Originally a comment by Holms on We know that something is being waved in our faces.

The claim that using someone’s pronouns of demand is a mere ‘kindness’ is belied by the fact that they are also claimed to be non-optional. Kindness is not mandatory, and mandates are by their nature not kind as there is the implication of enforcement, punishment, for failure to comply. It is further undermined by the revisionism we see at play with trans identities. When someone declares they have a gender identity, name, and/or pronouns at odds with their sex, it is immediately forbidden to mention even obliquely that the person ever had anything other than those even in the past. This is especially … Read the rest

The CBC is shocked, shocked to have discovered that Buffy Sainte-Marie invented an indigenous identity for herself.

When Buffy Sainte-Marie strolled onto Sesame Street in 1975, she was making history.

The Dec. 9 episode was the launch of the program’s efforts to present Indigenous culture to millions of viewers.

…

From the early days of her career, Sainte-Marie has claimed to be a Cree woman, born in Canada. She has also allowed herself to be celebrated as an Indigenous icon and success story.

In 2022, CBC broadcast a concert that was held in her honour at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, where Anishinabe musician ShoShona Kish told the audience: “Buffy Sainte-Marie has led the way for Indigenous music

Brilliant and enraging: Helen Joyce dissects the intense deliberate sustained suppression of women’s views on Magic Gender.

There’s the double bind, for one thing – you get mostly silenced but if you manage to utter a peep that means you haven’t been silenced.

This is the logic of witch-ducking. If a woman drowns, she isn’t a witch; if she floats, she is, and must be dispatched some other way. Either way, she ends up dead.

Most of the stifling is secret and carefully hidden, but occasionally a bit of the curtain gets caught in someone’s zipper. Helen gives enraging examples – Intelligence Squared, the Irish Times, the BBC, ABC [the Australian one], Sky News.

All that Sky

Joan Smith is. not. having. it.

Referring to Izzard or any other trans-identified man as “she” is profoundly insulting to women. In this instance, it happens to be the Guardian talking to Izzard “ahead of the release of her new film”. The word “her” has no place in that sentence, creating an immediate sense of cognitive dissonance. We know that something is being waved in our faces, challenging us to object to our own erasure. 

What’s being waved in our faces is the [implicit] dick along with the explicit dick move of ordering us to ignore the dick as we are forced to submit to it.

For years we were told that using someone’s preferred pronouns was a matter

Princess doesn’t want to testify. Princess loses appeal.

Ivanka Trump will have to testify in a business fraud case against her father and brothers, a New York judge ruled. She had previously sought not to take the stand, arguing that she had moved out of the city and had stepped away from the Trump Organization. But Judge Arthur Engoron said she still maintains ties to Trump businesses and real estate in New York.

Wull can’t she just pocket the money without any of the consequences? She’s a princess!

Prosecutors have argued that Ms Trump has important information to share about the case. In his ruling on Friday, Judge Engoron sided with the prosecutors, writing: “Ms Trump has clearly availed

So women don’t get to have unions any more.

This one goes out to the LGB Alliance, who want to know why we will never support their attempts to marginalise trans and gender-diverse people. Transphobia is not welcome in a union movement that seeks to support and lift up all workers. pic.twitter.com/cPMGqfQyBO

— Victorian Trades Hall Council (@VicUnions) October 26, 2023

What an absolutely disgusting way to treat workers who have the bad taste to be women.

First there’s the stupid lie that the LGB Alliance “attempts to marginalise trans and gender-diverse people.” No it doesn’t! Saying men are not women is not an attempt to marginalize men. It’s simply the truth that men are not women. If anyone is … Read the rest

Blood Knight alerted us to Kessler syndrome so I found When Elephants Fight in Space:

When spacecraft collide with other objects conducting routine space activity or are intentionally destroyed via anti-satellite tests, this creates orbital debris and risks creating a cascading chain reaction of collisions and debris propagation. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) explains that “collisions with orbital debris can pit or damage spacecraft in the best case scenario and cause catastrophic failures in the worst.” Collisional cascading, also known as the Kessler Syndrome, is a dangerous phenomenon because it renders orbits less accessible for all states to reap the scientific, technological, and economic benefits. For these reasons, NASA maintains that the top threat to spacecraft,

Peter Tatchell says oh yes there is too so such a thing as a “gender identity.” What’s more, we all have one. What’s more, we can all tell what everyone’s “gender identity” is by looking at what everyone IS WEARING. So neat, so easy, so simple. Why didn’t anyone tell us this before???

For once I’m not indulging in hyperbole. He really does say that, and after the whole room squawks and shouts and says no, he says it all over again.

Gender identity is real because we decide what clothes we wear. 🤪

Amazing.

Clothes. Clothes!

Is fashion dead then? Because if it’s all about how we identify then presumably I’m only allowed to wear clothes of a certain

What actual girls get:

A woman has been found guilty of taking a three-year-old British child to Kenya for female genital mutilation (FGM). Amina Noor, 39, is the first person to be convicted of assisting a non-UK person to perform FGM. Noor, from Harrow in north-west London, took the child to a private house for the procedure in 2006.

…

It was only in 2015 that the girl – who is now aged 21 and who cannot be identified – confided to a schoolteacher that she had suffered FGM and police were informed.

Following an examination at University College Hospital in 2019 it was found that the girl’s clitoris had been completely removed.

That’s right: make sex a tiresome … Read the rest

Many are sharing this little gem.

@IndiaWilloughby, Not a frump and still not a woman. pic.twitter.com/KJn7BTWlLr

— Jeremy Williams (@jeremy020264) October 26, 2023

Again – he’s a 57-year-old man doing an impersonation of a particularly silly 13-year-old girl. A 57-year-old man playing dressup for the edification of Twitter. A 57-year-old man saying “Haha you’re ugly.” A 57-year-old man smirking and pouting at the same time while taking selfies in the world’s stupidest hat. A 57-year-old man doing this. Not 15, not 20, not 22, but FIFTY SEVEN. Aren’t most people embarrassed to do silly teenage look-at-me shit in public once they’re, I don’t know, 35 or so?

But hey, being incloosive of trans laydeez is the most pressing issue … Read the rest

The points are tipping.

Humanity is moving dangerously close to irreversible tipping points that would drastically damage our ability to cope with disasters, UN researchers have warned, including the withdrawal of home insurance from flood-hit areas and the drying up of the groundwater that is vital for ensuring food supplies.

These “risk tipping points” also include the loss of the mountain glaciers that are essential for water supplies in many parts of the world and accumulating space debris knocking out satellites that provide early warnings of extreme weather.

I didn’t know that about the space debris.

The risk tipping points are different from the climate tipping points the world is on the brink of, including the collapse of Amazon

First, the statement from NYU:

“We’re aware of the photos from the demonstration in Washington Square Park.  These signs are antisemitic, repugnant, and a disgrace. We don’t know the identity of the people pictured, or if they are members of the NYU community, but we take this seriously and will be looking into it. To be clear, antisemitism violates the University’s rules and violators are subject to university conduct proceedings.” 

—NYU Spokesperson John Beckman

Now the photos:

NYU happening now – students are spotted holding up a Nazi era antisemitic signs wanting to rid the world of the Jews.

We have no words. pic.twitter.com/Asg9PKGCrE

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 25, 2023

https://twitter.com/Bad_bureaucrat/status/1715812554625171676

This trope that a certain set of people=dirt … Read the rest

Is he right?

Peter – you don't have to approve or respect but you should use the language pic.twitter.com/RtQLyps4kC

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) October 25, 2023

Before I get to that question – note Fred Wallace thinking anyone wants to get a good look at his thigh, let alone beyond it.

So. Should we use the language?

New question: how can we use the language when we don’t believe in the ideology that mandates the language? It’s like saying we should refer to people as rabbits if they say they are rabbits. It’s like saying we should refer to The Holy Father when we’re not Catholics.

That’s all the more true with this particular ideology because the language basically is… Read the rest

The European Commission has a Justice and Consumers Department.

Justice and Consumers

This Commission department is responsible for EU policy on justice, consumer rights and gender equality.

Seems like a weird mashup but ok. The point is it’s a real department of the real European Commission. It’s not a hoax. And yet, it tells us…

Not everyone is born either male or female.

In the #UnionofEquality everyone has the right to be exactly who they are.#EU4LGBTIQ on #InterSexAwarenessDay pic.twitter.com/qc5UoBXofS

— EU Justice (@EU_Justice) October 26, 2023

One, intersex people are either male or female. Two, there’s no such thing as a “right” for people to “be exactly who they are.” There’s the tautology that people are exactly who … Read the rest

I’m not keen on Rebel News as a source but you know how that goes – news outlets that aren’t right-wing don’t touch the subject. (Therefore I must be wrong about it, yeah? No. The left has disappeared up its own backside.)

So I won’t bother with the Rebel News story but here’s the gist:

Swim competition allows a 50-year-old biological male to swim with 13 year-old girls in Markham Ontario.https://t.co/3no8L8kKKt

— BirdsNest🇨🇦 (@2022timeflies) October 25, 2023

Why did the swim competition allow this? The wrong sex and the wrong age? It won’t say.… Read the rest

Giant baby throws giant baby fit. World looks on in deep admiration.

Donald Trump stormed out of a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday after a heated day in court that saw the former president called to the witness stand in his $250 million fraud case and fined $10,000 for violating a gag order.

The Secret Service had to go scrambling after him. His lawyers were surprised but stayed seated.

Judge Arthur Engoron handed down the financial penalty after calling Trump to testify under oath in the afternoon about who he was talking about when he told reporters earlier in the day that the person sitting next to the judge was “very partisan.”

Trump said he was referring

I have to wonder how much time, if any, Leeds City Council Hate Crime Team spends on hate crimes against women. I have to wonder if it even realizes they exist.

Really informative and powerful Trans People Awareness session today as part of our activities during Hate Crime Awareness Week. Many thanks to @WestYorksPolice #LeedsNoPlaceforHate pic.twitter.com/HUydm1ClxT

— Leeds City Council Hate Crime Team (@LCCHateCrime) October 17, 2023

[Scrolls]

Ok here’s one:

Two really interesting online training sessions delivered this morning for partners as part of #HCAW Firstly by @CST_UK on Antisemitism and secondly by @ISDglobal on Misogyny

— Leeds City Council Hate Crime Team (@LCCHateCrime) October 18, 2023

A bit perfunctory, I think, considering that women and girls … Read the rest

You’d think badmouthing The Enemy after you make a plea deal would be a bad idea.

Sidney Powell may have pleaded guilty to interfering in the 2020 US presidential election, but she still seems to think President Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate.

On her social-media accounts, Powell has continued to push claims that the 2020 election was rigged and that prosecutors in Georgia who brought the criminal case against her were politically motivated. The newsletter published by her dark-money group has shared articles arguing the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, “extorted” her guilty plea.

That looks like taunting a bear, to me – a bear that’s right in front of you with no iron bars in between.

In her

Cohen and Trump together again at last.

Five years after they last met in person, the former president and his self-described fixer were reunited in court on the most anticipated day yet in Donald Trump’s fraud trial.

…

…over several hours, Mr Cohen provided damaging testimony that repeatedly tied his own actions, and the actions of all the employees at the Trump Organization, directly to Mr Trump. Mr Cohen testified that he answered to Mr Trump, and Mr Trump alone. “Whatever issues he had, whatever created ire for him, he would bring it to me in order to resolve it,” he told the court.

Later, he said Trump personally asked him and Allen Weisselberg, the convicted ex-chief financial officer

Here’s a puzzler.

As a discrimination lawyer, I completely disagree with this. I have acted for clients who have specifically lost their jobs *because of* GR. They wouldn't succeed using any other PC so would have no recourse against such behaviour. https://t.co/cszmU0DaEH

— Audrey Ludwig (@AudreySuffolk) October 25, 2023

I’m not sure what to think about this. We don’t want people being fired just because bosses dislike something about them, but at the same time, we don’t want to work with (much less under) people with bizarre delusions that govern their behavior. What if employees identify as lions and come to work in costume and try to gnaw on colleagues’ arms?

The thing is…”gender identity” isn’t just a quirk, and … Read the rest