A bit of good news at last:

Former president Donald Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habba, have been fined almost $1 million by a federal judge in Florida for what was ruled a frivolous lawsuit brought against his 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton and others.

Trump is a “prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries,” wrote U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks in his searing 46-page judgment published late Thursday.

“He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer. He knew full well the impact of his actions,” said Middlebrooks. “As such, I find

… Read the rest

Priyamvada Gopal outdoes herself again.

Three white people and one dominant caste middle-class British Asian discuss the lives of the marginalised and how to further marginalise them. Inspirational.

— Priyamvada Gopal © (@PriyamvadaGopal) January 20, 2023

Caste?????

Wait there’s more –

I didn't know about the Islamophobia bit but again, goes with the terrain of dominant caste Hindu background. Combined with British mainstream discourse.

— Priyamvada Gopal © (@PriyamvadaGopal) January 20, 2023

“Islamophobia” in this context means skeptical or critical of theocratic Islam.

And “dominant caste Hindu background” is a snide (worse than snide) hint that Sonia Sodha is an ally of Modi and his Hindutva goals. It’s outrageous.… Read the rest

Dr Em at Wings Over Scotland last year on Why woke blokes abuse women:

The woke bloke contempt for women is clear, and abusive behaviours are on full display. Reading through Lundy Bancroft’s pivotal work “Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men”, the full cast of characters is present on Twitter, in the news and in our political parties and institutions.

…

Bancroft’s work, sometimes criticised for being too inclusive and easily applied to any man, is corroborated by what women know personally from relationships with abusive men, the patterns we recognise and which are analysed by domestic violence charities such as Refuge and charities attempting to end violence against women such

… Read the rest

At long last, Willoughby, have you no shame?

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1616112342835810306

The “trans community” is not, repeat not, being subject to anything resembling what Jewish people were, and Willoughby of course knows that perfectly well. He didn’t say “Holocaust” or “genocide” or “8 million” but he invoked it with “state demonisation and stripping of rights.” Sleazy dirty creepy deniability.

Why isn’t it more obvious to more people that this kind of ludicrous and wildly offensive appropriation of actual genocide is a massive red flag? Why is the deranged hyperbole of trans activism embraced with such enthusiasm by people who only a few short years ago appeared to be adults?… Read the rest

He doesn’t want to use the both sexes gym, he wants to use the women’s gym. There’s no thrill in using the both sexes one, it’s only the women’s that provides the creepy invasive threatening you don’t get to say no to me vibe.

A transgender woman in Parksville is speaking out after she was allowed to sign up for a women-only gym, then later told she would only be allowed to access the co-ed gym due to the fact that she is trans.

No, due to the fact that he is male.

Brigid Klyne-Simpson says she previously had a rocky relationship with exercise because she didn’t feel comfortable going to gyms and working out with mostly men.

So … Read the rest

The Chronicle of Higher Education discussed the Hamline issue last week.

Hamline administrators, who have previously shared information mostly through written statements, granted an interview to The Chronicle. In it they defended their handling of the controversy, in which Erika López Prater, the lecturer, saw her contract go unrenewed after the course ended.

The CHE is reminding us that non-renewal of an adjunct’s contract is different from firing, because adjuncts are always subject to non-renewal of contract – they don’t have tenure. It’s a well known academic scandal that colleges and universities take advantage of that difference more and more, because it’s so much cheaper and more convenient for them.

Hamline administrators told The Chronicle on Friday that what happened

… Read the rest

The Washington Post tells us Erika López Prater is suing Hamline.

On Tuesday, attorneys for the professor, Erika López Prater, served Hamline with a lawsuit that, among other claims, alleges religious discrimination and defamation by the school. López Prater, through her lawyer, and Hamline University declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.

The religious discrimination issue is interesting. It is religious discrimination to punish people for not obeying the orders or rules of a religion. It’s religious discrimination to act as if one’s own religion is binding on everyone else.

At a news conference on Jan. 11, CAIR’s local Minnesota chapter described the incident at Hamline as Islamophobic.

The chapter’s executive director, Jaylani Hussein, said that showing images of the

… Read the rest

Facebook showed me a sponsored promotion of a conference at Radcliffe (I bet even Facebook doesn’t know my sister was a Cliffy) titled The Age of Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion in America. Hm, thought I, I wonder if they managed to tell us about the conference without ever saying “women” so I took a look.

Finding:

Of course they did. How? Like so:

Harvard Radcliffe Institute will hold a major public conference January 26–27, 2023, to probe the complex and unpredictable ways that Roe v. Wade and its aftermath shaped the United States and the world beyond it for nearly half a century. The existential issue of abortion—and the galvanizing impact of Roe in particular—transformed the

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The BBC on Lloyd Russell-Moyle’s bullying:

In the Commons on Tuesday, Lloyd Russell-Moyle accused Tory Miriam Cates of making “transphobic” comments.

Shouting, with features contorted by rage.

[Cates] said the proposed changes would make it “vastly easier for a predator to get access to children, to change their sex, to change their gender, with an eye to exploiting loopholes of accessing children and women in particular”.

In response, Mr Russell-Moyle, who was the next speaker, told the Commons: “Goodness me, that speech was probably one of the worst transphobic, dog-whistle speeches that I have heard in an awful long time. The idea of linking trans people with predators, frankly, is disgusting and you should be ashamed.”

He said the … Read the rest

Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP does a classic “that bitch made me do it” pretend apology:

https://twitter.com/lloyd_rm/status/1615711628489822210/

“Passion and anger” because a woman thinks women should continue to have single-sex spaces. Male MP can’t control his rage when a female MP seeks to protect women’s rights.

He limited replies to people he follows, but there are many angry quote-tweets.

https://twitter.com/violet___0_0_0_/status/1615845176584376320

So…a man who can’t control his temper around women.

Which is kind of the problem Lloyd…#Labourlosingwomen https://t.co/vk5GBCM7mo

— Posh And Proud (@PoshAndProud1) January 18, 2023

‘It’s your fault that I hit you. You made me do it!’ https://t.co/qB5JkCtncJ

— Andy (@ajlen15) January 18, 2023

https://twitter.com/mjeslfc/status/1615846889462861832

.@lloyd_rm sounds like every abusive man who murdered his wife & claimed it was just

… Read the rest

More from the “people in Arizona don’t seem to grasp what an arid climate is” department:

Rio Verde Foothills, a suburb of Scottsdale, was cut off from the city’s water supply on 1 January. The controversial move left hundreds without access to running water, prompting residents to file a lawsuit demanding that services be restored.

Scottsdale argues that it bears no responsibility for Rio Verde. In a statement published on 16 January, the city of Scottsdale said that it had for years “warned and advised” Rio Verde – which is governed by nearby Maricopa County – that it could not depend on the city’s water supply, particularly during periods of drought.

Yes but the people in Rio Verde really need… Read the rest

Well that god sure as hell hates women.

A man who beheaded his 17-year-old wife has been sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran, the judiciary says.

Images of Sajjad Heydari carrying Mona’s severed head in Ahvaz after the so-called “honour killing” last year caused widespread outrage.

Nah it’s fine. Women have to be disciplined.

Mona had been married to her husband since the age of 12 and had given birth to their son when she was only 14.

That is, Mona was given to a man like so much livestock when she was 12 years old.

Local media reported that she had fled to Turkey after allegedly being subjected to domestic violence by her husband, who had

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by tigger_the_wing on Not equal treatment but elevated status.

As I was reading this, I was simultaneously engaged in a territorial dispute with my cat. Wherever I made room for him on my bed, he kept trying to lie on my shins. No amount of moving him, moving my legs, pleading with him that other parts of the bed are more comfortable, or explaining that he can’t lie on my legs because it hurts me was going to dissuade him from trying, because he’s a cat, and lying on my legs was the point. He’s intellectually incapable of understanding anything more complex than “I want to lie there, because that’s warm.” My legs radiate heat; … Read the rest

An academic paper from 2013:

Boycunts and Bonus Holes: Trans Men’s Bodies, Neoliberalism, and the Sexual Productivity of Genitals

One author is an anthropologist, the other is a linguist.

You want to read the abstract, right? Of course you do.

Recent theorizations of trans embodiment have brought attention to the ways neoliberalism limits the productivity of nonnormatively gendered bodies. This article deals with the discursive framing of embodiment and sexual desirability among trans men and other transmasculine persons negotiating Internet-mediated homoerotic spaces. Micro-level analysis of discourse structure and macro-level analysis of socio-political context together show how trans men navigate homonormative sexual economies by linguistically recuperating their bodies’ sexually productivity. Instead of undermining claims of embodied masculinity and homoerotic value, potential

… Read the rest

Argumentum ad fake comparison:

It’s not a “difference of opinion.” Try using that line when suggesting Black or Jewish rights are a threat to the public eg “I think Black people should be kept separate because they’re a threat – just my opinion, my free speech. “

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) January 18, 2023

I don’t have enough eyes to roll here.

He’s trying to jostle us into thinking men like him are comparable to Black people in majority-white societies or Jewish people in Nazi Germany. They’re not. Just being an identifiable group doesn’t make that group comparable to all other groups.

But they’re a demographic you see. As long as you’re a demographic you get to claim persecution … Read the rest

It’s literally all about the dress.

What is the point in getting a Gender Recognition Certificate?

Laura Kate Dale — who has one — explains: pic.twitter.com/zhhtw9fyjH

— BBC Radio 4 PM (@BBCPM) January 17, 2023

“For me it was a case of, I wanted to get married, and I didn’t want to have to, on my wedding day, write down ‘Mister Male’ on what should be [voice quavers with emotion here] one of the most feminine-feeling days of my life, getting married to the person I love….Largely a gender recognition certificate is significant for someone to be affirmed as who they are when they get married.”

Interviewer helpfully says it’s about a feeling, an identity, not about doing x … Read the rest

Can someone turn this into the cat at dinner meme pic.twitter.com/RFlKRXI9L7

— Girls To The Front (@obsolete__units) January 17, 2023

Paging Moley, Moley to the red telephone.

https://twitter.com/moleatthedoor/status/1615500881624965123… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Twanzphobia ith a thin! with emphasis added.

“…trans people are whole and holy….Trans people are divine.

Still Orwellian; they’ve just changed texts: “Some animals are more equal than others.”

This is either a banal truism (everyone is holy, including trans people) or a claim that trans people are extra-specialer than boring old non-trans people. Just like claims to being non-binary, it’s either pointless (because nobody falls at either end of Barbie to GI Joe Gender Spectrum, meaning everyone is trivially “non-binary”), or a statement of exceptionalism, that the normal rules don’t apply to them because they’re above them. I think this claim is more the latter than the former.

This “holiness”, … Read the rest

The BBC live-reported on the gender battles among MPs today and yesterday.

Today it included a chat it had with a person of gender:

The BBC has spoken to a genderfluid, trans woman who is not yet out to family and close friends.

What does that even mean? How can you be “genderfluid” and “trans”? Being trans means you’re so convinced you’re the opposite sex that you officially declare yourself as such. Genderfluid is the opposite of that.

They said: “It is unlikely that I will personally be in a position to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) even if England were to relax the process.

“However, I do rely on the protections of the Equality Act and I

… Read the rest

The trans ideology fanatic Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP, who had to apologize to JK Rowling after he misrepresented what she had written, flies into another rage at another women.

https://twitter.com/lloyd_rm/status/1615411768532271106

What a horrible man.… Read the rest