I forget; who was it who authorized Trump to kill people in boats near Venezuela? Could it have been nobody?

The US military conducted yet another strike on a boat alleged to be trafficking drugs off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people on board, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday.

Trump said that the vessel was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization” but did not name any organization or provide evidence to back up the assertion.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed.”

This is at least the fifth time the US has announced such a strike; the Pentagon announced another one in early October.

Is it open season on people in international waters? Are we all allowed to “conduct a strike” on boats as long as they’re in open waters?

The administration has defended the strikes. In a letter to Congress, the Pentagon said Trump had determined that the US is in an “armed conflict” with the drug cartels his administration has designated as terrorist organizations, and that smugglers for the cartels are “unlawful combatants,” CNN has previously reported.

Yeeeah I think that’s some made-up law right there. Can other countries “strike” US vessels as long as they’re in open water?

Earlier this month, Republican Sen. Rand Paul announced that he was cosponsoring a War Powers resolution that would stop the president from being able to unilaterally conduct such strikes.

“Blowing up boats without due process could risk unintended escalation and trigger regime change efforts — an approach history has repeatedly shown to fail. That’s why I’m co-sponsoring a War Powers resolution to stop it. Congress must reassert its authority,” Paul said on X.

Paul also publicly criticized Vice President JD Vance last month after he celebrated one of the strikes. “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial,” Paul said in response to the vice president.

Vance is a despicable guy.

The local airport says it’s not taking Noem’s crap.

The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) won’t air a video of U.S Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown, a spokesperson confirmed. 

The video was made to play on monitors over TSA lines at airports nationwide. In the video obtained by CNN, Noem states: 

It is TSA’s top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe. However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.

Bluh. No competent proofreaders there? “the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible”? “impacted” instead of “disrupted” or similar? What a hack.

The video will not be airing above TSA lines at SEA Airport. A Port of Seattle spokesperson shared a statement with KING 5: 

“The Port of Seattle will not play the video on its screens at SEA Airport, due to the political nature of the content. We continue to urge bipartisan efforts to end the government shutdown and are working to find ways to support federal employees working without pay at SEA during the shutdown.”

Other Pacific Northwest airports are also choosing to not run the video. A spokesperson for Spokane International Airport told KING 5’s sister station KREM 2 that it wasn’t able to accommodate the request to run the video due to the airport’s First Amendment policy, saying the video falls under prohibited advertising content on political issues. A spokesperson for the Boise Airport said the airport declined to play the video due to the airport’s policy prohibiting commentary about political issues.

Well done Pacific Northwest!

So this is going well.

More than 150 unvaccinated schoolchildren are being quarantined for 21 days in South Carolina after being exposed to measles, state officials said. Because the students who were exposed did not have immunisations, they were forced to miss school during the period of potential disease transmission.

South Carolina is the latest US state to experience a measles surge this year after outbreaks in New Mexico and Texas where hundreds were infected and three people died.

Great news, right? It was boring having immunization take measles out of the picture, doncha think? Life is better with a little excitement and risk. Provided it’s those other kids over there.

So far this year the US has confirmed 1,563 cases, the highest level nationwide in more than 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Thanks, Bob! You’re making us all proud!

The South Carolina Department of Public Health reported its eighth confirmed measles case in two weeks on Thursday, in Greenville County, in the northern part of the state.

“What this case tells us is that there is active, unrecognized community transmission of measles occurring in the Upstate, which makes it vital to ensure that the public have received their measles vaccinations,” a department release said.

The MMR vaccine is the most effective way to fight off measles, which can lead to pneumonia, brain swelling and death. The jabs are 97% effective and also immunise against mumps and rubella.

In addition to the outbreak in South Carolina, cases are on the rise in Utah and Arizona, where 55 and 63 cases have been reported, respectively.

Rock-solid Republican states all of them.

However the Beeb notes that there are even worse outbreaks in Canada, so it may not be all the fault of the Kennedy school of malpractice.

Further north, large numbers of measles have been reported across Canada, particularly in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario.

The country has logged 5024 cases, the government said, more than three times the number in the US, despite Canada’s far smaller population. The data has raised questions about why its spreading so quickly there and whether Canadian authorities are doing enough to contain it.

Be careful out there.

Grovel grovel grovel we’re sorry we ever thought of it, we’ll never do it again.

A Scottish pub has cancelled a Harry Potter-themed event after public backlash.

The Old Forge, on the Knoydart peninsula on the west coast, said in an announcement on social media that the Halloween party had been called off as the theme “has proven dividing, and some of our staff have received inappropriate grief as a result”.

Well I should think so indeed. The naughty woman who wrote the Harry Potter books doesn’t think men can be women. Have you ever heard of anything so evil?

In a statement on Mondaty, the Knoydart pub said: “The pub management team have decided to cancel this year’s Halloween dinner party. It was always meant to be just a fun night, but unfortunately using Harry Potter as a theme has proven dividing, and some of our staff have received inappropriate grief as a result.

So it’s not so much that the theme was dividing as it is that some people think it’s ok to abuse bar staff for having a popular fictional character as a theme for a Halloween dinner party.

Ministers must not delay single-sex guidance

A key part of Bridget Phillipson’s second cabinet role as women and equalities minister, one might have thought, would be trying to keep discrimination against women to a minimum. Luckily for her, that job was made a lot simpler after the helpful intervention of the UK Supreme Court this year. In April’s landmark ruling, the court clarified what even the most legally naïve onlooker might have been able to guess: namely, that when words such as “woman” and “man” occur in the UK Equality Act 2010 they refer to female and male people respectively, and have nothing to do with anyone’s self-ascribed gender identity.

Much the way anyone’s imaginary age – be it 12 or 18 or 35 – has nothing to do with eligibility to vote, drive, marry, join the military.

Yet, despite the explicitness of that ruling, senior Labour figures are refusing to catch on. [Bridget] Phillipson [equalities minister] is now sitting on revised statutory guidance, produced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), as to how the clarified law should be implemented in gyms, clubs, hospitals and other public spaces.

Sitting on in the sense of not acting on.

Though the official explanation for the delay in presenting the new guidance to the Commons is said to be the care with which it is being examined, the likelier explanation is that gender politics is once again being weaponised within Labour circles.

How much care does it take to figure out that men are not women?

Such clumsy acts of self-compromise are a reminder of the damage gender ideology wreaked on the political left. Savvier politicians would have taken the Supreme Court’s ruling as a political gift: a cast-iron reason to never again feel squeamish about defending women’s rights.

Savvier politicians or politicians who give a shit about women. Why is that always such a neglected reason?

Paying political lip service to the notion that these rules are complicated or ambiguous is discreditable. Labour should banish such confusion to the unserious fringes of politics, for example to the Green party, which this month banned delegates advocating sex-realist policies from its conference.

Plant a tree, silence a woman. Good job, Greens.

Trump pretends to be buddies with coal miners and other working stiffs, but when it comes to enforcing regulations that protect workers…sorry, he has a pressing engagement on the nearest golf course.

When coal miners came to Washington in April, they posed behind President Trump at the White House, wearing their hard hats and thanking him for trying to reinvigorate their struggling industry.

But on Tuesday dozens of miners and their families will be in a more unusual position: protesting the Trump administration outside the Labor Department building, arguing it has failed to protect them from black lung disease, an incurable illness caused by inhaling coal and silica dust.

They have been waiting months for the government to enforce federal limits on silica dust, a carcinogen that has led to a recent spike in the disease. But mining industry groups have sued to block the rule, and the Trump administration has paused enforcement while the lawsuit plays out.

When in doubt, side with the owners, who will never have to deal with black lung disease.

The federal government has recognized the health threats that coal dust poses since 1969, when Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which set health and safety standards for coal mining and required federal inspections and monitoring for black lung disease.

But now, after decades of improvements, the disease has made a disturbing resurgence, particularly among younger workers because of their exposure to a different material: silica dust. Experts said that is in part because of changing mining practices. Most of the thick coal seams in places like Appalachia have already been mined, and workers are increasingly cutting through more rock to reach coal, exposing them to silica dust.

Composed of tiny crystals that can lodge in lung tissue, silica dust can cause inflammation and scarring when inhaled. It is considered about 20 times more toxic to the lungs than coal dust and can also cause lung cancer and kidney disease.

…

A 2018 study found that more than 10 percent of coal miners who had been working for at least 25 years had black lung disease. In Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, home to most of the miners who planned to travel to the Tuesday rally, up to 20 percent of veteran miners suffer from lung disease caused by dust.

“It’s not the coal that’s getting them, it’s the silica,” said Mr. Martin, who paused to cough and catch his breath every few minutes during a recent interview. “We need to get this done for the younger generation.”

Limits on silica exposure were supposed to take effect in April. But the National Sand Stone and Gravel Association, the National Mining Association and other industry groups asked a federal appeals court to block the rule, citing the cost to mine operators.

In other words the industry groups are trying to suffocate more workers. They wouldn’t put it that way of course, but that is what they’re doing.

The Trump administration did not defend the rule in court. Instead, it agreed to delay enforcement and has since petitioned the court to prevent labor unions and a lung health association from intervening in the case. This month it asked for another court delay, citing the government shutdown.

That’s Trump, the workers’ friend – working to keep unions and lung health experts locked out of rulings on health and safety regulations for workers.

Democrats and labor unions accused the Trump administration of using coal miners as backdrops for photo opportunities while ignoring their health needs.

“The Trump administration was handed tools to protect black lung and they are doing everything in their power to toss those rules in the trash,” said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations.

Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said abandoning the silica standards “would be a real slap in the face for those who work so hard to power our communities.”

Slap in the face and hard punch in the lungs.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Aesthetics.

And of course those are ‘safe’ questions, meant to be answered with a Biblical citation, to comfort ‘doubters’. Note the lack of, “Explain childhood leukemia, you fucker!”

No, nothing so blunt is going to have survived the sanitizing, homogenizing editorial committee that came up with this display of architectural temporary tattoos, but even the questions that have made it through the winnow of orthodoxy are not so safe, if you’re prepared to look beyond the Bible for answers, or decline to recognize its authority or relevence. (Some of the questions below are from other images taken of the exhibit, more details of which can be found here: https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/whats-on/events/hear-us/ )

Q: “Are you there?”

A: No, there are no gods.

Q:”Does our struggle mean anything?”

A: No, it is not part of any “plan.” Shit happens for no intrinsic reason. We can bring reason to it, extract meaning and wisdom from things that happen, and apply them to what we do, but these things were not “put” there for us to “discover”. We build meaning from scratch. Life is not “meaningless”, but the meaning and significance we find is the meaning and significance we add to it. Life isn’t a piñata. Reality is not a fortune cookie. The stars are not there for horoscopes. The universe is what it is. We’re the ones adding the baggage.

Q: “Where does love come from?”

A: Love is a natural evolved sentiment which can be seen in animals other than humans. It does not require the interventions or manipulations of a non-existent class of supernatural beings, just like sunlight or metabolism. Gods add nothing to the picture.

Q: “Do you want company?”

A: Granting the existence of the Christian god, he might not need “company”, depending on how exactly that whole “Holy Trinty” thingy works. Historically speaking, most religions have been polytheistic, with lots of gods to keep each other company, and to squabble with. Some saint-heavy flavours of Christianity can start to look awfully polytheistic to the unwary and uninitiated, who might not see the distinction-without-a-difference that such Christians would offer in indignant protest. Technically, fictional characters can’t really be lonely, or sad, or anything. They have no existence beyond the imaginations of the people who create or read the stories of which they are a part. However real they may seem, they are never going to drive you to bingo, or shovel your walk.

Q: “God, what happens when we die?”

A: Asking a non-existent entity a question like this is a category error. There is no god to answer your question. Any “theological” answer you might receieve has been formulated by humans. Gods don’t write books, or talk to people, or answer prayers because they can’t. Some might claim that these answers come from a god, but it’s humans all the way down. But if you want to know what happens, here it is: you decompose, and all the materials that resided momentarily in/as your body are released for use elsewhere, including other bodies. There is no personal, individual, conscious survival after death. There is no judgement, punishment, or reward. “You” just aren’t, just like “you” weren’t before you were born. Nothing different, and there’s no reason to believe otherwise. We are fleeting arangements of eternal ingedients, briefly collected into and maintained in a form that is aware of itself and the Universe which gave rise to it. We cannot help but be one with everything. Adding gods to this tale short-circuits the proper appreciation of the Universe, and tends to exaggerate our role within it. We are part of an awe-inspiring, terrible wonder, and a mystery, and a miracle, but not a religious one. We have learned that on our own; no gods need apply. No gods can apply.

No. Wrong way around. It’s not that people who say your videos are bad are making personal attacks when they should be addressing the substance of what you say. It’s that you’re bad people, which we already know because of all the bad things you have done, out in the open. You hate and sneer at and bully women, and you pretend you are women yourselves when of course you are men. That’s the problem here, not the fact that so many people are repulsed by you and your videos.

Tom Harris in the Telegraph:

That is how events played out this weekend when the Brighton Centre played host to FiLiA, a Europe-wide feminist campaigning organisation who held their annual conference in the city. You might be forgiven for believing that the Sussex venue would be ideal for a conference debating women’s and girls’ rights. Brighton, after all, is Britain’s San Francisco, known for its high proportion of gay and trans citizens and a generally progressive outlook.

That’s just it though. The two don’t march together any more. Women and girls’ rights are one thing and trans ideology is another. The “gay” umbrella is full of gaping holes that let the rain in, because lesbians don’t necessarily want to be inclooosive of men who call themselves lesbians, and men who idennify as lesbians are intensely hostile to gender critical lesbians.

You would be mistaken, however. The city “welcomed” the conference the night before it was due to open by sending along a gang of masked men who smashed windows and spray-painted graffiti on its walls in protest at the women being allowed to gather there.

Let’s face it, women over the age of 11 are a menace. They should all be locked up. It’s good enough for Kabul, so why not for Brighton?

Even worse, one of the city’s MPs offered no support to the delegates. Sian Berry, who represents Brighton Pavilion for the Green Party, tweeted that: “Events that inflame division and create tension should be guarded against and [Brighton and Hove Council] needs better policies for which events it will host in our council-owned venues. The choice of Brighton was clearly provocative from organisers and the problems predictable.”

Note how an elected representative makes such great effort to avoid blaming the vandals and thugs who carried out this act of intimidation; look how she blames the women taking part in the conference for “provoking” innocent men into breaking the law against their will. 

We did. We noted. We looked. We objected.

Imagine Raphael Warnock tweeted about anti-racism activists being “provocative” by choosing Yazoo City, Mississippi for a conference. Yes, that would be “provocative” in the sense of provoking attention to a long history of racism, and that’s a good thing. Brighton is way too much on the side of people who have decided women are the oppressor class. Brighton needs some provoking.

Does this victim blaming sound at all familiar? As the Labour MP Jonathan Hinder tweeted: “Why did she wind him up? She knows he’s got a bad temper!”

We know the trans army has a bad temper. We think it needs to learn to control that temper.

t wasn’t just the Greens who shamed themselves by their behaviour; their progressive stablemates, the Liberal Democrats, after reports of the night time attack, were only too happy to crow about how their own conference had been free from such violence and vandalism: “We thought the Brighton Centre looked much better when the [LibDems] had our conference there a year ago,” tweeted the party’s LGBT section.

Maybe that’s because Sir Ed Davey’s party is careful not to say anything that might upset certain sections of the community who are ever ready to slip on their size 12 stilettos and do some damage to anyone who disagrees with them. In this way, they guarantee “protection” for their events…

No no no it’s because they are so vulnerable.

Isn’t it?

Making up the triumvirate of shame was the Labour Party, which controls the local council and which refused to provide security protection for the women using one of its venues on the entirely unconvincing basis that it would be “disproportionate”, and not at all because they wanted to keep on the good side of the many trans people in Brighton who currently vote for them.

So interesting. Men bullying women is not disproportionate; stopping men bullying women is. Why’s that?

[T]he right of women to congregate and talk about their own safety is being fatally compromised. If female MPs like Sian Berry from allegedly “progressive” parties can no longer be expected to stand in defence of those rights, then who can?

The footsoldiers.

Originally a comment by Papito on The liberal capitulators.

Apropos of strange bedfellows…

Now, faced with an economy crippled by war and sanctions, the Islamic republic is promoting its expertise to a global audience, hoping to attract transgender foreigners with the promise of inexpensive surgeries packaged with luxury hotel stays and sightseeing tours.

Desperate for foreign investment, Iran’s theocratic government has set a goal of generating more than $7 billion from medical tourism annually, according to Iranian state news media, about seven times as much as it earned last year. That objective has resulted in the proliferation of medical tourism companies, marketing not just nose jobs and hair transplants, but vaginoplasties, mastectomies and penis constructions through glossy English-language websites.

The article is full of the sort of pandering we’re used to – calling men “she” and women “he” if they want that, and bemoaning the terrible suffering of the “non-binary.” But the reality peeks through: Westerners are going on medical tourist junkets to Iran to get operations on their sexual organs because Iranian surgeons do this more than anybody, and do it for cheap. They’ve been practicing on all the gay people in Iran for decades.

I wonder what’s next for Iran. Perhaps they can start doing implants. They could match the organs they forcibly remove from the nation’s gays to Western sex surgery tourists and do simultaneous surgeries to maximize success. A unconscious gay tied to bed one, behind a curtain, and a self-hating Western lesbian getting the medical bargain of her life in bed two. Everybody wins, the trans and the theocrats. Well, except the gays. they don’t win.

Of course, the trans recipients would feel sad about the butchered gays for a couple days, but on the other hand, they’d be happy too.

Eric, a 45-year-old trans man living in Canada who requested anonymity to protect himself and his family from reprisals, said he had sought treatment in Iran because it was cheap. But he acknowledged the tension in seeking treatment in a place where others have it forced on them.

“I have heard a lot, especially among trans women, that because they are gay, and they cannot be gay in Iran, they try to do the surgery,” said Eric. “I’m really sad that gays and lesbians are not recognized in Iran, but on the other hand I’m happy for trans people because they can do what they’re willing to do.”

Well, we know what’s going on here.

London Mosque bans girls over 12 and women from charity park run

Girls over 12 are women: they can get pregnant, therefore they might get pregnant, therefore they have to be monitored and excluded and controlled at all times. All female people are sluts, and when they’re old enough to get pregnant from slutting, it’s time to exclude them and lock them up and terrorize them. If they rebel, it’s time to kill them.

A mosque has banned women and girls over the age of 12 from competing in a charity park run.

The fundraising event, called the Muslim Charity Run and organised by East London Mosque, follows a 5km route and takes place on Sunday. However, the event has been accused of discrimination for allowing only men, boys of any age and girls aged 12 and under to take part.

Well, of course it’s discrimination. Female people 12 and older are banned. That’s discrimination.

After being alerted to the event’s entry criteria, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said it would assess the case, The Mail on Sunday reported.

Baroness Shaista Gohir, the chief executive of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, said the East London Mosque was “likely” in breach of the Equality Act.

Aisha Ali-Khan, a human rights campaigner, posted on X: “It’s wrong for the East London Mosque to ban women and girls over 12 from taking part in their annual park run. Being healthy and fit is a big part of Islam for all Muslims, not just the men!”

Yes but you see men don’t get pregnant. That’s the stumbling block. If a 13-year-old girl runs in a race she might get pregnant. Now do you see the danger?

Ah yes, the old “I’m not an abusive rageaholic bully, I’m a fierce warrior for justice” ploy.

The Times:

A council refused to grant a legal order shielding a feminist organisation from antisocial behaviour hours after trans activists smashed up its conference venue.

More than 2,000 people are due to attend the three-day conference hosted by Filia, which started on Friday. Organisers say the twice-yearly event is aimed at defending women’s rights and challenging sex-based injustices.

On Thursday night, under the cover of darkness, masked transgender rights campaigners attacked the venue in Brighton.

The activists, who call themselves “Bash Back”, later released video on social media of them smashing the glass frontage of the Brighton Centre, which they said was hosting a conference that would be attended by “hate groups”.

Yes, you know: groups that hate violence against women, rape, bullying, forgetting that women exist, all that stuff. So hatey.

The organisers of the conference told The Times that on Monday this week they submitted an urgent application to Brighton and Hove city council for a public spaces protection order (PSPO) over fears of an attack. Local authorities can issue an order to prevent nuisances or antisocial behaviour in public areas.

Filia said in its application that it expected trans rights activists to target the conference and try to disrupt the proceedings.

Legal papers submitted to the council cited an Instagram post from a group called the Trans Liberation Front on September 18. It described the conference as “Europe’s Largest Transphobic Convention” and invited protesters to “wear a mask and something colourful” and to “bring signs and noisemakers”.

Women must not be allowed to meet and discuss and have thoughts. Women must be drowned out and terrorized by angry men or the world will fall to pieces.

On Friday morning, after the vandalism of the night before, Brighton and Hove city council wrote back to Filia refusing their application.

Now that we see how urgent the need is, we refuse.

Canterbury Cathedral is in the news for having an art installation in the form of graffiti. The medium is removable stickers as opposed to being painted directly on the walls, so I don’t feel obliged to get very indignant about it. I do think it’s butt-ugly though.

I’m just not a fan of the style. Sorry not sorry.

Since we’re on the subject of art and fandom…there’s this muralist in Seattle who’s considered very hot shit, and his work is everywhere. Until very recently I thought it was a style as opposed to one guy, because I kept seeing it all over the city. You can see where this is going – I hate his work. I think it’s hideous, and I hate the fact that there’s so damn much of it. So I’m curious to see if anyone here likes it.

He’s very keen on the local mythical beast the sasquatch, and has done many renditions of it. He signs all this work with “henry” in a cartoon bubble.

I just think that’s ugly. It’s fine as a doodle in your own living room, but plastered all over the city…not so much. Am I crazy?

If you’re curious and want to see more, googling “henry murals seattle” produces a torrent.

Julie Bindel on the fad for bullying women:

As I headed to the conference, I saw the news on social media that trans activists had, in the middle of the night, smashed one of the large front windows of the conference centre, daubed slogans in paint, and put out warnings that they were having a call to arms. We walked past the usual array of blue-haired idiots shouting, “trans women are women”, “sex work is work”, “blowjobs are real jobs”, and “from the river to the sea”. Anything that is bad for women – be it prostitution, Islamic fundamentalism, or trans activism – these people support it.

Islamism and transism make strange bedfellows, and yet, the marriage is going strong.

Since the Supreme Court ruling, these men have become more and more aggressive, and their tactics ever more outlandish, for example, demonstrating in central London against the Supreme Court ruling, during which trans-identifying men urinated in public to make the point about them being “excluded” from women’s bathrooms.

But police almost always do nothing to deter them. Whilst they have arrested or issued warnings to women over the past decade for the terrible crime of “misgendering”, or posting criticism of gender ideology on social media, they don’t do the same [to men] even when the bar is raised much higher – when there are actual violent threats against women, and property destroyed.

There was no police presence this morning at the venue, and throughout the day trans activists have been posting self-congratulatory films of themselves committing criminal damage on the venue.

Because they’re trans and trans people get to do whatever they want all the time. It’s the law.

The liberal capitulators – those that have been going along with the demands of the “Trans Taliban” for all of these years – imploring feminists to “be kind”, or bleating about having a non-binary child who must not be offended, need to recognise they are enabling the worst kind of illiberal, autocratic behaviour. It is high time that all decent people speak out against this behaviour towards women.

Will they?

Nope.

Reem Alsalem steps up again.

UN expert calls for recognition of surrogacy as system of violence, exploitation and abuse, urges abolition

GENEVA (10 October 2025) – A UN expert today called for the recognition of surrogacy as a system of violence, exploitation and abuse against women, and called for the practice to be abolished globally.

“Surrogacy reduces women and children including girls to mere commodities, stripping them of their equality and dignity and encouraging their exploitation and abuse,” said Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences in a report to the United Nations General Assembly.

The report examines the different manifestations of violence against women and girls related to surrogacy, focusing on drivers like patriarchal norms, sex and gender inequalities, economic disparities, and globalisation.

“Surrogacy is the result of commodification and commercialisation of women’s reproductive capacities, and it preys on and exploits women, particularly those from marginalised and impoverished backgrounds,” Alsalem said.

Her report highlighted physical, psychological, and economic violence faced by surrogate mothers and argued that this practice results in severe human rights violations including of their right to health, privacy, family and physical safety and increases the risk of enslavement, torture, inhumane and degrading treatment.

The Special Rapporteur said that emerging, available evidence points to serious risks for children born through surrogacy, including negative physical and mental health and development outcomes resulting from separation at birth from their mothers. Others include identity struggles, increased risk of statelessness, trafficking, and abandonment, and the arbitrary and forceful termination of their lives in utero at the discretion of the commissioning parents.

“Despite these harmful consequences, several State and non-State actors remain complicit in enabling surrogacy, including by downplaying the accompanying abuses and risks, and sanitising the practice, which is gravely concerning,” the expert said.

Alsalem stressed that a human rights-based, sex and gender-responsive approach to surrogacy requires the adoption of a global abolitionist framework that would end demand by penalising the commissioning of children via surrogacy or its facilitation by intermediaries. She also called for the decriminalisation of surrogate mothers, recognising them as victims and providing them with comprehensive assistance, protection, access to justice and reparations, and end their economic dependence on involvement in surrogacy arrangements. The report flagged the importance of raising public awareness, including through education campaigns on the harmful consequences of surrogacy.

Alsalem recommended ensuring recognition of the birth mother as the legal mother, with any transfer of parental rights permitted only through judicial adoption processes that safeguard the child’s best interests.

Other key recommendations include guaranteeing equal rights and access to services for children born through surrogacy arrangements, improving data collection, and strengthening international cooperation with a view to developing effective strategies to assist and protect victims.

Originally a comment by guest on Windownight.

I’m here at Filia and we’re hardly noticing the handful of young men hanging out in front of the conference centre making a lot of noise. The police seem to be doing a good job of keeping order, and patrolling temporary fencing set up to protect us going in and out of the building (and, now, to block off the front of the building from any repetition of the vandalism, as well as to keep them from pounding on the windows, as has happened at previous women’s gatherings).

The statement of Trans Pride Brighton (or bash back, I don’t remember which now), said that they feared retaliation and believed the ‘trans pride centre’ in Brighton would be attacked…as if any of us even knew where it was let alone had any interest in playing Sharks and Jets with these guys. And they ended their statement with something like ‘paint washes off but blood doesn’t’, which doesn’t actually make any sense but sounds like a threat.

Sian Berry on the other hand…

Well I’ll be damned. The BBC has managed to report on the window-smashing at the Filia conference without blaming or insulting or ignoring the women.

The title, in particular, took my breath away. Have the scales fallen from their eyes at last??

Trans activists vandalise feminist conference

Golly. Not terf conference, not evil bitches conference, not Rowling-approved conference, but feminist conference. Not activists but trans activists. Not protest or confront or reject but vandalise. No soft-soaping at all.

Police have launched an investigation after a venue in Brighton was vandalised ahead of a women’s rights conference.

Trans activists claimed responsibility for the incident at the Brighton Centre on Kings Road in the early hours of Friday. Masked figures were seen in online videos smashing windows and spray-painting the building, ahead of a three-day event billed as one of the largest grassroots feminist gatherings in Europe.

Note the absence of any insinuation that the women’s rights conference had no business being there. Note the lack of hints that feminists are evil if they focus on women rather than trans women. Note the second appearance of the word “feminist” without any surrounding insults or provisos.

The group said it carried out the vandalism because the conference was hosting “some of the most vicious transphobia in pop politics”, and warned of further action.

Previous guests at the charity’s conference have included JK Rowling, who has been called transphobic for her views on gender identity and allowing trans women into women-only spaces. The author retweeted a post on X which criticised the vandalism.

That’s the closest they get to re-assigning the crime, and it’s not very close.

Event organisers FiLiA said: “It is shocking and saddening that a conference for women to discuss domestic abuse, sexual violence and lesbian safety has been met with smashed windows, graffiti and intimidation.”

FiLiA CEO Lisa-Marie Taylor added that the charity “campaigns for a world free from patriarchy where all women and girls are liberated. The activities of a small, violent minority will not diminish the spirit of sisterhood and solidarity which FiLiA embodies,” she said.

The BBC neglects to add anything to undermine or sneer at those statements.

I’m stunned. I wonder if it will last. I wonder if someone has put a foot down.

H/t Acolyte of Sagan

Putting the plebs in their place.