Trump is making an extra special big splash fuss over Mr Saudi Arabia. Bros before hos.

Trump rolled out an elaborate welcome at the White House for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who is seeking stealth fighter jets, security assurances and economic promises from the United States.

The arrival ceremony exceeded the typical pomp for a visiting foreign leader: A Marine band played as officers on horseback carried the Saudi and American flags, and advanced fighter jets flew over the White House in a V formation. Mr. Trump greeted Prince Mohammed with a handshake and gave him a pat on the back before they headed inside.

They’re very compatible.

Who wants a great big hug?

Dirty dirty dirty.

When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits Washington on Tuesday, President Donald Trump will yet again find himself face-to-face with the ruler of a country where he and his family have immense personal business at stake.

The Trump Organization has multiple active projects in Saudi Arabia, including Trump Towers in both Jeddah and Riyadh. And on the eve of bin Salman’s visit, the Trump Organization announced plans a new project with their Saudi-linked development partners, Dar Global, in the Maldives set to open in 2028.

…

Last month, the Trump Organization also announced plans for a Trump Plaza to be built in Saudi Arabia, complete with “a vibrant green spine inspired by Central Park that brings Manhattan-style vibrancy to the heart of Jeddah.”

It’s almost as if he feels a special attraction to Saudi Arabia. Is it the contempt for women that draws him?

The crown prince’s visit represents just the latest intersection of America’s foreign affairs and the president’s personal fortune. The Trump Organization has also brokered licensing deals in several nearby Gulf states, including in Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with an apartment complex slated to open in 2026 featuring what has been marketed as the world’s biggest outdoor pool.

But it’s not the money, it’s the mindset.

In an interview with Arab News last December at the launch event for the Trump Tower in Jeddah, Eric Trump said projects in Saudi Arabia and around the Gulf would continue to attract the Trump Organization, citing the region’s “uplifting” mindset.

Right.

The NY Times has a great big long piece on the demolition of the Justice Department. Depressing and enraging but crucial reading.

President Trump’s second term has brought a period of turmoil and controversy unlike any in the history of the Justice Department. Trump and his appointees have blasted through the walls designed to protect the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency from political influence; they have directed the course of criminal investigations, openly flouted ethics rules and caused a breakdown of institutional culture. To date, more than 200 career attorneys have been fired, and thousands more have resigned. (The Justice Department says many of them have been replaced.)

But guess what: the ones who have been fired or quit are free to talk. Some are talking.

Beginning with Trump’s first day in office, the lawyers narrated the events that most alarmed them over the next 10 months. They described being asked to drop cases for political reasons, to find evidence for flimsy investigations and to take positions in court they thought had no legitimate basis. They also talked about the work they and their colleagues were told to abandon — investigations of terrorist plots, corruption and white-collar fraud.

Why the veto on investigations of terrorist plots? Trump might be involved?

Mike Romano, Jan. 6 prosecutor: Anyone who spent any time working on Jan. 6 cases saw how violent a day that was. I’d spent four years living with that day, the things done to people. It’s incredibly demoralizing to see something you worked on for four years wiped away by a lie — I mean the idea that prosecution of the rioters was a grave national injustice. We had strong evidence against every person we prosecuted. And I knew that if they’re going to wipe all of that away based on a lie, either I’ll be fired as retaliation or pretext or asked to do something unethical. Or both.

Until that point, I’d hoped the second Trump term would be similar to the first one, or similar enough for a while. Then the pardons came down and I knew, in light of that, there is no way I can stay.

…

Prosecutor, Capitol Siege Section: It was inconceivable to me they’d fire people for no reason except they’d worked on cases that were now disfavored. People like me, who are career attorneys, work within a structure. We don’t have much latitude. To be told that you are being punished for your decisions, when you were following guidance created by very talented and skilled prosecutors above you, which judges blessed for the most part — it’s completely bizarre. It flipped the culture of the institution. It’s a culture now of fear. And they are losing people all the time, very good people, who were the future of the department.

…

Pam Bondi, another former Trump defense lawyer, was sworn in as attorney general. She issued a first-day flurry of 14 memos that radically redefined the department’s mission. One mandated that government attorneys “zealously defend” the president’s agenda, no longer giving them the latitude to decline to sign a brief or appear in court because of a personal judgment about a case — a longstanding practice in the department. Another pulled back on enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a watchdog law that requires people to disclose when they’re working for international powers.

Dirty and sinister enough yet?

Good old trans epistemology.

The fact that trans people think that does not make it true. I know that’s a frightfully sophisticated thought – that people can think something that’s not true – but nevertheless it’s a fact, and it’s a useful thing to keep in mind. Opinion does not invariably line up exactly with the truth.

The YouGov poll, commissioned by the Good Law Project and based on a representative sample of 457 trans adults, shows that 70% of trans people find BBC News coverage hostile.

Ah the Good Law Project. Well there you go then. The GLP is funded by people who see everyone and everything as hostile to trans people, so surveying them about it is going to turn up very predictable results.

In Comey news:

A federal magistrate judge on Monday raised the possibility that the criminal indictment against former FBI director James Comey on charges of lying to Congress — which was obtained at the behest of President Donald Trump — could soon be dismissed.

The suggestion by Judge William Fitzpatrick came as he ordered the Department of Justice to release all grand jury material related to Comey’s case to him by the end of the day.

Comey’s defense lawyers had requested that material in order to request the indictment be tossed based on alleged irregularities by interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan when she presented the case to the grand jury and asked it to charge him.

Fitzpatrick said Halligan had potentially violated court orders and Comey’s Fourth Amendment rights, which “establish a reasonable basis to question whether the government’s conduct was willful or in reckless disregard of the law.”

Any bets? Do we think it’s unlikely that Trump’s minions bungled?

Hahahahahaha what a silly question.

The judge said he “is finding that the government’s actions in this case — whether purposeful, reckless or negligent — raise genuine issues of misconduct.”

The judge said that he recognized that ordering the DOJ to release to Comey all material related to the grand jury that indicted him, as well as an audio recording of the proceedings, is “an extraordinary remedy.”

“But given the factually based challenges the defense has raised to the government’s conduct and the prospect that government misconduct may have tainted the grand jury proceedings, disclosure of grand jury materials under these unique circumstances is necessary to fully protect the rights of the accused,” Fitzpatrick wrote.

We await developments.

She did this months ago but I somehow missed it. Godalmighty.

Classic Trump.

Trump on Sunday brushed aside concerns about conservative commentator Tucker Carlson‘s recent interview with a far-right activist known for his antisemitic views, which has caused a schism within the Republican party. Trump defended Carlson, saying the former Fox News host has “said good things about me over the years.”

Bahahahahaha that’s all it takes. Tucker Carlson has said good things about Trump ergo Tucker Carlson is a Perfect Human.

If “progressives” would look up from their sobbing over Our Trans Siblings for one minute maybe they would manage to notice this kind of casual contempt for women.

NHS wants to yammer about trans people to the exclusion of everything else, ok?

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has applied to alternately fly a Progress Pride flag and Transgender Pride flag from the roof of its building on the banks of the Thames.

In an “advertisement consent application” submitted to Lambeth council, the trust proposes hanging the flags from the sole flagpole on the North Wing, which looks out on Parliament.

Looks out on Parliament from directly across the river. It’s not a massively wide river.

But that’s a relatively trivial point. What I want to know is why so many people are so obsessed with “Pride” and especially its rude demanding selfish offspring Trans Everything. Why does the NHS want to shout about Pride n Trans and not about women or workers or other targets of injustice and neglect? Why are people who fancy themselves peak enlightened so zoomed in on this one demographic at the expense of all the others???

The letter was signed off by an apprentice town planner who, according to his LinkedIn page, left sixth form college last year.

In other words he’s younger and less educated than university students, let alone graduates. He’s just out of high school.

The new planning application is seeking consent for the flags to be flown until November 2030.

In its covering letter, the application cites consideration of the London Plan 2021 laid out by Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, for the development of the capital.

This includes the championing of “inclusive design”, where development proposals are encouraged to take into account London’s diverse population.

By yammering about trans people, and trans people, and also trans people, and in addition trans people, and I mustn’t forget to mention trans people.

Susan Smith, from For Women Scotland, which is behind the Supreme Court case on gender, said the flags had come to represent a resistance to the law as clarified in April.

She told The Telegraph: “These flags will send the message that those who understand biological and legal reality are not welcome in the hospital and will no doubt terrify women who will have grounds to fear that their right to a single-sex service or ward will not be respected.”

And in addition they will rub women’s noses in the fact that women just don’t matter to people who consider themselves progressive and enlightened.

Earlier this year, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that under the Equality Act trans women are not legally women, the trust sought to reassure staff of its “unwavering commitment to supporting people of all gender identities and gender expression”.

Not a peep about supporting women of course. Bah. Women don’t need support – women are the evil oppressors.

St Thomas’ said the flags would only be flown on designated days and that only one would fly at any one time.

A spokesman added: “As a healthcare provider, we strive to ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect.”

No you don’t. That’s just an ass-covering lie. By slobbering all over the trans communinny this way you’re treating women with disgust and contempt.

When will these idiots wake up?

Sigh. Alan Cumming interview.

I mention how Twitter/X amplifies hate speech. Cumming, who once told Harry Potter producers to “f*** off” during negotiations for the role of Prof Gilderoy Lockhart (eventually played by Kenneth Branagh), has opinions on the views pushed by JK Rowling about trans people. “I thought feminism was about equality,” he says. “Women being equal with everyone else in society. And yet it appears…”

He focuses his thoughts. “I’ve kind of moved away from being obsessed with the horror of things that have come out of that quarter, of trans rights being perceived as anti-women’s rights. But there’s several things that stick out to me – and I don’t want to get into a battle at all with her, because I feel that the best way to deal with her is to give her less attention.”

What are “trans rights”?

Some purported trans rights are anti-women’s rights. The ones that allow men to take prizes and jobs and refuges that were intended for women, for instance.

“But there was a thing,” he continues, “where she very kindly gave money to open a rape crisis centre in Edinburgh – a great thing to do. I mean, bravo. But then she said that trans women were not allowed… That’s transphobia. At the worst and the most awful time a person could experience, you’re saying, ‘No, I’m not going to help you, because you are trans.’ I just feel like we have to call it what it is.”

Men are not allowed in rape crisis centres intended for women. If Alan Cumming wants to open rape crisis centres for trans women or trans people he should do that thing, but women need rape crisis centers that don’t include men. The issue is not that they’re trans, the issue is that they’re men.

It’s really not that difficult.

I can’t find any news coverage on this so it will have to be a twitter summary.

On November 15, 2025, Governor Maura Healey appointed Giselle Byrd, a Black transgender woman and executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, to the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, alongside 14 other new commissioners. The commission, established in 1965, advises on gender equity policies to combat discrimination and expand opportunities for women and girls in the state. Byrd’s expertise in transgender rights and HIV prevention for marginalized communities supports the state’s inclusive approach, though the appointment has sparked online backlash from conservatives and support from LGBTQ+ advocates.

Oh shut up, twitter. It is NOT only conservatives who object to being “inclusive” of men in commissions on the status of women. Men who pretend to be women do not belong on a Commission on the Status of Women.

The man, of course, is the absurdly gaudy hyper-“feminine” one with the flowing locks of hair and the dagger-like hot pink fingernails and at least four items of heavy gaudy jewelry and the tight sexy dress. The man is the parody. It is insulting to include him on the commission instead of an actual woman.

The end of a beautiful friendship.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Republican ally who previously fiercely defended Donald Trump and his Maga movement, said on Saturday she had been contacted by private security firms “with warnings for my safety” after Trump announced on Friday he was withdrawing his support for and endorsement of the Georgia representative.

In a post on X, Greene said that “a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”, without referring to Trump by name, adding it was “the man I supported and helped get elected”.

Yes you did. Do we now get to watch you and Trump destroy each other? That would be awesome.

Greene said that “aggressive rhetoric attacking me has historically led to death threats and multiple convictions of men who were radicalized by the same type rhetoric being directed at me right now. This time by the President of the United States.”

Greene did not specify any threats against her that had been received by security firms, but said that “as a woman I take threats from men seriously. I now have a small understanding of the fear and pressure the women, who are victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal, must feel.”

Greene also said that as a Republican who votes “overwhelmingly” in favor of party legislation, “his aggression against me also fuels the venomous nature of his radical internet trolls (many of whom are paid), this is completely shocking to everyone”.

Well it shouldn’t be. It’s been blindingly obvious all along that that’s what Trump does, because that’s what Trump is. He has literally zero conscience. Loyalty, friendship, gratitude – none of that plays any part in what he does.

The post is the latest in an increasingly bitter war of words with Trump, primarily over the release of government-held documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein, which Greene supports. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, is expected to hold a vote next week to decide whether to release the entirety of unclassified communications and documents.

“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green is a disgrace to our GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY!” Trump fumed on social media, a day after ending his support for Greene, calling her “Wacky Marjorie” and saying he would endorse a challenger against her in the next midterm election “if the right person runs”.

Earlier on Saturday, Greene posted on X that she never thought she would be in the position of “fighting to release the Epstein files, defending women who were victims of rape, and fighting to expose the web of rich powerful elites would have caused this, but here we are.”

Lie down with rats get up with fleas.

The BBC is getting mauled these days.

That the BBC had been “captured” by activists promoting a “pro-trans” agenda to the detriment of women’s rights is one of the criticisms in the memo that helped precipitate the resignations of [Tim] Davie and his chief executive of news, Deborah Turness.

In this document, sent to the BBC board last month, Michael Prescott, a former journalist, claimed that the specialist “LGBT and identity” desk had effectively censored stories that “raised difficult questions about the trans debate”. He accused the desk of “a constant drip feed of one-sided stories … celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity”.

Or without any balance or objectivity.

I don’t subscribe to the view that journalism has to provide balance on all subjects, like for instance settled science, but if ever there has been a non-settled still-disputed subject, trans doctrine is one of them. Trans doctrine is not just contested but also deranged. The pro-doctrine side ought to have admitted defeat long ago, but unfortunately there are a lot of gullible onlookers who have been stiffening its spine for years. Its popularity with goons far exceeds its ability to make sense.

In this document, sent to the BBC board last month, Michael Prescott, a former journalist, claimed that the specialist “LGBT and identity” desk had effectively censored stories that “raised difficult questions about the trans debate”. He accused the desk of “a constant drip feed of one-sided stories … celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity”.

Women within the BBC have been making that case for several years. More than a dozen emails dating back to 2020, seen by The Sunday Times, show that female staff raised a catalogue of complaints with executives, including Jonathan Munro, now acting head of news, Richard Burgess, the director of news, and Stuart Millar, digital news ­editor, but felt they were rebuffed or ignored.

Man, man, man. All trained from birth to ignore female people.

Their objections ranged from stories that referred to transgender sex offenders as women despite their being biologically male, to articles that avoided using the words “girls” and “women” when discussing menstruation and birth control.

What a coincidence. I’ve been talking about the same stories and articles all this time.

Samantha Smith, a former editor of the southwest edition of Inside Out, spoke up about reporting on the case of Karen White, a prisoner who was a biological male but identified as transgender and sexually assaulted two inmates at a women’s prison.

Smith, who left the BBC in 2020, felt that the broadcaster should have reported that White was a man, but when she raised this in a meeting of senior managers, was told: “Trans women are women.” She felt the “undercurrent” of this statement was that she was a “bigot” who needed to be “re-educated”. She said: “The conversation was shut down, which is a bit of a metaphor for everything that’s happened.”

How dare women say that men who assault women are men. How dare women object when they are called harsh names for calling rapey men “men”. How dare women say anything at all?

One persistent flashpoint is the BBC’s style guide, which still instructs journalists to use an individual’s preferred pronouns — in effect accepting self-identification — meaning the broadcaster uses “she” for convicted male rapists who identify as women.

Cath Leng, a former chief writer who said she felt forced out of the corporation in 2023 for her gender-critical views, said: “I think the problem isn’t solved while they still have self-ID in the style guide — that is the definition of institutional bias because it means that even if journalists want to say ‘he’ [about a sexual predator], they can’t.”

Yes this is another thing I’ve been saying all along. Of course giving in to the “preferred pronouns” crap is just another short road to entrenching trans ideology. Of course calling a man “she” deludes onlookers into thinking the man is a woman – that’s the whole point of it.

Nick Wallis, a former BBC journalist known for his work on the Post Office scandal, recently turned his attention to covering transgender issues. “I think the reason that women in the BBC were ignored is just rank misogyny,” he said. “It shows how easy it is for powerful men to brush aside serious and valid concerns because they are coming out of the mouths of women.”

Yes it does. Always has and still does.

Ew. Jolyon Maugham openly seeking wrongthink gossip about a woman he disagrees with.

Who put him in charge of what we’re allowed to think?

The BBC always gave the trans person the last word. Not by accident, but very deliberately indeed. The BBC literally refused to let gender atheists speak last. It was systematic.

I’m so naive, or clueless, that I still after all this time find that surprising. Where were all the grownups?

The BBC has been captured by activists who peddle trans “propaganda”, the woman who blew the whistle on the Tavistock clinic has claimed.

Sue Evans helped expose the medical centre’s use of puberty blockers on child patients, which eventually led to its being shut down.

…

She alleges that a flagship Radio 2 show refused to let her have the final say during debates on gender and that she was told she would only be able to give her opinions before representatives from pro-trans groups gave theirs, denying her the chance to rebut statements that were “clinically inaccurate”.

They have to say “she alleges” for legal reasons, but they document that it’s not a mere allegation.

Texts seen by The Telegraph show a BBC producer repeatedly apologising for their boss’s refusal to allow her to speak last on air, saying that staff were “very embarrassed” at the situation.

The fantasists and liars get the last word, enforced by the BBC. Why? Where were the adults?

Ms Evans began working as a clinical nurse at the Tavistock clinic in 2003 as part of the gender identity development service (GIDS).

However, she became concerned after she learnt a colleague was willing to put a 16-year-old on puberty blockers after meeting him just four times. Ms Evans reported her concerns to her team but decided to blow the whistle after feeling her “deep” worries were not being addressed.

…

In December 2020, she won a judicial review, where a judge initially ruled that children under 16 could not give informed consent to have puberty blockers.

“That should have been massive on BBC News, but it wasn’t,” Ms Evans said. “It would always be concluded by someone from the trans community saying, ‘This is terrible news for trans people. This is a genocide in medicine’.”

We’re very familiar with the pattern.

Ms Evans was invited onto a BBC radio show to discuss the case. Ms Evans agreed to participate on the condition that she be allowed to speak after any pro-trans group to give her a “chance to comment” on claims made by organisations such as Mermaids, a charity that advocates for transgender children.

“On this particular occasion, I said I would come on if I was allowed to respond to Mermaids,” she said. A BBC staffer initially agreed to this before they were overruled by a senior producer who decided Mermaids would speak last.

And there you have it. The pro-mutilating children side always got the last word. Always. It wasn’t casual, it wasn’t accidental, it was unbending policy.

After learning of the order change of guests, the junior producer texted Ms Evans: “They won’t give you ability to respond to Mermaids. It will be awful – I am so sorry.”

Apologising again some weeks later, the producer added: “I think many of us are very embarrassed at the current state of things. I am so sorry about it all.”

Speaking now about her experience, Ms Evans said: “They would always let Mermaids or Tavistock have the final say, it was a constant washout. It always made me look like I had been lying. I felt like I was on to be the fall guy, so they could say, ‘She’s a bigot’. Where’s the balance? There’s a very serious malpractice going on in medicine. It’s very, very frustrating to feel you get edged out of the picture and be cast as out of touch.”

All for the sake of ruining the bodies and lives of children who’ve been suckered by this hideous ideology.

Hahahahaha Jolyon is complaining that the BBC is………….transphobic.

A rightwing campaign has forced resignations at the BBC over claims including “pro-trans” bias, but the people who bear the brunt of its coverage disagree. A YouGov poll of trans people commissioned by Good Law Project has shown that 70% think that BBC News generally takes a “hostile” stance when reporting on them.

And they’re right. When we offered the BBC an exclusive on this survey – showing how trans people in Britain live in fear and have suffered a catastrophic loss of faith in politicians, judges, the police and the media – it didn’t dare pick it up.

Hm. It didn’t dare pick it up, or it didn’t want to pick it up? Does Joly know for sure certain that they were frit as opposed to not interested? Does Joly know that his work is so brilliant that no one could possibly just not want it? I don’t think he does, and if he thinks he does, he’s wrong. His work is not so brilliant.

Not only does a large majority (70%) of the trans people surveyed see reporting by BBC News on trans issues as hostile – with only 15% judging it “neutral” and the 5% who think it “supportive” outweighed by the 9% who “don’t know” – but a staggering 78% said it reports stories around trans rights either “badly” or “very badly”.

Ok but let’s think about this. Maybe, just maybe, what they “see” is influenced by their worldview and by the passionate encouragement of people like…….Joly himself. Maybe just maybe trans people have been encouraged and trained to think that anyone who doesn’t buy trans ideology is evil and warped, and to think that anything short of ardent endorsement and encouragement is phobic.

In 2021, the BBC admitted it had breached standards on accuracy after publishing a news story with the sensational headline that some lesbians felt “pressured into sex by some trans women”. The following year, the corporation ruled that the Today presenter Justin Webb was not sufficiently accurate when he claimed that accusations of transphobia against the academic Kathleen Stock were false. And earlier this month the broadcaster found that the presenter Maxine Croxall had fallen short on impartiality when she altered a script and pulled a face as she introduced an interview on the BBC News Channel.

The BBC twice accused its own people of being naughty and rebellious about trans ideology therefore the BBC is transphobic? How does that make sense? The BBC punished its own people for the crime of dissenting from whatever view the Trans Vatican happens to hold at that moment.

For Good Law Project’s executive director, Jo Maugham, the survey is “really important”.

“It’s the first of its kind,” Maugham said…

Oh do stop. It’s embarrassing. All of this is Maugham talking; to pretend to be someone else quoting him is cringe territory.

According to Elijah Jaeger, a researcher at Trans Safety Network, the survey is the inevitable result of the BBC’s reporting over recent years.

“For almost a decade the BBC has been platforming fringe anti-trans views as if they were neutral or widely held,” Jaeger said, “which has enabled a significant shift to the right in the Overton window.”

How significant? I want the exact measurements.

Also note the laughable claim that it’s “fringe” to know that people can’t change sex.

Legal Feminist asks some probing questions. Three, to be precise.

1. Does the government really accept the Supreme Court’s judgment?
2. If so, why are its lawyers in court currently putting forward arguments which run contrary to what that judgment says and which were argued before and rejected by the Supreme Court.
3. Who is responsible for giving the instructions to the government’s lawyers?

On the first question, LF notes that the government has said it accepts the judgment, but it has acted as if the other thing. The not so much accepting thing.

The judgment itself was clear: it was accepted by all parties before the judgment that anyone without a Gender Recognition Certificate remained their birth sex. The judgment determined that a Gender Recognition Act certificate did not change legal sex for the purposes of the Equality Act and, therefore, all relevant provisions of that Act which related to single sex exceptions (whether in relation to spaces, services, associations or sport) needed to be based on – and only on – biological sex.

Let me just pause for a moment to ponder the absurdity of the fact that anyone has ever thought a certificate could change what sex people are. You might as well say a postage stamp can change what species people are. You might as well say anything. A greeting card can change how old you are. A sales receipt from Waitrose can change how many legs you have. A bus pass can change where you were born.

The second question arises from the government’s arguments in the judicial review currently being brought by the Good Law Project (“GLP”) against the EHRC’s interim update. The government is named as an interested party. This is not unusual. It is there to provide clarification on the government’s position and to assist the court.

But that is not what leading counsel for the government is doing. The KC is putting forward arguments which were put before the Supreme Court and rejected. The judge has said in terms to the government’s counsel that the argument is “trying to rewrite FWS”. Government lawyers are putting forward arguments which either show a misunderstanding of the judgment or an attempt to relitigate it or interpret it incorrectly or to water it down or undermine it. Strong words. But why, for instance, is counsel stating that transwomen i.e. men who identify as women should be allowed into a female only space, such as a public toilet, on a case by case basis, when the Supreme Court has already ruled that this is not in line with the law and unworkable. These are not the arguments of a neutral party. They are arguments which the GLP could [be] and are making.

Siiiiiiiiiigh. Fuck off with that “case by case” business. NO. What are women supposed to do when a case by case basis man bounces into their public toilet? Interview him? Ask to see his papers? What? And who will help them when the man in question goes ballistic?

Lawyers in court act on the client’s instructions. Which part of government is instructing the lawyers to make these arguments? And why? Formally, it is the Minister for Women and Equalities (Ms Bridget Phillipson) who is responsible. She will surely have taken advice from the government’s lawyers, ultimately answerable to the Treasury Solicitor and the Attorney-General. That legal advice is, of course, privileged. But the actual arguments in court are open. They show a government arguing in contradiction to what the Supreme Court judgment says and doing so in a lower court which is bound to follow the Supreme Court’s judgment.

Why? Is this deliberate? Is this a misunderstanding? Is this an attempt to appease those Labour backbenchers who seem unwilling to accept the judgment and who want to water it down in some way?

And why are they getting away with it???

Before you kill off all the sparrows, get information on what they eat and what will happen when there are no sparrows to eat whatever that turns out to be. It might for instance be insects. Think about that for a second.

Keystone species like bats and vultures have been found to play an important role in human wellbeing. A new study provides similar evidence of the role of sparrows. The study finds that the sparrows’ collapse helped to incite China’s Great Famine—the world’s most deadly famine, which led to tens of millions of people dying of starvation between 1959 and 1961.

…

The Chinese government targeted the sparrow for eradication in 1958 because they believed the birds were eating crops—though scientists warned the government that the birds also eat crop-eating insects. The government ignored scientific advice and successfully drove sparrows to local extinction within two years. Frank and his co-authors—Shaoda Wang also of UChicago, Qinyun Wang of Fudan University, Xuebin Wang of Shanghai University, and Yang You of the University of Hong Kong—provide the first quantitative evidence to back up long-held beliefs that the sparrows’ collapse played a role in forming the conditions that gave rise to the Great Chinese Famine.

Frank and Wang compared crop productivity and mortality rates in counties that had more sparrows to counties that had less sparrows before and after the birds were targeted. They find that rice and wheat crops—more vulnerable to insects like locusts because they grow above ground—declined by 5 percent and 8 percent, respectively, in counties more impacted by the killing of the sparrows. Meanwhile, sweet potato crops—grown below ground—flourished in more impacted counties because they were less vulnerable to insects likely on the rise in these areas.

“During this time, the government began to require farmers to sell more of their crops because they believed the sparrow eradication had boosted agricultural production,” says Yang You, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Business School. “The opposite was true. These counties that were suffering the most severe crop losses, had even less food, and the famine worsened. That could have been avoided if the government had listened to scientists.”

Ahem. I see that it is Trans Awareness Week.

There’s nothing like a Corporate Memphis banner to get us all enthusiastic.

Anyway they’re not just making it up. If you Google Transgender Awareness Week you do indeed get ample confirmation that this is indeed that very week.

The Human Rights Campaign explains our duties:

Honor Transgender Awareness Week and Transgender Day of Remembrance

Transgender Awareness Week and Transgender Day of Remembrance is a time for the LGBTQ+ community to celebrate, uplift and honor our trans community. 

By publicly demonstrating support while challenging anti-trans legislation and negative rhetoric, we can turn our solidarity as LGBTQ+ people and allies into a collective power to advance equality and justice. 

But what equality and justice do trans people not have?

That’s the problem this ideology always has – its demands are not like the demands of previous rights campaigns that really were and are about equality and justice. It’s not “equality” to pretend that men are women, nor is it equality to order other people to pretend that men are women. It’s also not justice.

None of it fits. Trans isn’t like the workers being exploited and oppressed. It isn’t like racism keeping people terrorized and excluded. It isn’t like sexism keeping half of humanity powerless and dominated. It isn’t even like homophobia shaming and punishing people for same-sex orientation. The puzzle pieces don’t fit.

She always does this. It’s not an accident.

What are trans rights???

What rights do trans people have that are specific to being trans?

She never says.

My bet is that that’s because she knows the answer would be absurd on its face.

Do men have a “right” to be called women?

No.

Can we move on now?