Originally a comment by Coel on Most don’t have a grounding.

One reason science papers are inaccessible is the language of science requires a vocabulary most people don’t have. [iknklast]

Agreed, and to add to this, it is not just a matter of using different words (as if they were using every-day concepts, but talking in German rather than English). Rather, each of these jargon words represents a concept that is not present in everyday life.

Thus someone could be familiar with the car-mechanic’s word “carburettor”, but still not understand how a carburettor combines with other components into an engine. Imagine explaining that term to an intelligent and educated person from the 14th century.

There are physicists writing books

This seems like a very insane thing to do to young children:

Kids in a primary school have been told to refer to their gender-neutral teacher as “they” in the classroom. The Third Class pupils returned to school last week to be informed their new teacher wants to be referred to by first name only, or the pronoun “they”.

The children from the Dublin Educate Together school – aged 8 and 9 – were told this on their first day back, according to parents. They have since been corrected by the teacher for saying “she” and taught to say “they” instead.

Look, these are children. They’re still learning the language. It’s idiotic to teach them a wrong version … Read the rest

More from the Manchester event:

A good mix of signs from the TRAs and they are peacefully protesting.
The police are still here but are leaving imminently. pic.twitter.com/T2cmz0djTp

— NorthernRadFemNetwork (@FemNorthern) September 10, 2023

As we left to get a coffee this was the response.
I have lived in Manchester all of my life and will always walk these streets.
I will not be cowed and removed by anyone against my will. pic.twitter.com/3gIvWXxuDR

— NorthernRadFemNetwork (@FemNorthern) September 10, 2023

That hefty guy in the black top and blue skirt near the right margin is the one who told her to “get off our streets.” He flapped his hand at her in a “shoo” gesture. Very bossy, very entitled, very rude, … Read the rest

The People’s History Museum stood up for the people known as “women”!

.@MForstater and I had a lovely morning at the People's History Museum in Manchester, explaining equality & human-rights law. Staff fab, police fab. The usual rabble afterwards adding to the day's jollity pic.twitter.com/pBPKfgh2lf

— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) September 10, 2023

Thank you to the women (and men) of Manchester who welcomed us. And the staff at the People's History Museum, the security guys and the Greater Manchester Police who looked after us.

We had a great meeting talking about @SexMattersOrg and women's rights. https://t.co/vP1Pw8jfxP pic.twitter.com/zmsOlOZUZh

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) September 10, 2023

Then some anti-feminist goons tried to rain on the parade but they failed.… Read the rest

Hmmm. I doubt that.

Donald Trump was “really, really upset” when he learned that his former White House adviser Peter Navarro had been convicted of contempt of Congress, according to the ex-president’s close ally Rudy Giuliani.

“This one really got to me,” Giuliani – the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney – said Friday on the far-right media outlet Newsmax. “I was with former president Trump when we found out about it [on Thursday], and I’ve got to tell you, he was really, really upset about it.”

No he wasn’t. He was pissed off. Not the same thing.

Trump doesn’t get “upset.” Ever. He doesn’t feel sorrow or (emotional) pain or grief, much less sympathy or … Read the rest

Is it progressive to tell people to kill themselves?

I would have thought no.

AND ANOTHER THING.

Because I missed it the first time around.

GC women though don’t in the main work from a feminist opposition to- or even understanding of-patriarchy. Most don’t have a grounding in feminist theory or a background in feminist politics. They are an uninformed mismatch of gender conservatives who make it up as they go along

— Sally Hines (@sally_hines) September 8, 2023

“Most don’t have a grounding in feminist theory” – so she’s saying if you’re not an academic with a grounding in feminist theory, you’re…suspect, shall we say. Not quite good enough. Inferior. Not up to Sally Hines’s standards.

So she’s saying feminism is for academics. Like her. She’s saying it’s an academic subject, with an … Read the rest

Sally Does SCIENCE!!

But Peter, ‘biological sex’ does change. That’s what hormones do. Also we don’t really know another’s ‘biology’ – or even our own. We don’t know someone’s chromosomal or hormonal makeup. We just make random guesses in line with a reductive framework of understanding

— Sally Hines (@sally_hines) September 8, 2023

… Read the rest

Sally Hines is still hating on feminists while claiming to be a feminist.

She starts by reminiscing about her involvement in feminism in her teens and twenties.

A man who wanted to be a feminist ally could usefully run the crèche, wash the pots, write the Xmas cards . But quietly and without expecting praise. Useful possibly. Needed never. Given the megaphone, impossible.

— Sally Hines (@sally_hines) September 8, 2023

But now, she goes on to say, all they have to do is say “I’m a woman” and they’re given the microphone to call feminist women misogynist names…hahaha just kidding. Of course she goes on to say the opposite of that.

And they attract and welcome some of the very

Oh not Kew ffs. Kew is one of the best things on the planet (albeit far too expensive now).

Next month, @kewgardens are running a series of ‘Queer Nature’ events.

They will include looking at “the connections between plants and LGBTQ+ communities” and “breaking the binary of plant classification”.

They will even feature drag artists. I can only imagine the costumes. pic.twitter.com/E8Wz4kYQ7j

— James Esses (@JamesEsses) September 6, 2023

https://twitter.com/kewgardens/status/1700063362883727458

Oh do stop. Write an opera about queer idenninies if you like but leave Kew out of it. Kew is a botanical garden, not a museum of queer idenninies.

Hi Jane, the intention behind using the term has always been to create an inclusive and welcoming space for the LGBTQ+

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Nothing added to nothing is nothing.

He’s fooled himself into thinking a few superficial trappings can fool a survival mechanism (telling a conspecific’s sex) that’s hundreds of millions of years old. We are wired to clock someone’s sex from scores and scores of yards away, even in dim light where all we can make out is a sillhouette and a gait. No doubt many of the other people he thinks he’s fooling are just being nice and humouring him, or hoping to avoid an angry, aggressive “IT’S MA’AM!” response. Even if his makeup was, according to his hair stylist, “on point and flawless,” it might only mean he’d applied it … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on But are you?

It’s so creepy because it’s so paranoid. Signalling that there’s a kind of diffuse, spectral force of terror out there. The world is just so, so full of evil people! But I’m not one of them! I’m safe!

The real force of terror is the idea itself — the paranoia that at any moment you could be marked as One of Them instead of One of Us, the Good People. So you must be vigilant and demonstrate your commitment to Us, against Them.

It’s the Crucible. The poster might as well say:

I am not a witch.

If you are

in any way

afraid

of being harmed by a witch

or … Read the rest

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