The editor-in-chief of Swimming World doesn’t mince words:

Must give credit to the Ivy League. It didn’t hide its position. From the early days of the Lia Thomas debate, the conference made it clear that it would wholly support one swimmer over hundreds of athletes. It made it clear that Thomas was a priority. It made it clear that its female athletes – specifically its swimmers – were inconsequential.

One male swimmer over hundreds of female athletes. It could be thousands or billions, it would make no difference. The man and his idenniny must have priority.

The Ivy League Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships begin Wednesday at Harvard University and Penn’s Thomas – according to the psych sheets – will see action in a quartet of individual events. She is the overwhelming top seed in three events (200 freestyle, 500 free, 1650 free) and the No. 2 seed in the 100 freestyle. She is also expected to see duty as a member of Penn’s relay teams.

…

While the NCAA storyline still has chapters to be written, the Ivy League and Penn have been in Thomas’ corner throughout the winter. Despite her obvious advantages over biological females, the conference and school have been all about Lia Thomas and not given a damn about the other swimmers in the pool.

“The Ivy League reaffirms its unwavering commitment to providing an inclusive environment for all student-athletes while condemning transphobia and discrimination in any form,” said an Ivy League statement release in January.

But of course that environment is not inclusive for the female athletes. By being inclusive of one male they exclude all the women from the top spot.

Then there’s the Ivy League’s condemnation of transphobia and discrimination. Yes, such acts should be denounced, but the Lia Thomas situation is not about transphobia. It is a sad and misguided state that any argument against Thomas’ participation is immediately deemed to be an indication of transphobia. No, the arguments against Thomas are about fairness, and for the Ivy League to play the transphobia card is arrogant, ignorant, and insulting. Really, it is a sign of the conference taking a bully approach and using such a strong term to intimidate and deter those willing to speak out.

The bully approach is the only approach.

A Hooters in Liverpool – Julie Bindel is not impressed.

The all-female waiting staff are required to wear extremely skimpy shorts, tight, low-cut T-shirts, and tights. When a birthday or stag crowd are in, which is most nights, coins are tossed for which of the waitresses take part in the odd wet T-shirt competition, to keep the crowds entertained. The restaurant is, of course, aimed at large groups of heavy-drinking men and, on occasion, customers will be offered half-price entry into the nearest lap-dancing club for afters.

Kind of like beach volleyball without the volleyball.

In 2008, I visited the first UK branch in Nottingham. It was hideous and more than one of the waitresses told me, in the full knowledge that I was writing a piece for a national newspaper from a critical standpoint, that they hated their jobs and hated the customers even more.

…

Before starting work, Hooters girls in the US have to sign a contract that reads: ‘I hereby acknowledge and affirm that the Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and that the work environment is one in which joking and innuendo based on female sex appeal is commonplace.’ It continues: ‘I also expressly acknowledge and affirm I do not find my job duties, uniform requirements or work environment to be intimidating, hostile or unwelcome.’

So they have to sign a contract that says they don’t find their job hostile before they’ve started doing the job. Seems fair.

In granting this licence, Liverpool Council has shown itself to not give a hoot about the objectification of women. Providing alcohol in an atmosphere riddled with sexism is never a good idea. I expect to see a massive feminist protest against this monstrosity opening in the city, or anywhere else in the UK.

Scantily clad waitresses are certainly nothing new, but I would have hoped that after more than half a century of feminism, women being served up to rowdy male customers would be off the menu. 

Well this is third wave feminism, sex-positive feminism, woke feminism, trans women are the first priority feminism. Half a century of the real thing was just too fucking boring.

Nova has an interesting (and alarming) episode on melting permafrost in Siberia and Alaska that’s releasing methane–>more warming–>more melting and on it goes.

As the Arctic warms, methane that has been locked in permafrost for thousands of years escapes and can explode. Released methane that finds its way to the surface contributes to the greenhouse effect of climate change with even more heat retention capacity than carbon dioxide. Even igniting it doesn’t solve the problem, since that produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct.

It’s a tipping point, and it’s already tipped.

In Alaska they find a large lake bubbling with methane. On Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula, residents have reported large holes in the frozen tundra, including one more than 80 feet wide and 150 feet deep.

And it’s only going to get worse. There is no fix.

The royal we doesn’t help his project.

There’s a lot of What’s Wrong With Jolyon packed into that one. Making a public announcement of that kind. Starting with “style themselves progressive,” which is an insult. Much worse, that “but” – “You consider yourself progressive but you hate me, this must be underlined and explained.” I can consider myself progressive and find Jolyon Maugham vain and self-promoting and a bully – I can even be progressive and find JM all that. I can and so can anyone. He may consider himself progressive, he may even be progressive in some sense, but he’s also a flaming egomaniac and a sexist bully.

Then there’s “(generally because of @GoodLawProject’s defence of trans rights)” – as if there were no other reasons. There are other reasons. The vanity, the self-promotion, the bullying, the disdain for women who disagree with him, the intolerance of any disagreement at all, the complete indifference to feminist explanations of how purported “trans rights” impinge on our rights…and did I mention the vanity? And, to cap it all, there’s the utterly typical invocation of “trans rights” without explaining what they are. It’s just dishonest to keep framing it that way. We don’t oppose human rights for trans people, we oppose new invented “rights” that aren’t really rights and that cancel our rights.

Then “cheer the dishonest attacks” – look in the mirror.

Then the warning, which rests on the absurd assumption that without him there will be disaster. Him personally, which he tries to disguise as the Good Law Project in his usual way, but the attempt is laughable since he’s talking about his own precious self throughout.

Jolyon is blocking all the lawyers now.

Plus it makes him look so good.

The wrong word was used in a magic ceremony so the magic ceremony is invalid. You might think this is a small matter that can easily be rectified by re-doing the ceremony using the correct word this time – but unfortunately, perhaps tragically, it wasn’t just the one, it was many. Many many many. And not valid means…eternal torture*. Oops.

A Catholic priest in Arizona has resigned after he was found to have performed baptisms incorrectly throughout his career, rendering the rite invalid for thousands of people.

Thousands of people doomed to eternal torture*! You’d think it would be dominating the news cycle.

The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix announced on its website that it determined after careful study that the Rev. Andres Arango had used the wrong wording in baptisms performed up until June 17, 2021. He had been off by a single word.

During baptisms in both English and Spanish, Arango used the phrase “we baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He should have said “I baptize,” the diocese explained.

Ok, but it’s a fine point, and in a way “we” is sweeter, it suggests embrace by everyone, so can’t they just

STOP RIGHT THERE.

Of course they can’t.

They can molest children for years on end, they can protect the molesters for years on end, but they can’t turn a blind eye to a “we” that must be an “I.”

“It is not the community that baptizes a person and incorporates them into the Church of Christ; rather, it is Christ, and Christ alone, who presides at all sacraments; therefore, it is Christ who baptizes,” it said. “If you were baptized using the wrong words, that means your baptism is invalid, and you are not baptized.”

Sorrrrreeeeeeeeeeee – you’ve been running around unbaptized all this time. Our bad.

The diocese said that while the situation may seem legalistic, the words, materials and actions are crucial aspects of every sacrament — and changing any of them makes them invalid.

“For example, if a priest uses milk instead of wine during the Consecration of the Eucharist, the sacrament is not valid,” it said. “The milk would not become the Blood of Jesus Christ.”

Yeah it doesn’t do that whether it’s milk, wine, or horse piss.

Updating to add: It doesn’t lead straight to hell, so I asterisked those bits.

Well…maybe, but then again maybe not.

When my son Connor first told me he was transgender and was not, in fact, the daughter I thought he was for the first 12 years of his life, I could have handled it a lot better.

It’s not that I kicked and screamed. I didn’t throw him out or call him vile names. I wasn’t even disappointed. It almost feels worse than all that: I didn’t believe him.

What if she’d said she was a llama, or a hummingbird, or Chomolungma? Would you now think you should have believed her?

A girl remains a girl even if she has picked up the novel cultural belief that her body is irrelevant to what sex she is.

What is blindingly obvious to me now, five years later – and probably to you as you’re reading this – is that Connor’s struggles with mental health were intrinsically linked to feeling that how he felt on the inside did not fit with his body and gender identity. Like he was trapped in a lie. But at the time, I couldn’t see it.

She hadn’t been saved yet.

What I realise now is that I should have just believed him and created an environment of acceptance, and I wish I’d done it immediately. I was so consumed with all the “what ifs”.

What if he changes his mind? What if people give him a hard time? What if his younger siblings are confused? What if I feel weird or uncomfortable?

The answer those all of those questions, of course, is “who cares?”

Uh, no, and there’s no “of course” about it. Who cares if she changes her mind?! You’d think she was talking about a tatoo.

Five years later, Connor is in his final year of high school, and is the happiest I’ve seen him since he was a child. We were lucky enough to access a gender clinic in our city, where both he and I were both nurtured through the process of his transition. He has been getting testosterone shots for more than a year now, and recently had top surgery, which removes the breasts, leaving a masculine chest.

Maybe she’ll be happy that way for the rest of her life, but maybe she won’t. It’s not just obvious that trying to “change sex” is always a wonderful and healthy idea and the fix for an unhappy kid.

Sadly, the damn fool who wrote this is “a freelance health and parenting writer.” I hope she has very few readers.

Update: I corrected all the occurrences of “his” and “he” to “she” and “her” – having been lulled into getting it wrong by exactly the word magic that there’s so much argument about. Apologies for the CONFUSION.

Originally a Facebook post/Miscellany post by Bjarte Foshaug:

There is an expression in my mother tongue that translates as “Adam’s clothes” – or, alternatively, “Eve’s clothes” – and is commonly understood to denote the absence of any physical garments. This appears to be conclusive scientific* proof that the very first humans** were in fact trans-dressed and what they were wearing was widely accepted as a legitimate kind of clothing from the very beginning. The white, Western idea that wearing “clothes” – or being fully “dressed” – has anything to do with vulgar physical fabrics is a recent cultural invention and inextricably linked to cultural imperialism, Western hegemony and white supremacy, i.e. the stereotypical “dressed” person is not just imagined to be cis-dressed (i.e. covered in garments), but also white, Christian and middle-class. This whole weird fixation on physical fabrics is also kind of obscene, not to mention creepy as hell, to be honest.

It is disheartening to see such a stunning and brave performance by our first ever openly trans-dressed emperor be met by yet more bigotry, hatred, and literal violence against one of the most vulnerable and oppressed minorities in our society. There’s a direct path from denying the very existence of trans-dressed individuals through statements like “The emperor is naked!” to rounding them up by the millions and sending them to the gas chamber. Their blood is literally on this child’s hands, and we need to remind everyone of this ugly truth whenever the brat opens its mouth for the rest of its life.

* Pseudoscience is science! It’s in the name!

** Those who argue that Adam and Eve were not historical figures only provide further proof (as if any were needed!) of their cis-historical bigotry. Being an historical figure was never about crude, physical existence!

Oh was it indeed.

Barrister Steven Barrett at the Spectator tells us the court ruled the Good Law Project doesn’t have standing.

…there was some confusion that the Good Law Project had ‘won’. It had not. Every claim brought by the GLP failed. The court I suspect did not want anyone to be so confused, so it stated that expressly in paragraph 126. There is very little ambiguity in the words ‘the claim brought by Good Law Project fails in its entirety.’

…

This blow raises serious questions over whether or not it can even continue. The problem is contained in what can for some be odd legal language, the word ‘standing’.

The issue of standing often gets in the way of civil rights cases and the like in the US. I think I’ve written about it here at least once, but I don’t remember on what issue.

Standing is what you need to bring a case. If you haven’t got it – you can’t sue. If you get run over by a tractor, I can’t sue the farmer – because I didn’t get hit, you did. That’s an easy question about standing.

And it’s why Jolyon was talking nonsense on Saturday when he threatened [by implication] to sue someone over a purported libel of a third party. He didn’t and doesn’t have standing, as several people pointed out.

A harder one is raised by organisations or groups. When can they have standing? Well, often by saying they have standing based on the issues that interest them – which is where things get tricky.

Beginning in paragraph 55 the court turned its full attention to what the Good Law Project is, and whether or not it has standing.

We have had hints of this as an issue before. But this is the first time I believe the court has addressed it. The court notes that the GLP tries to draw its objectives very widely, so as to try to have standing against any public body which makes an error of public law. But the court rejected this completely in paragraph 57:

What the court says is basically yeah no you can’t just declare that you have standing in all cases, that’s not how this works.

The problem is that this is an existential issue for the GLP. Its whole point is that it can sue anyone it chooses over any error of public law. But that has now been rejected by the court. Crucially it raises money on the basis it can sue over any error. That caused at least one well respected legal academic to ask whether it is time that those who donate are told?

That would be this tweet:

If the Good Law Project were the toy of someone else this could be bad news, but since it’s Jolyon’s toy…

More of the Pregnancy and Childbirth are for Everyone bullshit, this time from a charity that helps “birthing people.” The first thing you see on their website is

Support our work

Make a donation today to help us to provide pregnancy, birth and postnatal support for birthing people in Glasgow.  

The second thing you see, scrolling down, is

Who we help

We provide pregnancy, birth and postnatal support to birthing people facing barriers like poverty, isolation, or language.

On the about us page –

Amma Birth Companions is a registered Scottish charity that supports women and birthing people who are experiencing significant adversity on their journey to parenthood.

Wo, a mention of women at last! But birthing people are always there, nipping at their heels.

Our trained team of nurturing and compassionate birth and postnatal companions offers support on a voluntary basis to people facing pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood alone. 

​That actually seems like an excellent charity, because of course some women and girls do have to face it alone. But how cruel to combine that with the denial that it’s women and girls who have to do the job.

​

Andrew Windsor has settled the case.

Prince Andrew has settled a civil sexual assault case brought against him in the US by Virginia Giuffre, court documents show.

…

A statement in the letter to US judge Lewis A Kaplan said the duke would make a “substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights”. It added that Prince Andrew had “never intended to malign Ms Giuffre’s character” and he recognised she had “suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks”.

The duke also pledged to “demonstrate his regret for his association” with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by supporting the “fight against the evils of sex trafficking, and by supporting its victims”. He also commended the “bravery of Ms Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others”.

Now about that Pizza Express in Woking…

Chris Cillizza says the walls are closing in on Trump.

The decision by Mazars further isolates Trump as he faces a series of legal problems. Consider that in addition to James’ investigation, Trump faces the following:

1) The new Manhattan district attorney told CNN in December that he plans to focus on the high-profile probe into Trump’s business practices and may expand the investigative team. As CNN’s Kara Scannell reported at the time: “The investigation, which has been underway for several years, appears to be coming to a head with prosecutors focusing on the accuracy of the Trump Organization’s financial statements when seeking financing, people familiar with the matter have told CNN.”

2) E. Jean Carroll is pursuing a defamation lawsuit in regards to her allegation that Trump raped her in the 1990s.

Three, Mary Trump’s suit is ongoing.

4) Several Democratic lawmakers and police officers are suing Trump for his alleged role in the insurrection of January 6, 2021. And a House select committee continues to look into Trump’s actions tied to that day.

5) In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is looking into Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. “This is a criminal investigation. We’re not here playing a game,” Willis told CNN recently. “I plan to use the power of the law. We are all citizens.”

It all starts to add up a bit. Six, the DoJ is looking into a scheme to seat fake electors; seven, Michael Cohen is suing; eight –

In addition to all this, there are the ongoing questions surrounding 15 boxes of White House materials that the National Archives had to take back from Trump who had transported the documents to Mar-a-Lago.

Person woman man camera tv.

Very normal.

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said former President Donald Trump’s statement in which he suggested executing Hillary Clinton campaign aides was “right on target” on Sunday.

Jordan, a staunch Trump ally, was reacting to the 45th president’s Saturday statement on a new court filing by the special counsel John Durham, reported by Fox News.

The filing said that former aides to Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign paid a tech company to access servers belonging to Trump Tower and afterward the Trump White House in an effort to find links to Russia.

Trump’s dealings with Russia are a private matter. That’s why he talked to Putin alone, that’s why he seized the translator’s notes after one of their private talks, that’s why we don’t know to this day what he and Putin talked about.

“This is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution,” Trump said. 

“In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death.”

While trying to overturn an election and seize the Capitol by force would have been rewarded by pots of money and an all-expenses paid vacation in Uzbekistan.

Speaking of women skating in bathing suits while men skate in long trousers and long-sleeved shirts – adidas “believes women’s breasts deserve to be stared at support. Yes support, really, that’s what we meant, we just misspoke.”

And adidas definitely advertises men’s running shorts with walls of photos of penises, right?

Riiiiiiiiiiiight that’s what they’re doing.

There’s some kind of pattern here…I can’t quite figure out what it is…

Oops.

The accounting firm Mazars has fired the Trump Organization as a client after saying that a decade’s worth of statements of ex-President Donald Trump’s financial condition “should no longer be relied upon,” the New York Attorney General’s office revealed in a court filing Monday.

Which being interpreted means he’s been lying about his financial condition for the past ten years at least.

Mazars, which for years prepared Trump’s income tax returns and financial statements used to obtain loans for his company, told the Trump Organization’s top lawyer Alan Garten that it would no longer represent the company due to the lack of reliability of the financial statements in a letter last Wednesday.

Must be Obama’s fault. Or something.

The letter was cited by AG Letitia James’ office on Monday as it asked a state judge to order the Trump Organization, Donald Trump Jr. and his sister Ivanka Trump, and others to comply with subpoenas seeking documents and testimony.

…

Mazars told Garten in Wednesday’s letter that he should inform any recipients that the statements of Trump’s financial condition for 2011 through 2020 “should not be relied upon.”

And just in case Garten forgot to do that, it’s now public.

A Trump Organization spokesperson, in a statement to NBC News, said, “While we are disappointed that Mazars has chosen to part ways, their February 9, 2022 letter confirms that after conducting a subsequent review of all prior statements of financial condition, Mazars’ work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies.”

“This confirmation effectively renders the investigations by the DA and AG moot,” the spokesperson said.

I bet the DA and AG don’t see it that way. Just a hunch.

H/t What a Maroon

Wait what? The Guardian has a category called Living in a woman’s body? How is that possible? Isn’t it totally…………………..transphobic?

At any rate, the current entry is Living in a woman’s body: hospitality workers have always suffered abuse. In the pandemic, it got worse. It’s written by Saru Jayaraman, whose lived experience may have left her somewhat less impressed by Gender Mythology than your average Owen and Jolyon and Adrian.

After working as a bartender in Washington DC for many years, Ifeoma Ezumaki’s body reached its limit during the pandemic. For Ezumaki and millions of other restaurant employees, working during the pandemic – often, in the US, for a “sub-minimum” wage – became a source of immeasurable suffering. Tips went down because sales went down, while customer harassment and hostility went up. Ezumaki and her colleagues had to become public health marshals, in addition to cocktail servers; she was asked to enforce social distancing, mask wearing and even vaccination requirements.

A customer at the bar “asked” her to pull her mask down so that he could inspect her face, and when she declined, told her she wouldn’t be eating that night.

The comment exemplified the power that some male customers, managers and even colleagues feel they have over women’s bodies in the restaurant industry. While Ezumaki and her colleagues wished to protect their bodies and the bodies of their families by wearing a mask, many male customers made it clear that they believed they had the right to control female waiters’ bodies, particularly when the waiters were dependent on tips. Many have reported male customers asking them to take off their masks so that they can judge their looks – and tip on that basis.

And, as the emphasis on bodies underlines, this is a form of harassment and domination particular to women. The kind of man who bullies women like that is not looking for trans women’s bodies. Men aren’t as easy to bully, because of male puberty.

Vote it down.

WDI asks Green Party to uphold members’ rights to freedom of thought and expression.

11 February 2022

Women’s Declaration International has been made aware that Ani Stafford-Townsend, co-chair of Green Party Women in England and Wales, has sent a ‘late motion’ to the Green Party Conference. This motion proposes to expel all Green Party members who have signed the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. This has come in the same week that WDI signatory Emma Bateman, democratically elected co-chair of the women’s committee was suspended from the Green Party, and Dr Shahrar Ali, spokesperson on policing and domestic violence who holds ‘gender critical’ views, was removed from his position.

Leftish politics energetically dynamiting the bridge it’s standing on.

Can the Green Party really afford to get rid of everyone who doesn’t think men can turn into women?

Although Ani Stafford-Townsend’s motion claims to recognise the need for open discussion, it is aimed at closing down debate and either removing people with opposing views from the Green Party entirely or re-educating them into the ‘correct’ way of thinking. It misrepresents WDI and the Declaration, making a range of unfounded claims and associations that are presented entirely without evidence.

The re-education part is especially galling in light of the fact that the “correct” way of thinking is not correct.

Believing that women have rights based on their sex that are vital to achieving equality is not a ‘hard-line’ or ‘extremist’ position, especially as these rights are being systematically dismantled all over the world. Articles 4 and 5 of our Declaration reaffirm women’s rights to freedom of opinion, expression and assembly. Actions such as this motion make it clear that these rights are needed more than ever before.

And that an astonishing number of people who consider themselves “correct” and progressive are downright eager to punish and exclude women for defending women’s rights.

Back in December 2018 I did a post about Julia Beck, who was pushed out of Baltimore LGBTQ Commission’s Law and Policy Committee at the instigation of a trans-identified man. This man:

Ava Pipitone, a male trans activist who dates women and identifies as a “female,” “lesbian,” and “transbutch.”

Well guess what.

A male who identified as a lesbian and had the sole lesbian representative removed from Baltimore’s LGBTQ Commission while pushing lesbophobic sentiment in 2018 has quietly detransitioned.

Kodah Pipitone, once known as Ava, was instrumental in having lesbian advocate Julia Beck kicked off the commission and shunned as a “TERF”, then sponsored an event in which he advertised that “exclusionary” lesbians would be “hung [sic] by their necks.”

…

In 2018, then going by the name ‘Ava’, Pipitone was both president of Baltimore’s Transgender Alliance and an advocate for the global pimp lobby, the Sex Workers Outreach Project. In order to make the LGBTQ Commission as “inclusive” as possible, Pipitone was invited to their meetings by Mayor Pugh.

At a Pride parade in June of 2018, Beck marched with signs that read, “Dykes Don’t Like Dick”, “Lesbian NOT Queer,” and “Violence Against Lesbians is an Epidemic,” among other slogans. According to Beck in a piece she wrote for AfterEllenon her experience, “Bystanders cheered, clapped, and took pictures with us. Some whispered thanks while others shouted, ‘Go home TERFs!’ Twitter blew up trying to find the notorious dykes who crashed Baltimore Pride. I was doxxed and multiple friends, including one woman who was not a part of the protest, received threats.”

Beck’s statements at Pride prompted criticism from her entirely male colleagues on the Commission. During a meeting which took place that month, Pipitone asked Beck point-blank to identify his sex. She responded, “You’re male,” to which Pipitone replied by accusing Beck of violence. Over the course of the next few months, Pipitone actively campaigned to have Beck removed from her position.

But that was then. It’s not 2018 any more.

But Instagram posts by Pipitone show that he no longer identifies as a lesbian woman, having quietly detransitioned. Instead, he now advertises himself as a techno-futurist, tagging his selfies “biohacker” and advertises his desire to “reverse engineer age.”

Julia Beck slammed Pipitone in a recent Facebook post after having discovered he’s dropped his ruse, claiming that he’d “traded one cult for another.”

Having been a victim of Pipitone’s temporary venture into her identity, Beck said, “It’s fine to find yourself in life. If only the process for men like him didn’t involve traumatizing women or pretending to be one.”

And it doesn’t sound as if he’s bothered to apologize to her.