All entries by this author

Gender theology

Nov 10th, 2023 8:40 am | By

P. G. Wodehouse is now writing the scripts for gender havers.

Bingo the Non-binary Priest – it should be a whole series, shelved next to the Molesworth oeuvre.

My favorite part is the fact that our man Bingo thinks the Bible was written in contemporary English.… Read the rest



Guest post: The conclusion is simply claimed to follow

Nov 10th, 2023 7:18 am | By

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on How long a chain of logic do you have to use?

…but one thing I think matters is: how long a chain of logic do you have to use to reach the conclusion that this affects someone’s ability to do the job?

Of course, if the reasoning is sound, and the premises are solid, even a long chain of logic can lead to a justified conclusion. Too often, however, the conclusion is simply claimed to follow while the actual premises and inferences are best left unspecified.

It’s very similar to the way “worker’s rights”, “egalitarianism”, “solidarity”, “anti-imperialism”, “anti-colonialism”, “anti-fascism” etc. in the Soviet Union or Mao’s China were basically just synonyms for “whatever … Read the rest



What about OUR dignity?

Nov 9th, 2023 5:23 pm | By

Horrible bossy fool gloats at the prospect of getting people in trouble with the law for not lying about what sex ThEy is.

What about the intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive … Read the rest



Guest post: How long a chain of logic do you have to use?

Nov 9th, 2023 11:52 am | By

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Without forgetting her nursing training.

I’ve been trying to sort out my views on when someone’s statements or behavior outside of their work capacity should justify disciplinary action. (I mean morally justify, not what the legal lines are.)

It’s hard to come up with a formulation that doesn’t involve a lot of case-by-case judgment. The extreme bright-line rules don’t seem workable to me. It just can’t be the case that an employer should shrug and ignore a manager who is posting statements about how members of group X are intellectualy inferior, etc. — that obviously raises concerns that such a person can’t fairly make hiring/firing/employee evaluation decisions. Ditto for someone who is … Read the rest



Barbie on a bike

Nov 9th, 2023 11:40 am | By

Also from Reduxx:

A male athlete who has dominated the women’s category of cycling competitions across the United States took home two first-place medals over the weekend, bringing his tally of women’s gold medals up to 10 since December of 2022.

So that’s ten gold medals stolen from a woman.

Tessa Johnson, a male who self-identifies as a woman, took the top spots in both the Women’s SingleSpeed and Category 1/2 races, with the latter also coming with $150 in prize money.

During the races, which fell on the weekend before Halloween, Johnson was dressed as Barbie as part of the optional costume competition.

Attaboy: cheat the women and mock them at the same time.

According to the Chicago

Read the rest


Vraies femmes

Nov 9th, 2023 11:28 am | By

Reduxx a couple of months ago:

An LGBTI rights organization in France is calling on the Minister of Equality to intervene in the case of a gynecologist who they are accusing of “transphobia.”

On September 8, SOS Homophobie, which describes itself as a “national association against LGBTIphobia” took to X (formerly Twitter) to condemn a gynecologist for stating he only provided services to females. The comment from Dr. Victor Acharian, who operates in the Pau region, was made in reply to a Google review he received in which a trans-identified male’s partner complained that Acharian refused to provide services to him.

Read the rest


Practical training

Nov 9th, 2023 9:48 am | By

The BBC offers training for female self-shooters.

Female Self Shooters is a practical self-shooting skills training programme for factual TV and documentary, supported [by] the BBC.

Good good good. Thanks, BBC.

Aimed at female (and those identifying as female) TV producers or those at producer level, who will be in a position to use the acquired skills after the training, e.g. as 2nd camera operators, shooting taster tapes or directing your own self-shot film. 

Oh. Never mind.

Dirty trick, BBC.… Read the rest



It’s not you it’s the lipstick

Nov 9th, 2023 9:32 am | By

Oh dear I detect a mentation deficit.

https://twitter.com/L__G__B/status/1722635172883886198… Read the rest


Without forgetting her nursing training

Nov 9th, 2023 8:11 am | By

A crucial point in this piece on Amy Hamm:

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms warned that “professional misconduct must not be permitted to be redefined to include speaking unpopular truths” — in this case, unpopular truths that bear directly on Hamm’s medical training and responsibilities as a nurse and nurse educator. Hamm knows that sex is observed, not “assigned”, at birth. Her case highlights the contradictory expectations professionals in her position face: to pretend to go along with a strange new set of beliefs about sex and gender without forgetting her nursing training, in which sex is not a postmodern riddle but rather a constantly relevant factor in medical evaluation and treatment. 

It’s all very well* for people … Read the rest



Chanting

Nov 9th, 2023 7:18 am | By

No.

Read the rest



Guest post: There was a school of Savvy Punditry

Nov 8th, 2023 6:03 pm | By

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Portents.

I think that for a long time, pro-choice advocates were regarded as the boy who cried wolf. “You keep saying that Roe will be overturned, but it never is, and all these abortion laws mostly get struck down by the courts and the abortion clinics survive the ones that aren’t anyways. I’m not pro-life, but I’m gonna vote GOP because [taxes etc.]”

And indeed for a long time, there was a school of Savvy Punditry that insisted that Republicans didn’t want Roe overturned anyway, and that’s why it would never happen. (My take is that the first part of that was largely true — there were definitely a lot of GOP … Read the rest



Portents

Nov 8th, 2023 11:39 am | By

Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia.

Abortion rights advocates won major victories Tuesday as voters in conservative-leaning Ohio decisively passed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing access to abortion, while those in ruby-red Kentucky reelected a Democratic governor who aggressively attacked his opponent for supporting the state’s near-total ban on the procedure.

In Virginia, a battleground state where Republicans pushed a proposal to outlaw most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Democrats were projected to take control of the state legislature after campaigning heavily on preserving access.

Women push back.… Read the rest



People with what did you say?

Nov 8th, 2023 11:18 am | By

Boots said what??

Good that they’ve corrected it now but what the hell.… Read the rest



Because it is metaphysical nonsense

Nov 8th, 2023 10:23 am | By

Now there’s a fine impartial headline from the CBC:

Nurse tells B.C. hearing she’s not transphobic, but calls gender identity ‘metaphysical nonsense’

There’s no “but” needed in that headline. There’s no contradiction. “Transphobic” means “mean and horrible to people who claim to be trans.” It’s neither phobic nor mean & horrible to know that “gender identity” is metaphysical nonsense. It would be metaphysical nonsense to say that people can be rabbits by thinking they are rabbits, and the same applies to all the other nouns that name something one can’t turn into via the power of thought. People can become teachers, pilots, parents, friends, colleagues, reporters, nurses, and the like. People can’t become trees or planets or watermelons. It’s not … Read the rest



The unlawful definition

Nov 8th, 2023 6:39 am | By

When legislatures decide they get to define women.

A man who is pretending to be a woman is not a woman, no matter how long he has been doing the pretending.… Read the rest



Guest post: There is a narrative worth exploring here

Nov 8th, 2023 5:33 am | By

Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on Anne Frank wasn’t diverse enough.

This is the second time this specific article has crossed my radar in the last twenty-four hours, whereas none of my normal German sources have even mentioned it, which I think is somewhat telling. Let me trawl for an actual German article…ahh, yes, a bunch of highly-motivated right-of-centre rags…some respectable publications…no highly-motivated left-of-centre rags…

Ahh, there we are, something actually readable and vaguely objective that isn’t publicly-financed (which is nearly unnecessary to qualify, as publicly-financed media in Germany are often barely readable and quite rarely objective).

Firstly, let’s clarify a few points of confusion or misconceptions. “Kindergarten”, though it is a German word, means something different in … Read the rest



Diversity honcho Clara

Nov 7th, 2023 3:46 pm | By

Siiiiiiiiiiigh

Aw yeah, nothing better for increasing yer inclusion & diversity than putting a white guy with bangs in charge of it.

Oddly enough the Institute of Physics turned off replies.

Updating to add:

There are a lot of furious and/or contemptuous replies and then one outlier.

Read the rest



Guest post: The intent motivating the incoming hand

Nov 7th, 2023 11:55 am | By

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on ‘Microaggressions started out as a legitimate issue’.

Like, I can see putting a hand on someone’s knee as being actually innocent, even though invasion of personal space is always suspect. I had a coworker who always put his hands on people’s backs when talking to them at their desks, for instance. It made me uncomfortable, for obvious reasons, but I didn’t attribute ill intent to it, because the dude was probably autistic. On the other hand, it can absolutely be anything but innocent, and there’s no way for a woman (or much less often a man) to know the intent motivating the incoming hand. For some reason, we have yet to … Read the rest



Combative on the stand

Nov 7th, 2023 11:45 am | By

This is a fun heads I win tails you lose Trump has going here. If he pitches fits in court and calls the judge names why that’s because he’s The Victim Of A Conspiracy. If he doesn’t, same deal.

Mr Trump was combative on the stand. He took direct aim at the judge, leading to some heated exchanges, and drew his rebukes for airing broad grievances when they were not directly relevant to the question.

Is this because he’s a goon who acts like that at all times? Or is it a cunning plan?

“I think he is trying to goad the judge into doing something he can argue on appeal shows prejudice on his part,” Prof McMunigal said.

Read the rest


Anne Frank wasn’t diverse enough

Nov 7th, 2023 10:43 am | By

Oh, good idea, Germany.

A German kindergarten has said it will drop Anne Frank from its name in favour of a “more diverse” alternative, adding fuel to the national debate over anti-Semitism amid the Israel-Hamas war.

More “diverse” than Anne Frank. (I have no idea what the German for the buzzword “diverse” is, or even if it’s comparable to the Anglo buzzword.) More “diverse” how? Adding anti-Semites? Nazis? Neo-Nazis? Fans of genocide?

In what way is there a need for more “diversity” than a name that symbolizes the mass murder of European Jews by the Nazi regime? To put it another way, why is it a good idea to change the subject when the subject is Anne Frank/the … Read the rest