Science! Very sciencey science!

science pic.twitter.com/whcgYhgY4M

— Róisín Michaux (@RoisinMichaux) November 5, 2023

You just divide the Transgender Women’s Importance of Pronouns Scale by the Narcissism of Transgender Women’s Timewasting Scale and BOOM, there’s your total rock-solid non-falsifiable proof that Transgender Women’s Luxury Pronouns matter more than anything else in the entire universe. That’s SCIENCE.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Mile-high semi-free press.

They were unfamiliar with the concept of people who had pursued so-called sex-change drugs and surgeries but later regretted these interventions and sought care to help remedy the results.

You’ve taken one side of an issue, but haven’t researched the issue enough to realize its full ramifications and fallout? You’ve been reassured by reliable sources that the other side is made up entirely of genocidal, Nazi bigots, so you don’t have to listen to what they’re saying at all. That’s a good look for journalists. I guess this sort of thing is bound to happen when you outsource your ethics, morality, and values to “reliable sources”. Like … Read the rest

Izzat right?

JK Rowling is basically David Duke, and that's been clear for a long time now.

But people still have to engage with her posts and point out she's a hateful bigot, over and over, because (a) beloved children's author, (b) no public consensus that trans hate is hate.

— Noah Berlatsky (@nberlat) November 4, 2023

What an idiot.… Read the rest

Yascha Mounk on Hamas and idenniny:

…the reaction to the worst murder of Jews since the end of the Second World War has continued to range from oddly muted to openly celebratory. Reacting to Hamas’s massacre in its immediate aftermath, Rivkah Brown, an editor at Novara Media, wrote that “today should be a day of celebration for supporters of democracy and human rights worldwide”. The Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter sent out an invitation to a solidarity rally with Palestine that featured a picture of the Hamas fighters on paramotors who murdered over 250 people at a music festival.

During the following weeks, hundreds of prominent artists and writers, actors, academics and medical professionals, including Tilda Swinton and

Lisa Jones tells us about the Denver Press Club and its devotion to a free press:

On August 21, 2023, I was hunting for a small, private venue in downtown Denver for a mixer. The Denver Press Club building seemed to fit the bill. It could accommodate 50 to 100 guests, serve drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and was available for rental on the evening of Thursday, November 2nd.

On August 22nd, in an email exchange with the club’s executive director, I described the event I planned to host: an evening mixer where everyone is welcome to engage in honest and open discussion about free speech and gender identity. I said Nina Paley and Corinna Cohn, hosts of the Heterodorx

This week in Trump crime family news:

Trump’s elder sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, took the witness stand in New York this week and testified they had little knowledge about the financial statements at the center of the case. Next week, Donald Trump is expected to take the stand on Monday, followed by daughter Ivanka Trump on Wednesday.

In the middle of a school week.

The New York attorney general’s office has been building its case that Trump, his adult sons and executives at the Trump Organization knowingly inflated the value of assets to boost the former president’s net worth when brokering deals. Judge Arthur Engoron ruled before the trial started that documents prove the family had

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Bad Behaviour??? Us???

I can assure our US and UK readers that here in the Great Land of Downunder, cunt IS used as a term of endearment amongst some sub sets of men.

That sub set of men being the drunken uncles at parties, the misogynist and homophobic, sexually insecure males. Not only do they call each other “cunt”, but they also use other terms of endearment, such as “poof” to assure themselves that while their best friend may be gay, they most assuredly are straight. They refer to their wives/girlfriends as “The Missus” in fear that if they use her name she will either appear and drag them home, or at

Originally a comment by Papito on Transing sisterhood.

The manichaeism of oppressor vs. oppressed cannot be explained rationally. It is a form of religion. All that is good is on one side; all that is bad is on the other side, and we can always tell them apart. For folks who scream about the sex binary, they sure do like their binaries.

Was Adolf Hitler an oppressor or an oppressed?

When Adolf Hitler met with the Mufti Amin al-Husseini of Jerusalem and they made common cause to kill all the Jews in the Levant, was Hitler working in favor of the oppressor or the oppressed? How about the Mufti?

When al-Husseini accepted 750K DM a month for the purposes … Read the rest

The feminists that aren’t feminists:

Sisters Uncut — founded to campaign against cuts to domestic violence services — claims that the same “white supremacist patriarchy” oppressing feminists is “murdering Palestinians”.

It appeared to play down the massacre of 1,300 Israelis by Hamas terrorists on October 7, saying: “The violence of the oppressed must never be equated with that of the oppressor.”

And of course both come stamped with labels so that we can all know instantly which is which.

Explaining its alignment with the Palestinian cause, Sisters Uncut said: “As intersectional feminists we know our struggles are connected; nobody is free until we are all free. The same colonial logic of white supremacist patriarchy that oppresses feminists the world

Not putting up with the bullshit any more.

I can’t even imagine being compelled to do this. Sinister.

— JLahl (@JenniferLahl) November 3, 2023

They're going to need an awful lot of handcuffs!

— Rosie Duffield MP (@RosieDuffield1) November 3, 2023

… Read the rest

Princess Ivanka gets a lot of laughter for this joke:

Ivanka Trump asked a New York appeals court to pause the $250 million fraud trial of her family and its business empire as she appeals a judge’s order requiring her to testify in the case next week.

The request to stay the entire trial came at the tail end of a Thursday court filing arguing that Ivanka Trump will face “undue hardship” if forced to testify — in part because she is scheduled to appear “in the middle of a school week.”

Ah right, the middle of a school week, and how can she juggle that plus her 9 to 5 job plus cooking and cleaning and walking … Read the rest

Another law mandating lying in court:

South Australia is the latest state to endorse the use of preferred gender pronouns in the courtroom, saying it is a “matter of respect” to address parties by their chosen pronouns, and integral to “ensuring public confidence in the proper administration of justice”.

No it isn’t. Other way around. It’s a matter of respect not to lie, and not to order others to lie. People don’t get to “choose” what sex they are, and pronouns are simply grammatical indicators of what sex a third party is. (It didn’t have to be that way. In English first and second person pronouns don’t indicate sex, but third person singular ones do.)

SA follows the lead

Ah yes: how the boys talk about women amongst themselves.

Dominic Cummings called the UK’s most senior female civil servant a “cunt” in a misogynistic WhatsApp message sent to Boris Johnson and Lee Cain in August 2020.

Of course he did. What’s the worst foulest evilest thing in the world? The part of women where all humans emerge into life.

He was referring to deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara, who had commissioned a report into poor behaviour within the Cabinet Office.

And he certainly made clear that there was no bad behavior in the Cabinet Office, didn’t he.

The message in full reads: “If I have to come back to Helen’s bullshit with PET [propriety and ethics] designed to

What, again??

How many of them are there? I suppose the answer is 12, isn’t it.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Freemage on The face of asexuality.

Like many of the progressive concepts that have gotten warped and misappropriated by the identity fringe groups, ‘microaggressions’ started out as a legitimate issue. It wasn’t just, “This small thing that irritates/offends me”, but rather, “this small thing is meant to remind me that I am viewed as sub-human and can be safely targeted by violence at any time.”

Homosexuals, women and racial minorities all face the latter sort of microaggression on a regular basis, and it does extract a real toll on the persons targeted. Hell, much of the trans-speak I would count as micro-aggressions against women. It’s not that the comments themselves are anything more than childish … Read the rest

Does anyone else here watch those spycam in the wild programs? They’re a BBC thing, shown here on PBS redubbed with a US narrator. (Why redubbed? I have no idea.) I always find them highly interesting and also always wonder if they’re any use to actual scientists or just a bit of entertainment for the rest of us. An article in Outside from last year seems to indicate it’s some of each.

The Spy series began 16 years ago when producer and director John Downer became the first filmmaker to capture life among a pride of lions. He did it by shooting from the point of view of a mobile rock, fondly referred to as Bouldercam. Spy Puffer Fish from

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The infinitude of girls.

But…if you want to ignore biology all together, what are you? A biology denialist. I’m concerned about how many scientists (yes, P.Z., I’m looking at you) have entered this realm where fantasy is reality and reality is bigoted.

I seem to recall a post or two from regular commenters here who asked PZ how he knew the gender identities of the spiders he was studying with enough certainty to be able to call them “he” or “she,” and getting banned for it. Surely it’s not to much to ask for a little bit of clarity and consistency in one’s beliefs and assertions, unless you don’t have … Read the rest

Wut?

Asexuality isn't protected under the Equality Act. We aren't protected by the conversion therapy ban, but we're 10% more likely to experience it. We're still pathologised. That's what @stonewalluk & I are working to change. Find out more in our report:https://t.co/CO11yqBFoc pic.twitter.com/jReDR1i8C5

— Yasmin Benoit, MSc (@theyasminbenoit) October 31, 2023

Asexual people aren’t protected by the Equality Act.

Meaning…what? That the Equality Act doesn’t mention asexual people? But it can’t mention every [adjective] person on the planet, much less every [non-adjective] person on the planet. Just think – people who don’t love apples, people who don’t love bananas, people who don’t love greengages…then all the fruits, then all the vegetables, then all the pastries, then all the types … Read the rest

There is “Karen” Jones for example.

In 2001, a man named Mark Jones (a.k.a: Karen Jones/Lawson) was jailed after the body of his sexual partner was found in their Manchester home. Jones had allegedly murdered the man after he refused to pay for Jones’ nail polish and transgender surgeries, but, due to the advanced stage of decomposition in the body, he was only able to be convicted of manslaughter. The decomposition hindered the ability for coroners to ascertain a proper cause of death, and thus throttled the prosecution.

Jones was sentenced to 5 years, but was released just one year later on license in 2002. Less than a week after getting out of prison, Jones sexually assaulted a

The dangerous confusion.

2./ We have long argued the laws protecting LGB people are being undermined by conflating sex with gender identity. We are grateful the EHRC submission reflected our concerns and disappointed judges “have not found it easy to follow” the important point the EHRC made.

— LGB Alliance (@AllianceLGB) November 1, 2023

4./ Nothing sums up this confusion better than the judgment’s implication that lesbians or gay men will have to admit the opposite sex to their single sex spaces. As we have consistently warned: our basic rights as homosexuals are being put at risk.https://t.co/eene0jDBil

— LGB Alliance (@AllianceLGB) November 1, 2023

… Read the rest