Ahem.

Ahem. Cough.

Damn I wish I’d thought to say this. It’s so exactly right.

What, again??

Met Police hassle Maya Forstater

A leading women’s rights campaigner who tweeted that a transgender GP ‘enjoys intimately examining female patients’ has revealed how police threatened to arrest her before launching a 10-month investigation.

Maya Forstater, 51, the head of the charity Sex Matters, has revealed Scotland Yard has been investigating her for the crime of malicious communications since August 2023.

The alleged crime, which carries a punishment of up to two years in prison, relates to a post Ms Forstater wrote on X/Twitter about trans former GP, Dr Kamilla Kamaruddin.

Who is, of course, a man who pretends to be a woman.

Dr Kamaruddin said that after transitioning, patients allowed her to perform ‘more intimate examinations that they did not let me to do when I was a male GP’.

In other words he bragged that he was successfully tricking women into letting him grope their genitals.

The cops threatened Maya with arrest if she didn’t turn up to chat with them.

‘And obviously I didn’t want to be arrested so I went. So I had to get a solicitor and went into the police station to be questioned, and it was only then that they told me what the tweet that was supposed to be a crime was.

‘I sort of thought that this must be mistake. It was like half a tweet. It didn’t tag anybody. It was attached to a blog post that explained why I’d said it.

‘It was not a threat to anybody, it was not obscene, it was based on facts and [the] quite disturbing fact that a doctor who is male was boasting about examining women who wanted a female doctor, and who were told they were getting a female doctor.’

Yes that’s quite disturbing all right. It’s bragging about tricking women into being sexually assaulted in the doctor’s office. How interesting that the Met Police want to arrest Maya for saying so rather than the doctor for doing it and bragging about it.

Ms Forstater, who has not ruled out legal action against the force, said that she was told she was being questioned for ‘targeting a member of the trans community’. 

Oh grow up coppers. What about this horrific doctor who is targeting members of the women community by sexually molesting them? Why don’t you threaten to arrest him instead of Maya?

Ms Forstater told how her solicitor told the police it was ‘ridiculous’, adding how he said: ‘This doesn’t come anywhere near what malicious communication requires for a prosecution. 

‘You should stop the interview right now, or not go ahead with the interview at all. This is discrimination. This is an abuse of my human rights, my freedom of speech to drag someone into police station to question them about a tweet.

‘But the police said ‘no, we’re going to carry on with it’, which they did. And since then, my solicitor has emailed them every couple of months to say what’s happening and they keep saying, we’re still investigating.’

Investigating what? How awful women are for objecting to male doctors who pretend to be women in order to manually rape their female patients? That takes 10 months and counting does it?

A sciency article by 13 yes 13 authors arguing for “gender inclusive language” in [checks notes] childbirth.

The abstract:

Effective communication in relation to pregnancy and birth is crucial to quality care. A recent focus in reproductive healthcare on “sexed language” reflects an ideology of unchangeable sex binary and fear of erasure, from both cisgender women and the profession of midwifery. In this paper, we highlight how privileging sexed language causes harm to all who birth—including pregnant trans, gender diverse, and non-binary people—and is, therefore, unethical and incompatible with the principles of midwifery. We show how this argument, which conflates midwifery with essentialist thinking, is unstable, and perpetuates and misappropriates midwifery’s marginalized status. We also explore how sex and gender essentialism can be understood as colonialist, heteropatriarchal, and universalist, and therefore, reinforcing of these harmful principles. Midwifery has both the opportunity and duty to uphold reproductive justice. Midwifery can be a leader in the decolonization of childbirth and in defending the rights of all childbearing people, the majority of whom are cisgender women. As the systemwide use of inclusive language is central to this commitment, we offer guidance in relation to how inclusive language in perinatal and midwifery services may be realized.

I can’t help thinking it’s a parody. In particular, I can’t believe they wrote “We also explore how sex and gender essentialism can be understood as colonialist, heteropatriarchal, and universalist” with a straight face. Doesn’t that read like parody? Anything “can be understood as” anything, because people are good at coming up with stupid ideas and getting other people to endorse them.

Or take the first sentence:

The notion of childbearing having a necessary or logical belonging within the nuclear two-parent family initiated by heterosexual couples whose gender has a normative relationship with their sex assigned at birth is a recent development in our human history, and one still inconsistently observed around the globe.

Wait wait wait, slow down, you’re jumbling too many things together there. You’re mashing the social into the physical as if they were the same thing, which seems pretty amateurish for an academic article. This is supposed to be an academic article isn’t it?

The heterosexual couple bit is, of course, the reality of How To Make a New Human. The nuclear two-parent family bit is social. A heterosexual pair can make a new human even if the male half of the pair then departs for the other side of the planet, never to be seen again. Sperm meeting egg is one thing and family is another.

13 authors and they couldn’t even get the first sentence right.

No.

Two people have been arrested after Just Stop Oil activists sprayed orange powder paint over Stonehenge.

No no no. Not helping.

Members of the public attempted to stop the spraying and a visitor managed to wrestle a spray can from one of the protesters.

Wiltshire police said: “We have arrested two people following an incident at Stonehenge this afternoon. At around noon, we responded to a report that orange paint had been sprayed on some of the stones by two suspects. Officers attended the scene and arrested two people on suspicion of damaging the ancient monument. Our inquiries are ongoing.”

The evidence is pretty strong, on account of how there’s video of them doing it.

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey at Miscellany Room.

Interesting, if a little slow-developing, article in the New Yorker on how psychiatric labels (such as autism, sociopathy, borderline personality disorder) have become entire identities. For example:

Just as personality tests (see, I’m an introvert!), astrological signs (I’m a Libra!), and generational monikers (I’m Gen Z!) are used to aid self-understanding, so are psychiatric diagnoses. When Paige Layle was fifteen, a psychiatrist told her that she had autism spectrum disorder. She describes the rush of clarity she experienced when hearing the DSM-5 criteria: “I’m not crazy. I’m not making it up. I’m not manipulative or trying to fake anything. . . . There’s a reason why I’m the way that I am.”

What I took from the article is that both patients and practitioners are putting a lot of weight on DSM categories that just aren’t that firm to begin with.

A related phenomenon that’s been irritating me is that I see the following progression:

1. Anti-social behavior X is an indication of mental health condition A.

2. Therefore, someone who does X may very well have A.

3. It is wrong to criticize anyone for anything that is caused by a mental health condition.

4. Therefore, if you complain about someone doing X, you’re an ableist jerk.

For example, read any advice column or discussion group where someone complains about how their friend Sally is consistently an hour or more late every time they try to make plans. Dinner reservations and theatre tickets go to waste, people sit around for half the evening wondering when she’ll show up, etc.

It won’t be long before someone will pop up in the comments to say that it’s the letter writer, not Sally, who’s an asshole. Sally probably has “time blindness,” which is a symptom of ADHD, you ableist jerk!

This, to me, turns the whole fucking thing on its head. People typically seek mental health treatment because they’re having problems regulating their behavior or emotions. Diagnostic categories were supposed to be to help define treatment methods (and, of course, to make sure insurance companies will pay for it). But many people — I should stress that I see this more from laypeople than actual professionals — want to say “oh, here’s this label, and it explains why you are the way you are, and now that you know, there is no reason for change because (clap) you (clap) are (clap) fine (clap) as you are (clap clap clap).”

Which — no. Sally is a fucking pain in the ass who nobody wants to be friends with, including, I’ll bet, all the people insisting that she’s wonderful as she is. It’s like someone throwing their empty whisky bottle at your head, cracking open a second bottle, and shrugging it off with “hey, I’m an alcoholic, this is what I do!”

Whew. Sorry, that rant got away from me for a bit. I can’t help it, I have Compulsive Internet Ranting Disorder, it’s just the way that I am, and you all need to indulge me.

One final bit of snark:

In 2020, she posted a video on TikTok slamming a trend that used “autistic” to mean “dumb.” It went viral. With a bluntness easily mistaken for vanity, she told the camera, “Hi, there, I’m autistic. I’m also the smartest person I’ve ever met, O.K.?”

Yes, “mistaken” for vanity. Indeed!

God hates people.

RIYADH/MINA, June 18 (Reuters) – Hundreds of visitors have died during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca amid scorching heat, according to press reports and foreign ministries.

At least 550 people have died on haj, diplomats told French outlet Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday. Three hundred and twenty-three of the dead were Egyptians, most of whom perished due to heat-related illness, AFP reported, citing two Arab diplomats.

Wouldn’t you think a loving all-powerful god would either change the weather during the haj or issue an update saying it’s forbidden to go on the haj when it’s too hot?

Saudi state TV said temperatures rose on Monday as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius (125.2 Fahrenheit) in the shade at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

So Mecca is basically a stove.

“Haj is a difficult task, so you have to exert efforts and perform the rituals even in the conditions of heat and crowding,” an Egyptian pilgrim told Reuters on Sunday.

Pilgrims used umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, as Saudi authorities warned pilgrims to stay hydrated and avoid being outdoors during the hottest hours between 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) and 3 p.m.

Haj, one of the largest mass gatherings in the world, is a once-in-a-lifetime duty for able-bodied Muslims who can afford it. It will end on Wednesday.

See that’s what I’m saying. Allah could just change that. He could so he should.

H/t What a Maroon

Trump is trying to use Republicans in Congress to get rid of his guilty verdicts. The act of a dictator determined to destroy the institutions that get in the way of his peremptory commands.

It’s a campaign he orchestrated in the days after his May 31 conviction on 34 felony counts in New York, starting with a phone call to the man he wanted to lead it: Speaker Mike Johnson.

Trump was still angry when he made the call, according to those who have heard accounts of it from Johnson, dropping frequent F-bombs as he spoke with the soft-spoken and pious GOP leader.

“We have to overturn this,” Trump insisted.

Who’s “we” Kemosabe?

The speaker didn’t really need to be convinced, one person familiar with the conversation said: Johnson, a former attorney himself, already believed the House had a role to play in addressing Trump’s predicament. The two have since spoken on the subject multiple times.

Sure, because it’s completely normal for Congress to interfere with the outcomes of trials.

Now they’re doing it to the Brontes, because of course they are. The Bronte Parsonage Museum announces:

It’s week three of our series celebrating Pride at the Museum! This time, we’re exploring gender identity and the Brontës.

Well don’t. Explore how the Brontes (Branwell apart) dealt with being female by all means, but leave genner idennniny out of it.

Throughout their lives, the sisters never settled for society’s expectations for women, and – as scholars discuss – the female (and male) characters in their novels explore what life beyond gendered barriers could be like…

Bollocks. Did Rochester “explore what life beyond gendered barriers could be like”? Give me a break.

Oh SHUT up.

The Telegraph on the Deep Rifts:

It was an inauspicious start to Britain’s biggest LGBT celebration.

In a social media post featuring the rainbow flag and entitled “Can men get ovarian cancer?”, the charity Ovarian Cancer Action said it was marking the start of Pride Month by reminding its followers that “anyone with ovaries, regardless of gender identity, can be at risk for ovarian cancer”.

…

Last year, Oxfam was forced to apologise after posting an animation for Pride Month featuring a character who many said resembled JK Rowling, depicted with red eyes and wearing a badge bearing the word “Terf”…

Such disputes may on the surface appear minor, but there are worries among those who were there in the early days of the Pride marches that they are a sign of a more dangerous malaise. They warn that transgender activism has sown bitter divisions within the LGBT community and is now threatening to derail the movement they helped to build.

Nah such disputes don’t seem minor, not unless you’re dropping in from Planet Zog and know nothing about any of it. Of course they’re a sign of a “dangerous malaise”; in fact they are the dangerous malaise. Women are entirely fed up with being pushed to the margins of everything including feminism by men wearing lipstick.

“The big division has been around the idea of believing that trans women are women,” says Simon Fanshawe, one of the founding members of Stonewall…

And around being forced to say it, and ferociously punished if you refuse.

Liane Timmermann, a member of “Get the L Out”, says: “Pride was previously a political movement for lesbians and gays and then it was totally hijacked by this gender-identity movement. “Trans activists have got higher up on the Pride board and it’s just become shocking. Lesbians who are same-sex attracted are not welcome at Pride now.”

Read the whole thing.

Michael Cashman admits that his brief vague pseudo-apology to Rosie Duffield was not even an attempt at an apology but merely an attempt to get away with being a woman-hating pig.

There you go. He wasn’t apologizing at all; he thinks he’s the one who’s been wronged. He thinks he deserves “support” for rudely publicly insulting Rosie Duffield. What a horrible man.

Urgent news from the BBC:

Fire boss says he was abused over Pride image

Seriously? With all the horrors there are in the world, the BBC finds time and space to report on public reactions to a “Pride” image?

A senior fire service official says he was sent “reprehensible and homophobic” messages after he posted a picture of Pride-themed epaulettes.

Simon Tuhill, Northamptonshire’s deputy chief fire officer posted the image on X, formally known as Twitter, last week. He said he was “appalled and shocked” at the overwhelmingly negative messages he received. He said the fire service remains committed to supporting diversity.

Nonsense. It’s not “supporting diversity” to focus on one purported marginalized communinny while ignoring all the others. Where are the feminism-themed fire service epaulettes? Where are the anti-racism-themed fire service epaulettes? Where are the epaulettes for poverty, mental illness, handicaps, immigration status?

Mr Tuhill said: “I’ve been clear that the fire service culture, working as a team and embracing our diversity as an organisation, is really important. Because we’re much better at our job when we properly reflect it, because we understand what the community needs from us.”

No you don’t. You don’t understand any such thing. If you did you would either diversify your epaulettes or skip the whole epaulette-signaling routine entirely.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany Room.

Vignettes of corporate capture; neighbourhood incursions.

Last week I recounted some of my feelings around a local Pride event. Here are some thoughts around neighbourhood examples of corporate Pride “celebrations.”

Our neighbourhood bank has its windows decorated for its nationwide Pride Month campaign, featuring the LGB rainbow + trans colours. One of the windows is filled with the slogan “Nothing beats the feeling of being accepted for who you really are.” That’s all well and good, but what they’re promoting, and enforcing through said promotion, is forcing everyone to accept a very small, specific subset of people for who they are not, to be precise, Trans Identified Males. They are not women. Never have been, never will be, because humans can’t change sex. Because they are male, and will always be male, they have no place in women’s spaces, women’s facilities, women’s positions. It is not hateful or bigoted to say these things, but through campaigns like this, they’re going to try to tell us it is. Their choice of colours and initiatives shows they are all-in with forced teaming.

The company’s Pride campaign web page features a number of stories and initiatives, all under a photo of a heavily made-up TiM, all under the ominous (and to me, frankly threatening) sub-heading “Recognize what was. Celebrate what is. Work for what should be.”

Pardon me if I distrust what their idea of “what should be.” With their slogan in favour of expecting us to accept people for who they are not, I’m not at all confident in the soundness or benevolence of their concept of “what should be.”

For some years our local grocery store has featured a Pride/Progress flag sticker with the caption “All are welcome.” Well why wouldn’t everyone feel welcome? Why do they have to advertise this fact? Apart from virtue signalling, I don’t see the point. Do trans people always, automatically assume they are unwelcome if such anodyne, placating assurances are not on prominent display in the establishments they frequent? Do they risk starving to death while searching for stores with the trans-parasitized pride colours in the window, sighing with relief that they and their money will not be turned away at the check-out?

I went to a local drugstore today, one that’s part of a nation-wide chain. The sales clerk, who was obviously female, wore an official company name tag that told me, helpfully, (Name) She/Her. Thanks, but I’d figured that out for myself. You didn’t need to tell me. More importantly you don’t get to tell me. So not really so much “helpful”, as “”pushy. She was in an official, company T-shirt inscribed with “Pride Vibes” in rainbow+ trans colours. She also wore a badge with the forced-teaming Pride/Progress colours that said “Ally.” So what? Who cares? Why am I being confronted with a bipedal political campaign while buying allergy meds and dental floss? What other political movement has Head Office promoted with such vigour? What about women’s rights? Remember them? Well kiss them goodbye. The company’s so-called Foundation for Women’s Health has the now inevitable, obviating qualification:

Supporting All Women

As part of our commitment, we recognize that the term “women’s health” is understood in a variety of ways. Our work goes beyond the sex and gender binary, welcoming the experiences of all women and gender-diverse people.

Some “commitment.” Some “understanding.” Your “variety” of “understanding” includes incorrect ones, wrong ones. But they are somehow “welcome”. And what does mean for women’s health? Nothing good. But look at the colourful t-shirts, name tags, and badges!

Some observations. (Not that any of these are new or earth-shatteringly original, but some of them are new to me. Or, they’re nagging suspicions that are now confirmed. Some are the reiteration of all-too-familiar truths. I’m figuring this stuff out as I go along, with the help of the readership here. Thank you all. Each bit of the puzzle adds a bit more to the whole, depressing picture. Preaching to the choir is not always pointless or redundant, as members of the choir do not spend their entire lives in church, but live and act in the wider world between sermons. Onwards!)

Trans activism, whether or not it ever was any kind of grassroots, bottom-up movement, is now a fully corporatized, top-down priority initiative, with power and money behind it. It is no threat to corporate practice and governance at all. Certainly not in the way that enacting women’s rights, or recognizing indigenous rights would effect how companies operated, and how much either of them would cost. If trans “rights” were in conflict with corporate interests, companies would be manning the ramparts to fight against them, not leading the charge to have them enacted and entrenched. Promoting and enforcing trans “rights” costs them nothing beyond the price of glossy publicity materials. Oh, and their credibility, and their reputations.

Campaigns like this de-politicize trans “rights” by pushing them safely beyond the reach of public scrutiny and debate’ while offering them support of powerful. influential allies who don’t have to answer to the electorate every few years. Not quite as big a prize as complete, unfettered access to the levers of government policy, but a coup nonetheless. There are fewer hearts and minds to win over, and direct input to corporate policy and practice once they are won. The corporate image might suffer (though this is something activists aren’t going to care about as long as they get what they want), and companies are better able to push through and back against opposition and plow on with the “Pride” agenda, which centers trans activism. If public boycotts ensue, that’s not the concern of the activists. For the companies, it might be a different matter, but resistance that hurts the bottom line takes more effort and organization than opposition through electoral politics, where there is always the potential for a party to take up a cause and run with it, if it thinks it will have the potential to win them votes. Consumer boycotts will always take more work and organization to identify and consolidate others who oppose the corporate pushing of the trans agenda.

As the T is in no way “oppressed” or “marginalized”, the point of these campaigns is not to “uplift” or “include” them, but to empower them. Not in the kind of “self-actualizing” way that women are supposedly “empowered” by sex work, but in the way that allows them to take what they want and to control other people’s lives. Real power, like that which corporations have. Pride events and campaigns are less about “celebrating” than they are about normalizing the impossible, and enforcing that normalization by marginalizing and discrediting any resistance to it.

I once likened the “transified” Pride flag to the banner of a hostile, occupying power. Well, that banner flies in more places than ever, with companies retooling their own identities with “Pride” colours. But this isn’t the celebration of a marginalized, downtrodden “community”, but the ownership (by a tiny, opportunistic, and manipulative minority) of the living space and mental imagination of a much larger, silenced and disempowered community.

The occupiers are, in reality, a very tiny force, but the presence of their colours everywhere and on everything gives the impression of much larger numbers, boldly pretending to wield a higher degree of public support than it actually has. Salute, and repeat after us: “We’re ALL on Big, Happy, Pride Family.” And while all those colours are supposed to be festive and fun, they hide a darker subtext; the iron fist concealed in the velvet, rainbow glove, or a tank painted in sparkles and glitter. They are a call for compliance and obedience printed on the packaging of the products and services we buy, and in the places of business that offer them to us. Our passive acceptance of this repetitive messaging, the ever present display of trans power and influence is intended to wear us down and dull our defiance. “Who am I in the face of all of these rainbow flags? I am isolated and alone, surrounded by the colours of command and control wherever I look. They are everywhere. I can’t hide. I can’t run away. I can’t escape them. They have won.”

All those signs, badges and stickers are not-so-subtle cues that criticism and pushback of trans ideology are not welcome. They are not an invitation to the poor, huddling trans folk on the verge of being genocided, they are a warning to potential critics to watch our mouths and keep our doubts to ourselves. They are an “invitation” to “Be Kind: OR ELSE.” To put it in their own terms, we are being told up front that the space we are about to enter is Officially Unsafe. You are entering occupied territory. This place is not yours, but OURS.

In debates about who is allowed into women’s facilities under the control of a captured company, a woman who might want to complain is being told exactly whose side the corporation is on. Her battle is to be considered lost before the first shot is fired. The T has won, this is their territory. All the flags and bunting are happy, cheerful gang colours, proclaiming victory, control and jurisdiction, all with corporate blessing. Trans activism has already lifted its leg and pissed on everything in sight. Be KInd and shut the fuck up, because nobody will hear you.

If you do a Google news search for Rosie Duffield Michael Cashman you find headline after headline after headline on Cashman’s delayed punishment. It’s all so familiar, isn’t it – the endless bullying bullying bullying, and the impunity of the bullies. Cashman got away with it for days; it’s only because a lot of people screamed themselves hoarse that Starmer finally realized the poisonous sneer wasn’t just going to fade out of the collective memory.

So here’s some happier news.

Trans-Identified Male Who Exposed His Breasts At The White House Now Accused Of Sexually Assaulting Another Transgender Person

Ok so not better exactly, but…a little different.

The trans activist who received criticism for exposing his augmented breasts at the White House during a Pride event last June has now been accused of sexual assault. The alleged victim is a biological female who identifies as a “man.”

Hahaha of course she is. I shouldn’t laugh, but then they shouldn’t be such fools, should they.

Anyway. There’s Biden saying [at 20 seconds] “[some of] the bravest and most inspiring people I’ve ever known.” I’m not sure about the “some of” because it’s mumbled, but I include it because surely he can’t possibly have said the bravest and most inspiring. But even “some of” is bad enough. What is so inspiring about them? What, in this political climate, is so brave about them? Why burble about how brave and inspiring they are when there are so many people in the world doing actually valuable things? What is all this trans bravery and inspiration in aid of? Narcissism. Vanity projects. Attention-seeking. Kicking up a fuss about nothing. Stealing other people’s rights. Giving yourself enormous buttocks. Swanning around in a tight dress. I see neither courage nor inspiration.

The Beeb:

Labour peer suspended for ‘frit or lazy’ post

A Labour peer has been suspended from the parliamentary party after calling a candidate “frit or lazy” for withdrawing from local husting events over safety concerns. Lord Cashman had made the comment on social media after Rosie Duffield, who is standing to be reelected as Labour MP for Canterbury, said “constant trolling” made her attendance at hustings “impossible”.

The former EastEnders actor and Labour MEP apologised “unreservedly” for the post on Sunday.

Well he did and he didn’t. He did apologize and he did say it was unreservedly, but he also did fail to mention Rosie Duffield, so it wasn’t in fact a full or “unreserved” apology.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told reporters the comment was “particularly inappropriate” and the whip was withdrawn “very swiftly”. This means Lord Cashman will sit as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, without a party affiliation.

I wonder if Sir Keir told reporters why the comment was particularly inappropriate. I wonder if he’s said anything at all to defend or be in solidarity with Rosie Duffield. I wonder if he gets it at all yet.

I tried to watch it but couldn’t; too annoying. But in case you want to, here it is:

Trump has this pattern of trying or hoping to get people executed. He did it to the Central Park 5, and now we learn he did it to staffers.

Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin has disclosed that Donald Trump repeatedly mused out loud about executing people at several meetings while she worked for him during his presidency.

…

The former communications director for the Trump administration told the outlet she had been at a meeting at which he “straight up said a staffer who leaked … should be executed”, referring to an anonymously sourced report that the former president had gone into a secure bunker at the White House at the height of the racial justice protests prompted by a Minneapolis police officer’s murder of George Floyd.

Ah yes, the death penalty for denting the vanity of the dictator. Highly appropriate and sane.

During the final three months of Trump’s first term

Let me stop you right there. What’s this “first term” shit? He’s only had the one.

During the final three months of Trump’s first term, the US executed 13 federal prisoners by lethal injection – a significant acceleration in the use of the death penalty by the federal government.

Prior to that, only three people had been executed since 1963. But under the Trump administration, the federal government allowed any method of execution that was legal in the state where the death penalty was being carried out.

So he’s had the joy of killing 13 people. We know he was and is profoundly gratified by this treat.

Even the headline gets it wrong.

Labour peer says sorry for calling Rosie Duffield too ‘frit or lazy’ to go to hustings

No, he doesn’t, you fucking fools. That’s exactly what he didn’t do. He’s such a rude abusive man that he conspicuously failed i.e. refused to do that. He did the “sorry you’re so offended” thing instead. He said “I apologize” but didn’t say for what.

The lede is accurate. (Editors write the headlines. I wish they would manage to make them accurate.)

A Labour peer has apologised after accusing the party’s Canterbury candidate, Rosie Duffield, of being too “frit or lazy” to attend hustings.

Exactly: after rather than for. It should have been for.

The row comes on the eight-year anniversary of Jo Cox’s murder. The Batley and Spen Labour MP was stabbed and shot by a far-right extremist in Birstall, West Yorkshire on 16 June 2016.

Cashman didn’t mention that either.

Good news:

The Hobart City Council’s discrimination towards me has finally been resolved. The depth of the lying, scheming, gaslighting, privacy breaches, and frustration of processes has been astounding.

The culture that facilitated this appalling conduct has radiated from the top. I’m pleased that the extent of the discrimination has finally been admitted and owned. I’m optimistic that there will be change; there has to be as what happened was illegal and immoral.

You can have all the diversity plans, flags, and photo opportunities you like, but they’re worthless showboating if words and action don’t align. Discrimination is not ‘welcoming’ or ‘inclusive’.

I tried to book a public venue, and I should have been able to hold my event. It was shameful for the Council to censor political beliefs, especially when these beliefs are fair, fact-based, and held by millions of Australians. It’s wrong and anti-democratic.

And anti-women.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Next phase.

The “whatever genitals Alex was born with is not common knowledge” part conflates identities with biological sexes, and that’s the most dangerous part.

It’s one thing for a young person to imagine in her own mind a suite of gender-role personas, like characters in a story, and then to declare which of these imaginary gender-role characters she has cast herself to play. So far, so foolish.

But to then cross over into declaring that these different characters have different biological sex characteristics… that’s where the irreversible harm comes in. Harm to herself, because she’s likely to develop psychological distress over the mismatch between her imaginary character’s body and her real-life body, and harm to everyone else, by promoting the erasure of women’s rights by undefining the words man, woman, male, and female.

Human experiences are inevitably richer than the categories we carve out for them.

I want to say to that writer, it’s you who’s impoverishing the human experience by turning the biological sexes into cardboard characters. Real life is a lot richer without all the hokey gender horseshit. As Julie Bindel said twenty years ago, “Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease.” Even the names gender roleplayers choose for themselves have a whiff of soap opera cheese to them: it’s a world of lissome, wispy Chloés and rugged, raspy Chases.

If Gender: Phase Two involves discovering that none of the characters you’ve created in your mind are three-dimensional enough to capture your true complexity, then Gender: Phase Three will be discovering that the whole exercise was a colossal waste of time and energy. If you’re lucky, you get to Phase Three with most of your body intact. But many won’t. And publications like Nature share the blame for that.