Category: Notes and Comment Blog

UN and EU tell Elon Musk ok now you’re pissing us off:

The United Nations has joined the European Union in condemning Twitter’s decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media firm.

Reporters for the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post were among those locked out of their accounts.

The UN tweeted that media freedom is “not a toy” while the EU has threatened Twitter with sanctions.

This is the thing, you see: Twitter isn’t just an annoying social media item for kids, it’s also a de facto news outlet, and a quite significant one. That’s why I keep ignoring it when one of you reminds us that Twitter is dummm.

Melissa Fleming, the UN’s under secretary general for global communications, said she was “deeply disturbed” by reports that journalists were being “arbitrarily” suspended from Twitter. “Media freedom is not a toy,” she said. “A free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful disinformation.”

Earlier on Friday, EU commissioner Vera Jourova threatened Twitter with sanctions under Europe’s new Digital Services Act which she said requires “the respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon,” she added.

He’ll probably ban them all from Twitter.

Elon Musk is exercising his god-given bought and paid for right to kick prominent journalists off Twitter because they don’t kiss his ring.

The accounts suspended included Ryan Mac of The New York Times; Drew Harwell of The Washington Post; Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist; Donie O’Sullivan of CNN; Matt Binder of Mashable; Tony Webster, an independent journalist; Micah Lee of The Intercept; and the political journalist Keith Olbermann. It was unclear what the suspensions had in common; each user’s Twitter page included a message that said it suspended accounts that “violate the Twitter rules.”

The moves came a day after Twitter suspended more than 25 accounts that tracked the planes of government agencies, billionaires and high-profile individuals, including that of Mr. Musk. Many of the accounts were operated by Jack Sweeney, a 20-year-old college student and flight tracking enthusiast who had used Twitter to post updates about the location of Mr. Musk’s private plane using publicly available information.

I can see not allowing flight tracking, because that’s stalker behavior or worse, but some of the banished journalists were reporting on the tracker-banning; banning them doesn’t seem reasonable at all.

“Tonight’s suspension of the Twitter accounts of a number of prominent journalists, including The New York Times’s Ryan Mac, is questionable and unfortunate,” said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The Times. “Neither The Times nor Ryan have received any explanation about why this occurred. We hope that all of the journalists’ accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action.”

Also we’re getting a cascade effect now.

After his suspension from Twitter, Mr. Sweeney turned to Mastodon, an alternative social network. After Mastodon used Twitter to promote Mr. Sweeney’s new account on Thursday, Twitter suspended Mastodon’s account. As some journalists shared the news of Mastodon’s suspension, their own accounts were suspended.

Don’t mention the war!

Mr. Musk said in October that he would form a council to advise him on policy matters before making changes to the company’s content moderation policies. The council has not materialized. This week, Mr. Musk disbanded a trust and safety advisory group that had guided Twitter on thorny issues like harassment and child exploitation.

All good. Billionaires doing what they’re supposed to do.

Good news – but we’re still furious.

Here’s the story from last June:

The Norwegian Public Prosecution Service investigates “hate-mongering” tweets by feminist Christina Ellingsen, addressed to a man who claims to be a lesbian woman. If found guilty, Ellingsen could face up to three years in prison.

Ellingsen posted the tweets between February 2021 and January 2022, in reaction to statements of Christine Marie Jentoft, representative of the transactivist group Foreningen FRI. Jentoft is a biological man who identifies as a lesbian.

A (“biological”) man can’t be a lesbian. It’s all in the definition. Only women can be lesbians.

“Why does FRI teach young people that males can be lesbians? Isn’t that conversion therapy?” tweeted Ellingsen. Later, she wrote about how “bonkers” FRI is, an “organisation that supposedly works to protect the interests of young lesbians.”

Amnesty International Norway recently accused Ellingsen of “harassing” [Jentoft] after telling him on national television that he was male. “You are a man. You can’t be a mother,” said Ellingsen. “To normalize the idea that men can be mothers is a defined form of discrimination against women.”

Jentoft is harassing women.

In 2021, a Norwegian man was already convicted for “insulting” and “misgendering” a trans-identified man on Facebook. He was sentenced to 21 days in prison and a fine of approximately 1500 euros.

Can you imagine? I’d be dead of rage before the first day was over.

Giant brain on that Willz.

Is that right? So no films about the January 6 mob? No films about the Proud Boys? No films about incels? No films about abusers in police departments? No films about any set of people unless there are at least 4 billion of them?

Who made that rule? Why have there been no films about it?

Not that Willoughby has a stereotyped idea of what women are and do and like, no no no not at all, he understands women better than women do.

Spend some time with her doing the things girlz do teeheeheeheeheehee

Some deep breaths taken; back to Futrelle.

Rowling came up with the idea for Beira’s Place, she told anti-trans feminist Suzanne Moore, in what can only be described as a fit of pique caused by remarks from Mridul Wadhwa, the trans woman in charge of Edinburgh’s Rape Crisis centre.

Wadhwa had said that transphobic clients of the centre would have their bigotry challenged.

Futrelle simply assumes that the clients in question are “transphobic” and that their awareness that men are men is “bigotry” and thus he implies that Wadhwa was right and virtuous in promising to bully women who need rape crisis services for knowing that men are men.

Wadhwa also said it was possible to “reframe” one’s relationship with trauma so that “it becomes a story that empowers you and allows you to go and do other more beautiful things with your life.” As a result of these comments and the fact of her being a trans woman in the first place, the Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre endured a torrent of death threats and other abuse from transphobes that led to the centre having to lock itself down.

In other words Wadhwa was right and virtuous while the women who objected to his role at the centre and his outrageous entitlement in lecturing them were wrong and evil. Wadwha was an innocent benevolent victim of “abuse” from “transphobes” and that’s all there is to it.

Furious at Wadhwa’s comments, Rowling didn’t send any mean emails; she just decided to build a Rape Crisis centre that wouldn’t employ, or serve, Wadhwa’s kind.

That is, Rowling decided to fund a rape crisis centre for women.

So here she is, funding a service that avoids the “politics” of the sexual abuse of women by systematically excluding a whole class of victims.

Men are not a whole class of female victims. Men are not a whole class of victims of the sexual abuse of women. It’s only women who are female victims, women who are a whole class of victims of the sexual abuse of women.

The idea behind excluding trans victims is that cis women need a place to go where they feel safe. Never mind that there’s no evidence that trans women accessing support services would make cis women less safe. If feelings of safety are all that count, racist whites could make the same argument about a shelter needing to exclude women of color.

Trans women are men. Will men accessing support services for women make women less safe? I wonder why Futrelle doesn’t ask himself that question. (No I don’t. It’s all too obvious why he doesn’t.)

H/t Holms

I keep hearing distant reports of how thoroughly David Futrelle has gone pro-trans-dogma and anti-feminist-disbelief, so I decided to take a look at the current iteration. It’s thoroughly gone.

Author and anti-trans activist JK Rowling has announced she is launching a crisis center for female victims of rape and sexual abuse. The catch? Beira’s Place, as the center is called, won’t allow trans women to use its services.

That’s not “the catch.” What a ridiculous claim. He said it himself – she’s launching a crisis center for female people. Of course that means it won’t “allow” men to use its services: its services are not for men. It says so right on the tin; Futrelle said so himself when he said “a crisis center for female victims of rape and sexual abuse.” If you set up as a veterinarian and don’t accept human patients, that’s not a “catch,” it’s just sticking to the service you’re offering as opposed to providing a service you’re not offering. A service for women is a service for women; news at eleven.

The exclusion of trans women from Beira’s Place isn’t a bug; it seems to be a, if not the, primary motivation behind the service.

There’s no need to turn over rocks looking for a motivation. It’s just what Beira’s Place is for: it’s a service for women. Why isn’t Futrelle wondering what is the motivation for “excluding” porcupines, rocks, Belgium? A service that is for one thing necessarily “excludes” all the other things; there’s no need to enumerate them all, let alone puzzle over why they’re “excluded.”

Indeed, Rowling came up with the idea for Beira’s Place; she told anti-trans feminist Suzanne Moore, in what can only be described as a fit of pique caused by remarks from Mridul Wadhwa, the trans woman in charge of Edinburgh’s Rape Crisis centre.

Actually no, our reaction to what Mridul Wadhwa said can be described in a million ways other than calling it a “fit of pique” – which is a staggeringly contemptuous and misogynist name to call women’s fury at a man berating women for not wanting a man running a rape crisis centre. A fit of fucking pique is it – how dare he?

It never ceases to amaze, the way men who five minutes ago appeared to be staunch allies of feminist women leap right back into the swamp of sexist epithets and contempt for the sake of men who call themselves women. Bros before hos indeed.

I’ll interrupt myself to take some deep breaths at this point.

Roger Pielke’s claim to fame is as a Climate Skeptic^TM.

But now he’s deploying his skepticism on a different subject – the crazy wacky delusional idea that men are not women.

Saying men are men is “a denial of the reality of transgender people.”

So climate change is a fraud but men claiming to be women is reality.

In UN news:

Iran was ousted from a United Nations women’s group on Wednesday for policies contrary to the rights of women and girls, a move proposed by the United States after Tehran’s crackdown on protests over the death of a young woman in custody.

The 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution to “remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term.”

…

“This is a victory for Iranian revolutionaries who have been facing guns & bullets as they fight this gender apartheid state,” U.S.-based Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad posted on Twitter.

Iran’s clerical rulers have faced the biggest protests in years since September when 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the morality police who enforce strict dress codes.

It were a delicate stratagem to put Iran’s morality police and Edinburgh University trans “activists” in a locked room to come up with a Plan for Women.

The confusion is everywhere.

All of that is wrong. Not a little, not half, not most of it, but all.

Of course trans people’s access to private spaces is restricted; so is mine, so is everyone’s. That’s what “private” means.

Access to some public spaces is also restricted. Many public spaces are for specific sets of people…like public toilets for instance. Most areas in hospitals; most areas in schools; backstage in restaurants, bars, shops, theaters; most areas in offices; many areas in airports; the fronts of planes. Public doesn’t mean unrestricted.

The view is not that people who call themselves the other sex don’t exist, it’s that people who call themselves the other sex are wrong. Being wrong about what you are is not at all the same as not existing. Being wrong about what you are is an extremely common situation, because we’re just not very good at avoiding the natural bias of believing ourselves more than we believe everyone else.

That’s it, that’s the whole tweet, and it’s wrong from start to finish.

And they’ve won.

For now.

Note the shouts of laughter as Mister Man says “azza trans woman“…

Only for now though.

So, of course, some students full of holy zeal went along to close the film down.

It depends on how you define “definition”…

The Cambridge Dictionary has updated its definition of “woman” to include anyone who “identifies as female” regardless of their sex at birth. 

If you mean some people use the word to mean anyone who identifies as, then that’s what the CD has done. If you mean the actual, generally understood, longstanding, literal definition of the word, then the update is absurd and an insult to almost everyone.

Funny thing: the more “inclusive” you make your definitions, the less useful they are. The more you broaden them to take in the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the less they mean anything. If you “update” the definition of women to include men then it doesn’t mean women any more. What does it mean? Not clear.

The dictionary’s editors made the changes after studying patterns of how the word “woman” was being used across society, and concluded that the new definition is one that English learners “should be aware of”.

Should be aware of, yes, but should embrace, no.

This is political, of course, but then how could it not be?

Oh oh oh, what an outrage, a horror film called Adult Human Female has not been banned from the University of Edinburgh.

A screening of the film Adult Human Female is scheduled to occur in a lecture hall on the university’s George Square campus on Wednesday, hosted by the University of Edinburgh Academics for Academic Freedom group.

However the Edinburgh branch of the University and College Union (UCU) wrote to the university’s principal, Peter Mathieson, and called for the screening to be cancelled over concerns it contained content that was “a clear attack on trans people’s identities.”

What is an attack on a set of people’s identities? What does that mean? People have gotten so settled into the jargon that they don’t even notice the emptiness or absurdity or both of their claims.

Trans people claim to be the opposite sex. Informing them that people can’t change sex isn’t an attack on their “identities,” it’s a rejection of their fantasy-based claims. We’re allowed to reject fantasy-based claims. It’s part of adulthood to hear sometimes “No, that’s not true, it’s made up.” We are not required to believe trans people’s claims about themselves. It’s not an attack to withhold such belief. If anyone is attacking anything it’s more that trans activists and their frenzied supporters are attacking our right to recognize bullshit when we see it.

A spokesperson for the University of Edinburgh told The National that despite concerns expressed by the union, and by the university’s LGBT+ Pride society, the screening would go ahead.

…the UCU has now stated their complaint, along with others, was dismissed by the principal in a “cavalier manner”.

There should be more of that. There should be more cavalier dismissal of these explosions of rage at feminist analysis of the trans dogma.

Genevieve Gluck at Reduxx on another comrade:

A woman in Norway is facing criminal charges and a possible prison sentence of up to three years for stating that men can not be lesbians. Tonje Gjevjon, a lesbian artist, was notified on November 17 that she was under police investigation for hate speech over a statement she posted to Facebook.

…

“It’s just as impossible for men to become lesbian as it is for men to become pregnant,” Gjevjon wrote, “Men are men regardless of their sexual fetishes.”

Gjevjon particularly singled-out the actions of prominent Norwegian trans activist, Christine Jentoft – a man who claims to be a lesbian mother, and who currently serves as a representative for the nation’s leading trans activist group, Foreningen FRI.

And who bullies women for not agreeing with him that he’s a woman.

Earlier this year, Jentoft filed criminal charges against Christina Ellingsen, a representative of Women’s Declaration International (WDI) Norway, for stating that men can neither be lesbians nor mothers. As reported by Reduxx in May, a police investigation was launched into Ellingsen’s alleged “transphobia,” and, like Gjevjon, she is facing up to three years in prison if found guilty.

Criminal charges ffs – for saying an obvious truth.

In addition to calling out Jentoft, Gjevjon also turned her attention towards Norwegian politicians who have supported the legislative adoption of “gender identity” at the expense of women’s rights. One such politician, Anette Trettebergstuen of the Labour Party, is the current Minister of Culture and Equality and the only openly lesbian politician Norway’s Parliament.

But the inferior kind of lesbian who isn’t a man.

Gjevjon first began expressing criticism of gender identity ideology, which she calls the “queer patriarchy,” in 2017 after English feminist author Julie Bindel had her invitation to speak at a university revoked over claims of “transphobia.”

Since becoming more vocal with her “gender critical” views, Gjevjon has been blacklisted by Norway’s artistic community – a scene she had previously been flourishing in.

How dare women say that men are not women? What is the world coming to?

One critic, a trans-identified male who uses the name Ingrid Frivold, went so far as to compare Gjevjon to a Holocaust denier in a message he sent to the Haugar Art Museum, saying: “for many trans people this feels as inflammatory as if David Irwing had been asked to speak at the opening of an exhibition about the Holocaust.”

Right. Men who pretend to be men are just like the Jews in Nazi Germany. Just exactly like.

“I was not prepared for the extent of how queer organizations, politicians and activists would demonize a lesbian artist who was not in step. Trans activists contact people I work with, portraying me as hateful and warning against being associated with me,” Gjevjon said.

It’s how they do their “activism.”

Originally a comment by latsot at Miscellany Room.

I forgot to mention that the book Transpositions, compiled by Sarah Phillimore and Al Peters (moley) is available on Amazon.

It’s a collection of people’s peaking stories. I have the Kindle version, but I’d recommend the paperback, it’s one of those books that’s good to flick through. Some of the stories are heartbreaking.

I went to the book launch event, which was some high quality TERFing. As you might have heard, Sarah advertised it on EventBrite who pulled the event for “Hateful, Dangerous, or Violent Content.” Then the venue contacted her to ask her not to mention the venue online because they were afraid of violence. In the end, there was no ‘protest’ at all, which was almost an anti-climax.

Sarah is suing EventBrite and has a crowdfunder.

Here’s menno reading some of the stories.

Joan Smith on that ridiculous (and insulting) ruling:

“Sex is not limited to biological or birth sex,” according to one of [Scotland’s] most senior judges.

Yes, you did read that right. We are plunging ever deeper into la-la land, where sex is no longer determined by boring old things like biology or physical characteristics. It can be changed by a piece of paper, known as a gender recognition certificate (GRC), with unpredictable consequences for women-only services such as the new sexual violence service set up by JK Rowling in Edinburgh.

Usually the law has no truck with la-la land. It can’t afford to. We can’t afford it to.

The decision explodes the argument by Nicola Sturgeon’s government that its proposed changes to the 2004 Act, scheduled to be rushed through the Scottish Parliament next week, are merely administrative. By the end of this year, according to the current plan, anyone in Scotland will be able to acquire a GRC with next to no safeguards; they won’t even need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, while measures to exclude convicted sex offenders have been rejected.

La-la land but not the fun kind.

A court rules that men can be women.

A court has thrown out a challenge against the Scottish government’s definition of a woman in law.

Even governments can’t make lies true. Even courts can’t make a lie the truth. They can pass laws, they can issue rulings, but they can’t just waves their hands and make nonsense The Truth.

The For Women Scotland group complained about the way a bill aimed at gender balance on boards had included trans people under the definition of women.

Imagine if it were about British boards and a bill aimed at national balance, but England insisted that English people who identify as Scots are Scots despite having zero evidence of any Scottish ancestry. Would Scotland and its government and courts think that was okie doke?

Judge Lady Haldane said that the definition of sex was “not limited to biological or birth sex”.

Sure, it’s all elective. So is species – if you say you’re a rabbit you’re a rabbit. Rabbits can take their place on boards just as wolves and cheetahs can. Things may get a bit bloody when the boards meet, but that’s the price of trans-species rights.

She said it could also include people with a gender recognition certificate after changing their legally recognised gender. The judge also stated that sex and gender reassignment were separate and distinct characteristics but were not necessarily mutually exclusive.

In her decision, Lady Haldane wrote: “I conclude that in this context, which is the meaning of sex for the purposes of the 2010 Act, ‘sex’ is not limited to biological or birth sex, but includes those in possession of a GRC obtained in accordance with the 2004 Act stating their acquired gender, and thus their sex.”

People’s sex is not about physical reality, it’s about the law and government and saying words. There is no physical reality, there are only words.

This is good news: we can cancel climate doom just by saying so!

And in come the sneery “wtf is her problem” think-pieces on JK Rowling’s astounding baffling incomprehensible move to open a women’s space in Edinburgh. Why would she do such a thing??? A smug young guy called Ryan Coogan wonders for the Independent:

…up until about a year ago, I held out hope that Rowling was somehow misunderstood or that I just “read her out of context”, as her defenders keep insisting. But I’ve given her the benefit of the doubt, and I’ve seen the context, and if anything it just makes things worse as time goes on. It’s a shame, because she gave me a lot of great memories as a kid, but for me at least, a point has been reached where her stance on trans people makes her pretty much irredeemable.

Yes, the “stance” that men are not women makes women irredeemable. Ok boy but then they won’t be making you sandwiches any more.

I think Rowling’s latest venture more or less solidifies her heel turn: Beira’s Place, a women-only service for victims of sexual abuse that will be located in Edinburgh. The service is described as being “set up by women, for women”. Its website reads: “There are a number of services in Lothian, and indeed across Scotland, that provide support to male survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. However, there are few, if any, that are strictly women only.”

And this matters because women who are survivors of abuse at the hands of men may need and/or want services that are women only. Smug young Ryan is so busy showing off his Approved View of the matter than he can’t be bothered to try to think about what that would be like.

Imagine smug young Ryan has a very bad experience with a huge dog – imagine he’s knocked down, bitten in several places, has bled heavily, lost consciousness, nearly died. Imagine he needs therapy once his physical injuries have healed. Imagine he shows up for therapy and his therapist has a huge dog in the room. Would we accuse Ryan of being a horrible evil irredeemable person for not wanting to be around a huge dog?

But women are expected to just suck it the fuck up – by callous young shits like Ryan. Women are subject to abuse in the broadsheets by smug young shits like Ryan if we don’t obey his orders to pretend men are women.

For context, Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre has been run by a trans woman – Mridul Wadhwa – since May 2021. Other rape crisis centres throughout Scotland welcome trans women. While Beira’s Place could very easily have been a way for Rowling to counteract the accusations that she is discriminatory towards the trans community, to me, it seems instead to be a shallow attempt to shield herself from further criticism by doing something which is nominally good, but in reality actually further segregates and disenfranchises vulnerable people.

Here’s smug young Ryan saying women who have been abused are not vulnerable, while men like Mridul Wadhwa who force themselves on women are.

But by closing its doors to the trans community, in my view, it instead becomes a huge step backwards for equality and a monument to hate, instead of the valuable service it could have been. I’m sure I’ll get some pushback for saying this about a service designed to help women (which in either scenario, I have no doubt it will). But it’s like opening a whites-only orphanage…

No, it’s not, smug young Ryan.

What possesses the Indy to publish shit like this?