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In wrong place

Are they just impossibly stupid?

Starmer ‘in wrong place’ on trans rights, says Thornberry

Sir Keir Starmer has “ended up in the wrong place” on trans issues, Dame Emily Thornberry has said.

The senior Labour MP, who was Sir Keir’s shadow attorney general before the general election, claimed the party had not been “following our hearts” when it came to trans people.

So trans people=following hearts and women=not following hearts? Why would that be? Are women as a group strikingly unlovable? Or what? Please explain.

The Prime Minister’s public position on trans issues has significantly changed since he became leader of the Labour Party in 2020, backtracking last year on his previous stance that “trans women

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In wrong place
By Ophelia Benson, March 6, 2026

Are they just impossibly stupid?

Starmer ‘in wrong place’ on trans rights, says Thornberry

Sir Keir Starmer has “ended up in the wrong place” on trans issues, Dame Emily Thornberry has said.

The senior Labour MP, who was Sir Keir’s shadow attorney general before the general election, claimed the party had not been “following our hearts” when it came to trans people.

So trans people=following hearts and women=not following hearts? Why would that be? Are women as a group strikingly unlovable? Or what? Please explain.

The Prime Minister’s public position on trans issues has significantly changed since he became leader of the Labour Party in 2020, backtracking last year on his previous stance that “trans women

Read the rest

Archives
Bad Moves
Articles
Flashback
In Focus
Latest News
Letters
Notes and Comment Blog

In wrong place 

Are they just impossibly stupid?

Starmer ‘in wrong place’ on trans rights, says Thornberry

Sir Keir Starmer has “ended up in the wrong place” on trans issues, Dame Emily Thornberry has said.

The senior Labour MP, who was Sir Keir’s shadow attorney general before the general election, claimed the party had not been “following our hearts” when it came to trans people.

So trans people=following hearts and women=not following hearts? Why would that be? Are women as a group strikingly unlovable? Or what? Please explain.

The Prime Minister’s public position on trans issues has significantly changed since he became leader of the Labour Party in 2020, backtracking last year on his previous stance that “trans women

Read the rest
were fizzikkly SIKK 

Via Humans of Dewsbury:

A primary school teacher from Batley has caused uproar today after they refused to teach two 9 year olds who had dressed up as Harry Potter characters for World Book Day!

Ze Berry who does not use conventional pronouns and uses ‘Ze’ instead, says were [sic] physically SICK after seeing the two pupils walk into the classroom who were dressed as Harry Potter and Dobbie The Elf.

Despite parents of the children saying it was an insane overreaction, Ze Berry stood by her decision and said;

“JK Rowling is a transphobic bigot and any character she has created therefore has transphobic undertones which are not tolerated in the classroom.”

Ze Berry is a reasonablepeoplephobic bigot … Read the rest


Well, Johnny Well, Johnny 

He rates it? As one would rate a movie or a coffee shop? We’re grading these things now? Will there be tourism guides that rate the local wars for the convenience of tourists?

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You’ve been thinking 

Oh dear god.

Click play.

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Just days 

Huh. What a surprise. It turns out not to be easy to slap a country and make it do what you want.

Trump insists he’s willing to wage war on Iran “forever.”

But just days into the fight, many of those around him are already itching to get out.

Just days, eh? So what were they thinking just days ago? That Iran would go belly-up like a giggling puppy? That it would be a very fun day out and then all would go back to normal?

“It’s a political risk, no ands, ifs or buts,” one Trump adviser said of an attack that the president has forecast could continue for weeks. “Let’s just hope something doesn’t go really wrong. Because

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“Potential” doing a lot of work there 

There’s no other source for this, so treat it with caution. But if it’s real…hooboy.

If it’s real…I’m guessing the idea is that conservatives are more likely to defend and/or read Shakespeare and Chaucer and so on, but even so. Come on.

And Beowulf? It’s my bet that no one is likely to read Beowulf.… Read the rest


Grab nearest bucket 

Ewwwwwwwww

There isn’t enough bleach in the world. … Read the rest


Buhbye 

Noem out.

Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, after the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents and mounting reports of her questionable personal conduct attracted bipartisan criticism.

After or because of?

A Republican former congresswoman and governor of South Dakota, Noem was considered a potential running mate for Trump as he sought re-election in 2024, but ultimately passed over after she admitted in a memoir to killing a dog she owned. The president instead nominated her to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the border patrol and other agencies that took to the streets of major US cities during Trump’s second term

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When crazy people 

Yes, we know.

We know. It’s even worse when crazy stupid corrupt sadistic ignorant impulsive conceited slobbery people have a nuclear weapon.

(What is it with the slobber? Possible symptom of dementia is one answer.)… Read the rest


We include you, get out 

And another thing about that gender-critical lawsuit. The final paragraph:

A spokeswoman for the Green Party said: “The Green Party always strives to be a welcoming and inclusive place. After careful consideration, we were unable to grant GWD a stall at our autumn conference 2025, for reasons we explained to them at the time. As this matter is now the subject of threatened court proceedings, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”

Do they even see it? ““The Green Party always strives to be a welcoming and inclusive place, so we banish women who know which people are women.”

You can’t do both. You can’t preen yourself on how welcoming and inclusive you are andRead the rest


Easy being green 

What is “Green” about banning and punishing women?

Green Party faces gender-critical group lawsuit over trans ‘witch-hunt’

The Green Party has been accused of carrying out a “witch-hunt” against people with gender-critical views after it allegedly refused to allow campaigners a stall at party conference.

Lawyers for Green Women’s Declaration claim the decision was “a deliberate and unlawful attempt to prevent women from expressing gender-critical views”.

Well what else would it be? That’s not a claim, it’s a definition.

The gender-critical group also plans to sue over the party’s definition of “queerphobia”, which rules it is transphobic to suggest trans women are “not real women”. In a pre-action letter sent last week, the group claimed the definition “precisely encapsulates a

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Told to cool off 

Oops.

Kelly Wilkinson was turned away from Southport police station and told to “cool off, give Brian a break” while seeking help just four days before her estranged husband, Brian Earl Johnston, burned her to death in 2021, an inquest has heard.

The allegation was made in an extraordinary 11th hour submission by the lawyer acting for her family as they successfully applied to adjourn the coronial inquiry to hear additional evidence about the allegation.

Their lawyer, Mitch Rawlings, said Queensland police’s claim during the inquest that 12 April 2021 was the last time Wilkinson engaged with police was false. He said that she also attended the police station on 16 April – four days before her murder –

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Guest post: There’s a smuggle going on here 

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Is versus labeled as.

Gender identity is a term used by some people to describe their sense of who they are.

But where did this term come from? When did it emerge? And what material thing does it point to, if anything?

Thetan is also a term used by some people — namely, Scientologists — to describe their sense of who they are.

Indigo Child is another term used by some people to describe their sense of who they are.

I could pick out a thousand terms various cults use to describe their deeply felt inner sense of self. The whole fucking point of religion is that it gives people deep feelings about … Read the rest


Wait WHO is stupid and incompetent? 

Ok that’s disgusting.

You know what else was stupid in Leavitt-world? Lend-lease! The US should have just let Hitler win!… Read the rest


Is versus labeled as 

I can’t even deal with this anymore. It’s too stupid.

The BBC asks from the pulpit:

What does trans mean and why is there a debate about transgender people’s rights?

Gosh, BBC, what fascinating questions. Please explain it all to us.

The UK Supreme Court ruled in April 2025 that the definition of a woman in equalities law is based on biological sex.

No, really?! Who knew? We thought it meant armadillo. No, ice cream soda. No, Lithuania. One of those, or something like them. Nothing to do with bibliological sekks.

What is biological sex?

The Supreme Court judgment used a simple definition of biological sex: it is the sex recorded at birth. The court said this is widely used

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Wolf calls rabbits discriminatory 

The Independent breathlessly reports:

Trans people in the UK face a rising tide of discriminatory behaviour and prejudice which is creating a “hostile environment” impeding access to healthcare and damaging mental health, according to a major new report.

But who measures the rise of this tide?

Describing the situation as a “crisis”, in which trans people in the UK are “being catastrophically failed”, Trans Actual UK, an advocacy organisation focused on healthcare and legal protections for trans people, said: “Hundreds of thousands of trans people have seen the degradation of their human rights protections” over the past decade, and are now calling for government action.

Really? What human rights protections are we talking about?

Trans Actual surveyed over 4,000

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Let’s uplift 

Oops. Plot twist.

Opinion: This International Women’s Day, let’s uplift the rights and dignity of all women

Sad, isn’t it, that we know that “all” doesn’t mean “all” but “including some who are not women.”

It starts well enough.

International Women’s Day is this Sunday. Every lesson I’ve learned, every battle I’ve been part of, has taught me one truth: when working class women organise, nothing can stop us.

Women make up the majority of the public service workforce, yet you bear the brunt of unsafe staffing levels, low pay, discrimination, and impossible workloads.

But it doesn’t continue well enough.

There are signs of things getting better – the Employment Rights Act is an important step on the road to

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Perfect timing 

I have a good idea, let’s try to climb Chomolungma wearing bathing suits and flip flops. My inspiration is Fox tv personality Pete Hegseth.

Kash Patel baselessly fired an elite team of agents specializing in foreign threats from the Middle East just days before Donald Trump launched an illegal military campaign in Iran.

Patel terminated a dozen employees and staff after accusing them—without providing evidence—of improperly investigating Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence. The FBI director specifically gutted a group known as CI-12, a counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran and its proxies. Days later, Trump toppled Iran’s regime and sparked a sprawling regional conflict in the Middle East.

So, flawless timing. Who

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Stupid rules he said 

Hegseth says it’s stupid to have rules of engagement. Yeah, man! Let’s bring back war crimes! We miss those! Remember My Lai? We laughed ourselves sick! Pass the doobie!

Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal on Monday of what he called “stupid rules of engagement” in the illegal war against Iran amounted to an invitation for American and allied forces to commit war crimes, human rights organizations and other critics warned.

Hegseth’s remarks came during a press conference alongside the top US general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine. The Pentagon chief boasted that the US is “unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history,” “all on our terms with maximum authorities,” unbound by “stupid rules

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It grew up – or did it? 

The funniest thing about this is that it’s not parody.

About Robin

Robin Gow is a poet, educator, and witch. It grew up in rural Pennsylvania and lives with his queer family on unceded Lenape land also called Allentown Pennsylvania.

Quite the medley of deliberate annoyingness in 28 words. There’s the “it”, the instant switch to “his”, the “queer family”, and the obligatory pious smug pretense of giving a shit about forcibly removed native people.

Awarded the Jerry Cain and Scott James Creative Writing Fellow, Gow earned faer MFA in Creative Writing from Adelphi University where fae also taught as a professor of English.

What is even the point? Other than extra added attention?

Fae is a managing editor The

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