Ron DeSantis is doing his best to nullify the Voting Rights Act.

In mid-August, lawyers representing Florida Republicans made a startling admission. The state’s new congressional map, drawn by governor Ron DeSantis, made it harder for Black voters in north Florida to elect the candidate of their choosing. On Sunday, a judge in Florida ruled the map was unlawful.

From 2016 until last year, Florida’s fifth congressional district had stretched more than 150 miles across the northern part of the state, from Jacksonville to just west of Tallahassee. It was a portion of the state once home to the Ku Klux Klan and lynchings. In 2022, it was represented by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, and

Talk about too much power in the hands of one unelected gazillionaire…

Elon Musk says he refused to give Kyiv access to his Starlink communications network over Crimea to avoid complicity in a “major act of war”. Kyiv had sent an emergency request to activate Starlink to Sevastopol, home to a major Russian navy port, he said. His comments came after a book alleged he had switched off Starlink to thwart a drone attack on Russian ships.

A senior Ukrainian official says this enabled Russian attacks and accused him of “committing evil”. Russian naval vessels had since taken part in deadly attacks on civilians, he said. “By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!)

Pink News of course is thrilled at the attention from Northumbria Police.

Police are treating transphobic graffiti sprayed in various locations in Northumberland as a hate crime. 

…

An image shared on X, previously known as Twitter, show the words: “U can’t change sex”, written on the bridge, with the reply “Just watch me, mate” penned underneath. A second picture shows graffiti which refers to “woke” as “fascists in disguise”. 

Is it “phobic” to say you can’t change sex?

Is it phobic to say that as a general statement rather than a personal one to a particular wannabe sex-changer?

Graffiti as such is a form of vandalism, but is it a worse form because it expresses the truth that humans … Read the rest

Northumbria Police are freaking out over…graffiti.

#APPEAL We are appealing for information after transphobic graffiti was left at various locations on Tyneside.

In recent weeks, officers have received numerous reports of the graffiti being painted on a section of the High Level Bridge.

(1/4) pic.twitter.com/UQMFpvuL9Z

— Northumbria Police (@northumbriapol) September 5, 2023

I have to wonder if Northumbria Police ever say a word on social media about misogynist graffiti. I don’t know, and I don’t have anywhere near the patience to scroll through their tweets in an attempt to find out, but my guess is that they haven’t. This isn’t a wild guess, but one based on this pattern. What pattern? This one. The one of freaking out about gender-protestantism … Read the rest

It’s bizarre and alarming to see a whole generation of people (well, a big chunk of that generation) insisting on the magical idea that We Can Be Whatever We Choose To Be. No we can’t. Of course we can’t. We can’t be anything other than humans, for instance – we can’t be rocks or planets or buildings or flowers or lizards – there’s an infinite number of things we can’t be. (We can’t be a lizard, or two lizards, or…) It’s worrying to see so many people so bewitched by a stupid ideology that they think we can be whatever we decide to be – that they think it and say it aloud, in public.

Trans people existing and sharing

That poster is still doing the rounds.

Well…ok but…how shall I put this…anyone can say that. It’s just saying. There’s no particular reason anyone should believe it. We can all draw up statements that start with “I am”; they won’t all necessarily be true.

Maybe the credulity here has bled over from trans ideology, where a certain kind of self-declaration from a certain kind of person is treated as both sacred and mandatory-to-believe. “People are who they say they are,” we’re told constantly – unless of course the people in question are those horrible feminist women who ask questions like “Why should I believe you?”

What if feminists started wearing that “I am a safe person” badge? Would the … Read the rest

Hilarious. (Sorry, just another rando on Twitter, but the thinking is so absurd I can’t resist.)

You’re a man and regardless of how you dress you’ll always be 1. Sorry not sorry Sir! pic.twitter.com/y2JfVKvaqi

— мiсhеllе тhоmsоn (@mscots41) September 7, 2023

How do you see a [man] with a headband, a short “pixie” haircut, makeup, lipstick, purse, skirt, and feminine voice, and think this is a man with a headband, a short “pixie” haircut, makeup, lipstick, purse, skirt, and feminine voice? The usual way, bro.

It’s so funny that he thinks adding up all the silly markers will somehow clinch the deal. It’s hilarious that he thinks quantity makes a difference when the quality is not so very convincing. No, … Read the rest

Oh did he indeed.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee ominously predicted that if Donald Trump is prevented from winning or running in the 2024 election, it will be the last election “decided by ballots rather than bullets.”

And by “ominously predicted” they mean “threatened.”

Mr Huckabee seemed to be reiterating a common accusation from Republicans, Mr Trump first among them, who have claimed that President Biden is essentially waging a political war against the former president as the Justice Department — and state courts — have indicted him over various charges. There is no evidence to support the claims of election interference or political retribution.

And – listen up Mr Huckabee – there is abundant evidence that Trump did … Read the rest

UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls Reem Alsalem responds to a response [pdf]:

On 18th of May 2023, the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) published
a statement on its website entitled “There is no place for anti-trans agendas in the UN”, which
as of today, was signed by 844 organizations and individuals. I was informed by the two
executive directors of AWID, Inna Michaeli and Faye Macheke Co-Executive Directors a week
later (the 24th of May 2023) that the letter had been published. A day later, I acknowledged
receipt and informed AWID that I would be responding to the letter at an appropriate time
and space. I am choosing to do so today.

In the

But…

A man who dressed as a woman to sexually assault another man has been found guilty by a jury.

Wayne Rogers, 47, wore a wig and fake breasts when he targeted a 20-year-old who had been out drinking in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, in September.

But how do they know he’s not trans? Or non-binary? How do they know the wig and breasts were not sincere womaning by a sincere trans woman living her best life?

“He is a sexual predator that picks on drunk men and deceives them by being dressed as a woman,” prosecutor Mark Trafford KC said.

How can they know he’s not a trans woman? Maybe he’s too bashful to say he’s a trans woman, … Read the rest

The tweet Peter Tatchell keeps repeating, I guess on the theory that someone is bound to believe it if he says it often enough.

Trans women are trans women

They are not the same as biological women but they are equally valid

Two different kinds of women

One based on biological sex. One based on gender identity

Both victims of harassment & sexual violence

Unite to defend ALL women, including trans pic.twitter.com/qw8FQrR5gU

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) September 5, 2023

Certainly, and by the same token, trans petertatchells are trans petertatchells.

They are not the same as biological petertatchells but they are equally valid.

Two different kinds of petertatchells.

One based on biological petertatchellness. One based on gender identity.

Unite to … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on Balance.

So, when we’re talking about extremes here, what do we mean? Is one extreme just handing out the hormones to everyone with a valid credit card, while the other is listening to people of good sense who say there is no such thing as being trans?

Or, how do they measure whether someone is truly trans and could benefit from hormones? Is there a gendersoul checker machine, a “t-meter” that works like the Scientology “e-meter,” measuring trangrams in pre-clears? Do they followup to check to see if one becomes clear after a certain number of months of treatment or do we just look to see if they pass? I think someone … Read the rest

Trump loses again!

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Donald Trump is civilly liable for defamatory statements he made about writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019 when she went public with claims he had raped her decades earlier.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, as part of that ruling, said the upcoming trial for Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump will only deal with the question of how much the former president should pay her in monetary damages for defaming her.

Loser loser loser. Trump is a loser. Can scowl at the camera all he wants; still a loser.

Normally, a jury would determine at trial whether a defendant is liable for civil damages claimed by a plaintiff. But Kaplan found that Carroll was

Trump in a Louis XIV wig.

From the Mirror:

An inmate groped two prison officers while they served her food in her cell, after being locked up for sexually assaulting a nurse.

Katana Paris who identifies as a woman, assaulted the male and female staff members at HMP Forest Bank in Salford last year. The female officer was serving Paris, 27, breakfast with the help of two inmates. Paris walked towards her and touched her inappropriately.

The following day, while being served lunch by a male prison officer, she reached through the hatch in her cell door and grabbed his genitals. Paris, who was part way through serving a three-year sentence at the time for sexual assaulting a

HAhahahahahahaha this should work very well.

Seen in the toilets of @ULBruxelles pic.twitter.com/0amCaaPRdv

— Róisín Michaux (@RoisinMichaux) September 6, 2023

Somebody really missed the memo. No no no, Sparky, we don’t push men to do anything, let alone pushing them to fuck men who pretend to be women. That would be gross. We push women to fuck men of every kind including the pretend-women kind and the pretend-man kind. We leave men strictly alone to do whatever they want all the time. Read that memo.… Read the rest

So the horrors will continue, just not at the NHS.

The director of a new private clinic has said he hopes to start prescribing cross-sex hormones within the “next couple of months” to teenagers questioning their gender. Dr Aidan Kelly is among several former staff from the Tavistock gender clinic who have set up a new practice that will provide private referrals for hormone treatment and reassignment surgery.

Gender Plus will charge £275 for a one-hour appointment, which can be booked via its website without an NHS referral. Anyone wishing to pursue hormone treatment to change gender must complete an assessment over six appointments, only one of which needs to be in person. The other five appointments may be

I missed this Spiked article back in June:

The ACLU is broken beyond repair

In March 1984, 14-year-old Karen Slattery was babysitting two children in a Florida home when Duane Owen broke in. He repeatedly raped her and then stabbed her to death. Two months later, Owen broke into the home of Georgianna Worden, before raping the 38-year-old mother and murdering her with a hammer. She was found in her bed the next morning by one of her children.

Last week, after he had spent three decades on death row, the state of Florida executed Owen for his crimes. On the day of the execution, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a statement on social media decrying Florida’s

Locking him up.

Enrique Tarrio, the former national chairman of the Proud Boys, has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Tarrio was one of six Proud Boys leaders to be charged for conspiring to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results in Congress. Of them, he has received the longest prison sentence to date.

In short: fuck around and find out.

Tarrio was also convicted for obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging their duties, obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and destruction of government property with value of over $1,000.

Tarrio wasn’t at the actual Capitol

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Well ask yourself.

Um, he’s misusing the term “national identity”. A national identity isn’t something possessed by a person. It’s the sum total of values and culture that are core to a particular nation, such that one can say, “This is English,” or, “That’s not Spanish.” It’s how we identify whether a particular policy is consistent with the ethos undergirding a nation’s jurisprudence. When we talk about the American project, we’re talking about the national identity. We’re talking about the good and bad aspects of our culture and history that make Americans distinct from Britons, even though many of us descend directly from English stock.

This is not the same thing … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on Well ask yourself.

So gender identity would be to identify with the norms, values, expectations, practices, and beliefs a society has placed on the sexes.

Here’s the problem, though: the common claim made by people who insist that Gender Identity is more significant than sex is that GI has no direct relation to the norms, values, expectations, practices, and beliefs a society has placed on the sexes. It’s pure. Its existence is not influenced by culture, but culture will influence a trans girl to behave in a feminine manner in the same way a cis girl is influenced by her environment. Trans people are no longer said to identify with or as a … Read the rest