A press release from the New York state Attorney General:

New York Attorney General Letitia James today took legal action to compel Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump to appear for sworn testimony as part of the office’s ongoing civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s financial dealings. The motion to compel filed today seeks a court order enforcing testimonial subpoenas issued to Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump, as well as the production of documents held by Donald J. Trump. As the papers filed today make clear, each of the individuals was directly involved in one or more transactions under review. Earlier this month, the Trumps filed a motion to quash these interviews, and the papers filed today by the Attorney General oppose that motion.

Since moving to compel the testimony of Eric Trump in August 2020, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has collected significant additional evidence indicating that the Trump Organization used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions. While OAG has not yet reached a final decision regarding whether this evidence merits legal action, the grounds for pursuing the investigation are self-evident. The OAG filed today’s motion to get necessary testimony and evidence from high-ranking corporate personnel with close involvement in the events under investigation to determine, among other things, their relevant knowledge about those events.

“For more than two years, the Trump Organization has used delay tactics and litigation in an attempt to thwart a legitimate investigation into its financial dealings,” said Attorney General James. “Thus far in our investigation, we have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit. The Trumps must comply with our lawful subpoenas for documents and testimony because no one in this country can pick and choose if and how the law applies to them. We will not be deterred in our efforts to continue this investigation and ensure that no one is above the law.”

You know…none of them knew they were going to be in the national and global spotlight until 2015. Before that they were just this little family of lying cheating real estate hustlers. Granted they had a lot of notoriety, thanks to Daddy’s endless sleaze and trash and vulgarity, but they didn’t have the kind that was going to have local and state and federal law enforcement peering at them through a microscope. They should have local and state scrutiny, because they were sort of notorious, or at least Daddy was, but they didn’t. The kids didn’t know their scams and cheats were going to be in the spotlight, so they just blithely cooked the books thinking they would get away with it forever. I wonder if they’re starting to wish the whole “president” thing had never happened.

Does the value of free speech mean we have to let for instance Joe Rogan tell his massive audience lies about Covid?

One said it was the vast size of his audience that made him so dangerous. Another suggested it was the fact the average age of his listeners was just 24, and hence particularly persuadable.

Another expert said he appeared to have a cult of personality. One said he had repeatedly spread misinformation about Covid, and ignored calls to stop.

These were among just some of the accusations levelled at Joe Rogan, podcaster, influencer and sometime actor, from more than 150 scientists, doctors and healthcare professionals who have said the 54-year-old was “extraordinarily dangerous”.

They sent an open letter to Spotify, which hosts Rogan’s podcast, urging it “to take action to halt the spread of false information about the coronavirus and the efficacy and safety of vaccines.”

“Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Joe Rogan has repeatedly spread misleading and false claims on his podcast, provoking distrust in science and medicine,” wrote the experts from the US, Canada, Britain and Australia.

“He has discouraged vaccination in young people and children, incorrectly claimed that mRNA vaccines are ‘gene therapy’, promoted off-label use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19 (contrary to FDA warnings), and spread a number of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.”

As if it’s all a game, or entertainment.

Imogen Coe, Founding Dean of the Faculty of Science at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, claimed Rogan has not simply spread misinformation once, but kept doing so.

“Why would someone deliberately share information that is potentially damaging to the health and well being of others? That needs to be addressed and health professionals in particular have a duty of care and scientists have an ethical responsibility to speak up,” she said.

Why indeed? Rogan does it and many of his fans amplify it, because…? The cover story is “freedom” but what a stupid, piffling notion of “freedom” that is, especially from people who rely on the whole network of social connection and obligation that makes it possible for them to have their dopy podcasts in the first place.

The 21st Century Salonnière explains that there are universal conditions such as anxiety, and there are culture-bound explanations for those conditions.

It’s really easy to point this out when it happens in other cultures. Only if you live in a culture where the extreme anxiety related to becoming a cannibal is “a thing” is it possible for your own wired-in extreme anxiety to find a home in that fear.

It’s harder to point this out in our own culture, though. Only if you live in a culture where cutting yourself to express your emotional pain is “a thing” is it possible for your own emotional pain to find a home in cutting yourself. That seems less [more?] intuitive because it’s the water in which we swim. (Isn’t that “just what people do”? No, it’s not.)

I have to say it’s never been the water in which I swim. Cutting seems very odd to me, and not something it would occur to me to do as a response to emotional pain.

This might explain, for example, why there was no such thing as being “triggered” by emotionally difficult lecture material in 1975, and yet we’ve heard about it often in recent years. Our current cultural understanding is that it’s possible to have a trauma response to upsetting educational content—it’s now become a thing for us, just as the fear of becoming a cannibal is a thing in another culture—and so if a lecture is upsetting, it can (really) result in being triggered now.

Again – that’s not my current cultural understanding. I’ve heard of it of course, along with a lot of mockery of it – which is kind of my point: it hasn’t really “become a thing” for us, at least not yet, because too many people find it absurd or exaggerated. It’s a thing for some of us, but far from all.

There’s always a human universal underlying these phenomena. The human universal here is that humans sometimes have extreme responses to traumatizing events. But the specific ways they respond, and even what they consider to be trauma, change depending on time, place, culture, and context. Trauma responses are very real. But culture lays a lot of things on top of it. Culture tells you how to respond, but you’re not aware that’s happening, so the response feels like it’s coming from inside you.

Emphasis added. Yes, for a lot of people this is clearly the case.

Cultural definitions, cultural beliefs, and cultural expectations are really powerful. They influence people’s beliefs and behaviors in ways of which we ourselves are often unaware. Culture essentially tells us how to behave, and we comply without perceiving that we’re complying.

Which is one very good reason for being aware of how that works, and watching out for it, so that you can resist if it doesn’t suit you, and maybe even help others resist if it doesn’t suit them. Anorexia for instance – that doesn’t suit anyone, so it’s good to resist it. Violent porn for another instance – how about if we stop letting culture tell us that’s sexy and ok?

Culture-bound syndromes are not just for quaint, unaware people in other places. They are very much alive. Cultural beliefs exert powerful effects.

Note that no one is play-acting—no one is pretending. But people in our culture—not just other cultures—adopt sets of beliefs and behaviors without being aware of it, in response to cultural expectations, in ways that feel completely organic and genuine.

Indeed, but that’s why learning to think critically can be so useful.

So when we look at human suffering and how to address it, it can be helpful to ask ourselves: What part of this thing is a human universal? Which parts did we make up?

And now we get to it.

To hear the modern Western media tell it, transgender identity and gender dysphoria (extreme emotional distress related to aspects of your sexed body) have always existed among humans.

Uh huh, and I’ve never believed a word of it.

Not only is trans identity a human universal, the current narrative goes, but our current 21st-century response to it is the universally decent way—the only right way—to respond to someone with such an identity.

Thus, the 21st-century Western narrative calls for affirmation of everyone with a trans identity, changing the names and pronouns we use for people, providing puberty blockers and hormones, offering surgeries, changing single-sex spaces and sports to single-gender spaces and sports, and endorsing simple catechistic slogans with which every decent person is supposed to agree (e.g., “Trans women are women”). The reality is so settled that there is to be “no debate.”

And all in the space of – what – ten years? Fifteen?

What part of this thing is a human universal? Which parts did we make up? They’re important questions.

How ugly.

When the Supreme Court justices emerged from the red drapes at the front of the courtroom last Friday and took their seats — to hear arguments about President Biden’s vaccine mandate — all but one of the justices there were wearing masks. The exception was Neil Gorsuch.

That Gorsuch would resist mask wearing is no surprise. He is a conservative judge with a libertarian streak who has spent his life around Republican politics. In conservative circles, masks have become a symbol of big-government subjugation.

But that is surprising. It’s surprising because it’s so dumb. It’s like seeing it as “big-government subjugation” to stop at red lights, or not serve weed-killer to your guests, or not beat your child to death. Shocker: there are some rules, and life is improved if we all follow the rules.

Gorsuch had to know that his masklessness could make other justices uncomfortable, including the 83-year-old Stephen Breyer and the 67-year-old Sotomayor, who has diabetes, a Covid risk factor. Sotomayor sits next to Gorsuch on the bench and, notably, chose not to attend Friday’s argument in person. She participated remotely, from her chambers.

So, in other words, Gorsuch is kind of a pig.

“Wearing a mask is the decent thing to do,” [Ruth] Marcus wrote in her Washington Post column, “especially when you are around vulnerable individuals.” This week, Gorsuch again appeared without a mask at the court.

A dedicated pig.

Do what now?

Hormone-history categories???

We’re right back with “folks with vulvas” but even more ludicrous. Somehow it’s radioactive to call male people “men” and “boys” but it’s fine to call them…what…testosterone-history-havers? That’s an improvement how exactly?

Maybe this is all a way to deal with the approaching catastrophe. Never mind the metaphorical comet, just lose yourself in fantasies of being the other sex, a bird, a castle, the North Sea, chocolate, the library at Alexandria, music, a sunset, drunk, the sky…

About women but never mentioning women.

San Francisco has a place called the Gender Confirmation Center, where people can go to get bits of themselves cut off or reshaped so as to Confirm their Genders. Another way of looking at it is that it’s a group practice of three plastic surgeons who specialize in slicing or shaping people for cosmetic gender purposes.

One of their menu items is Top Surgery with No Nipple Grafts.

We’ve seen an increase of patients at The Gender Confirmation Center who want to get top surgery but do not want to keep their nipples. We’ve developed this content to raise awareness that this is a viable option and to communicate that choosing no nipples is a completely valid choice.

And of course plastic surgeons are the very people we want telling us which bits it’s completely valid to choose to cut off.

In short, Nipple Grafts is a term for nipples that have been removed from your chest during top surgery and then re-attached to the chest in the desired location. The areolas are usually cut down to about the size of a nickel (22 mm being the typical diameter of a cisgender male’s areolas) and then the nipples are shaved down so that they don’t project as much. The process of nipple reduction is explained in this animated video.

I do love animated videos about nipple reduction. So perky.

Jo Bartosch on the bullying of yet another disobedient woman:

During Lisa Townsend’s campaign to become Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner last year, the subject that most frequently came up on the doorstep wasn’t gang crime, burglaries, or car theft. It was Stonewall, and the lobby group’s influence on policing policies, such as the placement of males who identify as transwomen in women’s prisons.

Townsend was elected. She’s an outspoken critic of Stonewall.

But while her constituents greeted her comments with admiration, the reception from other quarters was hostile: she has faced calls for her resignation, an inquiry by Surrey Police and Crime Panel (PCP) and a slew of anonymous threats to her life. After [she received] over forty formal complaints, in October Surrey PCP finally cleared Townsend of “any breach of public conduct”.

Now, four months on, she’s set to be dragged through the process again — this time at the behest of a fellow Conservative: Crispin Blunt MP.

Blunt, who is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on LGBT+ rights, is one of a small number of politicians within the Conservative Party who fervently supports Stonewall and their stance on gender self-identification: he believes that it is discriminatory to exclude those who are male but identify as trans from women’s services and spaces. His constituency, Reigate, sits within Townsend’s jurisdiction as PCC.

Women are allowed to exclude men from women’s services and spaces. It’s women who are the underdogs here, not men who enjoy pretending to be women.

Blunt tried to bully her over a JK Rowling tweet.

The post in question was neither incendiary nor ill-informed: all Rowling did was highlight the absurdity of a policy introduced by the Scottish police which allows male rapists to self-identify as women. To Rowling’s tweet she added her own words: “It’s not a ‘niche’ issue, it’s not hysterical for women to be taking to the streets about it. We will not accept this gaslighting from men who keep telling us they are women, or from those who enable them.”

Blunt clearly disagreed. “He called again and effectively told me to stop speaking out. I explained that I wasn’t prepared to do that. I reminded him that I have a duty to defend women’s right to access single-sex refuges, hospital wards and prisons — not just because it matters to me, but because it matters to many of the people I represent.”

Women. It matters to women. Blunt is clearly indifferent to that.

A week after the ominous phone call, Townsend was informed that Blunt had submitted a complaint about her tweet to the PCP. In a lengthy formal letter, Blunt complained bitterly that his attempts to “counsel” Townsend had been rebuffed and that “she remains absolutely determined to take part in this most contentious of public debates”. Blunt argued that Townsend’s “messaging propagates dangerous myths that trans women represent a physical threat to cisgender [non transgender] women”.

Other way around, bro. It’s Blunt’s messaging that propagates dangerous myths that trans women don’t represent a physical threat to women. Of course trans women represent a physical threat to women in the same sense that all men do: not that all men will assault women but that a horribly large number of men will, and men are much stronger than women. Blunt seems to think, or he pretends to think, that being trans removes men from that potential, but it doesn’t. Which is more important: men’s freedom to indulge their fantasies, or women’s physical safety? You’d think it would be the second item, wouldn’t you, but to men like Crispin Blunt it isn’t.

Said by a prominent libertarian rebel-troll-smartass guy:

If you’re saying “I’m not allowed to” in regard to any normal thing you might do, like go to a restaurant, you should be furious with, first, yourself for pretending to accept this BS, and, second, whatever municipal or corporate clown pretended to have the authority of allowance.

Is that so.

What’s he assuming there?

That going to a restaurant is “normal.”

Of course in one way it is, that one way being the fact that it has been normal in some places for some people for several decades. But in another way it’s not the slightest bit normal; on the contrary it’s abnormal, and entirely dependent on a whole massive network of institutions and arrangements and customs that would not be possible without large-scale human co-operation.

Where does he think restaurants come from? Where does he think they get the food they sell? How does he think they get to be in buildings? Who does he think buys the food, prepares it, serves it, cleans up after it?

None of that is “normal.” It’s an elaborate social arrangement improved over many years. What do social arrangements depend on? The social. What does that entail? A whole lot of customs and rules and laws that make it possible for us to interact without constant brawling.

Ok then. Can we start to see the outline of a reason it’s not actually “abnormal” for restaurants to take precautions not to spread a dangerous virus? Or for customers of restaurants to avoid them in order not to spread or catch a dangerous virus? Or for local or national governments to put rules in place to lessen the spread of a dangerous virus?

I think we can, so I won’t bother to spell them out. I will just wonder aloud what kind of fucking idiot takes for granted the presence of elaborate social institutions like restaurants while pitching a fit about the rules that make restaurants possible.

The idiot is James Lindsay, by the way.

Well…I guess Alice Dreger is more of a believer than I had any idea of. From 2006:

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that New York City “is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificates even if they have not had sex-change surgery.” Under the new plan “being considered by the city’s Board of Health… people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.” No more need to get surgery or even hormone treatments to get the legal gender you feel is right for you.

What could possibly go wrong?

This was sixteen years ago, so we didn’t know as much about what could go wrong as we do now, but still, it seems a little rash.

Quite a progressive move, this. And nicely in keeping with the long history of liberal democracy, wherein social and political identities have been increasingly decoupled from anatomy. Think about it: your social identity and legal rights depend a lot less on your body type now than they did fifty years ago, and much less than they did a hundred or five hundred years ago. Most of the major civil rights movements have been about just this: arguing against body-based discrimination, whether it be race-based, sex-based, or ability-based.

Well, no, or yes and no, or sort of and no. They weren’t about “just this” – they didn’t put it that way. They didn’t talk about bodies to the exclusion of everything else, and they didn’t think it was about bodies to the exclusion of everything else. They were right. It’s not just bodies, it’s what the people on top think about the bodies (and minds and actions and duties and so on).

And even if it were just a matter of “bodies,” what good would it do women for some men to pretend to have women’s bodies? Zilch.

Why should a person have to go through expensive and dangerous transsexual surgeries – many of which she might not want or be able to afford – to get people to recognize her as the gender she says she is?

That’s the wrong question. The real question is why should a man think he has a right to “get” people to agree with him that he’s a woman?

At a deeper level, what’s with the idea that health care providers should be the ones certifying who is what gender?

What’s with the idea that people should be able to call themselves the other sex and expect everyone to agree?

The Times article quotes the city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, as saying “It’s the permanence of the transition that matters most.” And therein lies the conservatism of the move. Okay, we’ll let you change legal sex, but only once. You have to make sure you claim that we just got it wrong in the first place; you were always the gender you say you are now. This way we don’t end up with the crazy idea that people really might be able to change their sexes! We couldn’t take that.

Sure, people should be able to change their sexes every day – every hour if they’re really committed. Why not? What possible reason could anyone ever have for knowing what someone’s actual sex is?

Some people really are born male by all conventional standards and really do end up with the gender identities of women. And vice versa. And some people’s gender identities really do seem to change over time.

And some pigs really do have wings.

I’m having trouble believing what I’m seeing.

They’re…not? They’re so not that the question gets a “sheesh”?

I don’t understand. I expect it from your Frances Coppolas and Bethany Williamses, but not from your Alice Dregers.

After the dinosaurs were wiped out:

Reporting today in the journal Science, Miller’s team, led by vertebrate paleontologist Tyler Lyson, has uncovered an enormous cache of fossils from Colorado’s Denver Basin that include the first million years that followed the asteroid’s arrival. The site’s thousands of plant and animal remains chart out an extraordinarily detailed timeline of ecosystem recovery, pinpointing the rise and fall of species at a resolution of hundreds of thousands of years—mere seconds on the geologic clock.

In the millennia following the impact, five-foot crocodiles and keg-sized turtles re-entered the waters to stretch their leathery legs. Plants unfurled their roots into the once-scorched soil, sprouting nutrient-rich beans and small, fast-growing leaves. No longer threatened by flesh-hungry dinosaurs, mammals—our own predecessors—ballooned to new sizes, lumbering across the floodplains on thick, stocky limbs.

Documenting these changes and more, the collection constitutes the most comprehensive catalog of K-Pg survivors to date. Its contents showcase the extraordinary resilience of life on Earth in the wake of disaster—and help reveal some of the first stones on the evolutionary path that eventually led to the primates known as humans.

The ones who did many interesting things but also did a lot of damage to that recovered ecosystem.

I suppose they think this makes them look up to date and aware, or down with the kids, or something, but you’d think they’d also be able to see that it makes them look like complete fools to most adults. Planned Parenthood, that is.

We’re in the midst of a sex-positivity boom that’s dispelling long-held beliefs about who can and should experience pleasure—which is, of course, all humans. But up until recently, that sexual-pleasure narrative centered almost entirely on people with penises, rooted first in the belief that non-procreative sex was taboo for people with vaginas, and later, in an evolved (but not any less sexist) understanding that, while folks with vaginas could find pleasure in sex, orgasm for penis-havers was both more powerful and more important. As societal norms propped up this perspective, few scientists sought to prove otherwise, which just reinforced the cycle—until the full anatomy of the clitoris was mapped in 2005, busting open a new world for female sexual pleasure.

People with penises, people with vaginas, folks with vaginas, penis-havers. Baby talk. Planned Parenthood used to be a grown-up organization with serious work to do.

Some women collapse into actual sexism when trying to bully other women into agreeing that trans women are women. Frances Coppola for one.

What the hell??? What is it with these people? “Maggots,” “darling,” “dearie” – they might as well be angry frat boys.

The Times checks Trump’s lies at that “rally” in Arizona.

“The left is now rationing lifesaving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating, just denigrating, white people to determine who lives and who dies. If you’re white, you don’t get the vaccine, or if you’re white, you don’t get therapeutics.”

False. There is no evidence that white Americans are being denied access to vaccines or treatments.

Mr. Trump referred to a Wall Street Journal opinion column criticizing New York State’s guidelines on two limited antiviral treatments that ask health providers to prioritize the therapies for immunocompromised patients and those with risk factors. The guidelines, which were released in late December, said, “Nonwhite race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from Covid-19.”

Well let’s have a little compassion for Trump here. He’s got a very simple mind, and a very empty one, so he can’t be expected to grasp the difference between prioritizing people with extra risk factors and shutting out people without extra risk factors.

State officials have defended their guidelines by citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which show that Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are about twice as likely to die from Covid-19 than white Americans. A spokeswoman for New York State’s Department of Health told Fox News that race did not disqualify patients from treatment but that the guidelines instead considered race as one risk factor.

What? Huh? I don’t understand. Coverup! Lies! Hillary! Female narcissism! Borderline Personality Disorder!

“Why did Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol Police reject the more than 10,000 National Guard troops or soldiers that I authorized to help control the enormous crowd that I knew was coming?”

False. There is no evidence that Mr. Trump ever made a request for 10,000 National Guard troops or that Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected such a demand. The speaker of the House does not control the National Guard.

He did make it. The fact that he was alone in a bathroom at the time and made it to the mirror is neither here nor there.

There’s also one about fraudulent ballots in Arizona. Also false.

Just outright abusive, like some drunk angry psycho on the street corner.

Just vulgar abuse.

Where does she get the “white supremacists” bit? Nowhere. Just vulgar abuse.

“Maggots.”

This person calls herself a “political commentator” and plans to run for office.

The Watford Observer scolds its readers for losing sight of “feelings.”

At the time of writing, the comment section underneath our online story ‘Petition as girls’ school trust will no longer admit transgender pupils’ had grown to more than 120 entries.

It is one of the most divisive subjects of our times, with accusations of ‘cancel culture’ and ideology even tainting formerly beloved figures like JK Rowling.

Is it Rowling who is “tainted” by the accusations, or is it the rabidly furious people who scream about her who are tainted?

The argument does not necessarily split along right/left political lines, with many feminists who might once have been considered left-wing aligning themselves with views on the right.

So the argument does not necessarily split along right/left political lines, but it’s definitely views on the right that many feminists are aligning themselves with. It takes real talent to contradict yourself that flatly within a single sentence.

It’s not a sharp mind behind the writing of this editorial.

But what often gets lost as people take sides and make accusations about others’ agendas are the feelings of the people in the midst of it.

I beg your pardon? How could we possibly lose sight of the putative Feelings of the people we’re disagreeing with when their agonized Feelings are their only argument??

And what about our feelings? Eh? We bizarro feminists who might once have been considered left-wing but are now aligning ourselves with views on the right according to the Watford Observer? What about our feelings about being told to shut up and take whatever is thrown at us?

Nothing, that’s what. We don’t count as people.

They may have spent many years feeling confused about their gender and how they fit in to the world around them. Then when they do dare tell others how they feel and try to live a fulfilling life they find themselves facing hostility and hatred.

I see. There’s only one “they” here, and it’s not women reminding the world of our own rights. The only “they” that matters is the one that feels “confused” about its “gender.”

These people suffer a far higher rate of mental health problems, as well as being more likely to be the victims of violence and murder.

Higher than what? More likely than what? Really not a sharp mind here.

So before we weigh in on who should be allowed into what space or sporting field, we should consider how we present our opinions on such a sensitive issue.

We should remember first and foremost that we are dealing with real people whose feelings should be respected.

Women are real people too. We have feelings too. We even think our feelings should be respected just as much as those other people’s are.

A two hour workshop on how to be perfected:

Unlearning the Binary: Fostering a Truly Trans-Inclusive Campus

The campus is the University of Waterloo.

Workshop Description:

The purpose of the workshop is to help students, faculty and staff understand historical and present-day issues that impact trans and non-binary Black & racialized identities, debunk and de-mystify conversations around trans inclusion, and generate discussion on accountability frameworks and best practices to better affirm trans identities

It’s a two-fer. You can be helped to understand trans and race, all in just two hours.

Learning Outcomes:

• Describe the erasure, and impact of Black and racialized trans folks from history
• Unlearn the binary towards fully respecting/valuing someone’s lived identity
• Determine the protected rights for trans identities in line with the Ontario Human Rights Code and AODA
• Identify common manifestations of cisnormative and heteronormative practices and ideologies
• Evaluate trans specific individual, interpersonal, and institutional barriers
• Determine individual social location and its implications and biases
• Discuss ways to support and advocate for trans identified students, staff, faculty

That sounds like a lot for two hours.

Oh by the way I hope you weren’t expecting the prestigious presence of the facilitators.

This is an online workshop hosted on Zoom. The link to join will be sent to your inbox from the Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion Trainings email (hrei.trainings@uwaterloo.ca) 48 hours prior to the workshop date.

A couple of people saying things on Zoom for a couple of hours. The things they will say sound kind of…hackneyed.

Oh well. Better than getting run over by a bus, maybe.

People planning to make new Harry Potter film with frogs playing all the parts.

Film producers are planning a woke version of the Harry Potter movies in which the magical characters will be played by transgender and non-binary actors.

Or frogs. Whichever demands the least money.

In what will be seen by many as a challenge to J.K. Rowling, who was attacked for questioning the claim that trans women are identical to biological women, the filmmakers are seeking a more diverse line-up for the starring roles.

They are insisting that some of the characters for the new versions – to be aired as a ‘web series’ – cannot be played by white actors, including the starring role of James Potter, father of young wizard Harry.

Cannot be played by white actors, because Harry is…well, white.

According to casting notes, that role is only open to an actor who is ‘Asian, black, African descent, ethnically ambiguous, multiracial, Indigenous peoples, Latino, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Indian, Southeast Asian or Pacific Islander’. Producers have not specified who they want to play Lily Evans, Harry’s mother, but have said they want a ‘gender-nonconforming, non-binary, trans female’.

What does “non-binary, trans” mean? Seriously, what? They’re opposites, so what can it mean? Trans is claiming to be the other sex, non-binary is claiming to be neither sex, so you can’t be both, because it makes no sense.

All genders can audition for the part. The project’s creator, TikTok video producer Megan Mckelli, said: ‘We aim to reflect the diversity of the fanbase in its beloved characters, introducing people of colour, queer storylines, and characters of differing faiths.’

They all have to be equally dim-witted though. That’s a must. Nobody who isn’t would agree to audition.

They’re going to have copyright issues though. Rowling doesn’t just give the rights away. The whole thing is just a “Look at me” scheme – and here I am looking. I’m a patsy for the attention-starved.

Dog friend/client and I walked around Green Lake this afternoon.