Category: Notes and Comment Blog

I can’t even deal with this anymore. It’s too stupid.

The BBC asks from the pulpit:

What does trans mean and why is there a debate about transgender people’s rights?

Gosh, BBC, what fascinating questions. Please explain it all to us.

The UK Supreme Court ruled in April 2025 that the definition of a woman in equalities law is based on biological sex.

No, really?! Who knew? We thought it meant armadillo. No, ice cream soda. No, Lithuania. One of those, or something like them. Nothing to do with bibliological sekks.

What is biological sex?

The Supreme Court judgment used a simple definition of biological sex: it is the sex recorded at birth. The court said this is widely used in law.

Did it really? That definition isn’t simple, it’s incomplete. What if the people doing the recording happen to be drunk at the time? Bio sex isn’t what it is because it’s what’s recorded, it’s because it is. If a baby is born in the woods and the birth is not recorded, does it have no sex? Is that baby neither male nor female? Is it a little miracle plant baby?

Is the BBC sneaking in a strawman here? “They say sex is what’s written down when baby pops out but it’s so much more complicated than that!!!”

The Beeb tries deepities.

Gender identity is a term used by some people to describe their sense of who they are.

Groovy man. Some people’s sense of who they are is that they’re much smarter, sexier, funnier, stronger, attractiver, importanter than most people. So what? Some people think too well of themselves. Can we move on now?

A transgender person describes their gender identity as different from their sex at birth.

And when they do that, you know they are tediously self-admiring and a waste of time. Find your jacket, check your wallet, and leave.

According to the NHS, gender dysphoria describes the “unease or dissatisfaction” some people feel about the mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity. It says this can be “so intense it can lead to depression and anxiety and have a harmful impact on daily life”.

Especially when way too many people spend way too much time and energy and what purports to be intelligence thinking about this mismatch and what it all means. Another option is to slap yourself upside the head for being a bedwetter and move on with your life.

Some people do not accept the concept of gender identity and argue only biological sex can determine whether someone is a man or a woman.

Those are two different things though. You can perfectly well accept the concept of genner idenniny and still know that biological sex means man or woman.

It’s pitiful that the Beeb is willing to sign its name to this kind of claptrap.

The Independent breathlessly reports:

Trans people in the UK face a rising tide of discriminatory behaviour and prejudice which is creating a “hostile environment” impeding access to healthcare and damaging mental health, according to a major new report.

But who measures the rise of this tide?

Describing the situation as a “crisis”, in which trans people in the UK are “being catastrophically failed”, Trans Actual UK, an advocacy organisation focused on healthcare and legal protections for trans people, said: “Hundreds of thousands of trans people have seen the degradation of their human rights protections” over the past decade, and are now calling for government action.

Really? What human rights protections are we talking about?

Trans Actual surveyed over 4,000 trans people in Britain aged 18 to 81, and found rising levels of transphobia are having a profound effect on the wellbeing and daily lives of trans people.

Oh, that’s who measured the rising tide – an organization that believes in trans ideology. I suppose its definition of “transphobia” includes non-belief in trans ideology? Is it all just a tad circular slightly a bit?

The survey, which is the largest in-depth survey of the UK trans population to date, revealed that almost every respondent – 99 per cent of the 4,008 people surveyed – said that hostile or negative media coverage had affected their mental health or intensified their gender dysphoria.

Well duh. Of course they did. That’s their jam.

A key issue raised by respondents was the difficulty in acquiring ID that reflects their gender.

A Gender Recognition Certificate allows people’s affirmed or “acquired” gender to be legally recognised in the UK, and means trans people can update birth or adoption certificates.

But only 13 per cent of respondents said they were able to update their ID without any difficulty. The vast majority reported being unable to secure gender‑congruent documents, citing barriers such as high costs, complex bureaucracy and the absence of gender‑neutral options.

These barriers have far‑reaching consequences. Without accurate ID, respondents described heightened risks to their privacy, greater difficulty securing employment, and increased exposure to harassment and discrimination in everyday situations.

But it’s not accurate ID they’re trying to get, it’s the other kind. They want special fancy counter-factual ID, which kind of subverts the whole point of having ID at all.

Oops. Plot twist.

Opinion: This International Women’s Day, let’s uplift the rights and dignity of all women

Sad, isn’t it, that we know that “all” doesn’t mean “all” but “including some who are not women.”

It starts well enough.

International Women’s Day is this Sunday. Every lesson I’ve learned, every battle I’ve been part of, has taught me one truth: when working class women organise, nothing can stop us.

Women make up the majority of the public service workforce, yet you bear the brunt of unsafe staffing levels, low pay, discrimination, and impossible workloads.

But it doesn’t continue well enough.

There are signs of things getting better – the Employment Rights Act is an important step on the road to pay parity – but the steps are far too small and far too slow.

For a start the government should increase access to paid parental leave so mums and dads can share care more fairly.

And as we demand better, we have to demand better for all women. I want to be absolutely clear: I stand proudly and unequivocally in defence of LGBT+ rights. I am proud to be a trans ally. Equality is not negotiable. And discrimination in any form has no place in our workplaces.

Nobody should have their dignity taken away because of the sex they were deemed to be at birth. Too many countries have moved forward on gender recognition while the UK has slipped backwards. That must change — and UNISON will be at the front leading to make that change happen.

So this International Women’s Day, let’s stand together as proud UNISON women for a transformation of society that uplifts the rights and dignity of all women.

Including the ones who are men.

I have a good idea, let’s try to climb Chomolungma wearing bathing suits and flip flops. My inspiration is Fox tv personality Pete Hegseth.

Kash Patel baselessly fired an elite team of agents specializing in foreign threats from the Middle East just days before Donald Trump launched an illegal military campaign in Iran.

Patel terminated a dozen employees and staff after accusing them—without providing evidence—of improperly investigating Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence. The FBI director specifically gutted a group known as CI-12, a counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran and its proxies. Days later, Trump toppled Iran’s regime and sparked a sprawling regional conflict in the Middle East.

So, flawless timing. Who needs intel to fight a war? Gut instinct and bad temper are all that’s necessary. Besides, all those classified documents were his personal property, because he says so.

It’s not surprising that the members of CI-12 were involved in investigating Trump for holding onto classified documents after he left the White House in 2020. CI-12 is charged with media leaks and the mishandling of classified documents, and the documents found at Trump’s estate reportedly included U.S. military plans for Iran.

These latest firings have raised concerns that the U.S. will be unable to respond to threats as the United States and Israel engage in major combat operations in Iran. Nearly half of all working FBI agents have been reassigned to immigration enforcement, including those working in counterterrorism.

Trump and his minions can respond to threats better than any humans have ever responded to threats before, through the sheer power of confidence and a background in rage tv.

Hegseth says it’s stupid to have rules of engagement. Yeah, man! Let’s bring back war crimes! We miss those! Remember My Lai? We laughed ourselves sick! Pass the doobie!

Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal on Monday of what he called “stupid rules of engagement” in the illegal war against Iran amounted to an invitation for American and allied forces to commit war crimes, human rights organizations and other critics warned.

Hegseth’s remarks came during a press conference alongside the top US general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine. The Pentagon chief boasted that the US is “unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history,” “all on our terms with maximum authorities,” unbound by “stupid rules of engagement,” and undeterred by “what so-called international institutions say”.

Right. Let’s have 2, 4, eleventy seven Babi Yars.

Hegseth, an accused war criminal who successfully lobbied President Donald Trump to pardon alleged or convicted war criminals during his first White House term, also praised Israel for its willingness to dispense with rules of engagement, “unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.”

Seriously, isn’t it just so wimpy and boring and politically correct to refrain from massacring civilians in their thousands? Get in there and show them who’s boss! Donald Trump, that’s who!

Hegseth has previously derided limitations on US troops’ conduct overseas as “stupid.” During remarks to hundreds of generals last year, the Pentagon chief declared that we “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country.”

“We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy,” Hegseth said at the time. “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

Clear enough yet? He wants mass murder. He can’t wait to slaughter civilians.

The funniest thing about this is that it’s not parody.

About Robin

Robin Gow is a poet, educator, and witch. It grew up in rural Pennsylvania and lives with his queer family on unceded Lenape land also called Allentown Pennsylvania.

Quite the medley of deliberate annoyingness in 28 words. There’s the “it”, the instant switch to “his”, the “queer family”, and the obligatory pious smug pretense of giving a shit about forcibly removed native people.

Awarded the Jerry Cain and Scott James Creative Writing Fellow, Gow earned faer MFA in Creative Writing from Adelphi University where fae also taught as a professor of English.

What is even the point? Other than extra added attention?

Fae is a managing editor The Nasiona. He also formerly worked as the assistant editor at large at Doubleback Books, served for four years as the production editor of the Lantern literary magazine, and three years as the Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. It has also worked to help produce several zines and taught creative writing workshops in a variety of community spaces, including online forms.

He is an autistic bisexual genderqueer person passionate about queer and disability justice.

Are we sure? I think fae/it/she is much more passionate about faeself than about any kind of justice. People who really are passionate about justice don’t waste time and alienate potential comrades by talking a lot of pretentious nonsense about self self self.

What is it with kids today that they can’t manage to see how revoltingly self-obsessed they either are or present themselves as being? It’s not as if it’s subtle.

Over the last five years, Robin has trained over 3,000 people on LGBTQIA2+ Inclusion and Equity and Neurodiversity/Disability Justice topics. 

Over 3k people now fluent in bullshit; awesome.

And in conclusion:

Robin prefers the pronouns it, fae, and he but all pronouns except for “she/her” are alright.

She/her being the only correct one.

Never mind.

A councillor who was investigated over a possible breach of Cornwall Council’s code of conduct will face no further action. The council received ten complaints concerning comments Cllr Dulcie Tudor made about trans people.

…

The complaints largely stemmed from a post Cllr Tudor made on social media which said: “Men claiming trans identity are not more vulnerable than women and girls. This is what they claim but it’s simply not true. A woman dies at the hands of a man every three days in this jurisdiction. Nine men who pretend to be women have been murdered in the last ten years in the UK.”

A woman every three days in that one jurisdiction, compared to nine men in the entire UK in ten years. That’s quite the gap.

It’s all in the family.

Melania Trump presided over a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday focusing on children in conflict, one of her signature issues, and acknowledged she was doing so in “challenging times” as the United States has joined Israel in attacking Iran.

Did she acknowledge she was doing so with no apparent qualification or reason?

Melania Trump was the first spouse of a world leader to take the president’s seat at the United Nations’ most powerful body, which is charged with ensuring global peace and security, according to the U.N.

Not the good kind of first. We don’t need spouses of “world leaders” to horn in on Security Council meetings. That’s called nepotism and it’s not good thing.

While the first lady spoke of a need to protect children and their access to education and technology in conflict, her husband’s administration has cut funding for a number of U.N. agencies and other international organizations that address these issues.

Well duh. She blathers pretty sentiments while he smashes everything he can reach. That’s called being a Power Couple.

Among them is the U.N. Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict, which provides detailed reporting on the impact that conflicts have on children around the world. This information can help trigger action to prevent rape and violence against women and children. President Trump withdrew U.S. support in January.

The U.S. has also dramatically cut funding for the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, and has withdrawn from the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.

But in compensation they get Pretty Lady! It’s all good!

Don’t be shy – just erase women entirely.

Up to my eyes in carer stress, I look online for the services offered by Brighton Carers Hub, only to find that my sex is relegated to something I might prefer to 'self-describe'. This is not 'trans inclusion', this is demoting the sex of the majority of carers to a footnote. pic.twitter.com/byvEmOKdSb

— Helen Saxby (@helensaxby11) March 3, 2026

The only option for women is the one that includes men, so there is no option for women.

And what’s the “Trans” for? What’s the point of checking that? What even is the question? Trans is neither a sex nor a gender, it’s a modifier.

Back to Ontology 101.

Jonathan Larsen tells us:

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.

From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

Great. That means there are way too many military commanders who think this is Armageddon and that’s a good thing. That means the more lethal violence in more places, the better.

MRFF President and Founder Mikey Weinstein, a veteran of the Air Force and the Reagan White House, told me that since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran early Saturday morning, the MRFF has been “inundated” with similar complaints:

These calls have one damn thing in freaking common; our MRFF clients [service members who seek MRFF aid] report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times” as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.

Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.

Yeah that’s just great.

Meanwhile, in the corridors of power…

Trump: "See that nice drape? When that comes down right now you see a very very deep hole, but in about a year and half you're gonna see a very very beautiful building. And there's your entrance to it right there. In fact, it looks so nice I think I'll leave it and save money on… pic.twitter.com/jZXTQ02lib

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 2, 2026

The occasion was actually a medal of honor ceremony.

Pink News is ecstatic that women can never have anything just for women now.

Women’s Institute vows to ‘find ways to keep welcoming trans women’ after ban 

WI vows to keep forcing men on women who want to do something without men.

On 16 April 2025, the Supreme Court judgement in the case of For Women Scotland vs Scottish Ministers decided the protected characteristic of “sex” for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act means “biological sex” only and does not include trans people.

In the wake of the ruling, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – the UK’s human rights watchdog – drafted interim updates to its Code of Practice on single-sex spaces. 

How dare they? How dare they try to keep men out of groups for women?

Trump to Iran: Ok we fixed that for you, now get on with it, kthxbye.

The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei marked the latest decapitation or defeat of a bitter U.S. adversary overseas, following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq two years later, the breaking of Moammar Gaddafi’s grip on power in Libya in 2011 and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro just two months ago.

The United States has often followed such triumphant moments with attempts to fill the void — deploying thousands of troops, spending billions of dollars, seeking to nurture fledging democracies or, in the case of Venezuela, leaving the decapitated government in power. But those efforts have largely brought disappointment, yielding states that remain riven by conflict, have revolted against the U.S. role or hardly rank as robust U.S. allies.

Trump appears to be pursuing a starkly different approach with Iran, signaling that he has no intention to use Americantroops to steer the path of a country whose fate has been buffeted by U.S. power since Iran’s last democratically elected government was ousted in 1953 in a CIA-backed coup.

We broke it but we’ll be god damned if we’re going to fix it.

On Sunday, in phone calls with multiple journalists at several news outlets, Trump seemed to revel in the incapacitation of the Iranian regime, saying that the strikes had wiped out potential successors to the supreme leader.

After assessing Trump’s comments and the impact of U.S.-Israeli attacks, a German security official said the worry in Berlin and other European capitals is that “the plan is to have no plan.”

Well, you see, having a plan would require some actual brain power, and Trump doesn’t have that, so…

That’s another thing. Even if you do think it’s worth burbling about idennniny all the time, it doesn’t follow that idennniny=ONE thing about you. The odds are good that there’s more than one thing about you.

We’ve reposted that earlier – he is very clear on the harms and she asks about hurting trans people who think their very identity is being questioned. It’s poor.

— SEEN in Journalism (@JournalismSEEN) February 28, 2026

Cheer up peeps! There’s more than one thing about you! Life is rich; people are complex; the road stretches ahead of you; seize the day!

Helen Webberley is economical with her words. She omits a lot of words that would make her meaning clearer.

A mother wrote to me recently, heartbroken. Her ten-year-old transgender daughter had been told, just two weeks before departure, that she could not go on her school trip. The reason given was that she could not share a room with her friends because of new legislation. Her daughter was inconsolable. And her mother wanted to know: how can this happen? What can I do?

We can guess at her meaning because we know something about her, not because she makes it clear. She makes it the opposite of clear. That’s not random. What does she mean “she could not share a room with her friends because of new legislation”? Who are these friends? What is the new legislation that says this boy can’t share a room with his friends?

Because we know something about her we can guess that she means the “daughter” in question is a son and the “friends” in question are girls. The fact that Webberley takes care not to spell that out is telling. What does it tell? That she is a manipulative liar with zero concern for the rights and/or safety of young girls.

Schools across the country are making decisions like this one right now, often in good faith but on the basis of a misunderstanding of what the law actually requires. So let me set out what the law says, what the current guidance actually is, and what any parent in this situation can do.

The Equality Act 2010 is the piece of legislation that governs this. Under Section 7 of that Act, gender reassignment is a protected characteristic. That means a child who is transgender, or who is in the process of transitioning, is protected by law from discrimination at school.

Section 85 of the same Act makes it explicitly unlawful for schools to discriminate against a pupil on the basis of a protected characteristic in the way they provide education and related activities. School trips are school activities. Excluding a child from a trip, or placing conditions on their participation that prevent them from going, on the basis of their transgender identity, is direct discrimination. It is unlawful. That has not changed.

But excluding a boy from the girls’ sleeping room is not “on the basis of their transgender identity” – it’s on the basis of their being a boy. The rule is not “transgender children cannot sleep in the girls’ sleeping room” – the rule is “boys cannot sleep in the girls’ sleeping room.” Claiming a transgender idennniny is not an all-day pass to intrude on female people.

Hayley Dixon in the Telegraph on the throttling of an academic who doesn’t subscribe to magic gender beliefs:

The health official behind the pause of the NHS’s puberty blocker trial is blocked from any further involvement amid accusations of bias.

Prof Jacob George is said to have raised concerns over the trial after taking up his role as the chief medical and scientific officer at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) earlier this year. The regulator’s subsequent intervention in the debate led to the Department of Health announcing that the experiment would be paused.

But Prof George is now removed from any further involvement after social media posts emerged of him praising JK Rowling and criticising people for the denial of “basic biological fact”.

How can it be bias to know that people can’t change sex? It’s just a fact that people can’t change sex. A dull obvious everyday fact that doesn’t become a fiction no matter how many interesting people wear interesting clothes while telling us all about themselves.

Again. Same problem. How is awareness of very basic facts “bias”? Surely the denial of very basic facts is a better candidate for accusations of bias.

A health official who reportedly intervened to pause a clinical trial on the use of puberty blockers has been removed from any further involvement due to accusations of bias.

Prof Jacob George, who was appointed chief medical and scientific officer at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in January, raised concerns that led to the Pathways trial being put on hold by the government, according to the Sunday Times.

But the regulator announced on Saturday that George would recuse himself from involvement in the trial after gender-critical social media posts made last year emerged.

But what is meant by “gender-critical” here is knowing that men are not women and vice versa. You might as well call it bias to know that humans have hands and feet.

The MHRA said that although George’s posts were made before his appointment, he had been removed from involvement in the trial as a precaution.

Yes, it’s very precaution to remove the guy who doesn’t claim that men are women if they say they are.

Sonia Sodha writes

This row has emerged from one of the most contested issues in medical science today: whether gender-questioning children should be put on an irreversible medical pathway, taking drugs to block puberty and ultimately progressing onto cross-sex hormones. I’ve written about the background to this here: an independent review undertaken by the paediatrician Hilary Cass called an overdue halt to this practice in the NHS. But her review controversially left the door open for a clinical trial of puberty-blocking drugs.

That trial is controversial because many experts (in my view, rightly) think it is impossible to to run an ethical trial of puberty blockers on gender-questioning children. I highly recommend this post from Genspect, and this open letter to health secretary Wes Streeting signed by hundreds of clinicians that explain why. It’s not possible to do them justice in a short summary. But for me the fundamental ethical problem at the heart of a puberty blocker trial is as follows.

The evidence we have is that for most children, gender dysphoria resolves naturally through puberty. Cass in her review is rightly concerned that subjecting these children to medical intervention that blocks their natural development will bake in mental distress that would otherwise be temporary.

That’s two radically opposed viewpoints there. One is that gender dysphoria is permanent and agonizing, and the other is that it’s a childhood blip that fades out as childhood recedes into the distance.

What trans ideology has done here is make the childhood blip [assuming it is a blip] into a tragic yet deeply meaningful permanent condition that can be made joyous via radical permanent changes to the body.

That’s quite the gamble right there.

It’s sort of as if there were a passionate dedicated vituperative movement to perform all sorts of surgeries and medical interventions on children to “affirm” them in whatever fantasy has most besotted them. Transform them into Spock or Elsa or Woody when they’re 10, what could possibly go wrong?

So much. So much could go wrong.

SEEN in journalism points out, and underlines, that what sex people are is not a belief or opinion.

For those catching up on the drama, here’s an overview of what happened last night and this morning (February 27 – 28) with Cathy Newman, Economist Health Editor Natasha Loder, and Professor Jacob George.

At tea-time yesterday Cathy Newman announced on X that she’d seen social media posts from Professor Jacob George, the recently appointed Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of the medical regulator the MHRA, and that after they were brought to the attention of the MHRA he was recused (according to Loder, by the MHRA, indicating it wasn’t voluntary) of oversight of the Pathways puberty blocker research.

…

Last night campaigners and journalists, plus anyone with the use of the search function on social media, immediately began to investigate, or ‘unearth’ the social media history and public declarations of other senior officials involved in specialist health oversight including ‘gender’ protocols.

There’s Jonathan Fennelly-Barnwell, James Palmer, Matt Westmore, and the entire Health Research Authority, for example. The story won’t end here, more able reporters are pursuing it, and as soon as any new Pathways protocol is released, the controversy will flare again. Is it really a disqualifier to public health office to understand that sex is real, it’s not mutable, that men and women are different, and that the difference matters? Over at Civil Service SEEN they’ve established that it isn’t. These are not only facts, they are lawfully held beliefs. If it is a disqualifier, why aren’t equally strong affirmative beliefs also a problem? The MHRA will regret its decision and probably already is.

…

The two correspondents concerned elevated this expose above the many questions, uncertainties and safeguarding fears around the Pathways puberty blocker experiment on children, who were originally to be recruited as young as eight. For Natasha Loder to describe these concerns as a ‘Pathways Pile-on’ (in an aside, no less) is a serious abrogation of her responsibility as an health editor. As well as minimising the multiple strands of that story, both missed the real top line last night, which was how on earth could such a serious, senior and respected figure as Professor George be removed so summarily over such loose ‘offences’ when nothing he posted (well before his appointment, remember) was untrue. The possibility that a chief medical officer was recused because he understands sex is real and isn’t afraid to say so is a scandal all of its own.

In the Times Radio interview, Cathy Newman complained about a ‘glaring failure of vetting by the MHRA’ and suggested that Christine Jardine raise the issue with MPs on the Women and Equalities Select Committee, of which she is a member. At one point she even suggests Professor George should be chucked off the MHRA completely, so sure is she that ‘biological sex’ is only a controversial opinion.

Sums it up. What sex people are is “a controversial opinion” as opposed to a fact.

Imagine if we did that about everything we know. Driving a car into a brick wall at high speed might or might not cause injury. Placing your hand firmly on a red-hot stove burner might or might not cause pain. Jumping off the roof deck of a 50-story building might or might not be fatal. It’s all controversial.

It was based, as was Loder’s position, as was the MHRA statement, on the belief that the correct and neutral position on sex and gender is to sit on the fence. (Loder at one point describes the Professor’s posts as expressing an ‘ideology’.) That is: it is not neutral to say sex is real, there are two, it matters socially and you can’t swap.

It’s a flaw that besets almost every broadcast news outlet and many press outlets. They build their journalism on the premise of neutrality over whether being male or female is determined by the brain. Most build their editorial policies on exactly the same position as Newman and Loder – that biological sex and gender identity are two opinions of equal value. The broadcasters think therefore that by doing so they are impartial.

However it really means they’re building every single piece they write or broadcast on inaccuracy. The belief that you might be able to change sex is as loaded as the belief that you can. Neither is true and neither should be brought to the desk as a fact.

That’s because we know neither is true, and we have always known that neither is true. Yet here we are, watching thousands of people we used to consider sensible pretending otherwise. It’s disconcerting.

H/t Arcadia

Originally a comment by Steven on A war of choice.

Iran responds by…attacking Saudi Arabia. Makes sense.

It does make sense.

Trump acts like a Mafia boss. He’s boss of the U.S.; now he wants to be capo di tutti capi (boss of all bosses). He is demonstrating his ability to remove other capos. He removed Maduro; now he is going after the Iranian leadership. Pick off the ones who defy you and the rest will fall in line. It is the same tactic that he uses to keep Republican legislators obedient to him: he primaries any who aren’t.

But Saudi Arabia is already obedient to Trump. They do him obeisance; they paid the $1B bribe to be on his Board of Peace. As with any extortion racket, what protection money paid to Trump mostly gets you is protection from Trump. But at some point, Trump does have to be able to protect the people who pay him. If he can’t, then their calculus changes. Maybe they start doing deals with each other (cf. the E.U.) Maybe they decide to take their chances with a U.S. air strike.

So it does make sense for Iran to attack Saudi Arabia. It is one of the few things they can do that will matter to Trump.