Category: Notes and Comment Blog

  • Trousers in flames

    The lies people tell. This is a journalist.

    “Eliminationist” implies genocidal. It’s an outrageous lie, and she must know it is.

    “Genocidal.”

    It’s a journalist saying this.

  • Everybody has won

    The BBC on the other hand finally manages to get it right.

    Transgender women banned from playing international women’s cricket by ICC

    Transgender women i.e. men, but I don’t expect the conventional media to start saying that any time soon.

    Following a nine-month consultation process, the governing body said its new policy, which takes effect immediately, was based on “protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion”.

    It shouldn’t take nine minutes to figure out that letting men play on women’s teams is not fair, but there it is.

    “The changes to the gender eligibility regulations resulted from an extensive consultation process and is founded in science and aligned with the core principles developed during the review,” said ICC chief executive Geoff Allardice.

    “Inclusivity is incredibly important to us as a sport, but our priority was to protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players.”

    Now, wait a minute. What does he mean by that? How can “inclusivity” be important to competitive sport when the whole point of the competitive bit is to exclude everyone who doesn’t win? Exclusion is the whole point. It’s not unjust exclusion, it’s just what competitive sport is. I’ve never liked it much, as a participant or part of the audience, because I can’t seem to care very much who is more skilled at [whatever the sport is] than someone else, but that’s just me. Lots of people love it, and let’s be real: it’s the winning and losing that makes it exciting. So inclooosivviteee just can’t be “incredibly important” to people in charge of running a competitive sport. You can’t have everything.

  • Meanwhile in manipulation

    Always this shameless sneaky obfuscating lie – it’s always “trans” instead of “male.” Why is that? Because, of course, “male” makes it all too obvious why they’re banned, while “trans” makes it look disskrimminittoree to people who aren’t paying much attention.

    “Transgender players who have gone through male puberty,” the Graun says – in other words male players. The problem is not that they’re “trans”; it’s that they’re male. Nobody cares how people idennify; the issue is unfair artificial physical advantage. Sean Ingle must know this, of course, which means he must be deliberately hiding the reason for not letting men compete against women, even if they say they are trans.

  • Guest post: A modest proposal to achieve temperature justice

    Guest post by Jonathan Gallant

    Students of geography and climate have long known that the climate of western Europe is more temperate, on the whole, than the climate of Africa.   Urban centers of government, finance, education, and culture in western Europe, such as London, Edinburgh, Paris, Amsterdam, and Geneva, are rarely as hot, and never hot for as long, as cities in Africa.  This clearly has disparate impact on the inhabitants of cities in the two regions, in regard to  health, activity, moods, ease of sleep, and so on.  Worse still, public knowledge of these temperature differences could tend to marginalize those who are subject to systems of temperature oppression.

       The principles of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion demand that this systemic inequity should be abolished as soon as possible.  To this end, we propose two steps.  First, notice that education systems have increased Diversity in various areas of advanced training by simply replacing numerical grades with pass/fail rating.  Therefore, our first step should be to stop reporting temperatures in cities of the world in degrees either centigrade or fahrenheit.  Instead, we should merely refer to the daily climate as inhabitable/uninhabitable, without the judgemental implications of using numbers.  The rating of “inhabitable” would apply to any temperatures below that on the surface of the planet Mercury, and above that on the moons of Saturn.  

       In the next step, we will prohibit reporting outdoor temperatures in any way, thus eliminating public knowledge about different regions of the world that might have disparate impact, and thus cause harm to inhabitants of one region or another.  To insure that the harmful effect of reported temperature inequities will be eliminated, we will ban the use of thermometers altogether. 

  • It still means women are losing out

    Spiked points out what you’d think would be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for three seconds.

    Female athletes are fighting back against the trans takeover of their sports. In the past few months, sports as varied as cycling and angling have faced boycotts and protests from female athletes over their so-called trans inclusion policies. Across the sporting world, more and more women are arriving at the same conclusion – namely, that allowing men to compete in their sports is unfair at best, and downright dangerous at worst.

    Or, women have known that all along but only now are starting to feel able to say so.

    The latest sportswomen to revolt are professional pool players. The World Eightball Pool Federation and Ultimate Pool Group had previously promised to rewrite their rules on trans inclusion to prevent biological males from competing in women’s competitions. Then, last month, they performed a volte face. They revealed that ‘transgender and nonbinary players will be able to participate’ in future women’s series.

    So women are walking away, which means the men still get to win (but their cheating is made that bit more obvious to onlookers).

    Fourteen-times national champion Alexandra Cunha has outright refused to ever play against men in the women’s category.

    In an interview with the Telegraph, Cunha says she is worried that many people don’t fully appreciate the advantages that biological males have over females, even in a precision sport like pool. ‘Players born male have longer arms and a longer range’, she says. ‘In 32 years, I have never witnessed any biological woman with anything like the power and velocity when it comes to the break shot.’

    If the inclusion of biological males in precision sport is unfair, their inclusion in a contact sport is downright dangerous. Shockingly, Boxing Canada allows fighters to participate in whichever sex category they choose. It is little wonder that women have started to boycott its competitions.

    It’s so interesting to watch entire sporting organizations cheerily allow men to batter women.

    It’s good news that female athletes are taking a stand against men in women’s sports. Walking out of ‘trans inclusive’ competitions might well be the only way to force a response from sporting bodies. The tragedy here is that it still means women are losing out. Female athletes who have spent years training to reach the top of their game are now effectively being pushed into forfeiting their shot at winning titles. Women deserve better than to be forced to cede ground to mediocre men.

    Quite so. It’s not really good news that women are walking away – it’s a horrible sacrifice they’re forced into making because the sports organizations have lost their fucking minds.

  • Oops

    Why…………yes, we know. That’s our point. Didn’t they tell you you’re not supposed to say it in public?

  • Deemed transgender

    Oh look, a trans emperor!

    A Roman emperor has been deemed transgender by a British museum, The Telegraph can reveal.

    The council-run North Hertfordshire Museum has decided to be “sensitive” to the purported pronoun preferences of the 3rd-century AD ruler Elagabalus.

    Oh how kind. I don’t suppose Elagabulus cares all that much by now, but still, it’s fraffly kind of the museum.

    The Roman Emperor will be treated as a transgender woman and referred to as “she”.

    Elagabalus has been given female pronouns on the basis of classical texts that claim he asked to be called “lady” – but historians believe these accounts may simply have been a typical Roman attempt at character assassination.

    Gaaaaaaaaaasp! How dare you!

    Information on museum policy states that pronouns used in displays will be those “the individual in question might have used themselves” or whatever pronoun “in retrospect, is appropriate”.

    You don’t use pronouns that other people say to refer to you. You use them when you refer to yourself or other people. Latin, like languages descended from Latin, doesn’t have female and male forms of the first person singular, so good old Ela G. wasn’t using any pronouns to declare his own sex.

    The museum consults with the LGBT charity Stonewall and the LGBT wing of the trade union Unison on best practice for its displays, to ensure that “our displays, publicity and talks are as up-to-date and inclusive as possible”.

    Let’s everybody consult with some different charities for a change. Ones that give a damn about women would be a good place to start.

    Liberal Democrat councillor Keith Hoskins, executive member for arts at the Lib Dem and Labour coalition-run North Herts Council, claimed that: “Elagabalus most definitely preferred the ‘she’ pronoun and as such this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times.”

    “most definitely”?? How does he think he knows that?

    Historians have said that feminine behaviour would have been a dishonour to men in Rome, and suggested that accounts of Elagabalus’ life are replete with the worst accusations that could be levelled at a Roman because they are character assassinations.

    But the North Hertfordshire Museum knows better.

  • Outrage throughout the league

    The Telegraph has the skinny on “Francesa” versus women.

    At least four teams in a Sheffield women’s football league are boycotting matches after a club fielded a transgender player accused of causing a season-ending injury to an opponent.

    Mexborough Athletic refused to play Rossington Ladies on Sunday night in protest at the presence of Francesca Needham, 31, amid outrage throughout the league at the openly trans player’s alleged connection to an incident that has left a rival out of action for several months.

    He’s huge. There are photos. He stands out.

    The Needham case has potentially far-reaching implications, with at least 50 transgender players understood to be registered in women’s leagues across England. The Football Association’s policy is to decide gender eligibility for players over 16 on a case-by-case basis, with biological males wanting to play in women’s football required to show their blood testosterone levels are “within the natal female range” for an “appropriate length of time so as to minimise any potential advantage.” These levels are meant to be checked annually.

    That nonsense drives me crazy. It’s not just the testosterone! His whole body is different: bigger, heavier, thicker. Would men like it if an adult male gorilla played on the other team?

    “We had a Zoom call together and you could feel the emotion pouring out,” a source said. “We’ve been terrified of saying anything. We don’t want to be accused of being transphobic. We don’t want the names of our clubs dragged through the mud. It has been like walking on eggshells.”

    In other words they were under enormous social pressure to risk their bodies and well-being for the sake of a man who wants to be able to smash them.

    Fiona McAnena, director of sport for Fair Play for Women, emphasised the scale of the debate unleashed by the Needham controversy. “People say, ‘It’s only a few trans players, what difference does it make? Well, here’s one male player in one team, affecting every team in that league – that’s over 150 women. They don’t want to play if it’s so unfair, they’re worried about injury, and some are even talking about giving up football, if this is how it’s going to be.

    “There are 50 male players approved by the FA to play women’s football in England – and those are the ones they know about. So this is affecting thousands of women and girls in football. This is happening all over the country. We have raised this with the Equality and Human Rights Commission as a matter of urgency. They need to point out that female-only sport is lawful.

    “Many sports governing bodies receive funding from the national sports councils to promote female participation. Surely it is time for the sports councils to insist that sport governing bodies provide fair and safe sport for women and girls – or lose funding.”

    How about now?

  • Diddums

    A guy called Francesca Needham makes a “statement” on why he’s not playing football any more:

    Subject: Important Announcement Regarding My Role at Rossington Main Ladies FC

    Dear club, league, and all Football Association officials

    It is with a mix of disappointment and resolve that I find myself having to address a recent development impacting myself and my team.

    As some of you may have heard, Rossington Main Ladies FC has faced challenges from teams unwilling to play against us while I am on the field. This unfortunate circumstance has prompted me to investigate pursuing a case of discrimination, as I believe it represents a breach of the code of conduct regarding diversity and inclusion, as well as safeguarding of adults in football established by both the Football Association and the Sheffield and Hallamshire Women and Girls League.

    You notice he doesn’t say why the teams are unwilling to play against him. It is, of course, because he’s a man. He considers it illegitimate wrong bad “discrimination” for women to refuse to be battered by him when playing football.

    Therefore, in the best interests of my club and my supportive teammates who stand beside me, I have made the decision to step down from playing football for the foreseeable future.

    This decision is rooted in the desire to safeguard the team and the club’s trajectory. It’s disheartening to acknowledge that this situation contradicts everything in the diversity and inclusion policies, given that I have diligently met every single requirement set out by the Football Association to play.

    “Diversity” and “inclusion” should not mean forcing women to play football against men.

    I sincerely hope that this issue of perceived discrimination against me can be resolved peacefully and promptly, with the full support of the Football Association and the policies they have written and approved.

    Of course he is the only person who matters in this scenario. The women are just cardboard dummies; he’s the only actual person involved.

  • Ramping up

    Kyle Rittenhouse Launches Foundation Aimed At Fighting Gun Control

    This is a sick sick sick country.

    Kyle Rittenhouse has launched an anti-gun control nonprofit in Texas, according to a filing with the Texas Secretary of State’s office, which was first reported on by the Texas Tribune—a sign the young man who became a conservative star after being acquitted of killing two Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, is ramping up his political activity in Texas.

    A star is born! Dude who kills lefties promotes guns!

    Rittenhouse filed with the Secretary of State on July 23 to create the Rittenhouse Foundation, a nonprofit based in Fort Worth, Texas, which aims to protect “an individual’s inalienable right to bear arms” through “education and legal assistance,” according to the filing.

    Rittenhouse is listed as a director alongside Chris McNutt, president of the gun advocacy group Texas Gun Rights and Shelby Griesinger, treasurer of the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, which has financed the campaigns of right-wing candidates across the state.

    Who is Rittenhouse again? Oh yes, the kid who went to a BLM protest and shot two people dead and one not-dead. Excellent example for us all.

    The incident was widely condemned by liberals, but many conservatives came to his defense. U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) and Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) both offered the then-teenager internships, and then-President Donald Trump hosted him at his Mar-a-Lago estate. 

    Because what is more admirable and worthy of reward than shooting people dead at anti-racism protests?

  • Guest post: A validation of violence as a form of political expression

    Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Does the left hate women?

    Considering we’re talking radical left, I think a lot of it has to do with Antifa, or the philosophy behind Antifa.

    Antifa is fundamentally, as an idea, a validation of violence as a form of political expression, as a tactic in political debate.

    Now this strain of thought predates Antifa as a formalized idea on the radical left, but it was with Antifa that it formed enough coherency to be properly identified.

    So when Islamists launch terror attacks in Western nations – think the Charlie Hebdo massacre for example – that is seen as not just a political statement, but a valid one. The conversation is always shifted to historic “context” with an emphasis on demonizing the victims. There is always the excuse of justified grievances.

    In less radical spheres, in civil discussion we tend to consider violence an invalidating factor. If you punch somebody because they disagree with you, you’ve ceded the argument, because my ability to thump you doesn’t translate into me being right.

    But with this ideology where violence is considered a legitimate means of making a point, those who are more willing to use violence are afforded greater credibility than those who are not. If we allow violence as a response to non-violence, we descend into rule by thuggery.

    LGB and women are generally less willing to use violence than the trans community. I think the problem with saying LGBTQ will always lose, is T are prized over the rest of the alphabet soup, because lets face it a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire isn’t a lesbian symbol.

    Atheists and women tend to land at the bottom of the list, women because physiology means that women are at a disadvantage in a fight. The same reasons for the sex divide in sports, means that women trying to defend that divide are at a physical disadvantage. Atheists because of the meme about how religious militants kill, atheist militants write books.

    I think a part of this is the psychology that comes from phrasing radical leftwing identity politics as “allyship”. I think the concept of “allies” is fundamentally toxic – men who identify as “feminist allies” aren’t feminists. By definition they are men who see feminism as something that can be exploited to further their own political goals, that is the nature of an alliance.

    You don’t have to agree with an ally, you just need to see them as a useful tool.

    So who is more useful as an ally if you accept the idea that violence is an appropriate means of arguing political points? A 60-year-old woman, or a 30-year-old male pervert in a dress? Women who are simply stating biological fact, or men who will spend the better part of a decade smearing and sending death threats to a much beloved female author because she said something they didn’t like?

    Of course, one needs to bear in mind that the only really successful movement in the left since the rise of Antifa, has been atheists. We’re so wildly successful that when a religious conservative doesn’t like an idea, they proclaim that idea to be a “religion”. Even the people who are pro-religion, phrase being a religion as a problem.

    An increased willingness to use violence might help you with the radical left, but I’m not sure it would help you with literally anyone else.

  • And other bullies

    In other words a very small number.

    We’re supposed to think “all the”=a very large number.

    It doesn’t.

  • Musk’s sullen yawp

    Popehat on Musk and free speech and how confused people are about what free speech even is:

    Elon Musk genuinely feels that advertisers are a threat to free speech. Why? Because many advertisers fled X after Musk eagerly endorsed a bigot’s articulation of anti-Semitic theories, including that Jews promote hatred of whites and that Jews are importing “hordes of minorities.” Unsurprisingly, many companies aren’t cool with that. That’s a mix of corporate leadership thinking that such bigotry is bad business and thinking that it’s immoral.

    Private companies have a First Amendment right to make such a decision. They have the right to express their values — and choose their marketing strategy — by deciding what kind of media content to promote. They have freedom of association to refrain from advertising on platforms that repulse their customers. Those rights are held both by the corporate advertisers and by the individuals making decisions for them. Elon Musk’s sullen yawp amounts to a claim that he has a right for companies to sponsor his speech, no matter what he says. That’s nonsense, both legally and philosophically.

    It doesn’t stop there. Musk is also a fan of the theory that when he speaks, your criticism of him violates his rights. His latest articulation of this theory came after Media Matters published an article claiming that X is running ads for prominent companies next to bigoted content on X. Musk responded with an extravagant, mostly incoherent threat to file a “thermonuclear” lawsuit against Media Matters and its board and donors “to protect free speech,” whose criticism “seeks to undermine freedom of expression on our platform.”

    Irregular verb again. When we do it it’s freedom of speech, when they do it it’s an attack on our freedom of speech. Heads we win tails they lose.

    Popehat shows us a little chat among Musk, Stephen Miller, and a Federalist Society lawyer agreeing on how to shut other people up.

    Just as the tree of liberty must occasionally be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants, freedom of speech must occasionally be protected by an unemployed ghoul and a personality disordered Boer persuading a bland FedSoc apparatchik to pester journalists for questioning billionaires.

    I didn’t know Musk is a Boer!* How very interesting. (Personality disordered, yes, that I knew. Everyone knows.)

    It would be easy to blame this contemptible nonsense on Elon Musk being socially inept, proudly ignorant, and grotesquely petulant. But when it comes to thinking that the right to free speech includes the right to silence others, Elon learned it by watching us, okay? He learned it by watching us.

    Popehat goes on to say pretty much everybody thinks and says that criticism of X violates X’s free speech, with many examples.

    H/t Rob

    *See Bruce Gorton @ 19

  • Not even the full list

    Pliny on the persecuted:

  • Too many men showed up threatening violence

    Holy shit.

    And so we learn that men who claim to be trans are…uh…no threat at all to women in any way.

    H/t Steven

  • Does the left hate women?

    Jerry Coyne notes that blind spot on the putative left:

    The decision of LGBTQ people and feminists to support Muslim societies—societies where they’d never want to live, for many of them would be killed because of their sexual orientation—is an example of MacPherson’s Law, confected by one of our readers. According to Diana, if progressives must choose between conflicting causes to support, and one of them is women’s rights, the women’s rights lose. (By “causes”, I mean “supporting a group deemed to be oppressed.”) I’ll add a corollary: if progressives have to choose between two conflicting causes, and one of them is LGBTQ rights, those rights also lose.

    Diana is not wrong. Another label for it could be The Karen Principle. Whenever there’s a conflict, shazam, women become Karens.

    For this reason I don’t agree with Jerry’s corollary. Purported “LGBTQ” rights are constantly canceling women’s rights, especially, of course, the T (and whatever the Q may be). Women’s rights never cancel any T rights but T rights always cancel women’s rights.

    The Karen Principle features prominently in Does God Hate Women? Many on the left see Islam and [male] Muslims as in every way and every sense the downtrodden persecuted minority, and foam at the mouth if anyone points out that Islam treats women like shit.

  • No speak for you

    How progressive.

  • Get out

    Man preens about ruining another sport for women.

    Harriet Haynes has broken her silence after winning a national pool tournament by default after her opponent walked out in protest against having to face transgender players, with the champion claiming ‘bigotry is alive and well’.

    Lynne Pinches conceded the final of the Ladies Champion of Champions national pool tournament at the weekend without playing a single frame, refusing to face her transgender opponent Haynes.

    Her male opponent.

    Pinches revealed after the match – her fourth final in her pool career – that her decision to walk out was made in the aid of ‘fairness’ in the sport, protesting against the fact that natal females can be drawn against transgender players. 

    Skip the “natal females” crap. Women. The word is women.

    Of course there was a “statement” saying how evil it is for women to say no to this systematic abuse.

    ‘This past weekend, player Lynn Pinches (sister of established snooker star Barry Pinches) made a protest in front of a packed playing hall by refusing to play the final of the National Champion of Champions Ladies’ Singles Competition,’ the statement drafted by Haynes’ lawyer with her endorsement begins.

    ‘The reason? Her co-finalist, Harriet Haynes, was a transgender woman. The “protest” has led to significant online discussion and a lot of regretful bigotry.’

    Wtf is “regretful bigotry”? The lawyer meant “regrettable.” Maybe they is a trans lawyer.

    Haynes argues that given pool’s status as a ‘precision sport’ there is no grounds for a discrimination to be made, asserting that there is no proof of transgender players holding an advantage. 

    ‘For all the comments that people hold that being trans is an advantage in cue sports, there is no scientific evidence to prove that,’ the statement continues. 

    Always this sneaky deceit – always this lie that the issue is “being trans” when it’s being male.

    ‘The WEPF, UPG and EBPF have been asked to provide the scientific evidence that it was assumed that they must have had before they decided to issue such a controversial and unlawful policy. No such evidence has ever been provided to show how there is an apparent advantage to transwomen as compared to naturally born women.’

    But it was a women’s tournament. For women. Not for men. Haynes is a man.

  • Shackled

    Time to ditch the TQ (way past time in fact).

    As rising numbers of old-fashioned LGBs see it, the “T” — for transgender — and “Q” for queer, don’t necessarily have much in common with gays and lesbians. 

    Not so much “old-fashioned” as still able to tell the differences between things that are not the same.

    For these ideological reformists, the LGBTQ mash-up and community-wide obsession with trans issues is sowing confusion and chaos within politics and popular culture — eroding much of the progress sexual minorities have fought to achieve.

    Well, that, but also it’s a pack of lies enforced by relentless bullying.

    “We feel shackled into this ‘umbrella term’ by organizations that are supposed to serve us but have actually turned against us,” explained Kate Barker, CEO of the London-based LGB Alliance, which was established in late 2019 to ​​“advance the interests of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals.” “It has come to a point where many of us find ourselves forced into a relationship we never consented to and feel we cannot leave.” 

    Like forced marriage, but with stripes.

    …a survey conducted last year by the Public Religion Research Institute found that Americans are widely in favor of general nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTs — eight in 10 back policies securing jobs, public accommodation, and housing — but that support erodes when special privileges for trans people, framed as “rights” by the researchers, enter the picture.

    All the more so because those special privileges framed as “rights” are so glaringly incompatible with women’s and girls’ rights. The “right” to use women’s toilets and locker rooms=a threat to women. The “right” to win prizes for women=women not winning their own prizes. And so on. It’s not minor or subtle stuff.

  • Fewer but better Greens

    The purification continues.