Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on Remains.

So, to sum up:

1. Over the last few decades, Catholic “special educational” institutions the world over have been exposed at best (at *best*) as safehouses and private gardens for pedophiles, and at worst as infanticide factories where the mothers of neglected-to-death babies were also enslaved for years, most famously in Ireland but really in every country where the Catholic Church has any presence at all. (Germany’s own pedophile scandal hit in those halcyon days of 2021 and caused a large number of lapsed Catholics to actually strike their names from the Church’s rolls, which in this country means the government finally stopped giving the Church taxes on those peoples’ behalf.)… Read the rest

Be careful what you like where others can see you.

In 2023 the playwright David Greig had to apologise to staff at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, where he was artistic director, for being “careless and harmful” after “liking” two tweets that a writer alleged were transphobic.

Yes children that’s right, there are people monitoring what you “like” (i.e. what you register your liking of or agreement with or respect for by clicking the “Like” button on one social media platform). Who knew anyone had the time? Let alone the inclination? Let alone the malice and stupidity and feeling of entitlement to tell all of us what we can and can’t say or even “like”?… Read the rest

From the Department of Things No 5-year-old Ever Said:

No child is born "transgender", they are created by their parents…

Transhausen by proxy… pic.twitter.com/1VWJfKHaix

— Jonny Bell (@Jonnywsbell) September 25, 2024

… Read the rest

But what if you identify as benefiting from chiropracty?

How can we live in a world where it’s legal to perform something with zero evidence for benefit (neck adjustment from a chiro) when there are such incredibly dangerous and life changing risks?

And yet, insurance often covers chiropractic care- but doesn’t cover most dietitians.

— Danielle Belardo, MD (@DBelardoMD) September 25, 2024

My patient has also so kindly consented to me writing up her case to submit to a peer reviewed journal. I told her we will do everything we can to increase awareness about this egregious and horrible practice, and if we can save even one life, we have accomplished something.

— Danielle Belardo, MD (@DBelardoMD) September 25, 2024

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Some people may find this phrasing awkward.

… a clinical health psychologist and clinical director of the Transgender and Intersex Specialty Care Clinic at Mayo Clinic.

Oh great, medically promoted forced teaming. My understanding is that the preferred and/or technically correct term is DSD, and that “intersex” was considered insulting and misleading. But here we have the MAYO CLINIC using it in order to lump it in with transgenderism, in accordance with the bullshit “Sex is a spectrum!” tenets of gender ideology. DSDs are, in my understanding, a range of discreet, sex-specific ways in which human development fails to achieve the goal of producing one of two types of healthy, … Read the rest

The Mayo Clinic blog in September 2022:

Is chestfeeding the new breastfeeding?: Explaining gender-neutral medical terms.

Articles or online posts — even other articles on this blog — are now often using phrases like “person with a uterus,” “pregnant person” or “anyone with a prostate,” instead of the words “woman” or “man.”

Some people may find this phrasing awkward or wonder why it is used — believing that the words “men” and “women” are simpler. The change in language could even feel challenging or threatening.

The change in language could even feel like, and be, part of a ferocious campaign to push women out of sight in every possible context.

“Controversy is created when people feel like gender-neutral terms are

Suzanne Moore on Labour’s indifference to women:

On the conference floor, grumblings of winter fuel allowances, the cruel two-child benefit cap and assisted dying rumble under the surface. But the big issue Labour [has] yet to get its head around is that of people like me: women who believe, shockingly, that biology is real. 

This is the first year that the Labour Women’s Declaration (LWD) movement has been allowed into conference and it has a stall and some terrific events. The LWD believe that women and girls are subject to discrimination and oppression on the basis of their sex, have the right to single-sex spaces and are not to be intimidated for discussing this. 

Such a zany belief, … Read the rest

Wait.

Isn’t this parody? Everyone is yelling at it but surely it’s parody. Isn’t it?

🤡Trans identified man calls himself a “gold star lesbian” and says he loves invading lesbian spaces. pic.twitter.com/nAokXREmwq

— L G B (@L__G__B) September 24, 2024

… Read the rest

Another thing about those residential “schools” –

Residential school students did not receive the same education as the general population in the public school system, and the schools were sorely underfunded. Teachings focused primarily on practical skills. Girls were primed for domestic service and taught to do laundry, sew, cook, and clean. Boys were taught carpentry, tinsmithing, and farming. Many students attended class part-time and worked for the school the rest of the time: girls did the housekeeping; boys, general maintenance and agriculture. This work, which was involuntary and unpaid, was presented as practical training for the students, but many of the residential schools could not run without it. With so little time spent in class, most students had only

Says celebrity trans person Brianna Wu:

Here is why I am frustrated with non-binary people. In 1979, the protocol came out to legally change genders. There’s been a serious public policy effort to educate not just medical providers but the public and legislators. This has been a moderate political movement, strategically nonpartisan with lots of science to back it up. Then about five years ago, this non-binary trend exploded. Their main political tactic has been to conflate my medical condition with their identity even though there’s zero evidence this is the same thing. Rather than legitimate activism through the political process, they mostly just Hector and shame people that cannot magically intuit their pronouns.

One, hilarious, obviously, but two, … Read the rest

I’m looking for some background. Here’s some from something called Indigenous Foundations with an arts.ubc.ca address, i.e Arts at the University of British Columbia:

The Residential School System

The term residential schools refers to an extensive school system set up by the Canadian government and administered by churches that had the nominal objective of educating Indigenous children but also the more damaging and equally explicit objectives of indoctrinating them into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living and assimilating them into mainstream white Canadian society. The residential school system officially operated from the 1880s into the closing decades of the 20th century. The system forcibly separated children from their families for extended periods of time and forbade them to acknowledge their Indigenous heritage

People can be so absurd. Some of them think just saying loudly that you won’t let anything go wrong=nothing will go wrong.

A transcript from a key meeting at the firm behind the ill-fated Titan submersible has revealed the CEO said in 2018: “No-one is dying under my watch – period.”

Like that. He couldn’t know that. Bravado isn’t magic. The fact that it was his watch was not a magic safety guarantee. Saying “period” was not a magic safety guarantee.

It captures a heated exchange between OceanGate chief Stockton Rush and his former director of marine operations, David Lochridge, plus three other staff.

The log shows Mr Lochridge raised safety concerns, to which Rush responded: “I have

Fella wants to make what he considers “spewing bigotry” a jail-worthy crime.

Bigotry kills minorities.
It destroys the lives of innocent people.
Publicly spewing bigotry should be a crime.
For example, Anita Bryant should have been imprisoned for hate speech.
That she wasn't is ludicrous.
Instead, all she got was a pie in the face. 1/

— Aidan Comerford (@AidanCTweets) September 23, 2024

This is the tenor of the replies from bigots to this tweet.
As I said, we have allowed a situation where people can freely spew vile hate speech that endangers minorities, but we'll arrest someone who who throws soup on this person if they say this on the street. That's wrong. pic.twitter.com/US8IoixluO

— Aidan Comerford (@AidanCTweets) September

There’s a roiling controversy over whether or not there are mass graves of indigenous children in Kamloops, BC.

The revelation convulsed all of Canada.

Ground-penetrating radar had found possible signs of 215 unmarked graves at a former residential school in British Columbia run by the Catholic Church that the government had once used to assimilate Indigenous children forcibly taken from their families.

It’s not as if the Catholic church and its ways with abandoned or poor or otherwise despised and powerless children have always been benevolent and helpful. I say that with deep sarcasm, because the Catholic church has notoriously treated such children with sadistic contempt and brutality. And it has sometimes simply thrown the ones who died in … Read the rest

In which we learn that fables about the Holocaust are “controversial books by white male authors” and need to be replaced by books that are “more representative.”

British “decolonisation activist” boasts about changing her school curriculum to remove “controversial white books” like “The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas” in favour of more “diverse stories.” pic.twitter.com/IgR44aS6FA

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) September 23, 2024

… Read the rest

Solent University wants to separate itself from Ben Lindsay but it’s struggling.

A statement from Solent University re Ben Lindsay pic.twitter.com/yDpQ6cFSiK

— Solent University, Southampton (@SolentUni) September 23, 2024

If they really want to get the facts straight, why on earth say “for a number of years” instead of just saying precisely how many years? Using the vague term suggests that they don’t know how many years it’s been, which in turn suggests that they’re just making it up.

Anyway that’s not what he says, so it will be interesting to see what (if anything) happens next.

You might want to tell him that as he makes a big thing of the connection. What is a 'graduate Associate'? pic.twitter.com/TMMPFuUFrv

—

JKR demolished the dreadful sycophantic Times article about poor persecuted Sandy Brindley yesterday, but I just want to add a kick or two of my own, because that’s how I roll.

After years on the wrong end of online campaigns hashtagged #BrindleyMustGo and as the subject of criticism from very prominent online warriors, Brindley, 50, has had enough. She says that she does not expect to be in her post by this time next year.

You probably think the Times goes on to say why there are campaigns saying Brindley must go along with criticism from “very prominent online warriors” (a slightly deceptive way to describe JK Rowling). If you think that, you’re wrong. The Times never bothers to say clearly … Read the rest

While exploring Rape Crisis Edinburgh’s website I began to wonder if all UK rape crisis centers are for everyone as opposed to for women.

A look at Rape Crisis South London promptly dispels that worry.

Specialist South London sexual violence support for women and girls who have experienced rape and/or childhood sexual abuse.

Boom.

Our services are in response to the needs of survivors and the disproportionate nature of sexual violence committed by men against women and girls. We believe sexual violence to be both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality and are committed to a feminist, empowering model of working.

Thank fuck for that.

There is such a thing as rape of boys and of men, but … Read the rest

In case you’re thinking Edinburgh Rape Crisis has improved in the wake of all this attention –

Who[m] We Support And Our Services

Women only services

We have been trans inclusive since 2008. This means that we have a diverse group of women and non-binary workers and volunteers.

In a survivors initial meeting, the worker will give a clear overview of the services that we offer, including our trans inclusivity. This meeting will be held by a woman who has always lived as a woman and will include exploration of the type of support a survivor wishes and would benefit from. This conversation will also explore any concerns or preferences a survivor has around the support, and who they receive

Ouch. That’s gotta sting.

Dear Sandy,

While you've been in charge at Rape Crisis Scotland, a man now serving time in prison for multiple sexual assaults was 'treated' at the Edinburgh centre.

The man in charge of the Edinburgh centre called rape survivors who wanted single sex services 'bigots.' 1/9 pic.twitter.com/Fzbwfueqo7

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 22, 2024

You claim I misrepresented what happened at the meeting at which rape survivors were harangued by your trans activist partner, who shouldn't have been there at all. Here's the survivors' own account of what happened.
3/9https://t.co/UVtJUmGp3r

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 22, 2024

I can only assume your cosy relationship with the SNP government, which is a big fan of gender