Maggie Chapman announces 2026 must be year we halt the rollback of trans rights.

Must it? Why? How about halting and reversing the rollback of women’s rights? What actual literal enforceable rights have trans people lost anyway?

She tells us “the festive period” is a time when people get together tralala, in order to say BUT not for everyone.

It can be a particularly hard time for a lot of LGBTQIA+ people, with many forced back into the closet or into denial just to keep the peace, and others cut off by estrangement.

But there are no such people. Trans is not the same as lesbian and gay and bisexual.

All over our country there are people being made to deny who they are, their relationships, their identity, so as not to create friction or disrupt the time that is supposed to be special.

Oh shut up and get on with peeling the potatoes or recycling the wrapping paper. If people claim an “identity” that is in fact the opposite of their real identity then that’s not everyone else’s problem. If a man “identifies as” a woman or a tree or a mince pie, he should do it on his own time. The rest of us do not care.

For some trans people in particular, it might mean being forced to return to a dead name they hoped they would never have to use again and a life that simply is not theirs and never truly was.

All that and having to comb their hair too!

Get a grip. The winter solstice holiday is notoriously difficult for many many people who have issues with their families but don’t want to disconnect entirely. That’s just life.

A survey by Pink News, an LGBTQIA+ publication, found 80% of its readers felt they had to hide who they are over the holiday season.

Oh a survey by Pink News; well then there’s no more to be said.

Kidding. Lots of people feel they have to hide at least some part of “who they are” around family. I repeat: that’s just life.

This year’s Supreme Court ruling has led to an increased hostility. Some of the most conservative and reactionary forces feel even more empowered to spread their bile and claw back even more hard-won rights.

Speaking of reactionary forces – here’s a woman spreading her bile at a court ruling that women and only women are women. The fact that she thinks she’s the opposite of reactionary is quite startling.

However, we must not lose hope. Dr Beth Upton’s tribunal victory and vindication underlined the huge problems with the Supreme Court ruling and entrenched the legal right for people to use the facilities that match their lived-in identities, including while they are at work.

I can’t begin to imagine how Dr Upton felt being dragged through a media circus, having her name slandered and her rights questioned in the most public way. Nobody should have to endure that or be maligned and vilified in such a public spectacle for simply being trans at work.

But for simply being a woman at work? Oh that’s a whole other story.

Gosh what a surprise – women are still treated like a tiresome worthless nuisance even after we say we would prefer something different.

A bill that set targets for increasing female representation on public boards in Scotland is not working and has delivered little benefit to women, critics have claimed.

The complaints over the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 come in the wake of statistics revealing that more than a third of listed public authorities had not achieved the key target as of December 31 last year.

The legislation demands that at least 50 per cent of non-executive members on public boards are female. Of the 143 listed public authorities, 88 had achieved the gender representation target, leaving 55 which had not.

[Aside: I do wish that UKnians would not phrase things in a way that requires the subjunctive to make sense while refusing to use the subjunctive. It makes no sense to demand that women are. If they are, there’s no need to demand, is there. It should be “demands that at least 50 percent be female” or else reworded altogether. It should also be “requires” instead of “demands.” Journalists should be required to write better.]

The figures, revealed in the third annual report on the legislation’s operation published this week, also showed the number of authorities meeting the threshold had dipped from two years earlier.

A spokeswoman for For Women Scotland (FWS), the campaign group that successfully challenged the Scottish government at the Supreme Court on the definition of a woman in the act, claimed the legislation had delivered “very little of benefit to women”.

Let me guess. Scotland is too busy forcing women to share all their spaces with men to bother with trivia like public boards forgetting women exist.

A spokeswoman for For Women Scotland (FWS), the campaign group that successfully challenged the Scottish government at the Supreme Court on the definition of a woman in the act, claimed the legislation had delivered “very little of benefit to women”.

“Far from demonstrating that the public boards act is working well, the government’s latest report shows that, seven years after the legislation was introduced, only 61.5 per cent of all public boards have achieved their target of equal representation of women,” the spokeswoman said.

“This is a drop from two years ago when the figure was 64 per cent. It is difficult, however, to have much confidence in any of the data produced when the government’s definition of ‘woman’ has been ever-shifting during this period. No one knows how many men [who have transitioned] have been included in the figures.”

The only worthwhile woman is a male woman.

Ok so I’m catching up, which means following up links you peeps have shared, so let’s read Green Party tearing itself apart over trans rights, leaked dossier reveals from December 12.

Subhead:

Lawyers warn guidance on identifying ‘queerphobia’ risks discriminating against members who question gender ideology

Do they now!?! That is good to know. Of course it does, so it’s excellent news that lawyers are now pointing out that it does.

The 53-page report on legal and reputational risk to the party, leaked to The Telegraph, exposes an extraordinary row over the party’s policies on transgender and LGBT rights. It poses material legal and financial risks to Zack Polanski’s movement, the dossier reveals.

The report, drawn up by the party’s own lawyers, raises concerns over “expulsions” of members who question gender ideology. It says these have not always followed “due process”, suggesting party lieutenants have been taking disciplinary action against members because of “individual hostility to gender-critical beliefs, or assumed beliefs”.

I think “hostility” is the wrong word there. Skepticism or doubt would be a better fit. There probably is some hostility about all the pressure to pretend to believe bullshit, but it’s pointless to feel “hostility” towards the beliefs themselves.

That’s sort of what the whole conflict is based on, isn’t it – the weird new assumption that we have a duty to believe people can change sex, and that it’s mean and rude and hostile to be unable to comply. We can’t believe it. We can only pretend to, and trying to force us to pretend to does tend to make us feel hostile – toward the forcers. The beliefs themselves don’t care what we think, because they’re beliefs, not people.

The report also reveals the party is spending almost £200,000 a year on its legal costs and external investigations of disciplinary cases, threatening its ability to carry out key functions.

But still worth every penny, right? Right?

H/t Sackbut December 15

From the Times:

“In public, at least, her supporters claimed victory. Sandie Peggie had, after all, been found to have been harassed by her employer, NHS Fife, in four different ways. But the veteran nurse’s win was a relatively narrow one. It was far from the slamdunk gender-critical campaigners had hoped for and had, in truth, expected after their landmark Supreme Court win in April.

“A load of sexist shite,” was how one leading activist privately described the 312-page ruling. “I didn’t think the judge would fall for his [Beth Upton’s] schtick. I was wrong.”

It means an employment tribunal which has divided opinion for the best part of a year is unlikely to be the end of the case. An appeal, well-informed sources said, is now a “near certainty”.

The Dundee employment tribunal upheld four of Peggie’s claims against NHS Fife. It found that the health board had harassed Peggie including by failing to revoke Upton’s permission to use female changing rooms “on an interim basis” after the nurse complained, and had taken an “unreasonable” amount of time to investigate the issue. But it dismissed other allegations against NHS Fife and the entirety of the case against Upton.

Among the most contentious findings was that it “is potentially but not necessarily lawful” to still allow trans women — biological men who identify as women — to use female-only spaces in the workplace. The tribunal suggested that rather than a blanket ban on trans women in female spaces, permitting access would become unlawful only if a woman complained. Even then, various factors, such as the trans woman’s efforts to appear feminine, would have to be balanced when deciding whose rights took precedence.

Are you SERIOUS???

Who gives a fuck about men’s “efforts to appear feminine” so that they can follow you into the toilet or the changing room or anywhere else they feel like following you whether you like it or not?

“This ruling just shows the reason we need the guidance from Westminster to be published urgently,” Trina Budge, a director of For Women Scotland, said. She noted that the Supreme Court ruling stated that provisions required for the protection of women “necessarily exclude men”, yet this appeared not to have been considered. Unfortunately, this judgment is all over the place and, in parts, littered with nonsense and the language of trans activism,” Budge added. “This is a perfect example of how in the absence of any leadership from the UK government, the water has been muddied further. Public bodies are still being allowed to cling to the ridiculous notion that putting on make up and wearing a dress is what defines a woman.”

News flash: ANYBODY can put on makeup and a dress. It’s extremely easy.

News flash 2: I never put on makeup and a dress. And yet, I am a woman, and Jonathan “India” Willoughby is not.

The BBC is so shitty on this subject.

The campaign group Sex Matters, which backed Sandie Peggie in the case, said it was very disappointed in the approach taken by the tribunal.

Maya Forstater, the organisation’s CEO, said it should have provided employers with clarity regarding single-sex spaces and that should have meant giving them the confidence to refuse to let trans women use those spaces. She added: “It is a travesty that a woman can be judged as having expressed herself in the wrong way when she objects to finding a man in the women’s changing room.”

Ms Forstater said there was an “urgent” need for the Health and Safety Executive to provide clear guidance to employers regarding workplace toilets and changing rooms.

However, discrimination lawyer Robin Moira White – who works with Translucent, a trans-led advocacy and human rights organisation – said the ruling was a “very sensible, balanced judgement”. She said the tribunal had found that Sandie Peggie had harassed Dr Upton, not the other way around.

Oh look, there’s the BBC failing to say that Robin Moira White is a man who pretends to be a woman, and in fact calling her “she” which means that anybody who doesn’t know Robin Moira White is a man will get a very distorted view of the matter.

Ms White added: “It recognised that both trans people and gender critical people have rights in the workplace and employers have to balance those.”

Oh fuck off, dude. No employers don’t have to “balance” women’s right not to change clothes with men in the room and men’s right to watch women changing clothes. Just fuck all the way off.

Partial victory for nurse in NHS trans changing room row

A nurse who objected to sharing a female changing room with a transgender doctor has won a claim for harassment against NHS Fife but other allegations of discrimination and victimisation were dismissed.

…

An employment tribunal judgement outlined four ways in which NHS Fife harassed Ms Peggie but dismissed the other allegations against the health board and all claims against Dr Upton. Ms Peggie welcomed the decision and said the past two years had been “agonising”, while NHS Fife said it would take time to work through the details.

…

In a written judgement on Monday, the tribunal found that NHS Fife had harassed Ms Peggie in a number of ways. It said that when she complained to her employers about Dr Upton using the women’s changing rooms, permission should have been revoked on an interim basis. It said the NHS should have stopped allowing Dr Upton to use the changing area until different work rotas took effect – at which point they wouldn’t be working together.

The tribunal also ruled that the health board had taken an unreasonable time to investigate the claims against her and that officials were wrong to tell her not to discuss the case. The health board’s reference to unproven claims that Ms Peggie had put patients at risk was also deemed to amount to harassment. However, Ms Peggie’s claims of discrimination and victimisation by NHS Fife did not succeed and were dismissed, as was her claim against Dr Upton.

That last part is annoying.

Trump and his goons are wrong about almost everything, but not about Admiral Levine.

As you walk down a particular hallway on the seventh floor of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., you’ll find a line of photographic portraits of all the people from years past who have led the Public Health Corps at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Only one of those portraits is of a transgender person: Adm. Rachel Levine, who served for four years as President Biden’s assistant secretary for health. She was the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation, and her portrait has been displayed in the hallway since soon after she was confirmed in 2021. 

They say “the first transgender person” as one might say “the first working class person” or “the first neglected orphan” – as if this Levine fella were some kind of persecuted minority.

Levine’s official portrait was recently altered, a spokesperson for HHS confirmed to NPR. A digital photograph of the portrait in the hallway obtained by NPR shows that Levine’s previous name is now typed below the portrait, under the glass of the frame.

“During the federal shutdown, the current leadership of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health changed Admiral Levine’s photo to remove her current legal name and use a prior name,” says Adrian Shanker, former deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Biden administration who worked with Levine and is now her spokesperson. He called the move an act “of bigotry against her.”

Hey, you know what? Pretending that men are women is an act of bigotry against women. Pretending that a man is the first woman to [whatever] is a rank insult.

An HHS staff member who asked not be identified for fear of professional retribution called the change “disrespectful” and added that it exemplifies “the erasure of transgender individuals by this administration.”

But trans ideology is a massive erasure of women. Not just one greedy man, but all women.

Since taking office, Trump has moved aggressively to curtail the rights of transgender and intersex people through many federal agencies, including the Departments of Health, Justice, Education, and others.

Yes but what rights? There is no “right” to pretend to be the opposite sex, let alone a right to force everyone else to agree that pretender really is the opposite sex.

Hiya!

It’s just that the connection stopped working. Maybe the whales get in the way somehow.

On the other hand here’s the beach I walked to at sunset yesterday:

Today Seattle is under an atmospheric river. It is WET out there.

Is this a joke?

President Trump wins inaugural Fifa Peace Prize

The guy who kills civilians in lifeboats wins a peace prize? The guy who responds to protests by sending soldiers to terrorize the protesters? The guy who is helping Putin gobble up Ukraine? The guy who cheers on violence provided it’s his team perpetrating it?

Trump is not a good symbol of peace or peace seeking or peacemaking.

Trump received the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize before the draw for the 2026 Fifa World Cup.

The award has been introduced this year by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, designated for a person who has “taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace” and “united people across the world”.

Description does not match perpetrator.

As well as receiving a large golden trophy, Trump was also given a medal and certificate by Infantino before making a speech.

Are we sure this is not a transcription of Trump’s diary?

Just so you don’t think I’m ignoring you – I’m at my employer’s other place, on the Monterey Peninsula, doing strenuous employee activity like taking a puppy out for walks. The internet connection is slow as frozen molasses in Greenland, so posting may be a bit sparse for a couple more days.

This morning while puppy was sleeping off the first morning walk I zoomed off to Asilomar State Beach, and there staring out at the ocean I saw little white puffs in the distance so I looked harder and you know what, I think they were whales blowing. I’ve never seen THAT before. I watched and watched, and there were a couple that just had to be that, so the others – not quite as distinct or high or emphatic – must have been too. Whales do hang around here, so it’s not a supernatural claim.

More on the ballroom saga – or should that be the ballsroom saga?

Trump has hired a new architect to oversee the construction of a vast ballroom at the White House, officials said.

Following reports that Trump had clashed with the previous architect, James McCrery, over the size and scope of the addition, the White House said architects Shalom Baranes Associates will take over the project. Mr McCrery will remain as a consultant.

Ah the size and scope. Do they think it’s too small and modest? Do they think it ought to be huger and more self-aggrandizing?

According to US media, Mr McCrery was concerned the ornate 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sq m) project would overshadow the rest of the White House. The house where the president lives and entertains is 55,000 sq ft while the West Wing, which includes the Oval Office and other work spaces, is 40,000 sq ft, according to the White House Historical Association.

Well of course it would – and will. It will be grotesque.

On Thursday, Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill that would require NCPC approval before tearing down a historic federal building.

Blumenthal pledged that the bill, the No Palaces Act, “prevents future presidents from recklessly destroying historic sites like the East Wing without approval from the independent National Capital Planning Commission or consideration from Congress.”

Door potentially closed. Horse long gone over the horizon.

When in doubt, punish the nearest women. Don’t ask any questions about who did what to whom, just punish the nearest women. It saves time in the end.

Bristol city council has banned two gender-critical women from stepping foot in City Hall after they asked Green Party councillors if the Supreme Court judgment on trans identity was “offensive or transphobic”.

The council alleged the questioning of the two councillors in the public lobby after a heated council meeting last month, in which Green councillors staged walkouts and held trans rights placards, was carried out “in a way that they found intimidating”.

Did they though? Or did they just say they found it intimidating?

Men don’t usually find women talking back intimidating. They find it outrageous, yes, but intimidating, no. Broadly speaking, men are not fearful of women’s voices.

The council has banned Wendy Stephenson, chair of the council’s independent remuneration panel, and Phoebe Beedell, a retired academic researcher, from attending any council meetings for six months because of their “unacceptable behaviour”.

But Greens staging walkouts is not unacceptable behaviour?

A number of “trans activist” placards were raised by Green councillors during a full council meeting on November 4 whenever a member of the public asked a question about women’s safety and the council’s criticism of the Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case that “woman” and “man” in the Equality Act refer to sex at birth.

The placards read “trans women are women”, “trans men are men”, “protect the dolls” [a reference to hyperfeminine trans women], “trans rights are human rights”, “trans is beautiful” and “trans people always have and always will exist”.

In short the placards brandished the usual collection of falsehoods and flattery.

Trans journalist: not a real journalist.

He writes things. Nobody pays him to do so. He’s not a journalist.

Ah the good old days.

President Donald Trump uploaded a series of wistful posts on Thursday evening that included photos of a younger Trump standing next to celebrities, civil rights leaders, musicians and artists during “the good old days,” some of whom he said no longer want to spend time with him.

Well, Don, think about why that might be.

I can just tell you why: it’s because you’re a bad man who does bad things. It’s also because you’re not a good (or wise or amusing) man who does good (or wise or amusing) things. Sensible people don’t want to spend time with you because you do harm and because you’re not quality company.

Breaking from his line of Truth Social posts earlier in the day about immigrant-related conspiracy theories, Trump appeared to end his Thursday by reflecting on bygone encounters with left-leaning cultural figures, including artist Andy Warhol, Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and singer James Brown. His apparent fondness for a time in which he was friendlier with creatives and activists contrasted with his ongoing campaign as president to topple arts institutions and wage war against political figures who oppose his agenda.

Trump followed his post on Thursday featuring Sharpton, Jackson and Brown with a photo of himself and Warhol walking alongside a horse as Trump holds its reins.

“Donald Trump talks with Andy Warhol as he holds the bridle of a polo pony, Nov. 4, 1983,” read the photo’s description, written by social media poster MythoMAGA. “Trump was often seen at Studio 54, the infamous New York celebrity club.”

Warhol met with Trump on several occasions in the early 1980s, when Trump attempted to commission a painting from Warhol to hang over the entrance to a residential portion of his Trump Tower, which was still under construction. Their relationship soured, however, when Trump rejected Warhol’s paintings for not being color-coordinated and never paid for them, according to The Andy Warhol Diaries, a published collection of the late artist’s personal journals.

Well, yes, that will sour things.

Over the next few years, after the commission fell through, Warhol repeatedly expressed disdain for the Trumps. When he was invited to judge cheerleading tryouts at Trump Tower in 1984, he slighted them by intentionally showing up late.

“It was the first tryout, and I was supposed to be there at 12:00 but I took my time and went to church and finally moseyed over there around 2:00. This is because I still hate the Trumps because they never bought the paintings I did of the Trump Tower,” he wrote.

Poor lonesome Don.

Hmmm.

One of the arguments defense officials have been quietly pushing in response to heavy criticism of the killing of the two survivors in a second strike on 2 September, is that they were legitimate targets because they appeared to be radioing for help or backup.

But Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the GOP chair of the Senate intelligence committee, admitted to CNN this morning that he didn’t see evidence of the men on the boat trying to use a radio to call for help.

He went on to defend the second strike, saying:

They were clearly not incapacitated. They were not distressed.

They were trying to get the boat back up and to continue their mission of spreading these drugs all across America.

That’s what they were doing and that’s why Admiral Bradley ordered the second strike.

They were not distressed?

Whether you interpret that as the ordinary “unhappy” meaning or the narrower meaning of in distress/in trouble/in danger – how can you possibly think they weren’t it?

Jill Lepore has a good essay in the New Yorker on living in trumpworld.

Peer into the dark. Earlier this fall, Trump reposted on Truth Social a four-minute news clip generated by A.I. The clip purported to be a segment from Lara Trump’s Fox News show, reporting on Trump’s announcement of the launch of “medbeds . . . designed to restore every citizen to full health and strength” at special hospitals about to open all over the country. Medbeds, which can cure all ailments and reverse aging, appear regularly in science fiction. (Think of the “biobeds” in the “Star Trek” sick bay.) They began featuring in online conspiracy theories in the early twenty-twenties; QAnoners claim that medbeds exist, and have existed for years, and that the rich and powerful use them (and that J.F.K. himself is on one, still alive), and that soon Trump will liberate them for use by the rest of us, as if Trump were Jesus opening the gates of Heaven and medbeds eternal life.

Take out your flashlight and ask the inevitable question: Is there any precedent for a President of the United States doing such a thing? Is American history any guide to understanding why Trump, or someone on his staff, posted (and soon afterward deleted) a fake video about a nonexistent news report concerning a fictional miracle cure, an episode whose political significance strikes me as asymptotically approaching zero?

I missed that. I’m ignoring much of Trump news, because I’m a brat.

Even if early American Presidents had wanted to speak directly to the public, they would have found it exceedingly difficult, not to mention exhausting. But, with the rise of railroads, travelling to meet your constituents soon got easier. John Tyler went on a thirteen-day tour in 1843, during which he made seventeen speeches. Trump, of course, likes to make speeches, too, and for hours on end. But the likeness ends there because, to be clear, Tyler did not use the occasion to tout patent medicines. After the Civil War, Presidents travelled more, not least because they had to try to stitch the country back together. That meant, in particular, touring the South. In 1878, Rutherford B. Hayes went on a speaking tour, whereupon an account was published that included every word he said, titled “The President’s Tour South. A Triumphal March Through the ‘Solid South.’ Enthusiastic Reception of the President and Cabinet at All Points Along the Journey. Speeches, Sayings and Doings of Those Who Participated in the Ovation to the President.” And, still, he hawked neither gold coins with his face stamped on them nor silver ones.

Yes but who remembers him now?

Historians will need to account for Trump when, as Gerald Ford said when he succeeded Nixon, “our long national nightmare is over.” Analogies won’t help them. Because nothing in American history anticipates or explains the way Trump speaks to his supporters at his rallies—or his use of Twitter, between 2015 and 2021, and Truth Social, beginning in 2022. He riffs; he cusses; he dodges; he weaves; he raises money; he spreads lies. He is lurid and profane. He targets his political opponents, threatening them with prosecution, prison, and execution. He is the world’s most outspoken troll, and its most dangerous. He posts day and night, about everything from taco bowls to possible ceasefires. He is getting worse. In his second term, he has posted three times as often as he did during his first. Tonally, nearly everything he posts is unhinged, even when it’s a simple endorsement or amplification of a policy, like tariffs:

THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE – AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!

Maybe, and maybe not.

Ugh.

This is indeed magic.

OJ is very sarcastic about women’s rights.

Boys booted out of Girlguiding – I’m not seeing the problem. Girlguiding is for girls. There are organizations for children and adolescents of both sexes, and there are organizations for one or the other sex. That’s ok; we can do that.

We probably ought to do that. It’s just a fact that humans are sexually dimorphic and that male humans have a lot of physical advantages over female humans. That’s not the case for all animals, but it is for humans. If we female humans had had a vote we would have voted for “make us equal in strength!!” but we didn’t. Nobody consulted us. Nobody consulted men either. Who knows? Maybe men would have preferred equal strength too. It must have its downsides, being the physically dominant sex. Being subject to the draft is a biggy.

But we didn’t have a choice. It is what it is and we’re stuck with it. Given that fact, it is permissible for girls and women to meet without any boys and men around. It’s permissible and it’s not an injustice. Men should not try to get around it by claiming to be trans women.