The Times July 19 2020:

John Boyne has expressed gratitude after a comedian apologised publicly for the “relentless harassment” that caused the novelist great distress.

In a statement published on Twitter last week, Aidan Comerford issued an apology and retraction for suggesting Boyne “has engaged in transphobia [and] implying that he is transphobic, on a number of occasions”.

Comerford, the author of Corn Flakes for Dinner, a comedy about family life, said he had wrongly tweeted that no transgender person would appear with Boyne on an RTE radio interview with Ryan Tubridy in 2019. “I have been informed that, in fact, no transgender person was invited to appear; therefore, I retract and apologise,” he said.

Comerford also admitted falsely accusing Boyne of creating a “sock puppet” or fake account to tweet himself supportively. The comedian concluded that it was never his intention to harass Boyne and he was sorry for doing so. “I have deleted these tweets about John, and I will not tweet about him, or his work, in the future.”

But will he continue to harass people he perceives as being insufficiently deferential to trans ideology? Yes indeed, he will do that very thing. Today for instance…

He certainly does think he’s the boss of everyone.

And righteous.

Oh good, another fuss. There can never be enough fussing.

The Polari Prize, the UK’s literary award celebrating LGBTQ+ writing, has come under fire following the release of its 2025 longlist, with critics accusing the organisers of platforming a writer labelled by some as a “TERF”.

The horror!!

The controversy centres around the inclusion of John Boyne, author of Earth, on the main Polari Book Prize longlist. Boyne has previously faced criticism for his portrayal of trans characters, particularly in his 2019 novel My Brother’s Name is Jessica.

And mere criticism is not enough, there must be shunning.

The novel, which follows a cisgender boy struggling to accept his sibling’s transition, was widely condemned by trans activists and readers. Critics argued that the story centres cis discomfort rather than trans experience, perpetuating harmful tropes. The title itself was seen as misgendering the protagonist, with one activist stating, “He misgendered the trans person in the title… that reflects a lot on what’s going to be in the book.”

Blah blah blah everything must be written according to our specifications or there will be fuss and shunning and punishment and above all noise.

Social media erupted shortly after the longlist was announced on 6 August, with one user saying: “Trans and nonbinary readers are not going to be safe if you continue to platform TERF authors. That’s it. That’s the bottom line.” 

It may be the bottom line, but is it true? Are hordes of people going to make haste to throw heavy objects at trans people because this book is up for a prize?

In a statement published on social media, Polari Prize wrote: “The Polari Prize was founded on the core principles of diversity and inclusion. We are committed to supporting trans rights and amplifying trans voices, as demonstrated both in the history of the prize and the Polari salon, where trans and non-binary writers and performers have featured regularly as valued members of the LGBTQ+ writing community. 

Ssssshhhhh – doesn’t matter. You have been Condemned; game over.

BBC tells us:

A former police community support officer who was “obsessed with weapons” has been jailed after she tried to make a gun using a 3D printer.

Zoe Watts, 39, of St Helen’s Avenue, Lincoln, was found with weapons, including knives and a crossbow, alongside parts for 3D printed guns during a raid on her home on 11 December. Watts denied a charge of attempting to manufacture a prohibited weapon, and claimed she was making a “fidget” toy gun as a Christmas present.

Watts, of course, is a large hulking man. This crime is not the crime of a woman; this sentence was not handed down to a woman.

Two days before the raid on her home, Watts had done an online search for “Has anybody been killed by a 3D printed gun?”

The court was told on behalf of Watts – who was appearing by videolink – that she “apologised to the jury, to her family and her friends for putting them through this”.

It also heard that she “expressed her sorrow that it may have an impact on how the gay and lesbian community may be viewed”.

No sorrow for the trans communniny?

Judge Hirst said he realised custody would be more difficult for Watts because of her neurodivergence, her previous police career and her transgender identity.

That’s the next to last sentence of the longish article – only at the very end does the BBC admit that Watts has a “transgender idenniny” i.e. is a man. If you heard the story on the radio as opposed to reading it and thus seeing the photo at the top, you would have no idea the perp was a man until the very end. Most people stop reading before the very end. It’s journalistic malpractice on steroids.

Updating to add: Lincolnshire Police are even worse.

Originally a comment by Dave Ricks on A Harvard professor.

The Harvard prof Sarah Richardson concluded her book review:

Reprising the anti-biological determinist tradition, Fuentes respectfully explains science in plain language to a wider public, presents biological knowledge as one among many sources of sense-making about the world, and recognises biomedical scientists’ responsibility to respond to harmful deployments of inaccurate, overly simplistic, and reductionist science by those attempting to naturalise and depoliticise their hateful views.

This interdisciplinary, scientist-humanist voice is vital in our time. As the Lancet Commission makes clarion, gender is an essential concept for improving health and wellbeing for everyone. Defending research and clinical practice in gender-related areas must be a priority in the face of perilous new attacks on science and academic freedom.

I bolded the word harmful because Carole Hooven highlighted that one word in yellow in her post of the image file here. That one word highlighted yellow stands out and makes me think. Richardson sees herself as an arbiter of which views are harmful. But would she ever judge her own views are harmful? And how did she become an arbiter? Evidently, Harvard has been cultivating this culture over many years. I will quote Hooven saying this, so it’s not just me:

The Lancet review goes well beyond disagreement about the facts, and exemplifies one of the main reasons Harvard is being targeted by the government.

By the way, considered harmful is a fun trope, known especially in computer science from the short paper Goto Statement Considered Harmful (Edsger Dijkstra, 1968). Of course, that led to a reply ‘GOTO Considered Harmful’ Considered Harmful (Frank Rubin, 1987), and so on.

I will never, ever, ever understand how lawyers and legislators can convince themselves that all this is true and good.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Badgey MaBadgerson.

It’s the most ridiculous thing, a safety rating system where everyone rates themselves.

Restaurants in Toronto are inspected by the health commission or whatever it’s called, same as in any other normal city. Here, the inspectors issue a “grade” to the restaurant, a Red, Yellow, or Green Card, which must be prominently displayed at the business entrance.

But imagine if restaurants all just issued their own cards. Each restaurant could just post a big yellow “You’re safe eating with me!” badge on its front door if it chooses to.

It’s so fucking stupid, it’s not even worth imagining. It’s not even funny. It’s just plainly, obviously so dumb, it’s tedious to even try and entertain the idea.

And now imagine that kids are the ones doing the evaluating of what’s safe and what’s not!

This is a perfect example of how the gender cult activates the primitive parts of the brain that are fixated on signalling virtue to protect their status among their tribal peers, while at the same time completely deactivating the brain’s entire critical thinking parts when doing so. There is not just a lack of critical thinking behind the badge thing, there’s an active, glaring, explicit, and frankly shocking suppression of people’s mental faculties going on here.

And whoever introduced the clumsy neologism “trans+” has just cranked up the purity spiral another notch. As sure as April rain, we’ll see it soon pretty much everywhere.

Argh, people are so stupid!

Oh come on. Much too easy.

Of course they can. It’s because trans women are men! That’s it, that’s all you need.

No hurry. We’ll get to it over the next few months, or perhaps next year, or some time soon after that.

The NHS has delayed a ban on staff who are trans women in female changing rooms and lavatories until the autumn.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, promised new guidance in April, after the Supreme Court ruled that trans women – people who are biological men – should be barred from using women’s single-sex services.

The Telegraph can reveal that NHS England has no plans to bring out the guidance until “late summer or early autumn” – meaning it may not be published until October or November.

That’s ok. It doesn’t matter. It’s only women who are at risk or uncomfortable. No hurry. Sit back, have another glass of wine, ignore the clock.

Many public bodies have already started observing the rules. The Football Association, for example, has barred trans women from the female game.

But NHS England has still not acted, despite Sir Keir Starmer telling organisations to comply with the law “as soon as possible”.

That’s interesting because you would think the NHS should be one of the first organizations to get their shit together. Not one of the slow, foot-dragging, reluctant, sulky, uncooperative ones, but one of the other kind. The NHS is the one that has the power to fuck up people’s bodies, so they really ought to be in a hurry to get their knowledge of who has which kind of body right.

An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS is working through the implications of the ruling, and we absolutely recognise the need for revised guidance.

“It’s important for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to publish its statutory guidance before final decisions about future policy are taken.

“In the meantime, we are working closely with Government to ensure we can provide updated guidance for the health service as soon as possible.”

I don’t really get what the obstacle is. Men are not women and they never have been.

Jo Bartosch writes:

If there’s one thing predators are good at, it’s spotting soft targets. Thanks to Dr Ronx Ikharia, this could soon be easier than ever. Ikharia – a BBC children’s presenter and NHS emergency medic who identifies as ‘trans nonbinary’ – has launched a new scheme called ‘Safe With Me’. It involves distributing large yellow badges, which signal that the wearer is available to escort ‘trans+ people’ to ‘their preferred facilities’. In other words, it is to help men in frocks breach the law on single-sex spaces.

The first thing that occurs to me is not even the “but women” bit, it’s the glaringly obvious fact that someone saying or signaling something does not make it true. What’s to stop men who like a little recreational violence getting one of those nice large badges and slapping it on? What if the wearer turns out to be available not to ‘escort trans+ people’ to ‘their preferred facilities’ but to kick the shit out of them? It seems like a wildly fatuous campaign in its own terms.

But the second thing of course is the usual “yes but what about the safety of women who don’t want your huge male friend in their toilets?” So what about that, eh?

It’s no surprise Ikharia seems to have overlooked the risks here. She has the monomaniacal focus of a true believer. Not only did she have her own breasts amputated to align with her ‘trans nonbinary’ identity – she has also used her position as a children’s TV presenter to promote harmful interventions to confused young people. In one BBC Three clip, she hands out a new breast binder to a girl whose previous use of one had displaced her ribs.

Here, kid, make your ribs even worse.

Ikharia’s badges are a petulant response to the recent UK Supreme Court ruling that the word ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refers to biological reality, not identity. This legal clarity has caused a moral panic among activists. As Ikharia told the local press: ‘The ruling means trans+ people may be forced into spaces where they don’t feel safe… Toilets are one of the most dangerous of these spaces.’

Now think about women in those spaces when a man comes in.

Oooh a surge in young pipple idennifying as nonbinaree. But which kind of nonbinaree??

Staff at Scotland’s youth gender clinic say they are struggling to deal with surging numbers of children who identify as neither male nor female.

What mean “deal with”? How do you deal with children who idennify as tigers or cars or archaeologists? What kind of dealing is there?

A warning about the rise in “non-binary” patients was raised as part of a review into the impact of government spending on trans healthcare. However, workers at the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow highlighted a lack of guidance on how they should be looked after.

One health professional revealed that some young “non-binary” patients who say they do not belong to either gender still request sex hormones that would either feminise or masculinise them.

Oh don’t worry about that. Just give them both.

“Over the last ten years, obviously there’s been a big increase in the number of people presenting [with] gender non-conforming identities … we’ve really struggled to think about how we deal with that in a fair way,” the staff member said.

Why yes. Thank you for noticing. Big increase, and struggled to think. Yes, there’s been a big increase, because it’s a fad, and lots and lots of people have enthusiastically embraced the fad. Yes, it’s a puzzler how to deal with that, because it’s wrong and bad and harmful.

One consultant who has worked in gender healthcare told The Times they had encountered patients who shifted genders depending on how they felt on different days. “We have got into a position where we are enabling people to deny reality and we have reinforced delusional behaviours,” the consultant said.

Yes. As we have been pointing out for way too many years now.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on A Harvard professor.

…“sex is a biocultural construct. Gamete size represents but one of multiple components and developmental processes—including gonads, hormones, genitals, fertility, mating, parenting behaviour, secondary sexual characteristics, and gender identity.”

And yet none of these other factors results in a third gamete, or individuals that are, biologically, partway between male and female. None of these other complications allow humans to change sex, or offer some “other” pathway for being a woman. “It’s complicated,” doesn’t do the heavy lifting they claim it does. Sure, it’s complicated, but it’s not magic. It’s not arbitrary. It’s not swayed by wishful thinking. It’s not as uncertain and unknowable as they would have us believe. Transgenderists have to bury biology under the rug in order for their word games to work. They think that retooling the language retools reality. The stench of their desire for this to be true would be pathetic if it weren’t so dangerous. They need these other factors and complications to enable them to “become women” after discrediting the only definition of woman that counts, the one that precludes their being female. It’s a sick love-hate complex they’ve set up and launched against women.

They might plead otherwise, but trans identified females are an afterthought in all of this. If this movement were founded solely on the desires and delusions of women pretending to be men, it would have gone nowhere, and would have acquired none of the power and influence it now enjoys. The whole point of this is for men to invade women’s spaces. Unlike the charge that women defending women’s rights are really only out to hurt trans people, trans identified males really are out to take over everything women have or want for themselves. “WE JUST WANT TO PEEEEE!” was never true.

“Although the gametic definition makes reference to biological systems, it is sophistry, not science. Those who promote this definition favour the assertion that sex inheres in gamete (sperm and egg) production because, in part, it facilitates their political aims by fuelling unhinged panic in some quarters about transgender threats to traditional gender roles.”

And transgenderism is not a political program? I would say that the denial of the gametic definition of sex by genderists “facilitates their political aims”. Material reality is the biggest obstacle to the claims of gender identitarianism, so, given their inability to rebut reality, it’s only natural that they must attack the character of those who uphold its salience. Just more of the phenomenon of “Every accusation is a confession” that we’ve seen before. The threat posed by transgenderism is not to “traditional gender roles” (which are bullshit for reasons having nothing to do with “gender identity”) but to women.

Feminists would be happy to burn the traditional, sexist, patriarchal gender roles to the ground. How do you account for their stance against the “sex spectrum”? This is bad because gender ideology depends on the reification of those very traditional roles to justify the whole “born in the wrong body” trope. Susie Green decided her son was actually a girl because he was playing with the wrong toys. She decided to “trans away the gay” on the basis of gender stereotypes. Where would Susie have gotten her diagnosis of “trans” without the idea that “dolls are for girls”? Instead, because of her and her husband’s homophobia, she short-circuited any possibility of desistance and pushed her son into the gender-industrial complex.

And last, there’s the link between those who hold the gametic view and bigots:….[T]he recent favour bestowed on the gametic definition of sex by anti-trans gender traditionalists appeals selectively to science to naturalise and rationalise inequality and exclusion.”

If you can’t argue against the message, shoot the messenger. If you can’t support your own argument, claim the both the messenger and his message were evil, and that the messenger deserved to be shot, and the message is too vile to be heard by anyone, ever. But GAMETES BAD isn’t an argument that shows that sex is indeed a spectrum. You might think you’re crippling the best horse in the race, but you still have to run the track to claim victory. You still have to produce evidence, proof, and arguments. An aspiring scientific explanation still has to prove its worth and validity; it doesn’t “win” by default or acclamation. You still have to make your case. At some point you have to stop handwaving and start building. If genderism could do this, it would just go ahead and argue how it is better at explaining how the world actually works than any other competing hypothesis. It wouldn’t have to rely on the bogus political strawman to scare and intimidate people into their camp. This is just a wordier version of “NO DEBATE!” That game isn’t going to work any more. You have to show your work, which means doing the work in the first place.

There are lots of fruitful avenues of research that genderism could be exploring, but isn’t. Where are the rest of the “colours” of this supposed “spectrum” beyond and between male and female? Give me a definition of “gender identity” that isn’t circular. Provide an evolutionary explanation for the origin of “gender identity,” and a physiological explanation for its operation and functioning within a given individual. If gender identity actually existed, it would be a whole new field of scientific enquiry. But like astrology and comunicating with dead people, it is no more than a cruel scam.

And as for “inequality and exclusion”, those are not necessarily bad things, particularly when you turn it around to see what genderists mean, and what they want. “Equality” for them means TWAW, that men can become women and are women if they say so. “Inclusion” means that men get access to all female single-sex spaces. This is the ultimate goal and result of denying biology and claiming that sex is a “spectrum.” This is what they’re fighting for. This is what they want: a nightmare blend of Huxley, Orwell, and Kafka that we’ve been living through for more than a decade. Anyone giving legitimacy to this is aiding and abetting crimes against women, girls, and children. Slow clap. Well done. Fuck off.

JD Vance gets to steal water from a lake for the sake of a joy ride, but solar panels for the proles is another thing altogether.

The Trump administration is preparing to terminate $7 billion in federal grants intended to help low- and moderate-income families install solar panels on their homes, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting termination letters to the 60 state agencies, nonprofit groups and Native American tribes that received the grants under the “Solar for All” program, with the goal of sending the letters by the end of this week, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

If finalized, the move would escalate the Trump administration’s efforts to claw back billions of dollars in grants awarded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s signature climate law. And it would be certain to draw legal challenges from the grant recipients, many of whom have pursued projects in Republican-led states.

…

Already, the E.P.A. has sought to cancel $20 billion out of the $27 billion in climate grants authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act. That move has prompted a drawn-out legal battle and a widening controversy involving the E.P.A., the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Citibank, where the funds are being held.

Just think of all the lakes JD Vance could empty with $20 billion to spend!

On his first day in office, Mr. Trump issued an executive order declaring a national energy emergency. But his administration has been withdrawing federal support for renewable energy like wind and solar power while encouraging the production and use of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

The non-renewable kind is more luxurious.

Nice for some.

JD Vance’s team had the army corps of engineers take the unusual step of changing the outflow of a lake in Ohio to accommodate a recent boating excursion on a family holiday, the Guardian has learned.

The request from the US Secret Service was made to “support safe navigation” of the US vice-president’s security detail for an August outing on the Little Miami River, according to a statement by the US army corps of engineers (USACE).

Vance was spotted in the south-western Ohio area on 2 August, his 41st birthday, according to social media posts that noted he was seen canoeing on the river, a tributary that Caesar Creek Lake feeds into.

USAID slashed, the National Weather Service slashed, $7 billion in grants for solar energy canceled, but by golly no price is too high for JD Vance’s boat trip.

The news raises questions about whether Vance’s office was potentially exploiting public infrastructure resources for his personal recreation at a time when the Trump administration has cut billions of dollars in foreign aid, scientific research and government jobs as part of its “efficiency” drive.

The vice-president’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The Guardian first approached the USACE in Louisville for a comment about the change on Tuesday. Publicly available data on the US Geological Survey (USGS) shows a sudden increase in the river level and corresponding drop in lake elevation during the early August days when Vance was vacationing.

Divert that lake into that river, a Trumpkin wants to go paddling!

According to the Guardian’s anonymous source with knowledge of the matter, “special releases” are generally not done for individuals or by individual request.

Ah but that’s ordinary aka plebeian individuals. The rules for royalty are quite different.

While there is no allegation that Vance’s office did anything illegal, the ethics lawyer Richard Painter, who served in the George W Bush administration, said it seemed hypocritical and “pretty outrageous” for Vance to be receiving these particular accommodations for his family holiday when the administration’s cuts have led to drastic cuts in the National Park Service (NPS).

The National Parks Conservation Association has estimated that the NPS has lost about a quarter of its staff since January, which in turn has led to sections of some parks to be closed and hours to be changed due to staffing issues.

See above. One rule for plebs, another for royals. Suck it up.

Norm Eisen, a former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, said: “When I was President Obama’s ethics czar in the White House I got a lot of unusual requests, but I never got one to increase the outflow of a waterway as part of a government official going kayaking.

“My nickname was ‘Mr No’ and I certainly would have lived up to it in this situation. I never would have permitted this kind of a thing because whether it technically violates the rules or not, it creates the appearance that the vice-president of the United States is getting special treatment that’s not available to the average person who wants to utilise that body of water for recreational purposes.”

It creates the appearance and the reality.

You know…

What these clowns don’t get is that “trans women” are not the black people in this scenario, they’re the white racists. They are. We’re not; they are. They are men. They are trying to dominate and punish and exile women. They are not the underdogs, they are not the victims, they are the KKK, the Birmingham cops, George Wallace in the schoolhouse door.

They are.

Jean Hatchet lets fly.

Upton and Tickle, who sound like a pair of bad electricians, were in court over the last two weeks for one reason only and that was to try to make people, especially women, say the words, “you are a woman”.

Everywhere they walk they hear these coveted words. They hear them from the compliant, the sycophants and the fearful alike. Their neighbours will say it, their friends will say it, some of their family will say it. Other men in frocks will say it, and they will return the feel-good falsehood. The newspapers will say it, the television will say it, posters will say it and songs will say it…

However, the reason they came to court is because they each found someone who refused to say it. Sandie Peggie and Sall Grover refused and have carried on refusing. This is unbearable to them. Upton and Tickle’s lie is only true if everyone repeats it for them, and to them. Everyone.

These men don’t want changing rooms or chatting apps, they want full submission. They don’t want justice they want power.

And they want power over a particular set of people – the set that is female not in their dreams, not on paper, not by bullying, not by calling the cops, not by going to court, but just by birth.

Only by commanding everyone to believe they changed into women does anyone say “Oh him! I mean her. Sorry, don’t report me. Please?”

But when these men returned home they knew what they had each been told. They heard very loud and very clear, “You aren’t a woman because this woman right here, this one with the support of fucking thousands, who doesn’t give a fuck about your personal pretence or your tears by your car, she said so and she refused to fucking unsay it”.

So I’m glad they had to get in their house, take off their sham costumes, take a deep breath and look in the mirror with the brave words of those women ringing in their ears, “You, my lad, are not a woman”.

When the door closes and they take off the dress and the lipstick, the mirror screams, “Sorry pumpkin, you’re a fucking massive bloke” and you can’t drag a mirror to court.

And even if you could it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as dragging a living breathing woman.

I run away for a few hours and come back to find

In it, she asserts that the “gametic definition” of sex—roughly, that there are two sexes, defined by whether the organism produces sperm (male) or eggs (female)—is not only “harmful,” but also “sophistry, not science.” (Lancet piece is below.)

I hold the gametic view. To the best of my knowledge, this is the view held by most evolutionary biologists. The author of the review has different ideas, and quotes approvingly from Fuentes’ book on the nature of sex: “sex is a biocultural construct. Gamete size represents but one of multiple components and developmental processes—including gonads, hormones, genitals, fertility, mating, parenting behaviour, secondary sexual characteristics, and gender identity.”

Ah yes the old “it’s more complicated than that.” Gamete size is not all there is to say about parenting behavior or genner idenniny. Jesus fucking christ nobody said it was. A definition is not a complete history or a biography or a novel in ten volumes, it’s a definition.

Back to Carole:

People disagree about the nature of male and female, and that’s OK. Respectful disagreement among scholars should be encouraged; it often sharpens thinking and research. But The Lancet review goes well beyond disagreement about the facts, and exemplifies one of the main reasons Harvard is being targeted by the government. Nobody wants to be called hateful or bigoted (especially by faculty with fancy endowed professorships), or even tainted by close proximity to views that could be construed that way. But not only has the Harvard professor disagreed with the gametic view, she apparently feels free to publicly impugn the ostensible motives and character of those who endorse it. Without providing any evidence, she asserts that our view is motivated (at least in part) by political aims, and harmful ones. As she wrote in The Lancet: “Although the gametic definition makes reference to biological systems, it is sophistry, not science. Those who promote this definition favour the assertion that sex inheres in gamete (sperm and egg) production because, in part, it facilitates their political aims by fuelling unhinged panic in some quarters about transgender threats to traditional gender roles.”

That’s such a farfetched claim you have to read it about six times to figure out what she’s saying.

She praises Fuentes for recognizing scientists’ “responsibility to respond to harmful deployments of inaccurate, overly simplistic, and reductionist science by those attempting to naturalise and depoliticise their hateful views.”

Ah yes, their hateful views – what a very sciency way to describe one’s scientific critics.

And last, there’s the link between those who hold the gametic view and bigots: “Like scientific bigots of yore—such as the anthropologist J McGrigor Allan, who in 1869 pronounced in the Journal of Anthropological Science that, ‘Thousands of years have amply demonstrated the mental supremacy of man, and any attempt to revolutionize the education and status of women on the assumption of an imaginary sexual equality, would be at variance with the normal order of things’—the recent favour bestowed on the gametic definition of sex by anti-trans gender traditionalists appeals selectively to science to naturalise and rationalise inequality and exclusion.”

Ya like the exclusion of men from public toilets designated for women – how very dare we.

The subtext is that in science, simply following the evidence is ill-advised if you (or others who have power over you) think it will lead to social harms. What kind of person would want to hold, let alone give voice to such harmful views as the gametic one?

The Wrong kind.

P.S. The review.

Victoria Richards at the Independent bravely stands up for male employees handling the breasts of teenage girls seeking their first bras.

…when I recently took my daughter for her first bra fitting, I was peculiarly gratified to see that she acted pretty much the same way I did. Teenagers may have smartphones and TikTok and all the tech and street smarts we didn’t, but some things really do never change.

You don’t say. Rain is still wet, ice is still cold, the earth still rotates on its axis. Thanks for the vacuous banality which warns us that you don’t really have much to say.

The one thing that has changed, on the whole, is Gen Alpha’s greater understanding and empathy towards those around them. And so much the better.

Half of my daughter’s friends school the adults around them in the right pronouns to use for their peers. “They/them” is second nature to most of these kids. Us dinosaur millennials and Gen X-ers, meanwhile, should stand happily corrected (and make an effort to get it right when we slip up).

Wrong. Gross error. Completely back to front. Teenagers “schooling” adults to use pronouns incorrectly is not a new frontier in rectitude. We humans more than 19 years old are not dinosaurs for using accurate pronouns as opposed to play along with his fantasy ones.

Which is why, when I read the story about M&S – the same M&S who boast about being “Your M&S,” which presumably includes their own employees – reportedly apologising for “distress” over a trans member of staff asking a teenage customer if she needed any help in its bra section…

Aw look at you hiding the most important fact like any other obedient Independent stooge. You know perfectly well the issue was not “a trans member of staff” but a male one. The fact that you concealed that fact shows that you know it blows your claim out of the water. You’re too chickenshit to come right out and say M&S should allow and encourage male staff to volunteer to help girls fit their first bras.

…I only had one question: what on earth were they apologising for?

Bullshit. You knew and know perfectly well what they were apologizing for.

I understand those defending personal choice. In an ideal world, nobody would feel uncomfortable – especially children. But isn’t it our job, as parents (and members of society at large) to unpick this discomfort and name it for what it really is: prejudice. And to teach our children, just as we teach them to treat others equally, to be kind through our example.

It’s prejudice for female people to prefer female gynecologists and bra-fitters? You’re going with that?

What would you say if you heard, for example, that a person of colour working in M&S had approached a teenage customer and politely offered assistance, only for the teenager to feel uncomfortable, the parent to be outraged and complain about their “distress” – and the store to write an apology?

What would I say if I read a columnist for the Independent compare female people’s reluctance to have random men handling their breasts to racism?

How much time do you have?

Liar liar liar liar.

India Willoughby:

A mother and a daughter went to a Marks & Spencer store to buy a bra – um – a trans member of staff went over and said “Do you need any help?”

Liar liar liar liar. He is shameless.

A mother took her very young daughter to M&S to buy a bra for the daughter and a male member of staff toddled over and offered to help with fitting a bra for the very young daughter.

The man is scum.

Victoria Smith in The Critic:

When Mary Ann Stephenson was announced as the government’s preferred candidate to take over from Baroness Falkner as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, every feminist I know was delighted. With three decades’ of experience, working for organisations including the Women’s Budget Group, the Fawcett Society and Liberty, plus advising the British Council, the UN and the TUC on human rights, Stephenson was the perfect pick — a serious candidate, with serious, in-depth knowledge across multiple areas of interest. Who — other than someone who objected to the existence of the role altogether — could possibly object to that? 

And yet some people did. Within days of the announcement, a petition was launched against Stephenson’s appointment. To be fair, it was hardly surprising at a time when anything which delights feminists tends to be considered a dogwhistle for hate. According to the petition, Stephenson’s history “includes making anti-trans statements and associations with groups advocating for the curtailment of trans people’s human rights”. 

The usual lie. Nobody advocates “for the curtailment of trans people’s human rights”. Gender skeptics advocate for women’s rights, and skepticism of new and peculiar “rights” that apply only to people who claim to be the sex they are not.

No one was going to put down in writing “we do not want this woman because she recognises the political salience of sex”. Instead, there’s that workaround with which all feminists have become familiar in recent years. Women’s rights are the one area where it is permitted to suggest that if you care about them a little too much — so much that you won’t allow sex to be overwritten by gender — then that’s all you care about, to the detriment of all other rights for all other groups. In the case of Stephenson this couldn’t be further from the truth. As for her detractors – I’m not sure what they care about at all. 

I have a particular interest in this because Stephenson was kind enough to allow me to interview her for my book Hags. Our conversation was not about “the trans issue”, but about the relationship between sex-based and age-based discrimination (age being another protected characteristic, albeit not one Stephenson’s critics have seen fit to mention). I felt — rightly — that Stephenson’s position as director of the Women’s Budget Group would give her particular insights into the cumulative nature of sex-based inequality. We discussed how women fall behind men due to lifecycle experiences, the impact of which are intensified due to factors such as race, class and disability. It was a conversation which acknowledged that sex matters, but only as a starting point. Of course, to anyone who has bought into gender identity ideology, such a conversation is only ever a flimsy excuse to hate on trans people, never to be taken at face value. 

The more I think about this conversation, and the smears to which Stephenson has recently been subjected, the more it highlights to me the way in which contemporary trans activism demands a completely different understanding of how we approach equality. There is an approach that is relational, which understands that who we are and where we stand depends on our relationships with other people, and that making the world fairer for all is not a simple matter of stating “I am who I say I am” and forcing everyone else to agree. It’s an approach that recognises the importance of bodies, the threat of violence, and the value of supposedly “lowly” work. It’s one that recognises the rights of all by acknowledging our dependency — socially, politically, physically, linguistically — on one another. Anyone who maintains this fundamentally intersectional approach will, like Stephenson, end up being called a terf, not because they have the slightest interest in “advocating for the curtailment of trans people’s human rights”, but because trans activism prioritises an individualistic validation of the “true self” over a relational, shifting understanding of selfhood. 

Exactly. Trans dogma / ideology / religion / theory is all about The Holy Self. The problem should be obvious. Or as Victoria put it –

If you believe that anyone who focusses on the needs of women — not least as a prerequisite to addressing the needs of marginalised subsets of women — is only doing so to make others feel left out, your problem is not their exclusionary tendencies. It’s your own narcissism. 

Yet again the issue is concealed behind layer after layer of dishonest language. In the Telegraph ffs.

M&S apologises over trans employee in bra department

Male employee. The issue was not trans but male.

‘Biological male’ caused a mother and teenage daughter ‘distress’ by approaching them in the lingerie area

What’s with the stupid scare quotes? He is a biological male, so why pretend it’s odd (or worse) to say so?

Marks & Spencer has apologised to a mother for causing her teenage daughter “distress” after she was asked if she needed help by a transgender employee in its bra section.

Male, damn you.

The retailer said it was “truly sorry” after the mother complained that her 14-year-old daughter had felt uncomfortable when they were approached by a trans shop assistant in the lingerie area of the shop, where they were hoping to have a bra fitting.

Male.

Although the staff member was polite, the mother said she felt it was “completely inappropriate” for her daughter to be approached by a “biological male” in that section.

Finally.

The following day, an M&S customer service assistant replied, apologising for the incident.

…

The retailer said it took her concerns “very seriously” and would ensure her daughter “receives assistance from a female colleague during her next visit”.

Well how is it going to do that? Unless it tells the male assistant to stay out of the women’s underwear section?

No that’s not the plan. The plan is to make the customer arrange for Special Handling ahead of time.

“We want to make this experience as comfortable and positive as possible for her. Please let us know when you plan to visit again, and we will make the necessary arrangements,” the email said.

No, not gonna do that, we’ll just shop somewhere else thanks.