It seems that if a woman “identifies as” a gay man then that’s what she is. Simples.

Who is Chiyo? I had to look it up. The BBC last August:

Being judged on his masculinity is something Chiyo feels every time he steps outside the front door.

Chiyo is transgender and, in April next year, he’ll be standing on stage with a group of other men – who aren’t trans – to be judged in what is ultimately a male beauty contest.

He’s a finalist in the (coronavirus-delayed) Mr Gay England 2020.

In other words Chiyo is a woman, who next month will be standing on stage with a group of other actual men to be judged in a male beauty contest.

But no no how very dare we? Chiyo is “living his life as a gay man” therefore he is one. Only, how would anyone even know that? What does it mean? It’s not as if there’s an Inspectorate sending inspectors out to do surprise checks. Chiyo could be lounging around the house in girl-mode, as Eddie Izzard so obnoxiously calls it, and no one would be the wiser. “Living one’s life as” is just obfuscatory-speak for playing Let’s Pretend. It doesn’t transform you into what you’re pretending to be except in your own head, as an imaginative game or mind-expansion or whatever you want to call it. It’s fine to pretend; it’s not fine to force other people to say you are what you’re pretending to be, much less to punish them for refusing.

The gay man bullied by the Mr Gay England Twitt has deleted his account.

Graham Linehan boosts the message of a woman currently suspended by His Majesty the Twitter:

Trade unions are trade unions. What makes them think it’s their job to force women to call men “women” if the men demand it?

Hubble’s response:

No, I wouldn’t like to talk about it. I have not said one thing that is transphobic (which has become a meaningless word as it is used so often). I proudly stand for the rights of women and the single-sex exemptions that are enshrined in equality law, and if that is considered transphobic then the problem is with the definition not with my stance.

I believe in biological reality and do not subscribe to the notion of gender identity especially when it damages women and girls – the oppression of women is based on biology not gender identity and this movement is seeking to remove not only every protection women and girls have but to redefine what it means to be female.

The left is eating itself with identity politics and it pains me to witness it. Centuries of oppression and fighting to even be recognised as deserving of equality have been eroded in just a few years. Ask yourself this question, is it OK for me to identify as black because I feel black and I listen to Bob Malrley? Would it be fine for me to then claim to be more oppressed than those who don’t get to choose the colour of their skin? Is it OK for a person to claim to be disabled because they “feel disabled” and claim all the protections and systems put in place to allow disabled people to be equal within society? If the answer to those questions is no (rightly so) then why is it OK for a man to claim womanhood based on how he feels and what he wears?

Exactly what I keep wondering. For literally years I’ve been wondering it…and I’m not the only one.

Women and girls cannot identify out of their oppression in the same way that black and disabled people cannot identify out of theirs. I would never and will never discriminate against anyone nor would I treat anyone any differently based on their identity, in fact I have campaigned for LGBT rights and will continue to do so. I have been a left wing trade unionist and feminist my whole life and I will not apologise for my belief that a person who is born male cannot magically change sex and become more oppressed than females. I don’t think you or any man (no disrespect) can understand how upsetting it is to see so many left wing men, who have spent the past 5 years telling women like myself, to shut up, sit down, don’t talk, and calling them bigots, transphobes and TERFs for standing for their rights, suddenly “stand in solidarity with women and girls” because it is the latest cause celebre. The hypocrisy is mind-blowing and the intellectual disconnect involved in this is staggering.

Read on.

They’re building those things too damn big.

Over the past decade, out of the sight of most consumers, the world’s container ships have been quietly ballooning in size. A class of vessels that carried a maximum of about 5,000 shipping containers in 2000 has doubled in size every few years since, with dozens of megaships now traversing the ocean laden with upwards of 20,000 boxes.

The ocean can deal with it; canals, not so much.

The ships’ rapid growth has outstripped the capacity of marine infrastructure to follow. The Panama canal was expanded at a cost of more than $5bn (£3.6bn) more than a decade ago to meet the size of new container ships – only to be left behind as even larger vessels rolled out of Asian shipyards.

…

The Suez canal has been in the process of expansion to allow for larger ships and two-way traffic at its northern end. But its southern side was still one-way and narrower: vulnerable when one of the largest container ships in the world tried to pass through on a windy morning.

Sometimes economies of scale aren’t.

Updating to add:

Ted Cruz tries to go all Apocalypse Now and everybody just laughs at him.

In the style of a wildlife documentary, Cruz captured his experience with the help of professional photographers and shared his recent journey to the US-Mexico border Thursday night on social media, where he aimed to shed light on what Republicans have dubbed a crisis.

Sporting a dark green fishing shirt and matching baseball cap with the Texas flag, Cruz spoke at a press conference where he sought to paint a dramatic picture of his experience: “On the other side of the river we have been listening to and seeing cartel members – human traffickers – right on the other side of the river waving flashlights, yelling and taunting Americans, taunting the border patrol.”

Despite his claims that the border situation is a direct result of the Biden administration’s immigration policies, residents in the Rio Grande Valley have said no such crisis exists. In fact, the number of border crossings under the Biden administration largely mirror those under the former Trump administration.

Oh now cut that out, it’s a great big sweaty emergency and Cruz is a HERO for going down there to look at it.

After claiming he ran into heckling cartel members and saw a dead body floating in the Rio Grande, Cruz was derided by many, including former congressman Beto O’Rourke who said: “You’re in a border patrol boat armed with machine guns. The only threat you face is unarmed children and families who are seeking asylum (as well as the occasional heckler).”

And crocodiles! Sharks! Killer whales that jump and bite!

A Saturday soppy. Abandoned dog keeps returning to a store to try to take possession of a purple plush unicorn.

The business in Kenansville, North Carolina, called animal control on Sisu, a large male stray dog, because of his repeated thievery. He had come to the store five times to steal the same stuffed unicorn.

However, instead of being left empty-handed, the Duplin County Animal Control officer who went to pick him up ended up buying the toy for Sisu instead.

And Duplin County Animal Control advertised him on Facebook.

This is what happens when you break into the dollar general consistently to steal the purple unicorn that you layed claim to but then get animal control called to lock you up for your B & E and larceny but the officer purchases your item for you and brings it in with you.

Sisu

Male

Stray

1 yrs old

67.1 lbs

He’s been adopted.

Another first for a…man.

LGBT rights advocate Martine Delaney has become the first Tasmanian transgender woman to be recognised on the Honour Roll of Women — an award given to those who have made an “outstanding contribution” to the state.

That is, the first man to be recognised on the Honour Roll of Women. Much honour, very scruple.

Ms Delaney said it was “humbling” to have been recognised.

Not humbling enough, since he accepted. That’s an award that should have gone to a woman. There’s a woman who missed out because of him.

“It’s not been something that transgender women in Tasmania have been nominated or inducted into previously,” she said.

Naturally not, because they’re men.

One of the campaigns she is best known for is her fight to make the inclusion of gender optional on Tasmanian birth certificates — a “battle” she took on in 2004 and that became legislation in 2019.

And that’s a good thing why exactly?

“Tasmania has possibly the world’s most progressive and inclusive birth certificate legislation. You’re not going to find anything better anywhere else on the planet.”

What’s that even supposed to mean? Birth certificates aren’t clubs or universities or secret societies. How can they be progressive or inclusive? You might as well say they dance well or they make a mean paella.

It’s ok, the asteroid won’t hit for at least a century. Of course if you have descendants you might be worried for their descendants, but…sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, I guess.

Earthlings can breathe a sigh of relief after US space agency Nasa confirmed the planet was “safe” from a once-feared asteroid for the next 100 years at least.

…

“A 2068 impact is not in the realm of possibility any more, and our calculations don’t show any impact risk for at least the next 100 years,” Davide Farnocchia, a scientist who studies near-Earth objects for Nasa, said in a statement on Friday.

It waved from a distance recently.

The asteroid recently made a distant flyby of Earth on 5 March, passing within 17 million km (10 million miles) of the planet.

Astronomers were able to use radar observations to refine their estimate of the asteroid’s orbit around the Sun, allowing them to confidently rule out any impact risk in 2068 and long after.

You can take that one off the list for now.

This is just straight up a lie.

Of course he didn’t.

CNN reports:

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a transgender sports bill into law Friday requiring students to prove their sex at birth in order to play in middle and high school sports.

The bill states that “a student’s gender for purposes of participation in a public middle school or high school interscholastic athletic activity or event be determined by the student’s sex at the time of the student’s birth, as indicated on the student’s original birth certificate.”

Students must show proof of their sex at the time of birth if their birth certificate does not appear to be the original or does not indicate the student’s sex at the time of birth. This does not apply to students in kindergarten through 4th grade, the Tennessee bill says.

Before puberty the kids can play where they want. Why would that be? Because at puberty boys gain a lot of physical advantages over girls, which make it grossly unfair for boys to play on girls’ teams because they say they identify as girls. It’s pretty simple. The ACLU is just lying about the bill.