Oh hey gee what do you know, Khelif is “skipping” a match where he would be tested.

Olympic champion Imane Khelif is skipping the Eindhoven Box Cup in the Netherlands less than a week after World Boxing announced mandatory sex testing for all athletes.

The Algerian boxer, who won gold at the Paris Games last summer amid scrutiny over her eligibility, did not register in time for the event before applications closed on Thursday.

…

The 26-year-old Khelif had intended to return to international competition at the Eindhoven tournament this weekend before World Boxing announced its new sex testing policy last Friday. The governing body specifically mentioned Khelif, saying she’d have to screened to be approved to fight at any upcoming events, including the Eindhoven Box Cup.

The AP and other news organizations really should not be calling Khelif “she”. It’s a lie, and an obvious lie at that. It’s not the job of journalism to lie to us about magic gender.

Eindhoven mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem criticized World Boxing’s decision.

“As far as we are concerned, all athletes are welcome in Eindhoven. Excluding athletes based on controversial ‘gender tests’ certainly does not fit in with that,” Dijsselbloem wrote in a letter addressed to the Dutch Boxing Federation and International Boxing Federation.

That is stupid. Excluding men from women’s competitions fits in perfectly well with welcoming all athletes. Khelif is welcome, just not in the wrong category.

I see I’m not the only one taken aback by that Guardian article – to put it mildly.

Journalism warped by a deranged ideology.

They never had those “rights” in the first place.

Transgender people must accept a perceived reduction in their rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.

Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction”.

Mind you, anyone with a brain should have been able to see that the “rights” in question were not rights.

However, the human rights campaign groups Liberty and Amnesty called on the EHRC to make sure the rights of trans people were properly considered when it draws up guidance for public bodies on how to implement the changed legal landscape.

But Liberty and Amnesty are in the made-up rights faction. There is no “right” to force everyone (or anyone) to agree that you are the sex you are not. There is no right to force people to agree that you’re a Martian or an octopus or a submarine. There is no right to force people to treat you as a Martian or octopus or submarine. Pretending there is such a right is a disaster, not least because it weakens the whole idea of human rights. If putative rights are that ridiculous then it’s a mistake to defend or protect them at all.

Asked by an audience member about worries the ruling could reduce the rights of trans people, another panellist, the barrister Naomi Cunningham, said trans people “will have to give way”, adding: “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

Reindorf, speaking next, agreed: “Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are. It’s like Naomi said – I just can’t say it in a more diplomatic way than that. They have been lied to, and there has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights.”

Genuine rights – the kind that make sense and are workable.

Chiara Capraro, head of gender justice at Amnesty International UK, said: “The EHRC has the duty to uphold the rights of everyone, including all with protected characteristics. We are concerned that it is failing to do so and is unhelpfully pitting the rights of women and trans people against each other.”

Wrong. It’s trans ideology that does that, not the EHRC. Pretending that men have a right to be in women’s spaces and take jobs reserved for women and win awards intended for women and compete as women in Olympic boxing is what pits the rights of women and the fake rights of trans people against each other.

Oops.

A gynecologist has misgivings.

I performed my first hysterectomy for gender confirmation in 2019. I was so delighted to help out my own LGBT community. I took immense pride in being my local LGBT clinic’s official gynecologist. What greater joy is there in medicine than providing great care to a vulnerable, underserved community, all with the support of your administration? It was how the world should be.

Six years later, I wonder.

The hysterectomies went well. They were uncomplicated. Even the one patient who came back to see me for well woman care after detransitioning didn’t tell me she regretted her surgery. I hope that all those patients are still happy not to have their uteri. But in terms of the clinic overall, staffed by earnest, well-meaning clinicians as it was – were we doing the right thing?

In some cases, I don’t think we were.

…

I was on board and ready to support my community. Sure, there were uncomfortable questions – hadn’t we learned in medical school that most pediatric gender dysphoria resolves by adulthood? If so, did it make sense for young adolescents to transition to the opposite sex? Was it really plausible that transgender female athletes didn’t have a biological advantage over cis girls and women? The accepted answers seemed counterintuitive – however, I assumed that the experts had carefully weighed the evidence, had done plenty of research, and had reached a scientifically-based consensus before making their recommendations regarding gender medicine.

What experts though? Trans ideology isn’t based on a whole lot of expertise. It’s mostly based on threats and abuse.

For a few years, I essentially became the go-to gynecologist in my community for gender-affirming hysterectomy referrals. I enjoyed taking care of my transmasculine patients. Some of them drove hundreds of miles from their homes in rural Iowa to receive their care in our LGBT clinic. I felt good about providing such a much-needed service. As I would joke to my assistant, a gender affirming hysterectomy referral was “my easiest consult of the day.” They came in knowing what they wanted: a hysterectomy. Unless they had a major contraindication to surgery, like uncontrolled diabetes, it was an easy decision to book it. Unlike hysterectomies for abnormal bleeding or pelvic pain, there was no need to document prior attempts at treatment, failures, and impact on the patient’s life for the insurance companies to authorize these hysterectomies. “Gender dysphoria” always got approved (with the requisite two letters, one from a mental health professional and one from a PCP).

That comes as a shock to me, I have to say. The medical kind of hysterectomy had to withstand a lot of questions, while the sad mood kind was waved right on through.

As the years went by, I couldn’t help but notice some troubling trends. The transmasculine patients who came to me had more and more poorly controlled mental health comorbidities. I also started seeing a fair percentage of them who were really quite feminine – not much different in their gender presentation than my cis patients.

I started to be a little more uneasy that hysterectomy was the right thing for this new group of transmasculine patients, but if they didn’t have any contraindications per se, I couldn’t really say no. After all, according to ACOG Committee Opinion #823, Health Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals, “Hysterectomy with or without bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy is medically necessary for patients with gender dysphoria who desire this procedure.”

Medically necessary, even though “gender dysphoria” is not medical. I cannot make sense of that.

As a medical system, for better or worse, we make our traditional gynecologic patients with miserable periods jump through quite a few hoops before they are approved for hysterectomy. Generally, they have to have a full workup for any reversible medical reason for their miserable periods and try some sort of medical management of their heavy periods, because it is such a grave decision to take a patient for a major surgery like hysterectomy with all the accompanying risk (death, bowel injury requiring lifelong colostomy, urologic injury requiring lifelong urostomy, chronic debilitating surgical pain, vaginal cuff dehiscence with evisceration, massive blood loss, stroke, etc.)

By contrast, according to medical guidelines currently in play, a uterus-having person need only walk into a gynecologist’s office, declare themselves to have a nonbinary or male gender identity, and endorse dysphoria from the presence of their uterus to qualify for hysterectomy.

I can make even less sense of that. It’s insane.

Still wondering how best to take care of my patients, I went to a private forum for Ob/Gyns to ask about how others addressed nonbinary individuals who requested gender affirming hysterectomy. I was told my question was “transphobic.”

What is the scientific medical term for transphobia?

To sum up: medicine is shockingly captive.

Ok this is just plain hilarious.

The alliance between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk spectacularly imploded Thursday as the world’s most prominent bromance collapsed into mutual public trolling.

…

The public unraveling began in the Oval Office, where Trump spoke to reporters at the start of a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“Elon and I had a great relationship,” he said. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”

Oh I know. Did you hear what Sally said to Lucy about it? It’s like all over the school.

The quarrel escalated rapidly from there, with the two men blasting out angry posts on their respective social media platforms.

Which I cannot help laughing at. We knew how childish they are but still – it is hilarious that they’re that helpless at ass-covering. I think we have a good chance of seeing them pulling each other’s hair and screaming on live tv.

By late afternoon, Musk was writing on X that he agreed Trump should be impeached and replaced with Vice President JD Vance. 

That sentence caused me to laugh loudly enough to wake all the neighborhood dogs – genuine unforced shriek of laughter.

He further signaled his estrangement from Trump’s orbit by “unfollowing” Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s top aides, whose wife has been working for Musk.

Er ner, nert ernferlering!! The ultimate tragic end of a beautiful friendship.

Musk volleyed back, declaring it was “time to drop the really big bomb” that Trump “is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day DJT!”

When dickheads fall out.

The unraveling “happened faster than I thought,” said one Musk ally, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject. “What Elon really wanted is to be president, I think.”

Hahahahahaha yes that is quite a hasty unraveling.

Was Elon thinking Trump would make him president?

Tesla investors braced themselves as they watched Musk’s relationship with the president go up in flames. “Can someone please take the phone away from him! wtf! tesla is getting destroyed,” investor Ross Gerber, a onetime Musk booster, posted on X.

Oops! Bad business move was it? How sad oh well never mind.

H/t What a Maroon

Trump is fine with women dying rather than having emergency abortions.

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would revoke guidance to the nation’s hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions for women when they are necessary to stabilize their medical condition.

Easy for him. He’s not going to die of septicemia because the hospital refuses to meddle with his pregnancy.

That guidance was issued to hospitals in 2022, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upended national abortion rights in the U.S. It was an effort by the Biden administration to preserve abortion access for extreme cases in which women were experiencing medical emergencies and needed an abortion to prevent organ loss or severe hemorrhaging, among other serious complications.

Serious complications that cause death.

The move prompted concerns from some doctors and abortion rights advocates that women will not get emergency abortions in states with strict bans.

“The Trump Administration would rather women die in emergency rooms than receive life-saving abortions,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “In pulling back guidance, this administration is feeding the fear and confusion that already exists at hospitals in every state where abortion is banned. Hospitals need more guidance, not less, to stop them from turning away patients experiencing pregnancy crises.”

But that takes much of the fun out of it. These people want to see women die of pregnancy crises.

Aw gee, their great love lasted only three months.

President Trump and Elon Musk’s alliance dissolved into open acrimony on Thursday, as the two men hurled personal attacks at each other after the billionaire had unleashed broadsides against the president’s signature domestic policy bill.

While meeting with Friedrich Merz, Germany’s new chancellor, in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump broke days of uncharacteristic silence and unloaded on Mr. Musk, who until last week was a top presidential adviser.

“I’m very disappointed in Elon,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

As the president criticized Mr. Musk, the billionaire responded in real time on X, the social media platform he owns.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Mr. Musk wrote.

“Such ingratitude,” he added, taking credit for Mr. Trump’s election in a way that he never has before.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless Donald.

Mr. Musk had been careful in recent days to train his ire on Republicans in Congress, not Mr. Trump himself. But he discarded that caution on Thursday, ridiculing the president in a pattern familiar to the many previous Trump advisers who have fallen by the wayside.

I wonder why that is. It’s very puzzling. Let’s put our thinking caps on. Hmm…could it be…is it possibly because he is exactly what he appears to be but these fools refuse to get it until he does it to them?

What started as simply a fight over the domestic policy bill sharply escalated in just a few hours. Within minutes of one another, Mr. Trump was making fun of Mr. Musk’s unwillingness to wear makeup to cover a recent black eye, and Mr. Musk was raising questions about Mr. Trump’s competency as president.

Gee, Elon, it would have been great if you had grasped this obvious point BEFORE YOU HELPED HIM WIN THE ELECTION AND SET ABOUT DESTROYING THE WORLD.

Yes why do these silly people get so angry about the tank driven through women’s rights, the children and teenagers with ruined bodies, the fanatical belief in a nonsensical creed, the endless ferocious bullying – what is there that’s even slightly annoying about any of that? Who can possibly figure it out?

Peak majority/minority who is the most minorityized confusion achieved.

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled in favor of a straight woman who twice lost positions to gay workers, saying an appeals court had been wrong to require her to meet a heightened burden in seeking to prove workplace discrimination because she was a member of a majority group.

Because what? Because she was a member of what?

News flash: women are not the dominant aka preferred aka privileged sex. Women are the sex seen as weak and stupid and not as good as the alternative sex. It’s not about majority or minority, it’s about being perceived as inferior. The two are not the same, and people in a “majority” can be perceived as inferior. Slaves were very often the majority on plantations, but that didn’t make them more powerful or privileged or rewarded, now did it.

The decision came two years after the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs in higher education and amid the Trump administration’s fierce efforts to root out programs that promote diversity and could make it easier for white people, men and other members of majority groups to pursue claims of employment discrimination.

What mean “other members of majority groups”? Men aren’t members of majority groups, men are roughly half. The power differential between women and men isn’t about more v fewer, it’s about which sex can punch harder. It’s also about a lot more than that – who gestates, for a start – but my point is that the issue here is that journalism should stop using “majority” as a synonym for “dominant” or similar. It just confuses things.

Ms. Ames sued under a federal civil rights law that forbids employment discrimination based on, among other characteristics, sex. (The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination for purposes of the civil rights law.)

The text of the law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, does not draw distinctions based on whether the person claiming discrimination is a member of a majority group. But some courts have required plaintiffs from majority groups to prove an additional element if they lack direct evidence of discrimination: “background circumstances that support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”

But it’s not unusual. It’s not unusual for employers to discriminate against women. “Majority” is not what you mean here! If even Supreme Court rulings can’t get it right what hope is there? And it’s not just a picky word-freak item, either, because it obviously matters. It seems to be the very subject of the ruling, and yet nobody can say so.

Lower courts ruled against Ms. Ames on those grounds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, said she could have satisfied the “background circumstances” requirement by showing that decisions about her employment were made by “a member of the relevant minority group (here, gay people)” or with statistical evidence. But the appeals court said Ms. Ames had provided neither kind of proof.

So it has to be a literal minority group in this one case? So which sex is the minority sex? Please inform.

Wait who did the tampering?

Dang. That’s so the opposite of an accurate definition. It’s like saying flying is crawling through mud, or a daffodil is a mound of bear shit, or India Willoughby is thoughtful and reasonable.

Rules about where the different sexes go to pee are human inventions, and thus the very opposite of instinctive.

Oddly enough, this also applies to the word “Ladies.” It also applies to the women’s section in the shop.

I suppose she means automatically, or without having to think about it, as a result of habit. But that’s not the same thing. At all.

She’s really not sharp, is she.

No reason. Just because.

Does the BBC hire its reporters from kindergartens these days?

National Trust covers artwork referencing JK Rowling after tampering

[Too many ings for one headline, Beeb. Clumsy. Work on your aesthetics.]

The National Trust has covered up a piece of art featuring the name of author JK Rowling, after it was tampered with by a member of the public.

Between April and November 2024 visitors to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire were invited to stitch names of women they felt should be celebrated on to a textile display called Virtuous Woman. During this time, a participant stitched over the Harry Potter author’s name. Last week, this covering was removed by feminist campaigner Jean Hatchet.

So here’s the problem: which “tampered with” are you talking about?

I guess we have to come down on the side of the removal. Note the language. The person who stitched over JKR’s name is “a participant” while Jean Hatchet is “feminist campaigner” – so we’re nudged to conclude that the stitching over was all part of the fun while undoing the stitching over was disgusting feminist campaigning.

But what about the “participant” who stitched in Rowling in the first place? Why is it participation to cross that out but naughty feminism to restore it?

The National Trust, who manage the property, said: “The artwork was open to contributions for eight months and closed in November when the piece was finished and put on public display.”

“We ask visitors not to tamper with any art on display,” they added. “The piece has been taken off display while we investigate the damage caused and consider next steps.”

The damage caused ffs. What about the damage caused by the stitching over in the first place?

The snide little piece ends with the snide remark that JKR declined to comment.

The man “Lilly” Tino has been filming himself in women’s toilets, sometimes including actual women in his filming without visibly asking their permission.

Helen Webberley aka Gender GP lets us know how profoundly confused (aka stupid) she is. Just in case we didn’t already know.

Every time this topic comes up, the conversation sounds painfully familiar. We hear people saying that it’s not fair for trans women to compete in women’s sport. That’s the sentence that gets all the airtime, but what’s missing from that conversation is just as important, if not more so.

We almost never hear people ask whether it’s fair for cis men to compete against trans men. 

Yes she actually typed that, and hasn’t yet deleted it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Mental health hospitals responsible for violent criminals have policies which allow biologically male patients to “self identify” as women, an audit has revealed.

Campaigners warned that NHS trusts are “playing Russian roulette with women’s safety” by placing transgender women — who were born male — on female wards.

Why don’t NHS trusts know that without being told? How is it not blindingly obvious?

In some cases, hospitals acknowledged that some trans patients may pose a “risk to a particular gender” or be “sexually disinhibited” and “very distressing for other patients on a single-sex ward”.

Lying obfuscating sneaky toads. They mean male patients obviously pose a risk to women. How dare they lie about it and obfuscate it with burble about “a particular gender” and “other patients”?

The lying and obfuscation make it entirely clear that they know what the problem is and are carefully trying to hide it. It’s not that they don’t realize males are a danger to females, it’s that they’re lying about it. For what? For the glorious cause of letting violent men have access to helpless confined women.

One trust, South West London and St George’s, suggested that it may sometimes be appropriate to put forensic trans patients on a ward in line with their biological sex “while they are acutely unwell” due to being a possible “risk to a particular gender”. The policy document added: “Once they have recovered and have regained capacity it would be essential to reassess the risk … and if safe and appropriate, to arrange a move to a ward in accordance with their correct gender.”

Sometimes? It only “sometimes” “might be” “appropriate” to put male criminals in a male ward? It’s always absolutely imperative to put male criminals in a male ward.

As Helen Joyce put it:

“These NHS trusts are missing the point: no male patient should ever be allowed in female accommodation under any circumstances. If health care managers cannot understand why this matters so much in mental health services, then they are not fit to run NHS trusts or to have female patients in their care.”

The NHS says it’s thinking about it, sort of, maybe.

I missed this a couple of weeks ago: Arty Morty started a post on his blog with a lavish torrent of compliments about this very place including yous guys. Skipping the first couple of sentences, I’ll share the part that’s about the whole thing, i.e. yous guys.

In case you haven’t noticed by now, Benson’s blog, Butterflies and Wheels, is my go-to salon — a digital Algonquin Round Table where clever commentary and thoughtful debate reflect the values of liberalism, feminism, humanism, and rational inquiry. For more than a decade, it’s been the first site I check in the morning and the last at night, a daily ritual marked by an embarrassing number of midday refreshes — which tells you everything you need to know about what this intellectual gathering place means to me.

(It has early gender critical cred, too: the late Magdalen Berns was a guest author there in 2016!)

Y’all are a digital Algonquin Round Table. I love that.

Bromance over.

Elon Musk on Tuesday tore into the massive tax-and-spending-cut bill backed by President Donald Trump, calling it a “disgusting abomination” that will explode federal budget deficits.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media site X.

Is he though? Is he sorry?

“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” added the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.

“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

I can think of some things Musk did wrong – like taking an axe to USAID for instance.

The White House quickly shrugged off the criticism from Musk, a vocal Trump supporter who spent over $250 million backing Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

“Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said when asked about the post. “It doesn’t change the President’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,” she said.

Yep. Just keep repeating “one big, beautiful bill” and reality will fall into line.

Goddam Guardian:

Advocates for pregnant people said they are alarmed by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s unprecedented and unilateral decision to remove Covid-19 booster shots from the recommended immunization schedule.

WOMEN. Women women women. Pregnant women. No men get pregnant. “Women” is not a dirty word: use it. Erasing women is peak misogyny.

A vaccine’s inclusion on the schedule is important for patient access, because many private health insurance plans determine which vaccines to cover based on the schedule.

Bad Kennedy is happy to endanger pregnant women for the sake of his crank suspicions.

“Kennedy’s unilateral decision to change the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule for Covid-19 vaccines demonstrates once again why he is completely unqualified to be the HHS secretary,” said Dr Robert Steinbrook, research director at consumer rights group Public Citizen, said in a statement. “In Congressional testimony on May 14, Kennedy said, ‘I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.’ Yet two weeks later he is making arbitrary public health decisions, defying norms, and with no accountability.”

He’s a very bad man. Egotism that kills is very bad indeed.

Meanwhile the Guardian is adamant about erasing women.

Despite the known risks of contracting Covid-19 while pregnant, public health authorities have struggled to get pregnant people vaccinated. CDC data shows only about 14% of pregnant people received the most recently updated Covid-19 vaccine.

“Women” is not a dirty word.