Michael Deacon at The Telegraph has some questions for Stephen Fry. He wants to know exactly which of JK Rowling’s beliefs about women are “radical” in Fry’s view.

Take, for example, Ms Rowling’s belief that women don’t have testicles. Or her belief that men can’t give birth. Is either of those beliefs radical? Extreme? Wildly at variance with established medical science?

Perhaps he’s thinking of her belief that biological males should not be entitled to enter the female changing room at their local swimming pool and strip naked in front of small girls. Or her belief that confused children should not be pumped with drugs designed to prevent them from going through a normal, healthy puberty. Or her belief that we should not grant a convicted rapist his wish to be placed in a jail full of women merely because he’s suddenly taken to sporting a blonde wig and pink leggings.

In other words is it really JKR who is the “radical” here? Or is it the faction that believes and swears and enforces that yes, some women do have testicles, some men can give birth, some biological males [you can’t say that!!] do get to take their clothes off in front of small girls? You be the judge.

People can be so tiresome.

An 18th Century oil painting has allegedly been damaged after a museum visitor tripped while taking a selfie.

Florence’s Uffizi Gallery said a tourist fell backwards while trying to “make a meme in front” of a portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, by Anton Domenico Gabbiani. The museum explained the damage could be repaired quickly but director Simone Verde warned restrictions on visitor behaviour could be imposed in the future.

If what you want to do is take selfies to impress your friends or social meeja or the unlucky people in your immediate vicinity then do it somewhere other than in front of a unique work of art, mkay?

Earlier this year at Palazzo Maffei, in Verona, a man seemingly slipped and fell on to a bejewelled chair by Italian artist Nicola Bolla. He had been taking photos with a woman, pretending to sit on the chair.

Museum director Vanessa Carlon said: “Sometimes we lose our brains to take a picture, and we don’t think about the consequences. Of course it was an accident, but these two people left without speaking to us – that isn’t an accident.”

Also sometimes we lose our brains because we’re too busy saying Look At Me!! to pay attention to where we are and what we’re doing and what other people might want, such as peace and quiet in a museum or gallery or ancient library.

Some people have a strange idea of fun.

Rescuers in Indonesia are searching for a Brazilian tourist who fell while hiking near the crater of Mount Rinjani, an active volcano.

Like that. Why would people want to hike near the crater of an active volcano?

Brazilian media and the woman’s family have identified her as 26-year-old Juliana Marins, who was hiking with a group when she disappeared around 06:30 local time on Saturday (23:30 GMT Friday).

Brazilian authorities said she fell from “a cliff that surrounds the trail next to the volcano’s crater”. Search and rescue attempts have so far been unsuccessful due to the extreme terrain and foggy weather, according to Indonesian authorities.

I don’t know, I guess I’m just a wimp, but I don’t see the appeal of daring extreme terrain to push you off it.

On Monday rescuers were able to locate Ms Marins again, who appeared to have had fallen even further, but had to stop work because of “climate conditions”, according to the family.

Which seems like a good reason not to hike there in the first place, doesn’t it?

In interviews with Brazilian TV network Globo, two members in Ms Marins’s group described the hike as difficult. One said the climb was “really hard” and “it was so cold, it was really, really tough”.

Another said at the time of the accident Ms Marins was at the back of the group hiking with their guide. “It was really early, before sunrise, in bad visibility conditions with just a simple lantern to light up the terrain which was difficult and slippery,” he said.

It was dark, cold, slippery, difficult.

So…go somewhere not quite so risky?

This guy is enormous, and according to women who have encountered him, extremely intimidating. It’s very easy to believe that, listening to and watching him drone on and on about how poor poor HE was “attacked” i.e. told he doesn’t belong in women’s toilets. He’s huge, he’s confident, he has a deep rumbly voice and he talks slowly and importantly. (If you watch him you will see what I mean.) He’s a massive growly man making a display of himself rebuking and tacitly threatening women, because some women spoke up when he forced himself on women in a women’s toilet. He’s loathsome.

The ridiculous airy confident belief in magic yet again.

“Be what you want,” he says, as if he were 3 and believed in Santa Claus. We can’t just be what we want, because we are what we are. Some things are changeable, but the vast majority are not. We work within narrow limits. We can be more educated or strong or talented by working on it, but we can’t be zebras or cars or apples, no matter how hard we work. That’s neither a shackle nor a prejudice, it’s a reality.

What was that about dumb moments?

Dude thinks the erasure of women causes no harm. Easy for dude to say.

I find news from American Atheists in my email.

As the Board Chair of American Atheists, I’m writing you today with some difficult news: Due to escalating threats to civil liberties, human rights, and international relations under the Trump Administration, the board and staff of American Atheists have withdrawn our organization as host of the 2026 World Humanist Congress, originally scheduled to be held next August in Washington, D.C.

The Board of Directors takes seriously our duty to ensure the safety of our members and the continued ability of American Atheists to carry out its mission. This decision was not made lightly. It comes after a thorough evaluation of our organization’s ability to successfully host and safely execute an event of this magnitude in the coming year, given the new and yet unfolding risks posed by the escalation of religious nationalism and the erosion of human rights in our country. 

In just its first six months, the Trump Administration’s actions — including the deportation of legal immigrants, detentions and refusals of admission to visitors of the United States, and travel restrictions — have created an environment that is not only incompatible with our values but also inhospitable to members of our global secular community.

Already, our nation’s reputation abroad is plummeting. And fueled by fear of being detained, surveilled, or harassed at our borders, so, too, are the number of foreign arrivals. A significant majority of the potential attendees we surveyed expressed apprehension about the political climate and a reluctance or unwillingness to travel to D.C., including U.S. residents and key volunteers. 

Our board and staff are also acutely aware that executive orders retributively targeting private and nonprofit entities the administration views as disloyal to its agenda present an existential threat to American Atheists, our members, and our partner organizations. 

Here’s the sobering truth: Under this administration, it is impossible for American Atheists to guarantee or even make reasonable assurances regarding the admissibility of international guests from key regions of the world, nor is it feasible for us to ensure the security of those who are granted entry to the United States or to mitigate against the still unknown events of the coming year. 

The totality of these circumstances and the reality of this moment is deeply troubling. We are witnessing the dismantling of foundational freedoms and the weaponization of the state to stifle dissent, suppress civil society, and silence voices like ours. The repressive actions of this regime not only obstruct our ability to gather in peace but strike at the very heart of what our community stands for. 

They’re not wrong.

The event has been moved to Ottawa.

It seems we have turned a corner.

BBC bosses have backed a television presenter who corrected the phrase “pregnant people” to “women” while broadcasting live, in what has been welcomed as a rejection of gender-neutral language.

Martine Croxall, 56, was citing a study about protecting vulnerable people in hot weather and, after reading out the report’s phrasing, immediately rolled her eyes and changed the wording to “women”.

“Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, says that the aged, pregnant people … women … and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions,” she said.

I gotta say, it was a very minimal eye roll. It was such a minimal eye roll that it’s hard to distinguish from the ordinary movement eyes do as they read aloud. It was definitely not a showy teenagery “god you’re dumb” eyeroll. Blink and you’ve missed it.

BBC bosses are also understood to have been “intensely relaxed” about the wording amid concerns from some staff that Croxall may have faced disciplinary action.

Well there’s a shift. That’s way bigger than a barely detectable eye roll.

Following Sunday’s broadcast, bosses are understood to have checked in with Croxall in a supportive way. “It’s a real cultural moment,” said one fellow BBC presenter, who said that there is a groundswell of support internally for using “honest language”.

Well hoooooray for that! Too bad it’s taken them a decade, but oh well.

The shift is said to have been underpinned by the Supreme Court ruling in April, which found that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.

Roll on, eyes.

Everything is our fault.

A Florida Republican congresswoman is blaming fearmongering on the left for the reluctance of hospital staff to give her the drugs she needed to end an ectopic pregnancy that threatened her life.

Kat Cammack went to the emergency room in May 2024 where it was estimated she was five weeks into an ectopic pregnancy, there was no heartbeat and her life was at risk. Doctors determined she needed a shot of methotrexate to help expel her pregnancy but since Florida’s six-week abortion ban had just taken effect medical staff were worried about losing their licenses or going to jail if they did.

While Cammack risked losing her life. Remember Savita Halappanavar?

Cammack looked up the state law on her phone to show staff and even attempted to contact the governor’s office. Hours later, doctors eventually agreed to give her the medication.

Good thing she survived those hours.

Abortion rights activists say the law created problems. Florida regulators say ectopic pregnancies are not abortions and are exempt from restrictions, but Molly Duane, with the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Wall Street Journal the law does not define ectopic pregnancy, which can be difficult to diagnose.

Which means that medical staff are always going to be afraid to do what’s necessary.

Cammack, who opposes abortion and co-chairs the House pro-life caucus, told the Wall Street Journal she blames messaging from pro-choice groups for delaying her treatment, which is not banned under Florida’s restrictive statutes, who have created fear of criminal charges.

Oh right. It’s our fault either way. That’s fair.

Florida’s strict abortion ban, which took effect on 1 May 2024, makes abortions illegal after six weeks, when most people are not even aware yet that they are pregnant.

Oh god damn it Guardian can you not drop the dogma for even one article about a woman whose life was at risk thanks to laws she herself endorses? “People” don’t get pregnant; women get pregnant. Men never ever get pregnant.

No of course it can’t: it does it again in the very next paragraph.

After months in which medical staff were concerned that the law’s wording made emergency procedures illegal, the state’s healthcare agency issued official guidance to “address misinformation” on permitting an abortion in instances where the pregnant person’s life and health are in danger.

It’s because they are women that their lives are in danger. You know this.

Originally a comment by Papito on The CIA or the Koran.

The comment that leads this is mostly nonsense. “Since the war with Iraq, Iran has kept within its borders, has not attacked its neighbours.” displays a level of ignorance about middle-east affairs it is hard to believe isn’t motivated. Iran has funded a network of terrorist organizations that have been instrumental for decades in keeping countries around the region from developing. Lebanon would not be the mess it is, or Yemen, or Syria, without the Iranian terrorist network having perverted their politics for decades, all so it could persecute the Jews – many of whom were chased out of those very countries to Israel.

Meanwhile, back in reality, the question of how much damage the strikes did to Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon in the next few months remains. It seems likely that the bombs loosed on Fordow did substantial damage and perhaps collapsed the facility. On the other hand, we can all see the satellite photos of trucks lined up outside Fordow in the days prior to the bombing, which presumably hauled equipment and materials to other sites.

Assuming that this information was available to Israel in real time and that Israel could overfly Iran with impunity at that point, why did Israel not bomb those trucks? Did Israel instead follow those trucks to wherever they were headed with, as Iran claims, the 60% enriched uranium from Fordow?

The fog of war can be impenetrable. We may learn as strikes happen on previously unknown facilities; we may learn as Iran uses its stockpile of 60% uranium to build a dirty bomb to irradiate population centers in Israel or America. We may never learn.

The best any of us can hope for is the Iranian people to overthrow the mullahs. All of us surely remember the protests after the murder of Mahsa Amini and the chants of “Women, Life, Freedom” by the soon-crushed protestors. We may remember the song “Baraye” going around the world and being performed by popular Western bands like Coldplay.

Are we going to forget all of that now that Israel has entered the frame? Is judenhass more important than women, life, or freedom?

The Times has a long crushing despair-inducing piece by Eli Saslow on vaccine denialism and the return of measles. Very worth reading.

Twenty-five years after measles was officially declared eliminated from the United States, this spring marked a harrowing time of rediscovery. A cluster of cases that began at a Mennonite church in West Texas expanded into one of the largest outbreaks in a generation, spreading through communities with declining vaccination rates as three people died and dozens more were hospitalized from Mexico to North Dakota. Public health officials tracked about 1,200 confirmed cases and countless exposures across more than 30 states. People who were contagious with measles boarded domestic flights, shopped at Walmart, played tuba in a town parade and toured the Mall of America.

But what frightened Kiley more than the potential spread was the severity of the disease: About one in five unvaccinated people with measles will be hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As many as one in 20 children contracts a secondary pneumonia infection. More than one in 1,000 dies. Measles stops spreading when 95 percent of a community is immune, but national vaccination rates for children have fallen to less than 92 percent. In parts of West Texas, they’ve dropped below 80.

Measles is no joke.

“I feel like I’ve been lied to,” Kiley told his wife as his fever rose to 104 degrees. He tried to manage his symptoms at home with cod liver oil and vitamin D, supplements endorsed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary. He isolated himself in the living room to avoid infecting his four children and coughed and dry-heaved his way through the night.

“I’m just trying to breathe at the moment,” he texted one relative.

One morning about a week into his illness, Carrollyn walked into the living room and saw Kiley lying on the couch. His head was almost purple. A rash was blooming across his chest, and his mouth was dotted with dozens of white sores. She tested his oxygen level. It read 85 percent — low enough to endanger his vital organs. She tucked the monitor away to keep Kiley from panicking. He was hazy and confused, so she helped him into a fresh shirt and drove him to the emergency room, where he was quarantined and given oxygen, breathing treatments and X-rays to monitor his stomach cramps.

Does that sound like fun?

For more than a decade, Kiley and Carrollyn had debated whether to vaccinate their children. Each time, they decided against it.

The vaccine was considered both safe and 97 percent effective by the Food and Drug Administration. For generations, every credible American health official had recommended the M.M.R. vaccine, to prevent measles, mumps and rubella, as a basic obligation to society. Almost all parents in Texas had consented to the recommended two doses for their children, effectively eliminating measles transmission within the United States. But that success also meant the disease had gradually become an abstraction, a distant threat. Only three Americans had died of measles since 2000, and Kennedy rose to political prominence as a vaccine skeptic. He testified to Congress about the risk of rare vaccine injuries, and later fired all 17 experts on a vaccine advisory panel. “People ought to be able to make the choice for themselves,” he said in a March interview on Fox News.

No, they oughtn’t. Not unless they plan to live in a sealed house for the rest of their lives. That’s because it’s not possible to make the choice just for oneself. The choice is also for everyone else.

And all the while, Edwards continued to release his weekly podcast, hosting a rotation of authors, doctors and activists who minimized the danger of measles and spoke instead about the benefits of being unvaccinated and the risks of rare vaccine injuries.

“The body’s designed to kill measles,” Edwards said, as it spread into New Mexico and Oklahoma.

“I would encourage you to seek a higher authority, a spiritual authority, and let peace guide you,” he said, as the disease stretched into Kansas and Nebraska.

“Don’t be scared of anything,” he said, when the total number of reported measles cases rose above 1,000, almost all among people who were unvaccinated, as the virus continued to spread in Colorado, Pennsylvania and finally into the remote corners of North Dakota, arriving in the state for the first time in 14 years.

There’s much more. There is no happy ending.

Bros before hos.

Yes, it was sex selective criticism. Men are basically good at heart, women are basically witches.

Another bad road we’re going down – the old False Accusation to Justify Authoritarian Moves ploy.

After New York City comptroller Brad Lander this week became the latest prominent Democrat to be arrested while monitoring and protesting US immigration authorities, the Trump administration trotted out a familiar refrain to justify his detention.

The mayoral candidate had “assaulted” law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserted, warning “if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences”.

The accusation, which DHS has also recently leveled against a member of Congress and a high-profile union leader, have sparked consternation, particularly as videos of the incidents did not show the officials attacking officers and instead captured officers’ aggressive behavior and manhandling of the officials.

It’s what they do, because of course it is. Just make shit up to justify the arrests, the beatings, the totalitarian rule.

In several cases, DHS’s public accusations of assault were not followed by criminal charges. Civil rights advocates and scholars on policing say the government’s assault claims against well-known members of the opposing party, and the repetition of those accusations, nonetheless are troubling indicators of rising authoritarianism.

Well of course they are! It’s what authoritarians do.

Lander was arrested by federal agents inside an immigration court building on Tuesday, as he asked officers whether they had a judicial warrant to detain an immigrant he was accompanying. He was released after four hours, and so far, no charges have been filed against him.

Video of the encounter shows plainclothes officers, some in masks, pinning Lander to a wall, handcuffing him and escorting him away. Lander had held on to the arm of the immigrant who was being targeted.

Still, DHS assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement to the press and on social media soon after the incident that it was Lander who had assaulted officers.

Despite the existence of video that shows him not assaulting officers. It’s one of those rare occasions when one can demonstrate a negative: “Look, here’s the footage, of Lander not assaulting officers.”

In a statement to the Guardian on Thursday, McLaughlin said Democratic politicians were “contributing to the surge in assaults of our Ice officers through their repeated vilification and demonization of Ice”, adding: “This violence against ICE must end.”

Ah that’s the ploy is it? Pretending dissent is violence? If that’s how that works then Trump is a mass murderer. Trump dissents from every norm we have.

Lauren Regan, an Oregon-based civil rights lawyer who has represented activists facing prosecution, said she saw arresting elected officials as part of an “authoritarian playbook” designed to make people widely afraid that they, too, could be targeted, regardless of their backgrounds.

“You keep it chaotic and random so no one thinks they’re safe,” said Regan. “When elected officials with privilege, power, education and training get thrown to the ground and cuffed or jailed, then what is going to happen to us? Everyone is at risk.”

…

Indeed, since the recent protests against immigration raids began in LA, hundreds of demonstrators in southern California have been arrested by local police. Federal prosecutors have formally charged a handful of them assaulting officers – though soon after moved to dismiss two of the first cases they filed.

In an incident of two protesters arrested at a 7 June demonstration, a video of the chaotic scuffle showed one of the protesters being shoved by an agent just before the arrests, and officers taking both protesters to the ground. US prosecutors charged both men with assaulting officers, but filed a motion to dismiss the charges a week later after one of them told the Guardian he had not attacked the agents, and was himself severely injured in the confrontation.

…

Mike German, a former FBI agent and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit, said that the government’s repeated misinformation about violence against officers risks backfiring: “Officers do at times get assaulted, but if agencies continue to make patently false claims and suggest that any physical contact is an assault, you’re going to undermine legitimate cases.”

He said he was also concerned about the impacts of officers using heavy force in arrests that don’t require it: “Three or four agents tackling a US senator clearly isn’t necessary. That kind of force compels resistance. It’s hard to let yourself be violently attacked without your natural reaction of trying to defend yourself, and then if officers say that’s assault, that undermines public trust.”

I think they want to undermine public trust. They want to amp up the us v them atmosphere as much as they can. It’s one of the steps.

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Fans on a walk.

As Richard Dawkins said about religion “You’re only a Christian because you were born in America. Had you been born in Israel you’d be a Jew, in India a Hindu or in Iran, a Muslim”

When you only know your country as a theocracy, you grow to think theocracy is normal, just as Brits accept an expensive monarchy and Americans a dysfunctional electoral system.

Iran is only a theocracy because the British feared losing their oil fields when Iran’s nascent democracy proposed nationalisation of its resources. Britain, aided by the USA, overthrew the Iranian attempt at democracy and reimposed the brutal Palavi family. That the only way Iranians could rid themselves of the brutal police state Iran had become was to support an Islamic revolution is totally the fault of the UK and USA. I doubt the Iranians who supported the revolution realised that they would replace one form of repression with another.

Since the war with Iraq, Iran has kept within its borders, has not attacked its neighbours. Israel alone is responsible for the current situation, aided and abetted, as usual, by the USA. Iraq didn’t attack Israel, but is now forced to defend itself, just like Ukraine, but with less help from the rest of the world.

Netanyahu is a war criminal who is doing anything he can to cling to power, because just like Trump, as long as he is in government he is immune from prosecution.

As for “The far right side of history”, that again is Israel and USA.

I hold no brief for Iran or Islam, but I can understand how the one is the unifying force for the other when it seems the whole world is against you.

The only light that may come from the death and destruction in Iran could be the self destruction of MAGA and the GOP returning to actual policy. So, just as Palestinians were robbed of land, homes, and businesses to assuage European guilt, so must Iranians pay for America’s failings.

“Oh but you mustn’t talk about that” – they say, about the very things we have to talk about.

Horrible women-hating coercive demanding religions for instance. Which religion does that conjure up? Shhhhhhhhhh – it doesn’t do to say so.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has been accused of conducting secretive talks to establish a government-wide definition of Islamophobia that critics say could hamper discussions about grooming gangs.

Don’t. We’re allowed to hate religions. Islam is a harsh system of control of humans, triply harsh toward women and not too fond of atheists or Jews. We’re allowed to criticize it and we’re allowed to resist it.

The MP has established a working group to develop the definition, but Conservative frontbencher Claire Coutinho has raised concerns about the lack of transparency in the process.

Coutinho has written to Rayner accusing her of conducting the work in secret, without allowing the public to contribute their views through a consultation period.

The shadow equalities minister warned that a “culture of secrecy around matters relating to race and religion” was a key factor that had previously enabled “gangs of men to groom, rape, and torture young girls with impunity”.

It’s probably not a coincidence that those men were of a religion that despises female people, calling them whores and sluts if they let a bit of hair show. If you teach men to hate women you’re going to end up with men who hate women.

She told The Telegraph: “The Casey report was crystal clear. For years, people were too scared to tell the truth about the rape and torture of children because they were scared of being called racist. Yet Labour is doubling down – pushing a secretive process including the voices of activists who have promoted extreme definitions of Islamophobia that would prevent people discussing genuine concerns around extremism and integration.”

Islam hates us; we get to hate Islam.

Theocracy: right side of history or no?

Victoria Smith starts with a wry joke.

My youngest son has audio versions of all of the Harry Potter books. Given the public pronouncements of a certain artist, I’ve started to find this problematic. True, one can separate the art from the creator, but sometimes the latter’s hateful beliefs infect the former. This is the case when actor Stephen Fry reads the works of brilliant, principled writer J.K. Rowling.

Gotcha! It’s not JKR who is “problematic”; it’s the Problematic-sniffing Policers of Discourse who are problemyish.

There’s something in the way he voices each female character, from Hermoine Grainger to Dolores Umbridge, which reeks of misogyny. The way to sound like a woman, in Fry’s view, is to make yourself high-pitched, whiny and annoying, no matter what you have to say. I haven’t banned my son from listening because the books are still wonderful. Nonetheless, every time I hear Fry holding forth, I’m reminded of Liz Lochhead’s poem “Men Talk”: “Women prattle / Women waffle and wiffle / Men talk.”

And that goes double triple a millionle for Stephen Fry – he’s got that lofty Oxbridge, from a great height accent and tone down cold. To put it more crisply, he talks posh. It’s a weapon, and he’s not ashamed to use it.

And if women are going to keep talking, it seems that the least they can do is shut up about serious issues such as their own existence in law. Fry has become the latest self-appointed man of reason to express dismay at Rowling’s involvement in current debates around sex and gender. Speaking to The Show People podcast, Fry, a man who once told sexual abuse victims to “grow up” and stop being so “self-pitying”, believes that Rowling, a woman who uses her own money to help such victims, has become “cruel” and “mocking”. Then again, he suggests, perhaps she can’t help it.

Where’s his equivalent of Beira’s Place?

The New Republic underlines the obvious, which is that Trump will say anything and do anything to get his way and we can’t stop him unless we stop him, which we’re obviously not doing.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump scored a temporary victory after an appeals court ruled that he can continue deploying the National Guard as part of his watch-me-play-fascist-on-TV response to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. The decision accepted Trump’s premise that conditions in L.A. permit him to take control of the guard—but it rejected his claim that such decisions should be entirely unreviewable by courts.

That latter part of the ruling is important. It’s potentially something of an obstacle to his ongoing effort to assume quasi-dictatorial powers for himself—for now, anyway.

Golly, what a robust firewall against dictatorship, right? It’s maybe possibly a sort of kind of little bit of an obstacle to full-on wearefucked.

Trump seized on this mixed ruling to threaten to send in the National Guard anywhere in the United States if and when he decrees it “necessary.” The scare quotes are mine, because on many fronts, Trump is testing how far he can get by inventing ways to claim such actions are “necessary,” a power he and his advisers see as boundless.

Ya think???

Of course he fucking is. He said he would, he is, we can all see he is. None of this is what you’d call subtle or ambiguous.

All of which highlights a deeper conundrum here: What can the courts—and the rest of us—do in the face of a president whose bad faith and willingness to concoct pretexts for abusing his powers basically have no bottom?

NOTHING. WE ARE SCREWED. What we’re seeing is exactly what it looks like and not some other surprising escape hatch.

Oliver Brown on Simone Biles and her show of contempt for women:

For Biles, the provocation, if you could call it that, was Gaines’ highlighting of the fact that a Minnesota girls’ softball team won a state title this month despite their dominant pitcher being male. “Your star player is a boy,” she said, prompting Biles, until that point a mute figure in the ferocious battle to compel sports to respect the reality of sex, to go off the deep end.

“You’re truly sick,” she raged at Gaines, who was infamously denied a United States collegiate trophy in 2022 by transgender opponent Lia Thomas. “Straight-up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive, or creating a new avenue where trans [people] feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category in all sports. But instead, you bully them. One thing is for sure: no one in sports is safe with you around.”

…

It is a parable for our times, in many ways, where those preaching about kindness often reveal themselves as the least kind of all. For Biles, desperate to be seen as an ally of the trans community, going after Gaines was the logical extension of her activism, which has involved frequent promotions of LGBT Pride Month. Except the move has backfired horribly, with Biles’ stock falling faster than that of Bud Light, which lost its place in 2023 as America’s best-selling beer after a tone-deaf partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

I have to wonder why Biles is desperate to be seen as an ally of the trans communniny. I have to wonder why anyone is, but especially people who are already seen as, shall we say, good at their jobs.

Biles has not responded to the comments [of critics of her outburst], although she has offered a carefully-scripted apology to Gaines, acknowledging: “It didn’t help for me to get personal with Riley.” She explained: “These are sensitive, complicated issues that I truly don’t have the answers to or solutions to, but I believe it starts with empathy and respect.”

Empathy and respect for whom?

What about empathy and respect for the girls and women cheated out of opportunities and wins by boys and men who pretend to be girls and women? What about them?

Biles’ mistake was to put the projection of virtue before even a fleeting consideration of fairness. 

It’s pretty much everyone’s mistake, among the trans-huggers. They all put the projection of [a grotesque parody of] virtue before fairness. They can’t do otherwise, because you can’t defend men invading and ruining women’s sports without putting fake virtue ahead of fairness.

None of her astounding distinctions – the 11 Olympic medals, the 30 world championship medals, 23 of them gold – would have been possible without the existence of the female category. 

But she’s got them now, so she can safely lean on other female gymnasts to “be kind.”

Originally a comment by Arcadia on Stephen Fry is a rat.

This bit is the bit that genuinely infuriates me:

‘Sir Stephen said: “She has been radicalised, I fear, and it may be she has been radicalised by terfs, but also by the vitriol that is thrown at her. It is unhelpful and only hardens her and will only continue to harden her, I am afraid. I am not saying that she [should] not be called out when she says things that are really cruel, wrong and mocking. She seems to be a lost cause for us.”’

This double standard. This quote makes clear he knows full well what Rowling has been subjected to, and he knows it constitutes harassment. The only concession he makes to deeming this bad behaviour is that he calls it “unhelpful”, but otherwise, he is blaming Rowling for failing to take this harassment and abuse well. He is expecting that, if she were nice, she would have overlooked it all, and backed down. He requires that of her to count as kind, in his estimation, while requiring no such thing of the vitriol flingers and public pissers. In fact, he excuses them so much, he still says Rowling should be “called out when she says things that are really cruel, wrong and mocking”.

There is apparently no limit to the amount of abuse he requires her to take in good humour, and she absolutely must not learn any lessons like “these are abusive men, subjecting me to abuse, and that justifies my position rather than undermining it”. Likewise, there is apparently nothing Fry won’t excuse from the trans activists, given the worst he’ll describe their behaviour as is “unhelpful”. A ten year old who won’t put their plate in the sink is unhelpful. A man threatening the beheading of women’s rights campaigners is hardly in the same league.

His behaviour and reasoning is frankly outrageous.