Kathleen got my attention.

So I had to read the explainer to see if it’s all that bad. It’s all that bad and worse. It doesn’t read like grown-up university policy writing at all, it reads like homework.

How it’s filed:

Home > Equality, Diversity and Inclusion > Student EDI Learning Resources > Learn More > Trans and/or non-binary > What is Transphobia?

The definition:

Transphobia is the hatred, fear, disbelief, or mistrust of trans and gender non-conforming people.

Key word there – disbelief. If we don’t believe every single thing a self-declared trans person tells us about xirself, we are transphobic.

That’s telling, because it’s not generally part of the definition of misogyny or sexism or racism or homophobia or contempt for the working class. Belief doesn’t generally come into it, because it’s all a matter of “you are a woman / a person of color / not straight / a worker and therefore you are beneath me and deserving of persecution.” In this context trans is radically different, because it’s not about “beneath me,” it’s about truth. We’re required to believe, and if we can’t we are branded as “transphobic” and thus beneath everyone and deserving of persecution.

To the explaining part:

Trans and non-binary people have always existed within all societies and there are documented instances from at least 4500 years ago. 

Nonsense. People have messed around with gender in various ways probably forever, but being what is called “trans” or “non-binary” is a new invention.

In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of transphobia in the mainstream and social media, which has fuelled increased transphobic hate incidents in society…This increased transphobia been particularly severe for trans women, who have been the target of high-profile, celebrity campaigns that deny the trans experience and deliberately suggest trans women pose a threat to cis women by distorting statistics of male violence to imply it is a characteristic of trans women.

Nobody “denies the trans experience.” That’s fatuous. We don’t know what goes on in other people’s heads, and that’s the end of it. What we deny (or question or doubt or analyze) is the claim that people can be literally the other sex because that’s what they feel like in their heads. I, for one, don’t believe that feelings in the head can change one’s body to the other sex. I can’t believe it. I can mouth the words (but I refuse to), but I can’t actually believe it. That’s not denying anyone’s experience, it’s being aware that there’s a material world outside people’s heads and that thoughts aren’t magic.

And we don’t “deliberately suggest” that trans women pose a threat to women, we say very clearly that we can’t know which trans women will be violent toward us and which won’t. We don’t “distort statistics of male violence to imply it is a characteristic of trans women,” we say very clearly that male violence is male violence and we can’t tell in advance which males will indulge in it.

There’s more, but you get the idea.

In related news –

Police in the United States are three times more likely to use force against leftwing protesters than rightwing protesters, according to new data from a non-profit that monitors political violence around the world.

In the past 10 months, US law enforcement agencies have used teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and beatings at a much higher percentage at Black Lives Matter demonstrations than at pro-Trump or other rightwing protests.

As we saw just last week.

The statistics, based on law enforcement responses to more than 13,000 protests across the United States since April 2020, show a clear disparity in how agencies have responded to the historic wave of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence, compared with demonstrations organized by Trump supporters.

Barack Obama highlighted an earlier version of these statistics on 8 January, arguing that they provided a “useful frame of reference” for understanding Americans’ outrage over the failure of Capitol police to stop a mob of thousands of white Trump supporters from invading and looting the Capitol on 6 January, a response that prompted renewed scrutiny of the level of violence and aggression American police forces use against Black versus white Americans.

Not a pretty story.

Surprise surprise, there’s a surge in trumpish ideologies in the US military.

The Pentagon is confronting a resurgence of white supremacy and other right-wing ideologies in the ranks and is scrambling to track how acute the problem has become in the Trump era.

It’s an issue that has simmered in the military for years, but is now front and center following signs that former military personnel played a role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol last week.

…

In another sign of the challenge, the Army on Monday announced it was ousting a junior officer who was investigated for posting a video to his 3 million TikTok followers joking about Jews being exterminated in Nazi concentration camps.

These are the people with the weapons.

Giuliani did his bit to rile up the insurrectionists.

Donald Trump has fallen out with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and is refusing to pay the former New York mayor’s legal bills, it was reported, with the president feeling abandoned and frustrated during his last days in office.

Giuliani played a key role in Trump’s failed attempts to overturn the results of November’s presidential election through the courts. The lawyer mounted numerous spurious legal challenges, travelling to swing states won by Joe Biden, and spread false claims the vote was rigged.

Claims he has to have known were false.

Trump’s refusal to pay Giuliani’s bills is another blow to the former federal prosecutor. Giuliani is already under fire for his own alleged role in inciting Trump supporters to storm the Capitol building.

Addressing Trump’s Save America rally in Washington last week, Giuliani said: “I’m willing to stake my reputation, the president is willing to stake his reputation, on the fact that we’re going to find criminality there.” He pointedly added: “Let’s have trial by combat.”

Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for Washington DC, is investigating the riot. He has said he is looking at numerous participants. They include those who instigated the Capitol invasion, a category that might implicate Trump and Giuliani.

Ya think?

They’ve found the guy with the treason flag.

A man who carried the Confederate battle flag into the U.S. Capitol as part of an invasion by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump surrendered with his son Thursday after arrest warrants were issued for their roles in the riot, the FBI said.

Kevin Seefried, who was carrying the flag that he later told authorities had been displayed outside his Delaware home, and his son Hunter Seefried are expected to be arraigned later Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

They helped with the breaking and entering part.

The document also says that video footage on Twitter shows Hunter Seefried punching out glass in a window at the Capitol after it was smashed by others with a wooden two-by-four.

“Kevin Seefried confirmed to law enforcement agents that Hunter was asked by an individual unknown to the Seefrieds to assist with clearing the window because Hunter Seefried was wearing gloves,” the document said. “After Hunter Seefried complied, people from the crowd outside, to include the Seefrieds, were able to access the interior of the Capitol building.”

I wonder what they were thinking. That this was all just high spirits, and no one would punish them for it? That everybody was doing it, so everybody would be let off with a mild rebuke?

The princess and prince don’t let underlings use their toilets. So what do underlings do? Hold it, of course. Yes for eight hours! What are you, some kind of bleeding heart do-gooder?

In a multi-bylined article one of America’s top investigative news outlets has chronicled in leg-crossing detail the apparently extreme difficulty that the Secret Service detail assigned to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have had in finding a place to go to the bathroom.

According to the Washington Post the president’s daughter and her top White House adviser spouse have apparently exiled the squad of men and women assigned to keep them from harm’s way from using the toilets in their sprawling Washington DC mansion.

“Instructed not to use any of the half-dozen bathrooms inside the couple’s house, the Secret Service detail assigned to President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law spent months searching for a reliable restroom to use on the job,” the paper reported, citing neighbors and law enforcement official.

Cry me a river; you can’t expect royalty to let just anyone use their toilets!

It added that Secret Service members in the couple’s detail who were desperate to relieve themselves had resorted to a porta-potty, as well as bathrooms at the homes of Barack Obama and Vice-President Mike Pence.

I’d be tempted to pee in a bucket and then pour it somewhere they wouldn’t want it poured.

How about no?

As in, no, no, no, no, NO.

The Daily Beast:

In an interview with BBC News to promote his new book Saving Justice, former FBI Director James Comey said President-elect Joe Biden should “consider” pardoning his predecessor Donald Trump when he takes office on Jan. 20th.

No, he really shouldn’t. Not for a second.

Asked if Biden should take a page from Gerald Ford, who pardoned Richard Nixon in 1974, Comey replied, “I don’t know. He should consider it.” While he said he’s not sure Trump—who has reportedly floated the idea of pardoning himself—would accept such a pardon, he added, “As part of healing the country and getting us to a place where we can focus on things that are going to matter over the next four years, I think Joe Biden is going to have to at least think about that.”

Ford should not have pardoned Nixon, and Biden absolutely should not pardon the rat from Queens.

I frankly can’t imagine why Comey thinks otherwise.

Chase Strangio is explaining how sex is a matter of choice and decided in the head rather than the body.

To situation? I suppose she meant ” to situate” but that’s a stupid word for that too. “To describe” would have done the job perfectly well. She’s straining to sound authoritative and scholarly, but the “scholarship” here is bogus. Anyway – yes there damn well is a threat. There’s a threat of women not being able to claim anything for ourselves any more.

The “and white supremacy” is telling. It has nothing to do with white supremacy, but throwing it in there polishes up the progressive credentials, which otherwise tend to look very tarnished.

None of that is even slightly true.

Strangio knows perfectly well why and what.

There may have been some collaborationist activities from some legislators the day before the coup attempt. Investigations are under way.

More than 30 House Democrats are demanding information from Capitol security officials about “suspicious” visitors at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 5 — a day before violent insurrectionists swarmed the building — that would only have been permitted entry by a member of Congress or a staffer.

“Many of the Members who signed this letter … witnessed an extremely high number of outside groups in the complex on Tuesday, January 5,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), in a letter to the acting House and Senate sergeants-at-arms, as well as the acting head of the Capitol Police.

The lawmakers, some of whom “have served in the military and are trained to recognize suspicious activity,” noted that Capitol tours have been prohibited since March as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and they said the tours were so unusual that they were reported to security on Jan. 5, ahead of the following day’s violence.

“The visitors encountered by some of the Members of Congress on this letter appeared to be associated with the rally at the White House the following day,” they wrote. “Members of the group that attacked the Capitol seemed to have an unusually detailed knowledge of the layout of the Capitol Complex. The presence of these groups within the Capitol Complex was indeed suspicious.”

I’m wondering what “appeared to be associated with the rally at the White House the following day” means. “Appeared to be in town for the rally scheduled for the next day,” maybe. Perhaps they were in the usual pro-Trump costuming. Or maybe it means “in retrospect, it appears they were in DC for the rally the next day.”

Sherrill first raised alarms Tuesday that some members of Congress may have provided “reconnaissance” tours to would-be insurrectionists.

…

“I also intend to see that those members of Congress who abetted him — those members of Congress who had groups coming through the capitol that I saw on Jan. 5 for reconnaissance for the next day — those members of Congress who incited the violent crowd, those members of Congress that attempted to help our president undermine our democracy, I’m going see that they’re held accountable,” Sherrill said.

She’s overstating it, but if she’s right…well, there are too many collabos in Congress.

Meanwhile, a better person than the seditionists:

The Post reports that Trump is in a bad mood. You don’t say.

With less than seven days remaining in his presidency, Trump’s inner circle is shrinking, offices in his White House are emptying, and the president is lashing out at some of those who remain. He is angry that his allies have not mounted a more forceful defense of his incitement of the mob that stormed the Capitol last week, advisers and associates said.

Really. All he wanted to do was slaughter all the Democrats in Congress and install himself as dictator. What’s the big deal?

He’s in a rage at Pence, and souring on Giuliani.

Trump has instructed aides not to pay Giuliani’s legal fees, two officials said, and has demanded that he personally approve any reimbursements for the expenses Giuliani incurred while traveling on the president’s behalf to challenge election results in key states. They said Trump has privately expressed concern with some of Giuliani’s moves and did not appreciate a demand from Giuliani for $20,000 a day in fees for his work attempting to overturn the election.

It’s outrageous; only Trump is allowed to rip people off like that.

He’s mad that no one is defending him – not even McEnany! Not even Prince Jared! The Post doesn’t say what Princess Ivanka is doing.

Lindsey Graham is one of the last remaining ass-kissers.

Graham traveled to Texas on Tuesday in what was Trump’s last scheduled presidential trip, spending hours with Trump aboard Air Force One talking about impeachment and planning how Trump should spend his final days in office.

Trump told Graham to lobby senators to acquit him in the future trial and Graham of course obliged.

During the flight home, Graham said, he tried to calm Trump after Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the No. 3 House GOP leader, announced she would vote to impeach.

“I just told him, ‘Listen, Mr. President, there are some people out there who were upset before and are upset now, but I assure you, most Republicans believe impeachment is bad for the country and not necessary and it would do damage to the institution of the presidency itself,” Graham recalled.

Cynical enough yet? Not a word about “Don’t worry, you’re innocent,” much less about the good of the country, about treason and attempted mass murder, about democracy and human rights, about how it’s not entirely admirable to try to overthrow the government by sending fascists to kill off half of Congress – just self-interested reason Republicans think impeachment would be inconvenient.

The Post points out that it’s striking that no White House people were out there defending him yesterday during the impeachment.

The president’s aides did not blast out talking points to allies. His press secretary did not hold a briefing with reporters. His advisers did not do television interviews from the White House’s North Lawn. His lawyers and legislative affairs staffers did not whip votes or seek to persuade lawmakers to vote against impeachment.

This is both because there was no organized campaign to block impeachment and because many of his aides believe Trump’s incitement of the riot was too odious to defend.

So even they have a Too Odious marker – it’s just that it’s a lot harder to reach than most people’s.

“I just think this is the logical conclusion of someone who will only accept people in his inner orbit if they are willing to completely set themselves on fire on his behalf, and you’ve just reached a point to where everyone is burned out,” a senior administration official said. “Everyone is thinking, ‘I’ll set myself on fire for the president of the United States for this, for this and for this — but I’m not doing it for that.’ ”

It took him until two weeks before the end to reach that point – and it took all of them that long too.

One of Trump’s only White House defenses came from Jason Miller, a senior political adviser. He did not defend the president’s conduct but rather argued that those who voted to impeach him would pay a political price.

There it is again, just like Graham – ignore the substance, just talk about the savvy politics. Tell us again exactly how hollow you are.

I guess this is making America great again too.

Originally a comment by Arnaud on 10 beans a day.

I am so angry that I… I don’t know what to say.

Every time this government acts, or fails to act far too often, I swear that they have reached rock bottom; surely they can’t go lower than this? And every time they do.

But in truth I mean, we should have been prepared for this fiasco, after this intervention by a Tory MP a couple of months ago complaining that food vouchers effectively went to crack dens and brothels! This was clearly preparing the ground for later moves!

In the wider scheme of things this is part of a trend to basically assess-strip the UK; the pandemic has given this government what they see as a clean mandate to act as they wish without all those pesky restrictions imposed by parliament and tradition. Hundreds of contracts totalling tens of billions have gone to private companies with links not only to the Tory party but often personally to ministers and influential MPs and party apparatchiks, not only to feed kids but also to provide PPE to the NHS and government agencies and to run testing programs. A lot of this money was just wasted as these companies had no track record and no capacity in the matter. One of those was run by Matt Hancock’s former local pub landlord, for fuck sake!

As Tim Harris says, it is all down to the Tories’ assumption that they are somehow vastly superior to the rest of us, that, even elected by us, whatever they do for the country is akin to a favour and we should be grateful for it. The tossing of bones from the lord’s table. That became obvious during the Brexit debates : every time a Tory grandee was contradicted by a member of the public you could see the outrage and contempt on their faces. It has not changed.

As i said to friends of mine this morning, this Tory government has done far more to radicalise me – and I suspect a lot of people – than anybody ever could. They should put themselves on the list of banned organisations alongside ISIS or the Real IRA!

Originally a comment by latsot on 10 beans a day.

I read that Chartwells made £2bn profit last year and paid tax on about 2% of that. Needless to say, they are big Tory donors, their CEO is friends with ex Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, and there was no tender process for this contract. This is rife. It’s nowhere close to exaggeration to say that the Tories are using the current catastrophe to divert very large amounts of money to themselves and their friends. At last count there were exactly umpteen companies with no prior experience in the provision of PPE or meals or whatever, and which were losing money, who were suddenly awarded contracts worth tens of millions or more to do things they didn’t know how to do without ever having to tender. In many, many cases, they failed spectacularly to do what they were contracted to do with no apparent consequences to them.

It looks like asset stripping more than it looks like anything else. I genuinely think the government are delighted that the news has come out about the food parcels because it’s something they can (appear to) visibly fix, diverting attention from the enormous volume of corruption elsewhere. I don’t doubt that they’ll be able to convince a lot of the population that they took decisive action to feed our poor children against all the odds.

Some of the pictures of the food boxes are heartbreaking. We don’t know that they’re all real, of course, but there are boxes that appear to have contained half a pepper or carrot or fucking tomato. As many have said, surely the cost of cutting a pepper in half outweighs the cost of putting in a whole one. Some of the items don’t even meet basic hygiene and safety standards. For example, it is not remotely acceptable to decant tuna into a non-sterile plastic bag for transport and storage. The intention here is to punish rather than to feed the poor.

There is some background. In a previous lockdown, parents received vouchers instead of food boxes. This, of course, is a much better idea. It’s more scalable and leverages (yeah, I said leverages) the supermarket supply chains. This is especially important this time because the government were adamant that schools would be operational…. before opening them for one day to ensure as many children as possible infected each other then closing them to ensure the children infected as many people as possible at home. So the supply companies were arguably not ready while the supermarkets were.

Anyway, vouchers are generally speaking a much better idea, but there were a few concerns that parents might spend some of the money on booze and fags and scratchcards and the poor children might receive inadequate nutrition as a result. So it was decided to instead make it absolutely certain that poor children will receive inadequate nutrition by replacing the vouchers with these awful boxes.

It isn’t just children being punished in this fashion, either. Vulnerable adults have been receiving inadequate food parcels, too. And they too are designed to punish and humiliate for the crime of being poor. One I read of contained one teabag for each day. Again, the cost saving of counting out exactly the ‘right’ number of teabags (surely more than one cup of tea per day is an intolerable extravagance) can be barely worthwhile and the object is to punish and be seen to punish. What do they think people are going to do with all the excess teabags anyway, for goodness’ sake? (They’re going to give them to other people who need them, that’s what).

Not a good day to be British. And there are few enough of those already, these days.

One Democrat pointed out that they were debating impeachment in the crime scene.

“We are debating this historic measure at an actual crime scene,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said Wednesday morning, discussing House Resolution 24, the measure that would impeach President Trump for the second time. He was speaking in the same chamber that was evacuated one week ago as a mob of pro-Trump extremists breached security and flooded into the halls of Congress.

The chamber where members crouched on the floor when the police started shouting “Get down, get down!” Which must have been pretty terrifying.

Recalling the events of last Wednesday, McGovern said Congress was disrupted as it was performing one of its core duties in service of American democracy: certifying the election.

“But at a rally just a mile and a half down Pennsylvania Avenue, Donald Trump and his allies were stoking the anger of a violent mob,” McGovern said. “A member of this very body proclaimed on that stage, ‘Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.'”

That member is Mo Brooks, R-Alabama.

“Rioters chanted, ‘Hang Mike Pence,’ as a noose and gallows were built a stone’s throw from the Capitol steps. Capitol Police officers were beaten and sprayed with pepper spray. Attackers hunted down lawmakers to hold them hostage, or worse. Staff barricaded doors. People sent text messages to their families to tell them they love them. They thought they were saying goodbye, Mr. Speaker.”

They had good reason to think so.

Mofo is impeached, AGAIN. First ever to be impeached TWICE, because he’s such an evil monstrosity.

The Democratic-led U.S. House delivered the historic rebuke to Trump on Wednesday afternoon — exactly one week after his supporters stormed the Capitol building in a rampage that led to five deaths, including that of a Capitol police officer.

The article of impeachment charges Trump with “incitement of insurrection.”

Some 13 months ago, all House Republicans voted against the president’s first impeachment. On Wednesday, 10 GOP members joined with all Democrats to impeach Trump.

…

Ten Republicans broke party ranks to vote in favor of impeachment, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who chairs the House Republican Conference.

“None of this would have happened without the President,” Cheney said in a statement Tuesday explaining her vote. “The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

…

The Democratic-led House approved the new rebuke in the same chamber where one week ago members of Congress fled an oncoming tide of rioters who had been stoked by the president and his false claims that a bogus election process caused his defeat by President-elect Joe Biden.

…

Impeachment, Pelosi said, is “a constitutional remedy that will ensure that the republic will be safe from this man, who is so resolutely determined to tear down the things that we hold dear, and that hold us together.”

I hope he’s in torment.

More on the plans for next week:

Thousands of armed pro-Donald Trump extremists are plotting to surround the US Capitol ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, according to a member of Congress who was among those briefed late Monday on a series of new threats against lawmakers and the Capitol itself.

Then they were kind of silly to tip their hand last week. Law enforcement is awake now, so I don’t think their plotting will translate to a triumphant encirclement of the Capitol.

Two Democratic lawmakers who participated in the briefing told CNN that they were walked through several scenarios on a call Monday and officers were sober about the threats. An effort was made to emphasize how different security is right now, the members said.

“They are very strong when we are weak. That is when the mob psychology takes hold and they are emboldened, but when met with actual determined force, I think a lot of these fantasy world beliefs about what will happen when they come to Washington will melt away,” one of the members said.

I have a feeling the force will be pretty determined. They will have Officer Sicknick in mind.

Early Tuesday afternoon, The Washington Post reported that an FBI office in Norfolk, Virginia, issued an “explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and ‘war.'” Although the FBI report was described as not “finally evaluated intelligence,” it is likely to raise additional questions about how law enforcement officials missed signs leading up to last week’s attack and readiness ahead of potential new threats.

We are indeed wondering about that.

There was worry before Obama’s first inauguration, you know. I remember it. There was discussion about whether or not they would do the traditional walk up Pennsylvania Avenue. I remember watching it, and feeling elated but tense. This is basically just chapter 2 of that. Trump got his start in “politics” telling racist lies about Obama. Here we are again.

Meanwhile there is also the future to worry about – the future as in next week. The Feds are seriously alarmed.

(I still wonder why they failed to be alarmed last week.)

Meanwhile Tuesday on Capitol Hill, representatives from the Secret Service and the Defense and Homeland Security departments briefed lawmakers on security concerns.

Afterward, a group of Democratic House chairs issued a statement, saying they “have grave concerns about ongoing and violent threats to our democracy. It is clear that more must be done to preempt, penetrate, and prevent deadly and seditious assaults by domestic violent extremists in the days ahead.”

The chairs — including the Oversight Committee’s Carolyn Maloney and the Judiciary Committee’s Jerrold Nadler, among others — said, “This is a moment when our entire national security and law enforcement apparatus must be working in complete lockstep. This was not a peaceful protest that got out of hand. This was an attempted coup to derail our Constitutional process and intimidate our duly elected leaders through violence.”

Notice the difference between that and BLM protests. Some of the latter may have gotten out of hand, but that’s not the same thing as an attempted coup. It’s not even close.

Consequences:

Last week’s storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob has already resulted in charges against 70 people, according to the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who said he expects the number “will grow into the hundreds.”

In the first public briefing by the Justice Department and the FBI since Wednesday’s riot, acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin and Steven D’Antuono, director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, outlined what Sherwin called a long-term investigation.

“Everyone is in for the long haul,” Sherwin said.

He said his office has already opened 170 subject files of people who potentially committed crimes in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds.

You mean it’s illegal to smash windows, batter locked doors open, push through police barricades, smash people in the head with fire extinguishers? Even when the president told you to?

He said the crimes include “everything from trespass, to theft of mail, to theft of digital devices inside the Capitol, to assault on local officers, federal officers both outside and inside the Capitol, to the theft of potential national security information or national defense information, to felony murder, even civil rights, excessive force investigations.”

Sherwin added, “The gamut of cases and criminal conduct we’re looking at is really mind-blowing.”

He said what he called a “strike force” has been formed to build sedition and conspiracy cases against some suspects.

But sedition on behalf of Trump is patriotic and maga-enabling, isn’t it?

Rs still going out of their way to be bad malevolent people. I guess that’s their brand now and they’re happy with it?

Several Republican members of Congress grew angry on Tuesday over new security systems implemented at the Capitol. The safety measures, which included metal detectors and physical pat-downs in some instances, were introduced after last week’s deadly insurrection at the complex.

And it wasn’t the Democrats who cheered that on, or inspired it in the first place.

“You are creating a problem you do not understand the ramifications of,” Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas was heard yelling at police who were conducting the check, according to a press pool report.

Yelling at police??? What is he, antifa?

Another representative, Rodney Davis of Illinois, was heard shouting that the checks were “horseshit.” Davis went through the metal detector, but then came back and was heard telling House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., that the new measures were “bullshit,” and they were diverting valuable resources. He also said GOP members weren’t consulted by security officials before they were installed.

Maybe because GOP members are collaborators.

The acting House sergeant-at-arms, Timothy Blodgett, announced the changes Tuesday, warning in a notice to members, “Failure to complete screening or the carrying of prohibited items could result in denial of access to the Chamber.”

Blodgett and acting U.S. Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman briefed Republican members on the protocols Tuesday. In the meeting, ranking member Davis blamed the majority Democrats for going overboard.

“This is political correctness run amok. The threat is outside, not inside. Every resource used inside is one that can’t be used outside,” he argued, according to a readout of the briefing.

“Political correctness” ffs. Now it’s “political correctness” to take measures to try to prevent another violent seizure of the Capitol. The Republicans don’t have any politics any more, they’re just The Antagonist Party.

Kathleen Stock asks what’s going on here when academics sign an open letter “which wouldn’t look out of place in the Salem Witch Trial archive.”

How can these academics look at the parts of the gender identity debate that concern me – for instance, vulnerable female prisoners being housed with male sex offenders; young lesbian women like Keira Bell regretting the effects of puberty blockers and voluntary mastectomies by the time they are 20; a loss of academic data about sex-associated patterns of discrimination, and so on – and conclude that I’m not only wrong, but that I should be publicly shamed?

That is, not only wrong but wicked, malevolent, deliberately harm-doing, cruel, witchy. I wonder that too. How do they get there?

(The puzzlement reminds me of my puzzlement at Republican Congressional Representatives refusing to wear masks while locked down in a confined space with colleagues, and not only refusing but mocking the colleagues who do mask. Where does that kind of pointless malice and deliberate harm-doing come from?)

Though many of the signatories of the open letter against me were based overseas, 11 of the founder signatories were at UK universities. UK universities are at the forefront of trans activism in at least two ways. One is that relatively many students – otherwise known these days as paying customers – are trans activists, and this alone will tend to affect weaker-minded academic faculty…

The second point is that universities themselves, via enthusiastic participation in Stonewall schemes like the Diversity Champions scheme and the Top 100 Employers Index are now, effectively, trans activist organisations at a managerial level, with Stonewall-sponsored policies to match.

For instance, an HR policy at Queen’s University Belfast tells staff to ‘think of the person as being the sex that they want you to think of them as’ (policies at Edinburgh and Leeds say something very similar).

There, again, for the millionth time, I pause to marvel. Do what?? Think of the person as the _____ that they want you to think of them as? What kind of wild, impossible to apply broadly, reckless rule is that? What kind of deranged retreat to childishness is that? No I’m not going to undertake to think of people the way they want me to think of them, at least not in that blank check, no questions asked, just do it way. I’m not and no one should. People think of us the way they think of us, and we can’t force them to swap their perceptions for ours. It’s infantile to think that’s even possible, let alone reasonable. It’s also so non-academic, so anti-academic, that it makes my head swim. It’s a fantasists’ charter, a one-way ticket to Narcissists’ Crossing.

‘Good practice’ at Oxford University includes avoiding the phrase ‘identifies as a woman’ for a trans woman, because this suggests trans women aren’t ‘“real” women’.

And that’s because they’re not. Universities really really really should not be in the business of ordering people to substitute fantasy for reality. It’s not even a reasonable request, let alone a command.

The costs of this intimidation of academics sceptical about gender orthodoxies – whether via savage open letters or managerial policies controlling speech and thought – are high. Knowledge is lost and public understanding diminished. In my view, there’s a pressing need for academics to take a cold hard look at the havoc wreaked by pretending, on a national scale, that gender identity is more important than sex in nearly every context. This includes a need for philosophers: for a lot of current trans orthodoxy has very particular philosophical underpinnings, seeming to give it intellectual credibility where, in my view, there is little.

But if we just think of current trans orthodoxy as the brilliant progressive correct orthodoxy it wants us to think of it as, everything will be copacetic.