Guest post by Jonathan A. Gallant

My adolescence, which went on for 50 years, was a difficult period.  I was afflicted by  perpetual dissatisfaction and  unease.   I could never seem to find myself, although I searched everywhere: in closets, in the refrigerator, under my bed, behind the the piano.   I had almost reached the age of retirement before I finally discovered the solution to my problem.  By then, the academic world was filled with news of individuals who claimed that they had been born in the wrong body.  When this news reached me, I had an epiphany: the wrong body issue was no doubt the source of my own difficulties, and thus it implied the solution. 

   The … Read the rest

And the Times:

The advert says the job, with a salary of £110,000 to £115,000, will involve “amplifying the voice of those using services” within the hospital and “facilitating cultural changes”.

Whoever gets the six-figure job will be responsible for ensuring patients’ experiences and stories are heard at board level by bosses at the NHS trust, based in Stafford.

Well that at least sounds potentially useful (although it’s not clear why existing staff can’t do that) but it sure as hell doesn’t clarify why it’s worth four times as much salary as the actual medical people get. It’s a communications job, a management job, a connect the pieces job – it’s not stopping climate change.

The new role will

Ewan Somerville at the Telegraph is on the Lived Experience story.

The NHS has hired an army of “lived experience” tsars on salaries of up to £115,000, despite ministers vowing a war on waste.

An army – so this recruitment ad we saw is just one of many.

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) is recruiting a “director for lived experience” who must have experiences of “a life altering health condition” and “significant power imbalances” in their use of health services.

The tsar will “ensure brave spaces” for people to give feedback and be based at St George’s Hospital, in Stafford, on a salary of £110,000-115,000 per year – four times that of a newly qualified nurse or

UN official says what?

Trans women are women & arbitrary obstacles to legal recognition of gender identity violate State human rights obligations. 350M+ persons live in self-identification systems and there are no judicial or administrative findings of abuse by predatory males:https://t.co/q3iJgzXZj6

— Victor Madrigal-Borloz (@victor_madrigal) December 16, 2022

Who he is according to his Twitter profile:

He/him. UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity & Eleanor Roosevelt Senior Visiting Researcher and Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School

What kind of “expert” on genner idennniny? What kind can there be? Like experts on the Koran or the Talmud or the Gospels are they? Experts on fictions, fantasies, inherited beliefs?

Anyway, it’s grim to see the UN signing up … Read the rest

Even funnier than the Director for Lived Experience – Trump with muscles:

Former US President Donald Trump has launched a collection of digital trading cards depicting him in various guises including a superhero, astronaut and Nascar driver.

There’s just one problem. He’s fat, and lazy, and clumsy, and a chickenshit. I suppose you could say those are four problems but I think it’s more efficient to bundle them into one “He’s not that guy.” He doesn’t stomp around in pseudo-military pants shooting ducks, and he doesn’t have that muscle definition under his business suit. He talks endlessly and stupidly, and he throws catsup at walls: that’s it, that’s the extent of his superpowerhood.

Mr Trump said: “These limited edition

Speaking of vital information on Twitter…how can this possibly be real as opposed to a joke?

Job overview

We are seeking an interpersonally talented and strategic bridge-builder, to join our Trust board in the exciting new post of Director for Lived Experience.

How is that not a bit of script from The Office rather than a genuine situations vacant announcement from the NHS? What in hell is a director of lived experience??? Where are the grownups?

The post holder will be responsible for establishing and maintaining the highest levels of Lived Experience practice

What does that mean???

and amplifying the voice of those using services within decision-making at all levels of the organisation.

What does that mean???… Read the rest

UN and EU tell Elon Musk ok now you’re pissing us off:

The United Nations has joined the European Union in condemning Twitter’s decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media firm.

Reporters for the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post were among those locked out of their accounts.

The UN tweeted that media freedom is “not a toy” while the EU has threatened Twitter with sanctions.

This is the thing, you see: Twitter isn’t just an annoying social media item for kids, it’s also a de facto news outlet, and a quite significant one. That’s why I keep ignoring it when one of you reminds us that Twitter is dummm.

Melissa Fleming, the UN’s

Elon Musk is exercising his god-given bought and paid for right to kick prominent journalists off Twitter because they don’t kiss his ring.

The accounts suspended included Ryan Mac of The New York Times; Drew Harwell of The Washington Post; Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist; Donie O’Sullivan of CNN; Matt Binder of Mashable; Tony Webster, an independent journalist; Micah Lee of The Intercept; and the political journalist Keith Olbermann. It was unclear what the suspensions had in common; each user’s Twitter page included a message that said it suspended accounts that “violate the Twitter rules.”

The moves came a day after Twitter suspended more than 25 accounts that tracked the planes of government agencies, billionaires and high-profile individuals, including that

Good news – but we’re still furious.

Here’s the story from last June:

The Norwegian Public Prosecution Service investigates “hate-mongering” tweets by feminist Christina Ellingsen, addressed to a man who claims to be a lesbian woman. If found guilty, Ellingsen could face up to three years in prison.

Ellingsen posted the tweets between February 2021 and January 2022, in reaction to statements of Christine Marie Jentoft, representative of the transactivist group Foreningen FRI. Jentoft is a biological man who identifies as a lesbian.

A (“biological”) man can’t be a lesbian. It’s all in the definition. Only women can be lesbians.

“Why does FRI teach young people that males can be lesbians? Isn’t that conversion therapy?” tweeted Ellingsen. Later,

Giant brain on that Willz.

Is that right? So no films about the January 6 mob? No films about the Proud Boys? No films about incels? No films about abusers in police departments? No films about any set of people unless there are at least 4 billion of them?

Who made that rule? Why have there been no films about it?… Read the rest

Not that Willoughby has a stereotyped idea of what women are and do and like, no no no not at all, he understands women better than women do.

Spend some time with her doing the things girlz do teeheeheeheeheehee… Read the rest

Some deep breaths taken; back to Futrelle.

Rowling came up with the idea for Beira’s Place, she told anti-trans feminist Suzanne Moore, in what can only be described as a fit of pique caused by remarks from Mridul Wadhwa, the trans woman in charge of Edinburgh’s Rape Crisis centre.

Wadhwa had said that transphobic clients of the centre would have their bigotry challenged.

Futrelle simply assumes that the clients in question are “transphobic” and that their awareness that men are men is “bigotry” and thus he implies that Wadhwa was right and virtuous in promising to bully women who need rape crisis services for knowing that men are men.

Wadhwa also said it was possible to “reframe” one’s relationship

I keep hearing distant reports of how thoroughly David Futrelle has gone pro-trans-dogma and anti-feminist-disbelief, so I decided to take a look at the current iteration. It’s thoroughly gone.

Author and anti-trans activist JK Rowling has announced she is launching a crisis center for female victims of rape and sexual abuse. The catch? Beira’s Place, as the center is called, won’t allow trans women to use its services.

That’s not “the catch.” What a ridiculous claim. He said it himself – she’s launching a crisis center for female people. Of course that means it won’t “allow” men to use its services: its services are not for men. It says so right on the tin; Futrelle said so himself when … Read the rest

Roger Pielke’s claim to fame is as a Climate Skeptic^TM.

For those wondering why Roger Pielke Jr is the go-to witness for the Republicans at nearly ever congressional hearing on climate change.

A denialist w/ a veneer of academic credibility–invaluable to the forces of climate inaction… https://t.co/C3NTqwTnq0

— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) December 5, 2021

But now he’s deploying his skepticism on a different subject – the crazy wacky delusional idea that men are not women.

The phrase MALE ADVANTAGE is a dog whistle (maybe even a human whistle) that says

These folks are MALES

And this a denial of the reality of transgender people

It is hard bigotry, often dressed up in a thin veneer of

In UN news:

Iran was ousted from a United Nations women’s group on Wednesday for policies contrary to the rights of women and girls, a move proposed by the United States after Tehran’s crackdown on protests over the death of a young woman in custody.

The 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution to “remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term.”

…

“This is a victory for Iranian revolutionaries who have been facing guns & bullets as they fight this gender apartheid state,” U.S.-based Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad posted on Twitter.

Iran’s clerical

The confusion is everywhere.

That's a broad hint that the people you're scolding are genocidal. The normal phrasing would be "If you don’t think trans women should BE in the same space as women" – changing "be" to "exist" is slyly manipulative. So typical of the rhetoric of this "activism."

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 14, 2022

https://twitter.com/Writerer/status/1603156297712603139

All of that is wrong. Not a little, not half, not most of it, but all.

Of course trans people’s access to private spaces is restricted; so is mine, so is everyone’s. That’s what “private” means.

Access to some public spaces is also restricted. Many public spaces are for specific sets of people…like public toilets for instance. Most areas in … Read the rest

And they’ve won.

For now.

Note the shouts of laughter as Mister Man says “azza trans woman“…

So they’ve won. Robyn Woof, a self identified trans woman and Trans Liberation Officer has stopped women from watching Adult Human Female. Scotland 2022. Thanks @NicolaSturgeon pic.twitter.com/mFEOnxB2uv

— Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) December 14, 2022

Only for now though.

This film will be shown says the amazing Shereen Benjamin – not tonight but soon #WomenWontWeesht pic.twitter.com/iXK4J613sH

— Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) December 14, 2022

#WomenWontWheesht pic.twitter.com/MiCNnQw82O

— Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) December 14, 2022

… Read the rest

So, of course, some students full of holy zeal went along to close the film down.

The police are here now. pic.twitter.com/UXcxljiTBO

— Lisa Mackenzie (@lnmackenzie1) December 14, 2022

We moved venues in an effort to see Adult Human Female and guess what. A group of students are stopping us from going into the theatre. So much for free speech in the home of enlightenment # pic.twitter.com/advJGOUKC0

— Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) December 14, 2022

… Read the rest

It depends on how you define “definition”…

The Cambridge Dictionary has updated its definition of “woman” to include anyone who “identifies as female” regardless of their sex at birth. 

If you mean some people use the word to mean anyone who identifies as, then that’s what the CD has done. If you mean the actual, generally understood, longstanding, literal definition of the word, then the update is absurd and an insult to almost everyone.

Funny thing: the more “inclusive” you make your definitions, the less useful they are. The more you broaden them to take in the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the less they mean anything. If you “update” the definition of women to include men then … Read the rest

Oh oh oh, what an outrage, a horror film called Adult Human Female has not been banned from the University of Edinburgh.

A screening of the film Adult Human Female is scheduled to occur in a lecture hall on the university’s George Square campus on Wednesday, hosted by the University of Edinburgh Academics for Academic Freedom group.

However the Edinburgh branch of the University and College Union (UCU) wrote to the university’s principal, Peter Mathieson, and called for the screening to be cancelled over concerns it contained content that was “a clear attack on trans people’s identities.”

What is an attack on a set of people’s identities? What does that mean? People have gotten so settled into the jargon … Read the rest