Not for the first time, I ask what the hell is “transfeminism”? Fake feminism? Pretend feminism? Not-real feminism?

Sinister Wisdom, that styles itself a Multicultural Lesbian Literary & Art Journal, interrupts itself to talk about “trans feminisms” instead of actual feminism. So much for the Lesbian part.

Trans/Feminisms

Sinister Wisdom is seeking submissions of writing and artwork by folks across the gender spectrum for our issue Trans/Feminisms. Sinister Wisdom invites all trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, two-spirit, gender non conforming, intersex writers and artists to submit. To put it simply–if you trouble, research, or think about gender, we want your work.

So…does that include lesbians? Or no? Does it include lesbians who are gender nonconforming but not the other kind? Butch ok but femme stay away?

More to the point, why is a lesbian journal doing this? Is it because they think lesbians are now the domineering capitalist lords of the manor, oppressing and exploiting the poor starved trans people whose ribs are poking through their skin?

Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural lesbian literary & art journal that publishes four issues each year. Publishing since 1976, Sinister Wisdom works to create a multicultural, multi-class lesbian and queer space.

Perhaps that’s our answer. Lesbian and queer. Lesbian isn’t good enough any more, is that it? Lesbian equals Karen, is that it? You have to bring in some “queer” people to ward off the Karenization, is that it?

What perspectives do trans lives bring to the field of feminist thought and practice? What does it mean to hold a conversation about being trans? What does it mean to be a part of that conversation? How do the crossroads of difference affect the conversation? Trans/Feminisms is dedicated to exploring and celebrating transness. We seek work that appeals to and from transness in a range of mediums: interdisciplinary, genre-bending poetry, fiction, transcribed interviews, manifestos, essays, historical and theoretical deep dives, comic strips, visual art, photography, and beyond. Interviews, oral histories, intergenerational conversations, and collaborations are especially encouraged.

I long to read the historical and theoretical deep dives. I’m sure they’ll be more brilliant than we can possibly imagine.

The NY Times takes a close look at Trump’s immediate future:

On Friday, the judge overseeing Mr. Trump’s civil fraud case issued a final ruling that inflicted a staggering financial penalty. With interest, the former president has been ordered to pay about $450 million, a sum that threatens to wipe out a stockpile of cash, stocks and bonds that he amassed since leaving the White House. He will have only 30 days or so to either come up with the money or persuade an outside company to post a bond.

The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, also imposed several new restrictions on Mr. Trump and his family business. For three years, Mr. Trump cannot run any New York company, including portions of his own, nor can he obtain a loan from a New York bank. The same restrictions apply to his adult sons for a two-year period. And the family business will be under the thumb of a watchful outsider, a court-appointed monitor who can hamstring the company if she does not like what she sees.

This won’t, unfortunately, make him an instant pauper, but it will hinder and annoy him. Baby steps.

His lawyers are already contacting companies that might post the bond, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, though it is unclear if and when they will reach a deal.

You have to wonder what company is going to want to post a bond for Trump, given his history of not paying his debts. I suppose they could demand a huge enough deposit to make it worthwhile, but then would he be able to pay it?

The penalty in Friday’s decision, when combined with an $83.3 million judgment Mr. Trump is facing from a defamation trial involving the writer E. Jean Carroll, adds up to more than half a billion dollars, eclipsing his current collection of cash. Even for someone who measures his net worth in the billions, that sum could leave Mr. Trump more financially vulnerable than he has been in decades.

The former president derives much of his net worth from his properties, and if he runs out of cash, he might have to sell or mortgage one. Although he will not go bankrupt, because the value of those buildings far exceeds the penalty imposed by Justice Engoron, selling any real estate would be a personal affront to the former president, who glories in his properties. It also might not be easy: It often takes time to find a buyer willing to pay a good price.

Especially when the seller is Trump.

Justice Engoron’s other punishments took more direct aim at the Trump Organization’s way of doing business — most notably, extending the appointment of the independent monitor, Barbara Jones.

A former federal judge, Ms. Jones will be the equivalent of a corporate babysitter for the next three years. Justice Engoron granted her additional authority — he called it “enhanced monitorship” — and asked her to recommend an independent compliance director who will oversee the company’s financial reporting from within its ranks.

Already, Ms. Jones has been an irritant for the Trump Organization, reviewing its transactions and keeping an eye out for fraud. The company has paid her millions of dollars for her work and will have to pay millions more.

Ms. Jones’s presence could also scare away potential business partners and second-guess any new deals, further constraining a company that has been stuck in neutral since Mr. Trump ascended to the White House in 2017.

Fingers crossed.

Mr. Trump’s plan to secure a bond so that he need not immediately pay either the state or Ms. Carroll could prove challenging — and expensive. Mr. Trump must find a company willing to write one in spite of his polarizing presidential run and mounting legal woes. His lawyers would negotiate a deal with the company, which would charge a premium and could demand that Mr. Trump pledge cash and other liquid assets as collateral, legal experts said. Under New York law, he will also owe 9 percent interest until the appeal is resolved, meaning the size of the bond could reach $500 million or more.

And then his head will explode? Here’s hoping.

Another dude steps up.

Oh really.

They want to be the UK’s most inclusive, because celebrating diversity will make them perfect and supernatural. Well then why don’t they include women for a change? Why don’t they celebrate diversity by talking about women for a change? Why don’t they create an environment where women feel welcome for a change? Why is inclusion and diversity and celebration always about men who pretend to be women instead of women?

Or what about workers? Why not be inclusive of workers, celebrate the diversity of workers, create an environment where workers feel welcome?

Why is it always about the T?

You can’t sue people for saying that men are not women.

I know that’s too obvious to bother saying, but this guy…

First there’s the headline.

Help WOKEN Sue Darren Grimes – Transphobia Against Brianna Ghey

Help what? Is “woken” a new trans verb that means “wake up” or “rouse to action”? Are we being asked to help spur Sue Darren Grimes into being less sleepy?

Or is “woken” an adjective that applies to Sue Darren Grimes? Is Sue one of those boring woke people who keep prodding us to be more woke? Or “woken” for extra elegance?

And what does the part after the hyphen mean? What about Transphobia Against Brianna Ghey? What does it have to do with waking up Sue?

Well, none of that, apparently. It seems that “Woken” is a thing of some kind – a grouplet, a collective, an activism. And it seems that the person involved is not Sue Darren Grimes, but Darren Grimes, whom we are being urged to help this “Woken” entity sue. Not Sue, but sue.

Ok, language skills need some work, but I’m listening – what are “Woken” trying to sue this Darren Grimes for?

TRIGGER WARNING  the link below contains transphobic content.

On Wednesday 7th February at 12:26, Darren Grimes posted this sickening and abhorrent Tweet on Twitter/X which is still up and available for all to see:

‘I hate to break it to British politicians, but trans women are men. The horrific act of pure evil that was the murder of Brianna Ghey doesn’t change that.’

That’s it, that’s the grounds for suing.

I wonder if the people at “WOKEN” have any idea how many people have said, and tweeted, that trans women are men.

It’s true that there has been a hell of a lot of coercion of a hell of a lot of people to say that trans women are women, but it’s also true that there has been a hell of a lot of refusal, and that you can’t sue people for telling an obvious truth.

The buffoon behind this prank goes on:

Despite our efforts at WOKEN to contact Darren via Twitter as well as by email and telephone calls to his places of work (‘Unreasoned’ and GB News) to ask him to please recant and delete his post he refused to contact us and delete the hurtful and bigoted Tweet as we politely requested.

Imagine that – some stranger asks him (with a “please”!!) to delete a tweet and he does nothing. They requested politely! What more does he want?!

Darren’s steadfast refusal has unfortunately left us with little choice other than to commence the exploration of legal action against him

Ok come on now. That’s pushing it too far. Surely it’s parody. Surely nobody really thinks saying men are not women is grounds for legal action. Why single out this one tweet as if it were unusual? The buffoon can’t be that stupid.

to sue him for posting this Transphobic comment which is a Malicious Communication (as defined by the 1988 Malicious Crimes Act) and a Hate Crime (as defined by the Crime and Disorder act of 1998 and Section 66 of the Sentencing Act of 2020). 

No it isn’t. Next?

Trump ordered to pay $350 million.

A New York judge on Friday handed Donald J. Trump a crushing defeat in his civil fraud case, finding the former president liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordering him to pay a penalty of nearly $355 million plus interest that could wipe out his entire stockpile of cash.

But first he will appeal. I want to see him having to sell properties now.

Justice Engoron barred Mr. Trump for three years from serving in top roles at any New York company, including portions of his own Trump Organization. He also imposed a two-year ban on the former president’s adult sons and ordered that they pay more than $4 million each. One of them, Eric Trump, is the company’s de facto chief executive, and the ruling throws into doubt whether any member of the family can run the business in the near term.

Golly, they might have to find someone who isn’t a crook to do it.

In his unconventional style, Justice Engoron criticized Mr. Trump and the other defendants for refusing to admit wrongdoing for years. “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” he said.

Borders on shmorders on. Pathological R Trumps.

But there might be little Mr. Trump can do to thwart one of the judge’s most consequential punishments: extending for three years the appointment of an independent monitor who is the court’s eyes and ears at the Trump Organization. Justice Engoron also strengthened the monitor’s authority to watch for fraud and second-guess transactions that look suspicious.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have railed against the monitor, Barbara Jones, saying that her work had already cost the business more than $2.5 million; the decision to extend her oversight of the privately held company could enrage the Trumps, who see her presence as an irritant and an insult.

Well good. They need to be irritated and insulted.

I saw this so…

[If you open the full tweet you get a view of his naked bum]

…so I had to look up this Senior Lecturer. The source is Middlesex University itself:

Dr T J Bacon

Pronouns: Xe/Xem/Xyrs (usage)

Producing artwork under the name tjb, Dr Bacon’s practice, framed as an artist-philosopher, extends across performance art, visal art, curation, socially engaged practice, transgender studies, queer theory, crip theory and queer phenomenology. Xis outputs manifest through the interdisciplinary visual arts and as an author. Xe has exhibited xis practice internationally for over 20 years and is the founder and artistic director of Tempting Failure, a festival international performance art staged in the UK since 2012.

Clearly Doc Bacon wrote that himself (and failed to spot the typo in “visal art”). It’s impressive that his outputs manifest, when duller more quotidian academics simply publish their work.

Is it just me or is there something a little suspect about that long list of items his “practice extends across”? Is he trying to make up for poverty of thought with wealth of list-making?

Also note “crip theory.” I assume that’s what ordinary mortals call disability studies or similar. Cute.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Mote and beam.

CSIS’s comments come as provincial policies on gender-affirming surgeries and pronoun preferences are being hotly debated across the country.

And it looks like they’ve taken a side. There’s only one “side” whose potential for violence seems to concern them:

“CSIS assesses that the violent threat posed by the anti-gender movement is almost certain to continue over the coming year…

As I would be considered a part of the “anti-gender movement” by trans activists and their allies (of which we can now count CSIS), I might very well have my own CSIS file. I’m not flattering myself with some degree of inflated “importance,” I’ve just seen how this shit has played out in the UK with police forces deployed against limericks, ribbons, stickers, and simple statements of reality, all of which have been characterized and acted upon by the police as actual threats.

… representing the gender ideology ‘agenda,’”…

Yah gotta love those scare quotes around agenda. As if the idea of a gender ideology agenda is a delusional fantasy with no existence in the real world. So we must be just imagining the placement of male offenders in women’s prisons, the branding of watchful waiting as “conversion therapy,” the removal of public funding from women’s shelters refusing to serve TiMs, men taking spots on women’s sports teams, universities turning washroom facilities into de facto mixed sex ones for the sake of “inclusion,” unions and school boards defending the public performances of misogynistic AGP fetshists in classrooms, etc. So what would CSIS have us believe, that none of this is happening, or that this is all healthy, or that we must stay silent in the face of these things happening? The UK police actions noted above, and this very CSIS announcement are part of that very same “agenda.”

What violent rhetoric?

Saying that there are only two sexes in humans, and that nobody can change sex; saying that men are not women; saying “No.” All “violent” if you ask the wrong people, and likely the very people currently advising CSIS in its current efforts. I imagine that the threshold for “violence” is going to be quite low.

Also I wonder if Balsam has seen the violent rhetoric emanating from the pro-gender movement.

Just the heart-felt, passionate self-defence of a disadvantaged, marginalized, vulnerable community (which just happens to have the country’s security and intelligence service, and the governing party, as allies).

Wish us luck.

The CBC inciting violence against people who don’t believe in trans ideology:

Canada’s intelligence agency is warning that extremists could “inspire and encourage” serious violence against the 2SLGBTQI+ community — a threat the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says almost certainly will continue over the coming year.

CSIS’s comments come as provincial policies on gender-affirming surgeries and pronoun preferences are being hotly debated across the country.

“CSIS assesses that the violent threat posed by the anti-gender movement is almost certain to continue over the coming year and that violent actors may be inspired by the University of Waterloo attack to carry out their own extreme violence against the 2SLGBTQI+ community or against other targets they view as representing the gender ideology ‘agenda,'” said CSIS spokesperson Eric Balsam in an email to CBC News.

…

Balsam said that while violent rhetoric does not always lead to violence, “the ecosystem of violent rhetoric within the anti-gender movement, compounded with other extreme worldviews, can lead to serious violence.”

What violent rhetoric?

Also I wonder if Balsam has seen the violent rhetoric emanating from the pro-gender movement.

Oh come on. Surely it’s a parody. Surely. Like the guy with tits the size of a small car.

The BBC is wall to wall Navalny right now, which is appropriate. Photos of vigils in Tbilisi, Berlin, Riga, Lisbon, London.

Candles and flowers are being laid for Alexei Navalny outside the Russian embassy in London. Some of the Russians that I’ve spoken to at the vigil have been fighting back tears as they speak to me. The sentiment is mixed.

One woman, who asked to go by the name Erika, tells me: “We still have hope for a better future for Russia. Even without him, his dream lives on. We continue to fight.” But for another, the dream is over. “I feel very sad because nobody should be treated like he was treated. It’s against humanity There is no more hope for the future of Russia,” says Anna.

Moscow, on the other hand, says don’t even think about it.

Moscow city authorities have warned people against public demonstrations in the Russian capital following the news of the death of opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

In a statement reported by Russian news agencies, the city’s prosecutor’s office notes a number of online calls for a “mass rally”, and says it “considers it necessary to warn against violating the law”.

Russian law requires organisers to seek permission from the authorities for any mass assembly.

So no protesting the authorities then. Got it.

This borders on lying.

That’s like saying amputating a smashed leg is the same surgery as amputating a healthy leg. Yes they’re both amputations of a leg, but the difference in the reason for the surgery is not a trivial difference.

Gender dysphoria is a psychological problem. Voluntary amputations to address a psychological problem are at least a risky practice, and there are people who regret theirs. It’s extremely creepy to see the ACLU actively urging people to get themselves mutilated.

In other words CHCO continues to provide mastectomies to breast cancer patients.

Here’s the ACLU pretending that mastectomies for breast cancer are the same kind of thing as mastectomies for emotional distress.

It’s outrageous, reckless, grotesque, evil.

So, naturally, there has been a bit of a reaction, so the MS Society felt obliged to Issue A Statement, which is of course a statement like all the other statements.

For more than 75 years, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society has advanced one bold vision—a world free of MS. Through thousands of volunteers, dedicated staff, and generous donors, we live that vision every day. We welcome anyone to join us to advance that mission. As an organization, we firmly believe that we best serve and support those living with MS by creating a space that welcomes all. This is especially true for self-help group leaders, who are responsible for leading meetings for people affected by MS to confide in and support one another. Recently, a volunteer, Fran Itkoff, was asked to step away from her role because of statements that were viewed as not aligning with our policy of inclusion. Fran has been a valued member of our volunteer team for more than 60 years. 

Pause to savor that. More than 60 fucking years she’s given them, and still they spit in her eye because she doesn’t get what luxury pronouns are.

We believe that our staff acted with the best of intentions and did their best to navigate a challenging issue. As an organization, we are in a continued conversation about assuring that our diversity, equity and inclusion policies evolve in service of our mission, and will reach out to Fran in service of this goal.

What about inclusion of Fran, you stupid bureaucratic fucks? What about diversity of Fran? How many volunteers do you have who have given you SIX DECADES of service? How many volunteers age 90 do you have? How about a little “equity” for Fran?

Replies closed. 3.3 thousand retweets, probably mostly quote tweets.

Inclusion strikes again.

Fran Itkoff, an elderly disabled woman in California, was dismissed from her volunteer work at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society because she asked about the use of pronouns in an email signature. “I was confused. I didn’t know what it was and what it meant,” she said.

When Itkoff was allegedly asked by an unnamed worker at the nonprofit group to use her pronouns, the 90-year-old woman said that she did not understand the request.

Probably because there’s no such thing as “my pronouns.” There is such a thing as “my name”; there is not such thing as “my pronouns” or “my verbs” or “my adjectives.” Language is public property.

Following the conversation, she received an email a few days later explaining that she had violated the MS Society’s diversity, equity, and inclusion guidelines.

“We appreciate your dedication and contribution as a Self-Help Group Leader with our organization. As we discussed earlier during a phone conversation, after a thorough review of our guidelines and standards, it has come to our attention that there has been a failure to abide by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion guidelines during your time as a volunteer,” the email to Itkoff read.

The email continued, “Unfortunately, based on the situation, we have made the difficult decision to have you step down from your volunteer position, effective immediately.”

Itkoff had been volunteering for 60 years at the MS Society and previously, her husband, who had MS before he died 20 years ago, had run the Long Beach Lakewood MS support group, which she took over to honor him.

Blah blah blah; never mind all that; she committed PRONOUN CRIME!

Her daughter Elle Hamilton said volunteering for the support group has been her mother’s whole life with the goal of helping other patients get through their situations.

Never mind; PRONOUNS.

Putin wins again.

Russia’s most prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny collapsed and died on Friday after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony where he was serving a long jail term, the Russian prison service said.

Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, rose to prominence more than a decade ago with blogs on what he said was vast corruption and opulence among the “crooks and thieves” of Russia’s elite.

The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said in a statement that Navalny felt unwell after a walk at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) north east of Moscow into the Arctic Circle.

Putin is thinking it certainly took him long enough to “feel unwell” up there in the freezer. He was supposed to croak long before this.

Western officials paid tribute to his courage as a fighter for freedom. Some, without citing evidence, bluntly accused the Kremlin.

Without citing evidence? We already have the evidence: it’s been public all along. Navalny was kidnapped and shipped off to the Arctic because he resisted Putin.

The Telegraph:

[John Lewis is a department store chain.]

John Lewis has launched a magazine for staff which advises parents on how to find breast binders for trans children. The partnership, which also owns Waitrose, faced boycott calls on Wednesday after it issued a new publication to more than 70,000 staff members.

The Identity magazine, produced by the “LGTQIA+ network”, warned parents their support “can determine their child’s mental wellbeing” before quoting figures from controversial charity Stonewall, which suggested that the number of trans children attempting suicide is “double the national average”.

The magazine recommends support from the charity Mermaids, which is currently under investigation by the Charity Commission amid safeguarding concerns, and praises private clinic Gender GP for prescribing cross-sex hormones.

This is bosses forcing this dangerous but childish bullshit on employees.

The Identity magazine starts with an introduction from the editor in which he suggests the debates over LGBTQ rights are “playing pointless politics with people’s lives”.

Women don’t have lives? Feminists don’t have lives? Kids who find puberty difficult don’t have lives? Resisting trans ideology is very far from “pointless.”

The magazine feature goes on to quote a parent, Anne, saying that social media influencers “helped” by sharing “tips on how to safely use clothing and equipment to achieve a person’s desired gender identity, for example, chest binders”.

Safely. Safely!!

A study by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health has previously found that 97 per cent of adults who use breast binders experienced health impacts from binding, including pain, rib fractures, changes to the spine, headaches, respiratory and skin infections and muscle wasting.

But hey, a department store chain says binders are awesome, so get your daughter in one before another sunset.

The magazine also includes advice on using preferred pronouns “because it’s right to do so” and a glossary of trans terms and dates for events.

The magazine says some of the events which will be recognised in 2024 include International Trans Day of Visibility, Asexuality Day, Agender Pride Day, Pansexual and Panromantic Visibility Day, Non-binary Awareness Week and International Non-binary People’s Day

Asexuality day. How do you celebrate it? Just…do nothing?

A John Lewis Partnership spokesman said: “We want the Partnership to be a place where people can work or shop with confidence, irrespective of their backgrounds.”

Provided they’re 100% down with trans ideology, that is. Everyone else, pfffffff, they can go to Marks.

Remember Helen Clarke? Of Oxford Brookes University and Approved Opinions on Trans Isshooz?

She’s not very forthcoming about how she knows what she claims to know.

Because it’s scurrilous bloviating about stubborn women who won’t get on the trans train, that’s why.

H/t NightCrow

Girls cheated out of their own sport again:

The KIPP Academy girls basketball game on February 8 against the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell ended at halftime. The question is, why? Collegiate Charter left after 16 minutes of play with KIPP leading, 31-14. The game goes into the books as a 10-0 forfeit win for KIPP.

According to multiple sources, KIPP has a male player on its girls basketball roster, despite the school offering a boys program. The player is reported to be more than 6 feet tall with facial hair. KIPP officials refused to confirm the player’s gender identification. 

The facial hair bit seems irrelevant at first, but then you realize it’s a pretty good reason to think the player is not a girl.

If the player identifies as female, participation on the girls team would seem to be supported by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, the governing body for high school athletics in the Commonwealth. According to the MIAA Handbook, Section 43.3.1: “A student shall not be excluded from participation on a gender-specific sports team that is consistent with the student’s bona fide gender identity.”

Oh please. Who decides whether the faith is good or not? And why does good faith excuse all anyway? Even if the student in some sense believes he has a female idenniny, he’s still a boy playing against girls.

The MIAA does make it clear, however, that this rule is not to be enacted for the purpose of gaining a competitive advantage, as noted in the MIAA Handbook, Section 43.3.2:

“When a school district submits a roster to the MIAA, it is verifying that it has determined that the students listed on a gender-specific sports team are eligible to participate either based on the gender listed on their official birth certificate or based on their bona fide gender identity and that no students are included on the roster solely for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage in competitive athletics.

Oh well that’s fine then, because of course they’re going to say up front that this male student is included on the roster solely for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage in competitive athletics.

Collegiate Charter left not because they were losing but because they didn’t want any more injuries.

[Athletic Director] Pelczar said [Coach] Ortins had his own reasons for leaving.

“So, he felt that his girls were getting injured, basically, all game,” Pelczar said. “He has a playoff game on Monday, so he didn’t want to have any more of his girls go down.”

Ah, I see. It wasn’t a problem that they were losing because the other team had a large boy playing, it was a problem only because the girls were being injured and they have a playoff game next week.

That all seems very fair and reasonable.

Let’s learn more about the Garrick. Its own account of itself is interesting.

The Garrick Club is instituted for the general patronage of drama; for the purpose of combining the use of a Club, on economic principles, with the advantages of a literary society; for bringing together supporters of drama; and for the formation of a theatrical library, with works on costume.

…

The Garrick was founded in 1831 by a group of literary gentlemen under the patronage of the King’s brother, the egalitarian Duke of Sussex. They announced that the Club would be a place where ‘actors and men of refinement and education might meet on equal terms’, where ‘patrons of the drama and its professors were to be brought together’, and where ‘easy intercourse was to be promoted between artists and patrons’.

They couldn’t have made it a place where actors and women and men of refinement and education might meet on equal terms, because there were no public places where women and men could do that in 1831. Private houses, yes, but public places, no.

But it’s not 1831 any more.

The Club was named after the great eighteenth century actor David Garrick. Attracted by the combination of the traditions of the eighteenth century literary society with the advantages of a well-run dining and social club, the first members of the Garrick were a sophisticated and cosmopolitan group that included twenty-four peers of the realm as well as writers, actors, musicians and publishers.

Many of the great literary personalities of the nineteenth century were members of the Garrick, and the Club was the scene of a famous quarrel between perhaps the two greatest – Dickens and Thackeray. Edmund Yates, a friend of Dickens, published remarks on Thackeray that were offensive and could only have been heard in the Club. Yates was peevishly championed by Dickens and the disaffection between him and Thackeray lasted until just before the latter’s death. Other members of the Club in the nineteenth century included writers such as Trollope, Captain Marryat, Meredith, JM Barrie, Pinero and WS Gilbert, actors such as Macready, Charles Kemble, Charles Mathews, Irving, Tree and Forbes-Robertson, composers such as Elgar and Sullivan and artists such as Millais, Leighton and Rossetti.

Today the Club has around 1,300 members including many of the most distinguished actors and men of letters in England. The original assurance of the committee, “that it would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be excluded than one terrible bore should be admitted”, ensures that the lively atmosphere for which the Club was so well-known in the nineteenth century continues to invigorate members of the Club in the twenty-first century.

Lively but, excuse me for saying so, narrow. The Club absent-mindedly leaves out half of the potential membership on account of what’s between their legs, so they lack some pretty lively people. Mary Beard for instance: I should think she’d be excellent for the lively atmosphere. Maggie Smith? Natalie Haynes? Emma Thompson? Zadie Smith?

Amelia Gentleman in the Guardian three years ago:

Over 100 QCs have signed a petition calling on members of one of London’s last remaining gentlemen’s clubs, the Garrick, to vote for women to be admitted at the club’s annual general meeting next week.

The Garrick has a long association with the legal profession, and many senior lawyers are members. Female QCs who signed the petition expressed frustration that a club frequented by senior judges still refuses to accept female members.

So in that sense the Garrick isn’t really all that “private.” It’s useful for professional advancement, and that’s not exactly “private.”

“It is well known that The Garrick is a forum where senior members of the legal profession socialise with each other. Men are afforded an opportunity through their membership to form connections with senior legal practitioners to support their professional aspirations,” the petition states.

“This is an opportunity expressly denied to women and contributes to the gross underrepresentation of women at the top of the legal profession. We urge the Garrick’s members to consider whether they would remain members of a club that excluded based on race, religion, or sexuality.”

Before you shout some more about the Garrick’s absolute right to continue excluding women please note that the petition says “We urge the Garrick’s members to consider.” It’s not a violation of liberal principles to urge people to consider things.

Some QCs left messages beneath the petition describing their anger at colleagues’ membership of the club, and the unease they felt at having to attend dinners there as a guest. One senior female barrister, with 30 years experience, said that case dinners at the Garrick were “frequent”, and seemed to form part of invisible pattern of networking between male colleagues.

Another said the links between senior judges and the Garrick “have long played a part in creating a misogynistic atmosphere that makes it less likely that women will want to pursue careers to the highest level and, if they do, less likely that they will be successful. The Garrick’s insistence on all-male membership plays an important and corrosive role in confirming these gender distinctions”.

The former president of the supreme court Baroness Hale, who was the first woman among 12 supreme court judges (several of whom were then Garrick club members), criticised the club’s continued exclusion of women in 2011. “I regard it as quite shocking that so many of my colleagues belong to the Garrick, but they don’t see what all the fuss is about,” she told a law diversity forum. She said judges “should be committed to the principle of equality for all”.

Judges of all people.