Kate Manne’s next in the series is even loopier. To recap, the first was

Cis women confusing “erasure” with not being at the center of a discourse is fast becoming one of my pet peeves. Why not be inclusive of everyone who menstruates? There is no good reason. Obviously.

Next is

Same when it comes to pregnancy and breast/chestfeeding. The truth is, we *all* gain when these activities aren’t essentialized and made into part of some gross, reductive, naturalizing MIC (maternal industrial complex).

Gain? Gain what? What do I gain from being told that it’s not only women who menstruate, get pregnant, and breast feed? What, exactly, do I gain from that? All I’m conscious of gaining is fury and disgust, and I’m already well supplied in that department, between Trump and Brexit and DOCTOR Rachel McKinnon.

And why is it “gross”? Why is Kate Manne, author of Down Girl, calling it “gross” to point out that women are the people who do all the hard graft of making human beings? She sounds like a snotty little boy on the playground. It’s not “gross” that women (and women only) get pregnant, and it’s not gross to say that women (and women only) get pregnant.

That’s one infuriating byproduct of the trans nonsense: it’s training women, even feminist women, to echo that kind of disgust at the female.

It’s better, she says, without argument.

Being inclusive around all procreative activities is better for trans men and non-binary folks who participate in them; it’s better for cis women who don’t or can’t; it’s better for trans women who typically can’t; and it’s better for cis women who do, absent bad ideology.

Better how? Better why? How is it even possible to be “inclusive around all procreative activities”? Women can’t inseminate and men can’t gestate. It doesn’t matter how “inclusive” we all are; we still can’t swap all the repro jobs back and forth at will. And as for bad ideology…look in the mirror, pal.

Replies are scathing.

Kate Manne again:

Cis women confusing “erasure” with not being at the center of a discourse is fast becoming one of my pet peeves. Why not be inclusive of everyone who menstruates? There is no good reason. Obviously.

Women who purport to be feminists who talk contemptuously about “cis women” have been one of my pet peeves for years now.

You cannot do that and be a feminist – it makes no sense. Women are subordinated and dominated and treated with contempt because they are women, so using a hostile neo-label for them that means actual women as opposed to men pretending to be women cannot possibly be combined with advocating an end to that subordination and domination. Women do not derive “privilege” from being actual women as opposed to pretend women; women derive second-class status and misogyny and violence from being actual women as opposed to pretend women.

The people who menstruate are women and girls. Women and girls are shunned and persecuted still, to this day, in many parts of the world because and when they menstruate. Menstruation is part of the reproductive equipment that so many people think has to be harshly controlled and monitored, and thus part of why women are kept out of school and work, in concealing garments and purdah, from making their own decisions and deciding how to live their own lives. If some women decide they want to escape all that by “identifying as” men, let them, but that’s not a reason to start pretending that menstruation is an issue for men and boys as well as girls and women. It isn’t.

Remember last May when Naomi Wolf was informed on live radio that she was wrong on some of her facts?

A couple of days ago her US publisher just threw the whole book out.

The US publisher of a new book by Naomi Wolf has cancelled its release after accuracy concerns were raised.

Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love details the persecution of homosexuality in Victorian Britain.

But during a BBC radio interview in May, it came to light that the author had misunderstood key 19th Century English legal terms within the book.

Legal terms that were crucial to her whole argument. She thought they recorded executions when they did the opposite.

Following the BBC radio interview, Wolf admitted there were “misinterpretations” in her book.

Her UK publisher, Virago, had already published the book by the time the interview was broadcast, but said it would make “necessary corrections” to future reprints.

However, US publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt delayed publication, and has now cancelled it altogether, according to the New York Times.

You can’t blame them after this:

Dr Wolf alleged she had discovered that “several dozen” men were executed for having homosexual sex during the 19th Century.

“I don’t think you’re right about this,” Sweet replied, before detailing the term “death recorded” in fact meant that judges had abstained from handing down a death sentence.

“I don’t think any of the executions you’ve identified here actually happened,” he said.

In one particular case, he pointed out a 14-year-old boy had been discharged and not executed as she had detailed.

Oops.

Today Emilia Decaudin tweets:

It’s absolutely hilarious how many transphobic people from other parts of the world feel the need to jump on every tweet coming out of this account.

Was what I posted last night uncouth? Probably. Was I also out with good friends having a good time while being reminded of transphobic violence every time I scrolled through my feeds on my phone? Yes. Was every reply to my tweet ultimately transphobic in nature? Yes.

Uncouth? Not quite the right word, I think. He seems to have deleted the tweet but some of those naughty “transphobic people” kept the record.

Radical feminists can suck this guy’s dick. That’s not really “uncouth,” it’s more like rapey. It doesn’t mean radical feminists have his permission to suck his girldick, it means he’d like to force them to suck his girldick as punishment for not agreeing with him that he’s a woman.

But why was anyone paying attention to him in the first place? There’s a reason.

New York Democrats are preparing to change the way the party approaches gender.

The State Democratic Committee will vote Tuesday on a resolution amending party rules to be more inclusive of people who don’t identify as male or female.

Emilia Decaudin, the party’s youngest and first openly transgender member, pitched the shift as a way of leveling the playing field for gender nonbinary members or those thinking of getting involved in politics.

…

The resolution specifies that each district that elects two members of the state committee will choose a pair of people of “different” genders, rather than “one male and one female.” It also changes the language of certain bylaws and other party rules in order to remove explicit references to gender.

In other words a pair could be a man and Emilia Decaudin.

The Dems passed the new rules.

If we don’t like it we can suck his girldick.

Originally a comment by Sastra on YOU become responsible.

I just don’t get it.

One of the things therapists are trained to be aware of is what’s called the “Werther Effect,” named for an 18th century fictional character who killed himself, thereby setting off a rash of nonfictional suicides inspired by the romantic depiction. Suicide is in a sense contagious, and telling vulnerable populations that there’s a good chance they will die by their own hand is verboten. Even portraying victims as somehow noble or beset upon is risky — good intentions can backfire. You wouldn’t want to set up a program in high schools warning teens that the most popular reason for teen suicide is breaking up, for example. It would lead to an increase in teens killing themselves after a breakup. When Netflix put out a series called “13 Reasons Why” they were strongly criticized by people who work with adolescents.

And yet somehow telling and saying and explaining over and over again that TRANS PEOPLE WILL KILL THEMSELVES if they aren’t VALIDATED is just a dandy thing to say, sensitive and caring and valiant. The fact that pretty much everyone from psychologists to the media sets up the expectation in every trans person— particularly the young — somehow isn’t considered a grave lapse of responsibility and good sense. No, it’s now a good idea. And when they trot it out themselves, jump.

Another thing most therapists are taught is that it’s important to help people establish an inner locus of control, the strength and resilience to be able to live life happily without being dependent on what other people say or do. And again, this cardinal principle of psychology is thrown on the floor and danced upon when it comes to transgender. Not “I don’t need the approval of other people, I am sufficient in myself “ but “look what YOU MADE ME DO!!!!”

Seriously, wtf.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on More carefully, this time.

I can tell you how I understood trans to be part of the Pride rainbow, and I suspect it’s the same for many others:

I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. In my mind, I always had a vague discomfort with transsexualism’s connection to gender stereotypes, but told myself not to think too much about it because I didn’t know what their experience felt like and I couldn’t judge, analogous to how homophobes don’t know what being gay feels like and don’t understand that it’s not a choice. And besides, these people were gender-role outsiders like us but only more so, coping with homophobia in their own way: very butch lesbians and very effeminate gay — and disproportionately nonwhite — men. (E.g., ’80s drag ball “vogue dancing” culture from the movie Paris is Burning or the TV series POSE.) So I had a rough sense that it was about being not just gay but doubleplus gay and also often discriminated along another axis to boot (woman; ethnic minority). These were very vulnerable people pushed to the furthest edges of society who often couldn’t find work outside of prostitution. And people like that absolutely exist — some trans people do fit that description.

From there it was kind of a boiling frog effect as my understanding of trans slowly broadened to include heterosexuals and not-particularly-gender-nonconforming-seeming males (e.g., Caitlyn Jenner; the dad in Transparent) and it never occurred to me that they weren’t any less oppressed than the first group of trans people even though they weren’t gay or women or nonwhite or poor or homeless or prostituted. Slowly the sympathy I had for the first group transferred to the latter, and I started to see trans people as oppressed simply because they are trans — because of the clothes and pronouns they prefer, and not because of underlying things like being extremely gender-nonconforming while female or nonwhite — and I didn’t readjust my thinking about whether or why this group of people is automatically more vulnerable than me. Their demands got louder (eg “trans women are women, period”) and the frog slowly boiled. Now I was expected to train myself to picture trans people as visibly more-or-less indistinguishable from “cis” people — anyone around you might or might not be trans and how would you even know if you haven’t asked them or seen their genitals! — but at the same time they were still the most oppressed people in the world. (But if they’re indistinguishable from everyone else, how are they oppressed, a little voice said. The answer: because a group of radical feminists won’t accept them as their adopted sex even if they’re indistinguishable from their “cis” counterparts. These feminists are working to unmask innocent, covertly trans people and force them back into their natal sex roles. Or something. I didn’t really bother to check.)

It was gender-neutral bathrooms that started me questioning things. At my workplace it didn’t make sense that we had to get rid of the women’s washroom altogether to accommodate transwomen. Surely we all agreed that women need separate spaces from men — surely the “woke” activists believed in feminism — and surely there were better ways to let (innocent, undetectable or minimally detectable, or more like suspectedly-but-we-dare-not-ask) trans women know we’re not going to challenge them if they use the women’s washroom. Surely if trans women were women, they’d be just as uncomfortable with men in their washrooms as “cis” women would be. Surely they’d be just as opposed to gender-neutral washrooms as any other women would be. But they aren’t — because they are not women. This is where I climbed out of the boiling water and my comrades kept cooking. For them, gender-neutral washrooms were just the beginning of gender-jumbling everything. The less trans activism made sense the more the kids started dismantling everything else in order to accommodate it. Now the very idea of distinguishing women from men is suspect. Now I’ve got female colleagues responding to my issues about the gender-neutral bathrooms with, “Well, I don’t have a problem with men in the women’s washroom.” (Implying that any woman who does is somehow inferior or wrong and not doing her duty to make room for transpeople.)

The behaviour of the bloggers at a certain supposedly progressive website (wink-wink) floored me, and then I really started looking into things and was shocked at the naked misogyny and male-entitled behaviour in trans activism. And the mass trans hysteria surrounding children and adolescents terrifies me. And now I’m watching more and more people begin to peak-trans as the whole thing starts to spin apart.

A striking headline:

Florida woman sets person on fire in Taco Bell, and then may have gone on arson spree, cops say

Underneath is, I guess, a mugshot of the Florida woman:

A Tallahassee woman may have went on a arson spree Wednesday and Thursday, starting at a Taco Bell where a woman was set on fire, cops say.

So apparently the Miami Herald has illiterate reporters and no editors, but more to the point, I’m puzzled as to why in the headline the beardy guy in the photo is called a woman while the woman he doused in gas and set on fire is called a person.

On Wednesday, Mia Williams, a 32-year-old who was born male but identifies as female, walked into a Taco Bell, doused a woman with gasoline and then set them on fire, Tallahassee police said.

Them? Why them? Mia Williams set HER on fire.

Williams ran away and the victim was taken to a hospital by helicopter with serious injuries. As of Friday, the victim was still being treated, police said.

But at the end of the article we are told Williams was charged with homicide so it appears the woman person died of her horrific burns. But don’t misgender Williams! Feel free to misgender the victim, but DO NOT misgender the male perp who killed the woman.

After Williams fled the Taco Bell there was a string of fires and a police pursuit.

At around 6:40 a.m., a Tallahassee fire truck spotted Williams on a bike and began following her. When an officer arrived, he tried to stop Williams by tazing her twice, but both shots weren’t effective, police said.

As Williams continued to ride away, the officer decided to drive his patrol car over a curb and pin the front tire of Williams’ bike to fence because “[she] was a serious risk to public safety.”

Ah thank god for “[she].” The cops must have referred to Her as “he” and thank god the alert reporter or editor caught it and fixed it in brackets. Too bad they didn’t catch and fix “may have went” and the other solecisms, but obviously rightgendering Williams is by far the most urgent thing about this story.

Police eventually arrested Williams and found a cigarette lighter in her pocket.

Williams was only charged in relation to setting the person ablaze at the Taco Bell, not with the fires that followed.

Tallahassee police say the car and church fires are still being investigated by fire officials.

Williams was charged with premeditated homicide, resisting an officer with violence and aggravated on an officer.

I wonder what it is that is causing this huge surge in women committing violent crimes.

Updating to add: the reporter is on Twitter (and getting quite a few critical comments), so I asked him about the being treated/homicide charge conflict and he said last he knew the victim was being treated and the police charge was what it was. Doesn’t really change anything but at least it wasn’t a typo.

Kate Manne…

Congratulations to @rachelvmckinnon on her amazing accomplishments! And fuck the haters.

By “haters,” sadly, she means the people – especially the women – who simply don’t think men should compete in women’s races, even if they do “identify as” women.

An observer today:

I’m now absolutely convinced Kate Manne doesn’t understand her own book.

Manne’s reply:

Because I deplore white cis women like you making #downgirl moves to trans women? Um, no. Read my book again. More carefully, this time.

Oh yes, “cis” women objecting to being shoved aside by men who say they are women – those are the women philosopher Kate Manne deplores. In other words all women are privileged and suspect; it’s only men who claim to be women who get her approbation and solidarity.

You couldn’t make it up. Imagine any black activist ever expressing contempt for actual black people while heaping solidarity on white people who “identify as” black. It wouldn’t happen. If a few outliers did do that they would be viewed the way Omerosa Manigault and Paris Dennard are, not the way Kate Manne (author of Down Girl) is.

It turns out feminism was just an interval, and now we’re back to situation normal women are worth nothing.

Colorado! Home of the wall!

You may not leave, you may not choose which people you consider allies, you may not distinguish among reasons or categories, you may not form new organizations, you may not do anything except what you’re told.

@GrahamSmith_ lays out the rules:

The alliance is a deliberate attempt to marginalise and exclude trans people. Trans people have always been part of the lgbt community and to try to exclude them is clearly motivated by transphobia.

Notice the tautology. “Trans people have always been part of the lesbian gay bisexual trans community” – well no shit, Sherlock, it’s right there in the name. But that doesn’t mean people can’t notice that that “community” is actually somewhat randomly assembled, because sexual orientation is not the same as gender identity. It doesn’t mean people can’t decide they would like to form a group (and maybe a community) solely around sexual orientation (the non-conforming kind). It doesn’t mean people need Graham Smith’s permission to do that. Same-sex attracted people are not required to caucus with trans people any more than they are required to caucus with straight people.

Forming a group / community / alliance of LGB people is not marginalizing or excluding trans people unless you think any kind of group / community / alliance marginalizes and excludes anyone who isn’t part of the group / community / alliance.

But another advice-giver took it even further:

There is clearly no good faith present in an organisation that forms a group and specifically signals in its name it does not include Trans people. Just a sickening example of ‘othering’ that we can live without.

Nobody can form a group that doesn’t include trans people. Nobody. Not knitters, not Game of Thrones fans, not socialists, not libertarians, not birdwatchers, not quilters, not foodies, not voting rights activists, nobody.

Make a note of it.

Via @faintlyfalling –

I saw this tweeted out by someone who claims to be a gender therapist. The imagery of your presumed “true self” emerging out of the corpse of your “wrong body” disturbs me greatly.

That, yes, but even more, to me, the creepy anime sprite representing WOMAN. She’s about 10 years old but with tits and presumably the all-important front hole, her eyes are the size of plates, and her hair could roof a building while everything else about her is barely there. Tits, hair, and eyes; what more do you want?!

That’s not what being female is. That stupid toon doesn’t represent Woman or Girl or female, it’s just a sketch of a sex doll.

Even uglier.

The White House’s trade representative in late August withdrew a recommendation to restore some of Ukraine’s trade privileges after John Bolton, then-national security adviser, warned him that President Trump probably would oppose any action that benefited the government in Kyiv, according to people briefed on the matter.

The warning to Robert E. Lighthizer came as Trump was withholding $391 million in military aid and security assistance from Ukraine. House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into allegations that the president did so to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business activities of former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. As part of the inquiry, lawmakers are closely scrutinizing the White House’s actions between July and September.

The August exchange between Bolton and Lighthizer over the trade matter represents the first indication that the administration’s suspension of assistance to Ukraine extended beyond the congressionally authorized military aid and security assistance to other government programs. It is not clear whether Trump directed Bolton to intervene over Ukraine’s trade privileges or was even aware of the discussion.

Amnesty International has an inspiring inspirational aspirational empowermenting inspiringational tweet for us:

Trans rights are women’s rights.
Queer rights are women’s rights.
Disability rights are women’s rights.
Abortion rights are women’s rights.
Migrant rights are women’s rights.

And women’s rights are human rights.
11:01 AM · Oct 22, 2019· Falcon Social Media Management

Sic. Yes really.

Note the very last item: Falcon Social Media Management. We’ll come back to that.

But first, what is this garbage? What is their point? To remind women that we alone of non-dominant groups don’t get to have our own struggles, our own rights, our own campaigns, our own petitions for redress of grievances? That we alone need constant reminding to Think Of Others instead of ourselves? That we alone are expected to budge up and move over and share? That we alone are constantly harangued about intersectionality and inclusion while other non-dominant groups aren’t? That we alone are constantly interrupted with “Yes yes yes but trans people queer people disabled people migrants so stop talking about yourselves you selfish bitches”?

Well fuck that noise.

And that obnoxious “stfu ladeez” doesn’t even come from Amnesty but from a paid social media marketing firm. That’s what Falcon Social Media Management is.

Talk about adding insult to injury…

Life in the sewer:

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham on Thursday doubled down on her boss’ “human scum” attack on so-called “Never Trump” Republicans and seemingly expanded it to include anyone who has worked against the president’s agenda.

“The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.“Watch out for them, they are human scum!”

The president’s tweet set off a firestorm about the his rhetoric—in this case about a notably small subset of Republicans, some of whom are likely to vote for him anyhow—and so Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade asked the top White House flack: “Does he regret that?”

“No, no, he shouldn’t,” Grisham replied. “The people who are against him, and who have been against him, and have been working against him since the day they took office are just that.”

Representative Elijah Cummings is lying in state at the Capitol today, and his colleagues are paying their respects.