On Any Questions yesterday, starting at 33:50 minutes, a caller named Arthur asked “What is a woman?”

Jackie Baillie, Labour, starts with “I’m supportive of the Gender Recognition Act,” then says she recognizes “there are women who will identify as being a women based on their sex”

Ok let’s pause there – that’s a “recognize” too many. Women don’t “identify as being women based on their sex.” They just are women. Women are women, based on their sex. Sticking the I-word in there adds nothing but confusion.

She continues “and there are trans people whooo you know may be born as a different gender who will identify as women and I think we should demedicalize the process and enable them to live as they feel they should do.”

So, she doesn’t answer the question.

The presenter says let’s take a step back, we’re talking about a conflict of rights, between people who identify as blah blah blah many words blah, tiny pause, “and women, and Jackie you would expand the rights for trans people…” In other words the important issue is these people who need many words to explain, not those stupid people who are just the one dull word “women.” The hell with women, let’s talk about expanding the rights of the enthralling mesmerizing fascinating exciting men who say they are women.

Next up, Lorna Slater for the Scottish Greens, who announces that it’s not a question asked in good faith, it’s an anti-trans position. Cool, so much for women then, because who cares. The presenter says hang on, you’re assuming Arthur’s motives, that’s not fair. Slater says it’s a dog-whistle question that tries to make it seem as if women’s rights are threatened by trans people which they are not, absolutely no conflict between women’s rights and trans rights, trans women are women. Human rights are human rights, she concludes. Breathtakingly stupid and fanatical and, if she only knew it, misogynist.

There’s more; maybe later.

How the headline looks on the BBC front page:

Whoever is in charge of that front page is sending a signal. Nicely done.

The BBC solemnly reports on “Elliot” Page’s conversation with Oprah Winfrey.

Elliot Page says having transition surgery has been a “life-saving” experience.

So what the BBC is doing here is promoting the idea that getting your healthy breasts cut off can be life-saving. That is, the BBC is encouraging girls and women to think it can be good to get your healthy breasts cut off. Why is the BBC doing that?

The Canadian-born actor, 34, said having top surgery had allowed him to “feel comfortable in my body for probably the first time”.

And why is the BBC calling it “top surgery”? Why is the BBC, a grown-up institution, using baby talk for amputation of healthy breasts? There’s no such thing as “top surgery”; that’s political slang for removing healthy body parts, an act usually seen as a sign of mental illness.

Top surgery involves the removal of the breast tissue to create a masculine chest.

Healthy breast amputation involves the removal of the healthy breasts so that the owner can pretend to have a “masculine chest.”

Page said the surgery had given him a new energy, “because it is such a freeing, freeing experience”.

And she said it while looking as wan and low-energy and pallid and profoundly miserable as it’s possible to look.

Page also used the interview to criticise moves by some US states banning transgender athletes from competing in girls sports teams.

Yet another respectable news organization repeats the lie.

“If you’re not gonna allow trans kids to play sports, children will die,” Page said. “And it really is that simple.”

Baby talk all the way down.

Someone is shocked and hurt in Halifax.

“Shocked and hurt” is how Alicia Frederick says she felt when she learned about a new book purchased by Halifax Public Libraries.

Public libraries buy a lot of books. It’s not really a worthwhile project to try to monitor their purchases for what makes you, Random Person, shocked and hurt. Libraries don’t and can’t filter their acquisition process according to what might possibly make someone feel shocked and hurt.

The library currently owns two copies of the book by Abigail Shrier, called Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. As of this writing, 21 people have it on hold. The book’s description on the library website says:

Unsuspecting parents are awakening to find their daughters in thrall to hip trans YouTube stars and “gender-affirming” educators.

We’re supposed to think that’s stupid and wrong. Go take another look at “Elliot” Page to see how stupid and wrong it isn’t.

On March 17, Nicole Nascimento, another mother of a trans child, expressed concern about the book in a Facebook post, and linked to a letter* written by Elm Klemic, who had addressed it to the Ottawa Public Library, asking that library to not include the book in its collection.

…

The letter says that the book “has the potential to cause great harm.” It cites statistics on the high levels of harassment and violence trans youth report, as well as the alarming percentage of those who have made at least one suicide attempt.

The usual nonsense, in short, along with the obligatory threat of suicide which, as mental health professionals keep pointing out, is considered very bad practice because it promotes suicidal ideation. But hey, trans activism trumps all the rules.

Now that the library has put the book into circulation, Nascimento said in a message to the Examiner that she was “concerned.” She wrote, “It surprises me that our library would carry a book that would risk the lives of trans youth simply for the sake of intellectual freedom. It is incredibly irresponsible, especially given the fact that the book in question has little to no scientific ground to stand on.”

The book doesn’t exist “simply for the sake of intellectual freedom.” Shrier wrote it to say something that needs to be said. It’s a substantive book with a substantive argument, and that’s why she wrote it and the publisher published it and Halifax readers are requesting it from the library.

Earlier this week, Mila McKay launched a new online petition calling on the library to remove the book from its collection. The petition says, “Transgender Identity is not a choice, a Craze, or a Fad” and that the inclusion of the book in the library’s collection has “increased ease of access to parents and other adults who work with youth who may believe the hateful messages in the book and subsequently act in ways that endanger trans children.”

But Mila McKay doesn’t know that trans identity is not a choice or a craze or a fad. How could she know that? Does she have infallible insight into the minds of all people who identify as trans? How could anybody know what she claims to know?

McKay, a trans/non-binary anti-poverty activist and sociology student at Mount Saint Vincent University, said in an interview she was “very angry” about the library’s decision. She does not think the book should be censored — but that removal from the library collection does not constitute censorship. It “isn’t stopping [Shrier] from selling her book or publishing her book… There are all kinds of books [Halifax Public Libraries] don’t shelve. They don’t buy just any book. So why this book?”

Who put her him them in charge of what books Halifax library adds to its shelves? Why this trans/non-binary anti-poverty activist and sociology student?

The headline, for a start.

‘It is life-saving’: Elliot Page reveals happiness at having had top surgery

That is, Elliot Page claims happiness at having had her healthy breasts cut off.

It has been widely noted that Page doesn’t appear the least bit happy in her interview with Oprah Winfrey.

“I want people to know that not only has it been life-changing for me, I do believe it is life-saving and it’s the case for so many people,” the actor told Oprah Winfrey on her new show for Apple TV+.

So more and more and more girls and women should get their healthy breasts cut off. It will make them so happy.

Unless of course it doesn’t, but hey, it’s still awesome to be encouraging this, because you just never know, am I right?

Page urged officials to support healthcare for transgender people and allow them access to sports. Republican lawmakers across the US are seeking to curtail gender-affirming care and punish doctors who deliver it, as well as banning trans youth from playing sports.

No they’re not, you stinking liars. They’re not “seeking to ban trans youth from playing sports.” You know that. You’re telling a shameless lie, in aid of helping more boys and men take the place of girls and women in sports.

“Children will die,” Page said. “And it really is that simple.”

No it isn’t.

This week, state legislators in Florida rushed through a bill that would ban trans women and girls from participating in school sports. Critics described the move as “cruel and horrific”.

No they didn’t. Lying again.

I hope the backlash starts soon.

Another day another dude doing a Zoom meeting for work without bothering to put pants on.

Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of the books “Lincoln’s Melancholy” and “Powers of Two,” has resigned from his positions as editor in chief of the Believer magazine and artistic and executive director of the Black Mountain Institute.

Because of the no pants.

In a farewell letter shared with the staff, Shenk said his resignation followed “a dumb, reckless choice to disregard appropriate setting and attire for a Zoom meeting. I crossed a line that I can’t walk back over. I sorely regret the harm to you — and, by extension, to the people we serve. I’m sorry.”

The incident occurred during a video meeting in early February withabout a dozen staff members of the Believer and BMI, according to three sources who were in the meeting.

According to Ira Silverberg, a literary agent and editor who is acting as Shenk’s advisor, Shenk was soaking in a bathtub with Epsom salts during the meeting to alleviate nerve pain caused by fibromyalgia.

He had chosen a virtual background to mask his location and had worn a mesh shirt. When Shenk’s computer battery died, he got up to plug it in, believing the camera was off. But the video kept running. According to Silverberg, Shenk reported the incident immediately.

Entirely credible. Why would he not choose the time slot when he was attending a video meeting to soak in a tub with no pants on? Surely that’s the perfect time to take your pants off and get comfortable in the tub.

Credit to Siva for my awareness of this fun adventure.

Uh huh great, woman journalist skewers governor for signing a bill that would keep boys from playing on girls’ athletic teams.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice struggled to come up with a single example of a transgender athlete gaining an unfair advantage in sports while being grilled Friday by MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle over why he signed a bill targeting transgender athletes.  

It’s not about “targeting” anyone, and the issue is boys who get a hefty advantage by moving over to the girls’ team.

“Can you name one example of a transgender child trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage at a school there in West Virginia?” Ruhle asked Justice. 

“Well, Stephanie, I don’t have that experience exactly to myself right now —,” Justice replied.

“Not yourself, your state, sir. Can you give me one example of a transgender child trying to get an unfair advantage? Just one, in your state. You signed a bill about it,” she pressed.

Cue applause from all the people who just can’t wait to see boys playing on girls’ teams.

So Ruhle patted herself on the back for this brilliant gotcha.

I retorted. It won’t do any good, but we have to try.

Nullius is there too.

Lesson: don’t mess with Maya.

That’s them told.

Medical advice from random podcasters is not one of our best inventions.

Hugely popular US podcast host Joe Rogan has backpedalled on his comments that young, healthy people could forgo the coronavirus vaccine.

“I’m not an anti-vax person,” Rogan said. “I believe they’re safe and encourage many people to take them.”

But Rogan did not walk back his suggestion that the young and healthy do not “need” vaccines, which drew backlash from White House officials.

Why call it “backlash”? What a stupid word to use. Rogan shouldn’t be making such reckless and destructive “suggestions,” and the government is entitled to say he’s wrong and must be ignored. This isn’t a game.

Asked about Rogan’s comments, top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci repeated guidance from experts that unvaccinated, asymptomatic people can still transmit Covid-19.

“Even if you don’t have any symptoms, you’re propagating the outbreak,” Dr Fauci said.

And the thing about that is, Fauci knows what he’s talking about and Joe Rogan is a comedian.

Rogan made the comments during a 23 April episode of his podcast, which was first reported by Media Matters this week.

In that episode, Rogan told listeners that he would not suggest the vaccine to a healthy 21-year-old. “If you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well…like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”

Responding to the criticism on his podcast on Thursday, Rogan said the argument that young people need the vaccine “for other people” made sense. “But that’s a different argument,” he added.

And Rogan stressed that he should not be a source of scientific advice. “I’m not a doctor,” he said. “I’m not a respected source of information, even for me.”

Then don’t offer advice, at least not advice that contradicts what the actual scientific advisors are telling us. Just shut up about it.

The placid sense of male entitlement just takes my breath away sometimes.

Classic. It’s women’s fault when men kill men!

Update:

Dan Arel tweeted

Um, TERFS are Nazi though.

Also LOL at people calling me a misogynist for believing that trans women are women.

TERFS get trans women killed. End of story.

Feminists don’t kill men who say they are men, but feminists somehow “get” such men killed. They must be witches!

In fact when you think about it, really think about it, all women are bitches. They all make men do things. Men are pure and perfect and guiltless, but women put their witchy magic on the pure perfect men and “get” bad things done by those men.

It’s scary scary stuff. Medical science needs to hurry up with those uterus transplants into a few good men.

Male athlete says it’s “fundamentally unfair” to have athletic teams for girls or women.

A Canadian transgender athlete says it’s “reprehensible” that some U.S. states are trying to ban trans women and girls from playing for female sports teams.

Of course he’s a male himself, and competing against women gives him a huge advantage, so that could be why he’s saying that. Just a thought.

“What they’re really doing is fighting for what one might call the non-existent rights of [non-transgender] women and girls, while treating trans girls and trans women as not real girls or women,” said Veronica Ivy, a two-time track cycling world champion.

Yes it’s our old pal Rhys McKinnon, talking about “the non-existent rights” of real women and girls which he wants to replace with the “right” of men and boys to take their places. (What he doesn’t say is that he wants other men not to do this if it means they will be competing against him. He wants the advantage for himself, not for other men.)

“It’s fundamentally unfair,” she told The Current‘s Matt Galloway.

He’s such a comedian. Of course what’s fundamentally unfair is for preening assholes like him to elbow women out of women’s sports, but the CBC is too dim or too cowardly to tell him so.

Republican lawmakers in states across the U.S. have introduced more than 100 bills related to transgender issues this year, according to Human Rights Campaign, the largest U.S. organization fighting for LGBTQ equality. Many of those bills aim to prevent transgender women and girls from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams. 

Proponents of such legislation argue that allowing transgender individuals to play on women’s sports teams gives them an unfair physical advantage over other players. 

And why do they argue that? Because it’s true, that’s why.

Ivy called it “unconscionable” that legislators would use these bills to attack children and their right to play with their peers. “This idea that trans women are going to suddenly take over sport has not happened,” Ivy said. “And it’s unlikely to ever happen.”

One, he doesn’t know that, two, it’s easy for him to brush it off because it’s not his ox being gored, three there is no reason women and girls should give up any wins or places on teams to men who claim to be women. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a few (so far), it’s still taking something away from women and girls and giving it to men and boys, when women and girls have rights just as men and boys do.

While Alphonso David, president of Human Rights Campaign, said he appreciates the argument that transgender women may have a natural advantage over other female athletes, “that’s all it is, is an argument.”

“The myth that transgender women are dominant competitors in women’s sports is pure disinformation,” he said.

No it’s not.

“And it’s important to also recognize that this disinformation is dangerous for the health and the safety and the very lives of transgender youth and adults alike.”

What about the health and safety and the very lives of girls and women? Why don’t they matter? Why is it only trans women who matter?

The old “right to have access to a woman’s genitals” take.

How sensitive and humane to frame women as a resource men have a right to use.

In other news, one of the 87 Duggar kids from the “87 and counting” tv show about religious fanatics trying to break world records on how many children one woman can push out – one of those kids has been arrested.

But he was just joking joking joking. When Tucker Carlson scowled into the camera and told his dupes to call child protective services if they see any kids in masks, he was just JOKING.

After the Erik Wemple Blog posted a Twitter thread with updates on the states’ responses, some Carlson allies claimed we were taking all of this too seriously. “It should go without saying that no, you should not, in fact call the police or CPS on parents with kids in masks outdoors. It should also go without saying that Tucker Carlson is not, in fact, seriously telling his viewers to do that,” wrote the author of a piece on Twitchy that helpfully aggregates the sentiment.

Why should it go without saying? He didn’t look like a guy being funny. He didn’t act like a guy being funny. What he said wasn’t funny. Why should it go without saying?

In light of that reaction, we asked Fox News: Was Carlson kidding or just engaging in satire here? Whatever the answer, it’s a wonderful world where you say something with a straight face — and then, when critics point out how offensive or dangerous the remarks were, your supporters flock to the just-joking defense. For further examples of this dynamic, look no further than President Trump, who took this exit ramp over and over during his time in the White House.

Bonus because Trump has no detectable sense of humor.

Let’s assume that the Twitchy crowd is right — Carlson was joshing or engaging in a thought exercise, and we here at the Erik Wemple Blog failed to pick up on the signals. That would mean that Carlson was satirically calling on people to report parents to child protective services — an instrument that ruins lives when it misfires. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg tweeted this point along with a link to her 2015 story in the Nation about the “threats and intrusions poor, minority families have long endured” from CPS.

And in conclusion, libbruls can’t take a joke.

It’s Mary Beard’s turn to get some random policing and name-calling, it seems.

What “nonsense” has Beard “spouted”? As far as I can tell, none. As far as I can tell (people have been locking accounts or deleting them altogether, so some evidence is missing) someone whined at her for followcrime, and others rushed to join the fun.

There aren’t enough scare quotes in the world to convey how not progressive all this is.

New homophobia much like the old.

Thick and fast come the apoplectic accusations from the LGBT+ lobby against members of the authentic and historical lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) community and other gender-critical people. We are repeatedly told that we are guilty of transphobic “hate” and that our organisations are “hate groups”. Simply insisting that sex is a biological and immutable characteristic, and that the settled definition of “sex” underpins LGB and women’s rights, is even enough to get you accused of being a terrorist or a neo-Nazi sympathiser, no less.

…

We must ask ourselves, however, how much damage the LGBT+ lobby is doing to the mental health of the young LGB people who gravitate towards it, given that these are people whose experience of being same-sex attracted is being overruled and negated by the lobby, which tells them they are “genital fetishists” if they restrict their partners to members of the same biological sex and if they do not centre extreme demands from a subgroup of the transgender-identified community.

But you see that subgroup of the subgroup of the transgender-identified community is the most oppressed group of all time ever. End of discussion.

This business of saying (as Index on Censorship did) that we have to “build bridges” with people who say men are women if they say they are made me think there must be a handy label for that, like “gaslighting” and “sealioning” and similar, but I couldn’t think of one. I did what any sensible person would do and asked Twitter. “Motte and bailey” is close but it leaves out the building bridges bit.

This at least names the Index on Censorship part.

Ahhh yes. I haven’t incorporated that label into my vocabulary, and maybe it’s time I did. Wikipedia:

Flying monkeys^[1] is a term used in popular psychology, mainly in the context of narcissistic abuse,^[2] to describe people who act on behalf of a narcissist towards a third party, usually for an abusive purpose (e.g. a smear campaign).^[3][4]

It’s not an exact fit, but it’s helpful.

It’s a kind of hostage-taking. We, the aggressor, take a hostage and then force you, the victim, to Build Bridges with us and we’ll let you visit the hostage every other Tuesday.

We need a good label for it.

People have only been saying that trickle-down economics is crap for decades.

To be more specific, trickle-down economics is just lovely for Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk but not so great for people at the bottom of that trickle.

Still, it is surprising to see Biden get a clue. He’s been a very conservative brand of Democrat most of his career.

The US president was a young politician when the idea that cutting taxes on the well off would be good for the poor first came into vogue in the 1970s. Now he has used his first address to a joint session of Congress to call on the US’s top 1% to pay for his $1.8tn American families plan – higher spending in areas such as education, childcare and infrastructure.

Anticipating pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill, Biden had a simple message. It was time, he said, to build the country from the middle and the bottom outwards not from the top down. “Trickle down has never worked,” he said.

It sure hasn’t worked here. We have massive wealth inequality, massive rates of poverty, massive rates of homelessness, a huge chunk of the population in prison, and on and on. Unions are weak where they exist at all, corporations are strong, de facto segregation in housing and schools and neighborhood resources is everywhere – the US is a miserable place to be poor.

Index on Censorship steps up:

This week Index on Censorship took the unusual step of legally intervening in an employment appeal tribunal.  As always our focus was on the core principle of free expression and protecting free speech in law. The tribunal has now concluded and has reserved judgment – we expect to learn the result in the coming months.  Much will be discussed and written about in the coming days regarding the Maya Forstater tribunal, but for your information on what Index provided to the court please access our skeleton argument here.

Whatever the outcome of the Employment Appeal Tribunal the toxic nature of the current conversation on gender and trans rights is doing little to build bridges or solidarity.  As promised by our Chief Executive, in the coming weeks Index will seek to provide a platform for considered debate and engagement.  We plan to publish the words of those people who are being silenced and provide a space for people to highlight their lived experiences without fear or favour.  So watch this space.

To be perfectly honest I’m not as worried about building bridges or solidarity as I am about being free to tell the truth. I don’t really want to cross a bridge that leads to people who want to force me to call men “women.” I don’t want to sign a treaty or make peace or give concessions on the question that should never have been a question, “are women the only people who are women or can men be women too?”

As has been pointed out many times, it’s a kind of blackmail or con game. If Boris breaks into your house in your absence and changes the locks and won’t let you in, you don’t have to build bridges with Boris. You just get Boris out, and that’s the end of your dealings with Boris. You don’t owe him anything and he doesn’t get to commit an outrage against you and then offer a “compromise.” Boris is the aggressor and thief and Boris gets nothing in reward. Women don’t owe men anything for refusing to agree that men too can be women if they say so.

It’s not women’s job to build bridges to men who have stolen the word “women” from women, and refused to give it back, and flung threats and insults at women, and gotten women fired and shunned and socially punished, merely for continuing to say that only women are women.

More eccentric claims from Maya’s appeal.

I don’t see how that can be slander. I think people who believe in a god are deluded; is that slander? They think people like me are deluded because we don’t believe in a god; is that slander? I don’t think so. Discussions can get rude, sure, but just thinking a belief is deluded isn’t slander.

What? How can someone’s saying something deny someone else a right to do anything, including transition?

And not believing that men can be women is not an existential threat to men who say they can. It doesn’t make them disappear and it doesn’t make them any less women than they already are.

It’s bullying, this constant inflation of the “dangers” and “threat” of women who don’t believe that men can be women. It’s bullying via emotional blackmail and even legal jeopardy. It’s behavior rooted in male entitlement, thus ironically making it all the less convincing that the men doing it are women.