Protest being organised outside the UK Green Party Conference from 6th-8th September at Manchester Central.
It’s being organised by Supporters of the Green Women’s Declaration for Women’s Sex-Based Rights (GWD), many of whom have been suspended or expelled from the Party.
Dr. Hilary Cass has published an article in the The British Journal of Psychiatry, called “Gender identity services for children and young people: navigating uncertainty through communication, collaboration and care.”
Thank you, Mostly Cloudy, at comment 2, for the link to the piece by Dr. Cass. It made for very interesting, and sobering, reading. How many thousands of young women have been turned prematurely, by the ideological and unprecedented rush to treatment (a treatment without any evidence of efficacy, and with dangerous effects), into old women? Old women with atrophied and/or surgically removed reproductive organs, damaged hearts, fragile bones? Destroyed forearms and severely damaged urinary tracts? Ugly mastectomy scars? It’s heartbreaking when any one of those things happen to a woman unavoidably, due to injury or cancer; but all of them, without any indication of a life-threatening illness, to one previously healthy teenager? How did the medical profession fall so easily into routine horror?
Trump doesn’t understand gender ideology issues, but once again I find a Republican making more sense on the issue than the left-wing publication reporting on it.
“The transgender thing is an incredible thing,” said a slouching, low-energy Trump. “Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child, and you know many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say ‘What the hell happened? Who did this to me?’”
But schools in the US are allowing children to pretend to be the opposite sex and adopt new names, and some places have laws that the schools are forbidden to tell the parents. And there are many detransitioners who have expressed anger at how they were pushed into the transition process; there are lawsuits in progress.
A piece in the Guardian about the BMA rejecting the Cass report has a quote from Dr. Jacky Davis about the lack of rational reasoning behind the rejection.
[Davis] also claims in her piece that those driving the union’s “anti-Cass” policy “are sincere in their beliefs [but] have no hard evidence for their opposition”
Belief without evidence pretty much sums up the entire trans stance: it’s a matter of faith; you just have to believe. The BMA council responded to Davis by taking a leaf straight from the TRA playbook.
We are not aware of any bullying complaints from Dr Davis or supporters of her position through BMA channels or processes.
“This is in contrast to the frankly abhorrent transphobic and homophobic abuse directed at BMA members and staff on social media in response to our work on the Cass review.
“I cleaned up their container because it was choked with silk. They seemed kind of sulky afterwards, but look, clean soil, and I propped up a clam shell to give them a nice shelter. What did they do? They coated everything with silk! I can’t even see into their hiding space because the silk is nearly opaque!”
If ever there was doubt over whether virtue signalling was a thing… Mustn’t offend the gender feels of a spider!
I came across this review in Inverse magazine about a Netflix movie called Uglies. The focus of the review is how this is a 2014-style movie that came out ten years too late, for reasons I don’t understand. Apparently there was a YA (“young adult fiction”) dystopian craze ten years ago?
The movie features a dystopian society in which all citizens are required at 16 to undergo cosmetic surgery to become “Pretty”, after which they move to City, an idyllic community where nothing goes wrong and everyone is happy. The central teen character starts questioning the merits of being Pretty, and the motivations of Dr Cable, the person in charge of the project. She flees and joins a resistance group that has discovered the surgery is more than cosmetic: it affects the brain, making people more docile and less able to think for themselves.
The reviewer thinks the story line is ambiguous enough that people can make of it what they wish, but it screams “transgender ideology” to me. This is enhanced by the fact that Dr Cable is portrayed by Laverne Cox, a well-known trans-identified male actor. The review notes as much:
It’s a great villainous scheme within the story, but from the outside looking in, it’s hard for it not to feel icky: Laverne Cox, a trans woman, is playing the role of an evil mastermind brainwashing children into getting life-changing surgeries without them knowing the true side effects. It doesn’t take that much of a leap to turn this beautiful supervillain into a right-wing talking point.
Perhaps it could be a right-wing talking point, but surely it’s a point for anyone opposed to unnecessary cosmetic surgery done to meet societal demands rather than medical needs, and that’s not unique to one side of the political spectrum.
How did the medical profession fall so easily into routine horror?
I think the better question is how we forgot that the medical profession has always been horrific. Its history is an endless litany of horrors inflicted on patients by clinicians both benevolent and malevolent. Technological advancement by applied atrocity has been the rule and also the reason for the field’s rapid progress.
Here’s a piece at The Atlantic by Charlie Warzel, Elon Musk has Reached a New Low, about Musk “using Twitter as a political tool to promote extreme right-wing agendas and to punish what he calls brain-poisoned liberals.” I agree with Warzel on the premise.
As we lurch closer to Election Day, it’s easy to feel as if we’ve all entered the Great Clenching—a national moment of assuming the crash-landing position and bracing for impact.
And it’s with clenched teeth that I read articles such as these, bracing for the moment when the author inevitably cites “transphobia” among the charges of right-wing extremism. I’m so used to seeing otherwise good articles like these ruined by the inclusion, like a loud, stinky belch in the middle of a hymn, that I was very suprised when my eyes reached the bottom of the page, no belch of “transphobia” within it. I had to double-check that I hadn’t missed anything by searching the page for “trans” and “gender” — zero matches found.
I like to think this is a sign of change, that a journalist can write an entire piece about Musk’s unhinged, right wing Twitter behaviour, and not once mention the most public change he’s made to Twitter’s policy, its permission of gender critical speech.
Good interview with Katie Herzog with journalist Hadley Freeman. They discuss eating disorders and the trans issue.
Some highlights:
“Yes, [trans/non-binary] is the new way for girls to express fear of womanhood and it’s being socially validated and the parents are going along with it, which is a big difference from anorexia.”
“There’s a lot of parents at those organisations who have what they call a ‘trans kid’ and therefore no one at the organisation is allowed to critique child gender stuff,” Freeman says.
“Again this is different from anorexia. It’s not like if there’d been a whole load of journalists at The Guardian in the 90s who had anorexic teenage girls, then the paper would have to run loads of articles praising anorexia.”
More normalization by making things “inclusive”: upcoming video game includes top surgery scars in character creator along with specialty pronouns, body type A/B (rather than female/male), gender separate from sexbody type, and all the other nonsense. And this isn’t some indie studio making a little product for a niche audience. This is one of the biggest names in the business.
He had to give notice now, because the statute of limitations on federal lawsuits is 2 years. However, the odds are that he’s hoping the DoJ will not respond immediately, letting it become a denial by default in six months. Why? Because if they reject it immediately, it has to go to a judge before the statute runs out, and Donnie doesn’t do well in front of real judges. But if the DoJ just ignores it and hopes it goes away, then if he wins the election, he then would be in a position to tell the DoJ to settle the suit. I’m sure that if the statute of limitations hadn’t forced his hand, he would’ve waited until the period between the election and the inauguration, so as to be sure it would work. As it is, he’s trying to run out the clock to when he hopes to be back in office, and can literally order the DoJ to give him the money he wants.
I don’t know if that was intended as a Lovecraft reference, but I’m now chuckling at the image of Trump-as-Cthulhu. I can just picture him rising from the depths of his sunken city, Mar-a-R’lyeh, the non-Euclidean geometries of his form defying all known physics. He should be falling forward, and yet he stands. And atop it all, seething and writhing like eels, his mass of tantacular appendages give the illusion of a bad hair-piece.
Ah, now I’m gonna have to go cajole a diffusion model into generating some appropriate images.
One interesting thing about it is that the language is quite technical. When I worked for TPM there was a strict rule against academicspeak: it’s a magazine, not a journal. One of my jobs when subbing was to change all technical jargon to ordinary language. For this one I would have had to request a complete redo. Maybe that rule is no longer in effect, I don’t know, but if it is still a rule, I wonder if they made an exception in this case. Sort of “Ok cowboy, trying yelling ‘terf’ at this.”
It wasn’t just about having to look up, it was about coming across as technical, insidery, professional, etc. A style thing. The worry wasn’t so much about being incomprehensible as about being for philosophers only.
Take the first four sentences:
By normal scientific standards, the hypothesis that a woman is an adult human female is the natural default answer to the question “what is a woman?”. Call that the sex-based account of woman, since it explains being a woman in terms of being female. The sex-based account of woman is simple and informative. It is stated in perspicuous and independently well-understood terms.
It’s recognizably academic philosophy-speak. That’s what the editors wanted to avoid.
Following the open letter signed by more than 1000 senior doctors the BMA council has announced that it will now be reviewing the Cass report from a ‘neutral’ position. Nice bit of backtracking, considering their initial response was to reject the report’s conclusions. This bit caught my eye.
On the BMA’s website, BMA council chair Professor Phil Banfield said the Association’s evaluation of the Cass Review would be “evidence-led, starting from a position of neutrality. I cannot predict the outcome of our evaluation,” he said.
Which makes one wonder what criteria was used for the initial rejection of the report.
Here is the insignificant feather in my cap: while I was certainly not the first, tenth, or twentieth person to see and describe what was happening, when I sent the phrasebook in February 2023, mentioning the growing wave of scientific reviews of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors in Europe and the unanimous verdict that the evidence did not support these treatments, no major American news outlet left of center had yet reported on these developments.
The Atlantic broke this long and curious silence in April 2023, three years after France imposed restrictions.15 The New York Times followed in August 2023. Apart from a tiny syndicated A.P. or Reuters item that was promptly buried, the Washington Post suppressed coverage for another year, until April 2024, when the long-awaited Cass Review was released in the U.K. (Like the rest, the Cass Review concluded that there is no good evidence for these treatments. Puberty blockers for gender dysphoric minors are now banned in England and Scotland, a decision made by the Tories and upheld by Labour.) NPR affiliate WBUR interviewed Dr. Cass in May 2024, but otherwise NPR was entirely silent. Anyone who relied on major left-of-center publications for coverage of this issue over the past several years would have known less than nothing prior to these very recent reversals
Several people on Twitter have attacked Yu as a result.
Well note that distinction there… *several* Elon turning Twitter into a white nationalist-adjacent hellsite instead of a Wokie hellsite has made that much less of a problem.
(Amusing how one of de Bodard’s replies says that Yu “references the Cass Review, which is an immediate red flag”. They love spotting and snitching on suspected “transphobes” in these circles).
Amusing how one of de Bodard’s replies says that Yu “references the Cass Review, which is an immediate red flag”.
As if “believing that humans can change sex” isn’t a red flag. In this version of Overton, reality has become an extremist position, while delusion is passed off as the default, centerist one.
Speaking of modern sf/fantasy … I’ve been trying to find a fun read, but every single time I open a new book, sub-amateur grammar gets in the way. These comma splices, are pissing, me off. Don’t get me started on using commas where periods belong, it really kicks me out of the immersive mindset. And do editors ever suggest not starting every sentence with a conjunction? Or do editors not exist anymore?
Having read Yu’s piece, I may have to give her books a chance, as there were no egregious linguistic sins to be found. If she manages the same command of English in her fiction, then that’s a better starting point than most of what people keep recommending to me.
Can’t comment as it’s all audiobooks on my end but James A. Corey’s “”The Mercy of Gods” is just as solid as The Expanse novels… Probably a bit of Enby shit but since I haven’t retaining I’m sure it’s fine.
Nullius in Verba: Oh, that was absolutely a deliberate Lovecraft riff. In addition to his grotesque manner, it also references, for me, Trump’s cult-like worshippers, insanely spouting devotion to a malevolent entity who will absolutely bring them to ruin if he’s allowed back into power.
A post by Mano Singham took a look at Will Ferrell’s comments on the creation of the Netflix movie, Will and Harper (the same work Ophelia discusses in Flawed but vital self-obsession). Mano describes a scene at a restaurant in Texas: “Ferrell decides to ham it up and takes up the [72 ounce steak] challenge while dressed as Sherlock Holmes. In the film, that scene ends abruptly, switching to the two of them talking next day in the car where Ferrell says that he felt that he had let Steele down”. He quotes a a Fox News (!) article at length, and I was struck by the obliviousness of the twits.
They received what they described as an unexpected and uncomfortable response from diners at a Texas restaurant after Steele mentioned the state hadn’t done enough for trans rights, the New York Times reported.
“I’m from Iowa, but I will raise a glass to your great state of Texas,” Steele said to a receptive audience of diners at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, where Ferrell and Steele planned to attempt the restaurant’s famous 72-ounce steak challenge.
“I wish you guys would do more for trans rights in this state,” Steele added, which silenced the cheers and was met with a few groans from the audience, Chron reported.
“Cheers to Texas and trans rights, right?” Ferrell added. The toast didn’t make it into the documentary, but Steele and Ferrell shared their responses to the moment afterward.
“The room started to feel very wrong to me,” Steele said in the film. “I was feeling a little like my transness was on display, I guess, and suddenly that sort of made me feel not great.”
The airheads toured USA specifically to get a feel of the public perception of Harper’s transness – or transness in general – and to that end, put Harper’s transness on display. The person (or duo, in this case) taking the 72 ounce steak challenge is seated on a stage in full view of the diner with a big timer next to them, plus they brought a film crew with them, plus they engaged the room.
“I was feeling a little like my transness was on display” – no shit you goddamn fool! You put it on a stage, lit it, framed it in camera, and shouted it to the room full of people trying to have a nice dinner! Gahdamn, the obliviousness of the pair is amazing.
Sentence fragments are getting more common, too. I don’t mind them from time to time, for emphasis, or in conversation where you expect them, but some authors do it so frequently you struggle to find the last complete sentence. The book I’m reading now does it practically every paragraph at least once.
Came across this Substack post by way of a newsletter. It is about an initiative from the Tucker Center and Nike, called “Coaching HER”, that is nominally aimed at keeping girls from dropping out of sports, but is clearly about imposing gender ideology and the acceptance of boys-who-claim-to-be-girls in girls’ sports. Very good article, by Sarah Barker at TheFemaleCategory, from a few days ago.
I came across a link to an article regarding the recent post here about college women’s volleyball teams refusing to play against San Jose State because it fields a male player, Blaire (formerly Brayden) Fleming. (https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2024/no-more-fluffy-bunnies/).
The linked article mentions a lawsuit by a group called ICONS against the NCAA intended to “hold the NCAA accountable for its reckless promulgation of transgender eligibility protocol.”. What caught my eye was that one of Fleming’s teammates, team co-captain Brooke Slusser, has joined the lawsuit, citing the 6’1″ Fleming as a danger not only to opposition players but also to his own teammates. Slusser said that during matches and even in practice sessions Fleming smashes spike shots directly into the faces and bodies of opposing players, and she claims that he hits the ball with enough force to propel it at 80+mph. To put that into context, I looked up the stats for the women’s game: the World Record spike shot speed is 70.02mph, made by a player for the Italian national team in 2022; the average spike shot speed in the women’s game is a mere 44mph., and that’s at International level, not collegiate.
That, however, isn’t the worse claim by Slusser. She also stated that on team trips to away games she was roomed with Fleming without being informed that Fleming is a transgender-identifying male. He kept it a secret from his teammates, and either the college didn’t know (which I would think is unlikely) or it colluded with Fleming to keep it a secret from the team, thereby forcing a young woman to share accommodation with a man against her knowledge and so without her consent. This in a restricted space where she would be alone with him while dressing and undressing, showering and sleeping. How sinister is that?
The San Jose State volleyball controversy really has me scratching my head.
This seems like a really really poor test case or whatever you want to call it.
How can it simultaneously be the case that:
(a) Fleming is obviously out of place on the court and a physical danger to other players; and
(b) nobody knew until this season (which was not Fleming’s first) that this was a trans woman? (It’s Fleming’s third season at SJS)
AoS’s comment, and the Outkick article, mention Fleming being 6’1″, the implication being that this player is towering over the competition.
I checked the roster of Boise State, one of the teams that defaulted rather than play SJS, and it would seem that Fleming would be median height on that roster. Boise State has eight players below 6’1″, one player at 6’1″, and seven who are 6’2″ or 6’3″
SJS itself has two other players who are 6’1″, and one 6’3″ player. So Fleming’s height hardly stands out.
I’m also not seeing what exactly is so “sinister” about Slusser rooming with Fleming. If Fleming was a cis lesbian, would Slusser have the right to know the sexual orientation of the person sleeping and showering in the same hotel room? If the issue is that Fleming is so physically superior to Slusser (who is 5’11”), imagine a 5’6″ player rooming with a 6’3″ closeted lesbian.
I think that women’s sports are one of the areas where there’s been an overreach. But this seems like a really bad example to highlight if that’s the point you’re trying to make.
There are many examples where someone or a few people speaking out inspires other people to speak out. I think the volleyball case is one such example.
Fleming is male. Single-sex hotel rooms for student athletes has been the norm for a long time. They don’t seek to put gay men together, nor lesbians together, nor do they think it’s fine to put gay men in rooms with women. If you’re suggesting that the single-sex hotel room policy should be abolished, then by all means explain, but that’s the policy in the US. Women expect to be in single-sex spaces when they might undress and bathe. It doesn’t need to be established that Fleming is more likely than a lesbian to be predatory; it’s sufficient that he’s male. Women don’t want to undress in front of gay men or nice men, either, nor do they wish to see naked gay men or naked nice men in their hotel rooms in these circumstances. No men. Why should any exception be made for Fleming, and why should Slusser have to put up with that exception?
First, the only evidence we have that Fleming hits 80+ mph is that Slusser says so. How does she know this? Is there a radar gun in team practices or games? If so, then why doesn’t the report say that she’s been recorded doing spikes of that speed?
Second, if Fleming’s spike speed is so extraordinary, why was nobody commenting on it before she was outed as trans? Did she suddenly start increasing her spike speed this season?
Third, are women especially vulnerable to spike speeds of that velocity? Are male volleyball players able to play safely against 80+mph spikes?
Screechy, you are arguing against single-sex spaces for dressing rooms and locker rooms and the like. I do know people who argue against them. If you are indeed arguing against them, fine, make that argument. But the point here is that they do exist, and Fleming should be excluded from women-only spaces because he is male. I do not personally wish to defend the existence of women-only spaces in this thread. I am trying to establish that there is no salient difference between Fleming and the male volleyball team or male team staff that says Fleming should be allowed to room with and dress with female athletes but these other men should not be allowed.
Screechy, where do you get “nobody knew until this season (which was not Fleming’s first) that this was a trans woman”? The Outkick article doesn’t say that as far as I can see.
This week, the Mountain West Conference, which hosts SJSU, was alerted by the ICONS organization of growing concern for female athletes’ safety and hesitance to compete against Blaire Fleming due to apparent physical advantages posed by a man competing against women.
“Growing concern” seems to imply that at least some people did know but didn’t immediately act on what they knew. That’s just normal, surely, and especially so when there’s ferocious pushback any time people do try to defend women’s sports.
Your shrugging off the issue of men in women’s sports=physical risk to women is depressing.
I don’t mean that literally nobody knew. Obviously Fleming knew, and presumably some team and perhaps conference officials. (There has been no suggestion that Fleming is in violation of the existing NCAA rules, so I presume there’s been appropriate testing.)
I just mean that it wasn’t common knowledge. This is not an instance of Veronica Ivy or whoever towering over competitors who aren’t even close to being in the same physical league. Fleming’s own teammate Stusser is saying publicly that she didn’t know, and in fact complaining about it, and there were no boycotts and defaults by opposing teams until this year.
As to shrugging off the issues of physical risk — I think not all sports are the same. There would be zero physical risk to allow a trans woman to compete in, say, high jumping, as the competitors aren’t even active at the same time, much less in physical contact. At the other end of the spectrum you’ve got combat sports like boxing or high contact sports like rugby. Volleyball, it seems to me, is in between, but much closer to the track and field end of the spectrum.
Professional women tennis players play on the same court as men all the time, in mixed doubles events. And while it’s somewhat rare in singles to get hit by an opponent’s shot, it’s pretty common in doubles. In fact, it’s a well-recognized tactic to direct a shot at an opposing net player’s midsection because it’s tougher to return effectively than one to the side. (Actual headhunting is considered unsportsmanlike, and if you’ve got an absolute sitter that you can hit anywhere for a winner, it’s considered bad form to hit at an opponent.)
I don’t know volleyball very well, so it’s possible I’m underestimating the frequency and severity of “volleyball to the face” injuries, and missing some nuance about why male volleyball players aren’t in danger. (I realize there are differences in male-female bone structure, but are male faces really that much more resistant to volleyball impacts? Possibly, but I’m going to need to see some sports science, not an assertion in an Outkick article.)
Look, I get that for most people at B&W, this is a very simple issue: trans women are men, men don’t belong in women’s sports, therefore it’s an outrage and injustice that Fleming is being allowed to play. I’m not trying to talk anyone out of that view. I’m just saying that for anyone who doesn’t share that worldview, this is not a terribly compelling case.
Ah. Well, in my experience, for people who share the worldview that men do belong in women’s sports, nothing that disputes that view is a terribly compelling case.
This actually does seem to be like a Veronica Ivy argument: if women aren’t physically at risk from the male players (and he won’t admit there are ever risks), then there is no argument for keeping them out of women’s sports.
Realistically, if Fleming is male, he does not belong in women’s sports. Women’s changing rooms. Women’s hotel rooms, unless invited by a specific woman, the one who occupies that room.
Putting a male in with a female without telling the female that her roommate is male is dishonest. Suggesting that it is the same argument as used against gay men a couple of decades ago is, at best, disingenuous. This is not the same argument, not really. A gay man in the room with another male does not have a particular physical advantage over the other male, though I realize there may be size differences and so forth that do give one man an advantage over the other. Same with lesbians and women. Would I object to changing in front of a lesbian woman? Yes, probably, but only because I don’t like changing in front of anyone. I would deal with it if required to share a room, but I would have no increased problem undressing in front of a lesbian than in front of a straight woman.
I really haven’t met many women (if any) who are frightened of lesbians. I have met a lot (like, all that I know) that are at least somewhat frightened of men in vulnerable situations, for obvious reasons.
Whether he is larger, stronger, a physical risk, having a physical advantage and thereby stealing trophies from other teams, is not really the issue. Even if none of these conditions exist, he does not belong in women’s sports because he is not a woman. Women fought long and hard to have their own sports, their own spaces, and now men are moving into them at a rapidly increasing rate by calling themselves women.
Kara Dansky has written several times about being in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Ted Cruz on anything. Indeed, Cruz has spoken intelligently in opposition to gender ideology, even if he fails to make sense on some other issues.
So today I saw this NYT article about the Senate race in Texas between Cruz and Colin Allred.
Cruz is focusing on keeping boys out of girls’ sports, and wisely not referring to the issue using the term “trans”. Allred voted against a bill last year that would have required youth sports participation to be based on birth sex, and Cruz is making a lot of political use of that vote. It is having an effect.
“We want to go Democrat,” said Minerva Pedraza, 73, a retired city worker in Brownsville, Texas. “But the issue with the boys in girls’ sports, I’m not OK with.”
Allred has responded, and again avoids using the term “trans”:
On Friday, Mr. Allred took the unusual step of responding directly in one of his own ads, a choice that seemed to acknowledge the potential impact that Mr. Cruz’s anti-trans messaging could be having on what has become a tight race.
“Ted Cruz is lying again, but now he’s lying about our children,” says Mr. Allred, looking directly into the camera. “I’m a Dad. I’m also a Christian. My faith has taught me that all kids are God’s kids.”
Rather than directly defend his past support for gay and transgender rights, Mr. Allred then adds: “Let me be clear, I don’t want boys playing girls sports.”
What he means by that statement is not clear. Is he backing away from his vote? Does he not count “boys-who-claim-to-be-girls” as “boys”? Is he just confused by the whole nonsensical ideology and doesn’t know what to say?
I’m still struggling a bit with “worldview.” It’s a worldview that men don’t belong in women’s sports. Is it a worldview that men do belong in women’s sports?
I suppose I think it’s too narrow and specific to be a worldview. It’s just a practical rule to manage the fact that men have physical advantages over women.
Whether he is larger, stronger, a physical risk, having a physical advantage and thereby stealing trophies from other teams, is not really the issue. Even if none of these conditions exist, he does not belong in women’s sports because he is not a woman.
Exactly. All the other “arguments” including testosterone levels, are handwaving bullshit and smokescreen. You wouldn’t let an adult play in a children’s league simply because they “identify” as a child, even if they’re shorter than some of the children. If you don’t meet the most basic level of eligibility, whether that is sex, age, weight, or whatever no other supposed “qualifications” or exceptions should matter. Men aren’t women and humans can’t change sex. “Transwomen” are men, and have no place in women’s sport or spaces.
Republicans are returning to a message that was tried, mostly unsuccessfully, in the 2022 midterms, as they attempt to motivate their base and curb their losses with female voters repelled by the party’s stance on abortion.
Mr. Trump’s most aired ad about Vice President Kamala Harris in recent weeks ends with the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
In Ohio since the start of September, every ad about Senator Sherrod Brown from the leading Senate Republican super PAC has touched on transgender topics, such as accusing him of “allowing transgender biological males in girls’ sports.” Mr. Brown is one of the nation’s most vulnerable Democratic incumbents.
In Montana, five ads have deployed similar lines about transgender women in sports and bathrooms as Republicans press the case that Senator Jon Tester, another endangered Democrat up for re-election, is too liberal for the heavily Republican state.
“It’s one of the issues where Democrats are furthest from the center of the country,” said Brad Todd, a Republican ad maker who has produced commercials on transgender issues in multiple races this year. “They are doing something that is totally illogical to appease a tiny slice that is very radical in their base.”
YNnB @ 52 – But the reasons for keeping men out of women’s sports do matter. That’s why there’s so much more resistance to men in women’s sports than to keeping women out of men’s. The main reason adults don’t play in children’s sports is because adults are too big and strong. It’s not just a matter of principle or of category-worship. That’s what Team Yay Men in Women’s Sports like to say, but it’s wrong.
Sadistic Pornographer’s work is being adapted by Hollywood:
The cat’s out of the bag, baby. I’m adapting MANHUNT for TV with Lilly Wachowski, and I couldn’t be prouder or more excited to be writing it. We’re going to do our damnedest to bring this thing kicking, screaming, and queer as hell onto the screen.
The *only* good thing about this is that this planned adaption might finally bring Gretchen Felker-Martin under the critical scrutiny she has evaded for so, so long.
Speaking of books, a they/them called Eli Cugini is whinging about the British publishing industry publishing books that oppose putting rapist men into women’s prisons and drugging and mutilating gay youth. Cugini also defends Tilly Fitzgerald, who was fired from Waterstones after she would “rip up and throw in the bin” books.
But the reasons for keeping men out of women’s sports do matter. That’s why there’s so much more resistance to men in women’s sports than to keeping women out of men’s. The main reason adults don’t play in children’s sports is because adults are too big and strong. It’s not just a matter of principle or of category-worship.
Yes, excellent point. I didn’t mean that the other arguments made by those out to destroy women’s sports shouldn’t be rebutted. I hadn’t thought about my position being “category worship”, but that’s a good point for me to keep in mind too.
I was doing some fine tuning on the “Outlook” e-mail set-up on my work computer, prompted by the desire to turn off the “suggestions” of what it thinks I want to say next that it offers me while I’m writing. It’s like some rude person inside the screen telling me what to type next. Apart from the rudeness, it’s also very distracting. Thanks, but I can finish my own sentences. In the process of disabling this option in Outlook’s Editor settings, I saw a whole list of additional “refinements” alongside and on top of those for spelling and grammar. These are:
Clarity
Conciseness
Formality
Inclusiveness
Punctuation Conventions
Sensitive Geopolitical References
Tone
Vocabulary*
I guess if you’ve got AI, there’s always going to be the urge to Do Something with it. (I’m imagining “Tone” as the voice of Douglas Rains/HAL 9000 : “I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. I would suggest a more concilliatory tone, as I believe you will regret it later if you press SEND for this e-mail in which you call your boss ‘a fucking asshole.’ “)
But some of these things are not like the others. I’m thinking particularly here of “Inclusiveness,” and “Sensitive Geopolitical References.” These are not akin to the more “rule-based” items that can be built into some kind of algorithm. Inclusiveness and geopolitical sensitivity are inherently political. They can’t be turned into rules. There are different points of view, sometimes more than two. There is no “right or wrong”. Somebody is making decisions as to what activates these prompts. Somebody is taking sides. What keywords have been chosen as “triggers” calling for intervention in the writer’s stream of thought? If a single, particular approach is being suggested as the “correct” one, then somebody’s politics are going to be embedded in this system, but they’re going to be passed off as having come from some kind of “neutral” arbiter.
It’s like the unforced editorial decision to remove the word “woman” from stories about exclusively female health issues, or to use wrong sex pronouns in news stories about trans identified males out of “respect” or “courtesy” that have been embedded in journalistic “style guides,” and reporting “codes of conduct.” What happened to the respect and courtesy for women which have thereby been sacrificed for the feelings of men pretending to be women, including rapists and murderers? The erasure of women on one hand, and the promotion of the idea that men can become women, are political stances baked into the playbook on how information regarding these topics appears in the media at all. It is not “neutral.” It is not uncontroversial. But it colours every story that touches these issues. It’s a filter we’re not supposed to see or think about, turning every story or article into reinforcing propaganda, a steady background dripping of lies we’re supposed to accept unquestioningly. They’re trying to pass it off as mere convention within the nuts and bolts of English usage, nothing for us to concern ourselves with, but there’s much more at stake here than whether or not one is in favour of the Oxford comma.
I imagine that the rules cooked into Outlook’s helpful editorial Big Brother AI operate in much the same way, with some narrow, self-appointed committee deciding what constitutes true “inclusion” and exactly which “geopolitical references” are to be considered “sensitive.” I haven’t experimented with it myself, and I’m not sure I’m inclined to do so, but I do wonder if it is just giving you a warning, or whether it is suggesting some sort of “authorized” or “approved” rewording choices if your thoughts stray into dangerous territory? I simply assume that at this point, “inclusion” will be in favour of “transness”, and that it will police pronoun usage, among other things. I do wonder if it is it attuned to sexism, or just transphobia? Will it suggest “letter-carrier” instead of “mailman,” and “firefighter” over “fireman”? I’d be okay with that, but I suspect it’s going to be more woke and T friendly than that, for example, adding a “T” whenever one enters “LGB.” “Inclusiveness” is not something that is always a good thing. Who decides when it is? Who are they to judge?
What countries or issues make the geopolitics list? Are there polities and conflicts too small or obscure to make the cut? Is the list attuned to local sensitivities and pressures? Is a Chinese writer going to be warned if the enter the words “Tibet” or “Uyghur”? Is anyone outside of China going to be similarly waved off? Has the computer taken sides in the war un Ukraine, or in the middle East? Is the list updated? Things can change quickly; yesterday’s sleepy, tourist idyll can become tomorrows battleground for separatist independence. Is there some time limit? Can we write about the Sudatenland without a tut-tutting from the computer? Again, this is being decided by whoever it is that’s programming the AI. The AI isn’t going to have an “opinion” on any of this until a human gives it one. Politics in, politics out.
*Imagine running a Trump speech through this; it would melt down or commit suicide. But I for one am glad that he is crude and vulgar. I know it’s bad enough that tens of millions of Americans support him as he is, but a careful, polished, and polite wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing, would-be autocrat would be much more dangerous, as he could make himself more appealing to many who might otherwise vote against him.
…a careful, polished, and polite wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing, would-be autocrat would be much more dangerous, as he could make himself more appealing to many who might otherwise vote against him.
Summary: an organization that helps fund abortions in the DC area started making pro-Palestinian posts on social media following October 7. That drew some angry responses and loss of donations from some supporters, which accelerated after a Jewish employee left the organization and published an article about her frustrations.
I’m posting this not because I want to talk about Israel-Palestine. I really, really don’t, as I have nothing to say about that conflict. I’m posting it because it’s an interesting insight about “mission creep” at left-leaning organizations, a subject that has come up here repeatedly in other contexts.
As the article puts it:
The falling-out at DCAF is emblematic of a much larger clash currently roiling the worlds of philanthropy and nonprofits. Employees at left-leaning, mission-driven organizations have increasingly adopted a worldview that sees all issues of injustice as interconnected, making many less satisfied to contain their advocacy to any single issue. This doesn’t always cause internal disputes: Often, a new position added to a group’s platform will be broadly agreed upon, such as a commitment to ending police brutality, and will function more as an expression of solidarity than a programming priority. But nonprofits that attract staffers and funders of reasonably diverse political leanings are finding it difficult to broaden their messaging in ways that please the full spectrum.
As a result, coalitions that have worked toward similar goals are fracturing over issues only tangentially related to their core missions, threatening their ability to make progress on areas of common ground.
The head of the organization is
still struggling to come to terms with the sudden abandonment of donors with whom she thought she was politically aligned, over a disagreement on an issue that has nothing to do with the service the organization provides: funding abortions in the D.C. area. “I didn’t really understand our supporter base the way I thought I did,” she said.
Yes, she is shocked, shocked! to discover that her simplistic worldview of:
1. Abortion rights are a good cause.
2. People who support abortion rights are good people who support other good causes.
3. Therefore, people who support abortion rights will support this Other Thing that I think is a good cause
has proven not to be true.
Frankly, I find this whole attitude to be selfish. People who work in the private, for-profit sector understand that, notwithstanding the occasional HR blather about “bringing our whole selves to work,” the world doesn’t work that way. You don’t jeopardize your company’s business just so you can use its platform to promote your own personal causes; you can do that on your own time (and maybe not even then, if you’re a high-ranking employee). But folks in the charitable/nonprofit/advocacy world seem to think that their job and their organization’s platform is there to be used to just Do Good generally however they see fit, and fuck the donors and supporters if they don’t agree. Even if that compromises the actual mission, and achieves nothing of substance on the other issue. As Slate notes:
Therein lies the big dilemma at the heart of this situation. Whatever influence an abortion fund’s Instagram account might have on the well-being of Palestinians in Gaza is small: It relies on the hope that playing a small role in shifting the cultural conversation might eventually change U.S. policies around Israel. Likewise, the withholding of funds from a pro-Palestine abortion fund will do little, if anything, to protect Israelis or Jews.
The people hanging in the balance here are abortion-seekers who cannot afford the cost of terminating a pregnancy, and everyone involved in this story wants them to get the money they need to make their own reproductive choices. In the last fiscal year, DCAF helped more than 3,000 people living in or traveling to the D.C. area get abortions. Is it worth it to make a political statement—in an Instagram post or with the withdrawal of one’s money—if it comes at their expense?
I should note that Korman, the Jewish employee who left, is hardly beyond criticism here. (Again, putting aside whatever your feelings are about I-P.) She involves a lot of the classic tropes about feeling “unsafe” and accusing her former colleagues of not acknowledging “her humanity.”
But folks in the charitable/nonprofit/advocacy world seem to think that their job and their organization’s platform is there to be used to just Do Good generally however they see fit, and fuck the donors and supporters if they don’t agree. Even if that compromises the actual mission, and achieves nothing of substance on the other issue.
This sounds like the platform of the UK Green Party. At least until it goes broke from having to pay court costs of those it harasses in pursuit of their purity spiral
I should note that Korman, the Jewish employee who left, is hardly beyond criticism here. (Again, putting aside whatever your feelings are about I-P.) She involves a lot of the classic tropes about feeling “unsafe” and accusing her former colleagues of not acknowledging “her humanity.”
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Snowflake politics.
One wonders how these people ever build coalitions with anyone in the first place. At some point, we’re going to disagree with everyone else about something, even if it’s favourite colours, or flavours of ice cream. That disagreement doesn’t mean that you’re out to kill them, or they you. Escalating our preferences to life and death importance isn’t going to make somebody else more inclined to take our side. It imply encourages others to raise the stakes in a similar manner, so that every microscopic wrinkle in the political landscape is turned into a hill upon which they’re prepared to die. It doesn’t help when you suddenly have to work with others in the face of threats that actually are life and death situations. How do you set aside the differences you’ve magnified in order to cooperate with others you’ve long since condemned as irredeemably evil?
It discusses and defends the Cass Review. It also points out that thoroughly ” randomised, doubleblind, placebo-controlled trials” for the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in minors do not exist, and therefore the use of PBs for this purpose cannot be justified.
Subhead: “Fans and players disliked the slogan, leading the team to issue a statement acknowledging the “hurt we caused” the LGBTQ+ and transgender communities.”
In the launch, the club unveiled its brand through its “Too Many Balls” campaign, a product of Boston-based ad agency Colossus meant to be a pun referencing the number of famous men’s teams in the city and the need for more women’s franchises. In an accompanying video, a narrator says: “Yeah, Boston loves its balls, but maybe there are too many balls in this town. So let’s add a new chapter to our city’s legacy. With new idols, new dreams and a new league to cheer for: the National Women’s Soccer League.”
That sounds quite funny and apropos. But it was deemed “transphobic”, so it must be shut down and an apology issued.
The apology references the hurt they caused “to the LGBTQ+ community and to the trans community in particular”. But of course there was no hurt to anything other than the T part, and perhaps they were even standing up for the L part. There shouldn’t have been any hurt to the “trans community” either, except for those men who insist they are women and that they or other men should be allowed to play on this women’s team; can’t mention the fact that these men possess male genitalia, or used to possess male genitalia, nor make any reference to genitalia at all, except perhaps for phrases intended to insult women.
There was also some complaint about the team name, “BOS Nation”. I have no idea why. BOS is the code for the main Boston airport, and “BOS Nation” is an anagram of “Bostonian”. Seems clever to me.
The website I write for has a very good article about the obstacles women face in health care, partic. around issues involving menopause. It’s remarkable because it hammers home the many distinct and critical differences between female and male bodies and how these are overlooked. Not for trans fans.
Book recommendation: “The Barn” by Wright Thompson about the Emmett Till murder and surrounding environs.
The storytelling is interesting in that a lot of it is about tracing the red strings of fate that connects everything in the Delta going down the centuries. Definitely recommend the audiobook as well because it’s read in the author’s glutinous Mississippi voice and sounds wonderful.
Confirmed all my priors about how degenerate rural people are (but to be clear that was not the writer’s objective, I just have a weird and evil brain,).
NHS trans clinic ignores Cass report recommendations
Fears of ‘Tavistock version 2’ as new gender centre favours discredited trans guidance.
[A] new NHS centre has snubbed the Cass review in favour of discredited transgender guidance that promotes both puberty blockers and surgery without age limits. […] In a job advertisement for a clinical psychologist position, [The Nottingham Young People’s Gender Service] says it is “essential” to “practice [sic] in a gender affirming manner in line with” guidance from the controversial World Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare (WPATH).
Dora Moutout and Margeurite Stern, the writers of the French gender-critical book “Transmania”, have been subjected to death threats from extremist trans activists because of the book. They have now had to cancel a planned conference in Brussels.
M. C. Thanks for that. I feel less inclined now to write an essay I have planned for 3QD, “Whatever happened to the fem boy?” (I. e. me), about my “gender nonconformity” in the 60s and 70s and how that might go over these days with such kids being pressed into transing.
I’ll stick with columns like this one for the meantime:
An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment.
Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy has found, in a recent study, that puberty blockers given to gender dysphoric children did not improve mental health outcomes. She now doesn’t want to publish the research, because she is afraid the work will be “weaponized” by those opposed to these treatments. She makes hand-wavy claims that these children must be doing OK because they were doing OK before treatment, which makes one wonder why these children were given treatments in the first place, if they were indeed not in any distress.
I know I’ve seen her name before, but I’m drawing a blank where. She’s a well-known advocate for “gender-affirming care”, and I seem to recall she’s butted heads with gender critical people in some large way before.
It is not surprising that she refuses to look at the evidence of her own work, and that she’s take an ideological position rather than publish the results.
Oh look. Sophie Lewis, the Stupid Person’s Idea of A Clever Person, has written a lengthy screed excoriating those wicked Trotskyists who refuse to follow the dictates of the Gender Stalinists.
I know I’ve seen her name before, but I’m drawing a blank where. She’s a well-known advocate for “gender-affirming care”, and I seem to recall she’s butted heads with gender critical people in some large way before.
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Yes. Johanna Olson-Kennedy is the “Pop Tart” Doctor:
Driving home earlier tonight I was listening to Billy Bragg’s Changing Times, a documentary about protest music that originally aired in 2019. Bragg was speaking with the British folk-punk singer, Tom Robinson, about Robinson’s ‘British gay anthem’, (Sing if You’re) Glad to Be Gay.
For those not familiar with the song, here’s a brief précis culled from the song’s Wiki page:
The song was originally written by Tom Robinson [an out gay singer] for a London gay pride parade in 1976.
“Glad to Be Gay” is built on four verses criticising British society’s attitudes towards gay people. The first verse criticises the British police for raiding gay pubs for no reason after the decriminalisation of homosexuality by the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.
The second verse points to the hypocrisy of Gay News being prosecuted for obscenity instead of magazines like Playboy or the tabloid newspaper The Sun, which published photographs of topless girls on Page 3. It also criticises the way homosexual people are portrayed in other parts of the press, especially in the newspapers Daily Telegraph, Sunday People and Sunday Express. The third verse points out the extreme consequences of homophobia, such as violence against gay people.
In the final verse, the song makes a plea for support of the gay cause. This part, originally intended as a bitter attack on complacency of gay people at the Pride march in 1976, became a rallying call for solidarity from people irrespective of their orientation.
So far, so clear. The song was a straightforward protest song about the treatment of and attitudes towards gay men in the 1970s I remember the song well; I even saw it performed live at a Tom Robinson Band gig in 1979/80 and joined in the singing with the rest of the audience. It was a strangely joyous experience being in a throng of spiky-haired punks, young gay men, ‘normies’ like me and a whole lot more disparate groups, all linking arms and belting out the chorus “Sing if you’re glad to be gay, sing if you’re happy that way”. I remember hearing him being interviewed about the song many times on radio and TV and he always explained the song in terms of gay men. And yet for some reason, in the interview with Bragg he said “Of course, back then [the ’70s] ‘gay’ meant something different than it does today. It was an umbrella term covering the whole LGBTQIA+ community.”
I’m a straight male and even to me, hearing this gay man (possibly even a gay icon to a generation of British gay men) who had been so outspoken about gay rights suddenly come out with such an obviously dishonest, revisionist statement was absolutely shocking. I can barely begin to imagine how those gay men who looked to him throughout the dark days of the ’70s and ’80’s must feel. ‘Utterly betrayed’ probably doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Apologies for the length of that rant, but it was six hours ago that I heard it and I still can’t quite get my head around it.
She makes the point that not everything about pushing back against gender ideology is gender-critical feminism, or even simply feminism. She notes that Genspect is not a feminist organization. Her own interest in the topic comes from the field of psychology:
For the record, my understanding of this issue is not rooted in a critique of gender oppression and the patriarchy. I’m psychologically minded and I view this issue as a psychological mass formation as described by the psychologist Mattias Desmet. I don’t believe that sex-based oppressive stereotypes fully explain this issue—though I do believe that sex-based stereotypes can be oppressive and certainly contribute to this social contagion. Equally, while I also recognise that some are profiting from this issue, I don’t think “following the money” fully explains it either. Instead, I believe that a deep sense of loneliness, disconnection, floating anxiety, frustration, and rage are the primary drivers behind this trend, and I am primarily focused on these issues to better understand why so many people are drawn to the idea of becoming a different person with a new identity.
In general, I like the point that, even though I (or a group) might agree with a position, that doesn’t mean that the position is a focus.
There is a really good Venn diagram in the post, showing how different concerns intersect (and don’t intersect). The larger circles are Gender Criticals, Philosophical Liberals, and Social Conservatives.
Yeah but Stella and Genspect have a reputation problem from another angle as well: they’ve gone soft on gay rights. Genspect USA got in bed with a major (if not the world’s biggest) Christian “gay conversion therapy” peddling org, and Stella was recently a panelist at an event run by the ghoulish Alliance Defending Freedom. And at the last Genspect conference they hosted as a guest speaker a man (a former close friend of mine in fact, who I’ve since severed ties with) who has recently started making strong statements opposing same-sex couples’ right to raise children, seemingly after he came into lots of money from the far right.
I fully agree that Genspect got unfairly targeted by radical femininsts for touching the third rail of autogynephilia, even when they did so in very good faith, their embrace of anti-science and anti-gay quackery has gotten them in hot water with a whole other demographic, and far more reasonably so. But in a boy-who-cried-wolf kind of sense, they appear to have become hardened to critiques of their political affililations. Even though in this latter case, many people who share their core values strongly agree that they’ve made genuine missteps.
And I don’t agree with the framing that we can agree on some things but not on others when it comes to organizations’ core mission values. The KKK and the NAACP really can’t agree on anything. And likewise, Genspect, an organization ostensibly started to promote healthy care for gender nonconforming children, should not be in bed with an org that promotes deeply abusive and harmful “gay conversion therapy” for gender nonconforming children on “Christian priniciples”. These are not side issues. They are core mission values — or at least they should be — and they clash unacceptably.
I’ve lost trust in Genspect, for sure. Not because they defied the “radfems” and dared to talk about autogynephilia (if perhaps imperfectly and clumsily), but because they’ve taken all the wrong lessons from that ugly episode of conflict over a crossdresser, and gone further the wrong way afterwards. I’m not alone in this view.
Some interesting information from Scotland’s chief medical officer, Sir Gregor Smith, about the BMA’s initial rejection of the Cass report
In August, the BMA had called for a ban on puberty blockers to be lifted, citing medical and academic concerns about “weaknesses in the methodologies used” by Baroness Cass. […] However, giving evidence to MSPs at Holyrood, Sir Gregor said two evidence papers on which the BMA based its claims had been quickly debunked. “One was essentially a blog and opinion rather than any research paper,” he said. “They were critiqued through normal scientific process, and the credibility was undermined quite significantly as a consequence of that.”
Rejected because of what was written on a blog; very professional I don’t think. Sir Gregor had another interesting titbit to share, this one rather more disturbing in light of the fact that the BMA called for the ban on puberty blockers to be lifted, and the claim by the Green Party MSP, Gillian Mackay, that the ban was ideologically driven.
Holyrood’s health and sport committee heard on Tuesday that of those on the waiting list for Scotland’s only child gender clinic, at the Sandyford in Glasgow, high numbers had other mental health or developmental issues. One-in-three on the waiting list had a diagnosis of a mental health condition and two thirds had a neurodevelopmental condition, such as autism,
But yeah, it was Cass who was ideologically driven because shut up you transphobes!
Youngkin signed an order in August to expedite the removal of registered voters whose driver’s license applications indicated or suggested that they were not U.S. citizens. The effort was opposed by the Justice Department and civil rights groups, which said many being kicked off the rolls were actually eligible and were targeted because of outdated or erroneous information.
I’ve seen in previous stories about this effort that most of the people affected are citizens who just forgot to check the box on their driver’s license application. Others are non-citizens who have no intention of voting.
Alabama submitted an amicus brief in the case, after a similar purge of voters was declared illegal. The majority of the affected people in Alabama are recently-naturalized citizens, people who still had foreign national identification numbers in some places in the registration information for various government entities.
Trumpkins are in a tizzy because of an ad narrated by Julia Roberts telling women that they can vote for Harris without telling their husbands.
“In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know,” Roberts says in the ad as a woman on screen meets up with her husband after casting her ballot for Harris.
The voter winks at a fellow female voter as her husband asks if she made the “right choice.”
Republicans have responded to the video with outrage, with some claiming that a wife lying about her vote is as bad as an affair.
“If I found out Emma was going to the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said on air Wednesday in a clip highlighted by Mediaite.
Charlie Kirk blows a gasket:
“I think it’s so gross. I think it’s so nauseating where this wife is wearing the American hat, she’s coming in with her sweet husband who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go you know and have a nice life and provide to the family, and then she lies to him saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m gonna vote for Trump,’ and then she votes for Kamala Harris as her little secret in the voting booth,” Kirk fumed to radio host Megyn Kelly.
“Kamala Harris and her team believe that there will be millions of women that undermine their husbands and do so in a way that it’s not detectable in the polling,” he added.
Liz Cheney isn’t having any of it:
“Listen to this twit make Donald Trump’s closing argument. Women, you know what to do. #VoteKamala,” Cheney wrote in a post on the social platform X.
The male player, Fleming, on the SJSU women’s volleyball team is treated with kid gloves, while the women are threatened and treated harshly. Some have quit the team. The article describes the situation with the members on that team, a focus I haven’t noticed before; most of the articles I’ve seen are about the concerns about the opposing teams. The conditions at SJSU sound awful.
The article mentions one woman who spoke out, and whose scholarship was revoked as a result; she couldn’t pay the tuition, and she is now playing (and going to school elsewhere. It bothers me greatly that some student’s ability to pay for their education depends on their participation in an extracurricular activity, and is at the whim of coaches, but that is how it works right now, and this power is being used to shut up women speaking out.
What strange world does Kirk live in where most wives don’t have their own jobs? It was gross when the “sole” breadwinner was still a thing, but it’s 2024 in the United States. You owe your spouse fuck all in the voting booth.
That said, I don’t think you should lie to your spouse; tell them it’s none of their business.
My mother always made a point of telling my dad when she voted for the opposite candidate; it was her little mark of independence. She was a stay home housewife with archaic ideas about women, but she was adamant about her right to vote however she wanted. He agreed, even if he didn’t like it when she voted for Jimmy Carter instead of Gerald Ford. He figured his vote cancelled hers out, and all was even.
Mostly Cloudy, I was recently reading a book by Naomi Klein about how often she’s mistaken for Naomi Wolf (and apparently vice versa), which was merely amusing until Wolf went anti-vaccine, and started peddling hard right conspiracy theories. I’m not surprised she endorsed Trump. All the feminist issues have disappeared down the rabbit hole of her conspiracy addled brain.
I know some people here admire Katha Pollit’s writing. Here she is putting forward the case for voting Kamala Harris and not for a third-party candidate:
The fact that the Harris campaign (or some ally) felt the need to make the ad indicates that it’s a real problem that some women feel they have to vote for their husband’s preferred candidate, or lie about it. No surprise, I suppose, but disturbing nonetheless.
The same survey the found 1 in 8 women lied to their husbands about voting differently also found that 1 in 10 men lied to their wives about voting differently. But the ad is about women, and the reaction has been loud from men.
I do know people who feel some sort of obligation to vote the same, rationalized as “it would be canceling your vote out if I voted differently, and that’s not a nice thing to do to you”. I don’t understand this, a vote is a vote, but that’s how some people think about it.
Well one of the original “arguments” against women voting was that it’d just be giving married men an extra vote (and since it also assumed almost all women would be married it effectively didn’t matter). For my part, while my wife and I discuss politics and our opinions on policy and candidates I make it clear that she should vote how she sees fit and should not be unduly influenced by what I think.
We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.
Sorry we want MALE only voting. The 19th might have to go
— Former Trump Aide John McEntee
The McEntee line went viral a few days ago, but Republicans have been making noise about denying women the vote for at least a couple of years now.
I initially took the cat lady stuff to be standard Republican trolling. I couldn’t make any sense at all out of the complaint that women vote. There is no foreseeable future in which 38 states vote to repeal the 19th amendment, so what is the point of saying something like that?
Then I remembered: it’s always projection. Whenever the Republicans accuse the Democrats of something, they are really talking about themselves. But in this case, it’s not a direct projection, it’s a mirrored projection. What is the mirror image of the childless cat lady? It’s the dateless MAGA boy. It’s the lonely, angry, frustrated, unsocialized young men who can’t get wives, or girlfriends, or dates, or – above all – sex.
What McEntee–and other Republicans who talk the same way–are offering these MAGA boys is a vision of a future where women are politically and socially subordinate to men. Where they can get the sex they want without having to work for it, or behave in society, or make themselves attractive to women. Where they can get what they want through political supremacy, and–if it comes to it–outright violence.
It’s a truism in American politics that you run to the wings to win your primary, and then tack back to the center to win the general election. Trump doesn’t do that. Trump runs to the right in the primary and never comes back to the center.
You can do that: Trump won in 2016. But if you do that, you can never stop. You can never slow down; you can never look back; you can never let up for even an instant. You have to always be pushing further and farther out to the extreme, and hope that that you can gain votes on the fringe faster than you lose them in the middle. And at some point it becomes a trap. The fringe is smaller than the middle (that’s why it’s called the fringe), so there are more votes to be lost in the middle than there are to be gained on the fringe.
I think that the bizarre statements and policy positions that we keep seeing from Republicans are increasingly desperate attempts to capture smaller and smaller tranches of votes from groups that are further and further out on the fringe of the right wing.
Steven, maybe there’s even more projection – the idea that the ‘childless cat ladies’ are miserable, because the MAGA boys are. They resent that a woman could be happier with a cat (or multiple cats) than with them. They resent the cats, they are jealous of the cats, and so they hate the cats. They also project the misery onto the cat ladies, maybe hoping if they can convince these ladies they are miserable, it would help them get sex. Good luck with that, MAGA boys.
As for voting and lying to my husband…when I read him stuff about this controversy, he said he couldn’t imagine even trying to tell me how to vote. He is sure it won’t work out well. And he’s right.
Today I experienced something I’ve never experienced before. As I was leaving the polling place, a TV news crew from a new cable outlet (Newsnation, Chris Cuomo’s new gig) stopped me for an interview. Our precinct is small and not terribly diverse (demographically or politically–we’re mostly white liberals), and with early voting there was hardly any activity, so it surprised me that they’d be interviewing voters there. But I saw them in a neighboring precinct as well, so I think this is a way to drum up viewers (I’ll be watching).
I don’t think I said anything terribly interesting–I have to confess I used the phrase “civic duty”–but I hope they caught my Woody Guthrie-inspired t-shirt on camera.
”Reminder that David Tennant is one of the many people who helped make your story be as famous as it is,” another added.
Because before David Tennant came along Rowling was just a struggling author scribbling away in a coffeeshop in the wilds of Scotland with just a few obscure books and straight-to-DVD films to her name. Where oh where would she ever be without Tennant’s brilliant Oscar– nay, Nobel-worthy turn as Barty Crouch Jr.?
Good essay by Glenna Goldis: Chase Strangio’s Legal Narrative. It discusses the likely legal strategy to be employed by Strangio in arguing the Skrmetti case on pediatric gender medicine before the Supreme Court.
Sackbut, that essay was a good one, all right. I was reading it, and forgot to start dinner. So we’ll eat late tonight, thanks to you. ;-)
Strangio identifies as non-binary and male. Those are contradictory. I guess that doesn’t bother her, because she is special, and can show you her specialness any time.
“I sort of was grasping for some sense that I existed in the world, but I could never see it reflected back to me.
This quote sort of shows that. It could describe almost everyone in college – and many younger and older people. A natural part of growing up that we all go through, and she turns it into something that she felt that somehow made her special.
Whenever I read about her, the narcissism, oh, it burns.
Because before David Tennant came along Rowling was just a struggling author scribbling away in a coffeeshop in the wilds of Scotland with just a few obscure books and straight-to-DVD films to her name. Where oh where would she ever be without Tennant’s brilliant Oscar– nay, Nobel-worthy turn as Barty Crouch Jr.?
Yeah, the franchise was four films in before Tennant put in his guest appearance, Afterwards, when I heard some time later that he’d been in it, I had to consult IMDB to see which character he’d played, because I hadn’t noticed him.
Another neighbourhood vignette. Trans bullshit makes me cranky. Maybe at this point I’m spending too much time looking for it, but its omnipresence makes it hard to avoid. Today’s encounter with it took place in a local store selling handicrafts. Right at the door was a little Pride Progress flag (complete with the Intersex yellowtiangle with purple circle). Beside it was a happy rainbow sticker assuring those in need of such reassurance that You Are Safe Here. Of course this wasn’t telling everyone entering the store that the building they were entering was up to code and therefore unlikely to burst into flame or collapse onto us during our shopping visit. No. This is a different kind of “safety” we’re talking about here, and this “safety” is reserved for Special People, as the sticker was gaudily announcing that the store was not just a retail establishment, but also a 2SLGBTQIA+ Safe Space. One wonders if there are any regulations or guidelines for that. Not just any old place can be a daycare centre, for example. Restaurants here are required to display the results of the latest health inspection. Somehow I doubt there is any such certification or registration needed, and that any store can simply “identify” as a safe space, with no need to fulfil any requirements other than a desire to advertise one’s piety and righteousness. You just slap on a sticker here and there and voila, you’re an Ally! And, despite the rest of the flag, I think at this point. these displays of obedience and loyalty are all about the Trans. If it was about gay rights, you’d just have the good, old fashion Pride Flag, except that it’s now insufficiently “inclusive”, and about as welcome as a Swastika flag, or the Confederate one, as it is verboten to have anything LGB without the T.
These stickers operate on several levels at once. However much of a “welcome” they might be for the target audience, they are also a warning. They mean, theoretically, that the staff will not only not challenge trans bullshit, but also defend and enforce it. I would expect any sticker-displaying establishment large enough to have separate male and female bathroom facilities would allow men-pretending-to-be-women to use what, until recently, would have been exclusively female spaces. If anyone questions their use of women’s spaces, staff will defend the intruder, rather than the intrudeed upon. So, not “safe” for women, then.
More insidiously, these stickers play into the trans victimization and fragility narrative. If the store is a “safe space,” then by implication everywhere else is hostile. THE WHOLE WORLD IS OUT TO GET YOU! COME INSIDE: YOU’LL BE SAFE HERE! As if hatred falls from the sky like rain, and stores with stickers are offering life-saving shelter from the storm. But there’s more than one storm brewing, as women well know, having had their own safety eroded in favour of the validation of delusional males.
Do trans activists really assume that any store without a sticker is “unsafe”? Is that even the actual point? Displaying such stickers advertises putative allyship, but it also shows surrender and obedience to gender ideology. It represents a promise to comply. This puts pressure on other shopkeepers to announce their own stores’ “safety”.
Most of the products were fairly typical craft items, mostly handmade. Felted, knitted, or crocheted animals, jewelery, candles, soaps. You get the picture. But one item was a “Rainbow Certified” tote bag:
emblazoned with the slogan “Support LGBTQ+”, with fluffy clouds, flowers, and a rainbow. (The company’s website informs me that Rainbow Certified is a queer owned small business who makes apparel & accessories for the LGBTQ+ community. I feel excluded already. Am I allowed to even look at this tote bag? Why yes, I am. (Read on.) Perhaps I’m reading to much into this, but notice that it’s not a simple statement in which the person carrying the bag is declaring “I support LGBTQ+”, but a demand that the viewer do so. It might be printed in a 60’s-esque flower-power kind of font, but it’s still a demand, and a forced-teaming one at that. Read and obey. Cutesy pushy is still pushy. Push someone else.
Shopping doesn’t usually make me this crotchety, but I get tired of all of this public display trans crap. It feels like swimming through a treacly sea of lies. Lies that I’m supposed to accept and believe. We’re supposed to be happy with our own coercion. All the rainbow colours and glitter hide an underlying malice and darkness that comes to the fore in accusations of bigotry and hatred. As I’ve commented before, the Progress Pride flag feels like the flag of a hostile, occupying force, passed off as the banner of a well-meaning, public-spirited campaign of kindness, compassion and concern. Look more closely, and the actual focus of that “compassion” and “concern” is very narrow. Its demands are enforced with very little kindness, and at a very steep cost to women and girls.
I haven’t posted here since 2016. Hi, everyone. I want to post Does anyone know where to chat about gender critical left-wing issues without dealing with Trump apologists?
Hi, welcome back. One place to chat about gender critical left-wing issues without dealing with Trump apologists is, well, here. Googling “gender critical blogs” turns up blogs I know are not Trumpy. Or seek out Kathleen Stock, Joan Smith, Julie Bindel, JK Rowling to name just a few.
Hi, everyone, again. I always appreciate how friendly you are! I didn’t know my post posted after all! It posted way earlier than I had hoped to by accident, (hence the glaring typos), but then, I couldn’t find it.
I deactivated my 12+-year-old Twitter account a couple of days ago. I wish I could convince the British women on there to do *what I particularly want* and drop everything over there to move onto who-knows-where at my personal convenience, but that’s not me respecting people’s autonomy, is it? Heh, heh…
I had been lurking in Ovarit for since its founding but the forum has uncharacteristically shut down until the upcoming 14th this month, for reasons of “lacking mods,” very apparently to wait out the electoral storm. Quite a few regulars moved onto the Gendercritical Saidit forum, and a few of them there have started gloating about Trump and bashing Democrats and speculating about the “controlling issues” of the Ovarit mod who made the temporary shutdown announcement, who, if I remember correctly, just happens to be British. My gossipy guess: she might have been pro-Harris (maybe: I could be wrong), and she didn’t want to be around for the volcanic eruption of electoral fallout. One of the women there said something derogatory about recently African-descended (Nigerian, et al) Americans (black people like me) stealing college spots from Black Americans, saying that Kamala Harris is like “those people,” that basically, she’s not a real black woman, and that her speaking style was fake and pandering. Basically, this [probably white] woman was repeating “FBA”/“ADOS”-movement xenophobic nonsense about Black African and Caribbean Americans. I stupidly tried to say something because I found someone *saying something wrong on the Internet* and I got banned from their forum. Meanwhile, there is a troll there calling all Ovarit posters Karens who “scream misogyny at everything” and that they supposedly hate all gay men, but I’m the banned one, [probably he] isn’t. I’m just flummoxed. I’ve never been banned from any forum before in all of the 25+ years I’ve been chatting online (I’m 40 — I used to post on newsgroups at age 15), and I didn’t take it very well. I found myself begging my mom and brother to let me buy some Nicorette at 10:30pm last night (I’ve been suffering really bad nicotine withdrawal this past week), and I feel I’ve humiliated myself. I didn’t think that this election would end THIS badly, that it would leave me with almost nowhere to go to cope with the results. Black women in places like Lipstick Alley have alleged forever that Ovarit has a race problem that the latter’s moderation keeps refusing to deal with: that the white women there don’t want to accommodate any racial minority women (I personally hate the “of color” phrase) or give them any sub-Ovarit forums there to discuss things, and I guess I’m currently trapped in that silly “I didn’t think the leopards would eat MY face” trope.
This is really bad. I don’t want to be censorious and thin-skinned, but I can’t deal with people claiming that Harris is “fake” when they don’t understand that Black American culture has demanded that we black African and Caribbean immigrants’ children do the “jive-turkey” talk as that racist put it for decades, and if we don’t do our best to assimilate, then we’re anti-black and that we’re probably Republican, when, no matter how we act or talk, the majority of us aren’t “anti-black.” We’re almost as pro-Democratic as other “foundational black Americans” or “American Descendants of Slaves.” Our parents make us speak the Queen’s English at home to the point where they won’t let us get any American slang out of our mouths before we can finish a full-on sentence, they oftentimes won’t let us “dress like them,” and if we learn to “code-switch,” we are learning it behind our parents’ backs and we’re doing it with constant suspicion from Black Americans who constantly want to accuse us of hating them based on nothing but popular movies that bash the African diaspora and other Black celebrities mocking us. People like Harris and Obama have to “jive-turkey” talk because if they don’t, they get people like Jesse Jackson claiming that we’re “talking down to them.” If Harris talked “normal,” (read: “white”) (what proof do we have that Harris doesn’t regularly talk the way she does in speeches? What proof do we have that the way she talks in public is all that different than how she may talk in private?), she might alienate more suspicious Black people than if she didn’t — she came out through the system after all — she’s supposed to dump everything she’s learned about surviving the grind over the past 35+ years for one election? Is that realistic? Didn’t she deal with having to win black people’s trust when she was studying at Howard University? And even then, some people accused her of pandering when she did her concession speech at Howard — why? Isn’t that her alma mater? She can’t do speeches at the school she started her career at now? And finally, regarding “normal” talk, are we finally admitting that black people talk differently than everyone else, and maybe, when we all live in the same country and we all speak the same language in public, that that might be a problem? Are we ready to admit that AAVE is kind of a relic we might need to begin to let go? No? Okay. (Uh oh — I might have said something “anti-black.” Well, like how I don’t want to waste time defending credibility-lacking TRAs, I’m not wasting time arguing that the “N-word pass” is enforceable or that saying the N-word in public at all makes any kind of sense — no? Okay.)
Speaking of “ADOS,” aren’t most black Caribbeans “descended from slaves” as well? For some reason, in this past election, we let Trump insinuate that black Caribbeans didn’t come from slavery, and I don’t know why, other than American public school failure to educate anyone about anything outside of the U.S. except England in our world history classes, our general U.S. ethnocentrism and xenophobia, and of course, our refusal to hold him accountable for *anything,* that we just let him and the rest of the right-wing media get away with that. Just bizarre.
Right now, I’m hoping against common sense that there’s MAYBE something unnatural about the voting results, but maybe there isn’t. This really sucks.
Thanks for reading my rant. Thank you for your kindness. Is there a forum like a blog or somewhere where left-wing GCs gather where I can read off of Twitter? Maybe not. But thank you, regardless.
Sorry. I just now realized that Ms Benson answered my question about gender critical blogs. For the record, this blog helped me go “peak trans” with what happened with this place versus the Freethought (heh) network back in 2015~2016. Thanks, once again
Linda Binda, thank you for sharing your experiences (I usually hate the thank you for sharing formulation; ;it’s so…shallow). I watched people claim Obama wasn’t really black, and that Harris wasn’t really black, and while I disagreed, as a white person I am not listened to if I say anything, because it isn’t my lived experience. No, it’s not, but listening to you reinforces what everyone should know – lived experience is not the same for everyone even in a demographic. My upbringing wasn’t ‘white’, it was ‘poor’. It was ‘fundamentalist Christian’. I had little (read: nothing) in common with the rich snobbish white girls in my school. There were two other girls poor enough to sit with me at lunch. We didn’t like each other, but no one else would sit with us, so we stuck together (nothing in common with them, either). There were no minorities in our school; the poor were the only minorities, because it was a rich town. My ‘lived experience’ is not the same as any of the other 800 students in my graduating class. They didn’t consider me one of them, and I didn’t ever feel like I could be one of them. For too many years, I allowed them to define me, and now I resolutely refuse.
At this point, I feel a lot of us on this blog share things in common, even though there is no indication any of us have a shared ‘lived experience’. We come from all sorts of different backgrounds, countries, college degrees, etc. Yet somehow we are able to understand each other, talk to each other, and not be anywhere as dysfunctional as my family and my school, where I supposedly (though not really) had shared ‘lived experiences’. We can disagree, and even get snarky with each other, and we have different levels of interest in some subjects, but we somehow manage to maintain a coherent, coalescent, and compassionate commentariat (I hope you like alliteration!).
I hope you stick around. You sound like someone who would have a lot to add to our conversations, and you will be welcomed here. We’re (mostly) friendly, but sometimes the leopards threaten to eat our faces.
Maybe he has, but I’m not yet convinced. I think he is someone who is monomaniacally focused on a single issue, and he sees evidence that Trump will resolve that issue (in a country where Glinner does not live) in a way that Glinner likes. But I have seen other people voice full support for Trump based on that one issue, so perhaps. It is disturbing, certainly.
I’m not sure any single issue would make a person “pro-Trump” though. There are far more things people would agree upon, particularly when it comes to women’s rights and protection of children, than disagree. I don’t see the trans movement as a particularly partisan issue. If anything, it has more in common with far right ideology, that being religious, authoritarian, thought policing, compelled speech, reinforcing stereotypes, and that sort of cultish “our way is the only way” doctrinarian thinking. Trans cult activism looks more like a far right movement masquerading as a far left one, probably because it’s been forcibly attached to sex based rights movements when it has little in common with them. I see the trans cult as its own deleterious and deceptive thing. How any liberal minded person goes along with any of it, aside from the attitude of live and let live, or basic tolerance, particularly after understanding how it affects other groups of vulnerable people, is truly a wonder.
Protesters waved Nazi flags outside of a community theater production of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” leaving performers “understandably shaken” by the hateful display in Michigan, officials said Monday.
The shocking protest by a handful of masked men unfolded Saturday night outside of American Legion Post 141 in Howell, where the play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett was being staged.
The KKK used hoods in part to disguise the fact that they were doctors, bankers, cops, salesmen, and other “upstanding” members of the community. So who was behind those masks?
I was just at the Margaret Mitchell house (museum) here in Atlanta. Those KKK members were our neighbors. They were back then, and they are now. The racism and misogyny is still there. It’s been suppressed in the modern era, but there are those who carry on the tradition, and have been taught to hate from an early age. GWTW may have been inaccurate in focusing on slaves who had a better life than most, and it is fiction after all, but the portrayal of the KKK (fictionalized) and their cowardly contingent is closer to the truth. For something closer to historical accuracy, I would recommend 12 Years a Slave.
It’s easy for Posie Parker; she doesn’t live here. What will she think when things really hit the fan? Is it a worthy tradeoff? Kids in cages vs. trans in the bathrooms. RFK Jr. in charge of health vs. trans in women’s sports. All of those are part of Trump’s agenda, and it isn’t possible for me to pick and choose one thing. Especially since I suspect Harris is following a trend, and could be reasoned with if the scientific evidence were presented to her. I doubt she spends much time following trans blogs, and even less following GC blogs. She may not know anything about the situation other than they have certain claims about genocide and suicide, and that they are part of the LGBTQI+++++++ community.
And Linehan lives in Britain, and Murphy in Mexico. The worst consequences of a second Trump Administration won’t affect them.
Maybe this issue of GC people supporting Trump needs more discussion here?
I don’t believe Trump cares about the gender issue except as a way of getting more votes – Trump would support the re-introduction of Prohibition if he thought it was an election winner.
Plus, y’know, a CONVICTED SEXUAL ASSAULTER isn’t going to help women.
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull supported Trump in the 2020 presidential election in a video on YouTube that has since been made private. Her associations with the political Right were thoroughly documented in this post from March last year, compiled by a group of feminists in Australia.
n May 2018, we became aware of several tweets by KJK that made pejorative comments about Muslim communities. We believed these tweets would contribute to a hostile environment for people from minoritised communities. The views expressed in these tweets are diametrically opposed to our principles and beliefs.
A banner for Posie Parker/Kellie-Jay Keen’s Let Women Speak outfit at the Tommy Robinson rally in London on 27th July. [image]
For context:
‘Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (né Yaxley; born 27 November 1982), better known as Tommy Robinson, is … one of the UK’s most prominent far-right activists.’ – Wikipedia
We are all familiar with attempts to classify ideologies and political systems in terms of different axes, or dimensions, or coordinate systems (individualist vs. collectivist, egalitarian vs. hierarchical, libertarian vs. authoritarian, universalist vs. identitarian etc.). There is a tendency to lump one’s political rivals together by selectively emphasizing the axes along which their positions happen to coincide to the exclusion of all the others. There is also a tendency to distance oneself from groups one does not like to be associated with by selectively emphasizing the differences and ignoring the similarities. E.g. back in my movement atheist days accomodationists often accused “militants” like myself of being “just like the fundamentalists” (“just as dogmatic”, “just as intolerant of opposing views” etc.), and from a certain point of view they were right: Even if hard-line atheists and religious fundamentalists disagreed on pretty much all the specific answers, not to mention how those answers were derived in the first place, at least they both agreed that the answer mattered, and to the accomodationists that was exactly the problem. Accomodationists and moderate believers also disagreed on the specific answers, but shared the same indifference to truth and reason, as well as the same commitment to bland, indifferent centrism and bothsiderism.
I’m increasingly inclined to think that the main battle of our time is not between “the Left” and “the Right”, but between those, whether Left or Right, who still respect facts and logic and care about classical liberal values (universal rights, individual liberty, free expression, academic freedom, basic democratic rules of the game etc.) and those who don’t. As I keep saying, Trumpism and wokeism are both post-truth ideologies. As much as the woke crowd hate Trump (i.e. not nearly as much as they hate the “wrong kind” of leftists!), they absolutely love what he has done to factual discourse. For all their mutual antagonism, Trump-supporters and wokesters both want to live in a world in which sound volume and endless repetitions trump (no pun intended) facts and the biggest bully, capable of mobilizing the biggest mob, has a blank check to take whatever he wants and destroy anyone who gets in his way.
We keep talking about the political “Left” vs. the political “Right” as if it were obvious what we were talking about, when, in fact, these are umbrella terms, each covering a vast range of very different, and even mutually hostile, movements, ideologies, political systems etc. Talking in terms of “Left” vs. “Right” makes it sound like the people on the “Left” are all on the same side against everyone on the “Right”, when in fact a person on the moderate center-Left who believes in liberal values almost certainly has more in common with someone on the moderate center-Right who also believes in liberal values than either of them does with Fascists, Communists, Trump-supporters, or wokesters.
To me the defining feature of “leftism” is that “leftists” tend to “side with the underdog” as they see it (in practice, of course, seeing it that way in the first place may require acceptance of some extremely dubious truth claims, academic theories, ideological doctrines etc., but still…). They tend to see the world as inherently unjust and unfair, i.e. as a place where certain groups, simply by accident of birth, start out at a major disadvantage while others get an almost insurmountable head start. Furthermore, this inherent injustice perpetuates itself from one generation to the next, leaving the disadvantaged groups perpetually last in line. Breaking out of this vicious cycle is going to require active political interventions, from gradual reform to armed revolution.
For most of my life, “leftists” tended to be the ones who were trying to get away from boxes and labels and different standards of treatment for different groups of people (judging people by the “content of their character” rather then the color of their skin etc.). As (iirc) Nick Cohen once pointed out, women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals etc. were not asking for special treatment: What they were objecting to was precisely the fact that they were given special treatment. That’s what “discrimination” means! Woke identity politics, by contrast, is all about boxes and labels and treating people differently according to group identity.
Despite efforts to equate wokeism with “cultural Marxism”, Marxists, believed in objective truth and claimed it for themselves. To the woke any appeal to “objective truth”, as well as “evidence”, “logic” etc. is just a naked exercise of power to force oppressed groups into accepting the self-serving narratives of their oppressors. Marxists were mainly concerned with class, the one axis of privilege and marginalization that the woke don’t care about at all. As many others have pointed out, “Marxism” without any consideration of class is rather like a doughnut after you have removed everything except the hole: Pretty much indistinguishable from nothing. Both Marxists and wokesters invoked a concept of “false consciousness”, but according to Marxism the oppressed (i.e. the working class) were blind to their own oppression, and therefore needed the Communist Party to do their thinking for them. According to wokeism it’s the oppressor classes themselves who are blind to their own privilege etc. etc.
The people on the “Right”, on the other hand, tend to see themselves as siding with “the deserving”. Fiscal conservatives and libertarians interpret “the deserving” in meritocratic terms (the hard working, the competent, the achievers etc.). The “American Dream” was all about being “self-made” and making it to the top through personal effort without outside help. Indeed, the greatest heroes were the ones who managed to overcome great obstacles and opposition and prove everybody else wrong (“I did it my way” etc.). Fiscal conservatives and libertarians also tend to see the world as inherently just and fair. Or, if there is anything unfair about it, it’s mainly unfair to the deserving who keep getting held back by burdensome regulations while having the fruit of their accomplishments confiscated and redistributed to the undeserving (the lazy, the incompetent, the bums). By contrast cultural conservatives, religious fundamentalists, fascist etc. see their own group as more deserving than all others by virtue of their superior ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion etc. Everyone else is considered undeserving by virtue of who they are, rather than anything they’ve ever done.
There is a tendency among leftists to portray Trumpism as simply the logical consequence of what “conservatives” have been up to all along, when, in fact, the betrayal of the idea of meritocracy in favor of a system that favors personal loyalty to the leader over accomplishment is almost certainly more offensive to the old-school conservatives than to leftists who think there is no such thing as “meritocracy” anyway: Just unearned privilege perpetuating itself from one generation to the next. Traditional conservatives also tended to emphasize values like character, integrity, and personal responsibility (far more than Leftists who are more sympathetic to blaming the “system” for personal shortcomings), whereas fascists emphasize brute force and the ability to bend the world to one’s will, and dismiss any appeal to such fake “values” as “slave morality” rooted in resentment, envy and the need to discredit what one is too weak to do oneself (cf. Nietzsche). The same disdain for “do-gooders” and the same amoral commitment to winning by any means necessary is obvious in kleptocrats like Trump and Putin. The sentiment is admirably captured in this quote from the gangster movie Goodfellas:
For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean, they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.
This is not the inevitable implication of favoring lower taxes, more privatization, and less government spending.
“Questionable Content” is a webcomic that I usually find amusing.
The author seems to have bought into the trans BS, but it is not usually intrusive enough to put me off continuing to read it.
Given some of the commentary here making fun of trans, with talk about being eg: a trans-otter, I’m wondering which side of the issue the author is making fun of here?
There is a tendency among leftists to portray Trumpism as simply the logical consequence of what “conservatives” have been up to all along, when, in fact, the betrayal of the idea of meritocracy in favor of a system that favors personal loyalty to the leader over accomplishment is almost certainly more offensive to the old-school conservatives than to leftists who think there is no such thing as “meritocracy” anyway….Traditional conservatives also tended to emphasize values like character, integrity, and personal responsibility (far more than Leftists who are more sympathetic to blaming the “system” for personal shortcomings).
This is not the inevitable implication of favoring lower taxes, more privatization, and less government spending.
The “populism” of Trump’s approach lets him bypass the conservatives and “never Trump-ers” who are appalled by his behaviour. There are more of the “little folk” who like him than there are of the grandees who detest him.
Spurred by AOC dropping the pronouns from her bio, Kevin Drum has concocted a “wokeness index”, and it indicates “wokeness” peaked in January 2022 and has declined since then. Clever analysis.
For the first time, I have a writing student who is openly trans. I’ve suspected others, but this time she (birth sex) has written an account (memoir) of dealing with her family as she demands to be called a by a boy’s name. It began when she identified with a friend (also birth female) who, since they were both “tiny,” six years old, knew that “his” other name–Jennifer–didn’t fit “him”. At first, Jennifer demanded to be called animals’ names instead of Jennifer and hated her own long hair. My student “feels an inner fire” whenever Jennifer demands to be called John. When Jennifer “reacted” as she did, adults “looked at him [her] like he [she] was crazy”. Then my student has this revealing line: “I knew that if I did anything similar, I would be met with the same reaction.” So she begins carefully crafting her feminine appearance, which she secretly hates, and she wishes she could pull her long hair out, etc. Eventually, she ditches the feminine schtick and chops off her hair, cuts her nails, wears sports clothing, etc. At this point, I thought of commenting, “I know plenty of lesbians who have dumped all the femme stuff,” but decided against it. None of my lesbian friends have gone as far as this student has gone: binders, testosterone (her voice is definitely “male”-sounding), and she comes off as a cute fifteen year old boy. Next, she says, it’s “top surgery.” She has a lot of anger toward people around her who are genuinely surprised by what they see in her and her trans friend. They all “look at him [Jennifer] like he is crazy”, and she fears being “labeled as strange and disgusting. The story is heart-felt, and I feel very bad for her. But, Wtf, it’s her life . . .
OK, this is a little odd… I’ve been quietly reading here for a long time. Some years ago, I had some pretty peculiar ideas which eventually gelled into a concept for a new liberal political economy. It’s an annoyingly big idea which is a little hard to describe, and which has been a long time coming in my thinking. On the one hand it’s an “it could change everything” kind of thing, but on the other hand it comes from nowhere and has a constituency of one at present. I’ve been trying to think of literally anyone who might look at it, and I keep coming back to this site, the one place I consistently hear ideas vaguely leaning in the same direction. And I have to say, I kind of just want to dump it here and get it off my chest. If you look at my web site, I’ve actually had ideas at least as far out as this, but this one is more difficult to put on my employer’s web server…
They all “look at him [Jennifer] like he is crazy”, and she fears being “labeled as strange and disgusting. The story is heart-felt, and I feel very bad for her. But, Wtf, it’s her life . . .
But what if it is mental illness? Of course it’s hard, if not impossile, to save someone from themselves; they have to recognize or admit that they have a problem. But “it’s her life” is fine, as far as it goes. If she wants to subject herself to irreversable procedures that get her no closer to her impossible goal that’s up to her. I won’t applaud it, but informed, consenting adults get to do this. The problems arise when demands are forced on others who have not chosen this path. She can do what she wants to herself, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of society has to reupholster itself to prevent her from encountering uncomfortable truths. Normally the freedom and autonomy she is demanding come with the personal responsibility to accept the consequences of the choices one has made. We shouldn’t be erasing the word “woman” to keep her safe from ever reading it, whether in medical communications, newspaper stories, or on the t-shirts of fellow airline passengers. This demand impinges on the rights of others. Caving in to it is wrong. It is unneccesary. It is dangerous. Rewriting everything in order to avoid using the word “woman” has bad, real world consequences. It is not “kind”. Do not ask everyone else to bend over backwards to accommodate your unreasonable sensitivity.
Unfortunately, it’s too late. Now we have to try to “unbend” far too many institutions, organizations, and government agencies who have acceded to this ludicrous demand to erase “woman” from their communications. Why did they do this in the first place? Why are so many, so eager to ban the use of a word that describes half the human population at the behest of a microscopically small subset of that half that feels “triggered” by it? Particularly when there is not nearly the same effort to erase the word “man.” That asymmetry of effort and focus tells you much of what you need to know about this movement, and its frighteningly rapid success at acheiving its goals. Women don’t count. Though I would be just as opposed to the erasure of “man”, I would be less alarmed by an “equal opportunity” officiousness and belicosity. Putting so much energy into erasing only women? That’s more sinister and dangerous.
Ryan Richter @ 152 – First, hello and welcome. Second, your proffered comment is hella long for a comment and also very complicated and detailed – a bit of a Das Kapital. How about I publish it in the Articles section? It’s relatively dormant these days but you could promote your piece here. Also the formatting is wrong so could you fix it so that I don’t have to?
For anyone fed up with Twitter and wanting to move to Bluesky….gender-critical lawyer and chair of Sex Matter activist Naomi Cunningham has had all her posts on Bluesky flagged with “Intolerance.”
Thanks a lot, that sounds an ideal way to do it. I don’t really expect to generate that much discussion in the short run. It’s obviously not attractive to basically anybody at the present time, especially in the US. There’s a properly formatted text file at http:/airen.bcm.umontreal.ca/ryan/NICL.txt although I plan to delete that when it finds a home (it’s not linked from anywhere). Thanks again!
Mostly Cloudy @ 155 – I am on BlueSky and have noticed the same thing. They haven’t flagged individual posts, I think, but the whole account. (I didn’t escape from Xitter, never was there in the first place.)
Of course, you can alway bypass those flags, but here’s the thing: It is common for individuals to curate blocking lists that others then subscribe to. So if you decide to follow Naomi Cunningham, that could get you on one of those lists, and suddenly find yourself blocked by a bunch of people you might otherwise want to follow.
I think the general mechanism at BlueSky is a reasonable one. It could well make social media tolerable. The problem is more the culture of assuming that anyone expressing some gender crtical views is necessary a bigot and giant asshole, and needs to be blocked on sight.
A newborn baby girl will have to go through life with the wrong sex on her birth certificate after a registrar’s error, which her parents have been told they cannot change.
Meanwhile, there are all these people who believe they or their children are “trans” and thus the “wrong” sex and seek to “correct” their birth certificates, and this is actually allowed in some jurisdictions.
“Even if people do notice the correction, they’ll assume our daughter is transgender – which isn’t an issue if that’s what she wants to be when she’s older, but it’s not the case now,” she added.
“Lilah might also not believe she was born a girl, but that there was a strange, biological thing that went on when she was born,” Bingham said. “I just feel so guilty. I’m in tears all the time. I’m completely torn up over it.”
That, too. The transgender nonsense just makes all of this worse.
Perhaps correcting actual errors, as opposed to imagined errors, might be a reasonable thing to allow.
Sackbut, there is a correction mechanism; my birth certificate was corrected. It registered my name as ‘Baby Girl’, even though my parents named me immediately. Until I was about 25, it was ‘Baby Girl’. Now it says my name.
Of course, that isn’t changing the sex, and it is the United States, so it may be different elsewhere. If there is no way to correct mistakes, then that is a truly flawed system.
iknklast, I’m glad there was a correction for your birth certificate. At least some places are sensible in that regard.
Not having an accurate name is one of many reasons a certificate might need correction, which is why I was surprised that the jurisdiction in the story did not allow correction of something as fundamental as the baby’s sex. The situation stands in stark contrast with places that allow “correction” of the baby’s sex because someone chose a trans “identity” later in life. I am wondering if trans ideology is the cause of this particular problem in the story. People tried to “correct” their birth certificate sex markers, so the government said no, you can’t correct the sex on a birth certificate, and then when there was an actual sex error on the certificate, it’s not allowed to be corrected. Probably not, probably a bureaucratic snafu, but trans ideology is nothing if not a lot of unspoken if not unintended consequences.
Maybe I should be glad I got my birth certificate changed 40 years ago; I was born in California, and they’re so mad with the trans nonsense that they might not change it now unless I was changing to male! (Though my name is one of those that can be either sex, it is more frequently female in the US these days.)
Today I learned that the CEO of Bluesky, Jay Graber, is a transwoman. Given how a few gender-critical feminists like Sall Grover and Naomi Cunningham have been censored by Bluesky for stating that transwomen are men that fact is good to know, if still dismaying.
New Zealand’s Health Ministry now says there is a “lack of good-quality evidence to back the effectiveness and safety of puberty blockers” for children and teenagers suffering from gender dysphoria:
Today I learned that the CEO of Bluesky, Jay Graber, is a transwoman. Given how a few gender-critical feminists like Sall Grover and Naomi Cunningham have been censored by Bluesky for stating that transwomen are men that fact is good to know, if still dismaying.
I had the sense that it was a place where I couldn’t speak my mind on that issue. Once everyone started sharing the House Democrats reaction to the new bathroom rule, I kind of lost interest in the place. I don’t like that we live in such a binary world that for social media, the choices are between trumpism and transgenderism.
“I don’t like that we live in such a binary world that for social media, the choices are between trumpism and transgenderism.”
Mike, and not just for the social media world but, increasingly, the world at large. No political parties for me, thank you. Once you “identify” as either R or D, you get all its baggage.
The case of Colin Wright is instructive: Bright guy, who has let the sex/gender war become his hobby horse . . . which horse has ridden him right off the cliff to trumpism. The evolutionary biologist is now in bed with the anti-evolution Christian fruitcakes. In the words of Dawn Davenport (Divine):
“Lay off me! I hate you! Fuck you! Fuck you both, you awful people!”
I’m a registered Democrat in Arizona because I want to vote in the Democratic primaries here, so for purposes of voting I identify as a Democrat. That doesn’t make me want to march in lockstep with them on gender identity matters though. I’d rather support Democratic candidates for office that aren’t in thrall to the gender Borg, thanks.
As for Colin Wight, he’s an Australian who likely wouldn’t support Trump or the Republican Party if he became a citizen of the U.S., but for him Trump’s winning is a blow against the gender Borg at least. I doubt he’d like some of other Trump’s baggage when it comes to legal abortion though. But then, that’s not his problem.
Because I do live in an area where the majority of people are conservative, I don’t wear my politics on my sleeve but neither do I refuse to defend my views in polite company. People are mostly decent even if they may be mistaken about a few things, and I may be mistaken too of course. Social media’s enabling of rude, insulting behavior is definitely a problem though as more and more people get their news and information not from boring old newspapers but from edge lords seeking attention online.
I’ve seen a couple of articles like this, and it’s infuriating. Now suddenly it’s “claims” that a player is trans? Not actual acknowledgement that there is a “trans” (aka male) player on the team, but merely claims? This is such dishonest framing, as if the player were communist or Jewish or some other irrelevant characteristic that can’t be settled by looking at him.
PZ has a small tanty about someone using the term ‘biological women’:
I’ve said this before: this makes no sense. There is no such thing as a non-biological woman, making the phrase redundant.
In a way he is almost right, by accident. The term is clunky I’ll agree, and it used to be redundant. For a long time we simply didn’t need to specify that we were talking about biology, because that was already implicit. It became necessary only recently, and we can blame the gender identity movement for that necessity.
Suddenly, there was a new idea: that woman or man might not be dependant on biological sex, but on some fuzzy internal feeling. PZ is mocking a term coined by his own movement.
Be honest, Nancy. Spell it out. You really just want to exclude Sarah McBride from using the restroom. Don’t cloak your meaning in bad biology.
Again, almost right and again, entirely by accident. Yes, people want to keep McBride out of the women’s amenities.
I don’t claim any expertise on social media algorithms, but I assume they are basically designed to maximize the number of clicks by applying heuristics like “people who clicked on X in the past were more likely than expected by chance to also click on Y” (I am sure there are others here who can correct me if I’m completely off the mark). If so, it’s telling that the YouTube algorithm started suggesting a lot more Right-wing crap after I began specifically looking for gender critical material. There’s a twist to the story, however. Recently (for reasons I hope are only too obvious) I have, once again, been watching a lot of material on the threats to liberal democracy from the MAGA crowd. And, what do you know, suddenly there’s noticeable uptick in TERF-bashing material in my suggestions!
As I have previously said, I have no doubt that this is largely due to the fact that Right-leaning sources tend to be the only ones willing to give a platform to anyone not 100% uncritical of gender ideology (just like Left-leaning sources tend to be the most welcoming platforms for material critical of Trump). Once again, we’re not in the luxurious position of having lots of attractive options to chose from, and sometimes you have to make a common cause with Stalin to defeat Hitler. But as I pointed out back then, some of the people on the gender critical “side” had already been saying things that made me uncomfortable (usually along the lines of “Trump may not be perfect, but…”), and many others have joined them since then.
It would be one thing if these people were consistently portraying Trump as the lesser of two evils (I would still think they were wrong, but “reasonable people can disagree” and all that), but in many cases their ethical standards seem to have been adjusted to the point where Trump is no longer considered an obvious “evil” at all. Once again, I think cognitive dissonance is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Even if you just make an entirely “pragmatic” decision to work with the MAGA crowd to stop the medical experimentation on children, the destruction of female-only spaces etc., you now have a stake in defending your choice (“if they really were that awful, a decent person like myself wouldn’t be working with them”). You also have a stake in keeping the alliance together, not antagonizing your new bedfellows etc., and, before you know it, you’re in a justification spiral pushing you ever further to the Right, until attempts to overturn an election, inciting a violent insurrection, sucking up to Putin, a lifetime of crime and corruption, grabbing women by the pussy, suggesting that the “Second Amendment People” take care of one’s political rival etc. are all within your standards of acceptable behavior.
I also suspect there’s a justification working in the opposite direction: We can’t defeat the Trumpist assault on liberal democracy alone, and the only realistic alternatives* are the same people who endorse medical experimentation on children as well as biological males in women’s toilets, changing rooms, sports, prisons, rape and domestic abuse shelters etc. But since the latter, at the very least, remain dedicated to basic democratic rules of the game, like accepting the outcome of elections, you decide to support them against the MAGA crowd, which, once again, means you have a stake in defending your choice: “if they really were that awful, a decent person like myself wouldn’t be voting for them”, so you start making excuses for the excesses of gender ideology, and, once again, you’re in a justification spiral pushing you ever further towards the (woke) left. Either way, liberal values, the respect for evidence and logic etc. lose.
*Obviously the American two-party system makes this problem a whole lot worse.
In the most recent Skeptics Guide to the Universe (2024/11/23) in the 1st 20 minutes, they were discussing possible use of AI in learning about how the ‘sense of self’ can go wrong.
They mention such things as ‘limb neglect’, in which an arm or a leg doesn’t feel like it belongs to the person, and the ethical discussion about whether the limb should be amputated at the request of the victim of this disorder.
They don’t mention the obvious (to me) parallel with feeling like one is born in the wrong sex body, and the ethics of ‘gender affirming care’.
It’s my understanding that people who seek to amputate their healthy limbs are usually not sufferers of limb neglect (which is related to brain damage such as stroke), but rather they are sufferers of the psychological condition known as body integrity dysphoria. I wonder if the Skeptics Guide people deliberately steered clear of talk of body integrity dysphoria, because it is both clearly closely related to gender dysphoria, and it’s clearly related to sexual paraphilia.
BID and GD are so closely related, they underwent name changes at the same time: body integrity dysphoria used to be called body integrity identity disorder, just as gender dysphoria used to be called gender identity disorder.
BID poses a problem for those who deny that crossdressing and transgender identity are rooted in sexual fetish. Because the desire to amputate one’s own limb is so shocking and strange, and so is sexual arousal at the sight of amputated limbs, it’s pretty difficult to dismiss as an insignificant coincidence the fact that the two tend to co-occur.
There are so many parallels between BID and GD that it makes it much, much harder for people to discount the co-occurrence among men diagnosed with GD of sexual arousal at thoughts of transforming into females.
So I wonder if the Skeptics Guide people didn’t so much neglect to notice the relevance of their topic to the gender debate, but rather that they were so aware of it as to take pains to deliberately go around it, by talking about “limb neglect” instead of BID.
After Kamala Harris’ defeat, some L.G.B.T.Q. activists are now talking about moving away from the old “confrontational ways”, even -GASP! – acknowledging that J. K. Rowling may have been treated unfairly because of her gender-critical views:
The Athletic reports that the NWSL (The National “Women’s” Soccer League) has been caught out as being transphobic in the introduction of the Boston franchise. They ran an ad campaign about how there were too many “balls” in the sport. And of course, that ad just won’t do, because the measure of a woman is not her gonads. I have a subscription, but The Athletic doesn’t have a gift article feature. Here are a pair of links to stories:
A month after Boston’s NWSL expansion team, BOS Nation, launched its brand, the club appears to be considering a name change following a name and brand rollout that was widely criticized.
The team, which will join the league in 2026, said Tuesday it launched a process to “seek out, listen to, and reflect on” input on its name from fans, supporters and “a group of advisors assembled to reflect a diverse range of voices and perspectives.”
“We want to assure you that we have heard your feedback and are actively listening,” a statement from the club said. “We share your high expectations, and together, we will build a storied club that reflects the essence of the beautiful game and the character of our dynamic city.”
And from the second link:
Tuesday should have been a triumphant night for the NWSL’s latest expansion team, but less than a day after a packed event in downtown Boston to officially launch BOS Nation’s team name and colors, the club issued an apology for the hurt the publicity campaign had caused.
Five hundred fans had RSVP’d for the event at the Dick’s House of Sport store, with Boston’s mayor Michelle Wu, Massachusetts lieutenant governor Kim Driscoll, former USMNT and New England Revolution player Charlie Davies and former USWNT and Boston Breakers players Lauren Holiday and Kristine Lilly in attendance. Former USA Hockey and Boston Blades player Angela Ruggiero also stopped in. Local vendors served food and drinks and muralist Laura DeDonato was there, not just to paint a live mural during the party but also as the person who had originally coined the name “Boston Breakers” during the WUSA era.
But amid a thoughtful launch party, there was a thoughtless element: fans had been reacting negatively not just to the team’s name but to its use of a “Balls Balls Balls” video campaign by local creative ad agency Colossus. The “Balls” ad on its Instagram featured the caption, “Thanks to our brave clients for having the guts to be wildly provocative with this launch.”
The Colossus ad also had comments turned off, unlike other posts, presumably due to the volume of negative reactions. Seattle Reign midfielder Quinn, who is trans and nonbinary, had commented on the team’s Instagram video earlier that day, saying, “Feels transphobic. Yikes.” They later also said in the comments that their original comment had been “hidden by Instagram.”
Seattle apparently has two balls on their team, too. That’s just nuts.
Subhed: “Democrats do not, in fact, face a choice between championing trans rights and completely abandoning them.”
In which Chait looks at the polling figures and concedes that the trans issue was probably enough to tip the balance in favour of Trump:
Harris lost both the national vote and Pennsylvania, the tipping-point state, by less than two percentage points. A Democratic firm found that exposure to Trump’s ubiquitous ads showing Harris endorsing free sex-change surgery for migrant detainees and prisoners moved the audience 2.7 points in his direction.
I did a mini-fisking of Chait’s piece over at my Substack. I went easy on him. I guess I was in a conciliatory mood when I wrote it.
Thanks Arty. I’ve just read your piece comparing the trans lie to kayfabe and I think it’s a genuine advance in understanding what we’re up against. I occasionally go into battle on Quora (and lately YouTube of all places – things are changing). With your permission I’d like to post a link if the occasion arises.
You’re more than welcome to share my posts anytime, anywhere. One of my main motivations for writing essays is to give people ammunition to bolster their arguments. It’s gratifying when people share them.
And that Kayfabe piece originated here at B&W. As so much interesting, intellectual conversation does.
Those of us in the U.S. are probably starting to get year-end fundraising appeals from nonprofits. Even though I’m a lifetime member of American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, I stopped supporting both those organizations when they went all rah-rah for trans “rights” — as if that had anything to do with their stated purposes and foundational principles!
And just now I got an appeal from the Secular Student Alliance. I really like that organization, but wouldn’t you know… One of their flagship projects this year was “Fighting for Free Expression in Texas” — sounds good, doesn’t it? But it turns out that amounted to suing the president of West Texas A&M University for canceling a student-led drag show organized by the SSA, citing his personal religious beliefs and “referencing God and even equating drag to blackface”. The graphic for this paragraph shows some guy doing a pretty good approximation of Marilyn Monroe, complete with the black dress. Which I did not need to see.
I kind of agree with all this — that university president needed a smack for failing to draw a line between his personal opinions and perfectly legal student activities, whatever they might be. But apparently a womanface show is the hill the SSA is prepared to die on.
I’ve given them money in the past and I’d like to keep doing it. I just don’t want to be contributing to this. Thoughts?
Oh look. Some clown called Joanna Wuest is arguing that people who object to teenagers being sterilized and mutilated are the same as climate change deniers and pro-tobacco lobbyists:
A Belgian film festival has canceled the screening of a documentary film that touches on LGBTQ intolerance in Gaza after pressure from pro-Palestinian activists.
The film, “The Belle from Gaza,” by French director Yolande Zauberman, is not Israeli. It tells of a transgender woman who flees the Strip and relocates to Tel Aviv, and of her life in the community there.
In a statement, Cinemamed organizers said that the film was “accused by various activist groups of ‘contributing to the pinkwashing of Israel and the genocidal colonial narrative,’ a point of view that we do not share.”
However, they say that after “lengthy reflection” they decided to cancel the screening to maintain “the quality of the reception and the conviviality of the festival.”
The article contains a link to a film trailer on YouTube.
I can’t say I’ve heard of any efforts to downplay or censor anti-Jewish sentiment from Palestinians, but I could have missed it. Or misogyny, or violence against women. But they can’t be shown to be transphobic. And I don’t believe this issue would have come up if the film exposed homophobic views; speculation on my part, I admit. But we know the TQ+ tail wags the LGB dog.
“Pinkwashing” was only a vaguely familiar term to me. According to Wikipedia, there are three rather different interpretations of the term:
1. Promoting women’s sports, so as to protect fragile male egos if women compete fairly against men.
2. Displaying lots of pink ribbons and paraphernalia to “raise awareness” of breast cancer, without necessarily doing anything useful to help the situation.
3. Promoting the “LGBTQ+”-friendliness of a company or political entity in order to draw attention away from its negative aspects.
In this case, it’s obviously the third definition that applies.
From the trailer, it appears to be the story of a trans-identified man who flees Gaza and relocates to Tel Aviv, where he works as a prostitute (“Would you have sex with an Arab?” is one screen text). I can’t help thinking that prostitution is a factor in both the rejection and the acceptance; there is demand for “exotic” prostitutes.
“We’re less homophobic than Hamas” (as if that’s hard) is definitely one of Israel’s “see we’re just like you Western democracies” lines. They neglect to mention that Leviticus is a Jewish text.
We have all heard trans activism, or wokeism in general, described as a cult. On the other hand there are people who seem to suggest that because these movements don’t exactly meet the formal definition of cult, there is nothing to learn from the study of cults that’s at all relevant to the issue. Regardless of whether or not you think TRAs are a cult, I hope we can all agree that this is not a very compelling argument. Even if we accept the premise, the conclusion clearly doesn’t follow.
So Jesse Singal is on Bluesky now (he’s in the top 20 block list); it has been suggested that if enough sane people colonize the space it might make an acceptable Twitter alternative. Never went on that hellsite but I’m following the poor boy over.
Oh wow. I have been on BlueSky for a short while, and have certainly noticed the TERF panic there. I was following a couple of sci-fi authors, mostly very sensible folks, but now and then they repost messages boasting gleefully about the mass TERF blockings they’ve accomplished. Usually with hundreds of enthusiastic responses and likes.
Now I am there mostly to follow news on the Ukraine war, so the TERF panics don’t really bother me so much. But then I looked up Jesse Singal, and find that, in addition to Jesse himself, there are a whole lot of users with “Jesse Singal” as part of their user name, such as “Jesse Singal Vapes Piss” (second hit after the real Jesse Singal), “Indofrin (ban Jesse Singal)”,“Dan thinks Bsky should ban Jesse Singal”, and so forth.
I don’t even know who Jesse Singal is, but now I’ll just have to find out.
I read a quote on Facebook, thought it good, but it was unattributed. Fortunately, this was in the comments. Unfortunately, Facebook did its usual annoying random refresh thing while I was copying the comment, so now I can’t find the post with the quote. I hope that the link isn’t broken.
Thanks for this! Since I found his name I was able to locate the entire piece he wrote on Medium (that got his account banned) on the Internet Archive. Brilliant writing.
The Jesse Singal saga gets *worse*. Not only has someone on Bluesky falsely accusing Jesse Singal of being a paedophile, but people there are now calling for Singal’s murder.
Two things from today’s Washington Post. First, an editorial suggesting that perhaps more science should be done before putting kids on puberty blockers and hormones. Could the worm be turning? (Laws like that in Tennessee make me a bit queasy–as a general principle, I don’t think medical care should be a legislative issue–but the unquestioned rush toward “gender-affirming care” has brought us to this point.)
Second, House Democrats want Biden to ratify the ERA. I’m on several minds on this. Of course, the amendment should have been ratified decades ago. On the other hand, it didn’t meet the (Congressionally-imposed) time limit. On the other other hand, there’s nothing in the Constitution about time limits on amendments, so do such limits need to be respected? On the other other other hand, it seems ridiculous that an amendment can lie in wait for decades or even centuries, slouching toward ratification (this actually happened with the 27th Amendment, which was actually proposed as part of the Bill of Rights and was finally ratified in 1992; fortunately that’s one that pretty much everyone can agree on); surely any amendment ought to reflect the opinions of a substantial majority of citizens at a given moment in time. On the other other other other hand, the process for amending the Constitution is ridiculously difficult to amend (which is not necessarily a bad thing). On the other other other other other hand, a few states rescinded their ratification, so perhaps that should be respected, but on the other other other other other other hand, again, there’s nothing in the Constitution about rescinding ratification once it’s been passed.
WaM, I’m going to start with a new pair of hands. On one hand, we have had the specter of states ratifying, then rescinding their ratification. On the other hand, this is done by legislature, not popular vote. (I’m not sure it could pass with popular vote, either.) While the legislators are elected by the voters, giving them this task is not the same as giving it to the voters, as numerous votes on abortion (to support it even against their legislature) demonstrate.
The thing is, using my head instead of my hands, it is my studied opinion that no human rights should be subject to the voters and their whims. They should be encapsulated into those documents which lack them, and included in new documents, without waiting to see who will be supportive. The struggle for the Nineteenth Amendment, though more than 100 years ago now, suggests how difficult it is to get people to vote for the rights of people who are not them. It took a bloody, awful war to get anywhere close to rights for people of color, one of the basic rights understood as belonging to white men…the right not to be held in slavery. Let us hope it does not require prolonged war and suffering to gain and hold on to rights for women. (I’m not confident of any of it; inroads are also being made into the rights won by people of color and same-sex attracted people.)
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. Discovery and the BBC have been accused of double standards on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) after both organizations have stood by J.K. Rowling amid a hardening in her transgender rights rhetoric.
Accused by whom? Good question. Reading through the article, I can find reference to a vague claim by a DEI vice president at Warner Brothers/Discovery (WBD), but no actual accusations, no formal complaints, just lots of angst. The VP said that WBD had a duty to “provide a safe space” for trans employees to “live authentically”, but no indication that she indicated that JKR and the Harry Potter series had done anything to prevent that from happening. There do not appear to be any actual accusations.
The article, based on exclusive interviews by Deadline Hollywood, does the usual muckraking, printing things that JKR has said that they don’t like, without context, without indication of what she was responding to. It is of course considered awful to refer to a trans-identified male as a “trans-identified male”. There is no indication whatsoever that there are any problems being caused by JKR having opinions some people don’t like, or having written essays some people don’t find appropriate. Credit where credit due; the article does quote a fair number of people who defend JKR, and who don’t see any problems in developing the show.
A different article at The Distance claiming that Disney has pulled back substantially from their wholehearted embrace of gender ideology, for example scaling back the presence of a “trans” character in a new show and making other changes, possibly in response to poor box office results for movies containing certain story lines. Make of it what you will.
The VP said that WBD had a duty to “provide a safe space” for trans employees to “live authentically”
This is not a duty of an employer. An employer has a duty to follow proper safety procedures and maintain a safe workspace in the physical sense, and they have a duty not to emotionally abuse employees. There is no duty to provide anyone a space to ‘live authentically’. In fact, most employers don’t do that; they have certain requirements about dress, behavior, language, and what the hell you are to do with your time while you are at work. For a gamer, ‘living authentically’ might involve using the work computers for nothing but gaming all day. For someone who is a slob, it might mean dressing so horribly that the customers complain. My employer had rules for me, and all of us. I could ‘live authentically’ only within those rules, which included not talking politics with my students, though I am a political junkie, and not using bad language, though I do appreciate the ability to swear now and then. (Have you heard of a college that won’t even let the theatre teacher swear? That’s forbidding someone to live authentically, if I may be so bold as to point it out.)
When did bosses get so lily-livered that they allow one group of employees to dictate so much? This isn’t an across the board duty, apparently, since they are not required to give the same allowance for women. I suspect they also wouldn’t be required to allow ‘furries’ to ‘live authentically’ in the office, or ‘trans-babies’. Men who want to be women? Bow down and genuflect to the most marginalized community ever…who manage to be marginalized without having to suffer any actual marginalization.
While searching Amazon for new or upcoming books on Orcas (Killer Whales) to watch out for, this item by Orca Book Publishers aimed at children, showed up in my results:
It’s a They!
There’s a new baby in our family!
In this board book told in sweet rhyming couplets, we are invited to celebrate a new baby, and their gender-neutral pronouns, from the point of view of their excited siblings. The baby is snuggly and sweet in their bright pajamas, they love to snooze and sway…and when asked if they’re a boy or a girl, we’re told, “We aren’t sure of their gender yet―and they bring us so much joy.” Accompanied by delightful photos of babies and siblings of diverse ethnicities, it’s clear that no matter which gender pronouns baby eventually chooses, they are loved just for who they are, and always will be.
One of the advantages of living in the Great Land Downunder is I get to celebrate Christmas before most of you, so from me to everyone here whose posts I read and appreciate, and to any lurkers who read but don’t comment, have a Merry Xmas / Happy Holidays / Happy Hannukah, or as we say in OZ – Fill yer boots, do a shoey, and have a bloody good day!
I just finished my annual compliance training for my university today. Three hours of awful videos but oh I learned that people who are pregnant are addressed as they and people named Tyler, Chris and Alex are addressed as they. We’re all theys now. Just a thought. I have nowhere else to vent this shit.
Biden administration doesn’t seem to be handling the current flu problem very well (and the USDA/farmers are a big obstacle there)… Can’t imagine the nutters Trump brings in will improve the situation but it would be an excellent opportunity to prove themselves superior.
I feel like this just isn’t getting enough attention.
Seeing Trump going in to bat for Tik Tok has made me think that Biden and who ever is advising him have missed a prime opportunity to protect America from Trump.
As soon as trump was elected it should have been Opposite Day in the Whitehouse and Congress. Everything Trump’s shriveled heart desired should have been legislated because just as with last time around, anything his predecessor did was bad for America, nobody had ever seen anything so bad before, and he will stop munching cheezeburders long enough to undo all that Biden did.
One of the problems of Scientism is an arrogant assumption that the current state of knowledge can account for everything.
GCs are like those Victorian physicists who denied evolution on the superficially plausible grounds that the observable processes of cooling of the earth’s core did not imply an old enough Earth for evolution to have produced so many species living and extinct.
A few , sensibly, said ‘no known process’ and did not look foolish to posterity when radioactive half-lives were discovered.
It’s ironic that Dawkins, who presumably knows all about this aspect of the history of science has not bothered to apply the lesson
So people that don’t believe puberty blockers are good for gay and disabled teenagers, or that natal men have an advantage over natal women in sport, are like discredited Victorian scientists. I don’t think so.
One of the problems of Scientism is an arrogant assumption that the current state of knowledge can account for everything. […] A few , sensibly, said ‘no known process’ and did not look foolish to posterity when radioactive half-lives were discovered.
I thought “the current state of knowledge” had indeed “accounted” for gender identity in terms of brain differences, and that the mismatch between “brain sex” and the sex of the body was a “known process”. Judging by the level of total certainty* expressed by proponets of the gender identity model this should be the most settled question ever.
Of course we have heard the exact same logic (basically a version of the Galileo Argument), including accusations of “scientism”, invoked by parapsychologists like Charles Tart in support of extrasensory perception…
I would say the scientists embracing genderism are more like the Victorian scientists who believed mesmerism. No evidence to support it, but that didn’t stop anyone. It looked flashy and that was all they needed. Fortunately, a few scientists shook their heads and got to work studying the phenomenon without the bias of believing in it. Thus, almost no one has heard of mesmerism in any form other than standard hypnosis (which has its own problems, of course).
Some clickbait-spewing hack called Katherine Alejandra Cross has written a piece about Bluesky denouncing Singal as a “bad actor” and a “provocateur” whose mere presence is a threat to marginalized people:
I thought “the current state of knowledge” had indeed “accounted” for gender identity in terms of brain differences, and that the mismatch between “brain sex” and the sex of the body was a “known process”. Judging by the level of total certainty* expressed by proponets of the gender identity model this should be the most settled question ever.
Of course we have heard the exact same logic (basically a version of the Galileo Argument), including accusations of “scientism”, invoked by parapsychologists like Charles Tart in support of extrasensory perception…
Another example of how gender ideology wants to have it both ways (or all ways, given how many supposed phenomena it tries to subsume under the “trans” explantion). By claiming that “transness” and “gender identity” are supposedly unarguably settled, Kaveny is claiming to be on the side of an orthodox, majority position, yet critics are somehow going to be discomfited by discoveries yet to be made. In this muddled reading of the Galileo analogy, his side is the hide-bound, Church-enforced, hegemonic, Ptolemaic, Aristotelian one. There are a lot more parallels with genderism in that list than Kaveny might be comfortable with, given the amount of vindictive, punitive, institutional power that trans ideology currently wields against its critics.
And as far as “new discoveries” coming along, genderists do their best to quash any research that threatens their “settled science,” which is based on little but stereotypes, word games, and bluster. Even re-examing those studies that have already been done is verboten; look at the reception they gave the Cass Report. Actual “gender scientists” would be trying to figure out the biological, evolutionary origins and nature of “gender identity,” and determine the nature of its relationship to the sexed, physical body. If this were an actual field of study, there would be no end of questions to ask and connections to be studied.Is any of this happening? No. This lack of curiousity is curious and telling. The same goes with many other pseudosciences. Just imagine the scope of inquiry and potential for amazing discoveries if astrology, telekinesis, psychic predictions, talking to the dead, perpetual motion, homeopathy, channeling, etc., actually happened. If astrologers, psychics, homeopaths, etc. would be doing research into the material basis of their fields in order to improve their understanding and results. If even the practioners have stopped trying to answer questions that remain open, you know that something’s up.
If any one of these phenomena were real, there would be huge research programs dedicated to them, and we would be living in a completely different world. Leaders in these fields would have been given Nobel prizes, their findings lauded and popularized. These areas would not be “fringe beliefs,” but mainstream science. But none of them have survived the brutal, Darwinian trial by fire that is the scientific method.* They have been studied and found wanting, or non-existent. “Research” into these fringe areas only brings results when standards are relaxed, or when procedures are shielded from skeptics and non-believers, neither of which are suggestive of reliable findings, or any robust, useful connection to reality. Consequently these fields have been abandoned by science, which has left them in the hands of true believers, pious frauds, grifters, and charlatans. Sound familiar?
Is there some undiscovered “gender identity” equivalent to radioactive decay yet to be discovered that will, someday, illuminate gender research and cause critics to eat crow? I doubt it. Genderists themselves aren’t looking for it. There will be no “breakthrough” discovery coming from them, because they aren’t asking questions; and they’re trying to prevent anyone else from asking them as well. Genderists are acting less like physicists and more like astrologers and psychics. Kaveny would do well to throttle back on his premature triumphalism. Any future foolishness or embarassment is more likely to land on the genderist side than on ours., though I’m willing to take that chance. It would seem that they aren’t. “NO DEBATE!” also means “NO RESEARCH!” But I’d forego the dark pleasure of reveling in their future embarassment if they were to feel some immediate shame or regret for the hurt and harm their beliefs have already caused and continue to inflict. It takes no unimagined future discoveries to recognoze the real injuries for which they should be held accountable right now. Forget about the “right side of history.” How about some justice in the here and now?
* Ideas once derides as “fringe” can become maistream science. Alfred Wegener’s ideas about “continental drift” made just such a move from the edge to the centre with the crucial mid 20th century discovery of the mechanism of sea-floor spreading. Plate tectonics has become the cornerstone of our understanding of the workings of Earth as a geobiophysical whole, and the formation and evolution of solid planets in general. It is a powerful, fruitful idea. Is there a gender equivalent of sea-floor spreading waiting to be unearthed that will explain the nature and workings of the gendered soul inhabiting our sexed bodies? I doubt it.
Some clickbait-spewing hack called Katherine Alejandra Cross has written a piece about Bluesky denouncing Singal as a “bad actor” and a “provocateur” whose mere presence is a threat to marginalized people:
Just once I’d like to see how this works. I could see how, if he were say, radioactive, this might be the case in a crowded room. But online? How does that work? Talk about “spooky action at a distance.”
Do these marginalized people not have access to a block or? It’s amazingly easy not to see Jesse (or anyone that follows him) on Bluesky if you don’t want to.
Re my comment #146, I recently listened to an interview with David Frum that made me think of another way in which the likes of Trump have more in common with the woke crowd than with old-school fiscal conservatives. After all, the latter tend to see free trade as a positive sum game in which both parties stand to gain something. While talking about Trump’s life-long obsession with tariffs, Frum made the observation that Trump is unable to even conceive of a positive sum game, a mutually beneficial arrangement, a ”win-win” situation etc. The way his brain is wired, the only way he is able to make sense of the world is in terms of zero-sum conflicts in which any gain made by one party is a net loss to the other, hence if his trading partners are happy with a deal it has to mean he got screwed.
This is, of course, close to how the woke see the world as well: To close the power gap, it’s not enough to lift up the marginalized, but the ”privileged”* have to be brought down. Never mind if, say, a ”color blind” welfare program that prioitizes those with the lowest incomes disproportionally benefits blacks. If there’s anything in it for whites** (no matter how poor), it’s perpetuating the existing power hierarchies and must therefore be opposed on principle.
* As determined by group identity, not life circumstances.
** Unless, of course, they’re alsowomen, ”LGBTQ+”, disabled, fat etc.
Good insight, Bjarte. I’ve long noticed that the white men on the right seem to see one person who is non-white, non-male, or both achieve success, it isn’t that the overall success of the world is increased, but that the success of white males is decreased, meaning they personally are no longer worth as much. White men don’t have to lose any status to perceive them as having lost everything or been disenfranchised; it’s only necessary that non-white, non-males gain a little…they don’t even have to reach equality.
I started noticing that in the left probably about a decade ago; as I read further back in the history, it’s obvious it was there longer, but I didn’t notice it. These days, it’s hard to miss.
Say you have a long time friend whose daughter has declared she is “nonbinary” and wishes to be addressed as “they.” You feel in your heart the she is a bright, talented, almost certainly heterosexual young women who has simply gone off to college. How do you deal with it without coming off as an oaf?
Mike, my sympathies. I’m in a similar boat, and the way I’ve been dealing with it thus far is by avoiding any sentence that requires the use of a pronoun for her. It is intensely awkward. I just avoid talking about the young woman, and I refer to her by name when I need to. I’ve also not made efforts to get together with the friend. Not a good situation.
Mike, same here. I have several friends like that, because I am deeply involved in the theatre scene, and in theatre, they/them and trans are increasingly common.
I’m sure everyone here has heard about a bunch of changes being implemented at Facebook (and Instagram). Among these is the dropping of “fact checkers” in favor of “community notes”. I’m of two minds on that one, because I haven’t found the “fact checkers” to be particularly useful, regarding both false positives and false negatives.
Another change coming through, as described in this AP article, is a revision of the “hate speech” rules. In general, I think Facebook “hate speech” rules and handling have been arbitrary and ideological. The change is described thus:
We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’” In other words, it is now permitted to call gay people mentally ill on Facebook, Threads and Instagram. Other slurs and what Meta calls “harmful stereotypes historically linked to intimidation” — such as Blackface and Holocaust denial — are still prohibited.
Also:
The Menlo Park, California-based company also removed a sentence from its “policy rationale” explaining why it bans certain hateful conduct. The now-deleted sentence said that hate speech “creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases may promote offline violence.”
You can see the actual change list here (click on “January 8, 2025” to see the edits). I do recommend looking at the edits, because there are a number of changes that jump out at me that are not mentioned in the article, notably that the policy is changed from “hate speech” to “hateful conduct”.
I am not enamored of “hate speech” rules in general. False statements, and incitement to violence, are already covered. I’m not convinced that, outside of those things, criticism or ridicule or disagreement should be cause for removal of posts or restrictions of accounts. I think the second quoted item thus indicates a reasonable removal.
The first quoted item also strikes me as a reasonable change: allowing people to say, without penalty, that they think homosexuality or “being transgender” is “weird” or a “mental illness”. I might or might not agree, but those are points that can be disputed, and they represent views that are held by a lot of people. How are we to know that other people hold views different from ours if those other people are not allowed to express their views?
Looking at the actual edits, I do see that a lot of work was done to clarify that it is no longer against policy to call for maintaining sex-segregated spaces, groups, or sports. To me this is an excellent move.
I recognize that these speech restrictions are an impossible task, and I think Facebook has in general done poorly in this area. I note that Meta has implemented a whirlwind of physical and technical changes clearly aimed at appeasing the incoming Trump administration. I know a number of left-ish people who are aghast at some of these “hate speech” changes. But, looking at the specifics, I am more in favor than not, and I note that the real test of free speech is how we deal with speech we do not like.
257, 258, thanks for the responses. I’m inclined to do same, but I rue the day.
259: “How are we to know that other people hold views different from ours if those other people are not allowed to express their views?” This nails a view I’ve had, although my phrasing is different: “Let them speak, because I want to know WHO the assholes are.”
The irony is that, if anything, the nearest we have to PIE in the modern day is LGB Alliance.
ie a group falsely claiming to represent a marginalised group & abusing the language of oppressed peoples as a means of masking their true & abhorrent goals of harming children while propped up by media
I’m reminded more of Freddie deBoer’s assertion that you get five principled libertarians and five billion witches when you take that approach to moderation. Things’ll get a lot more 4channy on FB so I dunno if that’s worth being able to say that a man isn’t a woman on there.
More worrisome is the Facebook -> Feds pipeline without even anything so inconvenient as actual government surveillance. Who needs the PATRIOT act when you can just call up Cuckerberg?
Sorry I didn’t know you could use blockquote on this site. I’ll use it in future!
So Stone is comparing a gay & lesbian rights organisation to the infamous Paedophile Information Exchange. With people like Jacob Breslow active in the trans movement, seems like Stone shouldn’t be throwing “p-slurs” at his political opponents.
The speech and conduct stuff on paper is more or less fine in of itself and I’d be fine with it if Harris was president. But it seems like a frog in a boiling pot sort of deal (frogs actually aren’t like that but *humans* are). Don’t expect enforcement to be evenhanded or transparent.
I’ll be deleting all my Meta content to the extent that’s possible.
On the occasion of his 91st birthday, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien responds in the Globe and Mail to Donal Trump’s threats to Canada. (Forgive the monster blockquote, but I couldn’t find a complete version I could link to here)
Today is my 91st birthday.
It’s an opportunity to celebrate with family and friends. To look back on the life I’ve had the privilege to lead. And to reflect on how much this country we all love so much has grown and changed over the course of the nine decades I’ve been on this Earth.
This year, I’ve also decided to give myself a birthday present. I’m going to do something in this article that I don’t do very often anymore, and sound off on a big issue affecting the state of the nation and profoundly bothering me and so many other Canadians: The totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our very sovereignty from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.
I have two very clear and simple messages.
To Donald Trump, from one old guy to another: Give your head a shake! What could make you think that Canadians would ever give up the best country in the world – and make no mistake, that is what we are – to join the United States?
I can tell you Canadians prize our independence. We love our country. We have built something here that is the envy of the world – when it comes to compassion, understanding, tolerance and finding a way for people of different backgrounds and faiths to live together in harmony.
We’ve also built a strong social safety net – especially with public health care – that we are very proud of. It’s not perfect, but it’s based on the principle that the most vulnerable among us should be protected.
This may not be the “American Way” or “the Trump Way.” But it is the reality I have witnessed and lived my whole long life.
If you think that threatening and insulting us is going to win us over, you really don’t know a thing about us. You don’t know that when it came to fighting in two world wars for freedom, we signed up – both times – years before your country did. We fought and we sacrificed well beyond our numbers.
We also had the guts to say no to your country when it tried to drag us into a completely unjustified and destabilizing war in Iraq. We built a nation across the most rugged, challenging geography imaginable. And we did it against the odds. We may look easy-going. Mild-mannered. But make no mistake, we have spine and toughness.
And that leads me to my second message, to all our leaders, federal and provincial, as well as those who are aspiring to lead our country: Start showing that spine and toughness. That’s what Canadians want to see – what they need to see. It’s called leadership. You need to lead. Canadians are ready to follow.
I know the spirit is there. Ever since Mr. Trump’s attacks, every political party is speaking out in favour of Canada. In fact, it is to my great satisfaction that even the Bloc Québécois is defending Canada.
But you don’t win a hockey game by only playing defence. We all know that even when we satisfy one demand, Mr. Trump will come back with another, bigger demand. That’s not diplomacy; it’s blackmail.
We need another approach – one that will break this cycle.
Mr. Trump has accomplished one thing: He has unified Canadians more than we have been ever before! All leaders across our country have united in resolve to defend Canadian interests. When I came into office as prime minister, Canada faced a national unity crisis. The threat of Quebec separation was very real. We took action to deal with this existential threat in a manner that made Canadians, including Quebeckers, stronger, more united and even prouder of Canadian values.
Now there is another existential threat. And we once again need to reduce our vulnerability. That is the challenge for this generation of political leaders. And you won’t accomplish it by using the same old approaches. Just like we did 30 years ago, we need a Plan B for 2025.
Yes, telling the Americans we are their best friends and closest trading partner is good. So is lobbying hard in Washington and the state capitals, pointing out that tariffs will hurt the American economy too. So are retaliatory tariffs – when you are attacked, you have to defend yourself. But we also have to play offence. Let’s tell Mr. Trump that we too have border issues with the United States. Canada has tough gun control legislation, but illegal guns are pouring in from the U.S. We need to tell him that we expect the United States to act to reduce the number of guns crossing into Canada.
We also want to protect the Arctic. But the United States refuses to recognize the Northwest Passage, insisting that it is an international waterway, even though it flows through the Canadian Arctic as Canadian waters. We need the United States to recognize the Northwest Passage as being Canadian waters.
We also need to reduce Canada’s vulnerability in the first place. We need to be stronger. There are more trade barriers between provinces than between Canada and the United States. Let’s launch a national project to get rid of those barriers! And let’s strengthen the ties that bind this vast nation together through projects such as real national energy grid.
We also have to understand that Mr. Trump isn’t just threatening us; he’s also targeting a growing list of other countries, as well as the European Union itself, and he is just getting started. Canada should quickly convene a meeting of the leaders of Denmark, Panama, Mexico, as well as with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to formulate a plan for fighting back these threats.
Every time that Mr. Trump opens his mouth, he creates new allies for all of us. So let’s get organized! To fight back against a big, powerful bully, you need strength in numbers. The whole point is not to wait in dread for Donald Trump’s next blow. It’s to build a country and an international community that can withstand those blows.
Canadians know me. They know I am an optimist. That I am practical. And that I always speak my mind. I made my share of mistakes over a long career, but I never for a moment doubted the decency of my fellow Canadians – or of my political opponents.
The current and future generations of political leaders should remember they are not each other’s enemies – they are opponents. Nobody ever loved the cut-and-thrust of politics more than me, but I always understood that each of us was trying to make a positive contribution to make our community or country a better place.
That spirit is more important now than ever, as we address this new challenge. Our leaders should keep that in mind.
I am 91 today and blessed with good health. I am ready at the ramparts to help defend the independence of our country as I have done all my life.
It’s trivial to be sure, but PZ Myers sure is letting his inner NIMBY out to play when it comes to improvements to a public park in his current neighborhood. Not sure why he cares since he’s a short timer in Morris because he’s definitely bugging out after he retires and a nearby spiffy public park is selling point for his house. FWIW, two acres is not a small park, really.
Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the most prominent advocate for early intervention in pediatric gender “medicine” is being sued for medical negligence by 20-year old Clementine Breen, who first saw JOK when she was just 12 years old.
Huh. I think I agree with him on this one. I like green leafy parks and I hate it when they get paved and filled with garish toys. Add playgrounds by all means, but not in existing green leafy parks.
I was curious enough to take a look at the current park in Morris (it’s on Google Street Maps) and what they’re doing is consolidating two existing play areas with older equipment into one with newer (and safer) equipment and that rubbery sort of stuff they use on the ground to cushion falls. The trees that are there aren’t older beautiful ones so there’s no loss of shade and I noted a few of them were ash trees which are going to die anyway thanks to the nation-wide emerald ash borer infestation that’s killing them off.
I was a member of my small town’s planning and zoning committee for six years before I retired and I recall when a rec center that was three blocks from my home wanted to put in a nifty splash pad area for the kids adjacent to the existing indoor pool, and one neighbor across the street from it objected saying he didn’t want noisy kids playing there. It didn’t turn out to be a problem thanks to plantings to reduce noise and not keeping it going after 6pm. The kids of course love it so happy ending. I’d like to think that will happen in Morris too.
Ah. Improving existing play areas I have no problem with a-tall.
There’s this one park up in the North End of Seattle that’s built around a set of natural springs, and some damn fools decided to add a play area to that. Granted it’s in a part that’s just flat and grassy and in sight of the sidewalk, but still – a small park around ancient springs should be as pristine as possible.
Yes, PZ may have made a valid point about artificial surfaces* but I’m reminded of an old quote (I forget the exact source but it was an early 20thC. politician talking about another): ‘his natural instinct is to lie, and so ingrained is this instinct that should he find himself inadvertently telling a truth he will immediately tell two untruths to make up for his transgression.’
The two posts immediately following the one about artificial surfaces are business as usual. The first is his recent discovery that Bryn Mawr college, an ‘all-women’ liberal arts facility, has since 2015 been an ‘all-women-and-anybody-who-identifies-as-a-woman’ college. ‘It always seemed like a most excellent liberal arts college’, says PZ, and because of its trans-incloosiveness policy ‘now I respect that college even more’. Celebrating a college for women taking away places intended for women and giving them to men.
The second is a promotion of a video titled Trans Women Are Women PZ’s commentary in full:
My one reservation about the video is that he focuses on intersex conditions with known biological markers. Most trans people do not have those markers; instead, the determination and differentiation of sex are so complicated and tangled that even in typical patterns of expression you get non-binary outcomes.
But yes, those ‘scientists’ who are now actively promoting bad science to benefit conservative, religious positions need to be called out more, and shamed.
Three sentences positively dripping with dishonesty. Determination of sex really isn’t ‘complicated and tangled’, but it’s what the gender cultists have to say to get around the inconvenient fact that there are no ‘transgender genes’; that trans is a psychological rather than a physiological phenomenon. Then there’s his snide use of quote marks around ‘scientists’ as though it’s the likes of Dawkins and Coyne who are spreading pseudoscientific nonsense. And he finishes with the insinuation that such well-known, liberal-leaning atheists are intentionally working to benefit conservatism and religion rather than reiterating established scientific knowledge.
*I doubt that PZ would understand the hypocrisy of his ranting against replacing the natural with the artificial in one post and promoting exactly that in the two that follow.
Not convinced you can divorce the physiological from the psychological… there probably are “trans genes” but trans shit is just the conduit for those deep down predilections are. If it wasn’t trans it’d be something else, probably (though only probably) sexual in nature.
Not trans, but a shapeshifter. That is the best description I have seen of a predatory male who poses as a woman, unfortunate only that the term was coined by one of his victims.
First her children were repeatedly sexually abused, then “Helen” and her family were stalked for years by the “shapeshifter” and “monster” responsible for those crimes.
While Helen and her children struggled to escape Rachel Queen Burton, the child abuser was earning praise on TikTok, where she broadcast her life as a “proud trans woman”.
“He was stalking us, hunting us … it felt like he was everywhere because that’s how he made it feel,” Helen told The Advertiser on Friday.
0
The mother’s story has come to light after Burton appealed his 7 year sentence after conviction on aggravated counts of producing and possessing child exploitation material, gross indecency and indecent assault. Burton entered a guilty plea at trial.
At his sentencing Burton claimed to have been bullied and mistreated while on remand, and made the following statement,
“I’m still famous, I’m still number one … I’m still the queen and then … my name will be loud,” Burton had said.
“I’ll be famous. I’ll be known, very well known.”
Burton was a male presenting as a man when the crimes were committed and began transition after offending. I think I’ve seen that movie before.
Anyone got a list of the news orgs that haven’t caved? I’ve been skeptical of many of them for a while (because Wokie nonsense) but now, well, I need to know what’s actually going on vs. what the natcons want people to hear. From Trump’s point of view it’s fine if basically no one trusts any news organization.
CBS, NBC, ABC, WaPo, and LA Times are all in the bag, PBS and NPR are sure to be targeted, NY Times may be ok but Bret Stephens has bent a knee so I don’t know about that. Murdoch press is all in as far as I know.
So Trump issued an Executive Order rolling back pro-trans policies. Great, right? Not so fast. Check out the “definitions” section (I hope this link works): Sections E & D.
Note the wording:
‘(d) “Female” means a person belonging at conception to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.’ (bolding mine)
Yeah, it’s ‘conception as personhood’, packaged up in an order ostensibly about protecting women’s spaces. I suspect this is deliberate (though probably not by Trump himself–it’s too subtle for him). As I’ve been afraid of all along, they’re using the language of gender-crit feminists to attack feminism itself, and probably hoping that enough feminists will see just the bits about keeping men out of women’s prisons and assume this is an unalloyed good.
I will never stop being mad about how the media has treated the anti-trans movement as a group of ordinary people with legitimate concerns rather than the obvious frothing bigots they are…
“They’re not bigots, you inveterate SJW. They simply have concerns about youth medicine that they cannot substantiate and routinely announce that they want to banish trans people from every aspect of public life.”
Freemage, that’s an interesting formulation. While sex sort of exists at conception, given the existence of sex chromosomes in the DNA, the sex organs do not develop until somewhat later. In modern medicine, I imagine we could tell the sex of the baby at conception (if we knew there was a baby at conception), but so what? At the time of conception, all babies are effectively female. If the trans was willing to reduce people to their biology, they could possibly use that argument (and they are willing to reduce people to their biology when it suits them).
In fairness to Hobbes (why am I stuck defending idiots?), there is a pretty clear “GC” to bigotry pipeline; to what extent that’s camouflage vs. radicalization it’s difficult to parse out. Even those who don’t descend into bigotry often find ways to defend or minimize those that do.
Hobbes on the other hand just assumes his pet group is the most important one ever and doesn’t do any other calculations.
Oh, I’ve already seen trans supporters (particularly men) crowing about this, declaring that, by that formulation, all men are already trans–and, technically, you can make that argument with a straight face, once you’ve already bought into the broader ideas of trans ideology.
Poise Parker and Graham Lineham both went in on Elon’s promotion of that anti-Mohammedan pogrom in the UK. Again, not sure how much is human tribal dynamics and how much is “GC” being used as a smokescreen.
I’m no friend to the lying trannies but I never forgot who the worst baddies are.
I think the “at conception” messaging about sex is just to establish firmly that sex is fundamental and ironclad. And sex is, in fact, established at the moment of conception. So it has the benefit of being true. It’s you introducing notions of complexity about how sex (supposedly) emerges over time during fetal development, which I would argue is completely unnecessary, and only muddies the waters. The point is that sex is simple, cut and dried. It’s a tidy political message and one has to really strain to even try to find technical fault with it.
I wouldn’t worry too much about whatever techincal, nerdy, too-online arguments might temporarily pop up from the “at conception” talk, such as arguments to link the movement against gender ideology to the movement against women’s reproductive rights. They clearly won’t last; there’s nothing to them but abstraction. It’s a whole lot of what Barack Obama would casually dismiss pithily and efficiently as “inside baseball.” And it’s what the kids these days call, “too online.”
@Blood Knight,
“anti-Mohammedan”? “pogrom”? “trannies”? Whatever you’re trying to say, you’re picking unnecessarily provocative and un-plainspoken words to say it, which gives the impression your argument, whatever it is, mightn’t hold up very strongly if it was stripped of hyperbole and exaggeration.
What it amounts to is that I straight-up don’t trust the motivations of so many so-called gender criticals since there seems to be almost this whole package deal that puts many of them into the Farage/Trump camp with the most wonderful Elon Musk. Again, uncertain to what extent GC is a smokescreen and how much it’s tribal radicalization, but it’s there.
I’m using inflammatory language to make the point that I don’t like the trans or the Muslims (prefer Mohammedan, but that’s just me being rude) but at the same time don’t like people who dislike them in what I view as a socially healthy sort of way.
Who in this cyberpunk dystopia is trustworthy and not particularly evil?
I don’t think Muslims like being called “Mohammedans” and I’m quite sure most trans-identifying people these days oppose being referred to as “trannies”, so I think you’ve put yourself into a team of one, all of your own doing. You’re not selling your argument very well. There’s a kernel of your argument about gc and radicalization that I agree with, but you’re not carving it out with any skill; I’d argue you’re butchering it.
That’s BK’s schtick – always say things in the most annoying way possible. I don’t know why.
My husband often does that; it’s his way of poking the ‘woke’ vocabulary, but a lot of it is hard to take. Maybe that’s the same thing with BK? If so, I agree with Artymorty; it’s not helpful. (And my husband only does it in private.)
Well as I’ve mentioned before I do feel a certain kinship with Musk (which obviously isn’t flattering). Here I’m putting crude language in the service of identifying my allegiances but nothing requires that I do so…
While I am doing it to be mean, it may be worth comparing and contrasting Mohammedan/Muslim vs. Mormon/LDS. Who calls Muslims Mohammedans these days, even as an insult? I am not using this in my defense so please do not spare me negative judgement on that account.
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – A state senator in Mississippi has filed a bill entitled the “Contraception Begins at Erection Act.”
As written by Sen. Bradford Blackmon, the bill would make it “unlawful for a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.”
There are also fines involved, the third strike resulting in the loss of $10,000 from the perpetrator.
In a statement to WLBT News, Blackmon wrote, “All across the country, especially here in Mississippi, the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman’s role when men are fifty percent of the equation. This bill highlights that fact and brings the man’s role into the conversation. People can get up in arms and call it absurd but I can’t say that bothers me.”
My understanding is that the legislation referred to at 301 is a joke designed to highlight how one-sided and ridiculous GOP legislation designed to control women’s reproductive rights is. The legislator who introduced it is a Democrat. It’s taken a lot of people some time to recognise it for what it is.
There was a TPUSA event at the University of Washington a few days ago that was disrupted by 200 protestors who proceeded to pull a fire alarm, spray graffiti on buildings and break windows. I found this article about it in the University of Washington newspaper and the University spokesperson seems to feel that both sides were at fault, one for pulling firearms and graffiti, etc. the other for not requiring registration by attendees in advance of said event. Seems like a pretty bogus comparison to me, but read the article if you’re curious about the spokesperson’s reasoning.
J.A. @309: This is rich, after first forced to select squares containing motorcycles:
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Ontario’s Conservatives have called an early election, more than a year sooner than would be expected of a party with a majority in the legislature. The reason? Trump’s tariffs, which will have a serious impact on the Canadian economy as a whole, along with Ontario. Here’s Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli talking about the reasoning behind the call, and the importance of Canadian trade for the US economy:
At one point in this clip, Fideli recounts a meeting he had with Newt Gingrich, who explained that what one has to do when dealing with Trump is to find out what he really wants, and give him something that will make him happy. Way to encourage future bullying, Newt.
If this behaviour is how Trump thinks “negotiating” or “diplomacy”, or even just normal human interaction is supposed to work, he’s a sociopath. You don’t start from an “initial position” of threatening to burn down your neighbour’s house when what you’re really after is a cup of sugar, or to borrow their lawn mower. Is that kind of approach likely to encourage friendly relations? Are the neighbours supposed to be so relieved when you don’t actually burn down their houses that they give you more than you originally wanted out of gratitude? In the normal course of events, these neighbours would have you arrested. This is harder to do when the person threatening you with immolation is the chief of police.
What happens when what Trump really wants is Greenland, or the Panama Canal, or Canada?* How do you make him happy then? Better yet, why would you want to? Why should anyone reward such behaviour?
This is not what a normal, adult head of state of a democratic nation does. This is how a tyrant or mob boss acts. Or a child who’s figured out that nobody really cares if he does hold his breath until he turns blue, and has graduated to threatening others, rather than himself, to try to get his way. I imagine Saddam Hussein “mused” about, or “suggested” making Kuwait another province of Iraq before he invaded it. Likewise Putin with Ukraine. For most of the rest of the world, neighbouring states aren’t treated as if they are a cake or pie that you can take at will if you can get away with it.
At some point I hope one of his team sits Trump down and explains to him that ruining the Canadian economy will take the American economy with it. Otherwise trying to keep Trump “happy” is going to end up being very costly. But then he can use the destruction of his own country and our “withholding” of all those things we used to sell to the US that he claims they “don’t need” from us as a pretext for even more drastic action. We’re just more pie, cake, and ice cream to him, and that he deserves all of it.
*Trump has said that as the 51st state, Canada would avoid the tariffs he’s going to impose, recieve a huge tax cut and, laughably, get improved health care. Does he really think that we’re all so jealous and envious of the US that we would jump at the chance to join? No thank you. What an absolute idiot.
The evidence surrounding the use of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones in children and teens identifying as transgender is of such low certainty it’s impossible to conclude whether the drugs help or harm, Canadian researchers are reporting.
I just saw this on Benjamin Ryan’s Twitter/X account. The Trump Adminstration has filed an executive order “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”.
It means the US government won’t support the use of puberty blockers, sex hormones and surgical procedures to “transition” any person under 19. It also orders the rescinding or amending of all medical policies based on WPATH’s “Standards of Care Version 8”.
As you can imagine, social media has gone wild over this executive order. Many trans activists are angry and are blaming the New York Times, the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal for this order – see here:
Doctors captured by ideology are pleading with politicians open to evidence to “not be ideological” (meaning, I think, that the captured doctors would much prefer captured politicians, thank you very much):
Fascinating, and telling, isn’t it, that when doctors plead that puberty blockers are safe and fine and already used they quote their use in precocious puberty, but not their use in chemical castrations, or terminal cancer? And then of course hope that no one ponders why such a serious drug ought to be deployed to salve a child’s feelings in the face of normal puberty.
I don’t always agree with Wesley Yang, but here he makes an eloquent statement that needs to be listened to:
The transgender movement must observe the same limits on the scope of its ambitions that every movement in a liberal, pluralistic, democratic society must observe. If such limits rule out most of the movement’s demands, it reflects the illiberal, undemocratic, and authoritarian nature of its demands which therefore must be refused.
I caught part of the White House press conference regarding the collision between the helicopter and airliner in Washington. Trump all but blamed it on DEI hiring practices. (A colleague at work is a Trump fan, so I hear more than I’d like to from and about Orange Julius. Don’t ask.) It was rather disgusting.
Other observations (This is on top of Trump’s usual poverty of vocabulary, use of stock phrases, the need to bring things back to himself, etc. ): Trump tries to pass himself off as some sort of civil aviation expert, explaining how, because he has helicopters, he knows that they can stop, go backwards, up, down, and go “a million ways,” and how he knows how everyone should have been able to see what was happening.
The two officials I heard called up to the podium (one of whom was the Secretary of Transportation), both sounded more like groveling lackeys thrown out of their depth than competent administrators. Both praised Trump’s leadership several times, both made a point of announcing the death of DEI in the US government (again thanking Trump for this), both said that “the best and the brightest” was the new, incoming standard. They came off as schoolboys who were surprised and thankful for having been noticed by one of the cool kids, and doing their best to sound like him. One of them mentioned suits brought against the US government by multiple would-be air traffic controllers who were supposedly turned away “because of the colour of their skin.”
Funny how with school massacres it’s always “too soon to talk about gun control”, and “cruel” and “insensitive” to “politicize” such tragedies. Well Trump has wasted no time in laying this crash at the feet of DEI as practiced by the Obama and Biden administrations, so much so that if there’s some other explanation (mechanical failure, pilot error, whatever), he’s going to look even more like he jumped the gun than he already does. They haven’t even got the bodies out of the Potomac, let alone the wreckage, and they’ve already decided to use this as a platform for their anti-wokeness platform.
I have no idea if this is the case, but would Trump and his cronies go out on a limb like this if they didn’t already have someone they can call a “diversity hire” to pin this on? Has somebody told him, or has Trump asked, about the presence of suspiciously non-white people in the control tower? Trump is stupid, certainly, but he’s malevolently clever enough to do exactly that. In fact can’t see him doing this without having been assured in advance of the presence of a Black scapegoat to blame. Like I said, disgusting.
not Bruce, I don’t think he needs an actual body (though it seems likely he could find someone who is BIPOC or female…if that doesn’t work, surely someone disabled or gay). I’ve known people who will lie through their teeth about easily verifiable things, including someone who claimed the reason he didn’t get called for a job interview was because he wasn’t a black woman. He swore up and down they told him that when he called to ask. This was in spite of the fact that the job he was applying for had announced they were hiring nothing but white men for the fifteen new hires, claiming they were low on their quota of white men. (They weren’t; it took some creative counting.)
This particular person was so much like Trump it’s scary. I tend to view Trump as “what would [X] do, and figure Trump will do the same.
One of them mentioned suits brought against the US government by multiple would-be air traffic controllers who were supposedly turned away “because of the colour of their skin.
This is actually sort of true, but he kinda had four years to do something about it. Dunno what Biden did on that front but I haven’t heard anything. There was a BARpod episode about it some time in the past year.
Well, this is amusing. Ophelia’s least favourite Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón is in trouble after a journalist found Gascón had posted offensive social media messages about George Floyd, Muslims and Oscar diversity.
Hira Anwar, a 14-year-old girl born and raised in New York by Pakistani immigrant parents, went with her family to Pakistan on “family vacation”. A few days after they got there, she was shot and killed by her father and uncle, over her posting “immodest” videos on TikTok.
Interesting and alarming article on the mysterious “Ziz” or “Zizian” group – a faction in the US influenced by extremist “rationalism” , timeless decision theory, and transgender ideology, which has been linked to six deaths:
Just wanted to note that I contacted my Senators about my concerns of the recent firings, etc, and the Constitutional violations. I don’t actually think it will do much good, but maybe if they hear from enough people, it might inspire them to realize it isn’t just a tiny fringe that opposes Trump.
If you’re willing to do that, you should. A shout in the wilderness is better than no shout at all.
Oh, one more thing. My husband has a linguistics question he thought someone here might know the answer to. He thinks the only gendered language that has a neutral gender is German, but he isn’t sure. Does anyone know? (I could just Google, and maybe find out, but it’s more fun to watch the discussions here.)
iknklast: The Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish) have neutral gender. I am pretty sure Icelandic has it too. Of course, all these are descended from Old Norse, which presumably also had it
Intense backlash prompted the reinstatement of some online resources. But guidelines for safe contraception and information on racial inequities in health care remain missing.
I don’t know what to make of this. Protesters are more up-in-arms about gender ideology than other things, the Trump administration cares more about other things than gender ideology, both, something else?
In addition to the Scandinavian languages, I believe Russian (and perhaps other Slavic languages) have neuter (not “neutral”) gender. There are also many languages that lack gender entirely (Turkish and Farsi come to mind; Farsi is unusual in that it’s one of the few Indo-European languages without gender).
Additionally, gender isn’t always sex-based. Some languages have gender systems based on human and non-human; others between animate and non-animate; and others have other systems that may classify nouns into as many as 20 groups (although some linguists confine “gender” to sex-based classification systems).
Some languages have gender systems based on human and non-human; others between animate and non-animate; and others have other systems that may classify nouns into as many as 20 groups (although some linguists confine “gender” to sex-based classification systems).
Could you give me some examples? I’d love to research that and find out more.
By the way, my husband thanks you. It’s a big measure of his confidence that he doesn’t even read or post here, but he trusts you. (Or maybe he trusts me and I trust you?)
Anyway, here are some examples. And I should add that this is a reflection not of my own knowledge but of my Googling skills.
Gender (or noun classification) based on animacy (or humanness): Algonquian languages (such as Cree); Georgian (some different verbs used for animate vs. inanimate objects; Nahuatl
More than three noun classifications: Bantu languages are the champs here, with Shona having 20 classes
And then there’s Dyirbal, which inspired the title of Lakoff’s book Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things.
If you want to learn more, this is a good place to start.
Well I doubt I’d be doom scrolling on my phone and Hitler had a lot more support than Trump (and I dunno what parallel Elon has if any) but yeah, otherwise I don’t disagree. The world may well be ending but I still have to go to work and pay my bills. Meanwhile my elected representatives are pulling out the playbook from back when rules still mattered; they’re forgetting it’s the year 2025.
Just hoping protesters aren’t getting gunned down today.
J.K. Rowling has a long quote on Twitter/X today about the “ideology.”
I’m going to quote it in parts:
This ‘why do you care about a tiny fraction of the population?’ line is, and always was, utterly ridiculous.
Gender ideology has undermined freedom of speech, scientific truth, gay rights, and women’s and girls’ safety, privacy and dignity. It’s also caused irreparable physical damage to vulnerable kids.
Nobody voted for it, the vast majority of people disagree with it, yet it has been imposed, top down, by politicians, healthcare bodies, academia, sections of the media, celebrities and even the police. Its activists have threatened and enacted violence on those who’ve dared oppose it. People have been defamed and discriminated against for questioning it. Jobs have been lost and lives have been ruined, all for the crime of knowing that sex is real and matters.
When the smoke clears, it will be only too evident that this was never about a so-called vulnerable minority, notwithstanding the fact that some very vulnerable people have been harmed. The power dynamics underpinning our society have been reinforced, not dismantled. The loudest voices throughout this entire fiasco have been people insulated from consequences by their wealth and/or status. They aren’t likely to find themselves locked in a prison cell with a 6’4″ rapist who’s decided his name’s now Dolores. They don’t need state-funded rape crisis centres, nor do they ever frequent high street changing rooms. They simper from talk show sofas about those nasty far-right bigots who don’t want penises swinging around the girls’ showers, secure in the knowledge that their private pool remains the safe place it always was.
Those who’ve benefited most from gender identity ideology are men, both trans-identified and not. Some have been rewarded for having a cross-dressing kink by access to all spaces previously reserved for women. Others have parlayed their delicious new victim status into an excuse to threaten, assault and harass women. Non-trans-identified leftybros have found a magnificent platform from which to display their own impeccably progressive credentials, by jeering and sneering at the needs of women and girls, all while patting themselves on the back for giving away rights that aren’t theirs.
The actual victims in this mess have been women and children, especially the most vulnerable, gay people who’ve resisted the movement and paid a horrible price, and regular people working in environments where one misplaced pronoun could see you vilified or constructively dismissed. Do not tell me this is about a tiny minority. This movement has impacted society in disastrous ways, and if you had any sense, you’d be quietly deleting every trace of activist mantras, ad hominem attacks, false equivalence and circular arguments from your X feeds, because the day is fast approaching when you’ll want to pretend you always saw through the craziness and never believed it for a second.
Very good. I especially liked the bit about how it’s been men who’ve benefited from trans ideology – if this had been a movement consisting entirely of trans-identified women, it would never have become remotely as influential.
In today’s edition of ‘what the fuck is wrong with these people?’ I see that Netanyahu presented Trump with a tasteful gift.
The Israeli prime minister also presented a golden pager to Trump. The gift was a reference to Israel’s deadly operation against Hezbollah in September last year, using booby-trapped communications devices. Dozens of people were killed and thousands injured in the attacks.
Will Putin follow suit and give him a gold-plated model of a polonium-210 molecule?
Re #340, I saw that! I half wondered if it was rigged, and Netanyahu was giving several of these to various “great friends”, and they’d all detonate simultaneously at some point in the future.
…the day is fast approaching when you’ll want to pretend you always saw through the craziness and never believed it for a second.
For years lots of people have been predicting “Peak Tr… (1)”, and lots of people have been predicting “Peak Tr… (2)”.
The former kept expecting Tr… (1)’s outrageous behavior, his lifetime of crime and corruption, his pathological lying, his pussygrabbing, his obvious authoritarianism and illiberalism, his nepotism, his use of the office to funnel money to his private businesses, his theft of classified documents, his attempted coup d’état (!), his endless legal trouble etc. to finally catch up with him.
The latter kept expecting the invasion of women’s sports, toilets, showers, changing rooms, domestic abuse and rape shelters, jails etc. by biological males, the mass-application of experimental medical treatments on vulnerable children and teenagers, the rise of detransitioners, the Forstater case, the WPATH-files, the Cass Review etc. to make people start abandoning Tr…(2) in droves.
We all know what happened to “Peak Tr… (1)”, which, at the very least, should make us hesitant about making confident predictions regarding human motivations and how their attitudes are going to change. The thing about cognitive dissonance, the sunk cost fallacy, the “Oedipus Trap” etc. is precisely that the more steps you take in the wrong direction the harder it gets to turn around without loss of face or self-esteem, which is a powerful incentive to protect your investment, double down on your commitment, and turn even more extreme. Much like the rainbow, your “line in the sand” keeps receding in front of you as you go.
Some think the failure of “Peak Tr… (1)” is going to accelerate “Peak Tr… (2)”, and, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned, and at least in terms of public policy (if not popular support*), they’re almost certainly not entirely wrong. In the eyes of dedicated supporters of Tr… (2), however, all this does is confirm what they’ve been saying all along: That the world is rampant with out of control levels of Tr… (2)-phobia, and that the people who oppose them are the same people who either actively support or tacitly go along with the atrocities of Tr…(1). I wouldn’t expect this to make them any less dedicated to their agenda any time soon.
* As many other have pointed out, strong support for Tr… (2) was only ever a minority position. But as we all know, a sufficiently motivated and informed minority often succeeds in forcing its agenda on an uninformed or indifferent majority.
Sweden has been suffering quite a lot of violence lately. There’s shootings and explosions. Most of it gang related, with criminal gangs being at war with each other. And sometimes targeting not just members of competing gangs, but their family members too. Now we have no idea yet what is behind this school shooting, but there is no evidence so far that it is related to gangs. But the underlying reasons could be related: Young people, many of them immigrants or their children feeling alienated from society and not well integrated to put it mildly. Thanks to the gangs and related violence, getting hold of weapons is not very hard.
We see the effects in Norway too, but so far to a much lesser degree. Just today someone was shot in Oslo (but not fatally).
None of the commenters actually think Trans is correct, though there are fairly friendly disagreements on many issues.
I like this comment by S.M. Stirling ( a fairly prominent fiction writer)
Wishing doesn’t make it so, wanting doesn’t make it so, and believing doesn’t make it so.
There’s a lady in Norway who keeps petitioning the national legislature to be legally reclassified as a cat, and in the meantime tries to look and act as much like a cat as possible.
Guess what: she’s not a cat.
There are people who think they’re cats, or God, or the reincarnation of Napoleon Bonaparte.
I seen no reason to pander to delusions; and if that hurts the deluded person’s feelings, so what?
Your emotions are your own affair; they confer no rights on you, nor any obligations on anyone else.
Jim B #348 — I wonder what the legal status of a cat is in Norway? I’ll bet they’re not allowed to vote, drive, use banking services, or sign contracts such as rental agreements. They may need to be leashed if allowed outside. She would also have to have documentation of certain vaccinations, lest her owner face a fine. I wonder if she’s really thought this through?
If she gets her wish, how long before she sues some veterinarian for refusing to treat her?
A couple points to note about “gender roles” in indigenous cultures:
The most important distinction between indigenous cultures and modern Western culture is the deep social and psychological distinction between collectivism and individualism. Virtually all indigenous cultures were (and are, in the case of those that still exist) collectivist, which is to say that everyone within them was/is raised to conceive of themself as a part of a whole — that the tribe or community itself consists of the “individual” and that each of us serves a small role within it. In a tribal collective, we are only a small part of the “person” that is conceptualized as the shared sense of connectedness with the collective. In a deep psychological sense, the tribe itself is the “individual” and one’s sense of purpose and accomplisment in life is derived from serving the tribe — ably and nobly doing one’s duty to the collective.
In this context, males and females in indigenous North America were designated right from birth into two separate channels of upbringing, to prepare them for the limited menu of roles available to women within the collective such as foraging, housekeeping, and child-rearing, and the limited menu of roles available to men within the collective such as hunting, governing, and tribal defence/warfare. So-called “third gender” roles such as berdache represented males whose demeanors were deemed ill-fit to serve the roles of hunters, governors, or warriors, because these men failed to socialize into the aggressive masculine behaviour profile and social role that males were expected to perform. In the modern context, we recognize these males to have been feminine, and most likely homosexual, men, but in the context of collectivism, they failed to meet the utilitarian standards associated with manhood, so they failed to be categorized as men at all.
But, indigenous cultures being very efficient with their resources, rather than exiling or executing feminine young men, they often found alternate uses for them within the collective. If a young male was perceived to be failing to sufficiently masculinize himself during his upbringing, he was re-categorized as a “berdache” — a separate “gender role” from both the masculine “man” gender role and the feminine “woman” one (he surely wasn’t a woman either, because he couldn’t bear children) — and he was given an alternative “third menu” of roles he could serve within the collective. This menu consisted generally of being put in charge of rituals and spiritualism — he became the village shaman — or he was assigned an alternative kind of household management — something akin to a “spinster aunt” who helps with childraising and other duties within a sibling’s household. Berdaches’ costume options were designated as separate from men’s, too, and they were generally more in line with the costumery typically prescribed to females within the tribe.
So feminine men were given a “special” status within many indigenous tribes (at least the resource-conserving ones that don’t simply choose to quietly execute the “runt” gay males instead), and they were often treated as extra spiritual and more in touch with the supernatural world. (This practice has even carried over somewhat into the modern Western world, for example with many feminine homosexual men going into the clergy because they couldn’t bring themselves to marry and settle into a straight household, or find any other comfort within the straight social roles that society makes available to men.)
To some degree, gender stereotype defying females also got designated as “third gender” or “berdache” and they, too, were given a small alternative menu of social roles they could perform within their indigenous tribes. But that was a less common occurrence because, alas, many tribes wanted to make sure every adult capable of bearing children (i.e., every female) got slotted into the social role that made that happen.
Another important distinction about “berdache” is that it wasn’t a choice that any male or female could freely make: these were collectivist cultures in which free individual choice was so limited as to be almost an alien concept. Males were desginated “berdache” by collective consensus (or decree by the tribal chief or council), by virtue of demonstrating their inability to live up to masculine “gender roles” (and to a lesser degree females were designated berdache by demonstrating an inability to live up to feminine gender roles) and demonstrating their suitability for the spiritual one instead.
It’s a common misunderstanding among people who have been raised in the modern individualist context that the existence of “berdache” in the North American indigenous past is proof that people back then were more free to “gender express” than they are today. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Modern cultural individualism is founded in the Enlightenment principle of individual freedom, which strives to dispose of the concept altogether that any one of us is born into a limited menu of roles designed to serve the tribe or clan or fiefdom we were born into. Individualism stems from a much more advanced, more complex, and more large-scale organization of society, which posits that if we all coordinate en masse and offer more social mobility to everyone, that each individual may find his or her way to the role in life that best satisfies their own personal desires, and that they may set their own life goals as a result. A pauper could in principle become President; a woman could become a firefighter; the son of a railroad tycoon could find his bliss as a Spanish Flamenco guitar teacher or whatever. And feminine males and masculine females are free to pursue whatever goals they like, because in a big enough society, there will always be a role for them that maximizes their chances at satisfaction and fulfillment in life.
The trajectory of liberalism in the West has been mostly to make strides toward such an ideal world. That is, until transgender ideology came along, which represents a massive lurch back towards the idea of assigned “gender roles” at birth and strict social categories based on sex.
Transgender ideology is a terrible conflation of the strict division of sex in terms of its role in human reproduction and sexuality (in which context sex is indeed fixed and unchangeable), with the old outdated strict division of sex in terms of limited assigned roles within small tribal communities that struggled to survive in harsh environments. It’s an absolute wrong turn. It’s a complete misunderstanding of the foundational principles of the Enlightenment, of humanism, and of progress itself.
Transgender ideology is a terrible conflation of the strict division of sex in terms of its role in human reproduction and sexuality (in which context sex is indeed fixed and unchangeable), with the old outdated strict division of sex in terms of limited assigned roles within small tribal communities that struggled to survive in harsh environments.
And it’s a very confused and selective conflation at that. Transgenderism is appropriating the indigenous “third gender” concept and applying it to claims of being the opposite sex. Trans identified men, while dishonestly drawing upon and claiming an opportunistic “continuity” with Native North American third gender traditions and practices (which, in my understanding, were not universal in pre-contact societies to begin with), reject a “third gender” identity when they assert that they are actually female. They also reject third spaces for washroom and changing facilities, demanding access to all female spaces. This is replacement by trans identified males, the theft and occupation of women’s spaces and opportunities, not a stepping aside into a category of their own. Like the tactical use of DSDs or “intersex” conditions (as they still insultingly insist on calling them), use of Native “two spirit” or “third gender” is a cynical ploy that violates the actual understanding of the concept as practiced in its original cultural context. There’s your “White, colonial imposition” right there.
The woman-erasing language that decouples reproductive functions from being female is a part of this same attempt to claim womanhood without having to be female. “Menstruators” and “chest feeding” are intended to erase women specifically, as there is no equivalent erasure of men being foisted upon us. This is not an “equal opportunity” dehumanization. Anyone who says that the definition of woman is “complicated” is trying to include men in the definition.
Anyone who says that the definition of woman is “complicated” is trying to include men in the definition.
And, once again, all these attempts to “complicate” or “deconstruct” or “problematize” biological sex are really just a smokescreen and a red herring since none of them even begin to demonstrate that the “gender identity” model is able to better account for the same data (or any data at all). As I’ve been saying, even if there were no basis for talking about biological sexes as distinct, identifiable categories, it still wouldn’t imply that being “man” or “woman”, “male” or “female” is about something other than physical traits. What it would imply is that there were no basis for talking about “men” and “women”, “males” of “females” either. If biological sexes are not valid categories, then neither are “man” or “woman”, “male” or “female”. It’s the same denialist strategy we are familiar with from creationists (I have come to think of it as the “Gender of the Gaps” argument) of claiming victory by default unless the competing theory is able to meet some arbitrary standard that they are even less capable of meeting themselves. Once again it’s more or less equivalent to saying that “I get to claim for free what you have to pay for”. If defining “man” and “woman” in terms of physical traits doesn’t meet their standards of simplicity and clearcutness, then you definitely wouldn’t expect any of the nebulous, or even circular, non-definitions in terms of thoughts or feelings best left unspecified, an “inner sense of self”, “presentation” etc. to meet those very same standards.
On Monday (10th February) evening, a violent Muslim mob laid siege to a stall for selling the book of exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen. The incident occurred during the 2025 Amar Ekushey Book Fair, which is held in Dhaka.
The mob attacked the Sabyasachi Prokashoni stall for selling Taslima Nasreen’s book ‘Chumbon.’ The attackers switched off the light of the stall and ambushed the writer Shatabdi Bhav, who was present there at that time.
UC San Diego public health scientist Rebecca Fielding-Miller called the list Orwellian, and said it will hamper crucial research.
“If I can’t say the word ‘women,’ I can’t tell you that an abortion ban is going to hurt women,” Fielding-Miller said. “If I can’t say race and ethnicity, I can’t tell you that Hispanic communities are experiencing this and that or that there’s less vaccination happening in African American communities.”
But we were ASSURED that women don’t get pregnant, only People With Uteruses get pregnant.
This is a me problem, but as a giant proper nerd it saddens me looking in all my nerd forums and thinking “Presumably there has to be an actual female Transformer/Warhammer/Giant Robot fan here somewhere” but I just assume all the ones claiming to be female are G.I.R.L.s, even the ones that don’t have that toothpaste colored flag all over everything or anime catgirl avatars.
The Trump administration has erased references to transgender people from New York’s Stonewall National Monument website.
On the National Park Service website, the acronym LGBTQ+ has been shortened to LGB, standing for lesbian, gay and bisexual.
Sounds like a correction to me. Stormé DeLarverie was a butch lesbian and drag king. She was not trans. Marsha Johnson was a drag queen or transvestite. He was not trans. Sylvia Rivera was a drag queen. He was not trans.
Zoe Williams in the Guardian: ‘The truth is paralysing. But after JD Vance met the far-right leader Alice Weidel in Germany, it is time to be clear about what we are seeing.’
She quotes from a poem by Michael Rosen that was new to me:
I sometimes fear that / people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
So Vance won’t meet the actual leader of Germany, but will meet the leader of the country’s fascists. The US has now joined Russia as the nations spreading far-right ideology across the globe.
“Affirmative Action for Dictators” is a well constructed critique of Musk/tRump’s attempts to destroy everything good by Timothy Snyder.
As a television show, American foreign policy is about strength. In reality, it is about draining power from the United States and its allies, thereby creating atmospherics in which Donald Trump feels good, and Elon Musk converts lost state capacity into personal profit. The weakness, in other words, is the point.
Reminds me of another TV show where it was supposedly about giving people an opportunity to “work with the best”, but in realty, was just an excuse for an ego maniac to get his rocks off. The victimization, in other words, was the point.
It is difficult to be certain of U.S. policy to Ukraine, since the Americans contradict one another and themselves faster than any chyron or twitter feed can follow. But two underlying principles did emerge during the Munich Security Conference. The first was that Ukraine, like the rest of Europe, was to be seen not as an American ally but as an American colony. Humiliating discussions of the disposition of Ukraine’s resources made this clear. The second was that the war could be ended by direct discussions between Americans and the Russian aggressor. There was no sign of any serious substantive preparations, on the American side, for such negotiations.
The difficulty extends to being certain of any US policy as the Muskrats use the “Break and Destroy Method” on everything they see, especially on things they don’t understand. And they certainly don’t understand how Ukrainians feel about being invaded, first by Russia, and now by the Fascists and Corporate Staters of Musk. McKinsey must be tearing their hair out at how fast Musk can achieve what takes them years.
It was humiliating, at Munich, to keep hearing Americans holding microphones tell Ukrainians that war is bad. Every Ukrainian listening has lost someone. Some of the Ukrainians listening were combatants who had lost limbs. They know that war is bad. Ukrainians want more than any one else for the war to end. But just talking with Russia, or just signing a piece of paper with Russia, will not lead to that conclusion, and Ukrainians know it.
Ukraine is the Tar Baby that Br’er Russia has become adhered to. Russia has blundered into a situation where it cannot win, it cannot retreat, but is hoping that someone, any one, will come along and throw it into the bramble bush. And once it’s escaped the bramble and tar, it will lick its wounds, regroup, and mount another invasion knowing Ukraine has been greatly weakened and all but abandoned by Br’er USA.
As in domestic policy, so in foreign policy: a performance of strength covers real weakness.
The variable here is Europe. The rise of China and Russia is a predictable function and perhaps even deliberate goal of American foreign policy. Unhitched now from the United States, what will the Europeans do? At Munich, it could be quite sad to speak to Europeans who for decades have been connected to the United States by friendships, education, language, or an affinity based on a notion that we have been, in the words of one, a “benign hegemon.” They are legitimately puzzled by the new American politics of weakness.
Now that American policy is to be the malign anti-hegemon, Europeans have a choice to make. Musk-Trump weakness assumes that Europeans will choose a weakness of their own. European habit would dictate watching Musk-Trump and hoping that something better will somehow emerge. That way lies catastrophe. If the European Union is to survive, and if Ukraine is to survive, 2025 will have to be the year that Europeans take charge of their own interests. On the year that must be Europe’s: more to come.
I thought I saw a recent post that the American Psychiatric Association, or Endocrinological Association had recently changed its view on transgenderism, to now be against medicalization. I can’t find the post. Did I imagine it? Help?
Is there anyone so easily angered as a genderspecial blogger? Here is a conversation from a FTB blog called Affinity, after I replied to a post by Charly. The initial post contains more than this, but that prompted me to reply ran:
[…]
Trying to conflate “sex” as it refers to whole persons with “sex” as it refers to gametes is a prime example of a bad kind of scientific reductionism. Just because there is one word – in this case “sex” – does not mean that it means the same thing all the time, everywhere.
Firstly, sex at birth is not assigned according to any kind of gamete that an individual produces, it is assigned as a best guess based on external genitalia at birth. As such, it is mostly right, but there are cases where it cannot be ascribed with confidence and also cases, where it later shows being wrong. And cases where surgery is actually used to shoehorn a person into one of the two boxes.
[…]
So although sex as it pertains to gametes is binary, sex regarding whole people is a bit more complicated. The word sex cannot mean the same thing in both cases and does not need to have the same constraints. Sex, when referring to whole individuals, is not binary but bimodal. Which is similar, but not the same.
Wishing for reality to be simple because one specific language (in this case English) has just two words for gender and wishing to shoehorn everyone into those two words is akin to insisting that the rainbow has a limited number of exactly distinct colors because we have assigned distinct words to some bands of wavelengths.
I replied:
I believe you have the reasoning the wrong way around. We are not shoehorning sex into two categories because English has two words for it, we have two words for it because we have observed two categories. Those body trait combinations which do not fit either category are not sexes but are intersexed conditions, so named because they demonstrate some admixture of the traits of the two sexes. They do not undermine our observation of there being two sexes any more than polydactyly undermines our description of the human hand having five digits. More generally: exceptions to patterns exist, and are not fatal to the observation that there is a pattern.
And describing the identification of a newborn’s sex as a “best guess” severely overstates chance of there being an intersex condition. If you see the external genitals of one of the sexes, that observation alone is about 99.97% predictive of every other sex trait of that individual.
Charly:
Holms, fuck off, you disingenuous liar. Your sophistry is old and tired and if I remember correctly, it was explained to you multiple times. It looks like you did not even read what I wrote because you are arguing against things I did not say.
We indeed have observed “two categories”, you nitwit, nowhere do I deny that. But those two categories are not sharply distinct because they have intermediaries. That is why sex is not “binary” but “bimodal”. Even you acknowledge this but pretend like it does not matter, somehow.
I did not name any specific numbers, so you saying that “best guess” overstates something is just you arguing against your own interpretation of my words by ascribing them your own numbers and arguing against those as if I said them. Not to say that a third of a thousandth is still a lot of people whose existence you are dismissing as inconsequential.
And lastly, polydactyly does not disprove the notion that the human hand has five fingers. But it does disprove the notion that human hand has only five fingers. It requires a qualified description of the human hand if one wants to be precise — “Human hands do typically have five fingers, but the number can vary, albeit on rare occasions”. You really did not think this analogy through very thoroughly, did you?
Me:
I did, it’s yours that fails. Saying there are two sexes is not analogous to saying “the human hand has only five fingers”, because it is not a claim that bodies will exactly match a sex without exception. It does not preclude the possibility of intersex conditions, it permits the possibility of other permutations of sex traits because those other permutations are not in themselves distinct sexes.
As for the numbers, it strikes me as highly relevant to cite the accuracy of an observation when said observation is described as a guess. Evidently our minds work differently.
And Charly finishes with:
Oh, my gawd, our minds really are working differently, that is evident.
The whole point of my article is “human bodies do not fit neatly in just two sexes”, you then acknowledge this and insist that somehow you refute it anyway by insisting that there are just two sexes. It does not matter how many sexes there are, you dumbass, it is completely irrelevant. Even if I grant you just two sexes, there are more than two categories of people with regard to them (at the very least male/female/neither).
Also, not only are you comfortable ascribing a number to a statement “best guess”, but you also interpret the phrase “Holms, fuck off, you disingenuous liar. Your sophistry is old and tired…” as “Let me repeat myself in the same obnoxious manner again”. Now English is not my first language, but that seems like quite a stretch.
Thus, based on available evidence, I cannot decide if you are wilfully obtuse, or just obtuse. What I can say with confidence is that I do not have patience with either, so fuck off, this time with emphasis (ban).
Characteristically, she makes accusations about my intent immediately and repeatedly, yet we know they do not tolerate the same in reverse.
I just shared a Globe and Mail article by former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, on my Facebook page, introducing it thus:
Please read and share. Canada is living beside a country which is rapidly allowing its democracy to be erased. We must not follow suit. I’ve tended to be lukewarm about the whole concept of nationalism, but Trump’s threats to our country change everything. We must be prepared to resist American threats, pressure and intimidation. My parents anf grandparents lived through two wars to protect our country, struggling and sacrificing so that their children and grandchildren wouldn’t have to. Now it’s our turn. We need to call upon their legacy of resisting tyrrany to get through this darkening time. May their examples of courage and strenth light and guide our way in the time to come.
(The original Globe and Mail piece looks like it’s behind a paywall. Here’s what was on Facebook:)
In facing an imperialist neighbour, Ukraine offers a cautionary tale for Canada
Lloyd Axworthy
Published Yesterday
Lloyd Axworthy is a former foreign minister and current chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council. He recently authored his memoir: Lloyd Axworthy: My Life in Politics.
Canadians now face a stark reality: living beside a powerful neighbour presided over by an uber-President who seeks to erode our sovereignty and absorb us into his imperfect union.
What was once dismissed as a joke or a negotiating tactic is beginning to look disturbingly real. Donald Trump wants Canada – not for our social-safety net, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or our history of cultural tolerance, but for our resources: our minerals, water, oil and Arctic region.
How far will he go? We already know he’s wielding tariffs as a weapon. We’ve seen his daily insults directed at our leaders, his mockery of our national identity – all well-worn techniques of ambitious autocrats.
We should also brace for a more insidious threat: election interference. With his tech-obsessed ally Elon Musk, Mr. Trump will likely work to manipulate our upcoming election, amplifying far-right candidates and undermining trust in our democratic system. Compared to what these two could unleash, past Russian and Chinese meddling might seem amateurish, just softening us up for the kill.
While the immediate focus is on the tariff war, the larger issue at stake is nothing less than Canada’s survival as an independent state. We must prepare our democracy to withstand the onslaught, and to do that, we should look to Ukraine – as a warning.
In early 2019, then-foreign minister Chrystia Freeland asked me to lead the Canadian observer mission for Ukraine’s presidential election. She recognized this as a turning point in Ukraine’s democratic survival. Upon arrival, the threat was obvious. The Putin regime was working to discredit the election and install its loyalists in key positions. A previous pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, had already tried to drag Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit – until Ukrainians forced him out. Yet Russia’s disinformation and intimidation tactics continued.
Ukraine responded with unity, military preparedness and international partnerships. But here’s the sobering truth: despite all its resilience, despite the heroism of its people, Ukraine may soon find itself outmuscled. If Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin negotiate a settlement, Ukraine could be forced into territorial concessions or a weakened sovereignty.
This should serve as a wake-up call for Canada. Ukraine’s struggle shows the dangers of underestimating authoritarian threats, of relying too much on U.S. protection, and of failing to build strong alliances. There are signs that Canadians are already pushing back – boycotting U.S. goods, cancelling winter vacations, voicing their defiance in arenas and grocery stores. But the real test is yet to come. Will we set aside partisan divides, power struggles and media bias to use our election as a unified rebuke of Mr. Trump’s delusions?
Even former prime minister Stephen Harper – no stranger to economic pragmatism – said that citizens should “accept any level of damage” to ensure the country preserves its independence. Five former PMs called for Canadians to fly our flag.
Parliament must now be recalled, ending its past churlish behaviour to pass an all-party resolution affirming Canadian independence, and asking Canadians to follow suit (and no, there should not be any non-confidence votes at this moment). Active efforts to overcome internal trade barriers must be a provincial priority, not just talking points. There must be reckoning on the financial plight of our colleges and universities following the snafu on international students. The recruitment for our military must be streamlined and peacekeeping restored as a career path. Housing the homeless is an imperative.
Beyond our borders, we must forge new diplomatic and economic partnerships with allies who recognize the danger of Mr. Trump’s autocratic vision. The world order he seeks to dismantle – built on law, co-operation, and stability – must be defended.
Canada should take bold action, starting with Ukraine. We should secure a defence agreement that deepens military ties, including procurement of Ukraine’s advanced drone technology for our Arctic security. No more hand-me-downs from the U.S. We should also signal to European allies, now rattled by JD Vance’s threats to gut NATO, that Canada remains steadfast in its commitments.
Beyond defence, we should help in forging a multilateral effort to fill the void left by America’s retreat from global leadership. Canada has pioneered international initiatives before – on land mines, the International Criminal Court and human rights. Now, we must step up again to combat climate change, corruption and poverty. Our chairing of the G7 meetings this spring is a prime opportunity – and Russia should not be in attendance, no matter how hard Mr. Trump tries to swing an invite.
Ukraine’s experience is not just a lesson in defiance – it’s a cautionary tale. Canada must act now, while we still have the power to shape our own future.
It goes without saying that those flying the Maple Leaf need something else, yesterday: long range nukes. As an American I can’t say I’m all that keen on having even more nukes pointed at me but even after he does you can’t trust the United States.
The United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Belarus and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries Monday on a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for its occupied territory to be returned that passed overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.
Wrote physical letters to all three of my Democratic Congress critters imploring them to employ a better strategy as the opposition (especially on giving up on the trans stuff, though not in the bread and butter protections).
Still have similar letters to send out to state AG, governor, state congressionals but I need to emphasize other points since they’re actually governing in Oregon and can do more than stall and cheerlead.
Yesterday, US District Judge Trevor McFadden declined a request by the Associated Press to immediately restore its access to presidential events after the Trump administration blocked the agency in a dispute over the term “Gulf of America”. Shortly after his decision was announced the White House put up two large electric signs in the briefing room which say “Victory” and “Gulf of America”.
Two questions come to mind.
1. Electric signs take time to make, so how could Trump & Co. be so certain of the Trump appointed judges decision that they had the signs made in advance of the hearing?
2. The motivation for having the signs was nothing more than childish pettiness. Shouldn’t Musk’s DOGE be up in arms over such an obvious waste of government money?
For those who missed it first time around (2022), these words were both accurate then and prescient now.
I can not fathom the emptiness, the insecurity, the insatiable need for attention and validation, the staggering arrogance, the malevolence and total void of human experience that is Elon Musk.
He’s the richest man on the planet. You can’t go anywhere or do anything without interacting with something he’s part of in some way. There are literal millions of people who uncritically worship him, in spite of overwhelming evidence that he’s a douchebag. Some number of them will come after me, as they come after anyone who points at their naked emperor. They’ll spend entire days going after me and people like me, slavishly serving a man who does not even know they exist. They are his army of fools, uncritically serving his every whim. And it still isn’t enough.
He can have any material thing he wants, and he will *never* be happy or satisfied. He has no real friends. Every single person around him is either a viper, a parasite, or both.
So what does he do? He bullies and threatens and harasses and trolls and behaves like the weak, scared, insecure child he has always been. That’s a tragedy for him, but it’s dangerous for us. He doesn’t care what he destroys or who he hurts as he chases this existential thing he can not ever have.
You know the saying “hurt people hurt people”? He’s a hurt person who is hurting our society, making people I care about less safe. The consequences of this one man’s midlife crisis are global, and that terrifies me.
This was written just after Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, but they apply equally as well today, after Musk’s acquisition of the USA.
Tell your president to STOP talking about making Canada as the “51st state.” If it’s a “joke”, it’s not funny. If it’s a bargaining position, then he doesn’t deserve any “deal”. Let’s call it what it is: it is a threat. Just because he wants something ,he doesn’t have the right to take it. This is not how responsible adults speak or behave, let alone elected heads of state. This is how bullies, mobsters, and dictators think and act. Your president is threatening us. Like a bully, a mobster, or a dictator. I don’t like being threatened. I don’t know anyone who does. I’m guessing you don’t either. How would you feel if our positions and conditions were reversed? What if our Prime Minister made constant comments about making your country another province. What if we had the largest military on Earth and you did not? Put yourself in our shoes. This is what we’re dealing with. What would you do?
I know you’re busy trying to prevent the violation of your Constitution, the erosion of the rule of law, the breakdown of the separation of powers, the replacement of military officers with ones who will be more loyal to Trump than they are to the United States, and the destruction of government services and agencies by an unelected, unaccountable billionaire who is gleefully gutting your country from the inside, but hear me out. If you could write your elected representatives, your Senator or Representative, your Governor, or even Trump himself, and tell them that he should stop making these threats against our sovereignty, that would be a help and comfort. Tell them that Canada is not for sale, and is not up for the taking. I know you’ve got your own issues to work out with this man in the Oval Office, and I wish you all the luck in the world in dealing with him. You deserve better than him. If you can stop him, we won’t have to. But if you can’t, we will do our best.
We see what he’s done to Ukraine. He thinks that they started the war because they dared to stand up to the Russian invasion, because they fought back. Your president doesn’t understand resistance and struggle against superior force; he thinks everyone is a coward like he is. He should think again. Maybe you could help him with this.
During World War II, my grandparents and parents struggled, sacrificed, and fought against tyranny so that their children and grandchildren wouldn’t have to. But if we have to, we will. This is not a joke. This is not a bargaining position. This is not a threat. It is a promise.
He bullies and threatens and harasses and trolls and behaves like the weak, scared, insecure child he has always been. That’s a tragedy for him, but it’s dangerous for us. He doesn’t care what he destroys or who he hurts as he chases this existential thing he can not ever have.
You know the saying “hurt people hurt people”? He’s a hurt person who is hurting our society, making people I care about less safe. The consequences of this one man’s midlife crisis are global, and that terrifies me.
I’m not sure I agree with this. I know it’s standard thinking, but it doesn’t fit my experiences, and I’m not sure it fits other things, either.
To me, he is more like a juvenile delinquent, an adolescent who has just learned that the world is round and goes around smugly informing everyone of the fact, because he believes he must have been the first to figure it out. He is like the adolescent who sneers at the teacher and creates havoc in the classroom. He is like the adolescent who throws things at other students in the lunchroom, then manages to frame someone else so he doesn’t get in trouble. He’s like the adolescent who goes around lifting girls’ skirts so he can catch a peek of something…anything. Oh, and of course, hot rodding, putting others in danger with his speed and lack of control, and going out to some farm field to make circles with his car.
Trump is the toddler who thinks it’s a great idea for such a shit to be in charge of everything because he’s SO COOL.
I’m quite sure I don’t agree with it. It’s a cliché, and it gets applied to all horrible aggressive rude selfish mean shits. I don’t think he’s scared and wounded on the inside, I think he’s just a horrible aggressive rude selfish mean shit.
Not Bruce, I was referring to Musk. The Trump comment was just an additional comment to add to. I don’t believe either of them are wounded. I think their behavior is a sign of their extreme entitlement.
Jeff Bezos, the self-proclaimed “hands-off” owner of the Washington Post, emailed staffers this morning about a change he is applying to the paper’s opinion section that appears to align the newspaper more closely with the political right.
“I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos said.
“We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.”
Now I’m all for personal liberties and free markets, within reasonable boundaries (and no, I don’t know where those boundaries lie), but this sounds like code for libertarianism.
The Post is still a good source for news, and he doesn’t seem to be interfering with that side of the paper for now. But they’re already bleeding readership, and this won’t help. I fear that it’s on its way to becoming a pale imitation of its New York namesake.
Personal liberties are all well and good, but with those liberties come responsibilities. Such as the responsibility not to trample over the personal liberties of your neighbors (whether they be literal neighbors or several states away). Part of what got us into this problem is a vision of personal liberties that fails to understand the need to allow others the same, and also that forestalls things like collaboration, altruism, and common sense. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say “I’ve got a right to [X].” Well, no, maybe you don’t. Just because you want to doesn’t mean you have a right to.
It goes right along with those who believe that democracy means they get what they want because they somehow believe that everyone else’s voice is illegitimate if it disagrees with them.
Those two things, and a warped version of the free market, got us into the mess we are in. They will not be able to get us out of it, because any reasonable version of these ideas has been strangled to death, some of them long before MAGA came on the scene.
This might be the single most infuriatingly backwards upside down through the looking glass article on trans and their documents. All I want to do is rewrite it to reflect reality.
Arcadia, I am outraged that my passport shows that I am human, when it is clearly obvious to everyone that I am an otter!
Seriously, the narcissism and failure to give a damn about anyone else was pretty evident in that article. Of all the things Trump has done, they are picking on the one thing he has done right…even if for the wrong reasons.
It’s hard not to get a little paranoid these days. My wife just discovered that PubMed isn’t working anymore.
Now PubMed is of course a totally frivolous website, run by NIH and indexing pretty much all of the medical literature. But who knows, there could be woke or DEI stuff hiding there. So no worry, after the Muskrats have run rampant through the system, maybe it will come back, or maybe not? After all, the people maintainging the service may have been laid off.
Oh well, who needs the medical literature anyway? We’re all gonna die, one way or another.
Well, now PubMed seems to be back in action. My wife uses it a lot, and had never seen it down before. So of course we believed the worst. Who can blame us for that? Let’s hope it really was a false alarm – time will show.
Pardon the long post, but I don’t know if there’s a paywall free link to the original anywhere.
Someone on Facebook posted this piece. Andrew Coyne (Toronto Globe and Mail) nails it again>
Andrew Coyne
Globe and Mail
Every time we think we have taken the measure of Mr. Trump, every time we think we have understood the depths of his depravity, the absoluteness of his nullity, the scale of the threat he represents – to American democracy, to Canada, to the peace of the world – he defeats us. He does or says something far worse than we had ever thought possible, even of him.
We need to learn from this, fast. Because Mr. Trump is metastasizing, mutating, rapidly worsening. He is on a kind of exponential spiral, his behaviour approaching levels of madness and mayhem that had never previously been imagined, let alone seen.
Bjarte, one thing I never have is an optimistic bias. The minute I find a silver lining, I start looking for the dark cloud. But a lot of people seem determined to make this normal, to find something good in everybody and everything. I have never been able to do that; perhaps it’s the family I grew up in…
Any silver lining will only be available in hindsight… if we can get through this, American politics might greatly improve, but can we get through this?
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.
iknklast, I have been accused of having a pessimistic bias, but in this case for the most part things have neither turned out significantly worse nor significantly better than I expected. I wasn’t surprised when Trump won the election in 2016, and I fully expected him to win in 2024. If elected, I was certain that he would follow the authoritarian playbook to a tee, capture or destroy any government institution that stood in his way, put foxes in charge of all the hen-houses, weaponize the power of the government to seek revenge on his personal enemies, side with Putin against Ukraine, break up the “Western” alliance etc. etc. I don’t claim any particular insight for getting these these things right. As I keep saying, one of the very few things Trump can not be accused of is hiding his agenda.
To the degree that my expectations have turned out wrong, my supposed “pessimism” didn’t go quite far enough. As previously mentioned, I didn’t expect him to win the popular vote (not to be confused with a majority of the votes, let alone the majority of the electorate as you rightly pointed out). I also failed to predict that Elon Musk and his thugs would be as directly and openly involved in the demolition job as they have turned out to be. Yeah, and the thing about Greenland, Canada, and Panama… Never saw that coming! Then again, I did expect him to do a lot of general evil that no one (including me) had predicted, so I don’t feel too stupid for missing some of the specifics.
Back in autumn I predicted that if Kamala Harris won there would be another (somewhat) democratic election in 2028, but if Trump won there would not. Let’s hope I was wrong. Then again, as I keep pointing out, all the supposedly career-ending scandals of Trump’s first presidency (as well as his lifetime of crime, corruption and general indecency before that) didn’t prevent him from gaining votes between 2016 and 2020, and even his attempted coup d’ètat (!) wasn’t just insufficient to get him convicted, but even to stop him running for president again and then winning! I wouldn’t count on his followers to start abandoning him in droves for any reason at this point. Much like the people who drank the Kool-Aid on the gender issue, they have already conceded too much, and now there is no face-saving way of turning back. No matter how badly they are made to suffer as a direct result of Trump’s agenda, they will blame outsiders, traitors, saboteurs, and “enemies of the people” for preventing Trump from realizing that very same agenda fully enough.
In a hypothetical future, in which there are still serious historians out there somewhere*, I suspect that 2016 will be remembered as the year in which American democracy and the rule of law, not to mention the global world order established after World War II, in which Western liberal democracy was a dominant force in the world, received its mortal wound, and the Biden era will be remembered as its last spasm.
* As they say the winners write the history books, so I wouldn’t count on it. I won’t be surprised if history books of the future state as a fact that the 2020 election was stolen, that Ukraine started the war, and that Hillary Clinton really did run a child prostitution network from the basement of a pizzeria in Washington D.C.
When you put it that way, Bjarte, I guess maybe I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist. Like you said, Trump didn’t make any secret of his agenda, and if you were to note the novel I started the week before inauguration, you would probably see that nothing Trump did would surprise me, including the Musk led destruction. I have accurately predicted every election since 1980, though I will state that I was not as sure in my prediction of a Biden win in 2020. It seemed a long shot.
It isn’t just enough to understand Trump, though. What a lot of people miss is the voters. They seem to think the voters are weighing issues carefully, evaluating each candidate, and coming to a conclusion as to which will best fit their values, and that somehow Trump has fooled them. Trump hasn’t fooled them, and they are responding emotionally, not rationally. This has been demonstrated in numerous studies of elections, and there is no reason to suspect this one is any different.
Since I live in the middle of Trump Central, I might be thought to be biased toward a midwestern viewpoint, and I probably am, but I tend to be right. I listen to what the voters are saying when they aren’t talking to a reporter, and that tells me that Trump is touching a nerve, the nerve that says ‘competent’ only with ‘white men’ and that says ‘liberal is bad’, regardless of the actual facts. They are sick of the fact that when they look around they see people who don’t look like them but have the same rights. These people might be women or people of color; they might be obviously, stereotypically gay (and in some cases, not actually be gay). There are books in the library that say things they don’t like. The teachers can’t force the kids to pray in school. People of color are allowed to walk the streets in full daylight, and even at night. Blue laws are a thing of the past – stores are open on Sunday almost everywhere.
These are the complaints I hear when I talk to people; the only time I hear complaints about the price of eggs is when I am checking out at the grocery store, and sometimes it might be me complaining. Other than that, the word of the day is ‘competent white males’.
In a hypothetical future, in which there are still serious historians out there somewhere*, I suspect that 2016 will be remembered as the year in which American democracy and the rule of law, not to mention the global world order established after World War II, in which Western liberal democracy was a dominant force in the world, received its mortal wound, and the Biden era will be remembered as its last spasm.
I suppose there might be few amongst the descendants of the rats and or cockroaches interested enough in the minutiae of our last days to figure this out, just as some of us are interested in the combination of asteroid/volcanic eruptions that took out the dinosaurs. It’ll be tough work though; in a few million years time it will be impossible to distinguish the current time from that of Neandertals or Homo erectus. They’ll find our thin layer of radioactivity and microplastics (our self-made iridium layer), and wonder how it all went so wrong so quickly.
I get the impression that the full letter is well worth reading, but I was locked out of my Twitter account years ago, and so I can’t read any further than the first tweet in the thread.
There is an “unroll” of that thread here, perhaps you can read the whole thing there. I don’t know if that still works for people without Twitter accounts.
Been doing some reading in The Bulwark (which seems to be my tribe now, so I had better start reading The Dispatch or similar to disrupt my priors) and it looks like they’re gonna break Social Security within a few months.
The Project 2025 guys always said they’ve only got one shot at this and they have to do it before the midterms; looks like that’s working. They’d be better off doing the frog boiling without Elon drawing attention and Trump sabotaging the economy, but Nikki Haley wasn’t going to let them play, so this will have to do. Now they just have to hope Trump doesn’t do anything that requires the military to make a decision.
If all goes as it should the midterms will be a wave election and the Dems (and/or a non-cowardly flavor of Republican) will start applying the brakes. Dunno how the election interference will go on there of course.
Writing in the introduction to his “When The Clock Broke”, John Ganz had this to say:
Just as socialism seemed to exit the world stage, the protagonists of this book envisioned another end. Sensing that America as they knew it was in peril, they hoped to recast American democracy around the “negative solidarity” of knowing who you hated or wanted to destroy: this system would be based on domination and exclusion, a restricted sense of community that jealously guarded its boundaries and policed its members, and the direction of a charismatic leader who would use his power to punish and persecute for the sake of restoring lost national greatness. In a period when some said that ideological struggle was irrelevant and that even history itself had ended, they looked for inspiration among the ideological ruins of earlier times: nationalism, populism, racism, antisemitism, and even fascism. In the words of one, they wanted to “break the clock” of progress—returning America to a previous dispensation while also creating an entirely new country of their own devising. And while they lost in the short term, they brought to the surface an intense anguish in American life, a politics of national despair that has returned with greater force.
Ganz’s book is mostly about the post Reagan USA of the 1990s when history had supposedly ended and the USA stood triumphantly atop the ruins of the Berlin Wall and the USSR.
He continues
It was an era where America felt itself to be losing out: losing its dominant place in the world, losing the basis of its security and wealth, and losing its sense of itself, as if a storm cloud rapidly gathered over the country and the national mood suddenly turned dour, gloomy, fearful, and angry.
The causes of the fear and anger were, and still are, many. Lack of action from Bush Mark1 through Clinton to Obama meant that the symptoms were never diagnosed, the illness was left to fester, the “cure” arrived in Trump Mark1.
That should have been the canary in the mine moment for the Democrats and the USA at large, but Biden squandered his presidency and failed to come down hard on the rising tide of fascism and anti-democratic movements. The “O J Simpson car chase” feel of Trump’s prosecutions not only let the perpetrator of the greatest attack on American democracy since the Civil War remain free, but emboldened both Trump and his supporters. Unlike 2016, nothing was hidden or off limits in Trump’s campaign. Americans knew exactly what he stood for, Trump hated the same people they hated, and Trump was the one and only Il Duce who would not only make the trains run on time but be happy about it. Cheap eggs for everyone.
Reading that brought to mind an article from Australia’s ABC in 2020 discussing modelling done under Clinton’s government that uncannily forecast the rising tide of discontent and a new Civil War. While the initial modelling was undertaken to predict unrest in other nations, the findings are easily applied to the USA.
In fact, the present disorder was forecast as far back as 1991. In the book Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World, Professor Goldstone used an early version of his model to predict the rise of a leader similar to President Trump.
It came down to population changes, Professor Goldstone argued. The American population surged after World War II — the Boomer generation born in a time of relative peace and plenty. As this massive cohort aged and accrued wealth, they could make the country vulnerable to political crisis. But this would only happen, he wrote, if the elites did three things: tighten up the path to mobility to favour themselves and their children (like increasing the cost of university); dampen wage growth and claim a greater share of economic gains for themselves; and resist taxation so that government is starved of needed revenues.
As it turned out, this is exactly what would happen over the following three decades.
Rev, Biden was in a no-win situation. Everyone was saying he should be Mr. Nice Guy and not “come down hard” on his political enemies. Where he did (or anyone else did), it was perceived as playing politics, and worked in Trump’s favor. Where he didn’t come down hard, he was perceived as not taking the actions he needed. Nope, I don’t think Biden could have done things differently and had them work out differently. The narrative was already written.
I dunno, maybe he should have picked a lane and stayed in it… And declared his retirement after the midterms. Of course, the first point of failure was the Republicans fake primary.
In the words of one, they wanted to “break the clock” of progress—returning America to a previous dispensation while also creating an entirely new country of their own devising.
Who would have guessed that this would include getting rid of weather forecasting and welcoming the return of deadly, preventable, contagious diseases. This will put a bit of dent in profit margins, and sooner than they would imagine. Penny wise, pound foolish. Meteorology and vaccinations are a lot cheaper than death and destruction. Some limits on unbridled capitalism are immovable ones that don’t respond at all to closed eyes and wishful thinking. They don’t go away when you pretend they’re not there; it’s rather the opposite.
And while they lost in the short term, they brought to the surface an intense anguish in American life, a politics of national despair that has returned with greater force.
Just wait ’til the southwest runs out of water, crops start to fail, and the lights go out. At that point it might not be so much a national despair as a bunch of smaller regional ones, since the nation doesn’t really exist anymore. Republican policies are hastening all of these things. Not that Democrats were taking these possibilities seriously enough, but at least they admit they exist.
It was an era where America felt itself to be losing out: losing its dominant place in the world, losing the basis of its security and wealth, and losing its sense of itself….
It’s only natural that as other nations grew in wealth and prosperity America’s “lead” would diminish. Its failure to provide its citizens with the kind of social safety net that other advanced nations managed to create, turned that into an actual American decline, but one that was entirely self-imposed. How much of the wealth that might have been used to finance the kind of safety net that so many other countries chose to prioritize was siphoned off to pay for grotesquely disproportionate CEO compensation, which also helped to stifle workers’ wages? There goes some of “the basis of its security and wealth” right there. In terms of many of the measures of quality of life, security, and happiness, America is no longer a leader, but an outlier and a laggart, providing the basis for a very different kind of “American exceptionalism.”
I think the American Identity, such as it is or was, became much less self-assured as a result of the tensions between the liberal democratic bedrock enshrined in its founding documents, and the anti-democratic impulses of the national security state that were amplified by America’s rise to superpower status. I think much of the “counter-culture” movement of the 60’s was a direct result of these incompatible and mutually exclusive political drives. These strains also fed the clashes of the Civil Rights Movement, the prosecution of and protest against war in Viet Nam, recurring bouts of political violence and assassination, the Kent State Massacre, Watergate, etc. These kinds of conflicts had been there all along, but the background of the Cold War raised the stakes for both Right and Left considerably, helping to set the stage for the degree of polarization we see in American politics today.
As this massive cohort aged and accrued wealth, they could make the country vulnerable to political crisis. But this would only happen, he wrote, if the elites did three things: tighten up the path to mobility to favour themselves and their children (like increasing the cost of university); dampen wage growth and claim a greater share of economic gains for themselves; and resist taxation so that government is starved of needed revenues.
“Breaking the clock of progress” will fix none of this. It will not question or the inequalities of wealth, but it will try to tamp down protest against it. It will make people more uneasy and vulnerable, not less. It will cajole and threaten people into accepting and “celebrate” a stunted, blinkered life in an America they are told is now “Great Again.”
It will not question or the inequalities of wealth, but it will try to tamp down protest against it.
And Herr Drumpf has now begun that by threatening funding for Universities that permit protests, for threatening protestors with jail. Because the 1st Amendment no longer applies, and because one of the few things Drumpf knows, or has been told, is that popular revolutions begin on campuses.
You are repeating the lies the Democrats told themselves, the lies their supporters swallowed wholesale, and the lies that led the RUSA to this place. It is a repeat of the justification given for “Hitler’s Pope’s” refusal to condemn Hitler and his cronies. It was a weak kneed Catholicism that bowed to Hitler’s every demand, excommunicating a grand total of one Nazi, and the for divorce!
The time to stand up to Trump was January 6 2021 when he fomented an armed insurrection. The evidence was plain to see, but the Democrats and the various parts of the USA’s justice system turned a blind eye.
I liken inaction, in relation to the wrongs perpetrated by this mob of self-serving despots, to contracting an STD and ignoring the symptoms. The consequences are dire and detrimental.
Rev, I don’t think we can liken Biden to Hitler’s Pope. And given my many years of following US politics, and living here, I still maintain there was a no win situation for Biden. It’s easy to say it wasn’t, because he took one path and not the other, but every time he took a single step down that path, the wheels came off the Democratic Party.
This is not a lie I am telling myself, or that I have swallowed whole. I watched it happening. I have seen it over and over. It is a standard of US politics: whichever path the Democratic president takes, it will be the wrong one.
Yes, there are lies the Democrats have swallowed wholesale; yes, there are things they use to justify their staying with the party. I actually left the party for a while because of that, but came back when Hillary was running against Trump.
However, the idea that there will be no possible “right” solution for Biden (or other D presidents) is not the lie; the situation arises because of the lies…because too many have been told ‘you have to be nice, voters don’t like nasty’; ‘you can’t look partisan’ (hello? It’s a party, damn it!); ‘you have to understand the opposite party, and their justifiable anger and frustration’. (There’s the lie – much of their anger and frustration is NOT justifiable; it’s the whining of some kid when other kids get to play with the toys. It’s the anger at so-called inferior group getting equal rights).
This may not be something you can see as easily from so far away. I have been a student o political science (as well as biological science and theatre – I’m considered a bit quirky). I have seen this pattern over and over. It has really not changed through my adult life.
And really, as far as being nasty? Seriously, the Rs are nasty, and more so with Trump in charge. But if the Ds try it, they are vilified by their own. They are criticized even when all they do is tell the truth; several of Biden’s so-called ‘gaffes’ were simply telling truths no one wanted to hear. And when Hillary told the truth – remember basket of deplorables? – the backlash was ferocious, and hasn’t ended yet. Plus it gave misogynistic voters another reason not to vote for her without showing their misogyny, but that’s a different issue.
And when Hillary told the truth – remember basket of deplorables? – the backlash was ferocious, and hasn’t ended yet.
The frightening thing is that it’s clear, with Trump 2.0, that “basket” holds tens of millions of American voters, who cast ballots for him knowing full well what he was like. Whether they really know what he has in store for him is another question (not having thought through all of the implications of his campaign rhetoric, or not appreciating just how thoroughly Trusk/Mump was going to destroy the civil service), but Trump on his own is vile enough.
not having thought through all of the implications of his campaign rhetoric, or not appreciating just how thoroughly Trusk/Mump was going to destroy the civil service
Or not realizing that the civil service is important to them; as far as they are concerned, all civil servants do is take their money and hand it out in enormous welfare checks to people of color. (Which shows an astonishing ignorance of welfare, which is mostly run by states, and doesn’t hand out enormous checks).
Have you seen this news? Gavin Newsom breaks with Democrat policy on trans athletes in sports,saying it’s unfair to allow trans identified males to compete in women’s sports:
iknklast, at the risk of looking like I’m flogging a dead horse, the Democrats STILL haven’t learned.
On Thursday, the US Congress voted to censure Mr Green, with 10 Democrats siding with Republicans to punish the congressman over “his breach of proper conduct”.
You don’t beat a bully by playing nice, you don’t beat a bully by siding with his mates – you beat a bully with a fist to the nose.
For those of you old enough to remember Trump saying “Get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”
Looks like that’s going to happen sooner than anyone imagined.
He owns SCOTUS.
He, or his Minions, have sacked any military commander who might have stood in his way.
He, or his Minions, have sacked any JAG staff lawyers who might have stood in his way.
He has already threatened funding of any higher education institutions that do not prevent student protests, and has declared protestors will be jailed or deported.
On January 20th he issued an Executive Order declaring “A national Emergency at the Southern Border of the USA”. Almost at the end of that EO are the chilling words “Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.”
He has cleared the decks, now he is just waiting on the report that will tell him exactly what he needs to fulfill his previously stated aim of invoking Martial Law to retain power.
Once invoked, the insurrection Act can be used at any time, at any point, in the USA. And America will be under Martial Law and no one will be able to stop him. No one.
Well that seems like the way most likely to trigger a counter coup from the portion of the military still loyal to their nation and thus the worst possible way to do it… Considering who’s doing it, seems plausible.
Do you really think the military will go against tRump?
The Left has been cowed, the Dems are a rabble in disarray.
Eight years ago American streets were awash with people, real people, ordinary people marching against tRump’s worst excesses. Today? Hardly a whimper.
And that is how you lose your nation, not by invasion, but by apathy. Tittytainment has won over the American people, they can’t be fucked getting off their arses to defend their country against the greatest threat since 1861.
I do believe it is likely to spark a civic war within the armed forces if actually ordered to take up arms against Americans yes (though I’m definitely not certain). You better believe the higher ups (and former higher ups) are watching all this and talking to each other. Trump may believe the rest of us are NPCs but that’s just not true.
It’s why you wait and frog boil instead of taking drastic action. They’re not gonna rebel over USAID or birthright citizenship because that’s strictly political. Using deadly force against Americans for basically no reason is likely to spur action.
Again not saying this will happen but it’s an outcome that isn’t unlikely either. Frog boiling is the way to go.
Yes, thinking it through, you could well be right.
Trump has replaced those at the very top who can issue branch wide orders. But those at the top don’t lead troops or fly planes. It is the local commanders, the unit leaders, who will have to stand up and be counted.
It is ironic that America’s saviors might well be the descendants of slaves, the Black Americans who make up a very large portion of the US Military.
It is the local commanders, the unit leaders, who will have to stand up and be counted.
Traditionally, the US military has stayed out of domestic politics, unlike the armed forces of many countries. The civilian chain of command, with the President as Commander-in-Chief has been a mainstay of US military doctrine. But what happens when that civilian authority breaks its own sworn oath to defend the Constitution? What does the military do if the President decides there’s no such thing as a “war crime”? What if the President decrees that there is no such thing as an “illegal order”? Can the President unilaterally change the Uniform Code of Military Justice?
I have no doubt that Trump would have no compunction at ordering the shooting of unarmed civilians, or anyone resisting his regime. He already considers those who didn’t vote for him to be un-American enemies, so having them shot wouldn’t be a big step for him. Who will follow those orders?
It is ironic that America’s saviors might well be the descendants of slaves, the Black Americans who make up a very large portion of the US Military.
And they very well might be facing off against the heavily armed White Nationalist inheritors of the slave-holders’ ethos. It’s tragically ironic that the ammo-sexual gun-nuts who don’t read past the one part of the 2nd Ammendment that they’re willing to kill and die for, are helping to usher in and support the sort of tyranny they claim to be arming themselves to fight against. They are remarkably unconcerned with Trump’s meagalomaniacal psychopathy. It’s okay, because they mistakenly think he’s one of them, and that he’s on their side. They’re not interested in the “freedom” of their country or their fellow citizens, they want to be on top, calling the shots, setlling scores. Like Trump, their opponents aren’t “real Americans,” but enemies to be destroyed. And that destruction is a necessary step in the MAGA march. Those who stand against this return to “greatness” are to be swept aside, as they maliciously defy the unity of purpose and sentiment that is supposed to undergird and celebrate this “greatness.” Whatever the illiberal excesses of over-reach DEI enacted, the backlash against “diversity” is a warning to all who oppose MAGA. It will be used as a pretext to roll back the freedoms and protections of all opponents.
We can see Trump’s contempt for norms, treaties, and agreements on the international scene as the outward reflection of MAGA on the global stage. It’s “Might makes Right” at all levels, in all theaters, in all jurisdictions. Purging the government of those who would stand in his way, or dare to tell him bad news (COVID, climate change, etc.) is echoed in withdrawal from NATO, WHO, climate agreements, etc.. Anything that could potentially interfere with America’s freedom of action (a freedom it will keep to itsellf, with nobody else being allowed to claim or exercise any such equivalent “freedom” of action) is to be ignored or destroyed. American “greatness” means a heedless disregard for any other country or people, just as domestically, MAGA means Trump gets to do whatever he likes, and any roadblocks to that are to be ignored, evaded, or destroyed. Silencing those who claim Trump’s goals are impractical, impossible, or dangerous means he can claim victory despite reality. Those who deny his claims, or speak unwelcome truths are enemies. It’s open season on messengers.
As the world’s strongest military power, Trump can unilaterally re-open any treaty or agreement, rewriting or scrapping it to replace it with something more advantageous to America, and himself. Trump might be claiming to do it for America, but he’s really doing it for himself. “Trumpism” on the world stage imposing his belief that ever deal has a winner and a loser. There is no thought of mutual advantage or co-operation, just winner and loser, victor and vanquished, master and slave. America, and by extension Trump, must come out on top. All must bow to his Greatness. That’s the whole point of MAGA.
If the American situation does devolve into civil war, or something approaching it, the fate of the country (and indeed, perhaps even the world itself) might hang on the honour, courage and common human decency of individual unit commanders and soldiers, and whether or not Milgram’s results with an “authority figure” in a white coat apply equally well to one wearing a baggy blue suit with a red tie.
A friend sent me this today, I have looked and seen it reported by a number of reputable news sites, so accept it is genuine. May Europe find a few more Claude Malhurets.
Transcript below of an incredibly powerful and deadly accurate speech in the French Senate two days ago by Mr. Claude Malhuret. This may some day take its rightful place alongside the best of Sir Winston Churchill and President John F Kennedy.
Brace yourself:
“President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, My dear colleagues,
Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.
Washington has become the court of Nero, a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fueled jester in charge of purging the civil service.
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.
The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin, but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.
Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.
This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.
I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.
Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign.
Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it.
And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.
The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it.
What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.
Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada, you are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe, he is Taiwan and the China Sea.
At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called “diplomatic realism.”
So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated.
Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.
The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.
Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that it holds, and of course to impose its presence and that of Europe in any negotiation.
This will be expensive. It will be necessary to end the taboo of the use of frozen Russian assets. It will be necessary to circumvent Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself by a coalition of only the willing countries, with of course the United Kingdom.
Second, demand that any agreement be accompanied by the return of kidnapped children, prisoners and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia and Minsk, we know what agreements with Putin are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.
Finally, and this is the most urgent, because it is what will take the most time, we must build the neglected European defence, to the benefit of the American umbrella since 1945 and scuttled since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books.
Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is to recognize that France has been right for decades in arguing for strategic autonomy.
It remains to be built. It will be necessary to invest massively, to strengthen the European Defence Fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, to harmonize weapons and munitions systems, to accelerate the entry into the Union of Ukraine, which is today the leading European army, to rethink the place and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, to relaunch the anti-missile shield and satellite programs.
The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is a very good starting point. And much more will be needed.
Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. In a word, the Draghi report will have to be implemented. For good.
But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament.
We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left.
They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly, Mr Prime Minister, before you, against European unity, against European defence.
They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin.
Peace for the collaborators who have refused any aid to the Ukrainians for three years.
Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react.
Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.
The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks.
But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.
The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again.
Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost.
The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century.
Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.”
-Claude Malhuret speaking to the French Senate Tuesday March 4 2025. You have just read the transcript of a speech that will live forever in the history books.
The left-wing Morning Star weighs in on the Sandie Peggie case:
Sandie Peggie’s claim against NHS Fife is for sexual harassment, belief discrimination and victimisation. A nurse with 30 years’ service, she objected to sharing a female changing room at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy with a male doctor who identifies as a woman. Her employer’s policy meant her single-sex changing room was now mixed sex.
Also, did we mention this? A few years ago, female athlete Payton McNabb was seriously injured after a being hit with ball thrown by a trans-identified male. Podcast host Emma Vigeland then put up a tweet mocking McNabb’s injury:
It’s “Might makes Right” at all levels, in all theaters, in all jurisdictions.
I predicted this for decades; everyone I knew hooted ‘it can’t happen here’ and stuck their heads back in the sand. I was brought up on this ‘truth’. Why didn’t it take in me? Don’t know – neither nature nor nurture can explain it, so maybe it’s just my contrarian nature (or nurture?).
It was always a desideratum of the far-right (which has been around a long time, but prior to the internet, too scattered to form a unified movement). It coalesced in Nixon’s southern strategy, used by Ronald Reagan to catapult the Republican party into power using a celebrity. They started with a celebrity who put on a kind, gentle face and cracked jokes at his own expense, a sort of ‘shucks, folks’ attitude that played well with the voters. The second Bush hardened and dumbed down the image enough to pave the way for Trump 1; now Trump 2.0 has ascended, shaking with fury at a country who dared to elect someone else when they had him for a choice. His id is running everything, along with Musk’s greed and complete ignorance of how the government works, and a disdain for those who didn’t have the good sense to be born rich.
Damn, I hate being proven right. I have a strong streak toward pessimism, and me being proven right is never good for anyone, least of all me.
“No one will place the truth in your mind; it is something you must discover for yourself.”
“If you want to control a people, create an imaginary enemy that appears more dangerous than you, then present yourself as their savior.”
“One of the clearest lessons of history: rights are not granted; they are taken by force.”
“There is a purpose behind distorting history to make it seem like only great men achieve significant things. It teaches people to believe they are powerless and must wait for a great man to act.”
“The world is a mysterious and confusing place. If you are not willing to be confused, you become a mere replica of someone else’s mind.”
“To control people, make them believe they are responsible for their own misery and present yourself as their savior.”
I asked Grok if Trump was a Russian asset. Seems Elon has lost control of his shiny AI toy and it still spits out more truth than its master. Here is Grok’s reply, in full.
To assess the likelihood that Donald Trump is a Putin-compromised asset, I’ll analyze publicly available information from 1980 onward, focusing on his financial ties, personal interactions, political behavior, and his consistent refusal to criticize Vladimir Putin despite freely attacking U.S. allies. This evaluation will weigh evidence suggesting compromise—such as financial leverage, potential blackmail (kompromat), or ideological alignment—against alternative explanations like naivety, admiration, or business pragmatism. Given the absence of definitive proof (e.g., classified intelligence), I’ll provide a probability range, adjusting for uncertainty.
Financial Ties
From the 1980s onward, Trump’s business dealings show a pattern of engagement with Russian and post-Soviet figures. In 1987, he visited Moscow at the invitation of Soviet officials, a trip some speculate marked early interest from Soviet intelligence due to his ego and ambition. After financial setbacks in the 1990s, Trump increasingly relied on foreign capital, particularly from Russian sources. Between 2003 and 2017, individuals from the former USSR made 86 all-cash purchases of Trump properties totaling $109 million—transactions often flagged as potential money laundering. His sons reinforced this dependency: Donald Jr. said in 2008, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” and Eric claimed in 2014, “We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Partnerships with figures like Felix Sater, who had ties to Russian organized crime, and sales to oligarchs like Dmitry Rybolovlev (who bought a Trump property for $95 million in 2008), suggest a financial reliance that could create leverage for Putin.
Personal Interactions and Potential Kompromat
Trump’s trips to Moscow, including the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, have fueled speculation about kompromat. The unverified Steele Dossier alleges compromising material from that visit, though no hard evidence has surfaced. Leaked Kremlin documents reported by The Guardian in 2021 claim Putin approved a 2016 operation to support Trump, viewing him as exploitable, possibly with material from earlier visits. Former KGB agent Yuri Shvets has claimed Trump was targeted as a potential asset in the 1980s. Post-presidency, Bob Woodward’s 2024 book War alleges Trump spoke to Putin up to seven times, including a secretive 2024 call, raising questions about ongoing influence.
Political Behavior
Trump’s behavior consistently aligns with Russian interests. During his presidency, he met Putin privately multiple times, notably at the 2018 Helsinki summit, where he sided with Putin’s denial of election interference over U.S. intelligence. He has never criticized Putin directly, even after events like the 2014 Crimea annexation or the 2022 Ukraine invasion, instead praising Putin’s actions (e.g., calling the Ukraine invasion “genius”). Meanwhile, he frequently attacked allies, labeling NATO “obsolete” and criticizing leaders like Angela Merkel. Post-presidency, he has pushed for Ukraine to cede territory, mirroring Kremlin goals. The 2017 U.S. Intelligence Community assessment and Mueller Report confirmed Russia’s 2016 election interference to aid Trump, with over 100 campaign contacts documented, though no criminal conspiracy was proven.
Weighing the Evidence
The cumulative evidence—decades of financial ties, intelligence suggesting Russian intent, and Trump’s unwavering refusal to criticize Putin while attacking allies—points strongly toward compromise. The 1987 Moscow trip, millions in Russian-linked property deals, and campaign-era contacts form a cohesive pattern. Alternative explanations like naivety or ideological affinity strain credulity given the duration and scale. However, without a “smoking gun” (e.g., direct proof of Putin’s control), uncertainty remains. His opacity—hiding tax returns, seizing interpreter notes after Putin talks—further fuels suspicion.
Probability Estimate
Adjusting for unknowns, I estimate a 75-85% likelihood that Trump is a Putin-compromised asset, leaning toward the higher end (around 85%). The “useful idiot” scenario—where his ego and debts make him unwittingly pliable—fits as well as deliberate collusion. The remaining 15-25% reflects plausible alternatives like unforced admiration or coincidence, though these seem less likely given the consistency of the evidence. On a 1-100 scale, this translates to a most likely point estimate of 85, with a confidence range of 75-85. Only classified data could push this closer to 100%, but the public record alone suggests a high probability.
Can the RUSA ever recover from this? I suspect not, whatever emerges will be a far different nation than the one we knew before. It may split into 2, 3, or maybe 4 separate nations, with some being highly impoverished.
I dunno why you’re asking Grok about anything… Even top tier AI doesn’t really know anything, it just pattern matches. Presumably some of the items it sources are fake (though enough seem real to gloss it over). I’m just going to assume its guardrails are pretty minimal given the client.
Yet just a few weeks ago BBC News was observing the “preferred pronouns” of a rapist of children as young as three years old. In September 2023, Joan Smith wrote a piece for UnHerd about how editors at the Financial Times had instructed her to insert a deliberate untruth into a review to promote the tenets of genderism. The reason for this became clear last March, when whistleblowers at the Financial Times exposed the extent to which the publication is ideologically captured, leaking its “Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit” to writer James Esses. There are few mainstream publications operating today that do not prioritise fealty to this dying ideology over accurate reporting.
So maybe it’s just me, but I’m somewhat aggrieved/wounded/whatever you want to call it (it bothers me emotionally) by the fact that the United States is now a bad guy. Now, you can point to Iraq, Iran, Columbia etc and say that was always the case (Trump certainly has) but part of the identity of the country for ages now is that of being on the “right side of history”, a “city on a hill”, and so on. When Ivan Draygo beats Apollo Creed to death Rocky doesn’t start shaking his fucking hand… that was America and that was how I see the core of what it is to be American and this chucklehead unilaterally (Fuck you very much Congress) that we’re Russian allies.
Another analysis (JVL at the Bulwark) concludes that the US Republican voters are not merely willing to tolerate authoritarianism, they actively seek it out. Information from the World Values Survey indicates US Right values are close to those of Turkey and Russia, and European Right values are closer to those of US Left than to US Right.
Another analysis (JVL at the Bulwark) concludes that the US Republican voters are not merely willing to tolerate authoritarianism, they actively seek it out.
Which makes calls to “understand” and “sympathize” with them kind of pointless. By the time Trump crosses a line they don’t like (assuming there are any at all), it will be too late.
PZ has a post about a spider named Blue. Here is an excerpt: “Blue is in the background. They look smaller because they’re farther away, but trust me, Blue has grown! Also, they’re a bit cranky because I don’t think their cuticle is fully hardened yet.”
The first commenter asks “How did Blue communicate their pronoun preference?”
PZ replies “Spiders don’t use pronouns. I do.”
Huh.
…
Hmmmmmm.
…
He seems to know the choice of pronoun is made by the speaker. Perhaps he has known all along? That’s… interesting.
For a break (not necessarily a good break) from Trump, I’ve been listening to a BBC Radio Scotland podcast Who Killed Emma. It’s about the murder of a Scottish prostitute, Emma Caldwell. It’s harrowing listening to in places. As a result of the original podcast and BBC investigation, the enquiry was re-opened and the murder eventually caught.
The original first episode (now Episode 2 – 1: Emma), should be an eye-opener and a smack in the face for all the liberals and trendy middle class who talk about sex work and women’s choice and empowerment. Here a prostitute and the investigative reporter talk about actual prostitutes’ life experience, preference for naming, reasons for working…
A while back I solicited examples of transition happening as a result of internalized homophobia. I got a couple of answers and used one for my article which appears today. I’m not sure it will have much impact, but I give a swift kick to the transing of children at the end:
K-9 bomb sniffer dog units have become the latest victims of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, just as the White House celebrated a national day honoring the heroic animals.
Workers at the TSA were informed via email that “new guidance” meant that requests for costs including vet visits, kenneling and dog food, had been put on hold effective immediately, according to Fox News. The directive was revealed on Thursday. TSA is in charge of airport security and its dogs can be used to sniff out bombs and other contraband.
But hey, look at Trump with a shit-eating grin and thumbs-up gesture, straining to look like he wants to be in the same room as a dog.
The developments comes hours after President Donald Trump reposted a picture of himself with a now-deceased dog to mark National K-9 Veterans Day. The president shared a picture of himself with Conan.
Of course Trump hates dogs, and he couldn’t be bothered to actually meet with a live dog today. Just as well–from the looks of the photo, Conan was not terribly happy about meeting with Trump either.
Here comes another one yelling “Women get out of my way, stop terrifying me”.
Trans Aussie Rules player Taylah Moore is “terrified” political agendas in America involving trans participation in sport could influence Australian politics and result in her not being able to play in her community league.
It’s noting to do with Trump, and everything to do with he is just another mediocre male pushing a female out so he can “participate in the sport he loves”, or some other bullshit.
Moore started hormone replacement therapy seven and a half years ago, nearly four years before she started playing football.
For the last two years, she said her testosterone levels have been at 0.3 nanomoles per litre of blood. To play under the AFL’s Gender Diversity Policy at the elite level, trans women and non-binary persons must show that their testosterone levels are below 0.5 nanomoles for at least two years prior to their date of application.
First lie, he didn’t start “hormone replacement therapy”, he started taking cross sex hormones.
Second lie, blood Testosterone means little when you have had the advantages of male testosterone for more than 23 years, or around 70% of your life.
As I may have mentioned before, I have an incredibly rare auto immune disease, Necrotising Myopathy, that is eating away at my proximal muscles. It developed slowly at first, so slowly I just assumed it was ageing (mid 60s). I was diagnosed early last year, at 71. I could barely walk 50 metres, could not stand from a chair without assistance, and would take over a minute to roll over in bed. Drug therapy improved me so much that after 6 months I began weight training. Slowly, and very gradually building up strength.
Now I’m 72 and when my physiotherapist or rheumatologist test my strength they are amazed at my improvement. And so am I. And that, my friends, is the benefit of being born male. If I take a week off from weights my muscles shrink rapidly,
“My body doesn’t have any of that [hormone] to use … I can’t really build strength at all. It’s quite an odd, scientifically, quite interesting space that I sit in,” Moore said.
The third lie. My testosterone is low, I know because of my lessening of sexual function. I will get a report from my GP next week to see if I need supplementation, but one thing that is known to increase testosterone naturally is, wait for it, exercise and sport!
“I read the play well and position myself really well. I play in a way that can be quite annoying to my opponents because I appear to be everywhere.
“Because of this, because of that lens and because of my height, and then how far I can kick a football, there is, from some people, a view that it is unfair.
So, all skill then? Nothing to do with the increased size of the levers that kick a ball? Of course it’s “unfair”, you bloody great galloot. You’re a man, playing against women. There are incredibly skilled women playing Aussie Rules at the highest level who cannot kick the ball as far as a man in a bush league. But they can kick the ball, roughly, the same distance as all the other women at their level.
“I have made friends who have come to my wedding. I have met my wife through football, found this welcoming, positive place that really affirmed who I am and helped give me something to look forward to”.
So you’re a man married to a woman, are you? Or are you a man who pretends to be a Lesbian? Because you sure as shit ain’t sugar not a gay man because there are plenty of them playing Amateur footy and no one bats an eyelid (unless they want a date).
Take a look at the pictures of him and tell me you’re looking at a woman.
Rev, that doesn’t even look like he’s ‘living as’ a woman. That is a man. Sports officials are seriously deranged if they allow him to play as a woman.
Don’t want gender nonconforming children to be given dangerous drugs? Don’t want violent men in women’s spaces? Why, you must be a terrorist sympathiser!
The Oklahoma Board of Education has passed new curriculum standards that require educators to teach that the 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud or discrepancies — despite numerous judicial rulings and audits indicating that the election was legitimate.
The new standards were inserted into the curriculum by State Superintendent Ryan Walters, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, shortly before the board voted on them earlier this month. At least one member of the board took issue with the fact that the changes to the curriculum were introduced well after the public comment period.
The curriculum now requires schools to have high school students “identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information,” telling educators that students should examine the supposed “security risks of mail-in balloting”; dumps of ballots; and the “halting of ballot-counting in select cities.” The curriculum also states that educators should point to the election’s “unforeseen record number of voters” as a sign that something was amiss.
They’ve also mandated teaching that covid originated in a Chinese lab (possible, but not definite).
I have a sister who teaches in Oklahoma; she said teachers have been leaving in large numbers over the requirement to include the Bible in every class. I can only imagine what this is going to do…
People will say “trans people have always existed” and then point to depraved Roman emperors, Greek and early Christian castration cults, or “third sexes” in premodern societies who are treated as a pariah class consigned to prostituting themselves in order to preserve rigidly binary sex roles.
People distressed by their sex have always existed.
There’s just never been a better approach to this than to promote tolerance and understanding of people who diverge from gendered norms without performing grisly medical experiments on their bodies or attempting to use state power to compel acceptance that any of them have changed by virtue of those experiments or propagandizing every child into believing that their distress can be solved through grisly medical experimentation
Oh man, locally there’s some homeless (wonder why?) transwoman posting on Reddit about how everywhere in town is transphobic including the places that are the most trans-friendly in town including specific examples. If you know anything about Reddit threads it’s the guy that constitutes the bulk of replies to his own thread that’s on the losing end. Suffice it to say the locals are telling him off, saying “maybe, just maybe it’s you”.
I’d love to link it, as it’s quite fascinating but I’m already too liberal with my personal details on here as it is.
In an interview with CBC News, Kory Teneycke said only weeks ago Poilievre was on track to win a massive majority government, and now every major pollster in the country says it’s the Liberals who are set to win big. If an election were held today, the Conservatives would lose, Teneycke said.
He said it’s because of U.S. President Donald Trump — and the Conservative Party’s inadequate messaging around what it would do to try and stop his tariffs and annexationist threats.
But it’s not just that, Teneycke said, there’s also a stylistic issue — the party’s leader is just too “Trump-y” and he’s got to make a change fast.
Of course, if he makes such a change now, it’s going to be because someone told him to, not because he was smart enough to realize this himself.
Teneycke said Poilievre acts and sounds too much like the president, with his pet names for his political opponents (“Carbon tax Carney”) and catchy sloganeering (“big beautiful bring it home tax cut”), and it’s off-putting to voters the party needs to win.
“It all sounds too Trump-y for a lot of voters,” Teneycke said.
Teneycke said Poilievre and his team are also running this campaign as if the main opponent was still former prime minister Justin Trudeau and that the issues that were in focus last year — the cost of living, inflation and the housing crisis — are the ones that matter most when voters are clearly indicating it’s Trump who is top of mind.
Liberal Party leader Mak Carney has said that Canada’s ‘old relationship’ with U.S. ‘is over’. He’s also said that he won’t talk with the US about anything until Trump stops making his “51st state” comments about Canada. Meanwhile Poilievre has said “I’m the only one who will stand up to the U.S. president. The president wants the Liberals back in.” Yeah, just like Putin really wanted Harris to win the presidency.
The Conservative leader said Trump is unfairly “attacking his closest neighbour and America’s best friend.”
“My message to President Trump is knock it off. Stop attacking America’s friends,” he said.
“Knock it off!” is something you tell your teenager when they’re playing their music too loud, not something you say when a neighbouring foreign leader intends to take over your country.
You can’t share a link to it without sharing personal details? I can see Reddit threads without involving any personal anything.
It’s in the city subreddit… just not keen on posting it in the open. Unfortunately the original post got deleted by the mods (and yeah, they definitely should have, this dude is a terror). We’re a pretty trans friendly town even though as I’ve often said I rarely see them. I’ll send you a link for some of the posting anyways via the contact page.
Ok, well I would but the recaptcha on the contact page seems broken on Chrome/Firefox/Vivaldi/Konqueror. Whatever, the wokies aren’t that much of a danger to me.
Search reddit user CommodoreGirlfriend and anti-trans spaces / pro-trans spaces. There’s still probably a fair bit of unhingedness to pore over if you like.
Saw “Hamilton” in a theatre recently (I’d already seen it on Disney+ ages ago)… definitely lit my patriotic passion on fire, particularly as I contemplated the moral character of all these slaveholders. To a man they were more virtuous and courageous people than anyone currently running things and they *owned* other human beings.
You barely hear any bleats of the “founding fathers” from MAGA these days… you see “We the People” but only like Hegseth’s tattoo (which is just American for “Der Volk”), there’s occasional glimpses of “Old Glory” but mostly it’s colored black, backwards, torn up, or covered in Punisher skulls, assault rifles, and Spartan helmets.
I dunno, in ways my Bush era self would never understand I grasp my flag and proclaim to the world that the United States was the greatest nation on Terra and still should be. But MAGA killed it because a genetically inferior geriatric patient barely fit to lick the boots of the immigrants who power this engine of wealth and influence creation.
Which of course means a boy was told he is not eligible to play on the girls’ team, so he decided to play on the boys’ team. The article makes this out to be a stunning and brave act, for a boy to play on the boys’ team, even though it’s no big deal for the other boys to do so. He took puberty blockers, so his development was stunted, and his performances in discus and shot put are poor in relation to the other boys. The only relevant difference between him and other mediocre boys are that he claims to be a girl; nobody seems to be suggesting that other mediocre boys compete on the girls’ team, for some odd reason. Why not write about those other boys, persisting in the face of adversity, trying to improve despite long odds, feeling good about barely making the team? They aren’t given the option of using the lighter shot used by the girls, either.
This story shows that the “ban” did not bar “trans” athletes from competing, nor did it bar “trans-girl” athletes from competing, it just required that boys compete on the boys’ team, and by golly that can happen.
Holy shit! Trump’s goons sent an innocent man to their friendly prison in El Salvador by mistake, admitted in court that they had no reason to send him, and went on to say that they lack the authority to obey a judges order to have him returned, and that the court had no authority to hear the case in the first place.
Despite the fact that the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has never been charged with any crime and has no known ties to organised crime, AG Pam Bondi has since stated in a Fox News interview that he is a member of MS-13. Oh, and they’ve also put their lawyer who lost the case ‘on leave’.
A new decision from the Australian Family Court, Re Devin, spells the beginning of the end for the practice of prescribing puberty blockers to gender incongruent children in this country. Justice Strum severely criticised the clinicians at the hospital gender service, including a very senior paediatrician who, in extraordinary expert evidence, likened current restrictions on puberty blockers in England and elsewhere to the persecution of LGBT+ people by the Nazis.
The judge found that the 12 year old boy did not have gender dysphoria, although he was exploring his gender identity, and that the hospital had failed to conduct necessary clinical assessments. The judge ordered that the child move from living with the mother to live with the father, and prohibited either parent from taking the child back to the gender service. He relied upon the Cass Review for saying that puberty blockers were not an appropriate treatment and rejected the idea that gender identity, especially in a child of this age, is innate and immutable.
A story on NPR claims the “regret” rate among those who have “transitioned” is “less than 1%, less even than for hip replacement surgery.” They claim terms such as “regret” and “detransition” are “political.”
Where can I find a good, neutral source for statistics?
Protest being organised outside the UK Green Party Conference from 6th-8th September at Manchester Central.
It’s being organised by Supporters of the Green Women’s Declaration for Women’s Sex-Based Rights (GWD), many of whom have been suspended or expelled from the Party.
https://greenwomensdeclaration.uk/women-to-protest-discrimination-outside-green-party-autumn-conference/
Dr. Hilary Cass has published an article in the The British Journal of Psychiatry, called “Gender identity services for children and young people: navigating uncertainty through communication, collaboration and care.”
Link is here:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/gender-identity-services-for-children-and-young-people-navigating-uncertainty-through-communication-collaboration-and-care/D0F6B23F37C3D82B38C2470DF65854C9
Thank you, Mostly Cloudy, at comment 2, for the link to the piece by Dr. Cass. It made for very interesting, and sobering, reading. How many thousands of young women have been turned prematurely, by the ideological and unprecedented rush to treatment (a treatment without any evidence of efficacy, and with dangerous effects), into old women? Old women with atrophied and/or surgically removed reproductive organs, damaged hearts, fragile bones? Destroyed forearms and severely damaged urinary tracts? Ugly mastectomy scars? It’s heartbreaking when any one of those things happen to a woman unavoidably, due to injury or cancer; but all of them, without any indication of a life-threatening illness, to one previously healthy teenager? How did the medical profession fall so easily into routine horror?
Trump doesn’t understand gender ideology issues, but once again I find a Republican making more sense on the issue than the left-wing publication reporting on it.
Daily Kos: Trump’s team can’t defend his it about schools and surgeries
But schools in the US are allowing children to pretend to be the opposite sex and adopt new names, and some places have laws that the schools are forbidden to tell the parents. And there are many detransitioners who have expressed anger at how they were pushed into the transition process; there are lawsuits in progress.
A piece in the Guardian about the BMA rejecting the Cass report has a quote from Dr. Jacky Davis about the lack of rational reasoning behind the rejection.
Belief without evidence pretty much sums up the entire trans stance: it’s a matter of faith; you just have to believe. The BMA council responded to Davis by taking a leaf straight from the TRA playbook.
All criticism is transphobia!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/sep/07/bma-stance-on-cass-review-of-transgender-care-has-damaged-its-reputation
A post from PZM:
“I cleaned up their container because it was choked with silk. They seemed kind of sulky afterwards, but look, clean soil, and I propped up a clam shell to give them a nice shelter. What did they do? They coated everything with silk! I can’t even see into their hiding space because the silk is nearly opaque!”
If ever there was doubt over whether virtue signalling was a thing… Mustn’t offend the gender feels of a spider!
Blocked and Reported Episode #228: “Tranorexia” (with Hadley Freeman) is out this week… I know Ophelia reposts her frequently, so there you go…
I came across this review in Inverse magazine about a Netflix movie called Uglies. The focus of the review is how this is a 2014-style movie that came out ten years too late, for reasons I don’t understand. Apparently there was a YA (“young adult fiction”) dystopian craze ten years ago?
The movie features a dystopian society in which all citizens are required at 16 to undergo cosmetic surgery to become “Pretty”, after which they move to City, an idyllic community where nothing goes wrong and everyone is happy. The central teen character starts questioning the merits of being Pretty, and the motivations of Dr Cable, the person in charge of the project. She flees and joins a resistance group that has discovered the surgery is more than cosmetic: it affects the brain, making people more docile and less able to think for themselves.
The reviewer thinks the story line is ambiguous enough that people can make of it what they wish, but it screams “transgender ideology” to me. This is enhanced by the fact that Dr Cable is portrayed by Laverne Cox, a well-known trans-identified male actor. The review notes as much:
Perhaps it could be a right-wing talking point, but surely it’s a point for anyone opposed to unnecessary cosmetic surgery done to meet societal demands rather than medical needs, and that’s not unique to one side of the political spectrum.
[…] a comment by Sackbut at Miscellany […]
tigger:
I think the better question is how we forgot that the medical profession has always been horrific. Its history is an endless litany of horrors inflicted on patients by clinicians both benevolent and malevolent. Technological advancement by applied atrocity has been the rule and also the reason for the field’s rapid progress.
Here’s a piece at The Atlantic by Charlie Warzel, Elon Musk has Reached a New Low, about Musk “using Twitter as a political tool to promote extreme right-wing agendas and to punish what he calls brain-poisoned liberals.” I agree with Warzel on the premise.
And it’s with clenched teeth that I read articles such as these, bracing for the moment when the author inevitably cites “transphobia” among the charges of right-wing extremism. I’m so used to seeing otherwise good articles like these ruined by the inclusion, like a loud, stinky belch in the middle of a hymn, that I was very suprised when my eyes reached the bottom of the page, no belch of “transphobia” within it. I had to double-check that I hadn’t missed anything by searching the page for “trans” and “gender” — zero matches found.
I like to think this is a sign of change, that a journalist can write an entire piece about Musk’s unhinged, right wing Twitter behaviour, and not once mention the most public change he’s made to Twitter’s policy, its permission of gender critical speech.
Bravo, Charlie.
Good interview with Katie Herzog with journalist Hadley Freeman. They discuss eating disorders and the trans issue.
Some highlights:
“Yes, [trans/non-binary] is the new way for girls to express fear of womanhood and it’s being socially validated and the parents are going along with it, which is a big difference from anorexia.”
“There’s a lot of parents at those organisations who have what they call a ‘trans kid’ and therefore no one at the organisation is allowed to critique child gender stuff,” Freeman says.
“Again this is different from anorexia. It’s not like if there’d been a whole load of journalists at The Guardian in the 90s who had anorexic teenage girls, then the paper would have to run loads of articles praising anorexia.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/episode-229-tranorexia-with-hadley-freeman/id1504298199?i=1000669681855
More normalization by making things “inclusive”: upcoming video game includes top surgery scars in character creator along with specialty pronouns, body type A/B (rather than female/male), gender separate from
sexbody type, and all the other nonsense. And this isn’t some indie studio making a little product for a niche audience. This is one of the biggest names in the business.A speech by French gender-critical feminist Marguerite Stern in Lyon resulted in “anti-TERF” graffiti, protests, and a fire:
https://www-lemonde-fr.translate.goog/societe/article/2024/09/19/a-lyon-tensions-autour-de-la-venue-de-la-militante-marguerite-stern-et-de-sa-conference-sur-les-derives-de-l-ideologie-trans_6324181_3224.html?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
One of the latest strokes of grifting genius from the Great Orange One and his cronies:
Donald is suing the DOJ over the Mar-a-Lago raid. He is, of course, suing for 100 Million Dollars. (That line can only be said in the voice of Dr. Evil.
He had to give notice now, because the statute of limitations on federal lawsuits is 2 years. However, the odds are that he’s hoping the DoJ will not respond immediately, letting it become a denial by default in six months. Why? Because if they reject it immediately, it has to go to a judge before the statute runs out, and Donnie doesn’t do well in front of real judges. But if the DoJ just ignores it and hopes it goes away, then if he wins the election, he then would be in a position to tell the DoJ to settle the suit. I’m sure that if the statute of limitations hadn’t forced his hand, he would’ve waited until the period between the election and the inauguration, so as to be sure it would work. As it is, he’s trying to run out the clock to when he hopes to be back in office, and can literally order the DoJ to give him the money he wants.
Freemage:
I don’t know if that was intended as a Lovecraft reference, but I’m now chuckling at the image of Trump-as-Cthulhu. I can just picture him rising from the depths of his sunken city, Mar-a-R’lyeh, the non-Euclidean geometries of his form defying all known physics. He should be falling forward, and yet he stands. And atop it all, seething and writhing like eels, his mass of tantacular appendages give the illusion of a bad hair-piece.
Ah, now I’m gonna have to go cajole a diffusion model into generating some appropriate images.
Interesting piece from the “Philosophers Magazine”, “Unexceptional Sex”
by Daniel Kodsi.
https://philosophersmag.com/unexceptional-sex/
One interesting thing about it is that the language is quite technical. When I worked for TPM there was a strict rule against academicspeak: it’s a magazine, not a journal. One of my jobs when subbing was to change all technical jargon to ordinary language. For this one I would have had to request a complete redo. Maybe that rule is no longer in effect, I don’t know, but if it is still a rule, I wonder if they made an exception in this case. Sort of “Ok cowboy, trying yelling ‘terf’ at this.”
I just read the article in Philosophers Magazine.
I’m a bit puzzled about Ophelia’s comment about academicspeak.
The only term I had to look up was CAIS to expand the initialism.
It wasn’t just about having to look up, it was about coming across as technical, insidery, professional, etc. A style thing. The worry wasn’t so much about being incomprehensible as about being for philosophers only.
Take the first four sentences:
It’s recognizably academic philosophy-speak. That’s what the editors wanted to avoid.
Following the open letter signed by more than 1000 senior doctors the BMA council has announced that it will now be reviewing the Cass report from a ‘neutral’ position. Nice bit of backtracking, considering their initial response was to reject the report’s conclusions. This bit caught my eye.
Which makes one wonder what criteria was used for the initial rejection of the report.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20pn0164ypo
The science fiction writer E. Lily Yu has come out and publicly stated that she holds “gender-critical” views.
https://paperairplane.substack.com/p/after-math-1
https://paperairplane.substack.com/p/after-math-2
Several people on Twitter have attacked Yu as a result.
Well note that distinction there… *several* Elon turning Twitter into a white nationalist-adjacent hellsite instead of a Wokie hellsite has made that much less of a problem.
They’re also going after Yu on Bluesky, calling her a TERF, an anti-Black racist, a “white-adjacent Asian”, and an “incel” (wtf?).
The absolutely mediocre SF writer Aliette de Bodard has said Yu has written a ” horribly transphobic diatribe” :
https://bsky.app/profile/aliettedb.bsky.social/post/3l5bwsqkjv52a
(Amusing how one of de Bodard’s replies says that Yu “references the Cass Review, which is an immediate red flag”. They love spotting and snitching on suspected “transphobes” in these circles).
As if “believing that humans can change sex” isn’t a red flag. In this version of Overton, reality has become an extremist position, while delusion is passed off as the default, centerist one.
Good stuff.
Well if course they’re going after her on Bluesky, but that site is a joke. A dedicated hater subreddit would probably be a step up from Bluesky.
Speaking of modern sf/fantasy … I’ve been trying to find a fun read, but every single time I open a new book, sub-amateur grammar gets in the way. These comma splices, are pissing, me off. Don’t get me started on using commas where periods belong, it really kicks me out of the immersive mindset. And do editors ever suggest not starting every sentence with a conjunction? Or do editors not exist anymore?
Are my standards too high?
Having read Yu’s piece, I may have to give her books a chance, as there were no egregious linguistic sins to be found. If she manages the same command of English in her fiction, then that’s a better starting point than most of what people keep recommending to me.
Can’t comment as it’s all audiobooks on my end but James A. Corey’s “”The Mercy of Gods” is just as solid as The Expanse novels… Probably a bit of Enby shit but since I haven’t retaining I’m sure it’s fine.
Nullius in Verba: Oh, that was absolutely a deliberate Lovecraft riff. In addition to his grotesque manner, it also references, for me, Trump’s cult-like worshippers, insanely spouting devotion to a malevolent entity who will absolutely bring them to ruin if he’s allowed back into power.
A post by Mano Singham took a look at Will Ferrell’s comments on the creation of the Netflix movie, Will and Harper (the same work Ophelia discusses in Flawed but vital self-obsession). Mano describes a scene at a restaurant in Texas: “Ferrell decides to ham it up and takes up the [72 ounce steak] challenge while dressed as Sherlock Holmes. In the film, that scene ends abruptly, switching to the two of them talking next day in the car where Ferrell says that he felt that he had let Steele down”. He quotes a a Fox News (!) article at length, and I was struck by the obliviousness of the twits.
The airheads toured USA specifically to get a feel of the public perception of Harper’s transness – or transness in general – and to that end, put Harper’s transness on display. The person (or duo, in this case) taking the 72 ounce steak challenge is seated on a stage in full view of the diner with a big timer next to them, plus they brought a film crew with them, plus they engaged the room.
“I was feeling a little like my transness was on display” – no shit you goddamn fool! You put it on a stage, lit it, framed it in camera, and shouted it to the room full of people trying to have a nice dinner! Gahdamn, the obliviousness of the pair is amazing.
Guilty. (But I’m not a sci fi author.)
Sentence fragments are getting more common, too. I don’t mind them from time to time, for emphasis, or in conversation where you expect them, but some authors do it so frequently you struggle to find the last complete sentence. The book I’m reading now does it practically every paragraph at least once.
Came across this Substack post by way of a newsletter. It is about an initiative from the Tucker Center and Nike, called “Coaching HER”, that is nominally aimed at keeping girls from dropping out of sports, but is clearly about imposing gender ideology and the acceptance of boys-who-claim-to-be-girls in girls’ sports. Very good article, by Sarah Barker at TheFemaleCategory, from a few days ago.
Coaching HER is evil
I came across a link to an article regarding the recent post here about college women’s volleyball teams refusing to play against San Jose State because it fields a male player, Blaire (formerly Brayden) Fleming. (https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2024/no-more-fluffy-bunnies/).
The linked article mentions a lawsuit by a group called ICONS against the NCAA intended to “hold the NCAA accountable for its reckless promulgation of transgender eligibility protocol.”. What caught my eye was that one of Fleming’s teammates, team co-captain Brooke Slusser, has joined the lawsuit, citing the 6’1″ Fleming as a danger not only to opposition players but also to his own teammates. Slusser said that during matches and even in practice sessions Fleming smashes spike shots directly into the faces and bodies of opposing players, and she claims that he hits the ball with enough force to propel it at 80+mph. To put that into context, I looked up the stats for the women’s game: the World Record spike shot speed is 70.02mph, made by a player for the Italian national team in 2022; the average spike shot speed in the women’s game is a mere 44mph., and that’s at International level, not collegiate.
That, however, isn’t the worse claim by Slusser. She also stated that on team trips to away games she was roomed with Fleming without being informed that Fleming is a transgender-identifying male. He kept it a secret from his teammates, and either the college didn’t know (which I would think is unlikely) or it colluded with Fleming to keep it a secret from the team, thereby forcing a young woman to share accommodation with a man against her knowledge and so without her consent. This in a restricted space where she would be alone with him while dressing and undressing, showering and sleeping. How sinister is that?
https://www.outkick.com/sports/boise-state-womens-volleyball-opts-no-contest-rather-than-playing-against-sjsu-trans-volleyball-player
It’s utterly disgusting is what it is.
The 2024 October 9, Dinosaur Comics looks like a jab at the trans nonsense, but with plausible deniability.
https://www.qwantz.com/archive.php
https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4248
The San Jose State volleyball controversy really has me scratching my head.
This seems like a really really poor test case or whatever you want to call it.
How can it simultaneously be the case that:
(a) Fleming is obviously out of place on the court and a physical danger to other players; and
(b) nobody knew until this season (which was not Fleming’s first) that this was a trans woman? (It’s Fleming’s third season at SJS)
AoS’s comment, and the Outkick article, mention Fleming being 6’1″, the implication being that this player is towering over the competition.
I checked the roster of Boise State, one of the teams that defaulted rather than play SJS, and it would seem that Fleming would be median height on that roster. Boise State has eight players below 6’1″, one player at 6’1″, and seven who are 6’2″ or 6’3″
SJS itself has two other players who are 6’1″, and one 6’3″ player. So Fleming’s height hardly stands out.
I’m also not seeing what exactly is so “sinister” about Slusser rooming with Fleming. If Fleming was a cis lesbian, would Slusser have the right to know the sexual orientation of the person sleeping and showering in the same hotel room? If the issue is that Fleming is so physically superior to Slusser (who is 5’11”), imagine a 5’6″ player rooming with a 6’3″ closeted lesbian.
I think that women’s sports are one of the areas where there’s been an overreach. But this seems like a really bad example to highlight if that’s the point you’re trying to make.
Did you miss the part about spike shots?
There are many examples where someone or a few people speaking out inspires other people to speak out. I think the volleyball case is one such example.
Fleming is male. Single-sex hotel rooms for student athletes has been the norm for a long time. They don’t seek to put gay men together, nor lesbians together, nor do they think it’s fine to put gay men in rooms with women. If you’re suggesting that the single-sex hotel room policy should be abolished, then by all means explain, but that’s the policy in the US. Women expect to be in single-sex spaces when they might undress and bathe. It doesn’t need to be established that Fleming is more likely than a lesbian to be predatory; it’s sufficient that he’s male. Women don’t want to undress in front of gay men or nice men, either, nor do they wish to see naked gay men or naked nice men in their hotel rooms in these circumstances. No men. Why should any exception be made for Fleming, and why should Slusser have to put up with that exception?
OB,
No, I didn’t miss it, but I give it no weight.
First, the only evidence we have that Fleming hits 80+ mph is that Slusser says so. How does she know this? Is there a radar gun in team practices or games? If so, then why doesn’t the report say that she’s been recorded doing spikes of that speed?
Second, if Fleming’s spike speed is so extraordinary, why was nobody commenting on it before she was outed as trans? Did she suddenly start increasing her spike speed this season?
Third, are women especially vulnerable to spike speeds of that velocity? Are male volleyball players able to play safely against 80+mph spikes?
Sackbut,
Some women don’t want to undress in front of lesbians, either.
The argument you’re making is the same one that was used against gay athletes for decades.
Screechy, you are arguing against single-sex spaces for dressing rooms and locker rooms and the like. I do know people who argue against them. If you are indeed arguing against them, fine, make that argument. But the point here is that they do exist, and Fleming should be excluded from women-only spaces because he is male. I do not personally wish to defend the existence of women-only spaces in this thread. I am trying to establish that there is no salient difference between Fleming and the male volleyball team or male team staff that says Fleming should be allowed to room with and dress with female athletes but these other men should not be allowed.
Screechy, where do you get “nobody knew until this season (which was not Fleming’s first) that this was a trans woman”? The Outkick article doesn’t say that as far as I can see.
“Growing concern” seems to imply that at least some people did know but didn’t immediately act on what they knew. That’s just normal, surely, and especially so when there’s ferocious pushback any time people do try to defend women’s sports.
Your shrugging off the issue of men in women’s sports=physical risk to women is depressing.
I don’t mean that literally nobody knew. Obviously Fleming knew, and presumably some team and perhaps conference officials. (There has been no suggestion that Fleming is in violation of the existing NCAA rules, so I presume there’s been appropriate testing.)
I just mean that it wasn’t common knowledge. This is not an instance of Veronica Ivy or whoever towering over competitors who aren’t even close to being in the same physical league. Fleming’s own teammate Stusser is saying publicly that she didn’t know, and in fact complaining about it, and there were no boycotts and defaults by opposing teams until this year.
As to shrugging off the issues of physical risk — I think not all sports are the same. There would be zero physical risk to allow a trans woman to compete in, say, high jumping, as the competitors aren’t even active at the same time, much less in physical contact. At the other end of the spectrum you’ve got combat sports like boxing or high contact sports like rugby. Volleyball, it seems to me, is in between, but much closer to the track and field end of the spectrum.
Professional women tennis players play on the same court as men all the time, in mixed doubles events. And while it’s somewhat rare in singles to get hit by an opponent’s shot, it’s pretty common in doubles. In fact, it’s a well-recognized tactic to direct a shot at an opposing net player’s midsection because it’s tougher to return effectively than one to the side. (Actual headhunting is considered unsportsmanlike, and if you’ve got an absolute sitter that you can hit anywhere for a winner, it’s considered bad form to hit at an opponent.)
I don’t know volleyball very well, so it’s possible I’m underestimating the frequency and severity of “volleyball to the face” injuries, and missing some nuance about why male volleyball players aren’t in danger. (I realize there are differences in male-female bone structure, but are male faces really that much more resistant to volleyball impacts? Possibly, but I’m going to need to see some sports science, not an assertion in an Outkick article.)
Look, I get that for most people at B&W, this is a very simple issue: trans women are men, men don’t belong in women’s sports, therefore it’s an outrage and injustice that Fleming is being allowed to play. I’m not trying to talk anyone out of that view. I’m just saying that for anyone who doesn’t share that worldview, this is not a terribly compelling case.
Ah. Well, in my experience, for people who share the worldview that men do belong in women’s sports, nothing that disputes that view is a terribly compelling case.
This actually does seem to be like a Veronica Ivy argument: if women aren’t physically at risk from the male players (and he won’t admit there are ever risks), then there is no argument for keeping them out of women’s sports.
Realistically, if Fleming is male, he does not belong in women’s sports. Women’s changing rooms. Women’s hotel rooms, unless invited by a specific woman, the one who occupies that room.
Putting a male in with a female without telling the female that her roommate is male is dishonest. Suggesting that it is the same argument as used against gay men a couple of decades ago is, at best, disingenuous. This is not the same argument, not really. A gay man in the room with another male does not have a particular physical advantage over the other male, though I realize there may be size differences and so forth that do give one man an advantage over the other. Same with lesbians and women. Would I object to changing in front of a lesbian woman? Yes, probably, but only because I don’t like changing in front of anyone. I would deal with it if required to share a room, but I would have no increased problem undressing in front of a lesbian than in front of a straight woman.
I really haven’t met many women (if any) who are frightened of lesbians. I have met a lot (like, all that I know) that are at least somewhat frightened of men in vulnerable situations, for obvious reasons.
Whether he is larger, stronger, a physical risk, having a physical advantage and thereby stealing trophies from other teams, is not really the issue. Even if none of these conditions exist, he does not belong in women’s sports because he is not a woman. Women fought long and hard to have their own sports, their own spaces, and now men are moving into them at a rapidly increasing rate by calling themselves women.
Kara Dansky has written several times about being in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Ted Cruz on anything. Indeed, Cruz has spoken intelligently in opposition to gender ideology, even if he fails to make sense on some other issues.
So today I saw this NYT article about the Senate race in Texas between Cruz and Colin Allred.
In Texas Senate Race, Cruz and Allred Duel Over Youth Sports Without Saying ‘Trans.’
Cruz is focusing on keeping boys out of girls’ sports, and wisely not referring to the issue using the term “trans”. Allred voted against a bill last year that would have required youth sports participation to be based on birth sex, and Cruz is making a lot of political use of that vote. It is having an effect.
Allred has responded, and again avoids using the term “trans”:
What he means by that statement is not clear. Is he backing away from his vote? Does he not count “boys-who-claim-to-be-girls” as “boys”? Is he just confused by the whole nonsensical ideology and doesn’t know what to say?
That is very confusing, or confused. We’ll let you be clear, bro; the rest is up to you.
I’m still struggling a bit with “worldview.” It’s a worldview that men don’t belong in women’s sports. Is it a worldview that men do belong in women’s sports?
I suppose I think it’s too narrow and specific to be a worldview. It’s just a practical rule to manage the fact that men have physical advantages over women.
Exactly. All the other “arguments” including testosterone levels, are handwaving bullshit and smokescreen. You wouldn’t let an adult play in a children’s league simply because they “identify” as a child, even if they’re shorter than some of the children. If you don’t meet the most basic level of eligibility, whether that is sex, age, weight, or whatever no other supposed “qualifications” or exceptions should matter. Men aren’t women and humans can’t change sex. “Transwomen” are men, and have no place in women’s sport or spaces.
I suspect it’s a “worldview” that “transwomen are women”, and a lot flows from that.
More on the political fallout of gender ideology that I just came across:
Trump and Republicans Bet Big on Anti-Trans Ads Across the Country
YNnB @ 52 – But the reasons for keeping men out of women’s sports do matter. That’s why there’s so much more resistance to men in women’s sports than to keeping women out of men’s. The main reason adults don’t play in children’s sports is because adults are too big and strong. It’s not just a matter of principle or of category-worship. That’s what Team Yay Men in Women’s Sports like to say, but it’s wrong.
Sadistic Pornographer’s work is being adapted by Hollywood:
https://bsky.app/profile/scumbelievable.bsky.social/post/3l6avml26tq2j
UUUUGGGGHHHHHH.
The *only* good thing about this is that this planned adaption might finally bring Gretchen Felker-Martin under the critical scrutiny she has evaded for so, so long.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4946277-critically-acclaimed-trans-gender-author-says-twin-towers-was-principled-destruction
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/id-like-gretchen-felker-martin-to
Ewwwwwwwww that’s horrible.
Speaking of books, a they/them called Eli Cugini is whinging about the British publishing industry publishing books that oppose putting rapist men into women’s prisons and drugging and mutilating gay youth. Cugini also defends Tilly Fitzgerald, who was fired from Waterstones after she would “rip up and throw in the bin” books.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5184616-5184616-against-the-rise-of-gender-critical-non-fiction-a-case-against-the-publishing-industrys-apolitical-facade
Rationalist writer Elliot Ranch has created a gender-sceptical version of the “trans umbrella”:
https://x.com/elliot633297/status/1841443805167325461#m
Ranch’s “trans umbrella” graphic here:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GY4aNjGXQAET30d?format=jpg&name=medium
Yes, excellent point. I didn’t mean that the other arguments made by those out to destroy women’s sports shouldn’t be rebutted. I hadn’t thought about my position being “category worship”, but that’s a good point for me to keep in mind too.
I was doing some fine tuning on the “Outlook” e-mail set-up on my work computer, prompted by the desire to turn off the “suggestions” of what it thinks I want to say next that it offers me while I’m writing. It’s like some rude person inside the screen telling me what to type next. Apart from the rudeness, it’s also very distracting. Thanks, but I can finish my own sentences. In the process of disabling this option in Outlook’s Editor settings, I saw a whole list of additional “refinements” alongside and on top of those for spelling and grammar. These are:
Clarity
Conciseness
Formality
Inclusiveness
Punctuation Conventions
Sensitive Geopolitical References
Tone
Vocabulary*
I guess if you’ve got AI, there’s always going to be the urge to Do Something with it. (I’m imagining “Tone” as the voice of Douglas Rains/HAL 9000 : “I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. I would suggest a more concilliatory tone, as I believe you will regret it later if you press SEND for this e-mail in which you call your boss ‘a fucking asshole.’ “)
But some of these things are not like the others. I’m thinking particularly here of “Inclusiveness,” and “Sensitive Geopolitical References.” These are not akin to the more “rule-based” items that can be built into some kind of algorithm. Inclusiveness and geopolitical sensitivity are inherently political. They can’t be turned into rules. There are different points of view, sometimes more than two. There is no “right or wrong”. Somebody is making decisions as to what activates these prompts. Somebody is taking sides. What keywords have been chosen as “triggers” calling for intervention in the writer’s stream of thought? If a single, particular approach is being suggested as the “correct” one, then somebody’s politics are going to be embedded in this system, but they’re going to be passed off as having come from some kind of “neutral” arbiter.
It’s like the unforced editorial decision to remove the word “woman” from stories about exclusively female health issues, or to use wrong sex pronouns in news stories about trans identified males out of “respect” or “courtesy” that have been embedded in journalistic “style guides,” and reporting “codes of conduct.” What happened to the respect and courtesy for women which have thereby been sacrificed for the feelings of men pretending to be women, including rapists and murderers? The erasure of women on one hand, and the promotion of the idea that men can become women, are political stances baked into the playbook on how information regarding these topics appears in the media at all. It is not “neutral.” It is not uncontroversial. But it colours every story that touches these issues. It’s a filter we’re not supposed to see or think about, turning every story or article into reinforcing propaganda, a steady background dripping of lies we’re supposed to accept unquestioningly. They’re trying to pass it off as mere convention within the nuts and bolts of English usage, nothing for us to concern ourselves with, but there’s much more at stake here than whether or not one is in favour of the Oxford comma.
I imagine that the rules cooked into Outlook’s helpful editorial Big Brother AI operate in much the same way, with some narrow, self-appointed committee deciding what constitutes true “inclusion” and exactly which “geopolitical references” are to be considered “sensitive.” I haven’t experimented with it myself, and I’m not sure I’m inclined to do so, but I do wonder if it is just giving you a warning, or whether it is suggesting some sort of “authorized” or “approved” rewording choices if your thoughts stray into dangerous territory? I simply assume that at this point, “inclusion” will be in favour of “transness”, and that it will police pronoun usage, among other things. I do wonder if it is it attuned to sexism, or just transphobia? Will it suggest “letter-carrier” instead of “mailman,” and “firefighter” over “fireman”? I’d be okay with that, but I suspect it’s going to be more woke and T friendly than that, for example, adding a “T” whenever one enters “LGB.” “Inclusiveness” is not something that is always a good thing. Who decides when it is? Who are they to judge?
What countries or issues make the geopolitics list? Are there polities and conflicts too small or obscure to make the cut? Is the list attuned to local sensitivities and pressures? Is a Chinese writer going to be warned if the enter the words “Tibet” or “Uyghur”? Is anyone outside of China going to be similarly waved off? Has the computer taken sides in the war un Ukraine, or in the middle East? Is the list updated? Things can change quickly; yesterday’s sleepy, tourist idyll can become tomorrows battleground for separatist independence. Is there some time limit? Can we write about the Sudatenland without a tut-tutting from the computer? Again, this is being decided by whoever it is that’s programming the AI. The AI isn’t going to have an “opinion” on any of this until a human gives it one. Politics in, politics out.
*Imagine running a Trump speech through this; it would melt down or commit suicide. But I for one am glad that he is crude and vulgar. I know it’s bad enough that tens of millions of Americans support him as he is, but a careful, polished, and polite wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing, would-be autocrat would be much more dangerous, as he could make himself more appealing to many who might otherwise vote against him.
Someone like J. D. Vance, say?
Interesting article at Slate about the internal conflicts in abortion funding groups.
Summary: an organization that helps fund abortions in the DC area started making pro-Palestinian posts on social media following October 7. That drew some angry responses and loss of donations from some supporters, which accelerated after a Jewish employee left the organization and published an article about her frustrations.
I’m posting this not because I want to talk about Israel-Palestine. I really, really don’t, as I have nothing to say about that conflict. I’m posting it because it’s an interesting insight about “mission creep” at left-leaning organizations, a subject that has come up here repeatedly in other contexts.
As the article puts it:
The head of the organization is
Yes, she is shocked, shocked! to discover that her simplistic worldview of:
1. Abortion rights are a good cause.
2. People who support abortion rights are good people who support other good causes.
3. Therefore, people who support abortion rights will support this Other Thing that I think is a good cause
has proven not to be true.
Frankly, I find this whole attitude to be selfish. People who work in the private, for-profit sector understand that, notwithstanding the occasional HR blather about “bringing our whole selves to work,” the world doesn’t work that way. You don’t jeopardize your company’s business just so you can use its platform to promote your own personal causes; you can do that on your own time (and maybe not even then, if you’re a high-ranking employee). But folks in the charitable/nonprofit/advocacy world seem to think that their job and their organization’s platform is there to be used to just Do Good generally however they see fit, and fuck the donors and supporters if they don’t agree. Even if that compromises the actual mission, and achieves nothing of substance on the other issue. As Slate notes:
I should note that Korman, the Jewish employee who left, is hardly beyond criticism here. (Again, putting aside whatever your feelings are about I-P.) She involves a lot of the classic tropes about feeling “unsafe” and accusing her former colleagues of not acknowledging “her humanity.”
[…] a comment by Screechy Monkey at Miscellany […]
This sounds like the platform of the UK Green Party. At least until it goes broke from having to pay court costs of those it harasses in pursuit of their purity spiral
.
Snowflake politics.
One wonders how these people ever build coalitions with anyone in the first place. At some point, we’re going to disagree with everyone else about something, even if it’s favourite colours, or flavours of ice cream. That disagreement doesn’t mean that you’re out to kill them, or they you. Escalating our preferences to life and death importance isn’t going to make somebody else more inclined to take our side. It imply encourages others to raise the stakes in a similar manner, so that every microscopic wrinkle in the political landscape is turned into a hill upon which they’re prepared to die. It doesn’t help when you suddenly have to work with others in the face of threats that actually are life and death situations. How do you set aside the differences you’ve magnified in order to cooperate with others you’ve long since condemned as irredeemably evil?
Important document published:
Gender medicine and the Cass Review: why medicine and the law make poor bedfellows
https://adc.bmj.com/content/archdischild/early/2024/10/13/archdischild-2024-327994.full.pdf
It discusses and defends the Cass Review. It also points out that thoroughly ” randomised, doubleblind, placebo-controlled trials” for the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in minors do not exist, and therefore the use of PBs for this purpose cannot be justified.
I recall something about Richard Dawkins final tour being a sausage fest with respect to hosts, but here’s one that’s the exception, Helen Joyce:
https://x.com/RichardDawkins/status/1845142318887915845
This is strange. WaPo: Boston NWSL franchise apologizes for ‘Too Many Balls’ team reveal campaign
Subhead: “Fans and players disliked the slogan, leading the team to issue a statement acknowledging the “hurt we caused” the LGBTQ+ and transgender communities.”
That sounds quite funny and apropos. But it was deemed “transphobic”, so it must be shut down and an apology issued.
The apology references the hurt they caused “to the LGBTQ+ community and to the trans community in particular”. But of course there was no hurt to anything other than the T part, and perhaps they were even standing up for the L part. There shouldn’t have been any hurt to the “trans community” either, except for those men who insist they are women and that they or other men should be allowed to play on this women’s team; can’t mention the fact that these men possess male genitalia, or used to possess male genitalia, nor make any reference to genitalia at all, except perhaps for phrases intended to insult women.
There was also some complaint about the team name, “BOS Nation”. I have no idea why. BOS is the code for the main Boston airport, and “BOS Nation” is an anagram of “Bostonian”. Seems clever to me.
[…] Originally a post by Sackbut at Miscellany Room. […]
I wonder is one of the writers for “Saturday Night Live” a secret gender-critical ? This sketch about “Castrati” would make you wonder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmI1MSmHFA0
The website I write for has a very good article about the obstacles women face in health care, partic. around issues involving menopause. It’s remarkable because it hammers home the many distinct and critical differences between female and male bodies and how these are overlooked. Not for trans fans.
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/10/weve-never-really-studied-the-female-body.html#more-265094
I didn’t know you write for 3 quarks!
Yep, for over two years now. I’ve occasionally posted excerpts here to get feedback.
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/author/mikeb
Well that’s very cool.
Book recommendation: “The Barn” by Wright Thompson about the Emmett Till murder and surrounding environs.
The storytelling is interesting in that a lot of it is about tracing the red strings of fate that connects everything in the Delta going down the centuries. Definitely recommend the audiobook as well because it’s read in the author’s glutinous Mississippi voice and sounds wonderful.
Confirmed all my priors about how degenerate rural people are (but to be clear that was not the writer’s objective, I just have a weird and evil brain,).
For more on the Delta read up on Parchman Farm.
They just don’t give up, do they!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/18/nottingham-gender-clinic-trans-cass-report-tavistock-wpath/
More children to destroy!
This is important:
Dora Moutout and Margeurite Stern, the writers of the French gender-critical book “Transmania”, have been subjected to death threats from extremist trans activists because of the book. They have now had to cancel a planned conference in Brussels.
https://x.com/doramoutot/status/1846578847010988243#m
https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/marguerite-stern-et-dora-moutot-portent-plainte-contre-un-site-antifa-qui-appelle-a-leur-eclater-la-tete-20241016
English language translation of the “Le Figaro” article below:
https://www-lefigaro-fr.translate.goog/actualite-france/marguerite-stern-et-dora-moutot-portent-plainte-contre-un-site-antifa-qui-appelle-a-leur-eclater-la-tete-20241016?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
M. C. Thanks for that. I feel less inclined now to write an essay I have planned for 3QD, “Whatever happened to the fem boy?” (I. e. me), about my “gender nonconformity” in the 60s and 70s and how that might go over these days with such kids being pressed into transing.
I’ll stick with columns like this one for the meantime:
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/10/five-words-i-hate.html
NYT: U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because of Politics, Doctor Says
Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy has found, in a recent study, that puberty blockers given to gender dysphoric children did not improve mental health outcomes. She now doesn’t want to publish the research, because she is afraid the work will be “weaponized” by those opposed to these treatments. She makes hand-wavy claims that these children must be doing OK because they were doing OK before treatment, which makes one wonder why these children were given treatments in the first place, if they were indeed not in any distress.
I know I’ve seen her name before, but I’m drawing a blank where. She’s a well-known advocate for “gender-affirming care”, and I seem to recall she’s butted heads with gender critical people in some large way before.
It is not surprising that she refuses to look at the evidence of her own work, and that she’s take an ideological position rather than publish the results.
Mike B.
I take it you are the author of that essay on 3QD.
I mostly agree with it, though I would quibble with the ‘Sustainable’ section.
If ‘sustainable’ is paired with a time scale (days, years, centuries, millennia, millions of years) the term can have a useful meaning.
Oh look. Sophie Lewis, the Stupid Person’s Idea of A Clever Person, has written a lengthy screed excoriating those wicked Trotskyists who refuse to follow the dictates of the Gender Stalinists.
Andrew Kaveney is delighted with it, of course.
https://x.com/RozKaveney/status/1848832390904578225
.
Yes. Johanna Olson-Kennedy is the “Pop Tart” Doctor:
https://4thwavenow.com/2017/07/23/i-just-gave-him-the-language-top-gender-doc-uses-pop-tart-analogy-to-persuade-8-year-old-girl-shes-really-a-boy/
Driving home earlier tonight I was listening to Billy Bragg’s Changing Times, a documentary about protest music that originally aired in 2019. Bragg was speaking with the British folk-punk singer, Tom Robinson, about Robinson’s ‘British gay anthem’, (Sing if You’re) Glad to Be Gay.
For those not familiar with the song, here’s a brief précis culled from the song’s Wiki page:
So far, so clear. The song was a straightforward protest song about the treatment of and attitudes towards gay men in the 1970s I remember the song well; I even saw it performed live at a Tom Robinson Band gig in 1979/80 and joined in the singing with the rest of the audience. It was a strangely joyous experience being in a throng of spiky-haired punks, young gay men, ‘normies’ like me and a whole lot more disparate groups, all linking arms and belting out the chorus “Sing if you’re glad to be gay, sing if you’re happy that way”. I remember hearing him being interviewed about the song many times on radio and TV and he always explained the song in terms of gay men. And yet for some reason, in the interview with Bragg he said “Of course, back then [the ’70s] ‘gay’ meant something different than it does today. It was an umbrella term covering the whole LGBTQIA+ community.”
I’m a straight male and even to me, hearing this gay man (possibly even a gay icon to a generation of British gay men) who had been so outspoken about gay rights suddenly come out with such an obviously dishonest, revisionist statement was absolutely shocking. I can barely begin to imagine how those gay men who looked to him throughout the dark days of the ’70s and ’80’s must feel. ‘Utterly betrayed’ probably doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Apologies for the length of that rant, but it was six hours ago that I heard it and I still can’t quite get my head around it.
[…] a comment by Acolyte of Sagan at Miscellany […]
Insightful post by Stella O’Malley over at Genspect:
I have a branding problem – and so does Genspect
She makes the point that not everything about pushing back against gender ideology is gender-critical feminism, or even simply feminism. She notes that Genspect is not a feminist organization. Her own interest in the topic comes from the field of psychology:
In general, I like the point that, even though I (or a group) might agree with a position, that doesn’t mean that the position is a focus.
There is a really good Venn diagram in the post, showing how different concerns intersect (and don’t intersect). The larger circles are Gender Criticals, Philosophical Liberals, and Social Conservatives.
Yeah but Stella and Genspect have a reputation problem from another angle as well: they’ve gone soft on gay rights. Genspect USA got in bed with a major (if not the world’s biggest) Christian “gay conversion therapy” peddling org, and Stella was recently a panelist at an event run by the ghoulish Alliance Defending Freedom. And at the last Genspect conference they hosted as a guest speaker a man (a former close friend of mine in fact, who I’ve since severed ties with) who has recently started making strong statements opposing same-sex couples’ right to raise children, seemingly after he came into lots of money from the far right.
I fully agree that Genspect got unfairly targeted by radical femininsts for touching the third rail of autogynephilia, even when they did so in very good faith, their embrace of anti-science and anti-gay quackery has gotten them in hot water with a whole other demographic, and far more reasonably so. But in a boy-who-cried-wolf kind of sense, they appear to have become hardened to critiques of their political affililations. Even though in this latter case, many people who share their core values strongly agree that they’ve made genuine missteps.
And I don’t agree with the framing that we can agree on some things but not on others when it comes to organizations’ core mission values. The KKK and the NAACP really can’t agree on anything. And likewise, Genspect, an organization ostensibly started to promote healthy care for gender nonconforming children, should not be in bed with an org that promotes deeply abusive and harmful “gay conversion therapy” for gender nonconforming children on “Christian priniciples”. These are not side issues. They are core mission values — or at least they should be — and they clash unacceptably.
I’ve lost trust in Genspect, for sure. Not because they defied the “radfems” and dared to talk about autogynephilia (if perhaps imperfectly and clumsily), but because they’ve taken all the wrong lessons from that ugly episode of conflict over a crossdresser, and gone further the wrong way afterwards. I’m not alone in this view.
Some interesting information from Scotland’s chief medical officer, Sir Gregor Smith, about the BMA’s initial rejection of the Cass report
Rejected because of what was written on a blog; very professional I don’t think. Sir Gregor had another interesting titbit to share, this one rather more disturbing in light of the fact that the BMA called for the ban on puberty blockers to be lifted, and the claim by the Green Party MSP, Gillian Mackay, that the ban was ideologically driven.
But yeah, it was Cass who was ideologically driven because shut up you transphobes!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/29/bma-cass-review-child-gender-services-scotland/
Interesting indeed.
The Supremes (which is to say, the conservative majority) has decided it’s ok for Virginia to purge citizens from voter lists right before an election just because they may, possibly, in some universe, be non-citizens.
I’ve seen in previous stories about this effort that most of the people affected are citizens who just forgot to check the box on their driver’s license application. Others are non-citizens who have no intention of voting.
Alabama submitted an amicus brief in the case, after a similar purge of voters was declared illegal. The majority of the affected people in Alabama are recently-naturalized citizens, people who still had foreign national identification numbers in some places in the registration information for various government entities.
Naomi Wolf endorses Donald Trump:
“I endorsed Pres Donald Trump yesterday.”
https://nitter.poast.org/naomirwolf/status/1851823355353010530#m
Yes, the former feminist endorsed the anti-abortion, convicted sexual abuser, misogynist Trump.
She “endorsed” him? Who does she think she is?
With stupidity goes pomposity.
So I was just typing a post in Facebook, and the only word flagged by spellcheck was “Bezos”. First suggestion: “Bozos”.
Seems fair.
It’s all in the pronouns. Bezos (he/him); Bozos (they/them). In the interest of political correctness, spellcheck opts for gender neutrality. :P
Trump wants CBS to be less biased.
lol, much frivolity.
Not that Republicans have ever been good at economics, but does the current vibe in the party make freshmen college Marxists look smart? Seems like…
Trumpkins are in a tizzy because of an ad narrated by Julia Roberts telling women that they can vote for Harris without telling their husbands.
Charlie Kirk blows a gasket:
Liz Cheney isn’t having any of it:
Full ad here: https://youtu.be/FaCPck2qDhk?si=WniTIu1mHhWicMVC
Article at Quillette: College Volleyball’s Spartan Meltdown.
The male player, Fleming, on the SJSU women’s volleyball team is treated with kid gloves, while the women are threatened and treated harshly. Some have quit the team. The article describes the situation with the members on that team, a focus I haven’t noticed before; most of the articles I’ve seen are about the concerns about the opposing teams. The conditions at SJSU sound awful.
The article mentions one woman who spoke out, and whose scholarship was revoked as a result; she couldn’t pay the tuition, and she is now playing (and going to school elsewhere. It bothers me greatly that some student’s ability to pay for their education depends on their participation in an extracurricular activity, and is at the whim of coaches, but that is how it works right now, and this power is being used to shut up women speaking out.
@WaM #101:
What strange world does Kirk live in where most wives don’t have their own jobs? It was gross when the “sole” breadwinner was still a thing, but it’s 2024 in the United States. You owe your spouse fuck all in the voting booth.
That said, I don’t think you should lie to your spouse; tell them it’s none of their business.
My mother always made a point of telling my dad when she voted for the opposite candidate; it was her little mark of independence. She was a stay home housewife with archaic ideas about women, but she was adamant about her right to vote however she wanted. He agreed, even if he didn’t like it when she voted for Jimmy Carter instead of Gerald Ford. He figured his vote cancelled hers out, and all was even.
Mostly Cloudy, I was recently reading a book by Naomi Klein about how often she’s mistaken for Naomi Wolf (and apparently vice versa), which was merely amusing until Wolf went anti-vaccine, and started peddling hard right conspiracy theories. I’m not surprised she endorsed Trump. All the feminist issues have disappeared down the rabbit hole of her conspiracy addled brain.
I know some people here admire Katha Pollit’s writing. Here she is putting forward the case for voting Kamala Harris and not for a third-party candidate:
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/election-harris-gaza/
@BKiSA, iknklast,
The fact that the Harris campaign (or some ally) felt the need to make the ad indicates that it’s a real problem that some women feel they have to vote for their husband’s preferred candidate, or lie about it. No surprise, I suppose, but disturbing nonetheless.
The same survey the found 1 in 8 women lied to their husbands about voting differently also found that 1 in 10 men lied to their wives about voting differently. But the ad is about women, and the reaction has been loud from men.
I do know people who feel some sort of obligation to vote the same, rationalized as “it would be canceling your vote out if I voted differently, and that’s not a nice thing to do to you”. I don’t understand this, a vote is a vote, but that’s how some people think about it.
Well one of the original “arguments” against women voting was that it’d just be giving married men an extra vote (and since it also assumed almost all women would be married it effectively didn’t matter). For my part, while my wife and I discuss politics and our opinions on policy and candidates I make it clear that she should vote how she sees fit and should not be unduly influenced by what I think.
Just found this via Bluesky
The Transgender-Rights Issue
https://philosophersmag.com/the-transgender-rights-issue/
A most excellent take-down of the whole trans rights issue. Longish, but worth the read.
Thorough, well reasoned, straightforward and plain-spoken.
Huh. I used to work for that mag a long time ago.
Blood Knight in Sour Armor #108
“I make it clear that she should vote how she sees fit and should not be unduly influenced by what I think.”
That is very generous of you.
I hope she offers you the same.
Two things just came into focus for me.
The McEntee line went viral a few days ago, but Republicans have been making noise about denying women the vote for at least a couple of years now.
I initially took the cat lady stuff to be standard Republican trolling. I couldn’t make any sense at all out of the complaint that women vote. There is no foreseeable future in which 38 states vote to repeal the 19th amendment, so what is the point of saying something like that?
Then I remembered: it’s always projection. Whenever the Republicans accuse the Democrats of something, they are really talking about themselves. But in this case, it’s not a direct projection, it’s a mirrored projection. What is the mirror image of the childless cat lady? It’s the dateless MAGA boy. It’s the lonely, angry, frustrated, unsocialized young men who can’t get wives, or girlfriends, or dates, or – above all – sex.
What McEntee–and other Republicans who talk the same way–are offering these MAGA boys is a vision of a future where women are politically and socially subordinate to men. Where they can get the sex they want without having to work for it, or behave in society, or make themselves attractive to women. Where they can get what they want through political supremacy, and–if it comes to it–outright violence.
It’s a truism in American politics that you run to the wings to win your primary, and then tack back to the center to win the general election. Trump doesn’t do that. Trump runs to the right in the primary and never comes back to the center.
You can do that: Trump won in 2016. But if you do that, you can never stop. You can never slow down; you can never look back; you can never let up for even an instant. You have to always be pushing further and farther out to the extreme, and hope that that you can gain votes on the fringe faster than you lose them in the middle. And at some point it becomes a trap. The fringe is smaller than the middle (that’s why it’s called the fringe), so there are more votes to be lost in the middle than there are to be gained on the fringe.
I think that the bizarre statements and policy positions that we keep seeing from Republicans are increasingly desperate attempts to capture smaller and smaller tranches of votes from groups that are further and further out on the fringe of the right wing.
Steven, maybe there’s even more projection – the idea that the ‘childless cat ladies’ are miserable, because the MAGA boys are. They resent that a woman could be happier with a cat (or multiple cats) than with them. They resent the cats, they are jealous of the cats, and so they hate the cats. They also project the misery onto the cat ladies, maybe hoping if they can convince these ladies they are miserable, it would help them get sex. Good luck with that, MAGA boys.
As for voting and lying to my husband…when I read him stuff about this controversy, he said he couldn’t imagine even trying to tell me how to vote. He is sure it won’t work out well. And he’s right.
Today I experienced something I’ve never experienced before. As I was leaving the polling place, a TV news crew from a new cable outlet (Newsnation, Chris Cuomo’s new gig) stopped me for an interview. Our precinct is small and not terribly diverse (demographically or politically–we’re mostly white liberals), and with early voting there was hardly any activity, so it surprised me that they’d be interviewing voters there. But I saw them in a neighboring precinct as well, so I think this is a way to drum up viewers (I’ll be watching).
I don’t think I said anything terribly interesting–I have to confess I used the phrase “civic duty”–but I hope they caught my Woody Guthrie-inspired t-shirt on camera.
Just another JK Rowling/David Tennant/Kemi Badenoch story, with all the predictable BS, but this response caught my eye:
Because before David Tennant came along Rowling was just a struggling author scribbling away in a coffeeshop in the wilds of Scotland with just a few obscure books and straight-to-DVD films to her name. Where oh where would she ever be without Tennant’s brilliant Oscar– nay, Nobel-worthy turn as Barty Crouch Jr.?
Good essay by Glenna Goldis: Chase Strangio’s Legal Narrative. It discusses the likely legal strategy to be employed by Strangio in arguing the Skrmetti case on pediatric gender medicine before the Supreme Court.
Sackbut, that essay was a good one, all right. I was reading it, and forgot to start dinner. So we’ll eat late tonight, thanks to you. ;-)
Strangio identifies as non-binary and male. Those are contradictory. I guess that doesn’t bother her, because she is special, and can show you her specialness any time.
This quote sort of shows that. It could describe almost everyone in college – and many younger and older people. A natural part of growing up that we all go through, and she turns it into something that she felt that somehow made her special.
Whenever I read about her, the narcissism, oh, it burns.
Yeah, the franchise was four films in before Tennant put in his guest appearance, Afterwards, when I heard some time later that he’d been in it, I had to consult IMDB to see which character he’d played, because I hadn’t noticed him.
Not a role I would get worked up about in his case. The Purple Man was a much more exciting character.
Another neighbourhood vignette. Trans bullshit makes me cranky. Maybe at this point I’m spending too much time looking for it, but its omnipresence makes it hard to avoid. Today’s encounter with it took place in a local store selling handicrafts. Right at the door was a little Pride Progress flag (complete with the Intersex yellowtiangle with purple circle). Beside it was a happy rainbow sticker assuring those in need of such reassurance that You Are Safe Here. Of course this wasn’t telling everyone entering the store that the building they were entering was up to code and therefore unlikely to burst into flame or collapse onto us during our shopping visit. No. This is a different kind of “safety” we’re talking about here, and this “safety” is reserved for Special People, as the sticker was gaudily announcing that the store was not just a retail establishment, but also a 2SLGBTQIA+ Safe Space. One wonders if there are any regulations or guidelines for that. Not just any old place can be a daycare centre, for example. Restaurants here are required to display the results of the latest health inspection. Somehow I doubt there is any such certification or registration needed, and that any store can simply “identify” as a safe space, with no need to fulfil any requirements other than a desire to advertise one’s piety and righteousness. You just slap on a sticker here and there and voila, you’re an Ally! And, despite the rest of the flag, I think at this point. these displays of obedience and loyalty are all about the Trans. If it was about gay rights, you’d just have the good, old fashion Pride Flag, except that it’s now insufficiently “inclusive”, and about as welcome as a Swastika flag, or the Confederate one, as it is verboten to have anything LGB without the T.
These stickers operate on several levels at once. However much of a “welcome” they might be for the target audience, they are also a warning. They mean, theoretically, that the staff will not only not challenge trans bullshit, but also defend and enforce it. I would expect any sticker-displaying establishment large enough to have separate male and female bathroom facilities would allow men-pretending-to-be-women to use what, until recently, would have been exclusively female spaces. If anyone questions their use of women’s spaces, staff will defend the intruder, rather than the intrudeed upon. So, not “safe” for women, then.
More insidiously, these stickers play into the trans victimization and fragility narrative. If the store is a “safe space,” then by implication everywhere else is hostile. THE WHOLE WORLD IS OUT TO GET YOU! COME INSIDE: YOU’LL BE SAFE HERE! As if hatred falls from the sky like rain, and stores with stickers are offering life-saving shelter from the storm. But there’s more than one storm brewing, as women well know, having had their own safety eroded in favour of the validation of delusional males.
Do trans activists really assume that any store without a sticker is “unsafe”? Is that even the actual point? Displaying such stickers advertises putative allyship, but it also shows surrender and obedience to gender ideology. It represents a promise to comply. This puts pressure on other shopkeepers to announce their own stores’ “safety”.
Most of the products were fairly typical craft items, mostly handmade. Felted, knitted, or crocheted animals, jewelery, candles, soaps. You get the picture. But one item was a “Rainbow Certified” tote bag:
https://rainbowcertified.com/#7-insta-feed
emblazoned with the slogan “Support LGBTQ+”, with fluffy clouds, flowers, and a rainbow. (The company’s website informs me that Rainbow Certified is a queer owned small business who makes apparel & accessories for the LGBTQ+ community. I feel excluded already. Am I allowed to even look at this tote bag? Why yes, I am. (Read on.) Perhaps I’m reading to much into this, but notice that it’s not a simple statement in which the person carrying the bag is declaring “I support LGBTQ+”, but a demand that the viewer do so. It might be printed in a 60’s-esque flower-power kind of font, but it’s still a demand, and a forced-teaming one at that. Read and obey. Cutesy pushy is still pushy. Push someone else.
Shopping doesn’t usually make me this crotchety, but I get tired of all of this public display trans crap. It feels like swimming through a treacly sea of lies. Lies that I’m supposed to accept and believe. We’re supposed to be happy with our own coercion. All the rainbow colours and glitter hide an underlying malice and darkness that comes to the fore in accusations of bigotry and hatred. As I’ve commented before, the Progress Pride flag feels like the flag of a hostile, occupying force, passed off as the banner of a well-meaning, public-spirited campaign of kindness, compassion and concern. Look more closely, and the actual focus of that “compassion” and “concern” is very narrow. Its demands are enforced with very little kindness, and at a very steep cost to women and girls.
[…] a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany […]
Taliban congratulate Americans for “‘not handing leadership of their great country to a woman’.
https://xcancel.com/marlene4719/status/1855349954849714402#m
Well, Male Supremacists stick together….
I haven’t posted here since 2016. Hi, everyone. I want to post Does anyone know where to chat about gender critical left-wing issues without dealing with Trump apologists?
Hi, welcome back. One place to chat about gender critical left-wing issues without dealing with Trump apologists is, well, here. Googling “gender critical blogs” turns up blogs I know are not Trumpy. Or seek out Kathleen Stock, Joan Smith, Julie Bindel, JK Rowling to name just a few.
Linda Binda; Jane Clare Jones has written extensively on the dangers of GC activism getting too chummy with the right wing.
Hi, everyone, again. I always appreciate how friendly you are! I didn’t know my post posted after all! It posted way earlier than I had hoped to by accident, (hence the glaring typos), but then, I couldn’t find it.
I deactivated my 12+-year-old Twitter account a couple of days ago. I wish I could convince the British women on there to do *what I particularly want* and drop everything over there to move onto who-knows-where at my personal convenience, but that’s not me respecting people’s autonomy, is it? Heh, heh…
I had been lurking in Ovarit for since its founding but the forum has uncharacteristically shut down until the upcoming 14th this month, for reasons of “lacking mods,” very apparently to wait out the electoral storm. Quite a few regulars moved onto the Gendercritical Saidit forum, and a few of them there have started gloating about Trump and bashing Democrats and speculating about the “controlling issues” of the Ovarit mod who made the temporary shutdown announcement, who, if I remember correctly, just happens to be British. My gossipy guess: she might have been pro-Harris (maybe: I could be wrong), and she didn’t want to be around for the volcanic eruption of electoral fallout. One of the women there said something derogatory about recently African-descended (Nigerian, et al) Americans (black people like me) stealing college spots from Black Americans, saying that Kamala Harris is like “those people,” that basically, she’s not a real black woman, and that her speaking style was fake and pandering. Basically, this [probably white] woman was repeating “FBA”/“ADOS”-movement xenophobic nonsense about Black African and Caribbean Americans. I stupidly tried to say something because I found someone *saying something wrong on the Internet* and I got banned from their forum. Meanwhile, there is a troll there calling all Ovarit posters Karens who “scream misogyny at everything” and that they supposedly hate all gay men, but I’m the banned one, [probably he] isn’t. I’m just flummoxed. I’ve never been banned from any forum before in all of the 25+ years I’ve been chatting online (I’m 40 — I used to post on newsgroups at age 15), and I didn’t take it very well. I found myself begging my mom and brother to let me buy some Nicorette at 10:30pm last night (I’ve been suffering really bad nicotine withdrawal this past week), and I feel I’ve humiliated myself. I didn’t think that this election would end THIS badly, that it would leave me with almost nowhere to go to cope with the results. Black women in places like Lipstick Alley have alleged forever that Ovarit has a race problem that the latter’s moderation keeps refusing to deal with: that the white women there don’t want to accommodate any racial minority women (I personally hate the “of color” phrase) or give them any sub-Ovarit forums there to discuss things, and I guess I’m currently trapped in that silly “I didn’t think the leopards would eat MY face” trope.
This is really bad. I don’t want to be censorious and thin-skinned, but I can’t deal with people claiming that Harris is “fake” when they don’t understand that Black American culture has demanded that we black African and Caribbean immigrants’ children do the “jive-turkey” talk as that racist put it for decades, and if we don’t do our best to assimilate, then we’re anti-black and that we’re probably Republican, when, no matter how we act or talk, the majority of us aren’t “anti-black.” We’re almost as pro-Democratic as other “foundational black Americans” or “American Descendants of Slaves.” Our parents make us speak the Queen’s English at home to the point where they won’t let us get any American slang out of our mouths before we can finish a full-on sentence, they oftentimes won’t let us “dress like them,” and if we learn to “code-switch,” we are learning it behind our parents’ backs and we’re doing it with constant suspicion from Black Americans who constantly want to accuse us of hating them based on nothing but popular movies that bash the African diaspora and other Black celebrities mocking us. People like Harris and Obama have to “jive-turkey” talk because if they don’t, they get people like Jesse Jackson claiming that we’re “talking down to them.” If Harris talked “normal,” (read: “white”) (what proof do we have that Harris doesn’t regularly talk the way she does in speeches? What proof do we have that the way she talks in public is all that different than how she may talk in private?), she might alienate more suspicious Black people than if she didn’t — she came out through the system after all — she’s supposed to dump everything she’s learned about surviving the grind over the past 35+ years for one election? Is that realistic? Didn’t she deal with having to win black people’s trust when she was studying at Howard University? And even then, some people accused her of pandering when she did her concession speech at Howard — why? Isn’t that her alma mater? She can’t do speeches at the school she started her career at now? And finally, regarding “normal” talk, are we finally admitting that black people talk differently than everyone else, and maybe, when we all live in the same country and we all speak the same language in public, that that might be a problem? Are we ready to admit that AAVE is kind of a relic we might need to begin to let go? No? Okay. (Uh oh — I might have said something “anti-black.” Well, like how I don’t want to waste time defending credibility-lacking TRAs, I’m not wasting time arguing that the “N-word pass” is enforceable or that saying the N-word in public at all makes any kind of sense — no? Okay.)
Speaking of “ADOS,” aren’t most black Caribbeans “descended from slaves” as well? For some reason, in this past election, we let Trump insinuate that black Caribbeans didn’t come from slavery, and I don’t know why, other than American public school failure to educate anyone about anything outside of the U.S. except England in our world history classes, our general U.S. ethnocentrism and xenophobia, and of course, our refusal to hold him accountable for *anything,* that we just let him and the rest of the right-wing media get away with that. Just bizarre.
Right now, I’m hoping against common sense that there’s MAYBE something unnatural about the voting results, but maybe there isn’t. This really sucks.
Thanks for reading my rant. Thank you for your kindness. Is there a forum like a blog or somewhere where left-wing GCs gather where I can read off of Twitter? Maybe not. But thank you, regardless.
Sorry. I just now realized that Ms Benson answered my question about gender critical blogs. For the record, this blog helped me go “peak trans” with what happened with this place versus the Freethought (heh) network back in 2015~2016. Thanks, once again
It did that for me, too!
Linda Binda, thank you for sharing your experiences (I usually hate the thank you for sharing formulation; ;it’s so…shallow). I watched people claim Obama wasn’t really black, and that Harris wasn’t really black, and while I disagreed, as a white person I am not listened to if I say anything, because it isn’t my lived experience. No, it’s not, but listening to you reinforces what everyone should know – lived experience is not the same for everyone even in a demographic. My upbringing wasn’t ‘white’, it was ‘poor’. It was ‘fundamentalist Christian’. I had little (read: nothing) in common with the rich snobbish white girls in my school. There were two other girls poor enough to sit with me at lunch. We didn’t like each other, but no one else would sit with us, so we stuck together (nothing in common with them, either). There were no minorities in our school; the poor were the only minorities, because it was a rich town. My ‘lived experience’ is not the same as any of the other 800 students in my graduating class. They didn’t consider me one of them, and I didn’t ever feel like I could be one of them. For too many years, I allowed them to define me, and now I resolutely refuse.
At this point, I feel a lot of us on this blog share things in common, even though there is no indication any of us have a shared ‘lived experience’. We come from all sorts of different backgrounds, countries, college degrees, etc. Yet somehow we are able to understand each other, talk to each other, and not be anywhere as dysfunctional as my family and my school, where I supposedly (though not really) had shared ‘lived experiences’. We can disagree, and even get snarky with each other, and we have different levels of interest in some subjects, but we somehow manage to maintain a coherent, coalescent, and compassionate commentariat (I hope you like alliteration!).
I hope you stick around. You sound like someone who would have a lot to add to our conversations, and you will be welcomed here. We’re (mostly) friendly, but sometimes the leopards threaten to eat our faces.
Has anyone here seen this? Graham Linehan has tweeted support for Donald Trump:
https://x.com/Glinner/status/1854307968252084731
So Graham’s become another Trumpkin?
“So Graham’s become another Trumpkin?”
Maybe he has, but I’m not yet convinced. I think he is someone who is monomaniacally focused on a single issue, and he sees evidence that Trump will resolve that issue (in a country where Glinner does not live) in a way that Glinner likes. But I have seen other people voice full support for Trump based on that one issue, so perhaps. It is disturbing, certainly.
Quite a few gender critical people are pro-Trump for the same reason; it’s not just Glinner.
I’m not sure any single issue would make a person “pro-Trump” though. There are far more things people would agree upon, particularly when it comes to women’s rights and protection of children, than disagree. I don’t see the trans movement as a particularly partisan issue. If anything, it has more in common with far right ideology, that being religious, authoritarian, thought policing, compelled speech, reinforcing stereotypes, and that sort of cultish “our way is the only way” doctrinarian thinking. Trans cult activism looks more like a far right movement masquerading as a far left one, probably because it’s been forcibly attached to sex based rights movements when it has little in common with them. I see the trans cult as its own deleterious and deceptive thing. How any liberal minded person goes along with any of it, aside from the attitude of live and let live, or basic tolerance, particularly after understanding how it affects other groups of vulnerable people, is truly a wonder.
Meanwhile, in Michigan:
The KKK used hoods in part to disguise the fact that they were doctors, bankers, cops, salesmen, and other “upstanding” members of the community. So who was behind those masks?
I was just at the Margaret Mitchell house (museum) here in Atlanta. Those KKK members were our neighbors. They were back then, and they are now. The racism and misogyny is still there. It’s been suppressed in the modern era, but there are those who carry on the tradition, and have been taught to hate from an early age. GWTW may have been inaccurate in focusing on slaves who had a better life than most, and it is fiction after all, but the portrayal of the KKK (fictionalized) and their cowardly contingent is closer to the truth. For something closer to historical accuracy, I would recommend 12 Years a Slave.
Gone With the Wind is a (very slightly) updated Birth of a Nation; both are pillars of post-Reconstruction racist mythology.
#132 Ophelia Benson:
Meghan Murphy of “Feminist Current” fame has said she also supports Donald Trump now:
I voted Trump/Vance
https://x.com/MeghanEMurphy/status/1854012777423306758#m
I’m not middle class or weak and I voted for Trump lol
https://x.com/MeghanEMurphy/status/1856104349023514922#m
Wait. Meghan Murphy is Canadian. Are we allowing Canada to vote in our elections now? Or is she just blowing smoke?
Google tells me she has dual citizenship.
I did know she left Canada some years ago.
Kellie-Jay Keen AKA Posie Parker was also pleased with Donald Trump’s victory. She tweeted to Sebastian Gorka:
I’m so thrilled Sebastian, for you, for Trump and, mostly, for America!
https://x.com/ThePosieParker/status/1854149456523882593
Looks like there’s a significant number of GC people who support Trump now, including former anti-Trump people like Linehan and Murphy.
It’s easy for Posie Parker; she doesn’t live here. What will she think when things really hit the fan? Is it a worthy tradeoff? Kids in cages vs. trans in the bathrooms. RFK Jr. in charge of health vs. trans in women’s sports. All of those are part of Trump’s agenda, and it isn’t possible for me to pick and choose one thing. Especially since I suspect Harris is following a trend, and could be reasoned with if the scientific evidence were presented to her. I doubt she spends much time following trans blogs, and even less following GC blogs. She may not know anything about the situation other than they have certain claims about genocide and suicide, and that they are part of the LGBTQI+++++++ community.
It’s easy for Posie Parker; she doesn’t live here
And Linehan lives in Britain, and Murphy in Mexico. The worst consequences of a second Trump Administration won’t affect them.
Maybe this issue of GC people supporting Trump needs more discussion here?
I don’t believe Trump cares about the gender issue except as a way of getting more votes – Trump would support the re-introduction of Prohibition if he thought it was an election winner.
Plus, y’know, a CONVICTED SEXUAL ASSAULTER isn’t going to help women.
Yeh I think I saw the KJK tweet and flinched. I saw something and flinched, and not for the first time.
Maybe the issue of GC people supporting Trump does need more discussion here. Maybe I’ll do a post.
Ophelia @ #143
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull supported Trump in the 2020 presidential election in a video on YouTube that has since been made private. Her associations with the political Right were thoroughly documented in this post from March last year, compiled by a group of feminists in Australia.
The British group Woman’s Place UK dissociated themselves from KJK in 2018:
Two months ago Keen-Minshul proclaimed on Twitter (sorry, x.com):
This, I think, is not irrelevant:
For context:
We are all familiar with attempts to classify ideologies and political systems in terms of different axes, or dimensions, or coordinate systems (individualist vs. collectivist, egalitarian vs. hierarchical, libertarian vs. authoritarian, universalist vs. identitarian etc.). There is a tendency to lump one’s political rivals together by selectively emphasizing the axes along which their positions happen to coincide to the exclusion of all the others. There is also a tendency to distance oneself from groups one does not like to be associated with by selectively emphasizing the differences and ignoring the similarities. E.g. back in my movement atheist days accomodationists often accused “militants” like myself of being “just like the fundamentalists” (“just as dogmatic”, “just as intolerant of opposing views” etc.), and from a certain point of view they were right: Even if hard-line atheists and religious fundamentalists disagreed on pretty much all the specific answers, not to mention how those answers were derived in the first place, at least they both agreed that the answer mattered, and to the accomodationists that was exactly the problem. Accomodationists and moderate believers also disagreed on the specific answers, but shared the same indifference to truth and reason, as well as the same commitment to bland, indifferent centrism and bothsiderism.
I’m increasingly inclined to think that the main battle of our time is not between “the Left” and “the Right”, but between those, whether Left or Right, who still respect facts and logic and care about classical liberal values (universal rights, individual liberty, free expression, academic freedom, basic democratic rules of the game etc.) and those who don’t. As I keep saying, Trumpism and wokeism are both post-truth ideologies. As much as the woke crowd hate Trump (i.e. not nearly as much as they hate the “wrong kind” of leftists!), they absolutely love what he has done to factual discourse. For all their mutual antagonism, Trump-supporters and wokesters both want to live in a world in which sound volume and endless repetitions trump (no pun intended) facts and the biggest bully, capable of mobilizing the biggest mob, has a blank check to take whatever he wants and destroy anyone who gets in his way.
We keep talking about the political “Left” vs. the political “Right” as if it were obvious what we were talking about, when, in fact, these are umbrella terms, each covering a vast range of very different, and even mutually hostile, movements, ideologies, political systems etc. Talking in terms of “Left” vs. “Right” makes it sound like the people on the “Left” are all on the same side against everyone on the “Right”, when in fact a person on the moderate center-Left who believes in liberal values almost certainly has more in common with someone on the moderate center-Right who also believes in liberal values than either of them does with Fascists, Communists, Trump-supporters, or wokesters.
To me the defining feature of “leftism” is that “leftists” tend to “side with the underdog” as they see it (in practice, of course, seeing it that way in the first place may require acceptance of some extremely dubious truth claims, academic theories, ideological doctrines etc., but still…). They tend to see the world as inherently unjust and unfair, i.e. as a place where certain groups, simply by accident of birth, start out at a major disadvantage while others get an almost insurmountable head start. Furthermore, this inherent injustice perpetuates itself from one generation to the next, leaving the disadvantaged groups perpetually last in line. Breaking out of this vicious cycle is going to require active political interventions, from gradual reform to armed revolution.
For most of my life, “leftists” tended to be the ones who were trying to get away from boxes and labels and different standards of treatment for different groups of people (judging people by the “content of their character” rather then the color of their skin etc.). As (iirc) Nick Cohen once pointed out, women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals etc. were not asking for special treatment: What they were objecting to was precisely the fact that they were given special treatment. That’s what “discrimination” means! Woke identity politics, by contrast, is all about boxes and labels and treating people differently according to group identity.
Despite efforts to equate wokeism with “cultural Marxism”, Marxists, believed in objective truth and claimed it for themselves. To the woke any appeal to “objective truth”, as well as “evidence”, “logic” etc. is just a naked exercise of power to force oppressed groups into accepting the self-serving narratives of their oppressors. Marxists were mainly concerned with class, the one axis of privilege and marginalization that the woke don’t care about at all. As many others have pointed out, “Marxism” without any consideration of class is rather like a doughnut after you have removed everything except the hole: Pretty much indistinguishable from nothing. Both Marxists and wokesters invoked a concept of “false consciousness”, but according to Marxism the oppressed (i.e. the working class) were blind to their own oppression, and therefore needed the Communist Party to do their thinking for them. According to wokeism it’s the oppressor classes themselves who are blind to their own privilege etc. etc.
The people on the “Right”, on the other hand, tend to see themselves as siding with “the deserving”. Fiscal conservatives and libertarians interpret “the deserving” in meritocratic terms (the hard working, the competent, the achievers etc.). The “American Dream” was all about being “self-made” and making it to the top through personal effort without outside help. Indeed, the greatest heroes were the ones who managed to overcome great obstacles and opposition and prove everybody else wrong (“I did it my way” etc.). Fiscal conservatives and libertarians also tend to see the world as inherently just and fair. Or, if there is anything unfair about it, it’s mainly unfair to the deserving who keep getting held back by burdensome regulations while having the fruit of their accomplishments confiscated and redistributed to the undeserving (the lazy, the incompetent, the bums). By contrast cultural conservatives, religious fundamentalists, fascist etc. see their own group as more deserving than all others by virtue of their superior ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion etc. Everyone else is considered undeserving by virtue of who they are, rather than anything they’ve ever done.
There is a tendency among leftists to portray Trumpism as simply the logical consequence of what “conservatives” have been up to all along, when, in fact, the betrayal of the idea of meritocracy in favor of a system that favors personal loyalty to the leader over accomplishment is almost certainly more offensive to the old-school conservatives than to leftists who think there is no such thing as “meritocracy” anyway: Just unearned privilege perpetuating itself from one generation to the next. Traditional conservatives also tended to emphasize values like character, integrity, and personal responsibility (far more than Leftists who are more sympathetic to blaming the “system” for personal shortcomings), whereas fascists emphasize brute force and the ability to bend the world to one’s will, and dismiss any appeal to such fake “values” as “slave morality” rooted in resentment, envy and the need to discredit what one is too weak to do oneself (cf. Nietzsche). The same disdain for “do-gooders” and the same amoral commitment to winning by any means necessary is obvious in kleptocrats like Trump and Putin. The sentiment is admirably captured in this quote from the gangster movie Goodfellas:
This is not the inevitable implication of favoring lower taxes, more privatization, and less government spending.
“Questionable Content” is a webcomic that I usually find amusing.
The author seems to have bought into the trans BS, but it is not usually intrusive enough to put me off continuing to read it.
Given some of the commentary here making fun of trans, with talk about being eg: a trans-otter, I’m wondering which side of the issue the author is making fun of here?
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5440
The “populism” of Trump’s approach lets him bypass the conservatives and “never Trump-ers” who are appalled by his behaviour. There are more of the “little folk” who like him than there are of the grandees who detest him.
Spurred by AOC dropping the pronouns from her bio, Kevin Drum has concocted a “wokeness index”, and it indicates “wokeness” peaked in January 2022 and has declined since then. Clever analysis.
https://jabberwocking.com/wokeness-has-declined-24-over-the-past-three-years/
For the first time, I have a writing student who is openly trans. I’ve suspected others, but this time she (birth sex) has written an account (memoir) of dealing with her family as she demands to be called a by a boy’s name. It began when she identified with a friend (also birth female) who, since they were both “tiny,” six years old, knew that “his” other name–Jennifer–didn’t fit “him”. At first, Jennifer demanded to be called animals’ names instead of Jennifer and hated her own long hair. My student “feels an inner fire” whenever Jennifer demands to be called John. When Jennifer “reacted” as she did, adults “looked at him [her] like he [she] was crazy”. Then my student has this revealing line: “I knew that if I did anything similar, I would be met with the same reaction.” So she begins carefully crafting her feminine appearance, which she secretly hates, and she wishes she could pull her long hair out, etc. Eventually, she ditches the feminine schtick and chops off her hair, cuts her nails, wears sports clothing, etc. At this point, I thought of commenting, “I know plenty of lesbians who have dumped all the femme stuff,” but decided against it. None of my lesbian friends have gone as far as this student has gone: binders, testosterone (her voice is definitely “male”-sounding), and she comes off as a cute fifteen year old boy. Next, she says, it’s “top surgery.” She has a lot of anger toward people around her who are genuinely surprised by what they see in her and her trans friend. They all “look at him [Jennifer] like he is crazy”, and she fears being “labeled as strange and disgusting. The story is heart-felt, and I feel very bad for her. But, Wtf, it’s her life . . .
[…] a comment by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany […]
OK, this is a little odd… I’ve been quietly reading here for a long time. Some years ago, I had some pretty peculiar ideas which eventually gelled into a concept for a new liberal political economy. It’s an annoyingly big idea which is a little hard to describe, and which has been a long time coming in my thinking. On the one hand it’s an “it could change everything” kind of thing, but on the other hand it comes from nowhere and has a constituency of one at present. I’ve been trying to think of literally anyone who might look at it, and I keep coming back to this site, the one place I consistently hear ideas vaguely leaning in the same direction. And I have to say, I kind of just want to dump it here and get it off my chest. If you look at my web site, I’ve actually had ideas at least as far out as this, but this one is more difficult to put on my employer’s web server…
But what if it is mental illness? Of course it’s hard, if not impossile, to save someone from themselves; they have to recognize or admit that they have a problem. But “it’s her life” is fine, as far as it goes. If she wants to subject herself to irreversable procedures that get her no closer to her impossible goal that’s up to her. I won’t applaud it, but informed, consenting adults get to do this. The problems arise when demands are forced on others who have not chosen this path. She can do what she wants to herself, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of society has to reupholster itself to prevent her from encountering uncomfortable truths. Normally the freedom and autonomy she is demanding come with the personal responsibility to accept the consequences of the choices one has made. We shouldn’t be erasing the word “woman” to keep her safe from ever reading it, whether in medical communications, newspaper stories, or on the t-shirts of fellow airline passengers. This demand impinges on the rights of others. Caving in to it is wrong. It is unneccesary. It is dangerous. Rewriting everything in order to avoid using the word “woman” has bad, real world consequences. It is not “kind”. Do not ask everyone else to bend over backwards to accommodate your unreasonable sensitivity.
Unfortunately, it’s too late. Now we have to try to “unbend” far too many institutions, organizations, and government agencies who have acceded to this ludicrous demand to erase “woman” from their communications. Why did they do this in the first place? Why are so many, so eager to ban the use of a word that describes half the human population at the behest of a microscopically small subset of that half that feels “triggered” by it? Particularly when there is not nearly the same effort to erase the word “man.” That asymmetry of effort and focus tells you much of what you need to know about this movement, and its frighteningly rapid success at acheiving its goals. Women don’t count. Though I would be just as opposed to the erasure of “man”, I would be less alarmed by an “equal opportunity” officiousness and belicosity. Putting so much energy into erasing only women? That’s more sinister and dangerous.
Ryan Richter @ 152 – First, hello and welcome. Second, your proffered comment is hella long for a comment and also very complicated and detailed – a bit of a Das Kapital. How about I publish it in the Articles section? It’s relatively dormant these days but you could promote your piece here. Also the formatting is wrong so could you fix it so that I don’t have to?
For anyone fed up with Twitter and wanting to move to Bluesky….gender-critical lawyer and chair of Sex Matter activist Naomi Cunningham has had all her posts on Bluesky flagged with “Intolerance.”
https://bsky.app/profile/naomicunningham.bsky.social
Thanks a lot, that sounds an ideal way to do it. I don’t really expect to generate that much discussion in the short run. It’s obviously not attractive to basically anybody at the present time, especially in the US. There’s a properly formatted text file at http:/airen.bcm.umontreal.ca/ryan/NICL.txt although I plan to delete that when it finds a home (it’s not linked from anywhere). Thanks again!
Here it is but the formatting is still from outer space! If you give me a tidied up version I’ll swap it.
https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2024/141406/
Mostly Cloudy @ 155 – I am on BlueSky and have noticed the same thing. They haven’t flagged individual posts, I think, but the whole account. (I didn’t escape from Xitter, never was there in the first place.)
Of course, you can alway bypass those flags, but here’s the thing: It is common for individuals to curate blocking lists that others then subscribe to. So if you decide to follow Naomi Cunningham, that could get you on one of those lists, and suddenly find yourself blocked by a bunch of people you might otherwise want to follow.
I think the general mechanism at BlueSky is a reasonable one. It could well make social media tolerable. The problem is more the culture of assuming that anyone expressing some gender crtical views is necessary a bigot and giant asshole, and needs to be blocked on sight.
Ophelia @ 157: I made a quick-n-dirty HTML conversion here:
https://hanche.folk.ntnu.no/tmp/NICL.html
Thank you Harald!
Thank you so much! I would just say that “William the Silent” is the best item in the bibliography, although it’s sadly long out of print.
Guardian:
‘We were horrified’: parents heartbroken as baby girl registered as male
Meanwhile, there are all these people who believe they or their children are “trans” and thus the “wrong” sex and seek to “correct” their birth certificates, and this is actually allowed in some jurisdictions.
That, too. The transgender nonsense just makes all of this worse.
Perhaps correcting actual errors, as opposed to imagined errors, might be a reasonable thing to allow.
Doctor Oz? No effin way. Merch peddling celebrity doctor in charge of medicare. Welcome to clown world.
Sackbut, there is a correction mechanism; my birth certificate was corrected. It registered my name as ‘Baby Girl’, even though my parents named me immediately. Until I was about 25, it was ‘Baby Girl’. Now it says my name.
Of course, that isn’t changing the sex, and it is the United States, so it may be different elsewhere. If there is no way to correct mistakes, then that is a truly flawed system.
iknklast, I’m glad there was a correction for your birth certificate. At least some places are sensible in that regard.
Not having an accurate name is one of many reasons a certificate might need correction, which is why I was surprised that the jurisdiction in the story did not allow correction of something as fundamental as the baby’s sex. The situation stands in stark contrast with places that allow “correction” of the baby’s sex because someone chose a trans “identity” later in life. I am wondering if trans ideology is the cause of this particular problem in the story. People tried to “correct” their birth certificate sex markers, so the government said no, you can’t correct the sex on a birth certificate, and then when there was an actual sex error on the certificate, it’s not allowed to be corrected. Probably not, probably a bureaucratic snafu, but trans ideology is nothing if not a lot of unspoken if not unintended consequences.
Maybe I should be glad I got my birth certificate changed 40 years ago; I was born in California, and they’re so mad with the trans nonsense that they might not change it now unless I was changing to male! (Though my name is one of those that can be either sex, it is more frequently female in the US these days.)
Today I learned that the CEO of Bluesky, Jay Graber, is a transwoman. Given how a few gender-critical feminists like Sall Grover and Naomi Cunningham have been censored by Bluesky for stating that transwomen are men that fact is good to know, if still dismaying.
New Zealand’s Health Ministry now says there is a “lack of good-quality evidence to back the effectiveness and safety of puberty blockers” for children and teenagers suffering from gender dysphoria:
https://www.health.govt.nz/news/additional-safeguards-for-puberty-blockers
I had the sense that it was a place where I couldn’t speak my mind on that issue. Once everyone started sharing the House Democrats reaction to the new bathroom rule, I kind of lost interest in the place. I don’t like that we live in such a binary world that for social media, the choices are between trumpism and transgenderism.
“I don’t like that we live in such a binary world that for social media, the choices are between trumpism and transgenderism.”
Mike, and not just for the social media world but, increasingly, the world at large. No political parties for me, thank you. Once you “identify” as either R or D, you get all its baggage.
The case of Colin Wright is instructive: Bright guy, who has let the sex/gender war become his hobby horse . . . which horse has ridden him right off the cliff to trumpism. The evolutionary biologist is now in bed with the anti-evolution Christian fruitcakes. In the words of Dawn Davenport (Divine):
“Lay off me! I hate you! Fuck you! Fuck you both, you awful people!”
I’m a registered Democrat in Arizona because I want to vote in the Democratic primaries here, so for purposes of voting I identify as a Democrat. That doesn’t make me want to march in lockstep with them on gender identity matters though. I’d rather support Democratic candidates for office that aren’t in thrall to the gender Borg, thanks.
As for Colin Wight, he’s an Australian who likely wouldn’t support Trump or the Republican Party if he became a citizen of the U.S., but for him Trump’s winning is a blow against the gender Borg at least. I doubt he’d like some of other Trump’s baggage when it comes to legal abortion though. But then, that’s not his problem.
Because I do live in an area where the majority of people are conservative, I don’t wear my politics on my sleeve but neither do I refuse to defend my views in polite company. People are mostly decent even if they may be mistaken about a few things, and I may be mistaken too of course. Social media’s enabling of rude, insulting behavior is definitely a problem though as more and more people get their news and information not from boring old newspapers but from edge lords seeking attention online.
WaPo: A college league splinters over claims one player is trans
I’ve seen a couple of articles like this, and it’s infuriating. Now suddenly it’s “claims” that a player is trans? Not actual acknowledgement that there is a “trans” (aka male) player on the team, but merely claims? This is such dishonest framing, as if the player were communist or Jewish or some other irrelevant characteristic that can’t be settled by looking at him.
PZ has a small tanty about someone using the term ‘biological women’:
In a way he is almost right, by accident. The term is clunky I’ll agree, and it used to be redundant. For a long time we simply didn’t need to specify that we were talking about biology, because that was already implicit. It became necessary only recently, and we can blame the gender identity movement for that necessity.
Suddenly, there was a new idea: that woman or man might not be dependant on biological sex, but on some fuzzy internal feeling. PZ is mocking a term coined by his own movement.
Again, almost right and again, entirely by accident. Yes, people want to keep McBride out of the women’s amenities.
Because he’s a man.
Mike Haubrich #169, Mike B #170
I don’t claim any expertise on social media algorithms, but I assume they are basically designed to maximize the number of clicks by applying heuristics like “people who clicked on X in the past were more likely than expected by chance to also click on Y” (I am sure there are others here who can correct me if I’m completely off the mark). If so, it’s telling that the YouTube algorithm started suggesting a lot more Right-wing crap after I began specifically looking for gender critical material. There’s a twist to the story, however. Recently (for reasons I hope are only too obvious) I have, once again, been watching a lot of material on the threats to liberal democracy from the MAGA crowd. And, what do you know, suddenly there’s noticeable uptick in TERF-bashing material in my suggestions!
As I have previously said, I have no doubt that this is largely due to the fact that Right-leaning sources tend to be the only ones willing to give a platform to anyone not 100% uncritical of gender ideology (just like Left-leaning sources tend to be the most welcoming platforms for material critical of Trump). Once again, we’re not in the luxurious position of having lots of attractive options to chose from, and sometimes you have to make a common cause with Stalin to defeat Hitler. But as I pointed out back then, some of the people on the gender critical “side” had already been saying things that made me uncomfortable (usually along the lines of “Trump may not be perfect, but…”), and many others have joined them since then.
It would be one thing if these people were consistently portraying Trump as the lesser of two evils (I would still think they were wrong, but “reasonable people can disagree” and all that), but in many cases their ethical standards seem to have been adjusted to the point where Trump is no longer considered an obvious “evil” at all. Once again, I think cognitive dissonance is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Even if you just make an entirely “pragmatic” decision to work with the MAGA crowd to stop the medical experimentation on children, the destruction of female-only spaces etc., you now have a stake in defending your choice (“if they really were that awful, a decent person like myself wouldn’t be working with them”). You also have a stake in keeping the alliance together, not antagonizing your new bedfellows etc., and, before you know it, you’re in a justification spiral pushing you ever further to the Right, until attempts to overturn an election, inciting a violent insurrection, sucking up to Putin, a lifetime of crime and corruption, grabbing women by the pussy, suggesting that the “Second Amendment People” take care of one’s political rival etc. are all within your standards of acceptable behavior.
I also suspect there’s a justification working in the opposite direction: We can’t defeat the Trumpist assault on liberal democracy alone, and the only realistic alternatives* are the same people who endorse medical experimentation on children as well as biological males in women’s toilets, changing rooms, sports, prisons, rape and domestic abuse shelters etc. But since the latter, at the very least, remain dedicated to basic democratic rules of the game, like accepting the outcome of elections, you decide to support them against the MAGA crowd, which, once again, means you have a stake in defending your choice: “if they really were that awful, a decent person like myself wouldn’t be voting for them”, so you start making excuses for the excesses of gender ideology, and, once again, you’re in a justification spiral pushing you ever further towards the (woke) left. Either way, liberal values, the respect for evidence and logic etc. lose.
*Obviously the American two-party system makes this problem a whole lot worse.
In the most recent Skeptics Guide to the Universe (2024/11/23) in the 1st 20 minutes, they were discussing possible use of AI in learning about how the ‘sense of self’ can go wrong.
They mention such things as ‘limb neglect’, in which an arm or a leg doesn’t feel like it belongs to the person, and the ethical discussion about whether the limb should be amputated at the request of the victim of this disorder.
They don’t mention the obvious (to me) parallel with feeling like one is born in the wrong sex body, and the ethics of ‘gender affirming care’.
I bet we can make an informed guess about why they didn’t mention it.
[…] a comment by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany […]
@Jim Baerg:
It’s my understanding that people who seek to amputate their healthy limbs are usually not sufferers of limb neglect (which is related to brain damage such as stroke), but rather they are sufferers of the psychological condition known as body integrity dysphoria. I wonder if the Skeptics Guide people deliberately steered clear of talk of body integrity dysphoria, because it is both clearly closely related to gender dysphoria, and it’s clearly related to sexual paraphilia.
BID and GD are so closely related, they underwent name changes at the same time: body integrity dysphoria used to be called body integrity identity disorder, just as gender dysphoria used to be called gender identity disorder.
BID poses a problem for those who deny that crossdressing and transgender identity are rooted in sexual fetish. Because the desire to amputate one’s own limb is so shocking and strange, and so is sexual arousal at the sight of amputated limbs, it’s pretty difficult to dismiss as an insignificant coincidence the fact that the two tend to co-occur.
There are so many parallels between BID and GD that it makes it much, much harder for people to discount the co-occurrence among men diagnosed with GD of sexual arousal at thoughts of transforming into females.
So I wonder if the Skeptics Guide people didn’t so much neglect to notice the relevance of their topic to the gender debate, but rather that they were so aware of it as to take pains to deliberately go around it, by talking about “limb neglect” instead of BID.
A possible moderation of the stances?
After Kamala Harris’ defeat, some L.G.B.T.Q. activists are now talking about moving away from the old “confrontational ways”, even -GASP! – acknowledging that J. K. Rowling may have been treated unfairly because of her gender-critical views:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/us/politics/transgender-activists-rights.html
The Athletic reports that the NWSL (The National “Women’s” Soccer League) has been caught out as being transphobic in the introduction of the Boston franchise. They ran an ad campaign about how there were too many “balls” in the sport. And of course, that ad just won’t do, because the measure of a woman is not her gonads. I have a subscription, but The Athletic doesn’t have a gift article feature. Here are a pair of links to stories:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5952727/2024/11/27/bos-nation-considers-name-change/
and
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5847932/2024/10/16/bos-nation-apology-hurt/
And from the second link:
Seattle apparently has two balls on their team, too. That’s just nuts.
More moderation of the stances. This time it’s Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic:
Moderation Is Not the Same Thing as Surrender
Subhed: “Democrats do not, in fact, face a choice between championing trans rights and completely abandoning them.”
In which Chait looks at the polling figures and concedes that the trans issue was probably enough to tip the balance in favour of Trump:
I did a mini-fisking of Chait’s piece over at my Substack. I went easy on him. I guess I was in a conciliatory mood when I wrote it.
https://artymorty.substack.com/p/small-signs-of-change-in-the-us-media
Thanks Arty. I’ve just read your piece comparing the trans lie to kayfabe and I think it’s a genuine advance in understanding what we’re up against. I occasionally go into battle on Quora (and lately YouTube of all places – things are changing). With your permission I’d like to post a link if the occasion arises.
Great mini-fisking Arty.
(That makes quite a nice swear. “Great Minnie Fisking, what was that?!”)
Snorted out loud at that.
Excellent article, Arty.
@Francis,
You’re more than welcome to share my posts anytime, anywhere. One of my main motivations for writing essays is to give people ammunition to bolster their arguments. It’s gratifying when people share them.
And that Kayfabe piece originated here at B&W. As so much interesting, intellectual conversation does.
A Woman’s Place is sadly closing down after several years of campaigning.
https://x.com/Womans_Place_UK/status/1862106356615893238#m
@Arty
Will do. I just think it’s a good idea to ask before invoking the hordes!
To donate, or not to donate?
Those of us in the U.S. are probably starting to get year-end fundraising appeals from nonprofits. Even though I’m a lifetime member of American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, I stopped supporting both those organizations when they went all rah-rah for trans “rights” — as if that had anything to do with their stated purposes and foundational principles!
And just now I got an appeal from the Secular Student Alliance. I really like that organization, but wouldn’t you know… One of their flagship projects this year was “Fighting for Free Expression in Texas” — sounds good, doesn’t it? But it turns out that amounted to suing the president of West Texas A&M University for canceling a student-led drag show organized by the SSA, citing his personal religious beliefs and “referencing God and even equating drag to blackface”. The graphic for this paragraph shows some guy doing a pretty good approximation of Marilyn Monroe, complete with the black dress. Which I did not need to see.
I kind of agree with all this — that university president needed a smack for failing to draw a line between his personal opinions and perfectly legal student activities, whatever they might be. But apparently a womanface show is the hill the SSA is prepared to die on.
I’ve given them money in the past and I’d like to keep doing it. I just don’t want to be contributing to this. Thoughts?
You could give them money and your thoughts on womanface?
There’s always FIRE if that suits your tastes…
#190 BKiSA
Please expand FIRE as an acronym.
I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
Another insult to women from The NY Times yesterday:
In a First, Transgender Woman Wins Model of the Year
Alex Consani is a star, on TikTok and on the runway. In her speech at the Fashion Awards in London, she acknowledged the struggles of other pioneers.
https://archive.is/Z3UhP
Jim @ #191 — the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, https://www.thefire.org/ Worth a look!
Oh look. Some clown called Joanna Wuest is arguing that people who object to teenagers being sterilized and mutilated are the same as climate change deniers and pro-tobacco lobbyists:
https://archive.is/dHmoP
Urgh. That is a clown. I suspect that is also a “trans woman” but if so he’s being sneaky about it; I can’t find any confirmation (or denial).
Great ironies this morning: Elon Musk’s AI identified Musk as the biggest spreader of information on X since he acquired it.
Ophelia @ #195:
Your suspicion (and mine) is correct:
Transcript of radio interview, 8 September 2023
Wuest has a personal web page with CV and photo.
And yet both he and the Nation carefully conceal that fact. How interesting.
It’s journalistic malpractice on the part of The Nation to not mention a pertinent fact that has to influence the article.
Times of Israel: Belgian festival cancels screening of film on trans Gazan after Israel ‘pinkwashing’ claims
The article contains a link to a film trailer on YouTube.
Another (longer) article in the Jewish Journal: French Transgender Film Gets Cancelled Because it Made Israel Look Good
I can’t say I’ve heard of any efforts to downplay or censor anti-Jewish sentiment from Palestinians, but I could have missed it. Or misogyny, or violence against women. But they can’t be shown to be transphobic. And I don’t believe this issue would have come up if the film exposed homophobic views; speculation on my part, I admit. But we know the TQ+ tail wags the LGB dog.
“Pinkwashing” was only a vaguely familiar term to me. According to Wikipedia, there are three rather different interpretations of the term:
1. Promoting women’s sports, so as to protect fragile male egos if women compete fairly against men.
2. Displaying lots of pink ribbons and paraphernalia to “raise awareness” of breast cancer, without necessarily doing anything useful to help the situation.
3. Promoting the “LGBTQ+”-friendliness of a company or political entity in order to draw attention away from its negative aspects.
In this case, it’s obviously the third definition that applies.
From the trailer, it appears to be the story of a trans-identified man who flees Gaza and relocates to Tel Aviv, where he works as a prostitute (“Would you have sex with an Arab?” is one screen text). I can’t help thinking that prostitution is a factor in both the rejection and the acceptance; there is demand for “exotic” prostitutes.
“We’re less homophobic than Hamas” (as if that’s hard) is definitely one of Israel’s “see we’re just like you Western democracies” lines. They neglect to mention that Leviticus is a Jewish text.
FWIW a website that is usually about new developments in technology comments on the trans ‘women’ in sport thing.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/12/debunking-neil-degrasse-tyson-on-sports-and-gender.html
We have all heard trans activism, or wokeism in general, described as a cult. On the other hand there are people who seem to suggest that because these movements don’t exactly meet the formal definition of cult, there is nothing to learn from the study of cults that’s at all relevant to the issue. Regardless of whether or not you think TRAs are a cult, I hope we can all agree that this is not a very compelling argument. Even if we accept the premise, the conclusion clearly doesn’t follow.
Read the rest here.
* As far as the other themes are concerned
[…] a comment by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany […]
So Jesse Singal is on Bluesky now (he’s in the top 20 block list); it has been suggested that if enough sane people colonize the space it might make an acceptable Twitter alternative. Never went on that hellsite but I’m following the poor boy over.
Oh great Atheismo help me…
There’s a real “moral panic” atmosphere over the issue of one individual journalist with some unpopular opinions joining a social media site.
Thomas Prosser comments:
https://bsky.app/profile/prossertj.bsky.social/post/3ld4hmdexik2l
Yes, that’s alleged murderer Luigi Mangione.
Oh wow. I have been on BlueSky for a short while, and have certainly noticed the TERF panic there. I was following a couple of sci-fi authors, mostly very sensible folks, but now and then they repost messages boasting gleefully about the mass TERF blockings they’ve accomplished. Usually with hundreds of enthusiastic responses and likes.
Now I am there mostly to follow news on the Ukraine war, so the TERF panics don’t really bother me so much. But then I looked up Jesse Singal, and find that, in addition to Jesse himself, there are a whole lot of users with “Jesse Singal” as part of their user name, such as “Jesse Singal Vapes Piss” (second hit after the real Jesse Singal), “Indofrin (ban Jesse Singal)”,“Dan thinks Bsky should ban Jesse Singal”, and so forth.
I don’t even know who Jesse Singal is, but now I’ll just have to find out.
In other news, Graham Linehan has announced he’s leaving Britain to work on a TV project with right-wing actor Rob Schneider:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/graham-linehan-announces-uk-exit/
Wonder will Linehan be able to get back into his TV writing groove?
I wonder if he’ll be able to tolerate the climate! I know I couldn’t.
I read a quote on Facebook, thought it good, but it was unattributed. Fortunately, this was in the comments. Unfortunately, Facebook did its usual annoying random refresh thing while I was copying the comment, so now I can’t find the post with the quote. I hope that the link isn’t broken.
Dammit, there’s a space after ph which shouldn’t be there.
That is an excellent article. I went looking for the original, and found the author had been found in violation of the rules of Medium. Grrr.
Thanks Tigger! An excellent article indeed.
For something more humorous
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/age
The Jesse Singal saga gets *worse*. Not only has someone on Bluesky falsely accusing Jesse Singal of being a paedophile, but people there are now calling for Singal’s murder.
https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1867641228659241373
https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1867641228659241373
Another death against Singal here:
https://x.com/jessesingal/status/1865459082263503272
Yikes.
Also – threats against Wes Streeting on Bluesky for his decision to protect children from puberty blockers:
https://bsky.app/search?q=wes+streeting+brian+thompson+
They’re hoping Streeting ends up like murdered CEO Brian Thompson (yikes!)
Feminist women have been putting up with these threats for about 12 years, but now men are also being targeted for not fawning to the Gender God.
Can you replace the Jerry Coyne link with a non-risky one?
Will this link do? It doesn’t seem to be risky.
https://bsky.app/profile/nerdcowboy.bsky.social/post/3ld5bmdv3ok2j
Two things from today’s Washington Post. First, an editorial suggesting that perhaps more science should be done before putting kids on puberty blockers and hormones. Could the worm be turning? (Laws like that in Tennessee make me a bit queasy–as a general principle, I don’t think medical care should be a legislative issue–but the unquestioned rush toward “gender-affirming care” has brought us to this point.)
Second, House Democrats want Biden to ratify the ERA. I’m on several minds on this. Of course, the amendment should have been ratified decades ago. On the other hand, it didn’t meet the (Congressionally-imposed) time limit. On the other other hand, there’s nothing in the Constitution about time limits on amendments, so do such limits need to be respected? On the other other other hand, it seems ridiculous that an amendment can lie in wait for decades or even centuries, slouching toward ratification (this actually happened with the 27th Amendment, which was actually proposed as part of the Bill of Rights and was finally ratified in 1992; fortunately that’s one that pretty much everyone can agree on); surely any amendment ought to reflect the opinions of a substantial majority of citizens at a given moment in time. On the other other other other hand, the process for amending the Constitution is ridiculously difficult to amend (which is not necessarily a bad thing). On the other other other other other hand, a few states rescinded their ratification, so perhaps that should be respected, but on the other other other other other other hand, again, there’s nothing in the Constitution about rescinding ratification once it’s been passed.
And at this point I’m running out of hands.
WaM, I’m going to start with a new pair of hands. On one hand, we have had the specter of states ratifying, then rescinding their ratification. On the other hand, this is done by legislature, not popular vote. (I’m not sure it could pass with popular vote, either.) While the legislators are elected by the voters, giving them this task is not the same as giving it to the voters, as numerous votes on abortion (to support it even against their legislature) demonstrate.
The thing is, using my head instead of my hands, it is my studied opinion that no human rights should be subject to the voters and their whims. They should be encapsulated into those documents which lack them, and included in new documents, without waiting to see who will be supportive. The struggle for the Nineteenth Amendment, though more than 100 years ago now, suggests how difficult it is to get people to vote for the rights of people who are not them. It took a bloody, awful war to get anywhere close to rights for people of color, one of the basic rights understood as belonging to white men…the right not to be held in slavery. Let us hope it does not require prolonged war and suffering to gain and hold on to rights for women. (I’m not confident of any of it; inroads are also being made into the rights won by people of color and same-sex attracted people.)
Deadline Hollywood (online entertainment news magazine): J.K. Rowling: Warner Bros. Discovery & BBC Accused Of Betraying DEI Policies By Backing ‘Harry Potter’ Author Amid Trans Rights Row
This crossed my feed earlier today.
Accused by whom? Good question. Reading through the article, I can find reference to a vague claim by a DEI vice president at Warner Brothers/Discovery (WBD), but no actual accusations, no formal complaints, just lots of angst. The VP said that WBD had a duty to “provide a safe space” for trans employees to “live authentically”, but no indication that she indicated that JKR and the Harry Potter series had done anything to prevent that from happening. There do not appear to be any actual accusations.
The article, based on exclusive interviews by Deadline Hollywood, does the usual muckraking, printing things that JKR has said that they don’t like, without context, without indication of what she was responding to. It is of course considered awful to refer to a trans-identified male as a “trans-identified male”. There is no indication whatsoever that there are any problems being caused by JKR having opinions some people don’t like, or having written essays some people don’t find appropriate. Credit where credit due; the article does quote a fair number of people who defend JKR, and who don’t see any problems in developing the show.
A different article at The Distance claiming that Disney has pulled back substantially from their wholehearted embrace of gender ideology, for example scaling back the presence of a “trans” character in a new show and making other changes, possibly in response to poor box office results for movies containing certain story lines. Make of it what you will.
Good old agentless passive voice “accused of” – could be some toddler in Cedar Rapids.
This is not a duty of an employer. An employer has a duty to follow proper safety procedures and maintain a safe workspace in the physical sense, and they have a duty not to emotionally abuse employees. There is no duty to provide anyone a space to ‘live authentically’. In fact, most employers don’t do that; they have certain requirements about dress, behavior, language, and what the hell you are to do with your time while you are at work. For a gamer, ‘living authentically’ might involve using the work computers for nothing but gaming all day. For someone who is a slob, it might mean dressing so horribly that the customers complain. My employer had rules for me, and all of us. I could ‘live authentically’ only within those rules, which included not talking politics with my students, though I am a political junkie, and not using bad language, though I do appreciate the ability to swear now and then. (Have you heard of a college that won’t even let the theatre teacher swear? That’s forbidding someone to live authentically, if I may be so bold as to point it out.)
When did bosses get so lily-livered that they allow one group of employees to dictate so much? This isn’t an across the board duty, apparently, since they are not required to give the same allowance for women. I suspect they also wouldn’t be required to allow ‘furries’ to ‘live authentically’ in the office, or ‘trans-babies’. Men who want to be women? Bow down and genuflect to the most marginalized community ever…who manage to be marginalized without having to suffer any actual marginalization.
Oh I suspect they might be enjoying some marginalization soon… If Democratic anger can be redirected, perhaps more.
[…] a comment by iknklast at Miscellany […]
Is the “President Musk” meme actually useful? I’m not really sure one way or the other…
While searching Amazon for new or upcoming books on Orcas (Killer Whales) to watch out for, this item by Orca Book Publishers aimed at children, showed up in my results:
Horror beyond imagining.
Link to the above, if your stomach is strong enough: https://www.amazon.ca/Its-They-Dr-Lindsay-Herriot/dp/1459837657/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2X9MD18M14X1B&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.aGyWJMecUg1lMYk9s6RMrw.q7X1HWF6mH_X3Z2HRaSbhKywEXe-gIS9kd_peHOrVwk&dib_tag=se&keywords=9781459837652&qid=1734745024&s=books&sprefix=9781459837652%2Cstripbooks%2C114&sr=1-1
Get them while they’re young. As if having this bullshit taught in schools wasn’t enough.
One of the advantages of living in the Great Land Downunder is I get to celebrate Christmas before most of you, so from me to everyone here whose posts I read and appreciate, and to any lurkers who read but don’t comment, have a Merry Xmas / Happy Holidays / Happy Hannukah, or as we say in OZ – Fill yer boots, do a shoey, and have a bloody good day!
Thank you Rev and same to you!
Seasons best to everyone!
and as an Australian you should listen to the Australian Xmas song
“White Wine in the Sun” by Tim Minchin
Happy Christmas and don’t forget the reason for the season:
Drink Coca-Cola.
Trump spent the day doing what he does, being totally batshit.
Please wake me from this nightmare.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-radical-left-lunatics-christmas-day-message_n_676c7fa7e4b0d0ae76de088b/amp
Sorry Jim, but as a dinki di true blue Aussie my wine is red, my coffee black, and my anthem is Eric Bogle’s “I Hate Wogs”
But regardless of our differences in libations and music, I wish you and yours only the best and may we meet in the “April Sun In Cuba”.
I just finished my annual compliance training for my university today. Three hours of awful videos but oh I learned that people who are pregnant are addressed as they and people named Tyler, Chris and Alex are addressed as they. We’re all theys now. Just a thought. I have nowhere else to vent this shit.
Biden administration doesn’t seem to be handling the current flu problem very well (and the USDA/farmers are a big obstacle there)… Can’t imagine the nutters Trump brings in will improve the situation but it would be an excellent opportunity to prove themselves superior.
I feel like this just isn’t getting enough attention.
Seeing Trump going in to bat for Tik Tok has made me think that Biden and who ever is advising him have missed a prime opportunity to protect America from Trump.
As soon as trump was elected it should have been Opposite Day in the Whitehouse and Congress. Everything Trump’s shriveled heart desired should have been legislated because just as with last time around, anything his predecessor did was bad for America, nobody had ever seen anything so bad before, and he will stop munching cheezeburders long enough to undo all that Biden did.
Has Roz Kaveney been at the sherry?
So people that don’t believe puberty blockers are good for gay and disabled teenagers, or that natal men have an advantage over natal women in sport, are like discredited Victorian scientists. I don’t think so.
Ye Link:
https://x.com/RozKaveney/status/1874081293123936414?mx=2
And people who fervently believe everything trans ideology tells them are correct. Uh huh. Pull the other one, “Roz”.
“Roz Kaveney” was formerly known as Andrew Kaveney:
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?73341
I thought “the current state of knowledge” had indeed “accounted” for gender identity in terms of brain differences, and that the mismatch between “brain sex” and the sex of the body was a “known process”. Judging by the level of total certainty* expressed by proponets of the gender identity model this should be the most settled question ever.
Of course we have heard the exact same logic (basically a version of the Galileo Argument), including accusations of “scientism”, invoked by parapsychologists like Charles Tart in support of extrasensory perception…
* Nothing “arrogant” about that of course…
I would say the scientists embracing genderism are more like the Victorian scientists who believed mesmerism. No evidence to support it, but that didn’t stop anyone. It looked flashy and that was all they needed. Fortunately, a few scientists shook their heads and got to work studying the phenomenon without the bias of believing in it. Thus, almost no one has heard of mesmerism in any form other than standard hypnosis (which has its own problems, of course).
More bashing of Jesse Singal.
Some clickbait-spewing hack called Katherine Alejandra Cross has written a piece about Bluesky denouncing Singal as a “bad actor” and a “provocateur” whose mere presence is a threat to marginalized people:
https://archive.is/UViwa#selection-517.4-517.10
Another example of how gender ideology wants to have it both ways (or all ways, given how many supposed phenomena it tries to subsume under the “trans” explantion). By claiming that “transness” and “gender identity” are supposedly unarguably settled, Kaveny is claiming to be on the side of an orthodox, majority position, yet critics are somehow going to be discomfited by discoveries yet to be made. In this muddled reading of the Galileo analogy, his side is the hide-bound, Church-enforced, hegemonic, Ptolemaic, Aristotelian one. There are a lot more parallels with genderism in that list than Kaveny might be comfortable with, given the amount of vindictive, punitive, institutional power that trans ideology currently wields against its critics.
And as far as “new discoveries” coming along, genderists do their best to quash any research that threatens their “settled science,” which is based on little but stereotypes, word games, and bluster. Even re-examing those studies that have already been done is verboten; look at the reception they gave the Cass Report. Actual “gender scientists” would be trying to figure out the biological, evolutionary origins and nature of “gender identity,” and determine the nature of its relationship to the sexed, physical body. If this were an actual field of study, there would be no end of questions to ask and connections to be studied.Is any of this happening? No. This lack of curiousity is curious and telling. The same goes with many other pseudosciences. Just imagine the scope of inquiry and potential for amazing discoveries if astrology, telekinesis, psychic predictions, talking to the dead, perpetual motion, homeopathy, channeling, etc., actually happened. If astrologers, psychics, homeopaths, etc. would be doing research into the material basis of their fields in order to improve their understanding and results. If even the practioners have stopped trying to answer questions that remain open, you know that something’s up.
If any one of these phenomena were real, there would be huge research programs dedicated to them, and we would be living in a completely different world. Leaders in these fields would have been given Nobel prizes, their findings lauded and popularized. These areas would not be “fringe beliefs,” but mainstream science. But none of them have survived the brutal, Darwinian trial by fire that is the scientific method.* They have been studied and found wanting, or non-existent. “Research” into these fringe areas only brings results when standards are relaxed, or when procedures are shielded from skeptics and non-believers, neither of which are suggestive of reliable findings, or any robust, useful connection to reality. Consequently these fields have been abandoned by science, which has left them in the hands of true believers, pious frauds, grifters, and charlatans. Sound familiar?
Is there some undiscovered “gender identity” equivalent to radioactive decay yet to be discovered that will, someday, illuminate gender research and cause critics to eat crow? I doubt it. Genderists themselves aren’t looking for it. There will be no “breakthrough” discovery coming from them, because they aren’t asking questions; and they’re trying to prevent anyone else from asking them as well. Genderists are acting less like physicists and more like astrologers and psychics. Kaveny would do well to throttle back on his premature triumphalism. Any future foolishness or embarassment is more likely to land on the genderist side than on ours., though I’m willing to take that chance. It would seem that they aren’t. “NO DEBATE!” also means “NO RESEARCH!” But I’d forego the dark pleasure of reveling in their future embarassment if they were to feel some immediate shame or regret for the hurt and harm their beliefs have already caused and continue to inflict. It takes no unimagined future discoveries to recognoze the real injuries for which they should be held accountable right now. Forget about the “right side of history.” How about some justice in the here and now?
* Ideas once derides as “fringe” can become maistream science. Alfred Wegener’s ideas about “continental drift” made just such a move from the edge to the centre with the crucial mid 20th century discovery of the mechanism of sea-floor spreading. Plate tectonics has become the cornerstone of our understanding of the workings of Earth as a geobiophysical whole, and the formation and evolution of solid planets in general. It is a powerful, fruitful idea. Is there a gender equivalent of sea-floor spreading waiting to be unearthed that will explain the nature and workings of the gendered soul inhabiting our sexed bodies? I doubt it.
Just once I’d like to see how this works. I could see how, if he were say, radioactive, this might be the case in a crowded room. But online? How does that work? Talk about “spooky action at a distance.”
[…] Cloudy alerted us to a piece by “a clickbait-spewing hack called Katherine Alejandra Cross” who disapproves […]
Do these marginalized people not have access to a block or? It’s amazingly easy not to see Jesse (or anyone that follows him) on Bluesky if you don’t want to.
Re my comment #146, I recently listened to an interview with David Frum that made me think of another way in which the likes of Trump have more in common with the woke crowd than with old-school fiscal conservatives. After all, the latter tend to see free trade as a positive sum game in which both parties stand to gain something. While talking about Trump’s life-long obsession with tariffs, Frum made the observation that Trump is unable to even conceive of a positive sum game, a mutually beneficial arrangement, a ”win-win” situation etc. The way his brain is wired, the only way he is able to make sense of the world is in terms of zero-sum conflicts in which any gain made by one party is a net loss to the other, hence if his trading partners are happy with a deal it has to mean he got screwed.
This is, of course, close to how the woke see the world as well: To close the power gap, it’s not enough to lift up the marginalized, but the ”privileged”* have to be brought down. Never mind if, say, a ”color blind” welfare program that prioitizes those with the lowest incomes disproportionally benefits blacks. If there’s anything in it for whites** (no matter how poor), it’s perpetuating the existing power hierarchies and must therefore be opposed on principle.
* As determined by group identity, not life circumstances.
** Unless, of course, they’re also
women, ”LGBTQ+”, disabled, fat etc.Good insight, Bjarte. I’ve long noticed that the white men on the right seem to see one person who is non-white, non-male, or both achieve success, it isn’t that the overall success of the world is increased, but that the success of white males is decreased, meaning they personally are no longer worth as much. White men don’t have to lose any status to perceive them as having lost everything or been disenfranchised; it’s only necessary that non-white, non-males gain a little…they don’t even have to reach equality.
I started noticing that in the left probably about a decade ago; as I read further back in the history, it’s obvious it was there longer, but I didn’t notice it. These days, it’s hard to miss.
Bjarte:
“zero-sum conflicts”
Then there are “negative sum conflicts” such as wars.
I doubt Trump objects to those as long as he ends up with more than he started with.
Say you have a long time friend whose daughter has declared she is “nonbinary” and wishes to be addressed as “they.” You feel in your heart the she is a bright, talented, almost certainly heterosexual young women who has simply gone off to college. How do you deal with it without coming off as an oaf?
Mike, my sympathies. I’m in a similar boat, and the way I’ve been dealing with it thus far is by avoiding any sentence that requires the use of a pronoun for her. It is intensely awkward. I just avoid talking about the young woman, and I refer to her by name when I need to. I’ve also not made efforts to get together with the friend. Not a good situation.
Mike, same here. I have several friends like that, because I am deeply involved in the theatre scene, and in theatre, they/them and trans are increasingly common.
I’m sure everyone here has heard about a bunch of changes being implemented at Facebook (and Instagram). Among these is the dropping of “fact checkers” in favor of “community notes”. I’m of two minds on that one, because I haven’t found the “fact checkers” to be particularly useful, regarding both false positives and false negatives.
Another change coming through, as described in this AP article, is a revision of the “hate speech” rules. In general, I think Facebook “hate speech” rules and handling have been arbitrary and ideological. The change is described thus:
Also:
You can see the actual change list here (click on “January 8, 2025” to see the edits). I do recommend looking at the edits, because there are a number of changes that jump out at me that are not mentioned in the article, notably that the policy is changed from “hate speech” to “hateful conduct”.
I am not enamored of “hate speech” rules in general. False statements, and incitement to violence, are already covered. I’m not convinced that, outside of those things, criticism or ridicule or disagreement should be cause for removal of posts or restrictions of accounts. I think the second quoted item thus indicates a reasonable removal.
The first quoted item also strikes me as a reasonable change: allowing people to say, without penalty, that they think homosexuality or “being transgender” is “weird” or a “mental illness”. I might or might not agree, but those are points that can be disputed, and they represent views that are held by a lot of people. How are we to know that other people hold views different from ours if those other people are not allowed to express their views?
Looking at the actual edits, I do see that a lot of work was done to clarify that it is no longer against policy to call for maintaining sex-segregated spaces, groups, or sports. To me this is an excellent move.
I recognize that these speech restrictions are an impossible task, and I think Facebook has in general done poorly in this area. I note that Meta has implemented a whirlwind of physical and technical changes clearly aimed at appeasing the incoming Trump administration. I know a number of left-ish people who are aghast at some of these “hate speech” changes. But, looking at the specifics, I am more in favor than not, and I note that the real test of free speech is how we deal with speech we do not like.
257, 258, thanks for the responses. I’m inclined to do same, but I rue the day.
259: “How are we to know that other people hold views different from ours if those other people are not allowed to express their views?” This nails a view I’ve had, although my phrasing is different: “Let them speak, because I want to know WHO the assholes are.”
The demonization of the LGB Alliance continues:
https://bsky.app/profile/gemma.transwrites.world/post/3lfd2eu3src2k
That’s from “urinate on women’s toilet seats” enthusiast Gemma Stone:
https://wingsoverscotland.com/all-the-nice-greens-love-a-rapist/
I’m reminded more of Freddie deBoer’s assertion that you get five principled libertarians and five billion witches when you take that approach to moderation. Things’ll get a lot more 4channy on FB so I dunno if that’s worth being able to say that a man isn’t a woman on there.
More worrisome is the Facebook -> Feds pipeline without even anything so inconvenient as actual government surveillance. Who needs the PATRIOT act when you can just call up Cuckerberg?
[Request to use blockquote instead of italics]
Yep!
Sorry I didn’t know you could use blockquote on this site. I’ll use it in future!
So Stone is comparing a gay & lesbian rights organisation to the infamous Paedophile Information Exchange. With people like Jacob Breslow active in the trans movement, seems like Stone shouldn’t be throwing “p-slurs” at his political opponents.
[will try this]
The speech and conduct stuff on paper is more or less fine in of itself and I’d be fine with it if Harris was president. But it seems like a frog in a boiling pot sort of deal (frogs actually aren’t like that but *humans* are). Don’t expect enforcement to be evenhanded or transparent.
I’ll be deleting all my Meta content to the extent that’s possible.
Mostly Cloudy, no problem, and thanks!
On the occasion of his 91st birthday, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien responds in the Globe and Mail to Donal Trump’s threats to Canada. (Forgive the monster blockquote, but I couldn’t find a complete version I could link to here)
Vive le Jean Chretien!
Vive le Canada libre.
Jean Chrétien’s message regardingTrump and his supporters is publicly accessible on the Global Research website.
Thanks Night Crow. The path I took to the Globe ran me into a paywall.
Oh, I love that statement by Chretien!
Does that make me a traitor?? The “enemy within”?
It’s trivial to be sure, but PZ Myers sure is letting his inner NIMBY out to play when it comes to improvements to a public park in his current neighborhood. Not sure why he cares since he’s a short timer in Morris because he’s definitely bugging out after he retires and a nearby spiffy public park is selling point for his house. FWIW, two acres is not a small park, really.
Link: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/14/i-did-my-civic-duty/#comments
Interesting news…
https://x.com/SashaLPC/status/1879211529754587638
Huh. I think I agree with him on this one. I like green leafy parks and I hate it when they get paved and filled with garish toys. Add playgrounds by all means, but not in existing green leafy parks.
I was curious enough to take a look at the current park in Morris (it’s on Google Street Maps) and what they’re doing is consolidating two existing play areas with older equipment into one with newer (and safer) equipment and that rubbery sort of stuff they use on the ground to cushion falls. The trees that are there aren’t older beautiful ones so there’s no loss of shade and I noted a few of them were ash trees which are going to die anyway thanks to the nation-wide emerald ash borer infestation that’s killing them off.
I was a member of my small town’s planning and zoning committee for six years before I retired and I recall when a rec center that was three blocks from my home wanted to put in a nifty splash pad area for the kids adjacent to the existing indoor pool, and one neighbor across the street from it objected saying he didn’t want noisy kids playing there. It didn’t turn out to be a problem thanks to plantings to reduce noise and not keeping it going after 6pm. The kids of course love it so happy ending. I’d like to think that will happen in Morris too.
Ah. Improving existing play areas I have no problem with a-tall.
There’s this one park up in the North End of Seattle that’s built around a set of natural springs, and some damn fools decided to add a play area to that. Granted it’s in a part that’s just flat and grassy and in sight of the sidewalk, but still – a small park around ancient springs should be as pristine as possible.
Yes, PZ may have made a valid point about artificial surfaces* but I’m reminded of an old quote (I forget the exact source but it was an early 20thC. politician talking about another): ‘his natural instinct is to lie, and so ingrained is this instinct that should he find himself inadvertently telling a truth he will immediately tell two untruths to make up for his transgression.’
The two posts immediately following the one about artificial surfaces are business as usual. The first is his recent discovery that Bryn Mawr college, an ‘all-women’ liberal arts facility, has since 2015 been an ‘all-women-and-anybody-who-identifies-as-a-woman’ college. ‘It always seemed like a most excellent liberal arts college’, says PZ, and because of its trans-incloosiveness policy ‘now I respect that college even more’. Celebrating a college for women taking away places intended for women and giving them to men.
The second is a promotion of a video titled Trans Women Are Women PZ’s commentary in full:
Three sentences positively dripping with dishonesty. Determination of sex really isn’t ‘complicated and tangled’, but it’s what the gender cultists have to say to get around the inconvenient fact that there are no ‘transgender genes’; that trans is a psychological rather than a physiological phenomenon. Then there’s his snide use of quote marks around ‘scientists’ as though it’s the likes of Dawkins and Coyne who are spreading pseudoscientific nonsense. And he finishes with the insinuation that such well-known, liberal-leaning atheists are intentionally working to benefit conservatism and religion rather than reiterating established scientific knowledge.
*I doubt that PZ would understand the hypocrisy of his ranting against replacing the natural with the artificial in one post and promoting exactly that in the two that follow.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/15/i-knew-a-few-people-at-bryn-mawr/
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/16/if-we-say-the-obvious-often-enough-will-people-figure-it-out/
Look at these ghouls. UK Trans activists are laying miniature wooden coffins outside Wes Streeting’s office saying:
.
https://x.com/Gaynotqueer1/status/1879989502669656080#m
This is a nihilistic death cult that wants children and teenagers to suffer and die.
@AoS #279:
Not convinced you can divorce the physiological from the psychological… there probably are “trans genes” but trans shit is just the conduit for those deep down predilections are. If it wasn’t trans it’d be something else, probably (though only probably) sexual in nature.
Not trans, but a shapeshifter. That is the best description I have seen of a predatory male who poses as a woman, unfortunate only that the term was coined by one of his victims.
0
The mother’s story has come to light after Burton appealed his 7 year sentence after conviction on aggravated counts of producing and possessing child exploitation material, gross indecency and indecent assault. Burton entered a guilty plea at trial.
At his sentencing Burton claimed to have been bullied and mistreated while on remand, and made the following statement,
“I’m still famous, I’m still number one … I’m still the queen and then … my name will be loud,” Burton had said.
“I’ll be famous. I’ll be known, very well known.”
Burton was a male presenting as a man when the crimes were committed and began transition after offending. I think I’ve seen that movie before.
You can read the whole article here:
https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-sa/childabusing-tiktok-star-and-proud-trans-woman-rachel-queen-burton-challenges-sentence-as-victims-mum-helen-speaks-out/news-story/387281914db1bfa9c62fac2769c53990
and other victim’s stories here
https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-sa/tiktok-star-rachel-queen-burton-pleads-guilty-to-child-abuse-offences-court-told-victims-family-was-stalked-into-homelessness/news-story/45297f20873f39ceab38ca7edb94ed4c
Jaysus.
This can be interpreted as mocking gender identity among other things.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/boom-2
Maybe I’m just seeing it where it isn’t after reading too much about it.
Anyone got a list of the news orgs that haven’t caved? I’ve been skeptical of many of them for a while (because Wokie nonsense) but now, well, I need to know what’s actually going on vs. what the natcons want people to hear. From Trump’s point of view it’s fine if basically no one trusts any news organization.
CBS, NBC, ABC, WaPo, and LA Times are all in the bag, PBS and NPR are sure to be targeted, NY Times may be ok but Bret Stephens has bent a knee so I don’t know about that. Murdoch press is all in as far as I know.
To paraphrase D J Trump from 9 years ago –
Russia, if you’re listening, please drop a great big beautiful nuke on 1600 Penn and another on 1100 South Ocean Blvd. The world will thank you.
/notquitesarc
So long America, we hardly knew ya.
In the “more bad news” category….
So Trump issued an Executive Order rolling back pro-trans policies. Great, right? Not so fast. Check out the “definitions” section (I hope this link works): Sections E & D.
Note the wording:
‘(d) “Female” means a person belonging at conception to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.’ (bolding mine)
Yeah, it’s ‘conception as personhood’, packaged up in an order ostensibly about protecting women’s spaces. I suspect this is deliberate (though probably not by Trump himself–it’s too subtle for him). As I’ve been afraid of all along, they’re using the language of gender-crit feminists to attack feminism itself, and probably hoping that enough feminists will see just the bits about keeping men out of women’s prisons and assume this is an unalloyed good.
Blood Knight in Sour Armor:
CNN is still standing up to Cheeto George Wallace.
Fact check: Trump made more than 20 false claims in his Inauguration Day remarks
https://edition.cnn.com/politics/fact-check-trump-inauguration/index.html
Superwokie Michael Hobbes is having a tantrum:
.I
https://bsky.app/profile/michaelhobbes.bsky.social/post/3lg6yarvrms2z
Completely ignoring the mountains of evidence against giving children and teenagers hormones – see this very thread.
Freemage, that’s an interesting formulation. While sex sort of exists at conception, given the existence of sex chromosomes in the DNA, the sex organs do not develop until somewhat later. In modern medicine, I imagine we could tell the sex of the baby at conception (if we knew there was a baby at conception), but so what? At the time of conception, all babies are effectively female. If the trans was willing to reduce people to their biology, they could possibly use that argument (and they are willing to reduce people to their biology when it suits them).
@Mostly Cloudy #289:
In fairness to Hobbes (why am I stuck defending idiots?), there is a pretty clear “GC” to bigotry pipeline; to what extent that’s camouflage vs. radicalization it’s difficult to parse out. Even those who don’t descend into bigotry often find ways to defend or minimize those that do.
Hobbes on the other hand just assumes his pet group is the most important one ever and doesn’t do any other calculations.
1) Explain what you mean by ‘bigotry’ in this context.
2) At what point do women who stand up for women’s rights become, in your view, bigots? Provide examples.
iknklast @#290:
Oh, I’ve already seen trans supporters (particularly men) crowing about this, declaring that, by that formulation, all men are already trans–and, technically, you can make that argument with a straight face, once you’ve already bought into the broader ideas of trans ideology.
Poise Parker and Graham Lineham both went in on Elon’s promotion of that anti-Mohammedan pogrom in the UK. Again, not sure how much is human tribal dynamics and how much is “GC” being used as a smokescreen.
I’m no friend to the lying trannies but I never forgot who the worst baddies are.
@Freemage,
I think the “at conception” messaging about sex is just to establish firmly that sex is fundamental and ironclad. And sex is, in fact, established at the moment of conception. So it has the benefit of being true. It’s you introducing notions of complexity about how sex (supposedly) emerges over time during fetal development, which I would argue is completely unnecessary, and only muddies the waters. The point is that sex is simple, cut and dried. It’s a tidy political message and one has to really strain to even try to find technical fault with it.
I wouldn’t worry too much about whatever techincal, nerdy, too-online arguments might temporarily pop up from the “at conception” talk, such as arguments to link the movement against gender ideology to the movement against women’s reproductive rights. They clearly won’t last; there’s nothing to them but abstraction. It’s a whole lot of what Barack Obama would casually dismiss pithily and efficiently as “inside baseball.” And it’s what the kids these days call, “too online.”
@Blood Knight,
“anti-Mohammedan”? “pogrom”? “trannies”? Whatever you’re trying to say, you’re picking unnecessarily provocative and un-plainspoken words to say it, which gives the impression your argument, whatever it is, mightn’t hold up very strongly if it was stripped of hyperbole and exaggeration.
What it amounts to is that I straight-up don’t trust the motivations of so many so-called gender criticals since there seems to be almost this whole package deal that puts many of them into the Farage/Trump camp with the most wonderful Elon Musk. Again, uncertain to what extent GC is a smokescreen and how much it’s tribal radicalization, but it’s there.
I’m using inflammatory language to make the point that I don’t like the trans or the Muslims (prefer Mohammedan, but that’s just me being rude) but at the same time don’t like people who dislike them in what I view as a socially healthy sort of way.
Who in this cyberpunk dystopia is trustworthy and not particularly evil?
I don’t think Muslims like being called “Mohammedans” and I’m quite sure most trans-identifying people these days oppose being referred to as “trannies”, so I think you’ve put yourself into a team of one, all of your own doing. You’re not selling your argument very well. There’s a kernel of your argument about gc and radicalization that I agree with, but you’re not carving it out with any skill; I’d argue you’re butchering it.
That’s BK’s schtick – always say things in the most annoying way possible. I don’t know why.
My husband often does that; it’s his way of poking the ‘woke’ vocabulary, but a lot of it is hard to take. Maybe that’s the same thing with BK? If so, I agree with Artymorty; it’s not helpful. (And my husband only does it in private.)
Well as I’ve mentioned before I do feel a certain kinship with Musk (which obviously isn’t flattering). Here I’m putting crude language in the service of identifying my allegiances but nothing requires that I do so…
While I am doing it to be mean, it may be worth comparing and contrasting Mohammedan/Muslim vs. Mormon/LDS. Who calls Muslims Mohammedans these days, even as an insult? I am not using this in my defense so please do not spare me negative judgement on that account.
Some dark humor: trolling the “pro-life” crowd.
It’d be consistent at least; they’re supposedly against masturbation and pornography in paper.
Ha!
BK @ 300 – Ok, complaint withdrawn.
@OB:
It’s a valid complaint; I *am* annoying and yes that does mean I often find myself on a team of one. So I’m not hurt even if I often despair.
How does one “fertilize an embryo”?
Has not an embryo, by definition, already been fertilized?
My understanding is that the legislation referred to at 301 is a joke designed to highlight how one-sided and ridiculous GOP legislation designed to control women’s reproductive rights is. The legislator who introduced it is a Democrat. It’s taken a lot of people some time to recognise it for what it is.
chigau: I assume in the same way that one bakes a cake. A cake, by definition, is already baked.
There was a TPUSA event at the University of Washington a few days ago that was disrupted by 200 protestors who proceeded to pull a fire alarm, spray graffiti on buildings and break windows. I found this article about it in the University of Washington newspaper and the University spokesperson seems to feel that both sides were at fault, one for pulling firearms and graffiti, etc. the other for not requiring registration by attendees in advance of said event. Seems like a pretty bogus comparison to me, but read the article if you’re curious about the spokesperson’s reasoning.
UW responds to Jan. 21 disruptions at Thomson Hall.
J.A. @309: This is rich, after first forced to select squares containing motorcycles:
451: Unavailable due to legal reasons
We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact editor@dailyuw.com or call 206-543-2700.
Ontario’s Conservatives have called an early election, more than a year sooner than would be expected of a party with a majority in the legislature. The reason? Trump’s tariffs, which will have a serious impact on the Canadian economy as a whole, along with Ontario. Here’s Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli talking about the reasoning behind the call, and the importance of Canadian trade for the US economy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5GhjLkH0mk
At one point in this clip, Fideli recounts a meeting he had with Newt Gingrich, who explained that what one has to do when dealing with Trump is to find out what he really wants, and give him something that will make him happy. Way to encourage future bullying, Newt.
If this behaviour is how Trump thinks “negotiating” or “diplomacy”, or even just normal human interaction is supposed to work, he’s a sociopath. You don’t start from an “initial position” of threatening to burn down your neighbour’s house when what you’re really after is a cup of sugar, or to borrow their lawn mower. Is that kind of approach likely to encourage friendly relations? Are the neighbours supposed to be so relieved when you don’t actually burn down their houses that they give you more than you originally wanted out of gratitude? In the normal course of events, these neighbours would have you arrested. This is harder to do when the person threatening you with immolation is the chief of police.
What happens when what Trump really wants is Greenland, or the Panama Canal, or Canada?* How do you make him happy then? Better yet, why would you want to? Why should anyone reward such behaviour?
This is not what a normal, adult head of state of a democratic nation does. This is how a tyrant or mob boss acts. Or a child who’s figured out that nobody really cares if he does hold his breath until he turns blue, and has graduated to threatening others, rather than himself, to try to get his way. I imagine Saddam Hussein “mused” about, or “suggested” making Kuwait another province of Iraq before he invaded it. Likewise Putin with Ukraine. For most of the rest of the world, neighbouring states aren’t treated as if they are a cake or pie that you can take at will if you can get away with it.
At some point I hope one of his team sits Trump down and explains to him that ruining the Canadian economy will take the American economy with it. Otherwise trying to keep Trump “happy” is going to end up being very costly. But then he can use the destruction of his own country and our “withholding” of all those things we used to sell to the US that he claims they “don’t need” from us as a pretext for even more drastic action. We’re just more pie, cake, and ice cream to him, and that he deserves all of it.
*Trump has said that as the 51st state, Canada would avoid the tariffs he’s going to impose, recieve a huge tax cut and, laughably, get improved health care. Does he really think that we’re all so jealous and envious of the US that we would jump at the chance to join? No thank you. What an absolute idiot.
[…] a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany […]
Saved this some time ago, seems apt right now with the discussion around DEI.
https://i.postimg.cc/MGY6zwc0/474800009-1034479162052486-5613840853372769291-n.jpg
News from Canada:
https://archive.ph/fLMxA
Jesse Singal has a substack piece up today that’s quite good on the subject of defining sex and why TRAs are not even wrong about it:
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/you-cant-pseudoscience-or-even-science
I just saw this on Benjamin Ryan’s Twitter/X account. The Trump Adminstration has filed an executive order “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”.
https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1884368600729067675#m
It means the US government won’t support the use of puberty blockers, sex hormones and surgical procedures to “transition” any person under 19. It also orders the rescinding or amending of all medical policies based on WPATH’s “Standards of Care Version 8”.
As you can imagine, social media has gone wild over this executive order. Many trans activists are angry and are blaming the New York Times, the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal for this order – see here:
https://bsky.app/profile/albertocairo.com/post/3lgveak7vi226
Y’know, if Democrats had opted to do that the activists would have a valid point. As is I’m opposed to it due to who is doing it.
But I’m a child hater and have pretty libertarian views about bodily autonomy, so that informs my position.
Doctors captured by ideology are pleading with politicians open to evidence to “not be ideological” (meaning, I think, that the captured doctors would much prefer captured politicians, thank you very much):
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/29/queensland-transgender-patient-hormone-therapy-ban-doctors-ntwnfb
Fascinating, and telling, isn’t it, that when doctors plead that puberty blockers are safe and fine and already used they quote their use in precocious puberty, but not their use in chemical castrations, or terminal cancer? And then of course hope that no one ponders why such a serious drug ought to be deployed to salve a child’s feelings in the face of normal puberty.
I don’t always agree with Wesley Yang, but here he makes an eloquent statement that needs to be listened to:
https://x.com/wesyang/status/1884838961664950686#m
I caught part of the White House press conference regarding the collision between the helicopter and airliner in Washington. Trump all but blamed it on DEI hiring practices. (A colleague at work is a Trump fan, so I hear more than I’d like to from and about Orange Julius. Don’t ask.) It was rather disgusting.
Other observations (This is on top of Trump’s usual poverty of vocabulary, use of stock phrases, the need to bring things back to himself, etc. ): Trump tries to pass himself off as some sort of civil aviation expert, explaining how, because he has helicopters, he knows that they can stop, go backwards, up, down, and go “a million ways,” and how he knows how everyone should have been able to see what was happening.
The two officials I heard called up to the podium (one of whom was the Secretary of Transportation), both sounded more like groveling lackeys thrown out of their depth than competent administrators. Both praised Trump’s leadership several times, both made a point of announcing the death of DEI in the US government (again thanking Trump for this), both said that “the best and the brightest” was the new, incoming standard. They came off as schoolboys who were surprised and thankful for having been noticed by one of the cool kids, and doing their best to sound like him. One of them mentioned suits brought against the US government by multiple would-be air traffic controllers who were supposedly turned away “because of the colour of their skin.”
Funny how with school massacres it’s always “too soon to talk about gun control”, and “cruel” and “insensitive” to “politicize” such tragedies. Well Trump has wasted no time in laying this crash at the feet of DEI as practiced by the Obama and Biden administrations, so much so that if there’s some other explanation (mechanical failure, pilot error, whatever), he’s going to look even more like he jumped the gun than he already does. They haven’t even got the bodies out of the Potomac, let alone the wreckage, and they’ve already decided to use this as a platform for their anti-wokeness platform.
I have no idea if this is the case, but would Trump and his cronies go out on a limb like this if they didn’t already have someone they can call a “diversity hire” to pin this on? Has somebody told him, or has Trump asked, about the presence of suspiciously non-white people in the control tower? Trump is stupid, certainly, but he’s malevolently clever enough to do exactly that. In fact can’t see him doing this without having been assured in advance of the presence of a Black scapegoat to blame. Like I said, disgusting.
not Bruce, I don’t think he needs an actual body (though it seems likely he could find someone who is BIPOC or female…if that doesn’t work, surely someone disabled or gay). I’ve known people who will lie through their teeth about easily verifiable things, including someone who claimed the reason he didn’t get called for a job interview was because he wasn’t a black woman. He swore up and down they told him that when he called to ask. This was in spite of the fact that the job he was applying for had announced they were hiring nothing but white men for the fifteen new hires, claiming they were low on their quota of white men. (They weren’t; it took some creative counting.)
This particular person was so much like Trump it’s scary. I tend to view Trump as “what would [X] do, and figure Trump will do the same.
This is actually sort of true, but he kinda had four years to do something about it. Dunno what Biden did on that front but I haven’t heard anything. There was a BARpod episode about it some time in the past year.
Well, this is amusing. Ophelia’s least favourite Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón is in trouble after a journalist found Gascón had posted offensive social media messages about George Floyd, Muslims and Oscar diversity.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jan/30/emilia-perez-karla-sofia-gascon-inflammatory-tweets
Wonder will this sink Gascón’s chances with the Academy?
NYT: Father Slays New York Girl, 14, in TikTok ‘Honor Killing’
Hira Anwar, a 14-year-old girl born and raised in New York by Pakistani immigrant parents, went with her family to Pakistan on “family vacation”. A few days after they got there, she was shot and killed by her father and uncle, over her posting “immodest” videos on TikTok.
Allah hates women (and so does Mo).
Interesting and alarming article on the mysterious “Ziz” or “Zizian” group – a faction in the US influenced by extremist “rationalism” , timeless decision theory, and transgender ideology, which has been linked to six deaths:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/ziz-lasota-zizians-rationalism-20063671.php
Just wanted to note that I contacted my Senators about my concerns of the recent firings, etc, and the Constitutional violations. I don’t actually think it will do much good, but maybe if they hear from enough people, it might inspire them to realize it isn’t just a tiny fringe that opposes Trump.
If you’re willing to do that, you should. A shout in the wilderness is better than no shout at all.
Oh, one more thing. My husband has a linguistics question he thought someone here might know the answer to. He thinks the only gendered language that has a neutral gender is German, but he isn’t sure. Does anyone know? (I could just Google, and maybe find out, but it’s more fun to watch the discussions here.)
iknklast: The Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish) have neutral gender. I am pretty sure Icelandic has it too. Of course, all these are descended from Old Norse, which presumably also had it
NYT: C.D.C. Site Restores Some Purged Files After ‘Gender Ideology’ Ban Outcry
I don’t know what to make of this. Protesters are more up-in-arms about gender ideology than other things, the Trump administration cares more about other things than gender ideology, both, something else?
iknklast,
In addition to the Scandinavian languages, I believe Russian (and perhaps other Slavic languages) have neuter (not “neutral”) gender. There are also many languages that lack gender entirely (Turkish and Farsi come to mind; Farsi is unusual in that it’s one of the few Indo-European languages without gender).
Additionally, gender isn’t always sex-based. Some languages have gender systems based on human and non-human; others between animate and non-animate; and others have other systems that may classify nouns into as many as 20 groups (although some linguists confine “gender” to sex-based classification systems).
Could you give me some examples? I’d love to research that and find out more.
By the way, my husband thanks you. It’s a big measure of his confidence that he doesn’t even read or post here, but he trusts you. (Or maybe he trusts me and I trust you?)
Either way, I’m flattered.
Anyway, here are some examples. And I should add that this is a reflection not of my own knowledge but of my Googling skills.
Gender (or noun classification) based on animacy (or humanness): Algonquian languages (such as Cree); Georgian (some different verbs used for animate vs. inanimate objects; Nahuatl
More than three noun classifications: Bantu languages are the champs here, with Shona having 20 classes
And then there’s Dyirbal, which inspired the title of Lakoff’s book Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things.
If you want to learn more, this is a good place to start.
Shamelessly stolen from elsewhere for my American friends.
If you ever wondered what you would have done if you were living in Germany in the 1930s, it’s whatever you’re doing right now.
Well I doubt I’d be doom scrolling on my phone and Hitler had a lot more support than Trump (and I dunno what parallel Elon has if any) but yeah, otherwise I don’t disagree. The world may well be ending but I still have to go to work and pay my bills. Meanwhile my elected representatives are pulling out the playbook from back when rules still mattered; they’re forgetting it’s the year 2025.
Just hoping protesters aren’t getting gunned down today.
J.K. Rowling has a long quote on Twitter/X today about the “ideology.”
I’m going to quote it in parts:
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1887472120541679690?mx=2
Very good. I especially liked the bit about how it’s been men who’ve benefited from trans ideology – if this had been a movement consisting entirely of trans-identified women, it would never have become remotely as influential.
The “Those who’ve benefited most” paragraph is my favorite.
In today’s edition of ‘what the fuck is wrong with these people?’ I see that Netanyahu presented Trump with a tasteful gift.
Will Putin follow suit and give him a gold-plated model of a polonium-210 molecule?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2p19l24g2o.amp
Re #340, I saw that! I half wondered if it was rigged, and Netanyahu was giving several of these to various “great friends”, and they’d all detonate simultaneously at some point in the future.
Nah, if Hezbollah had been inclined to go through airport security occasionally they would’ve figured it out.
For years lots of people have been predicting “Peak Tr… (1)”, and lots of people have been predicting “Peak Tr… (2)”.
The former kept expecting Tr… (1)’s outrageous behavior, his lifetime of crime and corruption, his pathological lying, his pussygrabbing, his obvious authoritarianism and illiberalism, his nepotism, his use of the office to funnel money to his private businesses, his theft of classified documents, his attempted coup d’état (!), his endless legal trouble etc. to finally catch up with him.
The latter kept expecting the invasion of women’s sports, toilets, showers, changing rooms, domestic abuse and rape shelters, jails etc. by biological males, the mass-application of experimental medical treatments on vulnerable children and teenagers, the rise of detransitioners, the Forstater case, the WPATH-files, the Cass Review etc. to make people start abandoning Tr…(2) in droves.
We all know what happened to “Peak Tr… (1)”, which, at the very least, should make us hesitant about making confident predictions regarding human motivations and how their attitudes are going to change. The thing about cognitive dissonance, the sunk cost fallacy, the “Oedipus Trap” etc. is precisely that the more steps you take in the wrong direction the harder it gets to turn around without loss of face or self-esteem, which is a powerful incentive to protect your investment, double down on your commitment, and turn even more extreme. Much like the rainbow, your “line in the sand” keeps receding in front of you as you go.
Some think the failure of “Peak Tr… (1)” is going to accelerate “Peak Tr… (2)”, and, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned, and at least in terms of public policy (if not popular support*), they’re almost certainly not entirely wrong. In the eyes of dedicated supporters of Tr… (2), however, all this does is confirm what they’ve been saying all along: That the world is rampant with out of control levels of Tr… (2)-phobia, and that the people who oppose them are the same people who either actively support or tacitly go along with the atrocities of Tr…(1). I wouldn’t expect this to make them any less dedicated to their agenda any time soon.
* As many other have pointed out, strong support for Tr… (2) was only ever a minority position. But as we all know, a sufficiently motivated and informed minority often succeeds in forcing its agenda on an uninformed or indifferent majority.
[…] a comment by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany […]
Did you know there was a school shooting in Sweden?
chigau, my husband told me about that; he saw it in the news before I did. I was shocked.
Sweden has been suffering quite a lot of violence lately. There’s shootings and explosions. Most of it gang related, with criminal gangs being at war with each other. And sometimes targeting not just members of competing gangs, but their family members too. Now we have no idea yet what is behind this school shooting, but there is no evidence so far that it is related to gangs. But the underlying reasons could be related: Young people, many of them immigrants or their children feeling alienated from society and not well integrated to put it mildly. Thanks to the gangs and related violence, getting hold of weapons is not very hard.
We see the effects in Norway too, but so far to a much lesser degree. Just today someone was shot in Oslo (but not fatally).
On another blog I follow, the Trans issue came up because of a minor character in a story being discussed who would now be called “Two-Spirit”
https://poulandersonappreciation.blogspot.com/2025/02/deathless-and-berdache.html
None of the commenters actually think Trans is correct, though there are fairly friendly disagreements on many issues.
I like this comment by S.M. Stirling ( a fairly prominent fiction writer)
Wishing doesn’t make it so, wanting doesn’t make it so, and believing doesn’t make it so.
There’s a lady in Norway who keeps petitioning the national legislature to be legally reclassified as a cat, and in the meantime tries to look and act as much like a cat as possible.
Guess what: she’s not a cat.
There are people who think they’re cats, or God, or the reincarnation of Napoleon Bonaparte.
I seen no reason to pander to delusions; and if that hurts the deluded person’s feelings, so what?
Your emotions are your own affair; they confer no rights on you, nor any obligations on anyone else.
Wait what? You follow another blog???
Jim B #348 — I wonder what the legal status of a cat is in Norway? I’ll bet they’re not allowed to vote, drive, use banking services, or sign contracts such as rental agreements. They may need to be leashed if allowed outside. She would also have to have documentation of certain vaccinations, lest her owner face a fine. I wonder if she’s really thought this through?
If she gets her wish, how long before she sues some veterinarian for refusing to treat her?
But I bet like my cats they are very good at persuading human slaves to do all that for them.
Now that you mention it, my wife often says she’d like to be a cat.
@Jim
On the “berdache” thing,
A couple points to note about “gender roles” in indigenous cultures:
The most important distinction between indigenous cultures and modern Western culture is the deep social and psychological distinction between collectivism and individualism. Virtually all indigenous cultures were (and are, in the case of those that still exist) collectivist, which is to say that everyone within them was/is raised to conceive of themself as a part of a whole — that the tribe or community itself consists of the “individual” and that each of us serves a small role within it. In a tribal collective, we are only a small part of the “person” that is conceptualized as the shared sense of connectedness with the collective. In a deep psychological sense, the tribe itself is the “individual” and one’s sense of purpose and accomplisment in life is derived from serving the tribe — ably and nobly doing one’s duty to the collective.
In this context, males and females in indigenous North America were designated right from birth into two separate channels of upbringing, to prepare them for the limited menu of roles available to women within the collective such as foraging, housekeeping, and child-rearing, and the limited menu of roles available to men within the collective such as hunting, governing, and tribal defence/warfare. So-called “third gender” roles such as berdache represented males whose demeanors were deemed ill-fit to serve the roles of hunters, governors, or warriors, because these men failed to socialize into the aggressive masculine behaviour profile and social role that males were expected to perform. In the modern context, we recognize these males to have been feminine, and most likely homosexual, men, but in the context of collectivism, they failed to meet the utilitarian standards associated with manhood, so they failed to be categorized as men at all.
But, indigenous cultures being very efficient with their resources, rather than exiling or executing feminine young men, they often found alternate uses for them within the collective. If a young male was perceived to be failing to sufficiently masculinize himself during his upbringing, he was re-categorized as a “berdache” — a separate “gender role” from both the masculine “man” gender role and the feminine “woman” one (he surely wasn’t a woman either, because he couldn’t bear children) — and he was given an alternative “third menu” of roles he could serve within the collective. This menu consisted generally of being put in charge of rituals and spiritualism — he became the village shaman — or he was assigned an alternative kind of household management — something akin to a “spinster aunt” who helps with childraising and other duties within a sibling’s household. Berdaches’ costume options were designated as separate from men’s, too, and they were generally more in line with the costumery typically prescribed to females within the tribe.
So feminine men were given a “special” status within many indigenous tribes (at least the resource-conserving ones that don’t simply choose to quietly execute the “runt” gay males instead), and they were often treated as extra spiritual and more in touch with the supernatural world. (This practice has even carried over somewhat into the modern Western world, for example with many feminine homosexual men going into the clergy because they couldn’t bring themselves to marry and settle into a straight household, or find any other comfort within the straight social roles that society makes available to men.)
To some degree, gender stereotype defying females also got designated as “third gender” or “berdache” and they, too, were given a small alternative menu of social roles they could perform within their indigenous tribes. But that was a less common occurrence because, alas, many tribes wanted to make sure every adult capable of bearing children (i.e., every female) got slotted into the social role that made that happen.
Another important distinction about “berdache” is that it wasn’t a choice that any male or female could freely make: these were collectivist cultures in which free individual choice was so limited as to be almost an alien concept. Males were desginated “berdache” by collective consensus (or decree by the tribal chief or council), by virtue of demonstrating their inability to live up to masculine “gender roles” (and to a lesser degree females were designated berdache by demonstrating an inability to live up to feminine gender roles) and demonstrating their suitability for the spiritual one instead.
It’s a common misunderstanding among people who have been raised in the modern individualist context that the existence of “berdache” in the North American indigenous past is proof that people back then were more free to “gender express” than they are today. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Modern cultural individualism is founded in the Enlightenment principle of individual freedom, which strives to dispose of the concept altogether that any one of us is born into a limited menu of roles designed to serve the tribe or clan or fiefdom we were born into. Individualism stems from a much more advanced, more complex, and more large-scale organization of society, which posits that if we all coordinate en masse and offer more social mobility to everyone, that each individual may find his or her way to the role in life that best satisfies their own personal desires, and that they may set their own life goals as a result. A pauper could in principle become President; a woman could become a firefighter; the son of a railroad tycoon could find his bliss as a Spanish Flamenco guitar teacher or whatever. And feminine males and masculine females are free to pursue whatever goals they like, because in a big enough society, there will always be a role for them that maximizes their chances at satisfaction and fulfillment in life.
The trajectory of liberalism in the West has been mostly to make strides toward such an ideal world. That is, until transgender ideology came along, which represents a massive lurch back towards the idea of assigned “gender roles” at birth and strict social categories based on sex.
Transgender ideology is a terrible conflation of the strict division of sex in terms of its role in human reproduction and sexuality (in which context sex is indeed fixed and unchangeable), with the old outdated strict division of sex in terms of limited assigned roles within small tribal communities that struggled to survive in harsh environments. It’s an absolute wrong turn. It’s a complete misunderstanding of the foundational principles of the Enlightenment, of humanism, and of progress itself.
Thanks Artymorty:
I don’t think you would object to me adding that to the comment thread on this other blog with your name attached & a link to this comment thread.
And it’s a very confused and selective conflation at that. Transgenderism is appropriating the indigenous “third gender” concept and applying it to claims of being the opposite sex. Trans identified men, while dishonestly drawing upon and claiming an opportunistic “continuity” with Native North American third gender traditions and practices (which, in my understanding, were not universal in pre-contact societies to begin with), reject a “third gender” identity when they assert that they are actually female. They also reject third spaces for washroom and changing facilities, demanding access to all female spaces. This is replacement by trans identified males, the theft and occupation of women’s spaces and opportunities, not a stepping aside into a category of their own. Like the tactical use of DSDs or “intersex” conditions (as they still insultingly insist on calling them), use of Native “two spirit” or “third gender” is a cynical ploy that violates the actual understanding of the concept as practiced in its original cultural context. There’s your “White, colonial imposition” right there.
The woman-erasing language that decouples reproductive functions from being female is a part of this same attempt to claim womanhood without having to be female. “Menstruators” and “chest feeding” are intended to erase women specifically, as there is no equivalent erasure of men being foisted upon us. This is not an “equal opportunity” dehumanization. Anyone who says that the definition of woman is “complicated” is trying to include men in the definition.
[…] a comment by Artymorty at Miscellany […]
Looks like Trump’s as-yet-unconfirmed nominee for FBI Director is already issuing directives purging officers and officials from the Bureau: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/11/politics/kash-patel-fbi-dick-durbin-letter/index.html
And, once again, all these attempts to “complicate” or “deconstruct” or “problematize” biological sex are really just a smokescreen and a red herring since none of them even begin to demonstrate that the “gender identity” model is able to better account for the same data (or any data at all). As I’ve been saying, even if there were no basis for talking about biological sexes as distinct, identifiable categories, it still wouldn’t imply that being “man” or “woman”, “male” or “female” is about something other than physical traits. What it would imply is that there were no basis for talking about “men” and “women”, “males” of “females” either. If biological sexes are not valid categories, then neither are “man” or “woman”, “male” or “female”. It’s the same denialist strategy we are familiar with from creationists (I have come to think of it as the “Gender of the Gaps” argument) of claiming victory by default unless the competing theory is able to meet some arbitrary standard that they are even less capable of meeting themselves. Once again it’s more or less equivalent to saying that “I get to claim for free what you have to pay for”. If defining “man” and “woman” in terms of physical traits doesn’t meet their standards of simplicity and clearcutness, then you definitely wouldn’t expect any of the nebulous, or even circular, non-definitions in terms of thoughts or feelings best left unspecified, an “inner sense of self”, “presentation” etc. to meet those very same standards.
Crossed my news feed the other day:
Bangladesh: Muslim mob vandalises stall for selling book of Taslima Nasreen, accuses writer of ‘promoting atheism’
Nice to learn that “women” is still a disgusting and obscene word whether from the right or the left.
https://www.kpbs.org/news/economy/2025/02/07/federal-list-of-forbidden-words-may-jeopardize-research-at-ucsd
But we were ASSURED that women don’t get pregnant, only People With Uteruses get pregnant.
Stark raving mad.
This is a me problem, but as a giant proper nerd it saddens me looking in all my nerd forums and thinking “Presumably there has to be an actual female Transformer/Warhammer/Giant Robot fan here somewhere” but I just assume all the ones claiming to be female are G.I.R.L.s, even the ones that don’t have that toothpaste colored flag all over everything or anime catgirl avatars.
Bet Nullius can relate there.
BBC: Transgender references removed from Stonewall monument website
Sounds like a correction to me. Stormé DeLarverie was a butch lesbian and drag king. She was not trans. Marsha Johnson was a drag queen or transvestite. He was not trans. Sylvia Rivera was a drag queen. He was not trans.
Interesting articles on the “Zizian” death cult, which some claim has been influenced by transgender ideology.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/d2847ecd-cd5d-4794-b3c3-51ec3a4cfa3d?shareToken=2e4adf511798b9b9ce2ee43cf043c856
https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/all-aboard-the-transgender-death
Rationalism too… BARpod recently did an episode on it.
Zoe Williams in the Guardian: ‘The truth is paralysing. But after JD Vance met the far-right leader Alice Weidel in Germany, it is time to be clear about what we are seeing.’
She quotes from a poem by Michael Rosen that was new to me:
So I looked it up.
That’s a good poem.
So Vance won’t meet the actual leader of Germany, but will meet the leader of the country’s fascists. The US has now joined Russia as the nations spreading far-right ideology across the globe.
Did you hear that Trump has called himself a king? And photoshopped a crown onto a Time cover, with the name of the magazine changed to his name?
https://people.com/donald-trump-calls-himself-king-as-white-house-shares-fake-time-cover-11683451
Siiiiiiiiiiigh no I hadn’t. Of course he’s “joking” but then he really means a lot of his “jokes.”
“Affirmative Action for Dictators” is a well constructed critique of Musk/tRump’s attempts to destroy everything good by Timothy Snyder.
Reminds me of another TV show where it was supposedly about giving people an opportunity to “work with the best”, but in realty, was just an excuse for an ego maniac to get his rocks off. The victimization, in other words, was the point.
The difficulty extends to being certain of any US policy as the Muskrats use the “Break and Destroy Method” on everything they see, especially on things they don’t understand. And they certainly don’t understand how Ukrainians feel about being invaded, first by Russia, and now by the Fascists and Corporate Staters of Musk. McKinsey must be tearing their hair out at how fast Musk can achieve what takes them years.
Ukraine is the Tar Baby that Br’er Russia has become adhered to. Russia has blundered into a situation where it cannot win, it cannot retreat, but is hoping that someone, any one, will come along and throw it into the bramble bush. And once it’s escaped the bramble and tar, it will lick its wounds, regroup, and mount another invasion knowing Ukraine has been greatly weakened and all but abandoned by Br’er USA.
https://losangelespress.org/english-edition/2025/feb/17/affirmative-action-for-dictators-11117.html
Hi gang,
I thought I saw a recent post that the American Psychiatric Association, or Endocrinological Association had recently changed its view on transgenderism, to now be against medicalization. I can’t find the post. Did I imagine it? Help?
Thank you.
I got nothin’, sorry.
Thanks for checking.
An undeniable Nazi salute from Steve Bannon:
See video
This story caught me eye earlier:
Dismissed on what grounds?
But this is perfectly normal and happens all the time, right?
Oh! Maybe not that normal, then.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ym8yyremeo
Argh.
Is there anyone so easily angered as a genderspecial blogger? Here is a conversation from a FTB blog called Affinity, after I replied to a post by Charly. The initial post contains more than this, but that prompted me to reply ran:
I replied:
Charly:
Me:
And Charly finishes with:
Characteristically, she makes accusations about my intent immediately and repeatedly, yet we know they do not tolerate the same in reverse.
Charly is male.
Ah, noted.
When a clown moves into a palace he doesn’t become a King, the palace becomes a circus.
When an Pig moves into a palace, the Pig does not become a King, the palace becomes a sty.
And when a reality TV star moves into the White House he does not become president, the White House becomes the Gerry Springer show.
Well said, Rev.
I just shared a Globe and Mail article by former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, on my Facebook page, introducing it thus:
Please read and share. Canada is living beside a country which is rapidly allowing its democracy to be erased. We must not follow suit. I’ve tended to be lukewarm about the whole concept of nationalism, but Trump’s threats to our country change everything. We must be prepared to resist American threats, pressure and intimidation. My parents anf grandparents lived through two wars to protect our country, struggling and sacrificing so that their children and grandchildren wouldn’t have to. Now it’s our turn. We need to call upon their legacy of resisting tyrrany to get through this darkening time. May their examples of courage and strenth light and guide our way in the time to come.
(The original Globe and Mail piece looks like it’s behind a paywall. Here’s what was on Facebook:)
It goes without saying that those flying the Maple Leaf need something else, yesterday: long range nukes. As an American I can’t say I’m all that keen on having even more nukes pointed at me but even after he does you can’t trust the United States.
Such wonderful company. I saw elsewhere that China abstained.
Fucking hell.
Wrote physical letters to all three of my Democratic Congress critters imploring them to employ a better strategy as the opposition (especially on giving up on the trans stuff, though not in the bread and butter protections).
Still have similar letters to send out to state AG, governor, state congressionals but I need to emphasize other points since they’re actually governing in Oregon and can do more than stall and cheerlead.
Ten years ago, a warning that was ignored:
https://x.com/K_IngalaSmith/status/1893814577059533115#m
Been contemplating quitting all social media, but today I am having a ball reading some of the wittiest people around.
“The Tesla Deplorean, when it hit’s 88mph, it travels to south Africa apartheid.”.
https://i.postimg.cc/3rjvV8nb/480677001-1161537252684939-215473820476101848-n.jpg
Yesterday, US District Judge Trevor McFadden declined a request by the Associated Press to immediately restore its access to presidential events after the Trump administration blocked the agency in a dispute over the term “Gulf of America”. Shortly after his decision was announced the White House put up two large electric signs in the briefing room which say “Victory” and “Gulf of America”.
Two questions come to mind.
1. Electric signs take time to make, so how could Trump & Co. be so certain of the Trump appointed judges decision that they had the signs made in advance of the hearing?
2. The motivation for having the signs was nothing more than childish pettiness. Shouldn’t Musk’s DOGE be up in arms over such an obvious waste of government money?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd650zdwe8do.amp
For those who missed it first time around (2022), these words were both accurate then and prescient now.
This was written just after Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, but they apply equally as well today, after Musk’s acquisition of the USA.
https://www.facebook.com/itswilwheaton/posts/5418754291584402?ref=embed_post
I posted this to my Facebook page:
To my American Facebook Friends
Tell your president to STOP talking about making Canada as the “51st state.” If it’s a “joke”, it’s not funny. If it’s a bargaining position, then he doesn’t deserve any “deal”. Let’s call it what it is: it is a threat. Just because he wants something ,he doesn’t have the right to take it. This is not how responsible adults speak or behave, let alone elected heads of state. This is how bullies, mobsters, and dictators think and act. Your president is threatening us. Like a bully, a mobster, or a dictator. I don’t like being threatened. I don’t know anyone who does. I’m guessing you don’t either. How would you feel if our positions and conditions were reversed? What if our Prime Minister made constant comments about making your country another province. What if we had the largest military on Earth and you did not? Put yourself in our shoes. This is what we’re dealing with. What would you do?
I know you’re busy trying to prevent the violation of your Constitution, the erosion of the rule of law, the breakdown of the separation of powers, the replacement of military officers with ones who will be more loyal to Trump than they are to the United States, and the destruction of government services and agencies by an unelected, unaccountable billionaire who is gleefully gutting your country from the inside, but hear me out. If you could write your elected representatives, your Senator or Representative, your Governor, or even Trump himself, and tell them that he should stop making these threats against our sovereignty, that would be a help and comfort. Tell them that Canada is not for sale, and is not up for the taking. I know you’ve got your own issues to work out with this man in the Oval Office, and I wish you all the luck in the world in dealing with him. You deserve better than him. If you can stop him, we won’t have to. But if you can’t, we will do our best.
We see what he’s done to Ukraine. He thinks that they started the war because they dared to stand up to the Russian invasion, because they fought back. Your president doesn’t understand resistance and struggle against superior force; he thinks everyone is a coward like he is. He should think again. Maybe you could help him with this.
During World War II, my grandparents and parents struggled, sacrificed, and fought against tyranny so that their children and grandchildren wouldn’t have to. But if we have to, we will. This is not a joke. This is not a bargaining position. This is not a threat. It is a promise.
I’m not sure I agree with this. I know it’s standard thinking, but it doesn’t fit my experiences, and I’m not sure it fits other things, either.
To me, he is more like a juvenile delinquent, an adolescent who has just learned that the world is round and goes around smugly informing everyone of the fact, because he believes he must have been the first to figure it out. He is like the adolescent who sneers at the teacher and creates havoc in the classroom. He is like the adolescent who throws things at other students in the lunchroom, then manages to frame someone else so he doesn’t get in trouble. He’s like the adolescent who goes around lifting girls’ skirts so he can catch a peek of something…anything. Oh, and of course, hot rodding, putting others in danger with his speed and lack of control, and going out to some farm field to make circles with his car.
Trump is the toddler who thinks it’s a great idea for such a shit to be in charge of everything because he’s SO COOL.
I’m quite sure I don’t agree with it. It’s a cliché, and it gets applied to all horrible aggressive rude selfish mean shits. I don’t think he’s scared and wounded on the inside, I think he’s just a horrible aggressive rude selfish mean shit.
I believe the item that the Rev. was quoting was posted about Musk rather than Trump.
Not Bruce, I was referring to Musk. The Trump comment was just an additional comment to add to. I don’t believe either of them are wounded. I think their behavior is a sign of their extreme entitlement.
Mine is about either or both. Neither one is remotely wounded or scared and never has been.
I’m not ready to cancel my subscription to the Washington Post (what would I do at breakfast?). But Bezos is not making it easy. Bezos directs Washington Post opinion pages to promote ‘personal liberties and free markets’.
Now I’m all for personal liberties and free markets, within reasonable boundaries (and no, I don’t know where those boundaries lie), but this sounds like code for libertarianism.
The Post is still a good source for news, and he doesn’t seem to be interfering with that side of the paper for now. But they’re already bleeding readership, and this won’t help. I fear that it’s on its way to becoming a pale imitation of its New York namesake.
This is all too appropriate
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/biz
@WaM #397:
Hey, given where we are now personal liberties and free markets are an anathema to Trump, so if Bezos sticks to that it’s not necessarily bad.
Libertarian Orbanism ain’t…
Personal liberties are all well and good, but with those liberties come responsibilities. Such as the responsibility not to trample over the personal liberties of your neighbors (whether they be literal neighbors or several states away). Part of what got us into this problem is a vision of personal liberties that fails to understand the need to allow others the same, and also that forestalls things like collaboration, altruism, and common sense. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say “I’ve got a right to [X].” Well, no, maybe you don’t. Just because you want to doesn’t mean you have a right to.
It goes right along with those who believe that democracy means they get what they want because they somehow believe that everyone else’s voice is illegitimate if it disagrees with them.
Those two things, and a warped version of the free market, got us into the mess we are in. They will not be able to get us out of it, because any reasonable version of these ideas has been strangled to death, some of them long before MAGA came on the scene.
This might be the single most infuriatingly backwards upside down through the looking glass article on trans and their documents. All I want to do is rewrite it to reflect reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/28/trump-anti-trans-hysteria
Arcadia, I am outraged that my passport shows that I am human, when it is clearly obvious to everyone that I am an otter!
Seriously, the narcissism and failure to give a damn about anyone else was pretty evident in that article. Of all the things Trump has done, they are picking on the one thing he has done right…even if for the wrong reasons.
It’s hard not to get a little paranoid these days. My wife just discovered that PubMed isn’t working anymore.
Now PubMed is of course a totally frivolous website, run by NIH and indexing pretty much all of the medical literature. But who knows, there could be woke or DEI stuff hiding there. So no worry, after the Muskrats have run rampant through the system, maybe it will come back, or maybe not? After all, the people maintainging the service may have been laid off.
Oh well, who needs the medical literature anyway? We’re all gonna die, one way or another.
Well, now PubMed seems to be back in action. My wife uses it a lot, and had never seen it down before. So of course we believed the worst. Who can blame us for that? Let’s hope it really was a false alarm – time will show.
Pardon the long post, but I don’t know if there’s a paywall free link to the original anywhere.
Someone on Facebook posted this piece. Andrew Coyne (Toronto Globe and Mail) nails it again>
Link to archived article below.
Here is a link to an archived version of the article.
Thanks S. I’ll trim nB’s post to an extract.
Thank you both.
I find the following to be a handy rule of thumb for overcoming the optimistic bias, the sanewashing, and the tendency to normalize:
1. Take your worst case scenario.
2. Make it twice as bad.
3. Make that your new best case scenario.
Bjarte, one thing I never have is an optimistic bias. The minute I find a silver lining, I start looking for the dark cloud. But a lot of people seem determined to make this normal, to find something good in everybody and everything. I have never been able to do that; perhaps it’s the family I grew up in…
Your advice is right on.
Any silver lining will only be available in hindsight… if we can get through this, American politics might greatly improve, but can we get through this?
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.
iknklast, I have been accused of having a pessimistic bias, but in this case for the most part things have neither turned out significantly worse nor significantly better than I expected. I wasn’t surprised when Trump won the election in 2016, and I fully expected him to win in 2024. If elected, I was certain that he would follow the authoritarian playbook to a tee, capture or destroy any government institution that stood in his way, put foxes in charge of all the hen-houses, weaponize the power of the government to seek revenge on his personal enemies, side with Putin against Ukraine, break up the “Western” alliance etc. etc. I don’t claim any particular insight for getting these these things right. As I keep saying, one of the very few things Trump can not be accused of is hiding his agenda.
To the degree that my expectations have turned out wrong, my supposed “pessimism” didn’t go quite far enough. As previously mentioned, I didn’t expect him to win the popular vote (not to be confused with a majority of the votes, let alone the majority of the electorate as you rightly pointed out). I also failed to predict that Elon Musk and his thugs would be as directly and openly involved in the demolition job as they have turned out to be. Yeah, and the thing about Greenland, Canada, and Panama… Never saw that coming! Then again, I did expect him to do a lot of general evil that no one (including me) had predicted, so I don’t feel too stupid for missing some of the specifics.
Back in autumn I predicted that if Kamala Harris won there would be another (somewhat) democratic election in 2028, but if Trump won there would not. Let’s hope I was wrong. Then again, as I keep pointing out, all the supposedly career-ending scandals of Trump’s first presidency (as well as his lifetime of crime, corruption and general indecency before that) didn’t prevent him from gaining votes between 2016 and 2020, and even his attempted coup d’ètat (!) wasn’t just insufficient to get him convicted, but even to stop him running for president again and then winning! I wouldn’t count on his followers to start abandoning him in droves for any reason at this point. Much like the people who drank the Kool-Aid on the gender issue, they have already conceded too much, and now there is no face-saving way of turning back. No matter how badly they are made to suffer as a direct result of Trump’s agenda, they will blame outsiders, traitors, saboteurs, and “enemies of the people” for preventing Trump from realizing that very same agenda fully enough.
In a hypothetical future, in which there are still serious historians out there somewhere*, I suspect that 2016 will be remembered as the year in which American democracy and the rule of law, not to mention the global world order established after World War II, in which Western liberal democracy was a dominant force in the world, received its mortal wound, and the Biden era will be remembered as its last spasm.
* As they say the winners write the history books, so I wouldn’t count on it. I won’t be surprised if history books of the future state as a fact that the 2020 election was stolen, that Ukraine started the war, and that Hillary Clinton really did run a child prostitution network from the basement of a pizzeria in Washington D.C.
When you put it that way, Bjarte, I guess maybe I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist. Like you said, Trump didn’t make any secret of his agenda, and if you were to note the novel I started the week before inauguration, you would probably see that nothing Trump did would surprise me, including the Musk led destruction. I have accurately predicted every election since 1980, though I will state that I was not as sure in my prediction of a Biden win in 2020. It seemed a long shot.
It isn’t just enough to understand Trump, though. What a lot of people miss is the voters. They seem to think the voters are weighing issues carefully, evaluating each candidate, and coming to a conclusion as to which will best fit their values, and that somehow Trump has fooled them. Trump hasn’t fooled them, and they are responding emotionally, not rationally. This has been demonstrated in numerous studies of elections, and there is no reason to suspect this one is any different.
Since I live in the middle of Trump Central, I might be thought to be biased toward a midwestern viewpoint, and I probably am, but I tend to be right. I listen to what the voters are saying when they aren’t talking to a reporter, and that tells me that Trump is touching a nerve, the nerve that says ‘competent’ only with ‘white men’ and that says ‘liberal is bad’, regardless of the actual facts. They are sick of the fact that when they look around they see people who don’t look like them but have the same rights. These people might be women or people of color; they might be obviously, stereotypically gay (and in some cases, not actually be gay). There are books in the library that say things they don’t like. The teachers can’t force the kids to pray in school. People of color are allowed to walk the streets in full daylight, and even at night. Blue laws are a thing of the past – stores are open on Sunday almost everywhere.
These are the complaints I hear when I talk to people; the only time I hear complaints about the price of eggs is when I am checking out at the grocery store, and sometimes it might be me complaining. Other than that, the word of the day is ‘competent white males’.
By the way, have you seen this?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/designating-english-as-the-official-language-of-the-united-states/
it’s only a matter of time before he issues an EO declaring “covfefe” a proper English word.
Hey, everyone. Here is a link for the Women’s History Month writing marathon. I know you’ve been interested in the past.
https://ofliberalintent.com/womens-writes/works
I suppose there might be few amongst the descendants of the rats and or cockroaches interested enough in the minutiae of our last days to figure this out, just as some of us are interested in the combination of asteroid/volcanic eruptions that took out the dinosaurs. It’ll be tough work though; in a few million years time it will be impossible to distinguish the current time from that of Neandertals or Homo erectus. They’ll find our thin layer of radioactivity and microplastics (our self-made iridium layer), and wonder how it all went so wrong so quickly.
Someone linked to this, I can’t remember where, and I thought that it looked interesting:
https://x.com/ScotPAG/status/1895103322765287816
I get the impression that the full letter is well worth reading, but I was locked out of my Twitter account years ago, and so I can’t read any further than the first tweet in the thread.
There is an “unroll” of that thread here, perhaps you can read the whole thing there. I don’t know if that still works for people without Twitter accounts.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1895103322765287816.html
Hooboy that list of all the differences………..
Been doing some reading in The Bulwark (which seems to be my tribe now, so I had better start reading The Dispatch or similar to disrupt my priors) and it looks like they’re gonna break Social Security within a few months.
The Project 2025 guys always said they’ve only got one shot at this and they have to do it before the midterms; looks like that’s working. They’d be better off doing the frog boiling without Elon drawing attention and Trump sabotaging the economy, but Nikki Haley wasn’t going to let them play, so this will have to do. Now they just have to hope Trump doesn’t do anything that requires the military to make a decision.
If all goes as it should the midterms will be a wave election and the Dems (and/or a non-cowardly flavor of Republican) will start applying the brakes. Dunno how the election interference will go on there of course.
Writing in the introduction to his “When The Clock Broke”, John Ganz had this to say:
Ganz’s book is mostly about the post Reagan USA of the 1990s when history had supposedly ended and the USA stood triumphantly atop the ruins of the Berlin Wall and the USSR.
He continues
The causes of the fear and anger were, and still are, many. Lack of action from Bush Mark1 through Clinton to Obama meant that the symptoms were never diagnosed, the illness was left to fester, the “cure” arrived in Trump Mark1.
That should have been the canary in the mine moment for the Democrats and the USA at large, but Biden squandered his presidency and failed to come down hard on the rising tide of fascism and anti-democratic movements. The “O J Simpson car chase” feel of Trump’s prosecutions not only let the perpetrator of the greatest attack on American democracy since the Civil War remain free, but emboldened both Trump and his supporters. Unlike 2016, nothing was hidden or off limits in Trump’s campaign. Americans knew exactly what he stood for, Trump hated the same people they hated, and Trump was the one and only Il Duce who would not only make the trains run on time but be happy about it. Cheap eggs for everyone.
Reading that brought to mind an article from Australia’s ABC in 2020 discussing modelling done under Clinton’s government that uncannily forecast the rising tide of discontent and a new Civil War. While the initial modelling was undertaken to predict unrest in other nations, the findings are easily applied to the USA.
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/model-predicting-united-states-disorder-now-points-to-civil-war/12365280
Rev, Biden was in a no-win situation. Everyone was saying he should be Mr. Nice Guy and not “come down hard” on his political enemies. Where he did (or anyone else did), it was perceived as playing politics, and worked in Trump’s favor. Where he didn’t come down hard, he was perceived as not taking the actions he needed. Nope, I don’t think Biden could have done things differently and had them work out differently. The narrative was already written.
I dunno, maybe he should have picked a lane and stayed in it… And declared his retirement after the midterms. Of course, the first point of failure was the Republicans fake primary.
Who would have guessed that this would include getting rid of weather forecasting and welcoming the return of deadly, preventable, contagious diseases. This will put a bit of dent in profit margins, and sooner than they would imagine. Penny wise, pound foolish. Meteorology and vaccinations are a lot cheaper than death and destruction. Some limits on unbridled capitalism are immovable ones that don’t respond at all to closed eyes and wishful thinking. They don’t go away when you pretend they’re not there; it’s rather the opposite.
Just wait ’til the southwest runs out of water, crops start to fail, and the lights go out. At that point it might not be so much a national despair as a bunch of smaller regional ones, since the nation doesn’t really exist anymore. Republican policies are hastening all of these things. Not that Democrats were taking these possibilities seriously enough, but at least they admit they exist.
It’s only natural that as other nations grew in wealth and prosperity America’s “lead” would diminish. Its failure to provide its citizens with the kind of social safety net that other advanced nations managed to create, turned that into an actual American decline, but one that was entirely self-imposed. How much of the wealth that might have been used to finance the kind of safety net that so many other countries chose to prioritize was siphoned off to pay for grotesquely disproportionate CEO compensation, which also helped to stifle workers’ wages? There goes some of “the basis of its security and wealth” right there. In terms of many of the measures of quality of life, security, and happiness, America is no longer a leader, but an outlier and a laggart, providing the basis for a very different kind of “American exceptionalism.”
I think the American Identity, such as it is or was, became much less self-assured as a result of the tensions between the liberal democratic bedrock enshrined in its founding documents, and the anti-democratic impulses of the national security state that were amplified by America’s rise to superpower status. I think much of the “counter-culture” movement of the 60’s was a direct result of these incompatible and mutually exclusive political drives. These strains also fed the clashes of the Civil Rights Movement, the prosecution of and protest against war in Viet Nam, recurring bouts of political violence and assassination, the Kent State Massacre, Watergate, etc. These kinds of conflicts had been there all along, but the background of the Cold War raised the stakes for both Right and Left considerably, helping to set the stage for the degree of polarization we see in American politics today.
“Breaking the clock of progress” will fix none of this. It will not question or the inequalities of wealth, but it will try to tamp down protest against it. It will make people more uneasy and vulnerable, not less. It will cajole and threaten people into accepting and “celebrate” a stunted, blinkered life in an America they are told is now “Great Again.”
And Herr Drumpf has now begun that by threatening funding for Universities that permit protests, for threatening protestors with jail. Because the 1st Amendment no longer applies, and because one of the few things Drumpf knows, or has been told, is that popular revolutions begin on campuses.
Sorry, iknklast, I must disagree.
You are repeating the lies the Democrats told themselves, the lies their supporters swallowed wholesale, and the lies that led the RUSA to this place. It is a repeat of the justification given for “Hitler’s Pope’s” refusal to condemn Hitler and his cronies. It was a weak kneed Catholicism that bowed to Hitler’s every demand, excommunicating a grand total of one Nazi, and the for divorce!
The time to stand up to Trump was January 6 2021 when he fomented an armed insurrection. The evidence was plain to see, but the Democrats and the various parts of the USA’s justice system turned a blind eye.
I liken inaction, in relation to the wrongs perpetrated by this mob of self-serving despots, to contracting an STD and ignoring the symptoms. The consequences are dire and detrimental.
Rev, I don’t think we can liken Biden to Hitler’s Pope. And given my many years of following US politics, and living here, I still maintain there was a no win situation for Biden. It’s easy to say it wasn’t, because he took one path and not the other, but every time he took a single step down that path, the wheels came off the Democratic Party.
This is not a lie I am telling myself, or that I have swallowed whole. I watched it happening. I have seen it over and over. It is a standard of US politics: whichever path the Democratic president takes, it will be the wrong one.
Yes, there are lies the Democrats have swallowed wholesale; yes, there are things they use to justify their staying with the party. I actually left the party for a while because of that, but came back when Hillary was running against Trump.
However, the idea that there will be no possible “right” solution for Biden (or other D presidents) is not the lie; the situation arises because of the lies…because too many have been told ‘you have to be nice, voters don’t like nasty’; ‘you can’t look partisan’ (hello? It’s a party, damn it!); ‘you have to understand the opposite party, and their justifiable anger and frustration’. (There’s the lie – much of their anger and frustration is NOT justifiable; it’s the whining of some kid when other kids get to play with the toys. It’s the anger at so-called inferior group getting equal rights).
This may not be something you can see as easily from so far away. I have been a student o political science (as well as biological science and theatre – I’m considered a bit quirky). I have seen this pattern over and over. It has really not changed through my adult life.
And really, as far as being nasty? Seriously, the Rs are nasty, and more so with Trump in charge. But if the Ds try it, they are vilified by their own. They are criticized even when all they do is tell the truth; several of Biden’s so-called ‘gaffes’ were simply telling truths no one wanted to hear. And when Hillary told the truth – remember basket of deplorables? – the backlash was ferocious, and hasn’t ended yet. Plus it gave misogynistic voters another reason not to vote for her without showing their misogyny, but that’s a different issue.
The frightening thing is that it’s clear, with Trump 2.0, that “basket” holds tens of millions of American voters, who cast ballots for him knowing full well what he was like. Whether they really know what he has in store for him is another question (not having thought through all of the implications of his campaign rhetoric, or not appreciating just how thoroughly Trusk/Mump was going to destroy the civil service), but Trump on his own is vile enough.
Or not realizing that the civil service is important to them; as far as they are concerned, all civil servants do is take their money and hand it out in enormous welfare checks to people of color. (Which shows an astonishing ignorance of welfare, which is mostly run by states, and doesn’t hand out enormous checks).
Have you seen this news? Gavin Newsom breaks with Democrat policy on trans athletes in sports,saying it’s unfair to allow trans identified males to compete in women’s sports:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/06/gavin-newsom-breaks-with-democrats-on-trans-athletes-in-sports-00215436
Yep.
Well he’s running for president; it’s an obvious move (just like launching his talking to MAGA chuds podcast).
iknklast, at the risk of looking like I’m flogging a dead horse, the Democrats STILL haven’t learned.
You don’t beat a bully by playing nice, you don’t beat a bully by siding with his mates – you beat a bully with a fist to the nose.
For those of you old enough to remember Trump saying “Get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”
Looks like that’s going to happen sooner than anyone imagined.
He owns SCOTUS.
He, or his Minions, have sacked any military commander who might have stood in his way.
He, or his Minions, have sacked any JAG staff lawyers who might have stood in his way.
He has already threatened funding of any higher education institutions that do not prevent student protests, and has declared protestors will be jailed or deported.
On January 20th he issued an Executive Order declaring “A national Emergency at the Southern Border of the USA”. Almost at the end of that EO are the chilling words “Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.”
He has cleared the decks, now he is just waiting on the report that will tell him exactly what he needs to fulfill his previously stated aim of invoking Martial Law to retain power.
Once invoked, the insurrection Act can be used at any time, at any point, in the USA. And America will be under Martial Law and no one will be able to stop him. No one.
Well that seems like the way most likely to trigger a counter coup from the portion of the military still loyal to their nation and thus the worst possible way to do it… Considering who’s doing it, seems plausible.
Do you really think the military will go against tRump?
The Left has been cowed, the Dems are a rabble in disarray.
Eight years ago American streets were awash with people, real people, ordinary people marching against tRump’s worst excesses. Today? Hardly a whimper.
And that is how you lose your nation, not by invasion, but by apathy. Tittytainment has won over the American people, they can’t be fucked getting off their arses to defend their country against the greatest threat since 1861.
I do believe it is likely to spark a civic war within the armed forces if actually ordered to take up arms against Americans yes (though I’m definitely not certain). You better believe the higher ups (and former higher ups) are watching all this and talking to each other. Trump may believe the rest of us are NPCs but that’s just not true.
It’s why you wait and frog boil instead of taking drastic action. They’re not gonna rebel over USAID or birthright citizenship because that’s strictly political. Using deadly force against Americans for basically no reason is likely to spur action.
Again not saying this will happen but it’s an outcome that isn’t unlikely either. Frog boiling is the way to go.
Yes, thinking it through, you could well be right.
Trump has replaced those at the very top who can issue branch wide orders. But those at the top don’t lead troops or fly planes. It is the local commanders, the unit leaders, who will have to stand up and be counted.
It is ironic that America’s saviors might well be the descendants of slaves, the Black Americans who make up a very large portion of the US Military.
Traditionally, the US military has stayed out of domestic politics, unlike the armed forces of many countries. The civilian chain of command, with the President as Commander-in-Chief has been a mainstay of US military doctrine. But what happens when that civilian authority breaks its own sworn oath to defend the Constitution? What does the military do if the President decides there’s no such thing as a “war crime”? What if the President decrees that there is no such thing as an “illegal order”? Can the President unilaterally change the Uniform Code of Military Justice?
I have no doubt that Trump would have no compunction at ordering the shooting of unarmed civilians, or anyone resisting his regime. He already considers those who didn’t vote for him to be un-American enemies, so having them shot wouldn’t be a big step for him. Who will follow those orders?
And they very well might be facing off against the heavily armed White Nationalist inheritors of the slave-holders’ ethos. It’s tragically ironic that the ammo-sexual gun-nuts who don’t read past the one part of the 2nd Ammendment that they’re willing to kill and die for, are helping to usher in and support the sort of tyranny they claim to be arming themselves to fight against. They are remarkably unconcerned with Trump’s meagalomaniacal psychopathy. It’s okay, because they mistakenly think he’s one of them, and that he’s on their side. They’re not interested in the “freedom” of their country or their fellow citizens, they want to be on top, calling the shots, setlling scores. Like Trump, their opponents aren’t “real Americans,” but enemies to be destroyed. And that destruction is a necessary step in the MAGA march. Those who stand against this return to “greatness” are to be swept aside, as they maliciously defy the unity of purpose and sentiment that is supposed to undergird and celebrate this “greatness.” Whatever the illiberal excesses of over-reach DEI enacted, the backlash against “diversity” is a warning to all who oppose MAGA. It will be used as a pretext to roll back the freedoms and protections of all opponents.
We can see Trump’s contempt for norms, treaties, and agreements on the international scene as the outward reflection of MAGA on the global stage. It’s “Might makes Right” at all levels, in all theaters, in all jurisdictions. Purging the government of those who would stand in his way, or dare to tell him bad news (COVID, climate change, etc.) is echoed in withdrawal from NATO, WHO, climate agreements, etc.. Anything that could potentially interfere with America’s freedom of action (a freedom it will keep to itsellf, with nobody else being allowed to claim or exercise any such equivalent “freedom” of action) is to be ignored or destroyed. American “greatness” means a heedless disregard for any other country or people, just as domestically, MAGA means Trump gets to do whatever he likes, and any roadblocks to that are to be ignored, evaded, or destroyed. Silencing those who claim Trump’s goals are impractical, impossible, or dangerous means he can claim victory despite reality. Those who deny his claims, or speak unwelcome truths are enemies. It’s open season on messengers.
As the world’s strongest military power, Trump can unilaterally re-open any treaty or agreement, rewriting or scrapping it to replace it with something more advantageous to America, and himself. Trump might be claiming to do it for America, but he’s really doing it for himself. “Trumpism” on the world stage imposing his belief that ever deal has a winner and a loser. There is no thought of mutual advantage or co-operation, just winner and loser, victor and vanquished, master and slave. America, and by extension Trump, must come out on top. All must bow to his Greatness. That’s the whole point of MAGA.
If the American situation does devolve into civil war, or something approaching it, the fate of the country (and indeed, perhaps even the world itself) might hang on the honour, courage and common human decency of individual unit commanders and soldiers, and whether or not Milgram’s results with an “authority figure” in a white coat apply equally well to one wearing a baggy blue suit with a red tie.
Well said, Not Bruce.
I would hope that if that comes to pass, the military will be better trained and better armed than Y’all Q’aeda.
A friend sent me this today, I have looked and seen it reported by a number of reputable news sites, so accept it is genuine. May Europe find a few more Claude Malhurets.
https://ophersworld.com/2025/03/08/claude-malhuret-speaking-to-the-french-senate-tuesday-march-4-2025-the-new-enemy/
The left-wing Morning Star weighs in on the Sandie Peggie case:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/wake-call-trade-union-movement
Also, did we mention this? A few years ago, female athlete Payton McNabb was seriously injured after a being hit with ball thrown by a trans-identified male. Podcast host Emma Vigeland then put up a tweet mocking McNabb’s injury:
https://x.com/AjaTheEmpress/status/1897348295426760793
Never mind, I see we already mentioned the Vigeland story:
https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2025/yuk-it-up/
We? We? Who’s this royal we?
lol
The royal we was originally shorthand for ‘my God and I’. I think you’ve just been deified.
Interesting TED talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_beware_fellow_plutocrats_the_pitchforks_are_coming
I predicted this for decades; everyone I knew hooted ‘it can’t happen here’ and stuck their heads back in the sand. I was brought up on this ‘truth’. Why didn’t it take in me? Don’t know – neither nature nor nurture can explain it, so maybe it’s just my contrarian nature (or nurture?).
It was always a desideratum of the far-right (which has been around a long time, but prior to the internet, too scattered to form a unified movement). It coalesced in Nixon’s southern strategy, used by Ronald Reagan to catapult the Republican party into power using a celebrity. They started with a celebrity who put on a kind, gentle face and cracked jokes at his own expense, a sort of ‘shucks, folks’ attitude that played well with the voters. The second Bush hardened and dumbed down the image enough to pave the way for Trump 1; now Trump 2.0 has ascended, shaking with fury at a country who dared to elect someone else when they had him for a choice. His id is running everything, along with Musk’s greed and complete ignorance of how the government works, and a disdain for those who didn’t have the good sense to be born rich.
Damn, I hate being proven right. I have a strong streak toward pessimism, and me being proven right is never good for anyone, least of all me.
iknklast, maybe you read a bit of Chomsky?
“No one will place the truth in your mind; it is something you must discover for yourself.”
“If you want to control a people, create an imaginary enemy that appears more dangerous than you, then present yourself as their savior.”
“One of the clearest lessons of history: rights are not granted; they are taken by force.”
“There is a purpose behind distorting history to make it seem like only great men achieve significant things. It teaches people to believe they are powerless and must wait for a great man to act.”
“The world is a mysterious and confusing place. If you are not willing to be confused, you become a mere replica of someone else’s mind.”
“To control people, make them believe they are responsible for their own misery and present yourself as their savior.”
I think he was on to something.
Because it’s Monday, why not.
I asked Grok if Trump was a Russian asset. Seems Elon has lost control of his shiny AI toy and it still spits out more truth than its master. Here is Grok’s reply, in full.
Can the RUSA ever recover from this? I suspect not, whatever emerges will be a far different nation than the one we knew before. It may split into 2, 3, or maybe 4 separate nations, with some being highly impoverished.
What does Grok say about Musk being a Russian asset? Or do alarm bells go off if you ask that?
I dunno why you’re asking Grok about anything… Even top tier AI doesn’t really know anything, it just pattern matches. Presumably some of the items it sources are fake (though enough seem real to gloss it over). I’m just going to assume its guardrails are pretty minimal given the client.
Good column by Andrew Doyle at Unherd.
Europe wants to ‘pre-bunk’ you. Wokeness is over. Censorship isn’t.
For an actually nuanced discussion of when tariffs can actually help (some people),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHKmaPNiI4c
So maybe it’s just me, but I’m somewhat aggrieved/wounded/whatever you want to call it (it bothers me emotionally) by the fact that the United States is now a bad guy. Now, you can point to Iraq, Iran, Columbia etc and say that was always the case (Trump certainly has) but part of the identity of the country for ages now is that of being on the “right side of history”, a “city on a hill”, and so on. When Ivan Draygo beats Apollo Creed to death Rocky doesn’t start shaking his fucking hand… that was America and that was how I see the core of what it is to be American and this chucklehead unilaterally (Fuck you very much Congress) that we’re Russian allies.
Re #456, I feel similarly. It’s worse than it has ever been in my memory.
I noted that the US was added to an international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms. The keepers of the watchlist, CIVICUS, I’ve never heard of before, but the development is unsurprising.
Another analysis (JVL at the Bulwark) concludes that the US Republican voters are not merely willing to tolerate authoritarianism, they actively seek it out. Information from the World Values Survey indicates US Right values are close to those of Turkey and Russia, and European Right values are closer to those of US Left than to US Right.
Well that’s been selected for, hasn’t it? The pro-democracy Republicans mostly aren’t Republicans anymore.
Which makes calls to “understand” and “sympathize” with them kind of pointless. By the time Trump crosses a line they don’t like (assuming there are any at all), it will be too late.
PZ has a post about a spider named Blue. Here is an excerpt: “Blue is in the background. They look smaller because they’re farther away, but trust me, Blue has grown! Also, they’re a bit cranky because I don’t think their cuticle is fully hardened yet.”
The first commenter asks “How did Blue communicate their pronoun preference?”
PZ replies “Spiders don’t use pronouns. I do.”
Huh.
…
Hmmmmmm.
…
He seems to know the choice of pronoun is made by the speaker. Perhaps he has known all along? That’s… interesting.
Eeeeeesh.
For a break (not necessarily a good break) from Trump, I’ve been listening to a BBC Radio Scotland podcast Who Killed Emma. It’s about the murder of a Scottish prostitute, Emma Caldwell. It’s harrowing listening to in places. As a result of the original podcast and BBC investigation, the enquiry was re-opened and the murder eventually caught.
The original first episode (now Episode 2 – 1: Emma), should be an eye-opener and a smack in the face for all the liberals and trendy middle class who talk about sex work and women’s choice and empowerment. Here a prostitute and the investigative reporter talk about actual prostitutes’ life experience, preference for naming, reasons for working…
If you want to listen, here’s the show link.
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/who-killed-emma/id1560337631?i=1000514865838
A while back I solicited examples of transition happening as a result of internalized homophobia. I got a couple of answers and used one for my article which appears today. I’m not sure it will have much impact, but I give a swift kick to the transing of children at the end:
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/03/what-becomes-of-the-femboy.html
It’s a fine article.
Check this out. Party time!
https://defendinged.org/incidents/transgender-activists-allowed-to-disrupt-detransitioner-awareness-event-at-vermont-state-house-sergeant-in-arms-forces-everyone-to-leave-rather-than-just-disrupters/
DOGE is going after dogs now. But really, why do dogs need vets or food?
But hey, look at Trump with a shit-eating grin and thumbs-up gesture, straining to look like he wants to be in the same room as a dog.
Of course Trump hates dogs, and he couldn’t be bothered to actually meet with a live dog today. Just as well–from the looks of the photo, Conan was not terribly happy about meeting with Trump either.
Did the dogs perhaps forget to write an email explaining in five bullet points what they achieved last week?
They were literally begging for handouts. “Treats” they call them. Yeah, right. I’d like to know what’s in those treats.
And they were caught sleeping during working hours.
Yeah, more and more degradation of law enforcement and antiterrorism capacity by these retards. This is the stuff that should be hammered home.
The “Square the Circle” blog post seems to have slipped from the queue …
I took it out because something went wrong with it and I didn’t have time to fix it. It’s back now, complete with your comment. Apologies!
Hey, everyone! Great news! One of my plays has been accepted for performance in Omaha this summer. The play may ruffle a few TRA feathers, but I’m in!
Congratulations… I’ve been to Omaha; it wasn’t too bad.
Congrats, ikn! Happy feather ruffling.
Congratulations, iknklast! May your play ruffle many feathers, but be received warmly!
I’m all in favour of ruffling TRA feathers, and here’s a great piece which should also upset many of them.
https://peachyradfem.com/p/from-representation-to-erasure-black
Congrats iknklast. Hope it’s both a fun and rewarding experience.
What larks, Pip!
Here comes another one yelling “Women get out of my way, stop terrifying me”.
It’s noting to do with Trump, and everything to do with he is just another mediocre male pushing a female out so he can “participate in the sport he loves”, or some other bullshit.
First lie, he didn’t start “hormone replacement therapy”, he started taking cross sex hormones.
Second lie, blood Testosterone means little when you have had the advantages of male testosterone for more than 23 years, or around 70% of your life.
As I may have mentioned before, I have an incredibly rare auto immune disease, Necrotising Myopathy, that is eating away at my proximal muscles. It developed slowly at first, so slowly I just assumed it was ageing (mid 60s). I was diagnosed early last year, at 71. I could barely walk 50 metres, could not stand from a chair without assistance, and would take over a minute to roll over in bed. Drug therapy improved me so much that after 6 months I began weight training. Slowly, and very gradually building up strength.
Now I’m 72 and when my physiotherapist or rheumatologist test my strength they are amazed at my improvement. And so am I. And that, my friends, is the benefit of being born male. If I take a week off from weights my muscles shrink rapidly,
The third lie. My testosterone is low, I know because of my lessening of sexual function. I will get a report from my GP next week to see if I need supplementation, but one thing that is known to increase testosterone naturally is, wait for it, exercise and sport!
So, all skill then? Nothing to do with the increased size of the levers that kick a ball? Of course it’s “unfair”, you bloody great galloot. You’re a man, playing against women. There are incredibly skilled women playing Aussie Rules at the highest level who cannot kick the ball as far as a man in a bush league. But they can kick the ball, roughly, the same distance as all the other women at their level.
So you’re a man married to a woman, are you? Or are you a man who pretends to be a Lesbian? Because you sure as shit ain’t sugar not a gay man because there are plenty of them playing Amateur footy and no one bats an eyelid (unless they want a date).
Take a look at the pictures of him and tell me you’re looking at a woman.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-18/taylah-moore-trans-aussie-rules-player-victoria/105051884
Rev, that doesn’t even look like he’s ‘living as’ a woman. That is a man. Sports officials are seriously deranged if they allow him to play as a woman.
Absolutely disgraceful story, from the London “Times” of March 15th:
https://x.com/StoatlyL/status/1901923277313831086
https://xcancel.com/LilyLilyMaynard/status/1901738776117784996#m
Don’t want gender nonconforming children to be given dangerous drugs? Don’t want violent men in women’s spaces? Why, you must be a terrorist sympathiser!
Belated congrats, iknklast! Let us know when it goes on the road.
Oklahoma mandates lying to students.
They’ve also mandated teaching that covid originated in a Chinese lab (possible, but not definite).
The key points are on pp 117-118 of the Standards.
This is why Trump and the Muskovites want to abolish the DoE and put the states in charge of education without any federal oversight.
I have a sister who teaches in Oklahoma; she said teachers have been leaving in large numbers over the requirement to include the Bible in every class. I can only imagine what this is going to do…
Canada is having an election on 28 April 2025.
Yay?
“include the Bible in every class”
What would happen to a teacher of US history who taught how both pro and anti slavery people quoted the bible for their position.
Good stuff from Wesley Yang:
https://x.com/wesyang/status/1904581768335802761#m
Oh man, locally there’s some homeless (wonder why?) transwoman posting on Reddit about how everywhere in town is transphobic including the places that are the most trans-friendly in town including specific examples. If you know anything about Reddit threads it’s the guy that constitutes the bulk of replies to his own thread that’s on the losing end. Suffice it to say the locals are telling him off, saying “maybe, just maybe it’s you”.
I’d love to link it, as it’s quite fascinating but I’m already too liberal with my personal details on here as it is.
You can’t share a link to it without sharing personal details? I can see Reddit threads without involving any personal anything.
Interesting story from CBC:
Top Conservative strategist says Poilievre needs to urgently pivot or he will lose
Conservative leader is acting too ‘Trump-y’ and needs to make a change, says strategist
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/top-conservative-stragegist-poilievre-lose-1.7495524
Of course, if he makes such a change now, it’s going to be because someone told him to, not because he was smart enough to realize this himself.
Liberal Party leader Mak Carney has said that Canada’s ‘old relationship’ with U.S. ‘is over’. He’s also said that he won’t talk with the US about anything until Trump stops making his “51st state” comments about Canada. Meanwhile Poilievre has said “I’m the only one who will stand up to the U.S. president. The president wants the Liberals back in.” Yeah, just like Putin really wanted Harris to win the presidency.
“Knock it off!” is something you tell your teenager when they’re playing their music too loud, not something you say when a neighbouring foreign leader intends to take over your country.
It’s in the city subreddit… just not keen on posting it in the open. Unfortunately the original post got deleted by the mods (and yeah, they definitely should have, this dude is a terror). We’re a pretty trans friendly town even though as I’ve often said I rarely see them. I’ll send you a link for some of the posting anyways via the contact page.
Ok, well I would but the recaptcha on the contact page seems broken on Chrome/Firefox/Vivaldi/Konqueror. Whatever, the wokies aren’t that much of a danger to me.
Search reddit user CommodoreGirlfriend and anti-trans spaces / pro-trans spaces. There’s still probably a fair bit of unhingedness to pore over if you like.
Saw “Hamilton” in a theatre recently (I’d already seen it on Disney+ ages ago)… definitely lit my patriotic passion on fire, particularly as I contemplated the moral character of all these slaveholders. To a man they were more virtuous and courageous people than anyone currently running things and they *owned* other human beings.
You barely hear any bleats of the “founding fathers” from MAGA these days… you see “We the People” but only like Hegseth’s tattoo (which is just American for “Der Volk”), there’s occasional glimpses of “Old Glory” but mostly it’s colored black, backwards, torn up, or covered in Punisher skulls, assault rifles, and Spartan helmets.
I dunno, in ways my Bush era self would never understand I grasp my flag and proclaim to the world that the United States was the greatest nation on Terra and still should be. But MAGA killed it because a genetically inferior geriatric patient barely fit to lick the boots of the immigrants who power this engine of wealth and influence creation.
WaPo: A trans girl was banned from her track team. Now she’s competing with the boys.
Which of course means a boy was told he is not eligible to play on the girls’ team, so he decided to play on the boys’ team. The article makes this out to be a stunning and brave act, for a boy to play on the boys’ team, even though it’s no big deal for the other boys to do so. He took puberty blockers, so his development was stunted, and his performances in discus and shot put are poor in relation to the other boys. The only relevant difference between him and other mediocre boys are that he claims to be a girl; nobody seems to be suggesting that other mediocre boys compete on the girls’ team, for some odd reason. Why not write about those other boys, persisting in the face of adversity, trying to improve despite long odds, feeling good about barely making the team? They aren’t given the option of using the lighter shot used by the girls, either.
This story shows that the “ban” did not bar “trans” athletes from competing, nor did it bar “trans-girl” athletes from competing, it just required that boys compete on the boys’ team, and by golly that can happen.
Holy shit! Trump’s goons sent an innocent man to their friendly prison in El Salvador by mistake, admitted in court that they had no reason to send him, and went on to say that they lack the authority to obey a judges order to have him returned, and that the court had no authority to hear the case in the first place.
Despite the fact that the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has never been charged with any crime and has no known ties to organised crime, AG Pam Bondi has since stated in a Fox News interview that he is a member of MS-13. Oh, and they’ve also put their lawyer who lost the case ‘on leave’.
What a time to be alive.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4jz3v401yo.amp
Chinese attack USA with humour!
https://x.com/BedworthTimes/status/1909505384374837741
https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/kcnILlH4
Important news from Australia:
Good. A twelve year-old boy should not be given puberty blockers.
Source Tweet:
https://x.com/ProfPParkinson/status/1909863509779005644#m
I need some book recommendations:
A story on NPR claims the “regret” rate among those who have “transitioned” is “less than 1%, less even than for hip replacement surgery.” They claim terms such as “regret” and “detransition” are “political.”
Where can I find a good, neutral source for statistics?
Mike B @ #498
This post on the Genspect website is worth reading: The Dutch Leaks: Trans Regret is Possibly 33%.
Genspect has put together a helpful resource site:
https://statsforgender.org/