Daniel Sanderson, Scottish correspondent at The Telegraph, and Simon Johnson, political editor at same, report:

When Isla Bryson was found guilty of two counts of rape, the warrant issued by the High Court in Glasgow recommended that the defendant be sent to HMP Barlinnie, a notorious male-only jail.

Instead, Bryson – who until 2020 was known as Adam Graham – was taken to an isolation unit at HMP Cornton Vale, the country’s only women’s jail, sparking a backlash that has engulfed Nicola Sturgeon.

Let’s review. What’s his crime? Rape. Rape of women. Where should he be locked up? Away from women. Where was he locked up? In a women’s prison. If he’d been convicted of torturing children … Read the rest

Oh lord, what’s that I was just saying about how childish it all is? Jo Bartosch on Furries vs Feminists:

Why are men who identify as cartoon animals planning to protest against a women’s rights rally?

Because they’re pathetic risible losers.

Next month, followers of what is known as the ‘furry fandom’ will descend on Glasgow for the ‘ScotiaCon’ convention, Scotland’s leading get-together for furries. Furries are people who identify with and often dress as anthropomorphised cartoon animals.

Is it kink or just infantile?

The word is now out that some attendees are planning to take a break from the main convention to do what maladjusted young men have done for millennia: get angry and shout at outspoken women.

… Read the rest

Besides, it’s not actually respect, is it. It’s humoring. It’s nervous humoring, the way you would humor a jittery angry terrorist who was holding you captive and claimed to be the reincarnation of Charlie Chaplin.

We don’t humor other people’s fantasies that way unless they’re jittery angry terrorists. That’s not a thing. It’s not something adults do. It’s certainly not considered respect – if people did do it it would be considered pity, not respect. We play along with children’s games of pretend, but that’s it – we don’t do that for anyone else. Once past childhood people are expected to keep their fantasies private.

I wonder if the weird (to me at least) development of adults taking various entertainment … Read the rest

Piers Morgan isn’t always wrong. (I hate it when people on the left are this wrong – it’s so cringey.)

If we are now seriously discussing treating a dangerous rapist with 'respect' by lying about his biological reality because he wants us to, (did he stop to respect his victims as he was ripping their lives and bodies apart), then hell has clearly frozen over.

— Rosie Duffield MP (@RosieDuffield1) January 26, 2023

“Respect” ffs. Suppose a rapist dresses up as a laydee in order to rape women, and says as much upon being arrested – should we “respect” his disguise? Why is there any obligation to pretend to believe other people’s fantasies? Why do we have to “respect” such … Read the rest

All completely healthy and benign…

A substitute teacher at the King Middle School in Portland [Maine] was removed from the classroom last week and banned from teaching at the school after parents discovered the sub had shared inappropriate sexualized TikTok videos with students.

…

The teacher in question was a substitute teacher named Lydia Lamere.

The teacher has also gone by Chris Lamere, Lydia Moon, Clodagh Moon, and Clodagh Lamere, and has identified variously as non-binary, as a transgender woman, and as a transgender lesbian, according to a review of public social media.

It’s not clear which name was used to apply for the role at King Middle School, a process that would have involved passing a criminal background

… Read the rest

Ah yes the old “some women are so ugly they look like men unlike sexy pretty womany me” says the man who calls himself a woman.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1618543918647500801 https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1618543923970072578… Read the rest

Today:

Spot on @YvetteCooperMP

Dangerous predators should not be placed where they can endanger more women.

Labour’s Equality Act protects women. The Conservatives voted against it. https://t.co/qF9amSQEJb

— Anneliese Dodds (@AnnelieseDodds) January 26, 2023

A year ago:

Emma Barnett: There’s one just to put here again to you, Anneliese, if I can, from Jill and I have to say a whole series of these messages came in at the same time. I would legislate for a clear definition of what a woman is. You’re in this position and Labour still, it seems to be the position that Labour would update the Gender Recognition Act to enable a process of self-identification. How does that fit with also trying to support

… Read the rest

This announcement has been the object of withering scorn from people who know what they’re talking about.

Trans women athletes have no unfair advantage under current rules, study finds https://t.co/hIF9gFlNod

— Cycling Weekly (@cyclingweekly) January 25, 2023

Utter disingenuous nonsense. All the science says male advantage is retained following T suppression to whatever level. The so-called 'scientific review' cited has been widely discredited.https://t.co/wsGoekU9Fc https://t.co/wPZrFX2can pic.twitter.com/7aO9Um7Taw

— Cathy Devine (@cathydevine56) January 25, 2023

The response Cathy Devine refers to: When Ideology Trumps Science: A response to the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport’s Review on Transwomen Athletes in the Female Category. Authors Cathy Devine, Emma Hilton, Leslie Howe, Miroslav Imbrišević, Tommy Lundberg, Jon Pike.

he recently published ‘Scientific Review’

… Read the rest

Bad analogy Peter! Really really really bad analogy!

"Just because a very tiny minority of Muslims are terrorists, we don't place restrictions on the whole Muslim population."

Peter Tatchell says there are 'bad apples' in the transgender community but we shouldn't 'penalise' all transgender people

@JaneGarvey1 | @FifiGlover pic.twitter.com/7c79fpW4u9

— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) January 25, 2023

Just because a very tiny minority of Muslims are terrorists, we don’t place restrictions on the whole Muslim population. And likewise with the trans community, just because there may be a few bad apples, in fact some horrendous bad apples, we don’t therefore penalize the whole trans community, most of whom deport themselves with responsibility and respect for women.

One, it’s not penalizing anyone … Read the rest

I still can’t believe that grown-up journalism does this. The Beeb:

A trans woman who raped two women before she changed gender will not serve her sentence in a female jail, Scotland’s first minister has said.

Isla Bryson was remanded to Cornton Vale women’s prison after being convicted of carrying out the rapes when she was a man called Adam Graham.

“When she was a man” ffs. He is still a man. He always will be. It’s only men who can rape women.

Even in their own terms – the terms that say we must refer to men who say they are trans as “she” – there are very obvious reasons for thinking this guy is not actually trans … Read the rest

They’re upping the pressure on Amy Mangano of Artifacts.

Signs noting that gender is a biological construct are posted onto a downtown Athens store’s front door, causing some citizens to reach out to City Council with complaints about the signs.

Complaints…about signs that say “humans can’t change sex” and “say no to men in women’s sports.” Hey listen City Council there’s this woman who doesn’t believe humans are magic and able to change sex at will. Have you ever????

During Tuesday’s Athens City Council meeting, At-Large Council Member Micah McCarey said he received several emails and verbal complaints about Artifacts’ signs from citizens asking that the city do more to promote diversity and LGBT inclusion, particularly in uptown

… Read the rest

A useful question.

https://twitter.com/TaylorAdvocate/status/1618304074834903040

My answer was “It means do what you’re fucking told.” Many others answered the same way.

It's grammatically odd, because it looks like a statement, but it is, in fact, a command.

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) January 25, 2023

"Stop thinking and do what we tell you."https://t.co/xMm3dpG7la

— Rory (@rorybowman) January 25, 2023

It is not supposed to make sense or have an actual meaning. That is because it is a set of words you are to submit to, not agree with.

— Stuart Parker, blancmange impersonator & cannibal (@stuartlosaltos) January 25, 2023

It’s a shibboleth. A mantra
A phrase you repeat to swear allegiance to the gender cult

It doesn’t mean anything.

— SkankyGelato

… Read the rest

More nonsensical strutting and chest-puffing about the horrible crime of burning a single copy of a widely available religious book:

Sweden should not expect Turkey to back its Nato membership bid, Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, days after a copy of the Quran was burned in a Stockholm protest.

…

“It is clear that those who caused such a disgrace in front of our country’s embassy can no longer expect any benevolence from us regarding their application.”

Erdogan is a dictator in all but name; that’s the real disgrace here.

Turkey, a majority Muslim country, denounced the Swedish government’s decision to allow the protest as “completely unacceptable”.

“No one has the right to humiliate the saints,” said Mr

… Read the rest

Oh get a grip.

Turkey has condemned the burning of a copy of the Quran during a protest in Sweden, describing it as a “vile act”.

Nonsense. It’s just a book. It’s just one copy of a book that’s available in many editions. There must be literally billions of copies of it. Burning one is a gesture; Turkey doesn’t like the gesture; Turkey should get a life.

It said the Swedish government’s decision to allow the protest to go ahead was “completely unacceptable”.

Nonsense. Governments aren’t there to enforce theocratic etiquette toward holy books.

Turkey, which had appealed to Sweden to stop the protest, earlier called off a visit by Sweden’s Defence Minister, Pal Jonson, saying the trip had

… Read the rest

A heart-warming tale:

A Scottish man who identifies as transgender has been found guilty of raping two women, and will be held in a women’s prison for up to a month while awaiting sentencing.

That’s nice. So sensitive, so compassionate, so generous – to the man who raped two women. It’s not so sensitive and compassionate and generous to the women in that prison, who aren’t there for raping women.

Adam Graham, 31, began identifying as a woman after he committed the sexual offenses and now goes by “Isla Bryson.” He has been referred to with feminine pronouns both in court and in UK media coverage, and court documents had charged Graham with raping the women with “her penis.”

… Read the rest

Now there’s a headline –

Pompeo dismisses Khashoggi as ‘activist’ whose murder was overblown by media

Overblown. Really. It’s no big deal for state agents to murder an activist inside an embassy by carving him up like so much roast chicken. I did not know that.

In a new book, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo derides the idea that Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist who was brutally murdered in 2018, was a journalist. Pompeo sympathizes instead with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia who was found to have ordered Khashoggi’s assassination, and defends at length the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia.

In “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I

… Read the rest

But what if you identify as someone who doesn’t know when she might want to re-read or browse or look for something in this book and this one and this one?

Some people treat books like totemic, magical objects. I know, I was one. About 10 years ago, my (divorced) parents moved house at around the same time, and gifted me a number of books about which they presumed I might feel sentimental, but which became a sort of albatross in my relationship. When I moved in with my husband, he had very few books, not because he is not a reader, but because he grew up in a Buddhist household, prefers an uncluttered environment and places little value on

… Read the rest

So easy for him to say.

The idea that a would-be male rapist is going to dress as a woman for 3 months to get a GRC is laughable. That's why Rape Crisis Scotland, Women’s AID Scotland & Zero Tolerance Scotland support the gender reform bill. They reject fiction & scaremongering! https://t.co/a3AnXPohfI

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) January 23, 2023

… Read the rest

Fair?

Sometimes an argument is superfluous. Sometimes you just need to watch.
If you can watch this video – take the time, out of respect – and not see a problem, there isn't any amount number of words that can work.

However, I have 8.5k coming tomorrowhttps://t.co/FFWb75FhyY

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) January 23, 2023

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany Room.

I had originally written this as a contribution to the comment thread responding to the story that Mike B mentioned here before discovering that you needed to be a paid member to post. Not wanting to pay to do that, I thought I’d post it here instead. Keep in mind this was intended for a different audience, so forgive me if it reiterates arguments and ideas I’ve made here already. But with fewer swears. The direct link to the story and its comment thread is here:

Why oppose this definition: Women are adult humans who identify as female. As I said above, is it simply an unflinching … Read the rest