Ash Regan nails it.

Huh. I stupidly assumed that Jimmy Kimmel had said something flippant or callous about Kirk himself, but oh gee whaddya know he didn’t do any such thing. What he said was that the trumpies are using Kirk’s murder for their own trumpy ends. Should that be protected free speech? You’re god damn right it should.

The Graun yesterday:

Politicians, media figures and free speech organisations expressed anger and alarm at the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show, warning that critics of Donald Trump were being systematically silenced.

ABC announced it was suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely after comments Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk’s killing led a group of ABC-affiliated stations to say it would not air the show.

That wording illustrates why I thought Kimmel joked about the killing.

In his monologue on Monday, Kimmel said that “we hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” On Tuesday he said Trump was “fanning the flames” by attacking people on the left.

It’s meta commentary on the shooting; it’s commentary on the political exploitation of the killing; it’s not in any way dismissive or callous about the killing itself. It’s extremely sinister and alarming that ABC took the dictator’s orders and punished the commentary.

ABC, which has aired Kimmel’s late-night show since 2003, moved swiftly after Nexstar Communications Group said it would pull the show, saying Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s death “were offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse”.

No they weren’t. That’s a revolting lie. It’s not insensitive to say that Trump and the trumpies are exploiting the murder. It’s no doubt offensive to the trumpies, but so what?

Two words. Horst Wessel.

Another giant leap down the road to dictatorship:

Weaponize the levers of government for partisan political gain. Pressure privately owned media companies to toe the party line. Punish the owners who resist and reward the ones who acquiesce.

That’s how Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán consolidated control of the media in his country, according to scholars who witnessed Hungary’s democratic backsliding firsthand.

And Trump is doing the same.

Using legal maneuvers, financial incentives and public pressure campaigns, Trump is persuading companies to make changes that benefit his party and bolster his own power. Wednesday’s decision by Disney’s ABC to sideline Jimmy Kimmel is the latest example.

Not so much persuading as pushing and coercing.

Free speech groups like the ACLU warned that the Kimmel suspension is part of a broad Trump-led effort to silence his critics.

“This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke,” the ACLU said. “The Trump administration’s actions, paired with ABC’s capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.”

…

Disney settled Trump’s defamation lawsuit against ABC last December rather than defending itself in court, and Paramount settled Trump’s suit against CBS last July, even though legal experts said Paramount had a very strong case.

The president is now suing both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Which the activists say.

The Liberal Democrats are facing a transgender row at their conference over party rules that allow biological men to take women’s posts. Gender-critical activists have launched an attempt to force Sir Ed Davey’s party to bar trans women from taking female roles.

The group, Liberal Voice for Women, will use the party’s annual meeting in Bournemouth, set to start on Saturday, to call for a vote on changing party rules, to bring them into line with April’s Supreme Court ruling. The current rules allow those who “self-identify as women” to stand for party posts set aside for women, which the activists say dilutes the chance that biological women can reach the top of the party.

What do you mean “which the activists say”?! Of course giving women’s posts to men dilutes the women’s chances to reach the top of the party! What else would it do?!

The vote will be put before conference on Saturday, but it is understood that trans rights activists will try to get it cancelled to avoid embarrassment. This is despite a YouGov poll showing that three-quarters of Lib Dem members do not support the party’s stance on allowing gender self-ID.

But they’re just members. They need to sit down and shut up and let the bosses give all the women’s party posts to men.

In May, Sir Ed said he accepted the Supreme Court ruling, but unlike Labour, he has done nothing to change the party’s rules.

Because it’s only women who are harmed so it doesn’t matter.

Zoe Hollowood, chairman of Liberal Voice for Women, said: “We hope that the conference will vote this time as traditional liberals and allow women to speak about updating our quotas.

…

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has urged public bodies to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, and its guidance to be published soon will underline this.

Labour has already changed its rules to comply with the judgment, meaning women’s jobs cannot go to trans women.

Dr Hollowood said: “The EHRC has been clear that organisations need to get on with implementing the ruling and not wait for their guidance. It is now time at conference to make sure the Lib Dems do just that.

“We cannot continue to be derailed by a vocal and extremist group in the party, who tend to dominate these proceedings at conference.”

As they dominate so many things. Men like to dominate.

Ok ok but first we have to count the grains of sand in the Sahara.

The Scottish Government has been accused of repeatedly re-traumatising survivors of sexual violence by dragging its feet on implementing the Supreme Court ruling that clarified the definition of sex.

Speaking in a Holyrood debate on Wednesday, SNP MSP Michelle Thomson said the Government’s refusal to act swiftly following April’s judgment was “constantly re-triggering” for women who had experienced abuse.

Why is that? Because refusing to recognize women’s needs and concerns is abuse.

The motion before MSPs, lodged by Conservative MSP Pam Gosal, welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling that the terms “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex. It congratulated the feminist campaign group For Women Scotland, which brought the case, and urged ministers to ensure their policies were updated “to be in line with the law”.

…

Over the weekend, Government lawyers confirmed they would contest the case.

Because women have no right to have rights. Only men have rights to have rights. Men who claim to be women especially have rights to have rights. Men who claim to be women are the most rightful of all.

Ms Thomson said she was wary of talking about herself but pushed herself to do so “as the Scottish Government has failed to engage with women who have been raped or sexually assaulted”.

“I am tired of being stuck in a Groundhog Day loop where the Scottish Government states it accepts the results of the Supreme Court judgment, insists it will definitely do something at some point — when that something is, and the timeframe, are never defined. They are asked again, they repeat the lines and so on.”

Because they love men who pretend to be women and hate women who just are women. The only good woman is a man, I guess.

Labour MSP Jackie Baillie told MSPs the Government could not be both “lawmakers and law breakers”.

She said the failure to act was creating confusion in the NHS and other frontline services, pointing to the costly employment tribunal involving nurse Sandie Peggie and NHS Fife.

…

“According to some estimates, the case of Sandie Peggie versus NHS Fife will eventually cost as much as a million pounds, not including any potential compensation. NHS Fife has already spent a quarter of a million pounds on legal fees alone, and it is the taxpayer and patients who will bear the costs.”

All because an entitled privileged man wants to pretend to be a woman.

Just because.

Obama suggests not inflaming more rage and violence. Trumpies call him every name in the book.

Obama said that he did not use a 2015 mass shooting by a white supremacist at a black church in South Carolina to go after his political enemies, and pointed out that after the 11 September 2001 attacks, President George W Bush “explicitly went out of his way to say, ‘We are not at war against Islam’.”

“And so when I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin’, enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now and something that we’re going to have to grapple with, all of us,” Obama told the crowd, according to reports.

In a statement to the BBC, a White House spokesperson rejected the allegations and accused Obama of stoking division while he was president. “Obama used every opportunity to sow division and pit Americans against each other,” the spokesperson said. “His division has inspired generations of Democrats to slander their opponents as ‘deplorables,’ or ‘fascists,’ or ‘Nazis.'”

Except that that’s not true. I frequently wished he would be fiercer, but that wish was never granted.

After leaving office, US presidents generally tend to temper criticism of their successors, however in recent months Obama has hit out at Trump’s moves against universities and judges, and has also criticised Democratic party leaders for failing to push back harder against White House policies.

No he hasn’t. He hasn’t “hit out at” anything. He doesn’t punch and he doesn’t threaten to punch. Criticizing is not hitting, nor is it hitting out. You’d think the BBC could manage to muster up enough brain power to realize that they’re accusing Obama of violent speech when all they’re talking about is criticism.

The locals are not thrilled.

Thousands have gathered in Parliament Square for a rally against US President Donald Trump’s second state visit.

Now that you mention it, why is he getting this grotesque lavish welcome? He’s been in office less than a year, and he’s horrible, so why the mad rush to throw him a very expensive party? Why the decision to give him anything at all other than a cold disdainful glare?

In the midst of the crowds – which started gathering near BBC Broadcasting House – people told the BBC why they were there, racking up a long list of grievances against the US president. They said they found him “despicable” and wanted to send a message that he was not welcome.

Reverend Poppy Hughes, who was asked about those who said vicars should be apolitical, replied: “Jesus preached peace and compassion and that’s why I’m here”.

See that’s what I keep saying – it’s not just political, it’s that he’s a terrible human being. He ticks almost every bad box and not one good box. It’s not just that he’s greedy and ruthless and aggressive, it’s that he’s self-centered and rude and mean and ignorant and a bully.

As the crowd moved, it paused outside Downing Street, which was being protected by officers from Wales and Northern Ireland.

Some of the demonstrators carried signs including “Duck Off Donald” and “Feed him to the Corgis”.

With some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

If you don’t like the history, just rewrite it.

The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks,according to four people familiar with the matter, including a historic photograph of a formerly enslaved man showing scars on his back.

The individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media, said the removals were in line with President Donald Trump’s March executive order directing the Interior Department to eliminate information that reflects a “corrosive ideology” that disparages historic Americans.

Those two sentences don’t quite go together. The first says Trump ordered the specific removals, the second says the removals are in line with the broad order. It’s not clear which one is the truth.

National Park Service officials are broadly interpreting that directive to apply to information on racism, sexism, slavery, gay rights or persecution of Indigenous people.

Why? Why not interpret it more narrowly until/unless told otherwise?

Anyway, the overall idea is obvious enough: pretend Our Grate Counntree has never done anything bad.

But then does Trump even think slavery was bad? I doubt it. I doubt he thinks about it at all, for one thing, and for the other thing I doubt he thinks about it very hard when it’s brought to his attention. He’s not a thinking guy. He’s a reactive guy and a boastful blabbermouth guy.

Park Service spokesperson Rachel Pawlitz said in a statement that all signage is under review.

“Interpretive materials that disproportionately emphasize negative aspects of U.S. history or historical figures, without acknowledging broader context or national progress, can unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it,” Pawlitz said.

Who decides what’s “disproportionate”? What’s the “broader context” that makes slavery not all that bad and wrong?

Trump won’t have heard or read much about slavery and genocide when he was in school, because the US was shamefully slow about acknowledging the depth and breadth of what the pallid invaders did to the indigenous population and to the Africans they abducted for the purpose of enslavement. Because he’s stupid and incapable of thought, he sees the correction of that failure as an intrusive ideology as opposed to a correction of complacent neglect and denial.

H/t What a Maroon

Oh right, it’s all Obama’s fault.

Right right right. Race was in no way an issue in the US until Obama came along. Those centuries of race-based chattel slavery? A mirage! A myth! A story told by the devil!

Obama did all the dividing and Trump has just been trying to stitch it back together. The man is a saint.

Well there’s when you do it and then there’s when we do it.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Trump administration will be “targeting” hate speech, which she differentiated from free speech — and then tried to walk it back a day later. “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech,” Bondi said in an interview with “The Katie Miller Podcast” that aired Monday, appearing to shrug off First Amendment concerns.

…

In an interview later Monday with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Bondi said that “we all believe in the First Amendment,” but that people who’ve said “horrible things” about Kirk in the days since his murder should be held to account.

“It’s free speech, but you shouldn’t be employed anywhere if you’re going to say that. And employers, you have an obligation to get rid of people. You need to look at people who are saying horrible things, and they shouldn’t be working with you,” she said.

It’s free speech but you should be unemployed if you exercise it.

Trump seemed unconcerned about the remarks when asked about them Tuesday by a reporter for ABC News.

“We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll come after ABC,” Trump said. “Maybe they’ll have to go after you,” he added.

…

White House adviser Stephen Miller, on Monday called “left-wing political organizations that are promoting violence” a “vast domestic terror movement.” He and other administration figures have not provided specifics or evidence for their accusations.

“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,” Miller said while appearing with Vice President JD Vance on a special tribute edition of Kirk’s podcast. “It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” he added.

Golly, that is a special tribute.

The Scottish government just cannot get enough of hating women.

The Scottish Government has confirmed it will challenge For Women Scotland’s legal bid to remove guidance that allows male-born prisoners to be housed with women and permits transgender pupils to use single-sex facilities and sports in line with their gender identity.

Because women prisoners must not be allowed to be housed away from men and girls must not be allowed to use toilets or play sports away from boys. Female people must be punished and bullied or all the fun goes out of it. Why bother being trans if you can’t make women miserable?

For Women Scotland co-director Trina Budge accused Mr Swinney’s administration of “arrogance.” She told the Mail on Sunday: “The Supreme Court ruling should have been the final word on the matter but it seems the arrogance of the Scottish Government knows no bounds. How it thinks it can possibly continue to defend these policies as being lawful is simply beyond our comprehension.”

The group’s summons, served on Scottish Ministers, the Lord Advocate and the Advocate General, was formally called by the Court of Session on September 10 after ministers failed to withdraw the policies within the 21-day deadline. Government lawyers have now confirmed they will appear in court to defend the guidance.

Ms Budge added: “Since the Scottish Government failed to withdraw the schools and prisons guidance within the 21 days given, our summons was called by the Court of Session on September 10. They now have seven days to lodge any defence.

“The Scottish Government has confirmed on Thursday that they will be making an appearance at court and we look forward to hearing how they can possibly justify promoting policies that allow boys into the girls’ changing room and house male murderers alongside women prisoners.

“It flies in the face of their public statement about accepting the Supreme Court judgment, which of course ruled that single-sex spaces should be provided on the basis of biological sex, and not how someone identifies. We think this is a shameful action by the Scottish Government and are totally flummoxed at what they think they are doing.”

Protracting the bullying of women as long as they’re allowed, it seems.

Breast-feeding must be inclusive.

A tangled web.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade apologized on Sunday for saying days earlier that people who are experiencing homelessness and mental illnesses should be executed – remarks that prompted calls for him to be fired.

The host said his comments on Wednesday were “extremely callous”.

Kilmeade’s about-face came amid a climate in which people across the US are either being fired from or disciplined at their jobs amid a coordinated effort to clamp down on commentary that is critical about Turning Point USA’s executive director, Charlie Kirk, who was shot to death at an event in Utah on Wednesday.

Mere hours before the conservative political activist was killed, while on the rightwing Fox News program Fox & Friends, Kilmeade and two other hosts were discussing the killing of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian woman who was fatally stabbed on a commuter train in North Carolina in August.

The guy who killed her is said to have schizophrenia as well as a long history of criminal arrests.

During the Fox and Friends appearance on Wednesday discussing Zarutska’s death, co-host Lawrence Jones said unhoused people with mental illness should either accept the publicly funded programs to help in their situation or be jailed. “Involuntary lethal injection or something,” Kilmeade responded to Jones. “Just kill ’em.”

Well, that’s where chatting on Fox News gets you. They compete to be Most Offensive, so once in a blue moon it catches up with them.

Unions kick women to the curb.

The trade union movement “spat in the face of women in the workplace” when they rejected the Supreme Court’s ruling on biological sex, the co-editor of a bestselling gender-critical book has said.

Susan Dalgety said misogyny still “festers at the heart” of unions after delegates at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) unanimously voted to dismiss updated guidance on single-sex spaces.

The motion, which was carried at the TUC’s annual conference in Brighton on Tuesday, declared that April’s Supreme Court ruling breached the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

There is no “human right” for men to force everyone to agree that men are women.

Dalgety, who co-edited The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, a collection of essays by prominent gender-critical women including the Harry Potter author JK Rowling and the academic Kathleen Stock, accused the trade union movement of having a “blatant disregard for the law as set out by the highest court in the land”.

She wrote: “No delegate recalled the fight for women’s rights, led by the trade union movement of the 1960s and 1970s, that resulted in not only the Equal Pay Act but the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, on which the 2010 Equality Act is based.

“Instead, delegates made cheap jibes against author and philanthropist JK Rowling and warned of ‘segregation’ in the workplace if transgender men were not allowed to use women’s single-sex toilets and changing rooms. Women trade unionists in Scotland have long suffered the misogyny that arguably festers at the heart of the trade union movement.”

And elsewhere.

Susan Smith, co-founder of For Women Scotland, said: “Thanks to the Supreme Court, no one should be in any doubt about the law and the obligations to ensure that women’s rights are universally protected. Sadly, there are still thwarted and angry voices who want to dismantle those rights.

“The TUC would never stand by brazen attempts to attack, for example, the disabled or minority-ethnic groups, but, after over 150 years of defending workers, it seems thrilled by the prospect of betraying women who pay them to uphold their rights in the workplace.”

It never stops being depressing to see how eager “progressives” are to stamp on women.

Can we discuss this?

The backlash to “inappropriate” public comments made in the days following Charlie Kirk’s death has sparked a new wave of firings and suspensions, with a number of university employees disciplined for sharing their views.

Who decides what’s inappropriate? Are we allowed to talk about his words and ideas?

It follows reports of teachers, firefighters, journalists, nurses, politicians, a Secret Service employee, a junior strategist at Nasdaq and a worker for a prominent NFL team, being censured in some form after publishing opinions on Kirk’s politics or death.

But we need to be able to talk about his politics, because they affect all of us.

At Florida Atlantic University, an art history professor was placed on leave after posting what officials called “repeated comments on social media … regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk”.

But the professor, Karen Leader, told the Sun Sentinel that she “did not make comments about the ‘assassination,’ the murder of Charlie Kirk. I never mentioned it,” and had just reposted others’ critical commentary about Kirk’s politics, including his extremist positions on race, and gay and transgender rights.

Perhaps the thinking is that by talking about Kirk’s politics now one is necessarily talking about his murder. I suppose that’s true, but at the same time, his murder has made it necessary to talk about his politics. The idea isn’t that he had bad politics therefore it’s ok that he was killed, it’s that having been killed doesn’t make his politics automatically benign.

Free speech groups, meanwhile, have condemned efforts by far-right individuals, including Donald Trump political allies Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer, and Republican politicians such as South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace, to “doxx” people who have made uncomplimentary posts about Kirk.

Mace urged the public to send her tips about employees believed to be “celebrating” Kirk’s death, and on Monday called for the education department to defund any educational establishment that “refuses to remove or discipline staff who glorify or justify political violence”.

Um. Speaking of people who glorify or justify political violence, has she been paying attention to Donald Trump over the past 50 years or so? Remember when he demanded the death penalty for the Central Park 5, who were innocent?

H/t Mostly Cloudy

Lawsuit.

Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor who handled criminal cases against Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, is contesting her abrupt July firing in a lawsuit that challenges Donald J. Trump’s claim of sweeping presidential power.

Ms. Comey, whose father, James B. Comey, is a former F.B.I. director, says in the lawsuit filed on Monday that she was never given a reason for her dismissal. She contends that no plausible explanation exists other than that she is the daughter of one of the president’s best-known adversaries — or her perceived political affiliations.

Ms. Comey is among many federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials who have been fired in President Trump’s second term, with no reason given beyond Article II of the Constitution, which broadly describes the president’s powers. Some have challenged their dismissals before administrative judges; others have sued in federal court.

Of course Article II isn’t a reason, it’s a power. Having the power to fire someone isn’t the same thing as having a reason to do so. I have the power to slap people in the street, but I don’t exercise that power, because I’m not a lunatic.

That’s not really a good analogy, except that with Trump it kind of is. He does enjoy exercising his power to harm people.

Ms. Comey’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, names as defendants the Office of the President, the Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi and others, and calls her firing from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York illegal.

“The politically motivated termination of Ms. Comey — ostensibly under ‘Article II of the Constitution’— upends bedrock principles of our democracy and justice system,” the lawsuit says. “Assistant United States attorneys like Ms. Comey must do their jobs without fearing or favoring any political party or perspective, guided solely by the law, the facts and the pursuit of justice.”

And presidents ought to be doing the same, but Trump is very far from being guided solely by the law, the facts and the pursuit of justice.

The lawsuit argues that Ms. Comey’s firing was done without cause, advance notice or an opportunity to contest it, and was unlawful and unconstitutional. It says that the dismissal was retaliation for “her father’s protected speech, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”

Ms. Comey contends that the law provides no authority for the president to fire rank-and-file prosecutors, who are protected by civil service laws passed by Congress and signed by past presidents.

“Neither the president nor the Department of Justice have unlimited authority to remove” prosecutors, according to the lawsuit, which was filed by Ms. Comey’s lawyers Nicole Gueron, Ellen Blain, Deepa Vanamali and Margaret M. Donovan.

Good luck to them.

Good grief. What a mess of a system.

Also, side note – how does Helen do that? Talk quickly to get all the information out without any stumbling or losing track or umming or you knowing or like-ing or sort of-ing?

Anyway – the system. Yer trans person goes to the cops and says “This woman said these harassy things to me” and the cops record it, no questions asked, no evidence or corroboration or oath, just record it, so now it’s on the person’s record, end of story, have a nice day, mind the gap.

How is that any kind of way to deal with people and laws?

Dang. The Scottish government really does hate women.

The Scottish Government has confirmed it will challenge For Women Scotland’s legal bid to remove guidance that allows male-born prisoners to be housed with women and permits transgender pupils to use single-sex facilities and sports in line with their gender identity.

Forcing women to share all their spaces with men, no matter how dangerous that is to the women. That’s some intense hatred.

While John Swinney welcomed the “clarity” provided by the ruling, the Scottish Government has said it is awaiting further guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) before issuing advice to public bodies. Some bodies, including the Scottish Parliament and Police Scotland, have already updated their policies in response to the ruling.

The EHRC has also repeatedly said ministers do not need to wait before acting on the ruling.

For Women Scotland co-director Trina Budge accused Mr Swinney’s administration of “arrogance.” She told the Mail on Sunday: “The Supreme Court ruling should have been the final word on the matter but it seems the arrogance of the Scottish Government knows no bounds. How it thinks it can possibly continue to defend these policies as being lawful is simply beyond our comprehension.”

The arrogance and the profound hatred of women.

The group’s summons, served on Scottish Ministers, the Lord Advocate and the Advocate General, was formally called by the Court of Session on September 10 after ministers failed to withdraw the policies within the 21-day deadline. Government lawyers have now confirmed they will appear in court to defend the guidance.

So they’re not just passively stalling, they’re defending their continued assault on women’s rights.

Ms Budge added: “Since the Scottish Government failed to withdraw the schools and prisons guidance within the 21 days given, our summons was called by the Court of Session on September 10. They now have seven days to lodge any defence.

“The Scottish Government has confirmed on Thursday that they will be making an appearance at court and we look forward to hearing how they can possibly justify promoting policies that allow boys into the girls’ changing room and house male murderers alongside women prisoners.

“It flies in the face of their public statement about accepting the Supreme Court judgment, which of course ruled that single-sex spaces should be provided on the basis of biological sex, and not how someone identifies. We think this is a shameful action by the Scottish Government and are totally flummoxed at what they think they are doing.”

I look forward to finding out.

Anoosh Chakelian, Britain editor of the New Statesman (and a woman), talks to Nicola Sturgeon:

The UK government blocked her attempt to introduce gender self-identification to Scotland. She believes she “lost the dressing room” when struggling to name the gender of a rapist, identifying as a woman, who was initially sent to a female prison. But still she remains an increasingly rare mainstream political voice standing up for trans rights.

That’s the end of the paragraph, and the next one shifts the subject. We are left with no clue what is meant by “standing up for trans rights.”

Journalists really need to stop doing this. They really need to ask their subjects exactly what they mean by “trans rights.” Not doing so implies that the opposition opposes rights for trans people, which is a calumny and a lie.

Perhaps just as divisive for some voters was Sturgeon’s attempt to pass a law allowing Scots to self-identify their gender. This was thwarted by the UK government, but deepened a rift in the Scottish left perhaps best symbolised by two of Scotland’s most prominent public figures and feminists: Sturgeon and the vocally gender-critical Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

In Frankly, Sturgeon describes Rowling’s decision to wear a t-shirt with the slogan “Nicola Sturgeon – destroyer of women’s rights” as a turning-point, making her feel “more at risk of possible physical harm”. In her review of the memoir on her website, Rowling wrote that her intention was to prompt journalists to ask Sturgeon questions about women’s safety, adding that she has never blamed Sturgeon for threats she’s herself received.

When I asked Sturgeon about this review, she said: “I don’t know where she gets the time! She is a highly successful woman. I’ve bought Harry Potter books for all the young people in my life, I think they’re great, but my goodness, where does she get the time to obsess about me? I hate to tell her that it’s just not reciprocated.”

Sorry to repeat myself (previous post) but come on. She was the first minister of Scotland! JKR paid attention to her because of the power! It wasn’t personal!

She knows this, of course; she’s being facetious, not to say flippant. But it’s a ridiculous and childish way of being flippant. Women’s rights are not a joke, thank you very much.

She continued: “I don’t obsess about other individuals who happen to have a different view about me, they’re entitled to have a different view. There are some people in this life who, it strikes me often, spend an awful lot more time, like immeasurably so, thinking about me than I ever spend thinking about them.”

Sigh. Yes of course they do: you were the prime minister.

Maybe she wasn’t even being flippant? Maybe she really doesn’t get that people are bound to pay attention to bosses?

Will the two women ever come together to heal this split? “I think it looks really unlikely, but that’s not from my perspective,” Sturgeon replied. “Look, I have no great animus towards JK Rowling. I never have done. We disagreed vehemently on independence. She has a very different view to me on trans rights. She’s entitled to that. I wish she would argue her position without what appears to me sometimes indulging in a bit of gratuitous cruelty to trans people.”

Oh hey. Take a look at what some trans people say to us. You’ll find more than a bit of gratuitous cruelty, I assure you.