where we are.

This is the apocalyptic scenario currently facing women’s sport. At

Another consignment of evil:

The Trump administration took aim at Planned Parenthood Friday, issuing a rule barring groups that provide abortions or abortion referrals from participating in the $286 million federal family planning program — a move expected to redirect tens of millions of dollars from the women’s health provider to faith-based groups.

What do we not want religious zealots doing? Anything to do with planning pregnancy.

The change means federally funded family planning clinics can no longer refer a patient for abortion and must maintain a “clear physical and financial separation” between services funded by the government and any organization that provides abortions or abortion referrals. Groups receiving money under the Title X program, which serves an estimated

Adam Schiff addresses his Republican colleagues:

The president has just declared a national emergency to subvert the will of Congress and appropriate billions of dollars for a border wall that Congress has explicitly refused to fund. Whether you support the border wall or oppose it, you should be deeply troubled by the president’s intent to obtain it through a plainly unconstitutional abuse of power.

To my Republican colleagues: When the president attacked the independence of the Justice Department by intervening in a case in which he is implicated, you did not speak out. When he attacked the press as the enemy of the people, you again were silent. When he targeted the judiciary, labeling judges and decisions he didn’t

If Trump pardons Manafort…

New York state prosecutors have put together a criminal case against Paul Manafort that they could file quickly if the former chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign receives a presidential pardon.

New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is ready to file an array of tax and other charges against Manafort, according to two people familiar with the matter, something seen as an insurance policy should the president exercise his power to free the former aide. Skirting laws that protect defendants from being charged twice for the same offense has been one of Vance’s challenges.

…

Prosecutors in Vance’s office began investigating Manafort in 2017, months before Mueller charged him with conspiracy, failure

Another event stamped CANCELED.

Unfortunately we have had to cancel today’s Story Café and Songwriting Workshop due to be held @edcentrallib as part of @AWfest.

We hope to rearrange the Story Café event in Edinburgh on a future date. Email info@womenslibrary.org.uk to register your interest.

— Glasgow Women's Library (@womenslibrary) February 22, 2019

Had to why? Somebody has the flu? The pipes burst? All the roads and railways closed?

No.

We are committed to an inclusive
approach in working with women and do so under the terms of our own
policies. We feel that the Audacious Women’s Festival’s policy does not align with our own and so we have chosen not to run the events today.

— Glasgow Women's