Jo Bartosch at Spiked on Ed Davey and the LibDems and the odd penis joke:

Davey’s intellectually flaccid flapping over this question points to the war raging within the Liberal Democrats – between those pushing for a return to reality and the party’s longstanding, vocal trans allies. These allies include self-described pansexual MP Layla Moran, who memorably claimed in parliament that she could see the gendered ‘souls’ of trans-identified people. Then there is Baroness Lynne Featherstone, who told ‘those who believe they can… exclude trans women from women-only spaces’ that their views ‘are not welcome in the Liberal Democrats’. And there is Baroness Liz Barker, who pushed for the removal of the word ‘mother’ from a maternity-leave bill.

Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan tries to convince us that abortion rights and “trans rights” are much the same sort of thing (when in fact they’re antagonists).

Be it through forced pregnancy or prohibited transition, the state of Nebraska now claims the right to determine what its citizens will do with their sexed bodies – what those bodies will look like, how they will function and what they will mean. It is a part of the right’s ongoing project to roll back the victories of the feminist and gay rights movements…

Trans “rights” are mostly antagonistic to lesbian and gay rights too. Governments of course already do in some senses “claim the right to determine what its citizens will do … Read the rest

Tim Harris is our poet laureate.

A BALLAD, a whole BALLAD?

Oh, I forbid ye ladies a’

Unless ye hae nae fear,

To come or gae by Starbuck Ha’

For fell Ms Spain works there.

There’s nane that gaes to Starbuck Ha’

But they maun get the pronouns reet,

Gif they ken, or gif they dinna,

Else Ms Spain will greet.

(‘greet’ in Scots means cry or whimper)

But that’s enough.

I think a limerick might be easier

There once was a lady called Spain

Who had rages again and again.

When others misgendered

Pronouns she’d tendered,

She wanted to cause them pain.… Read the rest

Starbucks drama king still yelling and screaming about his tedious game of Pretend I’m a Woman Or Else.

A video of the incident went viral, but Ms Spain has broken her silence, claiming that the footage does not tell the whole story.

She insisted: ‘I’m the victim of a transphobic hate crime, but I’m being treated like a criminal. The viral video doesn’t show the customer calling us trannies and going on a rant about gender. 

‘It doesn’t show how it started with her screaming about why we don’t accept cash and demanding that we do. The internet’s been filled with lies.’

Nobody cares, child. The way to deal with an unreasonably angry customer is to be very detached and … Read the rest

Two months ago but still relevant.

So you’re saying you don’t accept your trans friend is a woman, even though this is who they’ve chosen to be? I don’t understand your point. Why would you care if your friend went into female bathrooms and change rooms with you?

— Victoria Fielding (@DrVicFielding) March 22, 2023

It’s not something you can choose. That’s your whole problem right there: it’s not a choice. You can’t choose to be born, you can’t choose to be human (or not), you can’t choose to be a mammal (or not), you can’t choose to be immortal, you can’t choose to be a contemporary of Euripides. You can’t choose to be a woman.

There’s a lot … Read the rest

Here’s the Channel 4 hit job on Falkner:

Starting at 3:29 they tell us where the “bloke in lipstick” remark came from. Emma Laslett is the guy who inspired news outlets to claim that the quiz show Brain of Britain had had its first all-women panel, when in fact it wasn’t an all-women panel, because it had Emma Laslett on it. Channel 4 solemnly listens while the guy tells us how terrible terrible terrible it all is.

Well. He is a bloke. He did not make that panel an all-woman panel. He does fit this pattern of men taking things meant for women while publicly trashing women who resist.

He’s also very very very unmistakably male.… Read the rest

The Telegraph take:

[Falkner] has made it her mission to attempt to find consensus in the vicious clash between women, same sex attracted people and the transgender community since she began chairing the Equality and Human Rights Commission in 2020, but has quickly been forced to fight fires internally instead.

Senior leaders at the taxpayer-funded body say they were left “blindsided” when a dossier, titled “Governance Concerns” from an unknown number of complainants, began circulating in February.

It contained dozens of generic allegations of ‘bullying”, “harassment” and “discrimination” and claimed that “unacceptable behaviour from the chairwoman is becoming normalised”, without providing many examples.

Trans activism in a nutshell innit – endless howling about disskriminashun by which is meant knowing … Read the rest

The BBC on the campaign to shun Falkner:

The head of Britain’s equality watchdog is being investigated after bullying and discrimination allegations were made by staff. The claims against Baroness Falkner, and other members of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) board, were seen by Channel 4 News.

Baroness Falkner said she will present a “detailed rebuttal” to the investigators working on the case. Some campaigners say the EHRC is not protecting transgender rights.

But of course what “transgender rights” are is carefully never spelled out, because that would make it too obvious how they cancel women’s rights.

…Baroness Falkner advised the UK government that it was worth considering redefining sex as “biological sex” in the Equality Act,

Originally a comment by maddog on More compash, but not for you.

The Liberal Democrat leader insisted discussions around single-sex spaces were not new and that more compassion towards trans people was needed in society.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but he’s making a huge unstated assumption there: everyone in these discussions simply assumes that it’s only the (actual, biological) women who need to have “more compassion” — in the usual, patriarchal, and sexist-steteotypical way of giving up and ceding to the desires of the men. T advocates like Sir Ed Davey are talking (down) to entirely the wrong party. Their exhortations to show “more compassion” to trans-identified males ought to be directed to the other men.… Read the rest

Oh good grief.

Is this really what Scot’s want ? I doubt it very much. It must be the thick and the great unwashed that keep this lot in power . No Scot’s I know agree with this utter drivel . Terf women..honestly .come on !
pic.twitter.com/x2MH91AaLk

— Mr K (@MrKeenan0) May 22, 2023

Pretending not to understand why we refuse to answer to the label “cis woman.”

“…so it’s how we differentiate a difference between a trans woman and a cis woman…”

Yes we know that, but there is no need for such a differentiation, because trans women are not women. It’s only women who are women. Men are not women. That’s how we differentiate them: the words “women” … Read the rest

Joan Smith on the abusive targeting of Kishwer Falkner:

For years we’ve been told there’s no conflict between women’s rights and the demands of trans activists. If that were really the case, no one could possibly object to putting the word “biological” in front of “sex” in equality legislation, could they?

Nothing could be further from the truth, as the head of the UK’s equal rights watchdog, Kishwer, Baroness Falkner, has discovered. She has endured weeks of abuse since the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) wrote to the Government, proposing consideration of a technical amendment to the Equality Act 2010 to make it clear that sex means biological sex. 

Sigh. It’s like getting in a rage if someone … Read the rest

A man is indignant that a woman knows a man is a man.

Baroness Falkner allegedly described a trans woman – Emma Laslett – as a “bloke in lipstick” at an official Board meeting of the EHRC – comments reportedly rebuked by the Commission’s Chief Executive at the time. pic.twitter.com/Cxk33CO84E

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) May 23, 2023

Trans women are blokes. If they weren’t they would just be called “women.” The meaning of “trans woman” is man who claims to be woman.

Bloke in necklace says if your job is to protect people from discrimination and you’re peddling that kind of discrimination then you’re not fit for the job and shouldn’t be doing it any more.

But it’s not … Read the rest

Oh here we go…

The head of Britain’s equality watchdog is being investigated by a senior lawyer over complaints made by colleagues.

A king’s counsel (KC) has been called in by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to carry out an independent investigation into dozens of allegations made against its chair, Kishwer Falkner.

The Guardian understands that 40 complaints have been made by 12 current or former staff members at the EHRC. The nature of the allegations has not been revealed by the watchdog…

The Daily Mail, which first revealed the investigation into Lady Falkner, quoted sources saying that she denied the allegations. They claimed that they were “ideologically motivated” because she is “the woman breaking

No skin off his dick is it.

A woman can “quite clearly” have a penis, Sir Ed Davey has said as he suggested the debate around transgender issues had already been settled.

The Liberal Democrat leader insisted discussions around single-sex spaces were not new and that more compassion towards trans people was needed in society.

During a phone-in with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Sir Ed was asked a question by a caller named Mary from Cambridge who said she was speaking “on behalf of 51 per cent of the population”.

She told him: “I’m a tactical voter and I would like to support the Lib Dems. But can you answer the question ‘what is a woman?’, please?”

Sir Ed said:

So now I have to remind myself who Reem Alsalem is. I’ve posted about her before.

First time was December 1 last year, when the Guardian reported that Nicola Sturgeon rejected Alsaleem’s concerns about “reform” of Scotland’s gender law.

Second time was 17 days later when the BBC reported

Last month, a UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, warned the Scottish bill could endanger women.

Reem Alsalem said it “would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a gender certificate and the rights that are associated with it”.

This was disputed by a separate independent UN expert on gender identity, who said the legislation would bring

A press release from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN:

GENEVA (22 May 2023) – Threats and intimidation against women expressing their opinions on sex and sexual orientation is deeply concerning, said Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls in a statement today. In the context of disagreements between some women’s rights activists and transgender in a number of countries in the Global North. Alsalem warned that violence against women and intimidation against people for expressing differing views.

There are some glitches in the wording there, but we get the gist. Women get to talk about women’s rights, and trans activists need to stop bullying us for doing so.… Read the rest

Let’s read the LGBT Foundation’s guide to watizzawoman.

There are as many ways of being a woman as there are women in the world.

There is so much that unites all women: our shared joys, our unique experiences, and the challenges we face in a patriarchal world. These are often increased and impacted by our other identities such as race, sexuality, and disabilities. We are all multifaceted people who go beyond a simple sentence summarising womanhood. A rigid, simplistic definition both limits and reduces our womanhood.

No it doesn’t, the same way it doesn’t reduce our humanity to say we are humans. A definition is just a definition; it’s not a biography or a public relations statement … Read the rest

Speaking of “pranks”…

Guide to blah blah a woman blah blah – illustrated with this stunning photo of a man in a wig. Hahahahahahahahahahaha brilliant prank joke or what?… Read the rest

One day you’re a star, the next day you’re busted.

A TikTok creator who filmed himself “walking into random houses”, asking young women if they “want to die” and stealing a dog in the park has been arrested by London police on “suspicion of causing a public nuisance”.

Bacari Ogarro, 18, who goes by the name “Mizzy” on social media, sparked widespread outrage last week after a video of him and two accomplices entering a home in Islington, north London, went viral.

Along with the video where he harasses and threatens women, and the one where he harasses and threatens women on the Tube, and the one where he grabs a woman’s dog and runs away, and the one … Read the rest

I said life is too short to go on with that Rolling Stone love letter to Jeffrey Marsh, but I’ve changed my mind – life is too short but the love letter is too stupid to leave unmocked.

It’s a flowery message given by a person who built a career by giving beautiful advice. But every moment hasn’t been joyful. Marsh is nonbinary, loves wearing bright lipstick, and is open about their support for the LGBTQ+ community, all things that have made them an ongoing target for death threats and right-wing campaigns. 

Car crash with multiple victims. A flowery message? That’s not actually a compliment. Flowery writing=over the top, too much, undisciplined. What is “beautiful advice” when it’s at home? … Read the rest