Category: Notes and Comment Blog

  • And yet, one year on

    Sex Matters:

    On 16th April 2025, the UK Supreme Court delivered its landmark judgment: the terms “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex, and they always have. 

    And yet, one year on, that clarity has not translated into action. Public bodies, regulators, employers and charities that were expected to review and update their policies continue to delay, avoid or outright resist change. Others are removing services for women and girls altogether. 

    One year later, a new booklet from Sex Matters, asks a simple but urgent question:
    If the law is settled, why are so many institutions still failing to follow it?

    Some wild guesses: Because they want to. Because they can get away with it. Because trans ideology is inseparable from trans bullying and trans never shut upping.

    Through case studies and testimony, One year later shows how this failure is harming women and girls in:

    • workplaces, where employees are not being provided with adequate facilities and face disciplinary action for raising concerns
    • healthcare, where the NHS is continuing to operate based on gender self-ID
    • local services, including leisure centres, refuges, and social care, which are not respecting the law
    • sport, where a two-tier system in some sports protects elite athletes but leaves most women competing against trans–identifying men
    • charities that are still wedded to the idea that “inclusion” means ignoring women’s rights 
    • criminal justice and safeguarding systems, where accurate data and risk assessment depend on clarity about sex.

    So…everything, pretty much.

  • From absurd assertions

    From an American Atheists mailing:

    On Monday, Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission held its final hearing. Chairman and Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick promptly summarized their findings: “There is no such thing as ‘separation of church and state’ in the Constitution. For too long, the anti-God Left has used this phrase to suppress people of religion in our country.” 

    That result was never in doubt. Patrick’s been saying it since at least 2013. So, it’s hardly surprising that a cherry-picked group, led by a guy who believes God wrote the Constitution, held a series of meetings at a Bible museum, excluded alternative viewpoints, and arrived exactly where they started.

    Last year, American Atheists warned the Commission its deliberate exclusion of minority and nonreligious perspectives would “fatally undermine” any semblance of objectivity. We were right.  

    The final hearing was filled with attacks on nonreligious Americans, with commissioners calling church-state separation “the biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding” and warning against the rise of religious Nones because “the secular movement attacks all of us” and “secularists” are to blame for undermining the “fact” that “at the heart of American liberty and religious liberty is faith in the God of the Bible.” 

    That’s how the project advances from absurd assertions to institutional authority. 

    Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took it even further, arguing in a speech this week that the founding principle of the United States is that “all rights come from God, not government.” Because “Progressivism” does not agree, he said its proponents (whom he compared to Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao) represent an existential threat that is “incompatible with a constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights” and “cannot coexist.” 

    All very well but how does he know which God? Who is this “God” and how does Clarence Thomas or anyone else know it’s the right one and not an imposter? If all rights come from God, how do they get to us?

    They get to us via people who say they come from God. But how do we know they’re telling the truth? How do we know they know? How do they know they know? How does anyone know any of this?

    The answer of course is they don’t. No one does. There is no unbroken chain of communication back to the writing of The Bible such that we can check the credentials of the people who wrote it, or, if you like, copied it from God’s dictation.

    All there is is a long line of human assertion. Somebody somewhere said it, therefore it’s true. Not very convincing, is it.

    It’s circular reasoning, is what it is.

    It’s in the Bible therefore it’s true.

    But how do you know?

    Because it’s in the Bible.

    So?

    It’s in the Bible therefore it’s true.

  • All the facts; none of the manipulative metaphors

    Newspaper gossip about snotty daughter of snotty father:

    JK Rowling has hit back at the daughter of ex-Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell after she branded a group of women’s rights campaigners “ugly”. 

    JKR didn’t hit back. She replied or responded or disputed, which is not the same as punching. I do wish UK journalism would stop using this metaphor, because it’s highly tendentious, aka damaging. Journalism should be accurate above all, and it’s not accurate to label verbal disagreements as physical violence.

    A clip from the podcast shows Campbell and a guest calling the For Women Scotland members “freaks” and repeatedly branding them “ugly” while also criticising their hair and clothes. She said they were “not aspirational in any way” and [she] “didn’t want to be in a room with them”.

    And along with not using metaphors of physical violence in reporting verbal disagreement, journalism should provide the relevant facts. Saying “a guest” when you mean a man who pretends to be a woman is a stark failure (or refusal) to provide all the relevant facts. That guy who took such pleasure in calling women UGLEEEE is not just some guest, he’s a man cosplaying a woman. That’s an important part of this repulsive story.

    Campbell’s views were also echoed by her father, who was one of the architects of New Labour. On his and Rory Stewart’s The Rest is Politics podcast, he complained that the Supreme Court ruling did not give “clarity” and also moaned about the images of “lots of women popping champagne corks, pictures of JK Rowling smoking a celebratory cigar”.

    Uppity. There’s no other word for it. Women have become so uppity it’s all men can do to get their insults into the media.

    He also suggested the toxic nature of the debate was one sided, ignoring the abuse dished out by trans activists. For Women Scotland have challenged Campbell and Stewart to invite them on their podcast, but said on Saturday they were “still waiting” for them to “take up the offer and tell us we are are ‘toxic’ for the crime of being happy.”

    I hope we can make it hot for them. Take up the offer, dudes. You’re so clever, you’re bound to emerge smelling like roses.

  • Why corner?

    Words.

    Trump appeared confounded by a common phrase during a public appearance in Nevada on Thursday.

    …

    Delivering a speech on the benefits of his policy, which allows employees who receive tips to deduct up to $25,000 in tips when filing their taxes, the 79-year-old came across a term he claimed to have never heard before.

    “The great big beautiful bill also slashed taxes on millions of Americans, small businesses, including restaurants, dry cleaners, corner stores,” the president said, before pausing to add an aside.

    “What is a corner store?” He asked the room. “I’ve never heard that term. I know what a corner store is, but I’ve never heard it described… A corner store. Who the hell wrote that, please?” He added, looking around as the audience laughed.

    Ok but this one time I don’t think he was just lost in the fog. “Corner store” is a peculiar label because as far as I can tell it doesn’t actually mean corner store but rather convenience store aka small general store that sells the kind of thing you don’t want to go to a supermarket for. It’s an idiom. I think what he meant was not “what is it” but “why is it called that”. As someone who frequently wonders why things are called that, I think we can give him a pass on this one. Mind you, it is very eccentric and perhaps diagnostic to break into one’s own speech about something else to muse on the meaning of a common idiom.

    So why are they called corner stores?

    When I was a child we lived a few miles outside of town, with fields all around, growing alfalfa or pasturing cows. About three fields away there was a small everything store, which I would walk to through the fields on Saturday mornings to spend my allowance on the penny candy in a glass and wood case at the front of the store. It feels like about 1850 at this distance. Anyway…it was literally a corner store, but we called it the general store. Or Musselman’s, the name of the owner, known to the grownups as Spud.

    So, are all 7/11s on corners, or are some in the middle of the block?

  • Glass houses

    But trans ideology has nothing to do with hatred of women, oh no no no no, not at all, and especially not internalized hatred of women, you know, the kind where you’re a woman yourself but you take great pleasure in calling other women ugly.

    The guy on the left is a guy. The woman on the right is Grace Campbell, daughter of Alastair Campbell, once spokesman for Tony Blair and New Labour. If you want to watch him babbling incoherently about why women should let men take away all our rights, here he is again:

    Like father like daughter. Rapid incoherent repetitive babbling as opposed to reasoned argument, in an effort to incite contempt and hatred for women defending women’s rights. He can talk fast but he can’t say anything worth listening to, and his daughter is the same.

  • It’s treason now, eh?

    Of all the things not to care about, this is the most not to care about of all.

    Feel betrayed all you want, bro; feminism isn’t for you, nor is it about you, so shut up and toddle off. We all know you wouldn’t say this about an anti-racism movement; you wouldn’t expect it to coddle white people at the expense of its own cause, let alone order it to do so.

  • Convincing

    Yes indeed being a woman is all about…er…cripplingly high heels and pneumatic tits and head-tilt with toothy grin.

    Women do indeed spend most of their time sitting awkwardly on splintery porch floors grinning for a camera and asking tits-based questions. What else is there to do?

  • A new credo

    Fake news? Let’s hope so.

  • Chimp’s tea party

    Two men fuming about women who defend women’s rights. Dear me, how dare we.

    “You cannot change your sex, is what people are saying about this.” Yes that’s right; you cannot change your sex. You cannot change your species, either. You can change your appearance in many ways, but you cannot change your sex. So unfair, but true nonetheless.

  • Left behind

    A branch of misogyny I hadn’t been aware of:

    …women on Reddit, Instagram and TikTok began sharing stories of being left behind by their partners while hiking, biking and climbing in nature, calling it “Alpine divorce.”

    Often, the women described risky or uncomfortable circumstances where their partners had more knowledge of the terrain or more experience with the sport. In some cases, the couple met again, but in others, the women remained alone or relied on strangers to descend the mountain safely.

    Nice! Get your girlfriend into a dangerous situation and then leave.

    The flurry of social media posts during the last few weeks appeared to have been triggered by a criminal case in Austria focused on a mountaineering expedition that ended in death. In February, Thomas Plamberger, 37, was found guilty of gross negligent manslaughter for leaving his girlfriend, Kerstin Gurtner, 33, to die of hypothermia on Austria’s highest mountain, the Grossglockner.

    Gross indeed.

    Max Eberle, 32, a freelance journalist and hiking instructor in Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, said that growing up in the Austrian Alps, Alpine divorce was a “rural legend” — something he’d heard discussed but never actually witnessed.

    The current use of the term, Mr. Eberle said, described what he preferred to call “toxic Alpinism.”

    “It’s very common that you see a couple in the mountains, and it’s always like the guy pushing his wife or his girlfriend to go further when she is totally exhausted and wants to go back,” Mr. Eberle said.

    It’s close cousin to the men in women’s sports problem. Dude, you’re bigger and stronger. Men are bigger and stronger. That doesn’t translate to “Yay we get to beat them up!” It translates to take your physical advantages into account and act accordingly.

  • Regardless of

    Man resigns from his “role” as endometriosis advisor.

    Yeah bro it was always in the best interests of the charity not to hire a man for that job. You should have turned it down.

    But sadly he’s not actually gone, he’s just moved sideways.

    STATEMENT 2:

    Further to my recent resignation as CEO of TransLucent and changes in my life generally, an opportunity recently arose to work more closely with Women’s Action Network Portsmouth (WANP) – an intersectional and inclusive feminist organisation championing a broad range of causes.

    We actively champion meaningful inclusion for every woman, regardless of age, class, disability, neurodiversity, race, religion, sexuality, or gender identity.

    Notice anything missing? Sex. He omitted sex. He replaced sex with genner idenniny.

    Our solidarity is grounded in shared struggles and a collective commitment to dismantling patriarchy. We stand firmly against divisive culture wars and attacks on minorities, rejecting polarisation, hate, and exclusion in favour of unity, inclusion, justice, equity, and compassion for all members of our diverse communities.

    What shared struggles? Women don’t share struggles with you. You’re not sharing struggles with women, you’re talking over women. You’re intruding. You’re grabbing the spotlight for yourself. You’re interrupting. You’re doing what men like you do.

  • No YOU tone it down

    Stalling stalling stalling

    Bridget Phillipson told Britain’s equality regulator that it must “tone down” its guidance over single-sex spaces and make it more inclusive before she presents it to parliament, The Times understands.

    For the billionth time: you can’t make single-sex spaces “more inclusive” without making them not single-sex spaces. It can’t be done, because it’s a contradiction. It’s squaring the circle. IT CAN’T BE DONE.

    Not everything can be inclusive. Not everything should be inclusive. Being inclusive is not always the top priority. You don’t want kindergartens to be inclusive of child molesters, for instance. You don’t want fire departments to be inclusive of pyromaniacs. You don’t want hospitals to be inclusive of infectious diseases. You don’t want grocery stores to be inclusive of mold. You don’t want your living room to be inclusive of everyone who walks by. The exceptions are endless. We don’t have to include men who say they are women in everything for women – we don’t have to include them in anything for women.

    The women and equalities minister has not yet published new guidance, which protects single-sex spaces, a year after a Supreme Court ruling defined gender as relating to biological sex in reference to the Equality Act.

    She has been in talks with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), under its new chair Mary-Ann Stephenson, and while the guidance itself will not change, the regulator has been asked to include more examples of how organisations can be inclusive within the law.

    Inclusive of what? Men? Why is there any need for examples of how men can be included in things for women?

    A source with knowledge of the process said much of the discussion had been over the “tone” of the document, with a feeling it had been approached with the aim of excluding transgender people rather than finding inclusive ways of operating while also upholding the law.

    Could that be because “transgender people” are the issue? As for finding inclusive ways, see above.

  • To the surprise of no one

    Telegraph headline:

    More than 70 per cent of transgender prisoners are in for sex offences or violent crimes

    What to do, what to do. I know! Force women to submit to men who claim to be women, and it will all be smoothed out.

    More than 70 per cent of transgender prisoners in British jails are serving sentences for sex offences and violent crimes, government figures have revealed.

    At least 181 of the 244 transgender inmates, more than 74 per cent, are in jail for crimes including rape, forcing under-age children into having sex, grievous bodily harm and robbery.

    Yes but it’s the women who made them do it.

    The high levels of violent crimes among male prisoners who identify as women demonstrates why they should not be detained in female prisons, women’s rights campaigners argue.

    Campaigners and former prison chiefs, however, were insistent that the high level of violent crimes among trans prisoners did not imply that they were inherently violent, adding that the vast majority lived crime-free lives.

    The vast majority of what? Trans prisoners? How does that make sense?

    The figures released by the Ministry of Justice also reveal that a further 25 transgender males, women who identify as men, located in female prisons have been convicted of violent crimes and sexual offences. Just a year ago there were fewer than five, according to the Ministry of Justice.

    The figures were released after a former female remand prisoner told The Telegraph how one trans woman inside a female high-security prison continuously bullied other prisoners.

    Well, you know, non-stop bullying is kind of a feature of trans “activism”. It may even be most of the point of being trans, at least for the male ones. “Oh hey, I get to browbeat women who don’t let me push them aside, count me in.”

  • In practical terms

    Won’t someone please think of the anguish of men who are told they can’t barge into women’s toilets?

    The Guardian will!

    The equalities watchdog has updated its guidance on how to implement the supreme court ruling on gender after the government requested changes to the original proposals submitted last year.

    …

    The code sets out how businesses and other organisations should respond in practical terms to the supreme court ruling that sex in the Equality Act refers only to biological sex.

    How about the way they always did until way too many people suddenly decided that men can be women simply by saying so? That used to work.

    In January, the Guardian reported that under its new chair, Mary-Ann Stephenson, the EHRC was looking at ways to adapt the formal code to lessen its impact on businesses and to ensure it tried to balance the protection of single-sex spaces with the lives of transgender people.

    Sigh. You can’t “balance” the protection of single-sex spaces with the grotesque misogynistic demands of men who claim to be women. It can’t be done.

    Maya Forstater, the chief executive of the sex-based rights campaigners Sex Matters, raised concerns about “negotiations and horse-trading” between the government and the EHRC.

    Government sources rejected this, saying Phillipson was seeking both to get the guidance right and to take a sober, collaborative approach.

    What’s that supposed to mean? Is telling men they can’t use women’s changing rooms drunken? A “collaborative approach” is not a good plan when one of the parties is ruthlessly self-serving and misogynistic.

    In a written statement, Phillipson thanked the EHRC for its updates and said: “This government has always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex.”

    She said the government was unable to make further announcements because it was within the pre-election period for the Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections.

    However, Forstater rejected this, saying: “It’s extraordinary that a year after the supreme court judgment, and seven months after the independent regulator first submitted its code of practice, the government has found another excuse for delaying the guidance,” she said.

    “The past year’s delay has caused serious harm to countless women. The statement that the government has ‘always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex’ is a slap in the face to these women and girls who have faced harassment and hounding from jobs and services for saying the same thing.”

    They seem to think women deserves slaps in the face. Funny how that works.

    The Guardian does not give women the last word.

    Alex Parmar-Yee, the director of the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance group, said: “We’re glad that the government has heard how cruel and unworkable the EHRC’s original proposals were. A national bathroom ban under the guise of equality law is not in line with Labour’s values, and we hope any new guidance scraps that idea for good.

    “For trans people and inclusive organisations, the last year has been horrific – now we have to find out whether this government has taken its responsibilities seriously and fixed this mess or not.”

    The equalities charity Stonewall welcomed the “constructive working” between the government and EHRC. “Following a year of complex judgments in the courts and the uncertainty this has created, it is essential that organisations can look to the code for practical, workable guidance and feel confident about their legal obligations,” said a spokesperson.

    The end. Clear enough? Pesky stupid women, causing all this trouble, being so selfish and demanding about their rights. Thanks, Graun.

  • Wipe out

    Dragging those last few boxes out of the attic.

    Federal prosecutors are seeking to wipe out the seditious conspiracy convictions of 12 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who helped plan the Jan. 6, 2021, riots and led the charge into the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

    The request, from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro of D.C., is likely to be granted because prosecutors have broad discretion to pursue or drop criminal charges, even after defendants have been convicted. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers and a lead organizer behind the riots, is among those whose convictions Pirro is seeking to erase.

    The move to undo the most serious convictions stemming from the assault on the Capitol marks the latest step in President Donald Trump’s quest to rewrite the event’s violent history. A mob of Trump supporters gathered in D.C. and disrupted Congress’s certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential race, echoing Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen.

    A lot of people were injured. Some of them died. Never mind; those boxes are taking up too much space. Just throw them out. No not recycle; I said throw them out.

    Trump, on the first day of his second term, issued a blanket pardon that cleared more than 1,500 rioters’ criminal records for offenses related to the insurrection. That pardon did not extend to the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

    Instead, Trump at the time commuted the prison sentences of 14 of those defendants, freeing them from federal custody. That clemency grant, however, did not delete the convictions from their records.

    Well thank god we’ve finally corrected that tragic injustice.

    Pirro said that once the latest slate of convictions is vacated, she intends to file motions to dismiss all the underlying charges in the trial court. That move, once approved by a judge, would fully clear all 12 defendants’ criminal records for having participated in the Jan. 6 riots.

    In court filings Tuesday, Pirro gave no details explaining her action, saying only that “the United States has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.”

    What kind of justice is that exactly?

  • Timidity strikes again

    The NY Times editorial board has a piece explaining how opponents of Trump should do what Peter Magyar did to expel the monster.

    But they draw the usual tactful [aka terrified] veil over one of the larger items.

    The second lesson may be harder for Democrats — and center-left parties in Europe — to absorb. Mr. Magyar, who identifies as center right, won partly by avoiding the social progressivism that dominates elite left-leaning circles and alienates many voters. He ran as an economic progressive and a cultural moderate if not conservative.

    He used patriotic symbols like the flag and benefited from having a last name that means “Hungarian.” (Imagine a candidate named “Joe American.”) He portrayed himself as a nationalist and suggested he might expel Slovakia’s ambassador over its treatment of Hungarians living there. He campaigned in rural areas that Mr. Orban’s previous challengers had overlooked. Mr. Magyar promised not to send troops or weapons to Ukraine. He declined to attend a Pride march in Budapest, making it harder for Mr. Orban to paint him as captive to L.G.B.T.Q. activists.

    There it is. Forced teaming strikes again. LGB activism is one thing and T activism is quite another. The T makes the LGB radioactive for a lot of people. It’s not helpful for mainstream media to keep pretending that the two are inseparable.

    We certainly do not endorse all of Mr. Magyar’s tactics, and we hope no American politician would feel the need to avoid a Pride march.

    Yes but a Pride march is one thing and a Trans Pride march is quite another.

    Mr. Magyar is one of many contemporary politicians who have won elections with a mix of economic progressivism and social moderation. Other national candidates have done so in the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark and elsewhere. In the United States, as we have documented, congressional Democrats who have won tough races in recent years almost all offered feisty economic messages while rejecting far-left positions on crime, immigration and other subjects

    They’re afraid to say it. “and other subjects” – they mean the T. Don’t say it! Don’t touch the third rail!

  • Not your call bro

    He doesn’t get it.

    No, feminism is not “about equality” you bonehead. It’s about the fact that we don’t have it, and guess what, you’re a shining example of not getting it.

    It’s about the fact that humans have always extrapolated from sexual dimorphism to women are inferior. It’s about the fact that male animals tend to police female animals so as not to be tricked into wasting resources on some other male animal’s offspring. It’s about thousands of years of contempt and suspicion. It’s complicated, and there’s a lot of it. It can’t be summed up with vapid “it’s about equality” from men like you.

  • Lane? What lane?

    JD Vance tells the pope to stick to his own job.

    JD Vance has weighed in on Donald Trump’s feud with Pope Leo, effectively telling the pontiff to stay in his lane after the head of the Catholic church criticized the White House over the Iran war.

    “It would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on in the Catholic church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” the vice-president – a Catholic convert himself – said in an interview on Fox News on Monday night.

    But that wouldn’t be the Vatican, hon. The Catholic church sees itself as the boss of all of us, much the way Trump sees himself as the boss of all of us. You’ve got megalomaniacal people and institutions? They’re gonna megalomania.

    Vance’s entrance into the dispute, and loyal defense of his boss, came after Leo responded on Monday by declaring he did not fear the Trump administration, and would continue to “speak strongly” against war, and for peace.

    Asked what he made of the episode, which has angered many in Trump’s evangelical base, Vance tried to brush aside the controversy.

    “Sometimes we’re going to have disagreements on matters of public policy,” he said.

    But how can that be? Trump is divine and never wrong, and the pope is divine and never wrong. Where is there room for disagreements? If you disagree…one of you is wrong. But neither of you can ever be wrong! You know this!

  • Wrong and right

    The Beeb reports:

    A nurse from south London who was suspended over an alleged breach of a transgender patient’s confidentiality has won a settlement against the NHS trust she works for.

    Jennifer Melle from Croydon, was removed from duty after speaking publicly to the media about receiving a warning for using the wrong pronouns.

    But of course she used the right pronouns. She was removed from duty after talking to the press about getting a warning for not using the wrong pronouns. Medical professionals are now being bullied and punished into pretending patients are the sex they are not. The malpractice suits must be piling up.

    In May 2024, Melle was racially abused by a transgender woman – who was born a biological male – after she addressed them as “Mr”.

    Pitiful compromise. BBC refers to one person as “them” by way of splitting the difference between calling him “her” and calling him…er…him.

    The 41-year-old was given a written warning at the time and continued in her role, and Epsom and St Helier Hospitals NHS Trust also wrote to the patient to warn them that threatening and racist language was not tolerated.

    To warn ___? Who was warned? Oh the patient – so you mean “to warn him” not to warn “them” – aren’t journalists supposed to know the language they are reporting in?

    Anyway, she did win the settlement.

  • Tell no one

    What could possibly go wrong?