Women’s Party UK held a public meeting this evening on keeping women’s sport women-only. (I assume it’s over now, at nearly 11 their time.) It was at a large venue and the place was packed.

Huge #WPUKFairPlay public meeting on keeping women’s sport female-only in central London. Sharron Davies @sharrond62 speaking, video messages from @Tanni_GT & @damekellyholmes, in the audience is @Daley_thompson. pic.twitter.com/zFP2XB95YC

— Hannah Bayman (@hannahbayman) July 10, 2019

The room is absolutely packed.

Do not underestimate the importance of this topic to #Women#WPUKFairPlay pic.twitter.com/V8CF95BMxA

— FiLiA (@FiLiA_charity) July 10, 2019

Now for the science bit: Up now Dr Emma Hilton @FondOfBeetles, developmental biologist, is telling us why transition does not take away men’s advantage in sport. #WPUKFairplay

— Karen Ingala Smith (@K_IngalaSmith) July 10, 2019

"What I find terrible about the whole situation is the intimidation [that prevents] free speech" @sharrond62 #WPUKFairPlay
Athletes young and old that she speaks to all feel the same way, most are afraid to speak up despite their information being based on scientific fact. pic.twitter.com/vgZXjUmZJ8

— Nicola (@scrapegroat) July 10, 2019

A good point made by @FondOfBeetles – why did the IOC compare testosterone levels of trans women only to those of men rather than those of women? And that’s not even considering the other physical advantages males have over females #WPUKFairPlay

— Trace (@50shadesoftrace) July 10, 2019

Yes why didn’t they? Obviously one could have testosterone levels lower than those of men but still higher than those of women.

#WPUKFairPlay @sharrond62 is telling us how she speaks to elite athletes all the time, young and elite and they all feel the same way as her on this topic. She is here to speak out knowing the pressure that is there preventing others from speaking out…

— Womans_Place_UK (@Womans_Place_UK) July 10, 2019

Sharron Davies admits to being so vocal because she was cheated as an elite athlete by “state run doping programmes.” She is not happy with the ‘intimidation’ around this debate. #WPUKFairPlay

— Sonia Poulton (@SoniaPoulton) July 10, 2019

Originally a comment by Steamshovelmama on Go, and sin no more.

Labels… *sigh*. This is a conversation I have had many times with my 22 year old daughter, who is rather more woke than me. Labels are important, especially to young people who feel lost and excluded because there is no one else like them in their culture and/or peer group. To that young person, finding that there is an actual name for what they are is a huge validation – and young, unhappy, confused, isolated people do need that validation.

The problem is, as always, reification. The label is usually an artificial term, placing boundaries round something that is really a point on a continuum. Unfortunately, people are strongly prone to believing that those boundaries represent something real and objective. When that happens, the label becomes a trap. No longer just “This describes what I feel, and I share this feeling with these people,” but more “This is what I am, and because of that, I know I cannot be that other thing as well, because that lies outside the boundaries of the thing that describes me.”

Of course, this applies to identities that are rooted outside the physical – ace (arguably), aro, demi etc.

re: the adoption of fragility

I don’t get this either. I’m 50, and for most of my life strength has been something to aim for. I grew up as a member of he English working class, which in itself is a strong non-physical identity (USAians may not experience this, but take it from me, in England class is a major part of your identity).

I grew up in a female culture where women considered themselves superior to men in all senses but the physical. The joke was: Q. What do you call a woman who wants to be equal to a man? A. Unambitious. Men were frequently regarded as immature boys (which, of course, meant that many of them were happy to play that role).

Women were the ones who held the family together, who took on all the responsibilities of feeding and clothing everyone, of stretching the “housekeeping” to do it, despite many of them working part or full time themselves. The very idea that you might need some sort of validation for who you were would have been considered ridiculous. You looked after your own, and if you wanted something you damned well got off your arse and worked out how to get it.

You developed a thick skin, especially towards male attitudes because, growing up, you were cat called and/or harassed on an almost daily basis from about 11 years onward. Now, that is certainly not how it should be (and it does seem to be a little better now, looking at my daughter’s experience), but the idea that you might be deeply hurt by a name (or pronoun) that somebody called you? Your Mother, Grandmothers, Aunts and friends would tell you to bloody well get up and stop making a fuss.

One of the most insulting things you could say about a woman was that she was “precious” – dainty, ladylike, feeble. Proper women were tough. They’d have had no time whatsoever for some man (and they would certainly see a trans woman as a man) poncing about in women’s clothes and talking about feminine essence. Feminine was not a large part of their lives or self image.

Ron Lindsay on Pompeo’s “natural law” commission:

“That some persons are free and others slaves by nature … and that for these slavery is both advantageous and just, is evident.” So said Aristotle, one of the first advocates of the “natural law” approach to ethics. (See his Politics, Book I, ch. 5.)

Thus we see one of the problems. Different people have different ideas of what “natural law” is, and the ideas may have more to to with the convenience of the haver than the well-being of everyone else. Trump thinks it’s natural law that everyone should flatter him without cease.

Natural law theory has had a number of different proponents throughout history, and the exact contours of the theory vary from proponent to proponent, but the core of the theory is comprised of these three elements: there are some things that are intrinsically good and intrinsically evil because of their relationship to human nature; the human intellect, through reason correctly applied, can discern these fundamental goods and evils; actions are right or wrong depending on whether they further or oppose these fundamental goods and evils. From this summary, one can see that the cornerstone of this theory is its understanding of human nature.

And if one thinks about it for a few seconds one can see how easy it is to understand human nature in a way that flatters or benefits the self or the self’s tribe.

How do we argue for human rights? Roughly, through an approach something like this: Think of the purposes of morality (fostering trust, facilitating cooperation in achieving shared and complementary goals, providing security, ameliorating harmful conditions, etc.) and ask what rules and rights most everyone in the moral community would accept if such rules and rights applied to everyone. (For more detail, one can consult John Rawls, Tim Scanlon and a host of other philosophers and thinkers.) Does such an approach ensure unanimity, an end to any disagreement? Of course not. Does it imply that humans are the source of morality? Sure, because we are.

Throughout much of our history, many have tried to impose on others their view of right and wrong by claiming their view is backed by God or natural law. It’s time to rid ourselves of this pernicious fantasy. With respect to morality, there is no special authority. We’re all in this together.

Imagine if we could ask tuna and salmon, chickens and lambs, shrimp and lobsters what morality is.

Oh is he indeed.

Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated for having run a child sex trafficking ring, is proposing 80% funding cuts for the government agency that combats child sex trafficking.

That’s definitely a good look.

The bureau’s budget would fall from $68m last year to just $18.5m. The proposed reduction is so drastic that experts say it would effectively kill off many federal efforts to curb sex trafficking and put the lives of large numbers of children at risk.

ILAB has the task of countering human trafficking, child labor and forced labor across the US and around the world. Its mission is “to promote a fair global playing field for workers” and it is seen as a crucial leader in efforts to crack down on the sex trafficking of minors.

Yes, well, when you elect criminal exploitative plutocrats president, this is what you get. They don’t want a fair global playing field for workers, they want a global playing field that makes it easy for them to exploit workers.

Katherine Clark, a congresswoman from Massachusetts, said Acosta’s proposed cut was “reckless” and “amoral”. When seen alongside the sweetheart plea deal he granted Epstein in 2008, when Acosta was the US attorney in Miami, she said, it indicated that the labor secretary did not see protecting vulnerable children as a priority.

“This is now a pattern,” Clark told the Guardian. “Like so many in this administration Mr Acosta chooses the powerful and wealthy over the vulnerable and victims of sexual assault and it is time that he finds another line of work.”

What I’m saying. That’s what this administration is.

Clark grilled Acosta about the proposed cuts in April, when he presented his departmental budget to the House appropriations subcommittee. On that occasion, she said, she found him “rude, dismissive, challenging”.

Imagine our surprise.

It’s as if all of life has become a war between The Narcissists and everyone else. The Narcissists have definitely won this round, but it might not serve their purposes in the larger war.

(Is that a built-in shield against Narcissists? The more they win the more they disgust everyone else, so their power is always fragile and temporary? It’s a pretty thought, at least.)

The resignation of Sir Kim Darroch followed the failure of the likely next prime minister, Boris Johnson, to say he would support him staying in post – despite being given repeated chances to do so during his TV debate with Jeremy Hunt. As the current Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan put it, by six times refusing to back the ambassador, Johnson had thrown him under a bus.

And thrown Trump a whole truckload of ice cream.

There will now be white hot anger across the Foreign Office and in parliament – not just at the leaker and Trump, but also at Johnson. Whatever sanctimonious expressions of regret he mouths, and however much he blames the leaker, King Charles Street knows the Conservative leadership candidate effectively sacked Darroch on the orders of the president.

And on the orders of the president not for any weighty reasons of state but because the president’s throbbing engorged vanity is wounded. How pathetic is that? What kind of pitiful needy childish loser – to use Trump’s favorite epithet – admits to taking it personally when an ambassador reports to his government? What kind of pitiful needy childish loser takes it personally in public and calls the truth-telling ambassador silly schoolyard names? What kind of chickenshit lickspittle toady backs him up when he does so? Donnie and BoJo, that’s what kind.

Still on the Darroch issue: Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, has issued a statement:

The fact that Sir Kim has been bullied out of his job, because of Donald Trump’s tantrums and Boris Johnson’s pathetic lick-spittle response, is something that shames our country. It makes a laughing-stock out of our government, and tells every one of Britain’s brilliant representatives abroad that the next Tory prime minister will not stand up for them, even when they are simply telling the truth and doing their job.

Sir Kim Darroch should hold his head high for the wonderful job he has done representing our country, while Boris Johnson should go and hang his head in shame. He claims to regard Winston Churchill as his hero. But just imagine Churchill allowing this humiliating, servile, sycophantic indulgence of the American president’s ego to go unchallenged.

Johnson likes to accuse opponents of being ‘supine invertebrate jellies’. How does he think he looks today? If this is what represents the future of leadership in our country, then it is all the more reason why we must force Johnson to call an election, and let the British people decide if such an obsequious weakling should be our prime minister.

Note to the world at large: Donald Trump’s ego needs to be starved, not fed.

Do not feed the dragon.

Chalk up another win for President Monster:

Sir Kim Darroch, the UK ambassador to Washington who has been at the centre of a diplomatic row over leaked cables criticising Donald Trump, has resigned.

The Guardian understands he concluded his position was untenable having watched the Conservative leadership debate on Tuesday, in which the frontrunner, Boris Johnson, stopped short of backing him over the leak.

So President Hulk gets rewarded for yet another bout of trashy vulgar namecalling and the US slides a few miles farther down the slope of degradation.

Asked whether in an episode such as this it would be expected that the entire establishment would support Darrock, [the head of the diplomatic service] said: “Yes”, adding the Foreign Office had noted with gratitude the support given to Darroch by the prime minister and the foreign secretary. He made no mention of Boris Johnson.

It makes zero sense not to support him. Obviously an ambassador has to be able to tell the truth to the government that made the appointment, without worrying about whether it’s flattering to the subject or not. Darroch saw chaos and incompetence in the Trump administration and he reported that fact to his superiors; what else was he supposed to do? It’s grotesque that Johnson is taking the “flatter Trump regardless” line.

The White House did not put out a formal statement on Darroch’s resignation. Marc Short, vice president Mike Pence’s chief of staff, offered only a brief comment to reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

“I think the reality was that in light of the last few days his ability to be effective was probably limited, so it was probably the right course,” Short said.

That is, in light of the fact that Trump chose to take the leak as an invitation to yet another outburst of vulgar childish namecalling, Darroch was in an impossible position. Trump could, if he were not Trump, have chosen to be an adult and say that naturally ambassadors give their honest opinion to their governments and there’s nothing more to be said.

A vindictive part of me would like to see everyone who is asked to be the new ambassador say a resounding “No.”

Another shunning achieved! Break out the parsnip champagne!

The University of British Columbia is barred from marching in the Vancouver Pride Parade after allowing a controversial figure to speak on campus earlier this summer.

Andrea Arnot, executive director of the Vancouver Pride Society, says all entries to the parade have to meet specific requirements — judged on a point system— to be allowed to participate.

“We reject applications every year,” Arnot said.

Any guesses on what the “controversial” refers to?

UBC fell below the required number of points by allowing Jenn Smith, who has been labelled by critics as transphobic, to host an event on campus in June that criticizes B.C.’s sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum (SOGI).

Someone criticized a curriculum. The horror.

Vancouver Pride issued a statement.

Representatives from VPS and UBC Administration met on July 3, 2019 to discuss the June 23 event and UBCs plans to move forward. UBC began by letting us know they were concerned about the potential impact on students and faculty who may be denied the opportunity to partake in Pride.

We have encouraged UBC to revise the policy after consultation both with LGBTQAI2S+ communities on campus and a professional agency. We have also suggested that UBC make a statement which takes responsibility for any harm done to the campus community and outlines a way forward.

We are hopeful that UBC will create changes in policy and practice to support their entire campus community. Until then, UBC will not be able to participate as an institution at our events. We welcome LGBTQAI2S+ UBC students and faculty to our events.

We are making this decision transparent to hold UBC accountable.

They do love their little bit of power, don’t they.

Trump’s trashy vulgarity of course sets the tone for others in his “administration.”

No one who works in the WH as a senior counselor to the president should ever speak like this about two women, elected to Congress. Major Meow Mashup is language I'd expect from an immature high school girl. https://t.co/YYz7rHJN8z

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 9, 2019

“Major Meow Mashup” hur hur geddit they’re all women it’s a catfight meow hur hur hur.

I’m so tired of the trashy vulgarity.

You have got to be kidding.

A dangerous sex offender has been granted freedom from a West Australian prison and will be able to visit sex workers in a bid to reduce his risk of reoffending.

Edward William Latimer, 61, has a criminal record dating back to his teenage years and has spent most of his adult life in prison for offences including sexual assaults and wilful exposure.

So let’s make women his safety valve. What could go wrong?

WA supreme court justice Anthony Derrick said in his decision handed down on Tuesday that while Latimer remained a serious danger to the community, the risk could be managed in the community.

“There are adequate safeguards contained in the supervision order conditions to ensure that if the respondent begins to regress this will be quickly noticed by those responsible for his supervision and … he will [be] brought back before the court,” he said.

“Access to sex workers will not of itself resolve the issue of the respondent’s ability to manage his sexual urges … [but] the option for the respondent to engage in regular, albeit infrequent, sexual contact should serve as an additional protective factor.”

Or he could get a doll or a pound of raw liver or a hole in the ground. Women are not objects that dangerous sex offenders need access to to keep from exploding. Women are not a public utility.

Ominous:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday unveiled a new Commission on Unalienable Rights, a panel he said is aimed at providing him with “an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy.”

The panel will be headed up by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush. Glendon is also a social conservative who has been a prominent anti-abortion voice, which could lend credence to the concerns among human rights activists that the commission is a ploy to undercut LGBTQ and women’s rights under the guise of religious liberty.

Ya think?

“Every once in a while we need to step back, and reflect seriously on where we are, where we’ve been and whether we’re headed in the right direction,” Pompeo said. He hailed former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1948 Declaration on Universal Human Rights as one of the foundational documents for the commission’s work, but noted that the panel would serve as advisers as opposed to policymakers.

While Pompeo was vague in laying out what exactly the panel will do, emphasizing its focus on “principles” over “policy,” he praised its members as those he hoped would facilitate “one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 universal declaration.”

Overseen by Mike Pompeo and a former ambassador to the Vatican, under the auspices of the Trump administration. I don’t think so.

The commission will be made up of 10 members who represent a range of religious backgrounds. Many are religious scholars, with at least one other joining Glendon in having been appointed to represent the Vatican on social issues in the past. One, Hamza Yusuf, is one of the founders of the first Muslim liberal arts college in America. Another, Christopher Tollefsen, specializes in moral philosophy, natural law ethics, practical ethics and bioethics.

Why religious backgrounds? What’s religion got to do with it? Much religious “morality” is horrendous.

Sen. Bob Menendez, the top ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, called Pompeo’s claims that human rights had been manipulated “absurd” and asserted the new commission would only weaken human rights.

“President Trump’s personal affection for gross human rights violators has stained America’s moral fabric,” he said, pointing to the president’s praise for leaders such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. “No Trump Administration commission can erase that.”

What I’m saying. This is the Trump administration. Human rights are not in their wheelhouse.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Which twin has the view?

(Notice Williams isn’t simultaneously trying to redefine “man”? Funny, that.)

Kinda gives the game away, doesn’t it?

Why do they define womanhood like this? Because it effectively excludes trans women from the class of women because trans women are not biologically identical to cis women.

GC feminists are just mean girls who are trying to keep transwomen out of the clubhouse. Changing the rules, moving the goalposts out pure spite.

“Centering” transness turns the dictionary itself into a transphobic, TERF plot to deny the REAL Cool Girls their due rights. When you think the universe is supposed to revolve around you, any bits that don’t are by definition doing so just to piss you off.

Sorry, welcome to Earth. It revolves around the Sun, not you. That plot started 4.6 odd billion years ago. Sneaky Terfs to arrange the laws of physics and the origin of the solar system to deny your Centrality in All Things.

Look closely enough and no two humans are “biologically identical.” Nobody is biologically identical to me, but that doesn’t mean I’ve redefined things to keep 7 billion plus people out of the club of “me.” I didn’t redefine my DNA to become exclusionary. It’s just the way things are.

Being an adult human female is not a club, or a clique or a fashion, or a team, or a game. It’s not a role in a play. It’s not a state of mind. It’s a fact of the world, a part of material reality. Stamping your feet and holding your breath until you turn blue (or mutilating your body and pumping it full of hormones, or just putting on a dress) isn’t going to change that. To think you can is misguided and delusional. The rest of the world is under no obligation to aid and abet the pursuit of your impossible goal. That there are people who can’t or won’t accept that is a problem to the extent that they make it a problem for everyone else. Using an analogy I came across in a different context, you can make your world a more comfortable place to walk by covering it with leather, or you can wear shoes. When you throw people out of restaurants because they’re wearing t-shirts that might offend people who are wrong and misguided, you’re trying to cover the world in leather. Don’t do that. Grow up. Wear shoes.

Surely the best solution for people who actually suffer from disphoria or dismorphia is the one that does the least harm. I’m thinking that gender “reassignment” surgery should be a last resort, not a first response. Surgery and drugs sound like the equivalent of a fad diet pill for “instant” weight loss, compared to following a long-term, sensible diet with exercise.

The issues involved would be much simpler if they were not compounded with the desires of the autogynephilic crowd (which, I believe, are different from the needs of the disphoric and dismorphic). Then there are those predators who would use self-ID to increase access to their victims. So the actual needs of suffering people (“true trans”, if you will) get hijacked by the desires of the needy, narcissistic, and predatory, who seem to be supplying the volume and firepower in the public airing of trans issues. Combine this with ad-hoc redefinition of terms, the conflation (or outright replacement) of “sex” with “gender,” the bad faith use of intersex and DSD conditions to argue against the 99% of cases where sex is one or the other configuration of an easily observed (not “assigned”) binary state, and you’ve got a good start on the recipe for the mess we’re in.

Cool story but is there a shred of truth in it?

Londoners Against Transphobia

Unfortunately, we had to cancel the planned protest against Women’s Place UK and Fairplay for Women due to concerns about the safety of attendants. We heard rumour of a counter-protest by more….’radical’ elements of the anti-trans community. This would have put people attending at risk of physical and psychological harm. If you wish to organise your own protest, please keep in mind that Posie Parker and Dr Julia Long may organise a counter protest where the aim may be to incite violence. We apologise for the situation, this was not how this wanted to go. If anyone ever claims that TERFs are being intimidated and silenced, I urge you tell people about this specific case where the people who had to stay silent for their safety were trans people and their allies.

But is there so much as one example of gender critical feminist women causing or threatening physical harm to anyone? Ever? Because I don’t know of any. Some people were terribly shocked that two such women asked a trans woman some questions in a public place this one time, but I don’t think that counts. Other than that? I don’t know of one single example. No baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire, no fake-blood-streaked T shirts, no tweets full of “Kill all the TERFs transwomen, nothing.

It’s an interesting trick, inventing a threat out of whole cloth and then announcing “If anyone ever claims that TERFs are being intimidated and silenced, I urge you tell people about this specific case where the people who had to stay silent for their safety were trans people and their allies.” What specific case? What “had to”? There isn’t any.

When gender critical women are threatened or attacked there is documentation of it. There are photos, there are screen grabs, there are witnesses, there is video. It’s not just a matter of saying it on Facebook: there is copious evidence. This? This is just people saying “We heard a rumor of a plan” – that’s literally all.

DARVO much?

Katie Herzog at The Stranger says Women’s Soccer is a Very Dykey Sport:

There’s a couple of major differences between women’s soccer and men’s soccer. One: The U.S. women are good at it. Two, women’s soccer is a hell of a lot gayer.

Yesterday, “content producer” Alex Binley from ITV News published an article about why, exactly, so many dykes excel at this sport.

Binley says it’s because there’s so much homophobia in the male version.

It’s hard to argue with that. Outside of the U.S., Canada, and a few other countries, soccer is both the most popular and the butchest sport on the block. Games tend to hyper-masculine environments, which are not exactly the most welcoming of men who don’t fit contemporary gender stereotypes.

While women who don’t fit contemporary gender stereotypes are freed up to play great football.