The incoherence of it all.

“I wouldn’t say they’re transphobic, but they need to be careful what they tweet”

Lucy Clark, football’s first transgender referee, reacts to comments of ex-sports stars like Sharron Davies and Martina Navratilova on trans athletes in women’s sportshttps://t.co/G0PEAgNlJL pic.twitter.com/oacPu0gtd1

— Victoria Derbyshire (@VictoriaLIVE) March 4, 2019

Victoria Derbyshire asks “What about the suggestion that trans athletes should have a separate category of competition?”

So that muddies the waters right off the bat. The issue is trans women competing against women. Trans men aren’t being unfair to men or women by competing against men, so the issue isn’t “trans athletes” in general but trans women who compete against women. The bad question allows Clark to brush it off with “Come on, it’s 2 thousand 19 now” and similar generalities, ending up at “It’s totally unfair – we are human beings – nobody chooses to be transgender.” Wait, now – nobody? Do we know that? Does anybody know that? How could anybody know that?

Especially now that the standard has become “identifies as.” The Ideological Command is that if someone “identifies as” trans / a woman / a man / trans-non-binary / genderqueer and so on to infinity, then that is what she/he/they is. It is mandatory that we all take the identifying-as to equal being the category identified as; it’s a very serious crime to do anything short of that.

Given that fact, and the heated abusive rhetoric that backs up the mandate, how can we possibly know that no one chooses to be trans?

There’s also quite a lot of ideology around the idea that lots of people are potentially trans who haven’t quite realized it yet, or who are afraid to embrace it fully, or who are trans half the week and not the other half of the week. There’s quite a lot of moving between categories. There’s a lot of expansion of the categories, which means there’s a lot of variation in the descriptions of the categories. How, then, can we possibly know that no one chooses to be trans?

Also: there are a lot of psychopaths and narcissists and other kinds of shit-stirrers out there. There are a lot of trans women for whom the whole point of being a trans woman seems to be aggression against that inferior category of women who just are women, without the trans part. How, then, can we possibly know that no one chooses to be trans?

And even if none of that were true, still how could we know that no one chooses to be trans? It’s a mental state, and certainty about the mental state of all other people is not a thing we get to have.

Actually, it’s the other way around. Nobody chooses to be born whatever sex it is. We don’t choose it, it’s just a fact. We also don’t choose how well it suits us to be that sex rather than the other one, and that too is universal. There’s a range of intensity to how unheimlich our sex feels, and for some it’s so intense that they prefer to move to the other one – but that again is something no one can be certain about, including the person who feels it, because she or he doesn’t know how it compares to what everyone else feels. We all know only what it feels like to be ourselves, each one one at a time.

Lucy Clark is just wrong to make such a confident claim. Nobody can possibly know that no one chooses to be trans.

Prince Jared’s buddies the Saudi dictators:

A dual citizen of Saudi Arabia and the United States had been imprisoned in the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh for about a week when he heard a knock on his door.

Guards dragged Walid Fitaihi, a Harvard-trained physician, to another room, according to a friend who took down the prisoner’s detailed account of his treatment. Dr. Fitaihi told the friend he was slapped, blindfolded, stripped to his underwear and bound to a chair. He was shocked with electricity in what appears to have been a single session of torture that lasted about an hour.

His tormentors whipped his back so severely that he could not sleep on it for days, his friend said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. The doctor had described the physical abuse, in general terms, to his relatives as well, a person close to them said.

The Saudis grabbed him in November 2017, in what they claim is a crackdown on corruption (yeah right). He’s still locked up. He’s a US citizen.

Lots of people were tortured in that “crackdown” and are still locked up.

But Dr. Fitaihi’s American citizenship means that his mistreatment, which has not been previously reported, may now pose a special threat to Saudi relations with Washington. The Trump administration is already struggling to quell a bipartisan backlash against the kingdom over the killing last fall of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and Washington Post columnist who was executed and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

Prince Jared met with Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week, their first meeting since Khashoggi was tortured to death. They met so that Jared could play diplomat settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict some more.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has defied a congressional deadline to report about who was responsible for the killing. Instead, President Trump has equivocated about whether Prince Mohammed might have authorized it, even as he has extolled the value of Saudi Arabian oil sales and defense contracts.

The guy has his priorities.

Saudi officials have denied any mistreatment of detainees. A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said the kingdom has signed the convention against torture and prohibits its use.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia takes any and all allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously,” the spokesman said.

Nope.

He’s doing it again.

In State Dining Room where Trump is about to present another college football team (North Dakota State University Bisons) with another of his legendary junk food feasts. Making America great, one Big Mac at a time. pic.twitter.com/7dm39ZxHCW

— Sebastian Smith (@SebastianAFP) March 4, 2019

Never mind that these college kids might prefer to have something more elegant and memorable to match the surroundings, just give them the crap they can get for a few bucks on any busy downtown corner.

Catherine Bennett points out that media-friendly clerics have one persona for Thought for the Day and another for, say, newspaper columns.

And welcome to the amoral maze, where our dilemma of the week is: just how insufferable does a spiritual leader have to be before he or she becomes unqualified to preach at the general public? Or to put it another way, why should the church have a monopoly on excommunication?

The question is not, emphatically, restricted to the case of the ubiquitous prelate, blogger and speaker, Giles Fraser, although with his recent blog – chastising women who fail to stay near home for the future convenience of incontinent fathers – he has done more than most to focus attention on the sort of qualities that should, ideally, distinguish a Thought for the Day contributor from, say, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

…

Partly because they are subject to editorial control, and no doubt because they would like to be invited back, TFTD contributors generally refrain, in this slot, from the overtly prescriptive, preferring to agree with their own recycled platitudes: sometimes bad things happen; money can’t buy happiness; it’s good to talk. Alternatively: I saw a nice film/sky/pair of shoes recently; it put me in mind of Jesus/the Prophet/Guru Nanak.

I find this helpful, because I’ve somehow always thought Giles Fraser was that kind of vicar, and so I’ve regularly been surprised when he says something reactionary.

Fraser’s latest expressions of enthusiasm for patriarchal arrangements, whether it’s his support for censorship in a girls’ faith school or tweeted nostalgia for pre-feminist times (“Don’t say stuck in the past. The past was better. Much better”), suggest that the principal problem with TFTD may be less, today, that it tests listeners’ endurance, more that its Thinkers insult their values. There was probably a time when much of his UK audience would have agreed, quite happily, with Fraser, that career women neglect their families, or with TFTD colleague, the bishop of Norwich, that marriage is for men and women only. But these, along with other cherished religious prejudices, have become ever more irreconcilable – when they are not transparently discriminatory – with evolving secular thinking, in a country where more than half have no faith.

Secular groups have campaigned to be included in TFTD, but Reverend Beeb always says no.

Catholics, when lecturing the masses on niceness, now do so between headlines about their own church’s staggering moral failures. Notwithstanding the advance of virtuous journalists and spiritual randomers from the life-coach end of the TFTD talent pool, promotion within an established faith hierarchy remains the most reliable route to freelance preaching work, whether it’s in the House of Lords, on an independent commission or in defiance of the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, on late-night news programmes.

No sooner had his nappy meditation been eviscerated by women who both work and care for their elderly parents than our tireless Pampers Savonarola, Giles Fraser, was addressing us again, from Newsnight, albeit in the more humble, ecumenical style that once seemed to fit so well with Guardianvalues. Was this why we never guessed that our own “Loose Canon”, who once excoriated his own church for promoting a cleric opposed to the ordination of women, would one day write: “It is the daughter of the elderly gentleman that should be wiping his bottom”? Also: “The attraction of socially conservative and traditional values are that they constitute a highly successful form of mutual care.”

So I’m not the only one who has been confused about Giles Fraser. Good to know.

But it would be wrong to single out Fraser merely because, with the support of entranced progressives, he so often does so himself. His moral exhortations of a morning, evening or late evening – now that he reveals his patriarchal hankerings – are not necessarily more loathsome than those of more cautious colleagues. You can’t tell, from a brief, TFTD introduction, which of its Anglican bishops failed adequately to respond to allegations of sexual abuse, nor which of its regulars oppose same sex marriage, or deny women jobs or prosper by rarely mentioning that they consider homosexuality to be a sin.

Moreover, faith professionals enjoy an exemption, under the Equality Act, allowing them to discriminate for spiritual purposes. But what is the BBC’s excuse?

That it sees itself as a kind of church?

I think the first step toward being a journalist ought to be a reasonably solid grip on the language you plan to use. There shouldn’t be a mistake or incoherence or clumsiness in every paragraph, as there is in this piece on A Nopen Letter saying…no, I’ll let the reporter explain what it says.

Dozens of female celebrities, politicians and women’s rights campaigners have condemned the “narrow and archaic” opinions they say are are squashing transgender rights in Scotland.

Squashing? Squashing rights? That’s a peculiar word to use. Crushing, yes, quashing, yes, but squashing? It sounds silly, and off.

More than 70 women from across the UK have penned an open letter hitting out at commentators they claim are trying to “roll back the rights” of transgender women.

“Hitting out at” – that’s a more familiar idiom but it’s ridiculous and poisonous. Stating a position, even one that opposes another position, is not “hitting out.”

Since the Scottish Government pledged to reform the Gender Recognition Act to be more inclusive of transgender people, critics have argued doing so will impact on the rights of non-transgender women and girls.

Vague, clumsy, uninformative. “Inclusive” meaning what? “[Have an] impact on” how? Be specific.

Various commentators, news outlets and politicians have argued that by being able to self-declare your gender or non-binary status, services and safe places for women would no longer be safe.

Fail. Subject-verb agreement, also two halves of sentence agreement.

Some argue that by allowing transgender women who may not completed their gender reassignment access to services designated for women it would be impacting on women’s rights.

Jesus. More subject-verb chaos plus there’s even a word missing.

Today, scores of women have joined together for the first time in hitting out at the claims, with signatories of the open letter including Dame Emma Thompson, MPs Mhairi Black and Hannah Bardell, members of women’s aid organisations, charities, lawyers and academics.

Scores? How many scores? Two? Three? Why not just say the number? (I think I saw somewhere that it’s 70. 3.5 score, so not all that many scores, but it sounds big.) And another “hitting out” already.

This person may identify as a journalist, but…

The Beeb might as well hire McKinnon at this rate.

Tennis icon Martina Navratilova has apologised for using the term “cheating” when discussing whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sport.

Navratilova – one of the most successful tennis players of all time – has been criticised as “transphobic” for writing that transgender women had “unfair” physical advantages over female opponents.

There it is again – the “somebody called her transphobic” well-poisoning right at the beginning, so that readers will be fully primed to despise Navratilova before they even know what she said.

On Saturday, former British swimmer Sharron Davies told BBC Sport that many current athletes “feel the same way” and that trans athletes should not compete in female events to “protect women’s sport”.

However, transgender cyclist Rachel McKinnon, who won a UCI Masters Track World Championship title in October, said Davies was “sharing hate speech”.

Athlete Ally – a US-based organisation that campaigns for LGBT sportspeople – cut its links with Navratilova in the wake of the 62-year-old’s original comments, saying they “perpetuate dangerous myths”.

And there that is again – giving Navratilova’s age but not giving McKinnon’s age.

They’ve chosen a side and they’re sticking to it.

Navratilova makes a cogent argument about women's sport and the headlines are on those who take offence. She then develops it and the headlines are on her choice of language. Only one perspective ever matters. https://t.co/q1JfzyZZ6P

— Victoria Smith (@glosswitch) March 3, 2019

The Beeb loads the dice yet again:

Transgender athletes should not compete in female competitions in order to “protect women’s sport”, says former British swimmer Sharron Davies.

Her comments come after 18-time tennis Grand Slam singles champion Martina Navratilova said it was “cheating” to allow transgender women to compete in women’s sport because they had unfair physical advantages.

One campaign group said Navratilova’s comments were “transphobic”.

The BBC did not have to report it that way. It did not have to include that sly childish tattletale one campaign group said Navratilova’s comments were “transphobic”. It didn’t have to and it shouldn’t have, because in fact her comments were not “transphobic.” It’s not “phobic” to say that male bodies have physical advantages over female bodies for many sports. The BBC doesn’t have to rush to say “somebody said that was transphobic!!” every single time a woman states some facts about female and male bodies. Many of us say all this bullshit is misogynistic, but I don’t see the Beeb reporting that ever.

Speaking to BBC Sport, Davies, 56, said she had spoken to many other female athletes who “feel the same way”.

“It is not a transphobic thing – I really want to say we have no issue with people who are transgender,” she said.

But it’s too late. The BBC places that after its “somebody said!!” bullshit, so that readers will be primed to think it is and that the disavowal is fake.

Next up, the obligatory summoning of Rachel McKinnon, the Beeb’s new besty.

In December, transgender cyclist Rachel McKinnon told BBC Sport she estimated she has received more than 100,000 hate messages on Twitter since she won her UCI Masters Track World Championship title in October.

Fellow cyclist Jen Wagner-Assali, who finished third, called it “unfair” and called on cycling’s international governing body to change its rules.

On Saturday, McKinnon said Davies was a “transphobe” and was “sharing hate speech”.

“There is no debate to be had over whether trans women athletes have an unfair advantage: it’s clear that they don’t,” she said on Twitter.

Rachel has spoken.

Athlete Ally – a US-based organisation that campaigns for LGBT sportspeople – cut its links with Navratilova in the wake of the 62-year-old’s comments, saying they “perpetuate dangerous myths”.

Interesting that they never mention McKinnon’s age. Interesting that they make a point of telling us how old Davies is and how old Navratilova is but not how old McKinnon is. I’m guessing they want us to think that Davies and Navratilova are getting soft in the head because so ancient?

H/t Acolyte of Sagan

Trump had big hopes for the summit with his dear friend Kim. He thought his charisma would win all the cards.

In a dinner at the Metropole Hotel the evening before, mere feet from the bomb shelter where guests took cover during the Vietnam War, Mr. Kim had resisted what Mr. Trump presented as a grand bargain: North Korea would trade all its nuclear weapons, material and facilities for an end to the American-led sanctions squeezing its economy.

An American official later described this as “a proposal to go big,” a bet by Mr. Trump that his force of personality, and view of himself as a consummate dealmaker, would succeed where three previous presidents had failed.

More reasonable people knew that wouldn’t fly, but that’s beside the point.

Several of Mr. Trump’s own aides, led by national security adviser John R. Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, thought the chances of a grand bargain for total nuclear disarmament were virtually zero. Some questioned whether the summit meeting should go forward.

Mr. Trump disagreed. He had taken to showing what he called Mr. Kim’s “beautiful letters” to visitors to the Oval Office, as evidence he had built a rapport with one of the world’s most brutal dictators. While some in the White House worried Mr. Trump was being played, the president seemed entranced — even declaring “we fell in love.”

He’s so dumb. It never ceases to amaze, how dumb he is.

In interviews with a half-dozen participants, it is clear Mr. Trump’s failed gambit was the culmination of two years of threats, hubris and misjudgment on both sides. Mr. Trump entered office convinced he could intimidate the man he liked to call “Little Rocket Man” with tough talk and sanctions, then abruptly took the opposite tack, overruling his aides and personalizing the diplomacy.

Dumb with the Twitter insults, and dumb with the goo-goo eyes.

This photo is just weird.

That’s Natalie van Gogh again in the middle. All the other members of the team are turned to the side, angled toward the middle person, while the middle person – van Gogh – stands and faces the viewer dead-on. The heights rise from each side to culminate in van Gogh, the tallest and widest. The others’ legs are only slightly parted, while van Gogh’s are in an emphatic upside-down V, aka a straddle. The photo is of a large domineering muscular man with a group of much younger women as his handmaidens on either side.

Is that…a publicity shot? A wtf shot? What is it? Why did van Gogh agree to the pose? Has the world gone mad?

Originally a comment by guest on America’s exceptionally low social mobility.

One of the most striking differences I noticed when I moved from the US to the UK was how many people I met in professional/work circles who had literally ‘worked their way up’–the country/sector director of the large company I worked for in my first job here had started as an apprentice in the ’70s. I don’t think I ever knew anyone in the US who’d done this (I thought I had, but when I mentioned this years ago a catty friend revealed the advantages this person, whose persona was that of someone from an underprivileged background who’d ‘made good’, had actually started with).

I’ve met dozens of people here (almost all women–but that might just be because I spend more time talking with women) in my generation and younger who were the first in their families to get university degrees and professional jobs. It’s not always easy for them–I was actually talking with one the other night, a woman from a ‘deprived’ background who has a PhD from Oxford, who (like plenty of others) pointed out that while it’s certainly a positive thing for Oxbridge to work to get ‘diverse’ students into their programs they’re not so good at acknowledging and making explicit the tacit assumptions and behaviour norms that can make the experience a minefield for an outsider, which can lead to retention problems, and potentially psychological/emotional damage.

On kind of a tangent, I’m realising that my father was actually the first in his family to get a degree and professional job (my mother finished high school, and was a SAHM)–I’ve thought before (and perhaps have even commented to this effect on this blog) that while it meant that although he earned enough to provide us with a ‘nice’ house in the suburbs and plenty of money, and we never went without, physically, my parents had no idea how to support their children into professional careers themselves, or that they even should or had to, and may not have been able to do anything about it (re informal networking, positioning, etc) even if they had.