… Read the rest

Joanna Cherry’s statement on The Stand Comedy Club:

“In January, I accepted an invitation from The Stand to speak at an event in The Fringe this coming August. To my disappointment, and after initially backing the event, the Board of The Stand cancelled the event, citing concerns expressed by staff who were unwilling to work at it. The event has been running for four years and has a wide and diverse range of speakers, including from various political backgrounds.

I immediately required to defend my reputation. I said last week on BBC Radio Scotland:

“I’m being cancelled and no-platformed because I’m a lesbian, who holds gender-critical views that somebody’s sex is immutable.

“I’ve made those views clear over a

… Read the rest

What a Maroon pointed out the Washington Post’s not at all manipulative poll on attitudes to the holy sacred anointed extremely special set of people known as “trans.”

Headline:

Most Americans support anti-trans policies favored by GOP, poll shows

But of course the policies aren’t “anti-trans.”

Clear majorities of Americans support restrictions affecting transgender children, a Washington Post-KFF poll finds, offering political jet fuel for Republicans in statehouses and Congress who are pushing measures restricting curriculum, sports participation and medical care.

But “restrictions” can mean a lot of different things. Restrictions on unhealthy additives in food are a good thing. Restrictions on lead-based paint are a good thing. Restrictions on a rush to trans a child are also a good … Read the rest

Peaceful and joyful.

https://twitter.com/cabaretagainst/status/1655304342050598912

Except when we don’t.

https://twitter.com/cabaretagainst/status/1655304348706959361

Nah, it’s trying to silence and punish people who don’t believe in magic gender that’s unacceptable.

https://twitter.com/cabaretagainst/status/1655304355543646210

They were simply asking! That’s all! It’s none of their damn business but that’s all they were doing so everybody else is disgusting so nyah.

https://twitter.com/cabaretagainst/status/1655304361071837184

You’d think “gender critical” meant “violent sadism” or similar, instead of just meaning awareness that people can’t change sex.… Read the rest

Choss didn’t wait to appoint a new Head of the Royal Medical Household. Edzard Ernst has the details.

Last September, THE GUARDIAN published an article about the HEAD OF THE ROYAL MEDICAL HOUSEHOLD. I did not know much about this position, so I informed myself:

The royal household has its own team of medics, who are on call 24 hours a day. They are led by Prof Sir Huw Thomas (a consultant at King Edward VII’s hospital [the private hospital in Marylebone often used by members of the royal family, including the late Prince Philip] and St Mary’s hospital in Paddington, and professor of gastrointestinal genetics at Imperial College London), head of the medical household and physician to the

… Read the rest

Among those arrested for being a potential nuisance to Charles Windsor were women’s safety volunteers.

Westminster City Council officials said they are “deeply concerned” by reports women’s safety volunteers were arrested hours before the Coronation.

The Met said at about 02:00 BST on Saturday three people were arrested in Soho on suspicion of conspiracy to commit public nuisance. Among items seized were a number of rape alarms, the force said. The Met said it “received intelligence” people “were planning to use rape alarms to disrupt the procession”.

And which is more important? Women’s safety? Or the procession?… Read the rest

They what???

Met Police officers have arrested anti-monarchy protesters in central London ahead of the King’s Coronation. The leader of anti-monarchy group Republic has been arrested and the force said it had detained multiple people in the City of Westminster.

They are held on suspicion of breaching the peace, conspiracy to cause public nuisance and possessing articles to cause criminal damage, the force said. Republic said hundreds of their placards had also been seized.

“A significant police operation is under way in central London,” the force said on Twitter. Footage on social media showed officers using their powers under the new Public Order Act.

Chief executive of anti-monarchy group Republic, Graham Smith, was among those apprehended in St Martin’s

… Read the rest

Women write to the Times to take issue with Martin Samuel’s clueless “be inclusive of cheating men in women’s sports” column.

I am a grassroots runner who has had to compete against males who identify as females for the past eight years. I have lost places in races, prizes and records as a result. As a man, Martin will never be affected by this problem. It is therefore offensive that he deems fairness essential for elite athletes and, in effect, all male athletes, but not for female “fun” runners: we should put the “need for inclusion” above our “competitive priorities”. At what level of competition does Martin deem a female runner worthy of fairness?
Helen Smith, Frodsham, Cheshire

That’s the … Read the rest

This. makes. no. sense.

Scroll down to the headline Transgender runner row loses sight of what race is all about to read the column I’m talking about.

Glenique Frank ran the London Marathon as a woman, placing 6,160th in a female field of 20,123. Pretty much no one would have known about this had the BBC not singled her out for interview. It then emerged that Glenique had run the New York City Marathon recently as Glen, a man. She is transgender and had been permitted to self-identify. This troubled Mara Yamauchi, a former British Olympian. “Nearly 14,000 women finished in a worse position because of him,” she said. “It’s wrong and unfair.”

Wrong and unfair how? Because “Glenique” ran … Read the rest

The Times:

Jenny Lindsay knows exactly when her “cancellation” began. It was June 2019 when the poet and performer tweeted her shock at the violent words of a columnist for an arts magazine, who had written: “Take out the Terf trash. Make them afraid. Get in their faces.”

How “extraordinary that such views are given an airing” in any publication, Lindsay wrote, adding “for clarity” that the columnist, a trans woman called Cathy Brennan, was advocating attacks on women, “Terf” being the acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

Lindsay’s response seemed reasonable, even understated, given that days later Brennan was under police investigation for lunging at Julie Bindel, the campaigner against violence against women, after an event in Edinburgh.

But … Read the rest

S. V. Dáte reminds us that Trump tried to enact a coup and journalists should not obscure that fact.

Donald Trump is the only president who used the threat of violence and then actual violence in an attempt to remain in power — the very definition of a coup. It was the singular unique act of his tenure, truly historic. In 232 years of elections, no other president had done anything remotely close to what Trump did.

…

Yet, somehow, this key bit of context almost never makes it into news coverage of Trump’s 2024 campaign. Instead, he is treated like any other candidate — with the focus on things like how he will fend off Ron DeSantis,

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on It just happens to disagree with the mainstream narrative.

The thing that drives me mad is that all the “alt cures” for things like allergies, and in iknklast’s case asthma, are to bolster the immune system. The ignorance of what asthma and allergies actually are astounds me, do they really not know that these are the products of an immune system that is overreacting to stimuli? I would watch as my mother would suffer attacks strong enough to put her in the hospital in oxygen tents, until she was prescribed prednisone, thinking that would be my fate since I had many of the same food allergies she did. (I was prescribed a … Read the rest

Sonia Sodha continues:

These sweeping powers should concern all democrats. The police are supposed to treat citizens impartially, regardless of their belief. But they have a poor track record, and not just when it comes to republicans.

Take, for example, the egregious way the police have clamped down on the free speech of those who express the “gender critical” belief, protected in equalities law, that sex is binary, immutable and relevant in society. The police should be scrupulously neutral on this. Yet in recent years they have adopted the controversial position of campaigners who believe that gender identity can replace sex altogether – that being a woman is not a biological reality but instead about conforming to feminine stereotypes

… Read the rest

You have two choices: cheer on the monarchy, or shut up. There is no third option. The anti-monarchy campaign group Republic found out.

Its chief executive and several other protesters were bundled into a police van yesterday after being arrested at a peaceful protest in Trafalgar Square. It followed a letter from the Home Office last week that informed them of new police powers to curb protest and harsher criminal penalties for protesters. “I would be grateful if you could forward this letter to members likely to be affected,” it ominously suggested.

These arrests by the Met took place in the context of new laws ushered in by increasingly authoritarian home secretaries. Priti Patel introduced new measures to

… Read the rest

Shannon Fentiman is a Labor member in the Queensland Legislative Assembly and the current Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Women, and the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence. She wrote in a public Facebook post three hours ago above a doctored photo of her wearing the “woman adult human female” badge:

Someone did this to my office recently.

I know the sticker doesn’t look like it says much, and most people will be lucky enough to be unaffected by what it says.

But for some people in our community, these stickers represent much more – they represent a movement which discriminates against them and denies their existence.

I want to be very clear – I don’t stand for these

… Read the rest

Yeah let’s get rid of vaccines, and antibiotics, and anesthetics, and medications, and clean water, and sewage processing, and clothes, and food, and oxygen. They’re all a conspiracy.

Steve Kirsch is a tech entrepreneur who made hundreds of millions of dollars after founding an early search engine and helping invent the optical computer mouse.

Recently, he stood before a gathering of more than 250 lawyers in Atlanta while wearing a custom black T-shirt designed like a dictionary entry for the phrase “misinformation superspreader.”

It’s like this, man. He’s a truth-teller, man, but the suits won’t listen, man, they’re too hooked on their mainstream narrative to listen, man.

“Our definition is it’s someone who’s basically pointing out the truth and

… Read the rest

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is popular today.

And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin… Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it. pic.twitter.com/3VBkuI5kTw

— KC Davis (@kevindavis338) May 6, 2023

Strange Women Lying in Ponds Distributing Swords and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, all in one photo. https://t.co/ZEjFkj0Oh4

— Laura Chapin (@LauraChapin) May 6, 2023

https://twitter.com/CharlesLarrivee/status/1654854631476932608 … Read the rest

Is Amnesty UK out of step with Amnesty Ireland?

https://twitter.com/Dawson40M/status/1654840704000983040

Ok I won’t let anyone tell me different. You should have a word with Amnesty Ireland.

https://twitter.com/DreyfusJames/status/1654875585359892482

I let @AmnestyIreland tell me different. When you signed a letter to the @IrishTimes saying that Irishwomen who protested males in female jails had no place in public life.

Make your mind up Amnesty. What's the carve-out? Protest is fine so long as men are the ones protesting?

— Squirrel on a Bike (@squirrelwheel) May 6, 2023

And Yet, Amnesty Ireland advocated for silencing women who know that sex is binary, advocated to remove democratic representation from inconvenient women, what about their rights "Amnesty"?

— Nachthexe (Night Witch) (@hardakeep) May 6, 2023

… Read the rest

Women aren’t listening.

Emboldened since the women-led protests that broke out last fall, which turned into nationwide demonstrations against the Islamic Republic, growing numbers of Iranian women have started going around without head scarves and wearing Western-style clothes.

The government told a cafe owner named Mohammad to force his women customers to wear hijab, but he just put a sign on the wall saying wearhijab and left it at that.

In Iran, Mohammad said, forcing women to wear the hijab is a lost cause.

“In all honesty, we didn’t get upset when they shut down our cafe,” said Mohammad, who asked to be identified only by his first name to avoid further legal repercussions. “In fact, we felt good

… Read the rest

Kate heaps opprobrium on the coronation, and very good opprobrium it is, too.

…at the very top of those organizations, there are these special people who are appointed at special ceremonies, with all sorts of weird robes and weird things, not entirely dissimilar to what happens at a coronation – and we call them bishops. And we sit twenty four of them in the House of Lords, and they have genuine power over the legislation that affects all of us in our everyday lives.

… Read the rest