Yes why do these silly people get so angry about the tank driven through women’s rights, the children and teenagers with ruined bodies, the fanatical belief in a nonsensical creed, the endless ferocious bullying – what is there that’s even slightly annoying about any of that? Who can possibly figure it out?

Peak majority/minority who is the most minorityized confusion achieved.

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled in favor of a straight woman who twice lost positions to gay workers, saying an appeals court had been wrong to require her to meet a heightened burden in seeking to prove workplace discrimination because she was a member of a majority group.

Because what? Because she was a member of what?

News flash: women are not the dominant aka preferred aka privileged sex. Women are the sex seen as weak and stupid and not as good as the alternative sex. It’s not about majority or minority, it’s about being perceived as inferior. The two are not the same, and people in a “majority” can be perceived as inferior. Slaves were very often the majority on plantations, but that didn’t make them more powerful or privileged or rewarded, now did it.

The decision came two years after the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs in higher education and amid the Trump administration’s fierce efforts to root out programs that promote diversity and could make it easier for white people, men and other members of majority groups to pursue claims of employment discrimination.

What mean “other members of majority groups”? Men aren’t members of majority groups, men are roughly half. The power differential between women and men isn’t about more v fewer, it’s about which sex can punch harder. It’s also about a lot more than that – who gestates, for a start – but my point is that the issue here is that journalism should stop using “majority” as a synonym for “dominant” or similar. It just confuses things.

Ms. Ames sued under a federal civil rights law that forbids employment discrimination based on, among other characteristics, sex. (The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination for purposes of the civil rights law.)

The text of the law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, does not draw distinctions based on whether the person claiming discrimination is a member of a majority group. But some courts have required plaintiffs from majority groups to prove an additional element if they lack direct evidence of discrimination: “background circumstances that support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”

But it’s not unusual. It’s not unusual for employers to discriminate against women. “Majority” is not what you mean here! If even Supreme Court rulings can’t get it right what hope is there? And it’s not just a picky word-freak item, either, because it obviously matters. It seems to be the very subject of the ruling, and yet nobody can say so.

Lower courts ruled against Ms. Ames on those grounds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, said she could have satisfied the “background circumstances” requirement by showing that decisions about her employment were made by “a member of the relevant minority group (here, gay people)” or with statistical evidence. But the appeals court said Ms. Ames had provided neither kind of proof.

So it has to be a literal minority group in this one case? So which sex is the minority sex? Please inform.

Wait who did the tampering?

Dang. That’s so the opposite of an accurate definition. It’s like saying flying is crawling through mud, or a daffodil is a mound of bear shit, or India Willoughby is thoughtful and reasonable.

Rules about where the different sexes go to pee are human inventions, and thus the very opposite of instinctive.

Oddly enough, this also applies to the word “Ladies.” It also applies to the women’s section in the shop.

I suppose she means automatically, or without having to think about it, as a result of habit. But that’s not the same thing. At all.

She’s really not sharp, is she.

No reason. Just because.

Does the BBC hire its reporters from kindergartens these days?

National Trust covers artwork referencing JK Rowling after tampering

[Too many ings for one headline, Beeb. Clumsy. Work on your aesthetics.]

The National Trust has covered up a piece of art featuring the name of author JK Rowling, after it was tampered with by a member of the public.

Between April and November 2024 visitors to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire were invited to stitch names of women they felt should be celebrated on to a textile display called Virtuous Woman. During this time, a participant stitched over the Harry Potter author’s name. Last week, this covering was removed by feminist campaigner Jean Hatchet.

So here’s the problem: which “tampered with” are you talking about?

I guess we have to come down on the side of the removal. Note the language. The person who stitched over JKR’s name is “a participant” while Jean Hatchet is “feminist campaigner” – so we’re nudged to conclude that the stitching over was all part of the fun while undoing the stitching over was disgusting feminist campaigning.

But what about the “participant” who stitched in Rowling in the first place? Why is it participation to cross that out but naughty feminism to restore it?

The National Trust, who manage the property, said: “The artwork was open to contributions for eight months and closed in November when the piece was finished and put on public display.”

“We ask visitors not to tamper with any art on display,” they added. “The piece has been taken off display while we investigate the damage caused and consider next steps.”

The damage caused ffs. What about the damage caused by the stitching over in the first place?

The snide little piece ends with the snide remark that JKR declined to comment.

The man “Lilly” Tino has been filming himself in women’s toilets, sometimes including actual women in his filming without visibly asking their permission.

Helen Webberley aka Gender GP lets us know how profoundly confused (aka stupid) she is. Just in case we didn’t already know.

Every time this topic comes up, the conversation sounds painfully familiar. We hear people saying that it’s not fair for trans women to compete in women’s sport. That’s the sentence that gets all the airtime, but what’s missing from that conversation is just as important, if not more so.

We almost never hear people ask whether it’s fair for cis men to compete against trans men. 

Yes she actually typed that, and hasn’t yet deleted it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Mental health hospitals responsible for violent criminals have policies which allow biologically male patients to “self identify” as women, an audit has revealed.

Campaigners warned that NHS trusts are “playing Russian roulette with women’s safety” by placing transgender women — who were born male — on female wards.

Why don’t NHS trusts know that without being told? How is it not blindingly obvious?

In some cases, hospitals acknowledged that some trans patients may pose a “risk to a particular gender” or be “sexually disinhibited” and “very distressing for other patients on a single-sex ward”.

Lying obfuscating sneaky toads. They mean male patients obviously pose a risk to women. How dare they lie about it and obfuscate it with burble about “a particular gender” and “other patients”?

The lying and obfuscation make it entirely clear that they know what the problem is and are carefully trying to hide it. It’s not that they don’t realize males are a danger to females, it’s that they’re lying about it. For what? For the glorious cause of letting violent men have access to helpless confined women.

One trust, South West London and St George’s, suggested that it may sometimes be appropriate to put forensic trans patients on a ward in line with their biological sex “while they are acutely unwell” due to being a possible “risk to a particular gender”. The policy document added: “Once they have recovered and have regained capacity it would be essential to reassess the risk … and if safe and appropriate, to arrange a move to a ward in accordance with their correct gender.”

Sometimes? It only “sometimes” “might be” “appropriate” to put male criminals in a male ward? It’s always absolutely imperative to put male criminals in a male ward.

As Helen Joyce put it:

“These NHS trusts are missing the point: no male patient should ever be allowed in female accommodation under any circumstances. If health care managers cannot understand why this matters so much in mental health services, then they are not fit to run NHS trusts or to have female patients in their care.”

The NHS says it’s thinking about it, sort of, maybe.

I missed this a couple of weeks ago: Arty Morty started a post on his blog with a lavish torrent of compliments about this very place including yous guys. Skipping the first couple of sentences, I’ll share the part that’s about the whole thing, i.e. yous guys.

In case you haven’t noticed by now, Benson’s blog, Butterflies and Wheels, is my go-to salon — a digital Algonquin Round Table where clever commentary and thoughtful debate reflect the values of liberalism, feminism, humanism, and rational inquiry. For more than a decade, it’s been the first site I check in the morning and the last at night, a daily ritual marked by an embarrassing number of midday refreshes — which tells you everything you need to know about what this intellectual gathering place means to me.

(It has early gender critical cred, too: the late Magdalen Berns was a guest author there in 2016!)

Y’all are a digital Algonquin Round Table. I love that.

Bromance over.

Elon Musk on Tuesday tore into the massive tax-and-spending-cut bill backed by President Donald Trump, calling it a “disgusting abomination” that will explode federal budget deficits.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media site X.

Is he though? Is he sorry?

“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” added the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.

“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

I can think of some things Musk did wrong – like taking an axe to USAID for instance.

The White House quickly shrugged off the criticism from Musk, a vocal Trump supporter who spent over $250 million backing Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

“Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said when asked about the post. “It doesn’t change the President’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,” she said.

Yep. Just keep repeating “one big, beautiful bill” and reality will fall into line.

Goddam Guardian:

Advocates for pregnant people said they are alarmed by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s unprecedented and unilateral decision to remove Covid-19 booster shots from the recommended immunization schedule.

WOMEN. Women women women. Pregnant women. No men get pregnant. “Women” is not a dirty word: use it. Erasing women is peak misogyny.

A vaccine’s inclusion on the schedule is important for patient access, because many private health insurance plans determine which vaccines to cover based on the schedule.

Bad Kennedy is happy to endanger pregnant women for the sake of his crank suspicions.

“Kennedy’s unilateral decision to change the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule for Covid-19 vaccines demonstrates once again why he is completely unqualified to be the HHS secretary,” said Dr Robert Steinbrook, research director at consumer rights group Public Citizen, said in a statement. “In Congressional testimony on May 14, Kennedy said, ‘I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.’ Yet two weeks later he is making arbitrary public health decisions, defying norms, and with no accountability.”

He’s a very bad man. Egotism that kills is very bad indeed.

Meanwhile the Guardian is adamant about erasing women.

Despite the known risks of contracting Covid-19 while pregnant, public health authorities have struggled to get pregnant people vaccinated. CDC data shows only about 14% of pregnant people received the most recently updated Covid-19 vaccine.

“Women” is not a dirty word.

Why?

The president of World Boxing has apologized after Olympic champion Imane Khelif was singled out in the governing body’s announcement to make sex testing mandatory.

Algerian boxer Khelif, who won gold at the Paris Games last summer amid scrutiny over her eligibility, was specifically mentioned when World Boxing released its new policy last Friday.

And? What’s the problem? He’s not shy, and he beat up a woman, and he cheated. I don’t think he’s an innocent victim here.

On Monday, its president Boris van der Vorst contacted the Algerian Boxing Federation to acknowledge that was wrong.

“I am writing to you all personally to offer a formal and sincere apology for this and acknowledge that her privacy should have been protected,” he wrote in a letter seen by The Associated Press.

Why? The Olympics are not private. Also why “her”? Why not “Khelif’s” if you’re not willing to say “his”?

We have to fight over every inch. It’s so tedious.

Sports Illustrated:

Just days after World Boxing declared that female boxers must complete a mandatory gender test in order to compete, directly challenging controversial Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif’s status in the amateur boxing arena, a new bombshell report has now shed light on the Algerian boxers true gender.

In an article published yesterday (June 1) by Alan Abrahamson of 3 Wire Sports, the leaked medical records from Khelif’s tests carried out in 2022 and 2023 ahead of the Paris Olympics have now been made public.

“Unless someone manipulates the evidence, the result is going to be crystal clear, déjà vu all over again, because in chromosome tests given amid the International Boxing Association’s 2022 and 2023 world championships, the boxer’s DNA showed XY markers with “male” karyotypes,” Abrahamson wrote.

Abrahamson would go on to note that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) knew this, but still allowed Khelif to compete. 

…

Khelif has yet to issue a statement on the report, but her status in both amateur and professional boxing is potentially in jeopardy now more than ever.

So stop saying “her status” already.

Get the experts in. You’re going to talk about a man who pretends to be a woman? Bring in a man who pretends to be a woman to discuss it. Let everyone see how batshit crazy the ideology is.

I do recommend playing the clip – it’s a treat to hear “Joanne” speaking.

How can UN Women do anything about this when it doesn’t even know what women are?

But who are men? Who are women? Who is doing what to which? Do we even know? Is there any way we can tell?

Also, whoever wrote that doesn’t know what “purposefully” means. It’s not a synonym for “purposely” or “on purpose.”

Oh good, another ten minutes hate.

Pop star Jade Thirlwall has led a crowd of thousands in an anti-J.K. Rowling chant during a music festival known for celebrating LGBTQ+ culture.

While performing on the Main Stage at Mighty Hoopla in London Saturday evening, Thirlwall ignited the crowd when she chanted “transphobes” and the crowd responded: “Fuck you!”

She then changed the prompt to “J.K. Rowling” to which the crowd responded with another enthusiastic “Fuck you!”

Great. Brilliant. Woman incites crowd to scream hatred toward a woman for the crime of knowing and saying that men are not women. What pleasant times we live in.

Rowling, author of the acclaimed Harry Potter series, has come under intense scrutiny during the last few years for her comments about women and transgender rights.

Listen, Indy: crowds screaming “fuck you!” is not “intense scrutiny”. It’s not any kind of scrutiny, it’s mindless hatred of a kind that can incite violence.

The author, 59, first made controversial comments about the transgender community in December 2019. Since then, she has published and retweeted numerous posts containing hateful rhetoric toward the trans and non-binary communities.

Liars. It’s not “hateful rhetoric” to say that men are not women. I’ll tell you what “hateful rhetoric” is: it’s shouting a woman’s name to get the response “fuck you!”

Rowling has denied being transphobic, but has previously stated that she would “happily” go to prison for misgendering a trans person rather than refer to them by their preferred pronouns.

That’s not “phobic.” It’s not hatred to decline to refer to a man as “she”. Furthermore, it’s not ok to order women to call men “women” so how about focusing on that instead?

She’s even gone so far as to dismiss concerns that her views on transgender people will damage her legacy. When asked in 2023 by interviewer Megan Phelps-Roper about her legacy in the podcast titled The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author said she doesn’t think about it.

Gone so far as? How is that any kind of going far? Why shouldn’t she dismiss such pompous “concerns” that she doesn’t share and are none of anyone else’s business?

Whoever wrote this drivel is not very good at the job.

“I think you could not have misunderstood me more profoundly. I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy, what a pompous way to live your life thinking about what my legacy will be. Whatever! I’ll be dead, I care about now, the living.”

Well said – yet Indy dimwit considers it going so far.

I can remember when it was an ok news outlet.

But what if it’s true?

British courts have been accused of reviving blasphemy laws after a man who set fire to a copy of the Koran was convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence.

Hamit Coskun shouted “fuck Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism” while holding the religious text above his head during a protest on Feb 13. The 50-year-old, who was violently attacked by a passerby during the demonstration in London, went on trial last week, accused of an offence under the Public Order Act.

At Westminster magistrates’ court on Monday, he was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence of using disorderly conduct, which was motivated “in part by hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam”.

But if an ideology is a really bad, hostile to humans, especially hostile to women and “infidels” and Jews, punitive, coercive ideology, then “hostility” to its members is pretty much inevitable, isn’t it? Face it: it’s a profoundly hostile religion.

Robert Jenrick, shadow justice secretary, said: “This decision is wrong. It revives a blasphemy law that parliament repealed. Free speech is under threat. I have no confidence in Two-Tier Keir to defend the rights of the public to criticise all religions.”

The public doesn’t have the right to say men are not women, so we can’t expect it to have the right to say Islam is a nightmare.

The CPS said that Coskun was not being prosecuted for burning the book. They argued it was the combination of his derogatory remarks about Islam and the fact that it was done in public that made it an offence.

Making derogatory remarks about a religion should never ever be an offence aka a punishable crime.

The CPS originally charged Coskun, who is an atheist, with harassing the “religious institution of Islam”. However, the charge was later amended after free speech campaigners took up his cause and argued he was essentially being accused of blasphemy.

Harassing Islam ffs! Harassing the religious institution that is Islam! That’s not even a thing!

However, the charge was later amended after free speech campaigners took up his cause and argued he was essentially being accused of blasphemy.

Because he was.

Katy Thorne KC, Coskun’s barrister, had argued that even the amended charges against him effectively criminalised any public burning of a religious book and were tantamount to blasphemy laws. “It is effectively chilling the right of citizens to criticise religion,” she said.

She said Coskun’s actions were not motivated by hostility towards the followers of Islam but to the religion itself. Judge McGarva, however, said he did not accept that argument.

Addressing Coskun, he said: “You believe Islam is an ideology which encourages its followers to violent paedophilia and a disregard for the rights of non-believers. You don’t distinguish between the two. I find you have a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers. That is based on your experiences in Turkey and the experiences of your family.”

Ok let’s talk about that. How does one distinguish between the two? If there is a set of beliefs, an ideology, that includes a lot of harsh rules and restrictions and punishments, and that treats women and unbelievers as evil and thus deserving of death by torture, how is it possible not to feel at least wary about the adherents to that belief? There are liberal reformist Muslims who really do reject the harsh rules and punishments, but still, when an ideology is as warped and murderous as Islam is, it’s difficult to make the distinction. It could be that that’s Islam’s fault as opposed to the fault of infidels.

The National Secular Society (NSS), which, alongside the Free Speech Union, paid for Coskun’s legal fees, said the verdict “jeopardises” free expression.

A spokesperson for the FSU said: “This is deeply disappointing. Everyone should be able to exercise their rights to protest peacefully and to freedom of expression, regardless of how offensive or upsetting it may be to some people.

“The Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society intend to appeal this verdict and keep on appealing it until it’s overturned. If that means taking it all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, we will do so.”

Good. Now do “men are not women.”

Lying pronouns are the tool that confuses the issue. BBC Sport:

Billie Sky has just helped her team to promotion but now she cannot play for them again.

She is one of 28 transgender women registered with the Football Association to play amateur football in England who are banned from playing FA-affiliated women’s football.

That is, he’s a man, therefore the BBC is deliberately lying to its readers by calling him “she”. And the BBC is very determined about it.

The ruling has forced Billie Sky to stop playing competitive 11-a-side football for one of her teams, London Galaxy. She will still be able to play informally for her other – Goal Diggers FC – as the club has withdrawn from all FA-affiliated leagues in response to the new policy.

“I just took part in a season with London Galaxy and helped them earn promotion,” she told BBC Sport. “Now I can’t play with them, which is really sad. I put a lot of commitment into that club. What am I supposed to do? Go and play with the men? Because I don’t feel safe playing there. And all of my team-mates want me here.”

Uh, Billie? Does it occur to you that women don’t feel safe playing against you? Does it occur to you to wonder why your safety should matter while theirs should not? Does it occur to you that even your teammates may not feel safe with you on the team?

BBC Sport approached a number of grassroots footballers who support the ban. Most did not want to go on record with their opinions because of a fear of reprisals, but one footballer, who plays in the sixth tier of the women’s game, was willing to speak anonymously.

Aha, so the BBC is aware that women have been bullied into silence on this subject. The BBC is aware but continues with the bullying anyway.

Georgie (not her real name) believes the FA’s new policy “protects the integrity of women’s football that we have fought for so long to attain”.

The issues around the policy have been described by the FA as a “complex subject” and wider debates have centred on inclusion, sporting fairness and safety in women’s sport.

Says the BBC briskly, then returns to paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of what the man Billie thinks and feels and wants and whines about.

When avid football fan Billie Sky first transitioned, she had given up on the idea of sport, but that changed when she was encouraged to join Goal Diggers FC, an inclusive club based in London.

“I think I had the first moments of my life where I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I’m trans or different or weird or something. I just felt like another person here,” she said.

Nice for him, not so nice for her and her and her…

For the trans communniny? Maudlin hair-tearing anguish and apology. For women? Instant surrender of their rights and crawling self-abasement for attempting to act as if they had any.

Oh no oh no oh no they tried to have a sauna session for women, got caught treating women as people with rights, and all but pulled their own heads off in their anguished remorse. What kind of horrible brutal person treats women as if they have rights??????

Of course it wasn’t “cis-only”; it was women-only. If it were cis-only it would be about men as well as women, and that would never do. It’s women who have to be punished and bullied and beaten down into the ground until they finally shut up for good. Men are just kindly bumbling sweeties who never commit crimes against the trans communniny, so there is never any need to hold them up for public insult and abuse. It’s women who are the rot in the cheesecake, the worm in the soup, the turd in the punch bowl. The project to punish women until they stop continues.