Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Beneath contempt.

After four years of criticism, online fury, abuse, threats of violence, and even book burnings, her faith in her own position is undimmed.

Rowling’s position is that sex is real and that the rights of women and girls are worthy of, and in need of respect and defence. Is there now some reason that she should abandon this position? Is she wrong to believe these things? If so, why and how is that the case? If anything, her experience of these last few years (her “lived experience” I daresay), would only reinforce, rather than weaken her beliefs, and rightly so. O’Connell is dismayed that Rowling has not caved … Read the rest

Man assaults women, women are arrested for being assaulted by man. Welcome to Iran.

Two women have been arrested in Iran after being attacked with yoghurt, seemingly for not covering their hair in public.

In the video, which went viral, two female customers are approached by the man, who begins talking to them.

He then takes what appears to be a tub of yoghurt from a shelf and angrily throws it over their heads.

Iran’s judiciary said the two women have been detained for showing their hair, which is illegal in Iran.

Not their public hair, mind you, but the stuff on their heads. It’s so filthy and so arousing that all women must be tightly bandaged to conceal … Read the rest

Not at all!

https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1642235035993403393… Read the rest

Look, all he wants to do is play football on the women’s team so that he can injure some women. What’s the big deal?

An Australian amateur football league is receiving backlash from parents and players who are voicing frustrations after learning that a man who identifies as a woman has been dominating the female soccer league and injuring female players.

Football New South Wales’ League One reportedly has five trans-identified male players, but one player in particular has led the 1st Grade goal kickers table, with seven goals. 

Initial reports from The Daily Mail Australia had chosen not to identify the player, censoring images of him and declining to provide his name. However, Reduxx can confirm the player is trans

… Read the rest

Jennifer O’Connell at the Irish Times joins the crowd throwing mud at JK Rowling.

When we are most certain is the point at which we should most question ourselves, remarks JK Rowling sensibly in a new podcast series, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. For a moment, she seems to be experiencing a revelation about her own role in the events of the past few years. But no: she is referring only to those who challenge her. After four years of criticism, online fury, abuse, threats of violence, and even book burnings, her faith in her own position is undimmed. “I believe absolutely that there is something dangerous about this movement, and it must be challenged.”

Yes, and? Jennifer … Read the rest

News boss was furious that staff were fact-checking Trump. Facts??! What have facts got to do with reporting the news?!!??

The top executive at Fox News was furious one of the network’s reporters was fact-checking Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, writing in a December 2020 email that it was “bad for business”.

We get it from all directions now. The Financial Times tells Joan Smith to put a lie in her review, Fox News tells staff not to fact-check Trump’s lies.

Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News, was responding in early December 2020 to an on-air fact-check by Eric Shawn, one of the network’s anchors. “This has to stop now,” she wrote to

… Read the rest

How the lies get in.

“The paper wanted to add a sentence saying UK murders of trans women are disproportionately high… I said ‘but this is not true!’ and he said ‘no, but people here feel very uncomfortable with not saying that’” @polblonde in Q&A with @JoPhoenix1 @ProfAliceS https://t.co/ftfEiystE8 pic.twitter.com/fdtVUaTWu3

— Outspoken Women (@women_outspoken) March 29, 2023

… Read the rest

You want trans visibility? Here’s some trans visibility.

Today is #TransDayOfVisibility. Well, it's really one of many but I thought I'd provide some of that visibility. Let's start with this one: @FaeJohnstone wants women to be afraid to speak in public. As someone receiving grants to combat #GBV it's quite threatening pic.twitter.com/Y9PxKBIyxb

— Charlie (@CharlieClearly) March 31, 2023

What does “act on them” mean? There is no “act on them.” It’s about rhetoric and belief. We’re not the ones constantly threatening violence.… Read the rest

More on this one, because it’s like a burr in my brain.

What is that?

The ACLU doesn’t talk like that about any other oppressed group. Nobody talks like that about any other oppressed group. It’s weird, it’s out of place, it’s infantilizing, it’s excessive, it’s slushy, it makes no kind of sense. Where did this come from? How did we get here?

Normally conversations among adults about justice and human rights talk about…justice and human rights. They don’t talk about loving and cherishing. It’s a massive category mistake to do so. Justice and rights have to be independent of “love” and “cherishing” because they’re abstract and general, not emotional and personal.

In fact this kind of glurge sounds … Read the rest

CNN reporter:

NEWS: Donald Trump has been calling up key allies on Capitol Hill tonight to shore up support in the wake of his indictment, including members of House GOP leadership and lawmakers who serve on committees that are trying to investigate the Manhattan DA, per sources.

— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) March 31, 2023

What does “support” mean in this context? What kind of “support” is he calling members of Congress to “shore up”? Is it just compassion and friendship? Or is it obstruction of justice? Trump being Trump, it’s bound to be the second. He doesn’t give a fuck about friendship (and he wouldn’t know compassion if he tripped and fell into an Olympic-size pool of it). He’s calling … Read the rest

Apparently former presidents are supposed to be entirely above the law. Who knew?

Mike Pence, who was Donald J. Trump’s vice president, defended his former running mate on Thursday night, describing Mr. Trump’s indictment in a hush-money case as “an outrage.”

“The unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage,” Mr. Pence told the host Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

It is? Why? Do they become gods once elected?

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is widely expected to challenge Donald J. Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, called the indictment of Mr. Trump “un-American” and said that his state “will not assist in an extradition request” should

… Read the rest

The ACLU really needs to stop letting Chase Strangio write their tweets.

This Trans Day of Visibility, remember: Trans people exist – and have for thousands of years.

Trans people deserve to live as who we are and be treated with dignity and respect.

— ACLU (@ACLU) March 31, 2023

Today and every day, we’re proud to speak up alongside the trans community.

Say it with us:
Trans people are loved.
Trans youth are cherished.
Trans people belong.

— ACLU (@ACLU) March 31, 2023

Say it with us – there is one god and Mohammed is his prophet. Say it with us – it’s one nation under God. Say it with us – Jehovah is the most high. Say … Read the rest

When news reporting leaves out a lot of crucial facts…

Activist Shaneel Lal has become the first transgender person to win a New Zealander of the Year award.

The 22-year-old has been named Young New Zealander of the Year for their work in the rainbow community.

They were instrumental in the fight to ban conversion therapy and in the recent protest against anti-trans campaigner Posie Parker.

That is, the violent riot a week ago that endangered women’s rights campaigner Posie Parker and injured at least one of the women there to hear her.

There’s also the omitted fact that caution about puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is not “conversion therapy.”… Read the rest

New York lawyer Lloyd Green on Trump’s bust:

The question now looms whether the nation will face Trump-incited violence as a result. The former president threatened “death and destruction” if charged. In a now infamous social media post targeting the Black district attorney Alvin Bragg, Trump depicted himself brandishing a baseball bat at the District Attorney, and called him as an “animal” and “degenerate psychopath”.

That’s where I had to pause reading in order to find the post and share it.

The drumbeat continues. Next month, Trump stands trial for defamation and sexual assault. He faces a civil suit brought in New York by E Jean Carroll. Unlike his purported relationship with Daniels, this case centers on rape and

… Read the rest

Jeezus, I missed this. Last week Trump posted a photo of himself with a baseball bat next to a head and shoulders photo of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA.

Will this nightmare ever end?… Read the rest

The indictment is on.

Members of Congress reacted to news of former President Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury with a mixture of shock, outrage, fear, uncertainty and celebration.

It’s the first time in U.S. history a former president has been indicted — a shock to the 2024 election and a move likely to harden pro- and anti-Trump sentiments well beyond Washington.

You know, there’s a reason for that – most former presidents hadn’t committed multiple crimes, some of them in full public view. Mind you there have been some very iffy ones – Grant and Harding to name two, plus of course Nixon. But the florid array of Trump’s crimes, the many decades they have behind them, … Read the rest

New Zealand Greens co-leader and Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Marama Davidson is asked what she thinks of the violent “protests” at the Let Women Speak rally.

Transgender ideologues stage a violent protest and shut down a women’s rights demonstration, but Greens co-leader Marama Davidson says the problem is white cis men.pic.twitter.com/JofXmLs11N

— William McGimpsey (@TheZeitgeistNZ) March 25, 2023

She says it very smugly, too, and concludes with “transphobia is not welcome here!”

So it’s ok for a man who claims to be a woman to assault a woman, because the man claims to be a woman? Violence from cis men is bad but violence from men who claim to be women is good? … Read the rest

Alarm bell in the night.

https://twitter.com/OwenJHurcum/status/1641358534154526720 https://twitter.com/OwenJHurcum/status/1641051851989696512

Yes! So true! Except for the fact that it hasn’t happened and isn’t happening, so in fact you don’t and can’t know that your claimed outcome is what will happen, so in fact, you’re just blathering about your deranged fantasies.

Other than that, good sound reasoning!… Read the rest

Andrew Tettenborn in The Spectator last July:

Sex offences, violence and fraud have spiked, according to the latest crime figures. Meanwhile, the number of convictions remains staggeringly low: in England and Wales, more than 99 per cent of rapes reported to police do not end in a conviction.

And yet the police still have ample time to punish us for knowing that men are not women.

The College of Policing, the national standards body for police, has said that officers need to focus on cutting crime, take a common sense approach and ‘not get involved in debates on Twitter’. Police have been told to avoid recording trivial incidents and reduce the number of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHI). In short,

… Read the rest

Shaneel Lal today:

Trans activist Shaneel Lal believes their Young New Zealander of the Year award may receive some online backlash, but said the win is a result of hard work, not to, “fill a diversity quota”.

Lal, 22, who was an instrumental figure in the fight to have conversion therapy banned in New Zealand, was celebrated at the 2023 New Zealander of the Year awards at Auckland’s Cordis Hotel on Thursday night.

Shaneel Lal writing in the NZ Herald five days ago:

Aucklanders and New Zealanders from many parts of the country showed up and showed out.

Keen-Minshull’s minute group of supporters were outnumbered by counter-protests who attended wearing the trans flag colours and carrying signs in

… Read the rest