How’s that again?

Cosmology grad student issues statement of support for trans women.

Trans women are women. Period. As a cis woman, I promise I will not leave you out, ever. Keep being fabulous

With three tiny dancing laydee emojis which become enormous when copied here.

Let’s think about this. I was going to talk about the words and the thread that ensued but first let’s talk about this “keep being fabulous” and that emoji – coming from a woman talking to men who Identify As women. What is that?

Why, I mean, is an actual woman equating being-a-woman with keeping being fabulous and being a blonde laydee with big hair dancing in a red dress?

Why isn’t she for instance equating being-a-woman with being in a lab coat with short practical hair looking into a telescope? Why does an actual woman think “woman”=blonde laydee with big hair dancing in a red dress? What is that?

It’s as if there are actual, boring, real-life, dull normal, “cis” women who can be dressed any old how and doing any old job you can think of, but trans women are special magical fairy-dust Beautiful Laydeez in red dresses dancing the night away.

Well, why? Why does a cosmology grad student see that as the way to pledge her allegiance to the womanitude of trans women?

I don’t suppose she intended it, but it looks like buying into the trope that trans women are the ones who do womaning the right way, the ones who are more womany than “cis” women because they don’t take being womany for granted but instead perform it every minute of every day.

What it thus can’t escape also doing is buying into the trope that “cis” women are inferior to trans women because we take it for granted and don’t perform it, with a few gorgeous exceptions like the Kardashians.

It’s a bit like telling Rachel Dolezal to keep being fabulous with a row of basketball player emojis.

Oh dear, some of Trump’s people want him to do the right thing and he’s not interested – who could have seen that coming?

Donald Trump’s top aides are urging him to back Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, but the president isn’t interested, multiple people familiar with the administration’s internal debates say.

In recent days, national security adviser John Bolton, China hands at both the National Security Council and the State Department, and several economic advisers have pushed for a more assertive posture on the Hong Kong demonstrations, which have paralyzed the former British colony and roiled markets.

They are finding little traction with a president focused more narrowly on trade negotiations with Xi Jinping — and worried that criticizing the Chinese leader’s efforts to stamp out dissent in Hong Kong will scuttle the possibility of inking a deal this winter.

They have a great reelayshunship. Who cares about Hong Kong or human rights compared to that? Trump even gave Xi a big prezzy ahead of the G-20 in June.

When the two spoke by phone ahead of the international gathering, Trump surprised his aides when he told Xi that he would not condemn the Chinese government over a crackdown in Hong Kong. He understood it was an internal issue in which the U.S. would not interfere, he said.

Much the way Hitler’s “crackdown” on the Jews was an internal issue.

Former officials in both parties have been critical of the administration’s approach to China, though there is broad agreement that the U.S. needs to be tougher on Beijing.

“What I see is kind of a basic arithmetic: a lack of coherence within the administration, plus a lack of real understanding about how China works, equals no good results,” said Daniel Russel, who served as a senior national security aide to President Barack Obama.

Yeah well. That’s two different universes.

On it goes.

The England and Wales Cricket Board is reviewing its transgender policy before its £20m semi-professional women’s competition starts next year.

Under ECB rules the eligibility of players in women’s domestic cricket is determined by a player’s own self-identified gender, with no medical requirement for those who have transitioned from male to female to lower their testosterone levels.

In other words it’s entirely verbal and unilateral. Player says he’s a woman, he’s a woman, end of story. Shut up you there in the back. Player says he’s a woman, player gets to play on women’s team. That’s inkloooosive. It’s also totally fair because women can do exactly the same thing.

However, Claire Connor, the managing director of women’s cricket, hinted that the policy could be tweaked at the elite level so that any trans woman playing in the ECB’s new eight-team competition would have to bring her testosterone down in line with International Olympic Committee guidelines.

But muscles, skeleton, lung capacity, speed? Pfffff. None of your business, and don’t you want to be inkloooosive? You bitch?

“The ECB’s currently isn’t a medically driven policy. It’s a more socially inclusive policy and we will be reviewing that over the coming months,” said Connor…

To put it another way, the ECB’s current policy is social rather than physical. But sport is physical. The issue isn’t medical so much as it is physical, and the ECB is just blithely ignoring the physical differences between female bodies and male bodies. Being “socially inclusive” is a good in many contexts, but not all of them. Look at ballet for instance. Professional ballet isn’t “inclusive,” because it places enormous physical demands on the dancers, and only those who can meet the demands get to perform before a paying audience. That’s how that works. Sport works the same way, and because humans are sexually dimorphic, it is only fair to divide sports accordingly. The ECB is weirdly pretending to be unaware of any of that.

The ECB later said it reviewed all its policies on an annual basis. “Our position on transgender participation will be reviewed as part of our ongoing commitment to regularly review all governance policies,” a spokesperson added. “In our current policy, the eligibility of players is based on one’s own self-identified gender, with no medical requirement. We are unlikely to make any unilateral changes to this stance. We are proud that this model promotes an inclusive environment for all participants in domestic and recreational cricket.”

But it doesn’t. It promotes an environment that excludes women for the sake of men who say they are women. That’s not an inclusive environment for all participants.

Ok this tweet is breaking my heart so I guess it might as well break yours too.

This is Antonio Basco. His wife of 22 years, Margie, was murdered in El Paso. Mr. Basco says he has no other family so he’s inviting anyone, who wants to come, to attend his wife’s services in El Paso: Friday, August 16th Perches Funeral Home Northeast 4946 Hondo Pass 5-9pm

Let’s learn more about that University of Otago study.

New Zealand researchers say trans athletes have an “unfair” advantage over other women and sport needs to fix binary gender categories.

The advantages trans athletes have over female competitors are considerably large and sport needs to look hard at fairness, along with their inclusion policies, Otago University Associate professor of physiology Lynley Anderson says.

The issue became hot because of Laurel Hubbard.

Male to female trans athletes have been allowed to compete in women’s divisions since 2015 provided their testosterone level does not exceed 10 nanomoles per litre.

However, the average amount of testosterone for a cis female (born female) ranges from .870nmol/L. to 1.7nmol/L – nearly ten times less than that limit.

So it’s kind of like saying we’ll give this group of competitors only a five minute head start.

In a paper published in the BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, Anderson and fellow Otago University researchers, Alison Heather and Taryn Knox, found the 10nmol/L level permitted by the International Olympic Committee was “significantly higher than that of cis-gender women, whose sex and gender align as female”.

Heather, also a professor of physiology, says the rule book needs to change.

“It is ten to 20 times higher than a cis female, so this is one of my major concerns.”

“At the moment we are really targeting inclusiveness for our trans females to compete in a female division and in that aspect we are not considering a fairness issue for cis females.”

“Inclusiveness” is such a manipulative buzzword. I know I’ve said it a billion times, but “inclusion” is not the goal in every circumstance, which ought to be blindingly obvious. Filters, criteria, qualifications are not always and everywhere arbitrary and discriminatory. Separate sports for women are a necessity given the sexual dimorphism of humans.

The New Zealand Olympic Committee stands by its policy around transgender athletes, but welcomes the research.

“The issue of transgender athletes in elite sport is extremely complicated as it requires a balance to be struck between protecting an individual’s human rights and ensuring the field of play remains fair,” a spokesperson told Stuff.

No it doesn’t. There is no “human right” for a male to compete against women, no matter how he identifies.

Heather said the advantages go well beyond a testosterone level test.

A trans athlete has prior exposure to testosterone, which develops larger muscle mass, muscle distribution and even the amount of oxygen the athlete can accumulate.

“All these factors are not considered. We just say your testosterone level is under 10mnol/L. It is still much higher than a cis female and none of the rest is being considered.

“It’s not just your here and now testosterone that matters, there is also prior exposure to testosterone. Testosterone even form a fetus is defining a males brain, a male’s bone structure and lung structure.”

“They have a different bone structure so they are able to put more power in their jumping and anything that involves having to lift something, they have more power in their legs through their knees to hip ratio.”

But inclusion blah blah human right blah blah transphobia blah blah.

I don’t see any changes in the near future.

New Zealand’s own Rachel McKinnon:

History might well record that we reached peak craziness on July 20, 2019. That was when I read a story in the sports pages about a champion New Zealand mountain biker named Kate Weatherly, who was born male but “transitioned to female” from the age of 17.

Weatherly was reported as objecting to a University of Otago study which found, surely to no-one’s surprise, that transgender female athletes have an advantage over rivals who are born female.

Her own record seems to prove the point. According to the story, Weatherly went from being an “average” men’s downhill mountain biker to winning the women’s elite national championship.

Just like McKinnon, and Hubbard, and Miller and Yearwood. Duds as males, stars as females. What a coincidence; how can it possibly be explained?

Weatherly resents being described as transgender and disputes the finding that she enjoys an advantage over her rivals. “I’m not a transgender,” she insists. “I am a woman who happens to be transgender. As a result I want to be able to compete with my fellow women.”

In order to whup them all. I’m sure his fellow women are deeply touched.

It was all coolly set out by one of the authors of the Otago University study, physiology professor Alison Heather, in an in-depth interview for the Stuff website.

Weatherly, who has been having hormone treatment since she was 17, says her testosterone is tested every three months and has never been above 1.4 nanomoles per litre, which is within the average range for “cis” women – those who are born female. The implication is that she enjoys no advantage from having been born male.

But as Heather points out, many of the physical advantages men have over women in sport – such as bigger and different-shaped bones, greater muscle mass, larger hearts and superior oxygen capacity – are formed in the womb and continue to develop through puberty.

Fiddling with testosterone levels doesn’t magically undo all of that.

@UN_Women goes to bat for…men displacing women in sport, I guess.

Trans and intersex athletes often face discrimination in competitive sports, including being banned from events and stripped of their achievements. Let’s show our support and tell the world to #LetThemPlay!

Do they though? When, where?

Maybe trans men are banned from playing US football – the kind that specializes in concussions – for safety reasons? I don’t know, but if that is the case…is it discrimination or is it safety?

But what we’ve been seeing lately is the opposite: men who claim to be women being allowed, and indeed encouraged, to compete against women, using their physical advantages to win all the prizes.

Why is @UN_Women cheering that on?

ADL Pacific Northwest writes:

This weekend, synagogues in the Seward Park community in Seattle were targeted by a white supremacist group with anti-Semitic, racist fliers. This is part of a coordinated effort we are closely tracking in which a white supremacist group is placing anti-Semitic fliers at synagogues and some churches in the Puget Sound and in other communities across the country. Previous fliers have contained anti-Semitic, Holocaust denial language. ADL’s Center on Extremism is monitoring this trend and we are offering support to community leaders. Thank you to the Seattle Police Department for acting swiftly. #NoPlaceforHate

The post included an image:

Note the caption – Daily Stormer.

It’s Donald Trump’s world we have to live in now.

Don’t let anybody tell you Donald Trump has no heart.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he was delaying some tariffs on Chinese imports ahead of the Christmas season to stem their potential impact on holiday shopping.

Awwww. Thanks, Don – now we can shop til we drop to make Baby Jesus happy.

The Trump administration announced hours earlier that it would delay some of the tariffs, originally scheduled to come into effect on Sept. 1, until Dec. 15.

I guess Don suddenly saw a calendar.

That Emma Lazarus, she was all mixed up. We don’t want no stinkin’ huddled masses, we want onntrapranoors! If you can’t afford a two-bedroom condo in Manhattan then gtfo.

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has proposed a new interpretation of the famous welcome that appears on a placard at the Statue of Liberty.

The famous lines, taken from The New Colossus by the 19th-century New York poet Emma Lazarus, read: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

In a radio interview on Tuesday, Cuccinelli offered a change: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”

Then…why are they tired and poor? If they can already “stand on their own two feet,” by which of course he means they “have plenty of money,” then they’re not your tired and poor, are they, they’re your bouncy and rich. I guess the tired and poor have to just stay and rot where they are; we’ve stopped caring.

The catch is that poverty is a goal in this society. Team Cuccinelli doesn’t actually want people in general to have plenty of money, because if they do, they won’t do all the shit jobs that Team Cuccinelli wants them to do. That’s why Trump has lots of tired and poor working for him, including tired and poor with fake papers that other Trump employees told them to get.

Poor people aren’t failing or refusing to stand on their own two feet; they’re failing to make enough money to get by in a very expensive capitalist society. More reasonable capitalist societies make efforts to deal with that problem by subsidizing basic needs – public schools, public housing, health insurance, and the like. They don’t see it as poor people tottering around unable to stand, they see it as a matter of necessity for people on low wages. The Cuccinellis of the world want to go right on paying the low wages while not doing anything to make life possible on that low wage.

On NPR’s Morning Edition, Cuccinelli defended the Trump administration decision to make it harder for migrants to be awarded permanent residence, or a “green card”, if they have ever accepted benefit programs such as food stamps, housing assistance or Medicaid.

Starting in October, decisions on green card applicants will be based on a wealth test, meant to establish if they have the means to support themselves. Poor migrants will be denied if they are deemed likely to use government programs.

Hey they can always pack 20 people into a one-bedroom apartment, right? And work three jobs? That’s standing on your own two feet.

How to needle Trump: buy ad time on Fox News.

On Wednesday, a new ad from Julián Castro will air in which the Democratic 2020 contender will speak directly to Donald Trump. To ensure the president actually sees it, Castro’s campaign has purchased ad time on Fox News, including on Trump’s favorite program, Fox & Friends.

The ad buy in question is reportedly a small one of $2,775 for three spots during the day, to air specifically in Bedminster, New Jersey. The president is expected to be there at his golf club.

Alternating between watching tv and cheating at golf.

“President Trump: you referred to countries as shitholes,” he says in the ad. “You urged American congresswomen to ‘go back’ to where they came from. You called immigrants rapists.”

“As we saw in El Paso, Americans were killed because you stoked the fire of racists,” Castro goes on, referencing the striking overlap between language used by the shooter and the president, who regularly vilifies immigrants with language typically reserved for vermin.

“Innocent people were shot down because they look different from you. Because they look like me. They look like my family.”

So that will be his next tantrum.

There is no such thing as an “authentic self.” Arguably there’s not even any such thing as a “self” – there is instead an illusion of a self that keeps us somewhat organized. Louise Perry explains how the trans movement is chasing unicorns when it talks of transitioning to an Authentic Self.

The core idea of the trans narrative—that we are all possessed of a gender identity, which is more true and authentic than our physical bodies—depends on claims that do not withstand scrutiny. Not only is it unwise to write legislation based on incoherent principles, but it also does real harm to vulnerable people desperate to find themselves. We could spend the whole of our lives waiting for our true and authentic selves to come along. They never will.

The real me is fundamentally an illusion. For some people, it might provide a compelling way to understand certain thoughts and feelings and I don’t doubt that this is how Jazz Jennings sincerely conceives of her identity. It can be a comforting idea, particularly for people who live in oppressive environments that restrict their natural impulses. It is also a useful way of expressing your desires in a society that still holds strongly to the idea of inner authenticity. But it misrepresents the messy reality of our lives, and the ways in which our identities are constantly being shaped by the world around us. Although we all have some innate predispositions, the real me isn’t a fixed entity that we can discover if only we try hard enough. Searching for your true and authentic self is like chasing a shadow. You might focus all of your energies on trying to discover it, only to be ultimately disappointed. The trans narrative promises unhappy people the hope of self-actualisation: “stay true to who you are no matter what, then one day things will get better.” The trouble is, they might not.

There is unfortunately no conclusive evidence that the process of transition (either social or medical) actually alleviates distress in the long term. For some people, living as the opposite sex (or as some non-binary gender identity) can make them feel more comfortable in their own skin, and they should be free to make that choice without fear of stigma. But the increasing number of people flocking to the trans movement—many of them vulnerable young natal females—may well find that the promise of discovering the real me is an empty one. The growing community of detransitioners attest to the long-term suffering and health problems that can result from the decision to transition. Sometimes, searching for your true and authentic self can just make things worse.

What if, instead of obsessing over the search for the real me, we accepted that people are complex, imperfect and ever-changing? What if we faced up to the many and varied reasons why people might feel a desire to transition, and saw the trans movement within its historical context?

Then much foolishness would cease.

Those bastards.

The US government is making drastic changes to how the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is applied. The revisions weaken protections for threatened species, and will allow federal agencies to conduct economic analyses when deciding whether to protect a species.

The changes, finalized by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service on 12 August, are among the most sweeping alterations to the law since it was enacted in 1973.

President Donald Trump’s administration says that these updates will ease the burden of regulations and increase transparency into decisions on whether a species warrants protections. But critics say that the revisions cripple the ESA’s ability to protect species under increased threat from human development and climate change.

Of course they will “ease the burden of regulations,” and by doing so they will augment the burden of threats to endangered species. The goal isn’t and shouldn’t be always to “ease the burden of regulations”; some regulations are important enough that we just have to put up with the burden. It’s a regulation that we can’t murder people, and that regulation is bound to be a burden to people who want to commit murder, but that’s just too bad. It’s a regulation that corporations can’t dump toxins into the nearest river, but there are compelling reasons for such a regulation, burden or no burden.

“These changes tip the scales way in favour of industry,” says Brett Hartl, government-affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group in Washington DC. “They threaten to undermine the last 40 years of progress.”

The attorneys general of California and Massachusetts have already announced their intention to sue the Trump administration over the changes, which they call unlawful.

Yes but it’s burdensome of us to say that Trump can’t do whatever he feels like regardless of the law.

Chief among the changes is the removal of blanket protections for threatened animals and plants.

Until now, any species deemed threatened — a category for organisms at risk of becoming endangered — by the FWS automatically has received the same protections as endangered species. They include bans on killing threatened and endangered species. Now, those protections will be determined on a case-by-case basis, a move which will likely reduce overall protections for species that are added to the threatened list, says Hartl.

The revisions also narrow the scope of those protections. Previously, government officials considered threats that would affect a species in the “foreseeable future”, such as climate change. Now, they have leeway to determine the time period meant by the foreseeable future, and can only consider threats that are “likely” to occur in that time frame. Critics say that this weaker language could allow regulators to ignore threats from climate change, such as rising sea levels, because their effects might not be felt for decades.

And in a third change to the ESA, the Trump administration removed language explicitly prohibiting the consideration of the economic impacts of listing a species.

It’s all about the money.

Emily is 14 years old.

I started playing girl’s lacrosse in 6th grade. Two years ago, I was playing 13U girl’s lacrosse. We traveled to Boulder for two games. One team clearly had two boys on their team – they wore boy’s shorts, had hairy legs, were taller and more muscular than all of us and had much deeper voices. One boy was a defender and one was the goalie. The goalie was twice as big as any of the girls.

Guess which team won.

We were very upset that their team clearly had two boys. There was almost a fight on the sidelines between the parents of our two teams. The goalie made a save and one of our dads said, “Great save by a boy!”. The parents of the other team yelled at him, “You’re insensitive. That’s a girl and her name is Betty”. They squared off, but it did not get physical as one of our moms pulled the angry dad away from the crowd. The Boulder parents were shouting at our dad about how “rude” he was being.

Boulder is woke.

The team with boys won narrowly.

In the parking lot after the game, I was crying – we were all crying – not because we lost, but because we were mad that we had to play a team with two boys on it and that made the game unfair and that we felt powerless to do anything about it.  As a team, together and united, through angry tears, we all vowed we would not play that team again – if we had to face them in the playoffs, we would forfeit the game in a team unity of protest against the CGLA (Colorado Girls Lacrosse Association) allowing an unfair advantage of “transgender girls” to play girls lacrosse.

We didn’t face them in the playoffs, so we didn’t get a chance to protest – but this team won the championship that year – with the two boys on defense.

This is why I, my parents and my brothers, stand with #SaveWomensSports.

Too bad for the team that lost.

Also they’re ratcheting up the actions as well as the rhetoric.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat tweets:

Today’s news that Trump admin is now targeting legal immigrants who use state services warrants a reminder. Authoritarian persecution of state enemies proceeds step by step.

So I look for the news, and find it:

The Trump administration is moving forward with one of its most aggressive steps yet to restrict legal immigration, denying green cards to many migrants who use Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other forms of public assistance, officials said announced Monday.

Federal law already requires those seeking to become permanent residents and gain legal status to prove they will not be a burden to the U.S. — a “public charge,” in government speak —but the new rules detail a broader range of programs that could disqualify them.

It’s part of a dramatic overhaul of the nation’s immigration system that the administration has been trying to put into place. While much of the attention has focused on President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, the new change targets people who entered the United States legally and are seeking permanent status. Its part of an effort to move the U.S. to a system that focuses on immigrants’ skills instead of emphasizing the reunification of families.

In other words poor people need not apply.

The acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, said the rule change fits with the Republican president’s message.

“We want to see people coming to this country who are self-sufficient,” Cuccinelli said. “That’s a core principle of the American dream. It’s deeply embedded in our history, and particularly our history related to legal immigration.”

The hell it is. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Remember? That’s deeply embedded in our history too.

It’s one more step.