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.

The opposition.

Oh gee will you look at that.

Kind of conspicuous, isn’t it.

Or as the Telegraph puts it, doctors are revolting.

Doctors who support the Cass Review into children’s trans services are revolting against the British Medical Association (BMA).

Insiders claimed that “ideologues” have infiltrated the union and “silenced” doctors who backed last year’s report by Baroness Cass into the care of children who think they are transgender.

The BMA controversially decided to reject the review during a council meeting, but later backtracked to a “neutral” stance after receiving a barrage of complaints from members.

What, doctors complaining about their union’s belief that men can be women? How hoity-toity of them.

It said it would carry out its own evaluation into the Cass Review’s recommendations by the end of 2024, but has yet to publish anything.

Senior BMA members said the additional review was a “waste of time and money” to try and replicate what Lady Cass had spent more than four years working on with a team of experts.

Yebbut they don’t like what Lady Cass and those experts said.

Absolute monster.

The U.S. will no longer contribute funding to Gavi, a global alliance that helps buy vaccines for the world’s poorest children, because it ignores safety, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Wednesday, without providing evidence.

In a video statement seen by Reuters and shown at a Gavi fundraising event in Brussels, Kennedy – a long-time vaccine skeptic – also accused Gavi of making questionable recommendations around COVID-19 vaccines, and raised concerns about the DTPw (diphtheria-tetanus-whole cell pertussis) vaccine.

Gavi said in a statement that safety was key, and that it acts in line with World Health Organization recommendations. It has full confidence in the DTPw vaccine, which has contributed to halving child mortality in the countries it supports since 2000, the statement continued.

Well Kennedy wants it to double.

Kennedy said in the video that he admired much of Gavi’s work, particularly its efforts to make medicines affordable worldwide. “Unfortunately, in its zeal to promote universal vaccination, it has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety,” he added.

No you are.

Several key figures also defended Gavi’s commitment to safety in speeches at the summit, including its board Chair Jose Manuel Barroso and Bill Gates, chair of the Gates Foundation, which is hosting the summit alongside the European Union. “Gavi prioritizes saving lives, and it’s done with incredible scientific rigor,” said Gates. “We’re constantly looking at safety.”

The Trump administration has previously indicated that it planned to cut its funding for Gavi, around $300 million annually, as part of a wider pullback from international aid.

As part of a wider pullback from saving children from death and disability.

Hmmm. Trump on Truth Social:

Stupid AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the “dumbest” people in Congress, is now calling for my Impeachment, despite the fact that the Crooked and Corrupt Democrats have already done that twice before. The reason for her “rantings” is all of the Victories that the U.S.A. has had under the Trump Administration. The Democrats aren’t used to WINNING, and she can’t stand the concept of our Country being successful again. When we examine her Test Scores, we will find out that she is NOT qualified for office but, nevertheless, far more qualified than Crockett, who is a seriously Low IQ individual, or Ilhan Omar, who does nothing but complain about our Country, yet the Failed Country that she comes from doesn’t have a Government, is drenched in Crime and Poverty, and is rated one of the WORST in the World, if it’s even rated at all.

Whew! That last sentence is quite the marathon. And what’s with all the random scare quotes? Not to mention the random caPital letTers.

It’s odd to see someone who writes this way, and talks the same way, calling other people stupid.

I’m reading a long Guardian piece about Harvard and slavery and what to do about that whole massive scar on US history. In doing that I find myself doing what I always do, which is wonder how it worked – how people explained it to themselves, lived with it, understood it, all that. It’s a puzzle. If I’d lived then instead of now I would have done the same thing, so naturally I’m curious how it worked.

Part one is that it’s not all that puzzling that bad working conditions were taken for granted, because that was just a given and had been since forever. It’s the ownership part, the permanent capture part, that sticks out. The enslavement.

As the country’s oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard’s history is inextricable from the history of transatlantic slavery. The enslaved labored in campus buildings, university presidents and professors owned people forced into bondage, and the school’s wealth grew through a circle of donors intimately connected to the plantation system in the Caribbean, the American south and the trafficking of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.

That. University presidents and professors owned people forced into bondage. Not people born to peasants tied to the land, but people forced into bondage. I’m not doing a point and condemn thing; to repeat, I would have done the same had I been in their position; what I’m wondering is what that was like.

There was no long chain of history to lie back on – no “their parents were tied to this estate, as were their parents before them, and so on back to Richard II or William the Conqueror or whatever.” There was only force. Force plus distance. “These people are from Africa, therefore we get to own them.” It’s not a hugely compelling argument.

Maybe it’s the pressure of the normal. “This is normal. It’s been this way for years. Who are we to jump up and change things?”

Samuel Johnson was rude enough to point that out.

This guy…

As well as politicians, desperate for attention and relevance, like JK Rowling and others

Stop right there, Sherlock. JK Rowling is desperate for attention and relevance? Really? Really? You seriously think she’s starved for attention and relevance?

have poisoned the public discourse with attacks on our trans communinny, all under the false dichotomy that you cannot be a true feminist and protect women’s rights without attacking and abusing the trans communinny. A phony culture war which has left trans people fearful just to be themselves.

You mean just to be other people. It’s not “being yourself” to pretend to be something you’re not. It’s the opposite of that. If I say I’m Ben Maguire, North Cornwall Liberal Democrat, I’m not being myself, I’m pretending to be someone else. Pretending to be someone else is the opposite of just being yourself. How is this not blindingly obvious?

The tone of this debate has just been so un-British…

What kind of British? The keep calm and carry on kind from the War years? Or is there some other kind of British that involves telling obvious absurd lies and then pitching fits when nobody believes them?

…much more like the US, where everything is dealt with in extreme absolutes.

Yuh huh. We’re the dummies and you’re the smarties. Mwah, love ya, mean it.

Black n right, right n wrong, no compromise, no respect or compassion for one of the most vunnerable grewps in our society.

So nobody has told him that women are vunnerable? So he doesn’t realize that men can be a threat to women even if they’re heavily made-up and wearing a skirt? He should get out more.

So, she’s been found, dead. I continue to wonder why anyone thinks it’s a good idea to take tourists (as opposed to experienced climbers) on such a dangerous walk.

After a complex rescue operation, teams finally reached her body on Tuesday, her family said in a statement on social media.

That’s another thing. Letting amateurs do dangerous climbs puts rescuers in danger too.

I wonder if she had any idea how dangerous the climb is – I wonder if the people who make money from taking tourists on such strolls pretended it was exciting but totally safe, because they want to make the aforementioned money.

One group member told Brazilian TV that the terrain was slippery, the climb “very hard,” and visibility poor.

And, we can add, there were places where you could just plain fall off, as opposed to rolling down a slope.

On Monday rescuers were able to locate Marins again, who appeared to have had fallen even further, but they had to stop work because of “climate conditions”, according to the family. The search resumed on Tuesday, and rescuers finally reached her body after descending 600m down a ravine, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said in a statement.

However, bad weather has meant they have yet to retrieve her body. Efforts are due to resume early on Wednesday morning.

Ok wait. Why retrieve her body? I don’t mean to be callous, I know people generally want to do a formal disposal, but come on – risking people’s lives to recover a corpse? People already risked their lives trying to save her, so how about leaving it at that.

Michael Deacon at The Telegraph has some questions for Stephen Fry. He wants to know exactly which of JK Rowling’s beliefs about women are “radical” in Fry’s view.

Take, for example, Ms Rowling’s belief that women don’t have testicles. Or her belief that men can’t give birth. Is either of those beliefs radical? Extreme? Wildly at variance with established medical science?

Perhaps he’s thinking of her belief that biological males should not be entitled to enter the female changing room at their local swimming pool and strip naked in front of small girls. Or her belief that confused children should not be pumped with drugs designed to prevent them from going through a normal, healthy puberty. Or her belief that we should not grant a convicted rapist his wish to be placed in a jail full of women merely because he’s suddenly taken to sporting a blonde wig and pink leggings.

In other words is it really JKR who is the “radical” here? Or is it the faction that believes and swears and enforces that yes, some women do have testicles, some men can give birth, some biological males [you can’t say that!!] do get to take their clothes off in front of small girls? You be the judge.

People can be so tiresome.

An 18th Century oil painting has allegedly been damaged after a museum visitor tripped while taking a selfie.

Florence’s Uffizi Gallery said a tourist fell backwards while trying to “make a meme in front” of a portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, by Anton Domenico Gabbiani. The museum explained the damage could be repaired quickly but director Simone Verde warned restrictions on visitor behaviour could be imposed in the future.

If what you want to do is take selfies to impress your friends or social meeja or the unlucky people in your immediate vicinity then do it somewhere other than in front of a unique work of art, mkay?

Earlier this year at Palazzo Maffei, in Verona, a man seemingly slipped and fell on to a bejewelled chair by Italian artist Nicola Bolla. He had been taking photos with a woman, pretending to sit on the chair.

Museum director Vanessa Carlon said: “Sometimes we lose our brains to take a picture, and we don’t think about the consequences. Of course it was an accident, but these two people left without speaking to us – that isn’t an accident.”

Also sometimes we lose our brains because we’re too busy saying Look At Me!! to pay attention to where we are and what we’re doing and what other people might want, such as peace and quiet in a museum or gallery or ancient library.

Some people have a strange idea of fun.

Rescuers in Indonesia are searching for a Brazilian tourist who fell while hiking near the crater of Mount Rinjani, an active volcano.

Like that. Why would people want to hike near the crater of an active volcano?

Brazilian media and the woman’s family have identified her as 26-year-old Juliana Marins, who was hiking with a group when she disappeared around 06:30 local time on Saturday (23:30 GMT Friday).

Brazilian authorities said she fell from “a cliff that surrounds the trail next to the volcano’s crater”. Search and rescue attempts have so far been unsuccessful due to the extreme terrain and foggy weather, according to Indonesian authorities.

I don’t know, I guess I’m just a wimp, but I don’t see the appeal of daring extreme terrain to push you off it.

On Monday rescuers were able to locate Ms Marins again, who appeared to have had fallen even further, but had to stop work because of “climate conditions”, according to the family.

Which seems like a good reason not to hike there in the first place, doesn’t it?

In interviews with Brazilian TV network Globo, two members in Ms Marins’s group described the hike as difficult. One said the climb was “really hard” and “it was so cold, it was really, really tough”.

Another said at the time of the accident Ms Marins was at the back of the group hiking with their guide. “It was really early, before sunrise, in bad visibility conditions with just a simple lantern to light up the terrain which was difficult and slippery,” he said.

It was dark, cold, slippery, difficult.

So…go somewhere not quite so risky?

This guy is enormous, and according to women who have encountered him, extremely intimidating. It’s very easy to believe that, listening to and watching him drone on and on about how poor poor HE was “attacked” i.e. told he doesn’t belong in women’s toilets. He’s huge, he’s confident, he has a deep rumbly voice and he talks slowly and importantly. (If you watch him you will see what I mean.) He’s a massive growly man making a display of himself rebuking and tacitly threatening women, because some women spoke up when he forced himself on women in a women’s toilet. He’s loathsome.

The ridiculous airy confident belief in magic yet again.

“Be what you want,” he says, as if he were 3 and believed in Santa Claus. We can’t just be what we want, because we are what we are. Some things are changeable, but the vast majority are not. We work within narrow limits. We can be more educated or strong or talented by working on it, but we can’t be zebras or cars or apples, no matter how hard we work. That’s neither a shackle nor a prejudice, it’s a reality.

What was that about dumb moments?

Dude thinks the erasure of women causes no harm. Easy for dude to say.

I find news from American Atheists in my email.

As the Board Chair of American Atheists, I’m writing you today with some difficult news: Due to escalating threats to civil liberties, human rights, and international relations under the Trump Administration, the board and staff of American Atheists have withdrawn our organization as host of the 2026 World Humanist Congress, originally scheduled to be held next August in Washington, D.C.

The Board of Directors takes seriously our duty to ensure the safety of our members and the continued ability of American Atheists to carry out its mission. This decision was not made lightly. It comes after a thorough evaluation of our organization’s ability to successfully host and safely execute an event of this magnitude in the coming year, given the new and yet unfolding risks posed by the escalation of religious nationalism and the erosion of human rights in our country. 

In just its first six months, the Trump Administration’s actions — including the deportation of legal immigrants, detentions and refusals of admission to visitors of the United States, and travel restrictions — have created an environment that is not only incompatible with our values but also inhospitable to members of our global secular community.

Already, our nation’s reputation abroad is plummeting. And fueled by fear of being detained, surveilled, or harassed at our borders, so, too, are the number of foreign arrivals. A significant majority of the potential attendees we surveyed expressed apprehension about the political climate and a reluctance or unwillingness to travel to D.C., including U.S. residents and key volunteers. 

Our board and staff are also acutely aware that executive orders retributively targeting private and nonprofit entities the administration views as disloyal to its agenda present an existential threat to American Atheists, our members, and our partner organizations. 

Here’s the sobering truth: Under this administration, it is impossible for American Atheists to guarantee or even make reasonable assurances regarding the admissibility of international guests from key regions of the world, nor is it feasible for us to ensure the security of those who are granted entry to the United States or to mitigate against the still unknown events of the coming year. 

The totality of these circumstances and the reality of this moment is deeply troubling. We are witnessing the dismantling of foundational freedoms and the weaponization of the state to stifle dissent, suppress civil society, and silence voices like ours. The repressive actions of this regime not only obstruct our ability to gather in peace but strike at the very heart of what our community stands for. 

They’re not wrong.

The event has been moved to Ottawa.

It seems we have turned a corner.

BBC bosses have backed a television presenter who corrected the phrase “pregnant people” to “women” while broadcasting live, in what has been welcomed as a rejection of gender-neutral language.

Martine Croxall, 56, was citing a study about protecting vulnerable people in hot weather and, after reading out the report’s phrasing, immediately rolled her eyes and changed the wording to “women”.

“Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, says that the aged, pregnant people … women … and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions,” she said.

I gotta say, it was a very minimal eye roll. It was such a minimal eye roll that it’s hard to distinguish from the ordinary movement eyes do as they read aloud. It was definitely not a showy teenagery “god you’re dumb” eyeroll. Blink and you’ve missed it.

BBC bosses are also understood to have been “intensely relaxed” about the wording amid concerns from some staff that Croxall may have faced disciplinary action.

Well there’s a shift. That’s way bigger than a barely detectable eye roll.

Following Sunday’s broadcast, bosses are understood to have checked in with Croxall in a supportive way. “It’s a real cultural moment,” said one fellow BBC presenter, who said that there is a groundswell of support internally for using “honest language”.

Well hoooooray for that! Too bad it’s taken them a decade, but oh well.

The shift is said to have been underpinned by the Supreme Court ruling in April, which found that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.

Roll on, eyes.

Everything is our fault.

A Florida Republican congresswoman is blaming fearmongering on the left for the reluctance of hospital staff to give her the drugs she needed to end an ectopic pregnancy that threatened her life.

Kat Cammack went to the emergency room in May 2024 where it was estimated she was five weeks into an ectopic pregnancy, there was no heartbeat and her life was at risk. Doctors determined she needed a shot of methotrexate to help expel her pregnancy but since Florida’s six-week abortion ban had just taken effect medical staff were worried about losing their licenses or going to jail if they did.

While Cammack risked losing her life. Remember Savita Halappanavar?

Cammack looked up the state law on her phone to show staff and even attempted to contact the governor’s office. Hours later, doctors eventually agreed to give her the medication.

Good thing she survived those hours.

Abortion rights activists say the law created problems. Florida regulators say ectopic pregnancies are not abortions and are exempt from restrictions, but Molly Duane, with the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Wall Street Journal the law does not define ectopic pregnancy, which can be difficult to diagnose.

Which means that medical staff are always going to be afraid to do what’s necessary.

Cammack, who opposes abortion and co-chairs the House pro-life caucus, told the Wall Street Journal she blames messaging from pro-choice groups for delaying her treatment, which is not banned under Florida’s restrictive statutes, who have created fear of criminal charges.

Oh right. It’s our fault either way. That’s fair.

Florida’s strict abortion ban, which took effect on 1 May 2024, makes abortions illegal after six weeks, when most people are not even aware yet that they are pregnant.

Oh god damn it Guardian can you not drop the dogma for even one article about a woman whose life was at risk thanks to laws she herself endorses? “People” don’t get pregnant; women get pregnant. Men never ever get pregnant.

No of course it can’t: it does it again in the very next paragraph.

After months in which medical staff were concerned that the law’s wording made emergency procedures illegal, the state’s healthcare agency issued official guidance to “address misinformation” on permitting an abortion in instances where the pregnant person’s life and health are in danger.

It’s because they are women that their lives are in danger. You know this.