Putz says what now?

On Tuesday the Garrick Club will hold a historic vote to decide whether to start accepting women as members. Some prominent figures, however, have already made their feelings clear. Stephen Fry, Sting and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler have co-signed a letter, announcing that they “won’t feel able to continue as Garrick members” if women aren’t admitted. And the BBC’s John Simpson has publicly declared that he too would “find it impossible to stay”.

This is of course supremely noble of them. I have only one question.

After their many years as members, have they really only just discovered that the Garrick excludes women?

I suppose they must have. After all, if they’re so horrified by the exclusion of women that they feel compelled to resign, they must have hitherto been unaware of the men-only rule. Which means that, until now, they must have assumed that many of the Garrick’s existing members were women.

Yawn.

Yes, they’re very late; yes, they should have spoken up long ago; yes others should have spoken up before Fry and Co were even born; yes, women should have had equal rights all along. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. They should have spoken up sooner but they’ve spoken up now which is better than looking down from a great height.

If so, I hope they didn’t entertain any unworthy thoughts about them. Such as: “Why do the female members always insist on wearing trouser suits, rather than a nice frock? And why do so many of them have moustaches? Honestly. One doesn’t wish to seem ungallant. But the women in the Groucho are so much prettier.”

Hur hur hur. Heard the one about “women have no sense of humor”?

Putz is one Michael Deacon. I looked him up.

Michael Deacon is a British author and political satirical journalist, who was previously the parliamentary sketch writer for The Daily Telegraph. After graduating from Sheffield University, Deacon worked for the lads’ magazine Zoo Weekly before joining the Daily Telegraph as a culture writer.

Of course. A lads mag bro. “Satirical.”

A post on the Cambridge University Press blog is so bad it appears to have been written by two children, but in fact the named authors are academics. It honestly strains belief.

First paragraph:

Kathleen Stock identifies as a philosopher of (expert on) sex and gender identity partly on the grounds that she has spent years (let us take her word for it) thinking, researching, and building careful and comprehensive arguments about these issues.

“expert on” is not a synonym for “philosopher of.” The two are not the same thing.

“let us take her word for it” is sheer childish sneering.

She also says, ‘it’s not hate speech to say males can’t be women’. But this claim is not obviously correct. Nor is it immediately obvious that she is qualified to make it.

That’s just ludicrous. Do they interrupt everyone who says something to shout “that’s not obviously correct!!”? It doesn’t need to be “obviously correct” all by itself, on account of how it’s not the sum total of what she has to say. What an absolutely dumb thick dim stupid interruption. And it’s not immediately obvious that these two are qualified to go outside without adult supervision.

I believe Stock fails to take seriously the possibility that misgendering and gender denialism are forms of hate speech partly because she is not an expert on hate speech but also partly because (and this is more understandable) she wants to assert her right to free speech and her vital interest in not being ‘cancelled’. In her case, being cancelled at her former University and at several public speaking events has been (she has said) not merely confronting but professionally damaging and extremely traumatic and scary at times.

One, why “I” when the piece is signed by two authors, Alexander Brown and Adriana Sinclair? It’s “I” throughout but there are two authors. I suppose they identify as “I”?

Two, she wasn’t “cancelled at her former University”: she left, because the students upped the bullying to the point that she didn’t want to be around them anymore.

I have extensively researched the idea of hate speech, in both its ordinary and legal senses, and have concluded that misgendering and gender denialism are importantly similar to hate speech, and on the balance of probabilities are, in certain instances and contexts, forms of hate speech, at least under the ordinary concept.

…

But in what ways are misgendering and gender denialism similar to paradigmatic examples of hate speech? Take three illustrations. First, miscategorising a trans woman as just a man is similar in style to miscategorising a bisexual man as just a closet homosexual.

Sneaky. “Style” is not the issue. You could say that about anything. “X is not Y” is similar in style to “A is not B” – what’s your point? The issue is whether it’s true or not. Also, what’s that “just” doing in there? It’s manipulating, that’s what it’s doing. A trans woman isn’t “just” a man, as if being a man is like being a piece of carpet fluff. In the real world it’s more likely for women to be dismissed as “just a” than for men.

 Second, saying that trans men are simply confused and troubled women is similar as an act of degradation and belittlement to saying that lesbian women are simply confused and troubled straight women. 

No it isn’t. Why? Because the two are different. Same-sex attraction is not an impossibility; being in “the wrong body” is.

Third, denying that trans people are the gender with which they identify can have similarly profound consequences as denying that Igbo Jews are Jews.

??????????

Another illustration of “this ideology makes people stupid.”

That’s what they’re calling it now? “Extreme body modification”? The Beeb:

The ringleader of an extreme body modification website wanted to be “the architect of his own body” after his marriage broke down, a court has heard.

Marius Gustavson and others carried out multiple mutilations on his “eunuch-maker” site.

Excuse me? How do you go about mutilating people on a website?

Through his “eunuch maker” site, Marius Gustavson and other “like-minded individuals” carried out multiple mutilations, “the scale of which is without precedent”, prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC previously told the Old Bailey.

The 46-year-old Norwegian required hospital treatment after having his penis and leg removed during body modification procedures.

Well he would, wouldn’t he.

He appeared for sentence alongside six other men who had all admitted their part in the scheme…The wide-ranging conspiracy also involved the removal and trade of body parts, the court was told.

Trade? Trade? There’s a trade in human body parts?

There’s such a thing as being too creative.

Thought for the day: self-obsession is not progressive.

Someone should tell Professor Sue Fletcher-Watson. Urgently. By the way her pronouns are she/her, she says so herself.

But she says so much more than that, and all of it is About Her.

I’m a bisexual scientist. It’s only fairly recently that I’ve said that out loud, and I thought I’d say a bit about why that is and why I’m writing this blog.

So first, when I was starting out, there just weren’t opportunities like this.  Pride yes, but Pride IN STEM?  Definitely not.  I think I completely disregarded the idea that any aspect of my personal identity might be relevant to my science or my academic career.

You were right! You were right then, you’re wrong now. Go back to the way you thought then.

But there’s another factor too. I’m a cis woman, married to a cis man. I got engaged a month before I submitted my masters dissertation – I know, so young, but I did my undergraduate at St Andrews, notorious for fostering early weddings, so by those standards we were lagging behind. I was married by the middle of my PhD and was pregnant during my first postdoc. Hitting all these heteronormative milestones.

So during that time, my bi identity was completely erased. I am sure I would have gone along with assumption I was straight especially in strongly heterosexual environments like mum and baby groups. I remember that it was really only referenced when I was with people who had known me in my teens and early twenties. And in fact, I even recall the odd old friend saying things like ”remember when you were bi?” as if I had grown out of my sexual orientation.

Why is she telling the world all this? Why does she expect anyone to care?

It is easy for someone like me to glide through life looking straight – but it doesn’t feel like gliding. I’ve felt guilty for having it easy and sad for the disconnect between my identity and how I’m perceived. And I guess that’s exactly why its important to write this, even if I worry I haven’t earned a place on this blog.  Because ultimately, bi and pansexual folk belong in STEM, as they do anywhere else. It’s important that we show our faces once in a while.

No, it isn’t. It really isn’t.

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Give it all away.

Hormones do not negate the advantage conferred by longer levers, the reason that men can throw things further than women can.

Hormones do not negate the larger lungs and hearts that confer an advantage in any competition that requires stamina, eg distance running, field sports such as the various footballs and hockey.

Hormones do not negate the effect of muscle twitch, which along with longer levers, is why men punch so much harder than women.

And finally, hormones do not negate the sense of entitlement that appears in so many mid level males who will do anything to win, even if it means wearing lippie and a bra.

Oh honestly. Why.

Why do we have to balance???

Why, especially, do we have to “balance” when the balancing harms women and doesn’t harm men? Why does anyone even call it “balancing” when the losers are women and the gainers are men? Especially when the person calling it that is a woman? Especially when the woman is Alice Dreger?

Why why why why why the FUCK do we have to keep giving away women’s rights and calling it “balance”?

Stop. Stop stop stop.

Passive-aggressive bullshit alert:

“Nervous to share this” – what are we meant to conclude from that? That women who know men are not women are mean angry bullies and will say HARSH WORDS to her – so unlike men who never ever say anything harsh to women at all no matter what.

As for her question – the same as in “a female-only ward”? Of course not. Why would they? Does she think male-only wards don’t get lifesaving care? Does she think female-only wards rescue women from death while male-only wards just watch patients die while laughing a cruel laugh?

But of course she’s now doing more passive-aggression by way of thanking people for shielding her from the lethal words of the witchy monster feminist Clytemnestras.

Ah yes, those who have “checked in” to make sure she’s not dedd from all the witchy abuse and disagreement.

Erm…

Nicola Sturgeon warns of ‘push back’ on women’s rights and misogyny ‘on the rise again’

A significant chunk of the rise caused by…uh…Nicola Sturgeon.

Ms Sturgeon has previously come under fire from women’s rights campaigners for her support for trans rights, such as allowing trans women to access women-only spaces.

That is, she’s been sharply criticized by women’s rights campaigners for insisting that men who pretend to be women can intrude on women’s spaces and everything else that belongs to women. That’s not a “right”; it’s the nullification of a right.

Discussing the relevance of the new book, Ms Sturgeon: “Having gone through many years of what felt like progress, there seems to be push back again, women’s rights are under threat, reproductive rights are under threat, there’s a lot of abuse and toxicity towards women on social media, and misogyny seems to be on the rise again.”

It does indeed, and she helped.

Ms Sturgeon added: “There are so many women that have been mischaracterised and distorted in history. I think it’s important to try to redress that and set the record straight.

“But there are probably even more women who have never been written about at all. There are not enough stories about women down the ages. The more we have the better.”

Indeed. The more stories we have about real women, women who really were or are women, the better.

The stupidity of “India” Willoughby takes the breath away.

Before offering your opinion on the latest move by the government to improve the ‘NHS Charter’ – ask yourself this.

How would you feel if a woman you know, perhaps vulnerable, was forced into being treated in an all-male ward at a hospital. How would that woman feel?

Apparently he thinks men are the only people who know how to read. We who are reading this thing he has written must be men, so the way to get us to think about the issue is to present a hypothetical about a woman we know. It doesn’t occur to him to ask us how we would feel, because it doesn’t occur to him that any of us could be women. That’s quite a blind spot.

Terrified, most likely. And that is exactly how I would feel in the same situation. My instincts are the same as most women – I just happen to be trans. 

That is, he just happens to be a man who likes to pretend to be a woman.

So, he underlines the fact that women fear being forced into all-male wards as an argument that he should be allowed on female wards.

You couldn’t make it up.

“Women fear being helpless in the presence of men, and that’s why I, a man, should be allowed to join helpless women in their women-only wards.”

And he put this in writing for a news outlet. It’s jaw-dropping.

Also – on the one hand it’s the male wards that are the horror and insult, but on the other hand no he damn well will not accept a single room because [????????]. He starts with “Oh imagine the fear for some random woman you know” and continues with “How dare you offer me a single rooom??!!”

Let me be clear. I would never, ever go on an all-male hospital ward. I’d rather die at the scene of my injury or illness than be placed on one. 

Ministers say that trans patients could be treated in separate rooms – but that is just humiliating segregation, hinged on the idea that my presence around cis women is offensive or dangerous. 

He’d rather die than go on an all-male ward! A separate room is humiliating! The only solution is to let him terrorize and humiliate women! Obviously!

Again, I need them to know that when I say I’d rather die than go on an male ward, I’m serious. 

He seems to think that’s some kind of conversation stopper. He seems to think we would miss him.

Update: I started in medias res here, thinking I’d already shared the origin story, but I must have been to busy swearing about it on twidder. It was this:

/update

It’s even worse than that. The actor who plays Viola, Georgia Frost, is one of the trio who went to JK Rowling’s house and then publicized their visit with the (obviously intended) result that her address was plastered all over social media. A very nasty piece of work. It’s all the more annoying because Viola is a marvelous character and Georgia Frost is clearly not. She doesn’t deserve to play that part.

 For this is the very same Georgia Frost who this week appeared in a picture taken outside the Edinburgh home of Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

Frost was standing next to fellow ‘trans activists’, ‘drag king’ Richard Energy (real name Janina Smith) and drag queen Holly Stars. 

The picture, which clearly showed Rowling’s address, was posted on social media.

Its effect? To stir up online abuse of the author, who has found herself accused of transphobia ever since she mocked an online article in June 2020 which used the words ‘people who menstruate’ instead of ‘women’.

The trio, whom Rowling has accused of trying to ‘intimidate’ her for ‘speaking up for women’s sex-based rights’, were carrying placards with the messages ‘Trans Liberation Now’, ‘Trans Rights Are Human Rights’, and ‘Don’t Be A Cissy’…

The Mail goes on to detail the abuse that rained down on Rowling as a result of this malicious act.

Much of the onslaught is unprintable. Rowling contacted the police, who said in a statement that they were aware of the incident last Friday and ‘inquiries were continuing’.

Frost, Smith and Stars said they stood by their actions but revealed on social media the following day that ‘while we stand by the photo, since posting it we have received an overwhelming amount of serious and transphobic messages so we have decided to take down the photo’.

They received nasty messages. They don’t say a word about the nasty messages they incited people to send to JKR.

Malicious brat Georgia Frost does not deserve to play Viola.

Now look here, this won’t do at all, threatening people we don’t like with death by violence.

Oh rilly? say a great many people who remember when Kirsten Oswald MP beamed joyously in front of placards threatening death by violence.

Concerned. Deeply concerned.

False narratives. Shall we talk about false narratives?

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people can change sex.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people who feel discomfort or misery about being the sex they are should without question immediately start the process of pretending to be the other sex by taking cross-sex hormones and having drastic surgeries.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people who warn against taking cross-sex hormones and having drastic surgeries are evil sadistic right-wing monsters who want to harm people who think they’re the opposite sex.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that tampering with puberty is an excellent and healthy thing to do.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that all this tampering is “health care” as opposed to reckless quackery at best and a horrifying medical scandal at worst.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that the “Trans Safety Network” is promoting safety with this alarmist catastrophizing bullshit.

Vagueness instead of argument example #eleventy billion.

“support trans people”?

What’s that supposed to mean?

Gender skeptics don’t drop trans people or push them over or throw them off cliffs. We don’t not support trans people. What we do is decline to pretend to believe they are the sex they are not. That’s not some kind of opposite of “support.” It’s a refusal to buy into fantasy, a refusal to lie, a refusal to pretend not to know what we know.

None of this is about “support.” Trans people aren’t babies, nor are they floppy people with no bones who need to be propped up by benevolent bystanders. They’re just people who have bought into a delusion, and we’re just people who say the delusion is a delusion.

Pink News is cross because the profundities of a “non-binary person” were greeted with mirth rather than awed respect.

Dee Whitnell, who founded the #TransKidsDeserveToGrowUp solidarity campaign, released a YouTube video earlier this month in which they discussed how transgender people might find themselves “changing or exploring [their] expression or gender identity depending on the season”.

In the video, Whitnell talked about their own experiences with expression and how it changes throughout the year, as well as the concept of “genderseason” and how other trans folks might explore their expression.

In other words Dee Whitnell has noticed that people’s feelings are influenced by external factors like the weather, how early or late the sun sets, how they feel about wearing sweaters or t shirts, and similar. You don’t say.

“This isn’t saying that all trans individuals experience this because that’s just not the case, or that seasons determine your gender identity or expression. However, it can influence it,” Whitnell said.

“I feel more masculine in the summertime. I wear more masculine clothing, I wear shorts. I normally have my hair up more and I just feel more ‘boy’, whereas in the winter – for some reason – girl mode comes out and I’m loving skirts and dresses and having my hair down.”

Is that fascinating or what?

Pink News goes on to say that Fox News (do the two deserve each other?) reported on these deepities in order to mock them.

“To those people who see it and think it’s somebody literally identifying as the season, it’s not. It’s just a way for trans people to explore their expression and identity, and [to] be able to put words to it.”

And to be able to go on and on and on and on about it, so that they can talk about themselves until all the rivers run dry. Who doesn’t want that??

Listen to this article

3:03 / 5:18

“It’s not only this pushback from cisgender individuals who don’t believe trans and non binary people exist but also trans people who don’t believe non binary people exist.” 

Uh oh. Trouble in paradise. It’s not just those fiends the cis who don’t understand, it’s also trans people. It’s a whole new war on a whole new battlefield. Trans people are the new terfs and nonbinary people are the new trans people. Or is it the other way around? Or do they switch depending on what season it is?

Here’s Dee:

Putting aside the whole trans and/or non-binary thing for a second, I would have trouble chatting with Dee for a completely different reason, which is that I can’t see past the pieces of metal driven into uncomfortable places on the face. Studs and things in the nostrils and lips and upper edges of the ears distract the bejeezus out of me. I can just barely tolerate the metal zippers on jeans; all other metal is banned from the premises.

The self love branding is good though. Yes kid you got that bit right.

La Leche League doing a quiet brag about how inclooosive its policies are.

Replies are closed. Quote-tweets are scathing.

Breastfeeding should be inclooosive.

Six trustees of a nationwide breastfeeding support group have been suspended for demanding that biological men be excluded from their services.

The British wing of La Leche League (LLL), which gives mother-to-mother support to those finding it hard to breastfeed, has been told by its US-based board of directors that the service cannot be single sex and they must support “male lactation”.

Also they can’t say “mother” and they can’t question gender ideology.

It’s perfectly simple, and easy if you’ll just shut up and pay attention. The baby learns to identify as getting milk out of Daddy’s nipples. Problem solved. Can we move on now?

One leader from LLLGB, the name for the charity’s British wing, said: “Many breastfeeding supporters like me feel utterly disheartened by the way our charity has become obsessed and sidetracked by sex and gender issues. In the most recent diktat, we were informed that our charity is not and ‘cannot become a single-sex’ charity.”

Indeed not! It must be a reality-denying charity instead. So much more interesting, don’t you think?

Late in 2023, a group of trustees questioned the US-led board, LLLI about its shift to gender ideology, and asked to remain single-sex.

In February 2024, LLLI told them: “We focus on providing breastfeeding support and understand the importance of making our spaces welcoming to all those who want to breastfeed or give their babies human milk. We don’t argue with parents or other leaders about how they identify; we accept them with respect, just as they say they are, and do not refer to them with words that conflict with their identity.”

“We are proudly, systematically stupid and credulous, and we bully any women who refuse to be stupid and credulous about men who want to ‘breastfeed’ infants.”

They suspended the six trustees, saying; “The continued promotion of LLL as an organisation that excludes people is damaging LLL’s credibility.” However, LLLI does allow groups in countries which do not accept trans rights, including many Muslim ones, to exclude biological men.

Oh does it. “Lesser breeds without the law” is it? How very colonialist of them.

Oh how about that, the BBC does know who is a woman when it comes time to pay the salaries.

Four senior female news presenters have accused the BBC of “grinding down” women on pay and failing to tackle persistent pay discrimination at a tribunal court hearing in London.

The presenter Martine Croxall – alongside Karin Giannone, Kasia Madera and Annita McVeigh – accused the broadcaster of conducting a “sham recruitment exercise” after they lost their jobs when the BBC merged its domestic and global news channels last year.

In witness statements the women, aged between 48 and 54, said they had been discriminated against because of their sex, age and union membership.

Plus their failure to identify as trans. Maybe it’s not too late?

In documents the women said that Jess Brammar, the BBC’s then editor of news channels, “privately assured four other chief presenters – two men and two younger women – their jobs were safe, but admitted she couldn’t say much ‘for legal reasons’”.

In witness statements the women said that while some of them were demoted, others faced a pay cut. They added: “No men and no women younger than us suffered these detriments.”

Well it’s only fair. If you’ve got the bad taste to be female the least you can do is be young.

Whoops.

The Guardian attempts to report on a massive attack on women’s rights without ever mentioning women. Look, look, women treated as not deserving of rights over their own bodies, except we take it back about the “women” part, we don’t know what that word means, we never heard of any people called that, we don’t know whose rights these are that we’re writing this piece about.

These fucking idiots.

How can you report on a massive war on women’s autonomy while adamantly refusing to mention women?

You can’t. You fucking can’t. By erasing women from this news article you join Team Delete Women’s Rights.

The Guardian, or reporter Carter Sherman, or both, literally don’t use the word once. It appears once, but that’s in the name of a clinic the story cites. They don’t voluntarily use it to specify the people whose rights are being destroyed one single time.

Euphemisms for “women” bolded:

A six-week abortion ban went into effect on Wednesday in Florida, cutting off access to the procedure before many people know they are pregnant and leveling the south-eastern United States’ last stronghold for abortion rights.

The ban went into force weeks after Florida’s state supreme court issued a decision clearing the way for it to take effect. Strict bans now blanket all of the American deep south, increasing the strain on the country’s remaining clinics. The closest clinic for most Floridians past six weeks of pregnancy is now several states away in North Carolina, which outlaws abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Last year, Florida abortion providers performed more than 84,000 abortions, state data found – including more than 9,000 for out-of-state patients…

On Tuesday, the last day before the ban took effect, an abortion clinic in Gainesville, Florida, was trying to squeeze in as many patients as possible. The clinic had added hours throughout April, but the rush was compounded by the fact that, in addition to the impending ban, Florida requires people to have an in-person consultation at an abortion clinic at least 24 hours before they get the procedure or take abortion pills. A patient could have arrived on Tuesday exactly six weeks into her pregnancy, but have been too late to get an abortion given that the ban came into effect on Wednesday.

Oops how did that “her” get in there? You wanna watch that, boys.

On Tuesday, the female team of staffers at the clinic, Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center, had to explain these complex regulations to bewildered callers and patients over and over again, as the phones rang off the hook for hours.

I wonder why the team of staffers at the clinic is female. I wonder if they all avoid the word “women” as carefully as the Guardian does.

Before the six-week ban, Kristin, director of Bread and Roses, said that the clinic rarely saw people before they hit six weeks of pregnancy.

“Most people don’t know they’re pregnant until at least six weeks,” Kristin said in an interview the week before the ban took effect.

I wonder if she really did say “Most people.”

“We try to get people in as quickly as possible, but sometimes we’re one or three weeks booked out, so it’s rare that someone is in before they’re six weeks.”

Mustn’t say “before she’s six weeks.” That would be injurious to the men who want to shove women aside.

Compared with 2020, there were nearly 9,000 more abortions in Florida in 2023. Out-of-state abortion patients accounted for almost 60% of that increase, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Bread and Roses used to see 20 to 30 patients daily, but in April, the clinic started to see closer to 40 patients a day, Kristin said. The clinic tends to see somewhere between three to 10 out-of-state patients every day, she said.

…

“This is going to be awful, and it’s going to impact the whole south-east,” said Dr K, a family medicine doctor who performs abortions at Bread and Roses. “I just have no idea what these patients are going to do and where they’re gonna go.”

Well at least they’ll have the comfort of knowing that the Guardian refuses to call them women.

But it’s such a tiny tiny minority of people, do we really need to spend so much time on a tiny tiny tiny minority of people?