Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Are they though?

… the part that gets me is how much disputed stuff just slides by as obvious, assumed knowledge and common perspective, things that “everyone” supposedly thinks.

And all the stuff we’re supposed to let slide, in the interests of Not Being Seen to be Siding With Fascists on Anything:

Whatever your views are about the metaphysics of sex and gender, or about trans persons in sports or prisons, or about what kinds of medical care trans youth should have—topics which are difficult and about which it’s not unreasonable to have various views….

But nobody is supposed to voice these views, or question the genderist staus quo, so as not to be giving aid and comfort to the enemy, or agreeing with them that the sky is indeed blue. But if none of these questions were askable under non-Trump conditions because of the “vulnerable, marginalized” plight of the LGB T “community”, then silence and compliance is the only permitted response, however “not unreasonable” it is to have “various views.” Consequently, we’re still stuck in “NO DEBATE!”

The part that interests me here is the “suffering of trans persons” bit.

How much are they suffering, really? Do we know it’s a huge amount? Do we know they’re all in psychic agony all the time?

Given The Never-ending Story of medicalized Gender Journeys, I wouldn’t doubt that there is suffering, but much of it is likely self-inflicted by surrendering oneself to the Gender-Industrial Complex. The continual need for the next procedure, the failure to reach an impossible destination, the disappointment in discovering that “gender-affirming care” does not solve all of the problems and co-morbidities that it had no hope of addressing, any failure to pass despite extreme body modification, distress at predictable pushback against trans demands, and yes, likely some amount of actual prejudice and bigotry. So suffering galore is quite plausible. Anti-trans pogroms and trans genocide? No.

Look at the degree to which the trans “community” marginalizes, or rather isolates, itself. The promotion of suicidal ideation and paranoia amongst its own members. Gender ghouls promoting going “no contact” with families, or being enticed to join an online “rainbow family”. The demonization of talk therapy that might lead to desistance. The denial of desistance. The fast-tracking of youth into the gender abattoir. The lack of follow-up or after-care (though how can you have any after-care if there is no “after”‘ just a lifetime of procedures and “treatments”?). The threat of abandonment and vilification if one chooses detransition. These aren’t the machinations of a cisheternormative society; this is all the work of the “community” that supposedly loves you.

And outside of the “celebrity trans” bubble there’s probably a lot less support and sympathy for trans identified people who are suffering from mental illnesses that transitioning will never solve. (Even some of those inside the bubble aren’t doing so shit-hot. I don’t think Ellen Page is a happy person. Trans “euphoria” isn’t sustainable. She’s less likely to ever be happy again if she regrets what she’s put herself through.) These people are going to be even less prepared for the disappointment arising from the expectations and promises that transitioning fails to deliver. I’ve seen a number of trans identified males who look like they have other issues, who would never pass in a million years. I don’t imagine their lives are easy or happy, but that would still be the case if they hadn’t fallen into the trans rabbit hole. So suffering abounds, but the responsibility for the vast majority of it cannot be laid at society’s feet. Transgenderism itself is a disappointment pump, and we’re not the ones priming it.

Ah yes, and it was as I was walking home from the bus stop in the rain that I realized dogs are cats.

I Realized I Was Trans While Making Cheese

The realization didn’t strike overnight. It took many months. But the daily evidence of one thing becoming another, enzymes turning liquid to solid, milk into curd into cheese, showed me possible futures.

Yup yup yup. Impeccable logic. One thing changes into another, therefore all things can change into all things other. An orange can become a cruise ship, a planet can become a spider, a bro can turn into a hairdo.

I spent four years immersed in cheddaring, my life revolving around transformation. And it was there on the production floor, with salt-crusted arms, whey-splattered glasses, and thousands of pounds of curd ready to take shape before me, that I realized I was trans.

I know the feeling. You cut back some aggressive blackberry canes and suddenly everything looks different. Magic! Therefore humans can change sex.

Today I can’t not see the pattern. Whether making cheese or beer or pickles, there’s symbolic liberation in the process of transformation. As the writer Julian K. Jarboe once tweeted, “God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason he made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine: because he wants humanity to share in the act of creation.”

Fermentation is hope for trans folks. If people can conceptualize cucumbers becoming pickles, then they can grasp a trans person’s name change. If the possibility of Camembert, Parmesan, and ricotta exist within milk, then think of all the possible genders to choose from! After all, what is rennet if not the hormone replacement therapy of dairy?

It’s apparently not parody.

Our friend latsot went to a protest in Leeds yesterday…

I politely asked three different police officers from @WestYorksPolice if they wouldn’t mind just politely asking the misogynists to turn down their music just a little bit so that anyone could hear both sides.

All three absolutely refused, two laughed in my face. They were, of course, under no obligation to do so, but when I spoke to them earlier they claimed to be committed to fairness, and to a frank exchange of ideas, rather than an attempted drowning-out.

I spoke to a couple of the PCSOs but they were standing so close to the misogynist PA system that they either couldn’t hear my complaint or were content to pretend they couldn’t.

I think it would have been reasonable for the police to ask the TRAs to dial down the volume just a little bit. Just to ask, they didn’t have to enforce it.

It would have been, but to do so would be to violate the iron rule that trans people and their enforcers get to do whatever they want all the time.

Originally a comment by Arcadia on Are they though?

I quite agree, and find the part that gets me is how much disputed stuff just slides by as obvious, assumed knowledge and common perspective, things that “everyone” supposedly thinks.

For instance, that Trump likes this (perhaps), that these changes are “pulverising the trans community” (significant evidence to the contrary), that Trump’s doing it to be righteous (perhaps, he’s not usually driven by that value though), that it’s an issue of “metaphysics” (Christ on a bike!), that it’s about “trans in sports or prisons” (when it’s about males in female sports and prisons), that these medical, hormonal, surgical and societal interventions constitute “care” (evidence mostly to the contrary), that this is difficult (is it? Males are not females, easy), that the administration is doing this out of cruelty (there’s lots of good, non cruel reasons to protect sex based rights and not sterilise children), that the administration is indifferent to suffering (leaving out that multiple previous administrations have been indifferent to the suffering of the female sex, LGB, disabled and even trans people alike in their efforts to affirm), and that stopping this disaster is “careless” (when it was embarking upon the disaster that was the actual careless part.

Ugh. How’s an uninformed person actually to understand this, when this is the dreck they publish?

Justin Weinberg at Daily Nous on Alex Byrne’s response to his criticism:

Alex Byrne (MIT) has written an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he admits to being one of the co-authors of the US government’s “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria” Report, discussed previously.

Sly, that “admits to” – as if it were a crime.

…in response to a question from a reader, I elaborated on the reasons for my criticism; here’s part of what I said:

Trump seems quite happy to pulverize the trans community—for political gain, for the pleasure he takes in domination, and maybe even because he occasionally thinks it is a way to be righteous. It’s horrible. Whatever your views are about the metaphysics of sex and gender, or about trans persons in sports or prisons, or about what kinds of medical care trans youth should have—topics which are difficult and about which it’s not unreasonable to have various views—the Trump administration’s cruelty towards, and indifference to the suffering of, trans persons should be quite clear. (And not just trans persons, of course, and their loved ones, too, but various other populations.) The carelessness with which the administration treats the lives of those it considers others is astounding.

The part that interests me here is the “suffering of trans persons” bit.

How much are they suffering, really? Do we know it’s a huge amount? Do we know they’re all in psychic agony all the time?

It seems pretty much the other way around most of the time – more as if they’re at a big party and having fun. Does India Willoughby appear to be suffering? Angry maybe, but suffering? All those lectures delivered from his car – all those snaps of him dressed up like a fantasy hot mama? Does Lily Tino seem to be suffering? He seems to love all that recording a hapless worker accidentally not calling him Miss Lily Ma’am and so on. Does “Sophie Molly” seem unhappy as he shouts all those threats at protests? Do the people who post adoring clips of themselves bragging about how they’re coaching the children in their classrooms to be Trans Allies seem crushed with misery?

Are we really sure about the suffering?

Daily Blegh.

That’s the headline of UNC philosophy professor Justin Weinberg’s June 26 post on his philosophy news site, Daily Nous (@DailyNousEditor). I’m posting comments here since Weinberg has chosen to not to open them on this particular post. What’s Byrne’s sin? He served as one of nine co-authors on the recently released HHS report “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices.” (Available on the HHS website.)

Weinberg clearly disagrees with Byrne (who, for the record, did not vote for Trump) about whether serving as a co-author of the report was the right thing to do.

I happen to have intimate knowledge of Byrne’s motives—I’ll refer to him as “Alex” from here on—because I’m married to him. We talked extensively about his decision, and I came to fully understand and respect the choice he made, even if I might have made a different one. Alex believed that his participation would help to ensure that the report was of the highest possible quality, and that it would be a useful resource for parents in particular who are looking for clear information about the costs and benefits of medical treatment of their children’s gender dysphoria.

Overall Alex believes that medical practices (especially those involving children) should be based on strong evidence, produced and discussed in an open environment free of harassment and threats of reputational damage.

Especially after working on the report, he is convinced that the evidence supporting medicalization of gender dysphoric kids (AKA “gender affirming care”) is weak.

After Alex’s name was leaked as a co-author, Weinberg wrote (in his May 6 post) that it would be “appalling” for a philosopher to participate in such a project. Doing would mean that the philosopher had “decided to help Trump” with his “selfish and authoritarian ambitions,” “cruelty” regarding “immigrants, government employees, the disabled, and the domestic and global poor,” and “transgender women and men.” So perhaps authors should have been limited to extreme right wingers?

…

Weinberg has said that he does not “use Daily Nous as a platform for humiliating people or hurling insults at them.” (From an interview with Weinberg (at http://whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com/#/justin-w/), and that “disagreement is misunderstood and underappreciated, and readers are welcome to disagree with me.”

Yet he did not open comments on the post that essentially accused Byrne of using academic freedom as a smokescreen for helping Trump advance selfish and cruel policies, thereby bringing further harm to the most vulnerable among us. This from the philosopher who advocates for respectful engagement, humility, and who “welcomes comments” on his views and posts.

In his June 26 post, Weinberg wrote that “To oppose joining with the powers that be in their push for a callous, dehumanizing, agenda is not thereby to oppose free and open inquiry.”

But Alex never claimed that academic freedom has been violated; rather he described a culture in academic philosophy and elsewhere in which good-faith dissenters are compared to Nazis, and in which philosophers, rather than engaging with arguments, express outrage and make public accusations about motives. This is not the way to create a culture of free and open inquiry.

Daily Nous is very very very committed to trans ideology.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on A means to exclood.

once he ‘transitioned’, he did his landscaping in hot pants and spike heels. That just proves he isn’t a woman; no woman of any sense at all would mow a lawn dressed like that. [quoting iknklast]

It’s a vicious circle. Performance and appearance are all that TiMs have; any time they’re not in “woman-coded” clothes and accessories = not being a woman, so even in situations where safety, comfort, and mobility compel women to dispense with “woman-coded” wardrobes, TiMs have to keep up the pretense, because doing otherwise results in even smaller chances of “passing”. Their use of stereotyipcal, exaggerated “female” clothing and mannerisms are the equivalent of holding up a sign that says “I AM A WOMAN” (“It’s MA’AM!” if you will). In their minds they can never put the sign down, because the sign is all they’ve got. They want us to believe that sign is their sex. The hyperfeminine dress and comportment is large, boldface type, for those with poor eyesight who might accidentally see them as men. It’s closed captioning for those who don’t understand what they’re trying to say. It’s a demand to surrender our reading of reality to their delusion. Ultimately, it’s a warning, to women particularly: “Give me what I want. Or Else.”

Females don’t have to do any of this and can dress as they like without risk of changing sex. Men-who-claim-to-be-women are always on stage, always in costume, always performing. By doing so they’re claiming to change sex. Butlerian reasoning would have us believe that this is enough to make them women, that in fact performance is all anybody has, or anybody is. Nice try, Judith, but it doesn’t work that way. As if we can so easily shed the inescapable journey of birth, old age, sickness, and death that is the lot of material beings, philosopher or no. We are not beings of pure thought and energy, who can slip into and out of whatever roles we set our minds to, reifying them through sheer force of will. We are tied to this Earth, and the sustenance it provides. We are our bodies. We are matter, we are mammals, we are male and female. Oh, to slip the surly bonds of biology!

It seems the NHS is allowing lunatics to tell NHS midwives that men can breastfeed infants.

NHS midwives have been trained by a trans workshop that promotes male breastfeeding, The Telegraph can reveal.

The Queer Birth Club runs “LGBTQ+” competency and lactation classes, using the tag line “birthing people ain’t all women”.

People who think men can get pregnant ain’t right in the head.

The group has provided training sessions for NHS England and a number of trusts across the UK, and its founder has given talks at the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).

One nurse who raised concerns about the training is now facing disciplinary action.

Oh come on. Seriously?

The Queer Birth Club has said that it has also provided training in universities and its courses are embedded in some midwifery and doula training programs. It promotes breastfeeding by trans women and claims that it is “transmisogyny” to say that the milk produced by biological men is “less”.

This is despite concerns over the safety of the milk, which is produced after taking a series of medications to induce lactation. Domperidone, the drug commonly used to stimulate lactation, was not intended for this purpose, but is prescribed off-label by doctors. Janssen, which manufactures the drug, has recommended against it because of possible side effects to a baby’s heart.

And these fucks promote it anyway. It’s pure evil.

AJ Silver, the founder of The Queer Birth Club who identifies as non-binary, has also appeared as a speaker at conferences led by the Royal College of Midwives and says they have trained more than “600 birth professionals”.

Where are the god damn adults???

Huh. The Scottish government is still trying to get away with it.

Earlier this month, officials told For Women Scotland (FWS) that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had advised ministers to wait for the Commission’s final Code of Practice before making changes and to “not do anything in advance of that”.

The comments earned a stinging rebuke from Baroness Kishwer Falkner, the Chair of the EHRC, who said the Commission had made it “clear” to civil servants that public bodies should not wait for updated guidance before acting on the judgment.

“Comments” is not the right word there. It should be claims or assertions or orders. We’re not talking casual remarks over a beer, we’re talking officials telling FWS lies about what ministers are allowed to do. Saying “comments” minimizes the perfidy. Journalists should stop doing that.

The peer said she was “very concerned that our conversations with officials appear to have been misrepresented”.

And, of course, misrepresented in the direction of telling FWS to shut up and wait as opposed to the direction of yes you get to have your rights back now. Not, I suggest, a random error.

FWS told The Herald they were stunned by the claims from officials: “At what point does this stop being ignorant incompetence and tip into wilful malpractice?”

What I’m saying. It looks a hell of a lot like calculated stalling, does it not.

In April, the UK’s highest court ruled unanimously that a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) does not alter a person’s sex for the purposes of the Equality Act. The judgment clarified that the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in the legislation refer to biological sex, not acquired gender.

The EHRC then issued interim guidance in May related to trans people’s use of facilities including including changing rooms and toilets, and participation in sports. It also launched a consultation on changes to parts of its code of practice for services, public functions and associations, which is due to conclude on June 30. The watchdog is due to publish the updated code later this year.

While First Minister John Swinney initially welcomed the “clarity” provided by the ruling, the Scottish Government has repeatedly said it is waiting for this further guidance before issuing new guidance of its own to Scotland’s public bodies.

However, the EHRC has repeatedly said that the ruling applies now and that “those with duties under the Equality Act 2010 should be following the law and looking at what changes, if any, need to be made to their policies and practices”.

So we’ve got a standoff. Scottish gov repeatedly says it’s waiting, EHRC repeatedly says no don’t wait, make any necessary changes now. Tick tick tick, meanwhile women’s rights continue to be violated.

Earlier this week, FWS wrote to the Scottish Government’s Permanent Secretary Joe Griffin calling for a full investigation, saying it was “extremely concerning that statements made by a senior government official to a third party about EHRC advice have been directly contested by the regulatory body itself”.

Yeah it is. It kind of signals that the government is stalling stalling stalling despite the regulatory body’s telling it to STOP STALLING.

In a letter to the campaigners on Friday, seen by The Herald, Mr Griffin did not challenge FWS’s account of the meeting, and said his team would “revert in due course” with a fuller response.

Why not now? Why “in due course”? How long is that exactly? A week? A year? Ten years? What happened to now?

He said the Government accepted the Supreme Court’s judgment and “acknowledges the EHRC statement that duty-bearers should not wait for our statutory Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Associations to be in place to review their policies to ensure they are complying with the law as now settled by the Supreme Court”.

Then why is the Government stalling stalling stalling?

This, he added, “aligns with the approach the Scottish Government has taken since the judgment was issued in April”.

No it doesn’t. That’s the very thing it doesn’t do. That’s the whole point.

In Holyrood on Wednesday, Mr Griffin was pressed by SNP MSP Michelle Thomson to name any concrete action the Government had taken since the ruling. Mr Griffin said only that the “short life working group” had been established to prepare for implementation. He could not identify any specific changes made to guidance or policy.

Ya because first it has to establish, which takes anywhere from a day to a century, and then it has to prepare for implementation, which takes considerably longer. All very Sir Humphrey Appleby.

Susan Smith from FWS told The Herald: “After the rambling performance of the Permanent Secretary at committee, it was clear that the Scottish Government has done nothing to comply with the Supreme Court ruling.

“To justify this, the civil service has materially misrepresented the advice given by the EHRC. There is no justification for Ministers or civil servants to ignore the law, and these highly paid public servants and politicians should not sit on their haunches while grassroots women’s groups with little power or funding explain to them the basic principles of law and professional standards. Scotland deserves better.

“To say we are shocked is an understatement. At what point does this stop being ignorant incompetence and tip into wilful malpractice?”

I think that tipping has been a good deal more swift than the Scottish government’s establishment of the preparations for implementation.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government has been clear that we accept the Supreme Court judgment and that public bodies have a duty to comply with the law.

“Work is proceeding at pace to implement the ruling across Government. We have established a Short Life Working Group to ensure support and consistency in this.”

Oh gawd. It’s almost funny. It’s not, because it’s enraging, but it almost is. “We have established a working group; what more do you want??? You can’t possibly expect it to do any working.”

Sigh.

CNN:

President Donald Trump stepped up attacks on his handpicked Federal Reserve chairman on Wednesday, claiming Jerome Powell has “low IQ” and suggested that he has narrowed down the list of potential replacements to three or four people.

“He’s an average mentally person…Low IQ for what he does,” Trump said of Powell during remarks at a press conference at the NATO summit in the Netherlands Wednesday. “I think he’s a very stupid person, actually.”

Well which is it? Average or very stupid?

Tell you what: only a very stupid person starts with “average” and then pivots to “very stupid” and tries to get away with it by adding “actually.”

But really. Trump is horrifyingly successful, obviously, but not because he’s intelligent. He’s successful in part because he’s stupid – because people feel boosted by his success: if a fool like him can do it then anyone can.

It turns out that intelligence, thought, study, knowledge, understanding don’t succeed the way determined greed and rage and envy do.

Oh did he now.

Men won’t comply with laws or rules or norms that tell them to stay out of women’s toilets and changing rooms. Man MP says hooray, taller man visitor smirks.

Nancy Armour, a sports columnist at USA Today, rounds up the usual suspects.

The days of transgender athletes being able to compete at the Olympics are numbered.

The International Olympic Committee will no doubt dispute that, arguing that new president Kirsty Coventry’s announcement Thursday was only for a working group to examine how to “protect the female category.” But from her loaded language to the dearth of transgender athletes at the Games, it’s obvious this is intended as a means to exclude, not include.

Let’s start with her lede. Is there some moral law that says transgender athletes should be able to compete at the Olympics? I mean, one could also write a sob story about how crappy athletes are not allowed to compete at the Olympics. Newsflash: very very very few people are allowed to compete at the Olympics. The Olympics are decidedly not “inclusive.”

Moving on, I wonder, as I always wonder, how she manages to be so eager to replace women at the Olympics with men who call themselves women. Why is she full of sympathy for men who pretend to be women and indifferent to the women those men would displace? She’s a woman herself after all, so wtf? You have to “exclude” men from women’s sports if women are to have any sports at all. She knows that, of course, so wtf?

“A lot of members shared with us their own experiences from their own countries that had nothing to do with Paris or any other specific sporting event. Just their cultural experiences they were sharing with us and culturally what was expected from us as an Olympic movement,” Coventry said. “That made it very clear that we had to do something, and this was what everyone agreed was the way forward.”

Make no mistake: That “way forward” will take the IOC backward. And do so in contradiction of its own research and at great harm to an already vulnerable community.

BUT WHAT ABOUT WOMEN?? What about women you horrible credulous fool? What about the harm to them? What about their vulnerability? What are you even babbling about?

Most of us don’t know anyone who is transgender, let alone a transgender athlete. Which ought to tell you how big a “threat” they are. But J.K. Rowling, Riley Gaines and the U.S. Republican Party have managed to convince even people who should know better that transgender women have both a competitive advantage and are a marauding horde about to overwhelm women’s sports.

Why should people “know better” than “men have a competitive advantage”? Men do have an advantage, of course, so why and how should we know better than that?

The marauding horde about to overwhelm is just stupid. It’s beside the point. Men in women’s sports is unfair, end of story. I don’t suppose Nancy Armour would be happy if a couple of drunk teenagers broke into her house and smashed up the place, even though two teenagers are not a marauding horde.

The people howling for “fairness” will accept nothing less than the complete exclusion of transgender women, from sports and in society. 

Liar. Excluding men from women’s sports is not excluding them from society. It’s not even close.

Then there are the disingenuous folks who already have and will continue to use a white, heteronormative notion of what a woman is to remove anyone who falls outside it. A female athlete who is masculine presenting and has short hair? She’d better be ready to prove her womanhood.

Oh honestly. Is she six? Can just anybody be a journalist these days?

Hmmm.

President Donald Trump stepped up attacks on his handpicked Federal Reserve chairman on Wednesday, claiming Jerome Powell has “low IQ” and suggested that he has narrowed down the list of potential replacements to three or four people.

“He’s an average mentally person…Low IQ for what he does,” Trump said of Powell during remarks at a press conference at the NATO summit in the Netherlands Wednesday. “I think he’s a very stupid person, actually.”

But…sir…you…you yourself are…

Oh never mind.

What’s this what’s this?

EHRC commissioner calls for ‘period of correction’ on trans rights after legal ruling

Transgender people must acknowledge a “period of correction” of rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.

Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights”.

Sums it up, doesn’t it. All these magical “rights” to be endorsed and validated and embraced as the sex you are not – they turn out to be 100% bullshit.

We did warn them.

Reindorf, a barrister who is one of eight commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), who was speaking in a personal capacity, said she believes the fault lay with trans lobbyists.

However, the human rights campaign groups Liberty and Amnesty called on the EHRC to make sure the rights of trans people were properly considered when it draws up guidance for public bodies on how to implement the changed legal landscape.

Back to square one. What rights? Trans people have the human rights all humans have; they don’t have new special magical rights that cancel the rights of, for instance, women.

A director of the trans campaign group TransActual said Reindorf’s remarks were profoundly unhelpful.

No you are.

Asked by an audience member about worries the ruling could reduce the rights of trans people, another panellist, the barrister Naomi Cunningham, said trans people “will have to give way”, adding: “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

Reindorf, speaking next, agreed: “Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are. It’s like Naomi said – I just can’t say it in a more diplomatic way than that. They have been lied to, and there has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights.”

Real rights, as opposed to the pretend kind.

Chiara Capraro, head of gender justice at Amnesty International UK, said: “The EHRC has the duty to uphold the rights of everyone, including all with protected characteristics. We are concerned that it is failing to do so and is unhelpfully pitting the rights of women and trans people against each other.”

Oh shut up. You’re the ones who are doing that. You’re the ones who insist that men are women if they say they are, and are thus free to grab everything that belongs to women.

Occupy Democrats on Facebook:

Senator Jon Ossoff streamrolls Donald Trump’s slimy OMB Director Russell Vought after he tries to shift blame to Joe Biden during a hearing: “I don’t want to hear about the Biden administration! You’re here on behalf of the Trump administration.”

Finally, someone shut down the MAGA blame game…

“You guys are making mistakes and I want to focus on the mistakes that you’re making at the CDC. Have you visited the CDC Mr. Vought by chance?” asked Ossoff.

“I have not,” admitted Vought, who was testifying on behalf of the Office of Management and Budget about Donald Trump’s disastrous proposed cuts to federal funding.

“It is the flagship epidemiological and public health agency for the country and is indeed for the world, as you know,” said the senator.

“That even the Biden administration felt the need to reform,” interjected Vought, eager to hit his talking points for Trump.

“You have now fired or tried to fire nearly a quarter of their workforce, correct?” asked Ossoff.

“Senator are you suggesting the CDC performed well in the last pandemic?” asked Vought.

The suggestion that possible shortcomings on the part of the CDC during the coronavirus outbreak justify slashing its funding is absurd. All that such cuts would accomplish is ensuring that the next pandemic is even worse.

“I asked you whether you have fired or tried to fire a quarter of the CDC workforce,” said Ossoff.

“I can’t answer the question because I don’t have the facts in front of me. That’s the CDC Director’s information to give you,” said Vought.

“Well, you have,” said Ossoff. “You have fired or tried to fire nearly a quarter of the CDC workforce and your budget request for FY26 would cut the CDC budget in more than half, correct?”

“The Center for Disease Control was in—”

“No, answer the question!” said Ossoff.

“They were incompetent last pandemic,” said Vought.

“Answer the question Mr. Vought,” pressed the senator. “Does your budget request seek to cut by more than half the CDC budget?”

“We certainly seek to cut and reduce the CDC,” said Vought. “The extent to which—”

“Listen Mr. Vought, you need to come to Georgia and visit the CDC,” said Ossoff.

“Happy to.”

“Good. We’ll make that happen because you are destroying this institution and whatever criticism you have about their past performance, they are essential to public health and epidemiological defense in the United States,” said Ossoff.

“You’re crushing morale. You’re crushing capability,” he continued. “And you’re destroying my constituents’ lives and I am grateful for the commitment you’ve made to come to Georgia and visit the CDC and sit down with those employees. Thank you.”

“The Biden administration proposed reforms—” began Vought.

“I don’t want to hear about the Biden administration!” Ossoff shot back. “You’re here on behalf of the Trump administration.”

To that, Vought had no response.

Spot the problem.

Just one paragraph from the Everyday cancellation article:

A criticism of SEEN in Publishing, a sex equality and equity network for publishing professionals, was that its organisers chose to remain anonymous, but reactions from the industry – including naming it a “vile TERF publishing group” (commissioning editor) and a “nasty, anonymous, hate-filled little network” (editor), and telling its members to “get fucked” (publisher) – show why it has been necessary for them to do so. “I was really scared,” said a representative of SEEN in Publishing of her decision not to reveal her identity. She pointed out that most of the abuse directed online at the network had been sent from social-media accounts that were linked to their employers in the publishing industry. It is striking that calling people disgusting, nasty bigots can be done in full daylight, while joining a network that believes in the material reality of sex requires secrecy to protect those joining it from the perpetrators of this open abuse.

Astonishing, isn’t it? Women who don’t believe in magic gender are forcibly silenced, while people who call those women horrible names are flattered and assisted and welcomed to throw verbal shit at those silenced women.

Sex Matters has a new report on Everyday cancellation in publishing.

This research investigates the working environment for authors, agents and publishing staff who believe that sex is binary and immutable, and that it matters in life and law. It was commissioned to investigate widespread but anecdotal reports that publishing has become a hostile environment for people who hold gender-critical beliefs.

That’s an important thing to investigate. Publishing, like universities, journalism, social media, conversation, is how we learn about things: how we learn truths and also falsehoods. We all rely on these institutions and pastimes to get things right, so that we can get them right ourselves, and not fuck everything up by getting them badly horrifyingly wrong. You see what I mean? We want publishing to aim for accuracy and truth, as opposed to systematically and coercively lying to us.

Abuse of those with gender-critical views in publishing has been relentless. People – usually women – have received death and rape threats. Others in the industry have threatened them with reputational damage and loss of work, have used slurs and insults against them, and conflated their views with transphobia, homophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry. Gender-critical individuals working in publishing have been accused of wanting the deaths of trans-identifying teenagers and working towards genocide. There have been industry calls for those with gender-critical beliefs to be demonised, and they have been labelled as fascists for thinking that there are two sexes.

In 2020, the former children’s author Gillian Philip added the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to her Twitter (now X) profile. She was then subjected to an extreme 24-hour social-media pile-on that included death threats. Philip’s contract was immediately terminated by her publisher with the tacit support of her agent.

Is that Stalinist enough yet?

Journalists on BBC Radio 4’s flagship women’s-affairs programme Woman’s Hour have not interviewed best-selling gender-critical authors about their books, despite the issues they cover being so relevant to women. By contrast male gender-studies academic Grace Lavery has been interviewed, despite selling only 1,723 copies of Please Miss – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis. So has Juno Dawson, a male transactivist who also identifies as a woman. Dawson has depicted womanhood as a submissive sexual identity: “I knew I wanted to be ‘the woman’ when it came to sex… It was a conscious urge to get fucked, be penetrated as a woman would be.” It is surprising that somebody with such a perspective, which arguably undermines the position of women in society, has been platformed on a programme about women instead of authors who argue for women’s rights.

Especially when that programme is not on a commercial channel but rather the BBC.

To be continued

Make America Sick Again.

The new members of US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s panel of vaccine advisers will review long-approved immunisation schedules for children and teens. The seven members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (Acip) met for the first time on Wednesday, weeks after Kennedy ousted all 17 of their predecessors.

The Acip recommends who should be vaccinated and when these immunisations should occur to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Ahead of the meeting, public health experts and politicians raised concerns about the qualifications of the new members – several of whom are vaccine critics.

Who the hell wants immunity from dangerous diseases anyway? Getting extremely sick builds character. Dying builds character x 11.

The health secretary sparked uproar when he removed all of Acip’s members on 9 June, and then hand-picked eight new members to serve on the panel – including one who dropped out hours before the first meeting.

You can see why that would stir uproar. The health secretary has no medical education or training. The health secretary is an ignorant conceited meddler who should be nowhere near any medical job of any kind whatsoever. The health secretary is a rank amateur who would be a failing insurance marketer if his name were not Kennedy.

Wednesday’s meeting began with the new chair Dr Martin Kulldorff telling the panel that he was fired from his job as a professor at Harvard University because he refused to get a Covid-19 vaccine.

Dr Kulldorff also announced the panel would launch new working groups to examine child vaccination schedules and vaccines that were approved seven or more years ago.

It’s just so much fun to be all rebellious and contrarian and shit, because you get to put the health of millions of people at risk. Oh boy, Ma, let me at it!

On Thursday, the group is scheduled to hear a presentation on the use of thimerosal in vaccines given by Lyn Redwood, a former leader of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group Kennedy used to run. Ms Redwood has been hired by the CDC to work in its vaccine safety office, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

The decision for the panel to discuss thimerosal – a mercury-based preservative that has not been used in most vaccines for decades – was perplexing, Prof Hanage said. In the past, he added, Acip’s members had a wide range of vaccine expertise and would scrutinise vaccine recommendations for months. This time, Kennedy chose a panel of “people that are like him – people in the past who have shown an anti-vaccine bias”, said Dr Paul Offit, a former Acip member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Cranks and quacks, in short. Way to make Murka great again.

Nailed it.