This is stupid reporting. The Irish Independent:

A demonstration was held in Dublin city today in protest against a rally held by an ‘anti-trans’ campaigner.

Why does the protest against the rally come before the rally itself? Why isn’t the reporting about the rally first and only then the protest against it? And why say “by an ‘anti-trans’ campaigner” instead of something less pejorative? Why isn’t the lede more like “Gender-critical feminists held a rally in Dublin city today, and were met with protests”?

And that’s only the first sentence.

British activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, better known as Posie Parker, held one of her Let Women Speak events in Merrion Square this afternoon.

A counter-protest was planned “in support of

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by maddog 1129 on Reasons.

The capture of the Trevor Project was a special stab in the heart/stab in the back to me. I remember Tim Gunn and other out gay celebrities telling gay kids, “It gets better.” These spokespeople were undoubtedly bullied as adolescent gay and lesbian youth, but they found that, as time went on, and they grew older, the circumstances of life did change. They became happy and successful gay and lesbian adults. The bullying of young LG people had led tragically to many suicides and suicide attempts. The purpose of the Trevor Project was to assure young LG people that, despite social ostracization from (usually religious) anti-gay bigots, they need not go … Read the rest

Nonsense from MP Angela Eagle part 2. It’s sad when people produce so much nonsense you have to address it in pieces.

Jo Grady, the union boss who was also on the panel at the fringe event, claimed people have freedom of speech, but not “freedom to offend”. The University and College Union leader said this was something she taught to her members, who include academics, lecturers and postgraduates.

She said: “Whilst it’s clear that gender-critical beliefs are protected, the form of expression isn’t. You might have freedom of speech, but you don’t have freedom to offend – particularly if that offence is enshrined within law, and I think that’s one of the things that we try and educate

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Why are so many women pretending not to know what they’ve known ever since they were about 10 years old?

Like Labour MP Angela Eagle pretending not to know why women don’t want men bouncing into the women’s toilets.

Gender-critical feminists want trans women to show their passports to use public lavatories, a veteran Labour MP has claimed.

Dame Angela Eagle, who is standing to be a Commons committee chairman, said lavatories were being “policed” at the expense of those who don’t conform to gender norms.

[Patiently but through gritted teeth] No, that’s wrong. That’s a falsehood. We’re just saying women need toilets/lavatories/restrooms for women and men have to stay out of them as men have always had to … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Reasons.

Could we in principle change someone’s sex? Sure, but it would involve alterations so radical and so subtle that I don’t think it plausible, much less useful or ethical. Because what needs to change is not just a few body parts, but rather an entire suite of interpenetrating systems, all of which together compose the system we call sex. Transplant a functional uterus and ovaries into a man, and he’s still a man, because (a) that uterus is not from his body, (b) the eggs in the ovaries are not from his DNA, and (c) his body is not just unequipped to regulate those organs, it’s developed to maintain … Read the rest

Really heartening stuff.

https://twitter.com/T0MB0Y0/status/1702898558452564032 https://twitter.com/StandingforXX/status/1703008114537005110

First speaker is Helen Joyce.#LetWomenSpeakDublin pic.twitter.com/ep4FNKIBHE

— Brandubh (@brandubh4) September 16, 2023

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1703017607652102610 … Read the rest

Golly, Let Women Speak Dublin is huge.

What a turn out! #LetWomenSpeakDublin pic.twitter.com/htOrRBjUl4

— DJ Lippy (@terfasaurus) September 16, 2023

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1703001373208441006 https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1702996880064418185

Also, witty.

https://twitter.com/brandubh4/status/1703007199235117248… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/TTEcclesBrown/status/1702736271716786455

“If it bothers you so much to possibly be in the bathroom with a trans person, who’s in a stall, with a closed door” – big smirk on the “in a stall, with a closed door” bit.

But here’s the thing. People can open the door, and come out of the stall. The fact that the man in the women’s toilet is in a stall with a closed door when a woman enters the room is not all that consoling or reassuring given the fact that the door is locked on his side, not her side. It’s all very well for smirky condescending bro in the pink bathing suit to pretend that a toilet stall is as impregnable as … Read the rest

From January 2022, a piece on the garbage fire that “conversion therapy” bans have made of child therapy:

My son has a great therapist. That sets us apart from, I think, the great majority of parents. Mental health care for children is difficult to get, and it’s even more difficult to get mental health care that doesn’t just check the box or blunder about, but actually helps a child. My son’s therapist, who he’s been seeing regularly for years, to help him work through a long list of problems including anxiety, depression, and being autistic, is a great therapist. But I can’t tell you his name.

Because the son also had gender dysphoria, and now doesn’t, and he didn’t … Read the rest

Jo Bartosch wonders “why the University of Leicester’s Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) has developed guidance on ‘trans-inclusive practice’.”

It does sound odd, doesn’t it. What “practice”? In what way do museums and galleries have any “practice” with regard to “inclusion”? I don’t want museums exerting any “practice” on me, I just want to walk around them seeing what there is to see.

There is a need for inclusive practice when it comes to people with disabilities – they don’t want to put stairs in people’s way, for instance. But there’s nothing about being trans that would require special “inclusive” arrangements. Neutral toilets maybe? One sad little neutral toilet for the occasional gender-haver?

Last week, a ‘Trans-Inclusive Culture’

… Read the rest

Wait a second. The Telegraph says Conversion therapy ban to be delayed but…

Rishi Sunak is expected to delay a promised ban on conversion therapy following disagreements over how the legislation should be worded.

‌Ministers said in the summer that a draft Bill banning people from trying to change a child’s gender identity or sexuality would be published by the end of the parliamentary session in November.

Wait. They’re calling it “conversion therapy” to try to change a child’s “gender identity”? But what do they think gender identity itself is???

Let’s be real. Gender idenniny is itself conversion. Why is it wicked and suspect to try to undo the original conversion of a child from its natal sex to … Read the rest

Well, BBC, wouldja?

The question for the BBC is whether they would defend playing a lyric encouraging people to kick people with any other protected characteristic (eg race, disability, sexuality) in exactly the same terms as this – that there’s nuance or ambiguity listeners haven’t appreciated. pic.twitter.com/f36NDBW8z4

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) September 15, 2023

… Read the rest

Well there’s a surprising lede:

BBC bosses have defended airing a song encouraging listeners to ‘kick’ women with gender-critical views.

I wonder if BBC bosses would defend airing a song encouraging listeners to kick trans women.

I don’t wonder much though: I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t.

Listeners complained after 6 Music played They/Them by Dream Nails, which includes the line ‘Kick terfs all day, don’t break a sweat’.

Oh, so it’s not just kick women, it’s kick women all day. I think that should be in the lede. Kicking someone all day=kicking someone to death.

It comes as 6 Music was accused of ‘blatantly’ refusing to play Roisin Murphy’s songs after the singer publicly criticised puberty blockers. The

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Sometimes I try to think of a way I could change my mind about all this and join the orthodoxy, and I can’t really do it. I’m quite sure I couldn’t change my mind to the point of believing that men who say they are trans really are women (or that women who say they are trans really are men). I would still see men saying they’re women, not women. But could I perhaps convince myself that I should pretend to think that? Or that it doesn’t matter what I think about it, the point is to affirm them and validate them no matter what I think? Those two would be more possible than the first, I guess, but that’s … Read the rest

Glinner’s new book is – well I’ll leave it to Arty to tell you.

"Movers and shakers" is Amazon's rank of the thing with the biggest gain in the past 24 hours — "the hottest thing on Amazon right now."
Pre-orders for Glinner's upcoming book are literally the hottest thing on Amazon right now.#Glinner#GrahamLinehanhttps://t.co/oXT7gJ3qL0 pic.twitter.com/1xkqR6xoEn

— Arty Morty (@artymortyarty) September 14, 2023

Updating to add details and affirmation from Rosie Duffield and Simon Edge.

My friend @Glinner is one of the kindest, most generous people I know. He's also the genius behind Father Ted (no, we don't agree on everything). @wossy is also a lovely human. As for Richard Ayoade, if those now trying to cancel him

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The BBC takes a moment to remember what a woman is:

A retired anaesthetist has faced backlash over “disgusting” comments about sexual harassment in the workplace. Dr Peter Hilton from Pembrokeshire wrote a letter to The Times referring to a “snowflake generation” of young doctors who “should toughen up”.

It comes as a new study found female NHS surgeons reported being sexually harassed, assaulted and raped. It highlighted a pattern of trainees being abused by senior male surgeons. The report, entitled Breaking the Silence, was written by the University of Exeter, the University of Surrey and the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery.

But you see the senior male surgeons are stressed, they’re tired and emotional, they’re worn out … Read the rest

There was a story in the Times about sexual assault of female surgeons on September 12, which drew responses from female surgeons saying you’re damn right it happens on September 13.

Sir, Further to your report “1 in 3 female surgeons assaulted by a colleague” (Sep 12), these incidents are not limited to surgery and occur through out all medical specialties. For years our organisation has highlighted the mistreatment of women in medicine, from misogyny and sexual discrimination to sexual assault. We are tired of being told “there is no problem” and “robust reporting systems are in place”— this is untrue. This steadfast denial makes change very difficult and contributes to the high attrition rate in women in

… Read the rest

Don’t judge people by appearances, he exclaims, talking much too fast. Just because somebody is wearing lipstick doesn’t mean they’re a woman, he says. Very true: anyone can put on lipstick. Just because somebody has a penis doesn’t mean that they’re not, he insists. Ding ding! Error! Change of category without notice!

That’s probably why he talks so fast: hoping to get all this past people by yammering.

It’s like saying

Just because somebody wears footy pajamas doesn’t mean they’re a child

followed by

Just because somebody is four years old doesn’t mean they’re a child.

Pattern detected:

First, item anyone can do because item is social and voluntary.

Second, item that is physical and involuntary and thus cannot … Read the rest

Boebert is such a cut-up.

Boebert didn’t care if she ruined the musical “Beetlejuice” playing at the Buell Theatre for anyone else, and she certainly didn’t care if the pregnant woman sitting behind her had to breathe her second-hand smoke from a vape pen. Boebert denies that she was vaping, although she did admit to taking photos of the live performance.

The woman sitting directly behind Boebert shared her story with The [Denver] Post on the condition of anonymity out of fear that there would be backlash from the congresswoman and her supporters. She provided me with the receipt for her tickets and a photo from the event that shows Boebert seated in front of her.

…

“These people

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Too much water all at one time.

More than 5,000 people are known to have died and thousands more are missing after devastating floods swept through the Libyan port city of Derna.

Entire neighbourhoods disappeared into the sea as a huge tsunami-like torrent of water swept through the city. Whole families were washed away, according to a Libyan journalist who has been speaking to survivors in the city, and who described the situation as “beyond catastrophic”.

A river runs from the mountains through Derna to the Mediterranean, and two dams on that river collapsed, so the city was like a dollhouse hit by a firehose.

The storm – a Mediterranean hurricane-like system known as a medicane – brought more

… Read the rest