Jezebel has a sympathetic conversation with Synthia China Blast, or as they call him, “Trans Inmate Synthia China Blast.”

Synthia China Blast is a Latina trans woman who, according to her family, has been in involuntary protective custody (IPC), a glorified form of solitary confinement, for almost 20 years. When we spoke, Synthia was incarcerated at Sullivan Correctional Facility, a men’s prison about two hours north of New York City.

Last August, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) launched a petition to pressure New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to remove Blast from isolation. In a video released to promote the campaign, Laverne Cox read aloud a letter written by Blast, in which she names the

The blue tick thing is so absurd – the point of it is supposed to be verification, so if you make it for money instead, what is the point of having it? What does it tell anyone? “I pay Twitter $8 a month for this blue check mark thing.” Yes, and? You might as well put your monthly bus pass in your profile.

A wave of new paid blue tick accounts impersonating influential individuals and brands has led to chaos and confusion on Twitter.

Fake “verified” accounts in the names of politicians, celebrities, major organisations and businesses started appearing on the platform on Thursday.

Twitter suspended many of them, but the company’s rapidly changing attempts to address the issue

You could knock me down with a feather. Mark Kelly wins in Arizona:

Three days after Americans voted, the BBC’s US partner CBS estimates Democrat Mark Kelly has beaten Republican challenger Blake Masters.

That would leave the Senate at 49 Democratic seats and 49 Republican seats.

Just Nevada and Georgia are yet to be decided.

If the Dems win one they stay in control of the Senate because of the VP vote. If they win neither the Republicans control the Senate. Nail-biter. Not that the Dems have been able to accomplish much, but if the Republicans get the Senate everything will be that much worse.… Read the rest

Now Trump is suing the January 6 committee.

Former President Donald Trump has sued the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, as a way to challenge its subpoena for documents and his testimony, according to filings in a federal court in Florida.

Trump is [both] challenging both the legitimacy of the committee – which multiple courts have upheld – and is claiming he should be immune from testimony about the time he was president.

No, Bub, you’re thinking of a dictator, not a president. Nobody elected you monarch or emperor or Divine Absolute Ruler. You shouldn’t be immune from anything.

Trump’s lawyers say they’ve communicated with the House over the past week and a half 

Iran votes for mass executions of protesters.

Nationwide protests continue in Iran for the 53rd straight day, despite nearly 15,000 Iranians having been arrested in connection to the demonstrations and who are now facing the death penalty.

As thousands continue to rally across Iran’s capital city of Tehran, defying a brutal crackdown by Iranian forces, on Tuesday, the country’s parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of the death penalty for protesters.

Just kill them all. That will fix everything.… Read the rest

There was more backroom censorship than we were told.

Pippa Rogerson, master of Gonville and Caius, and senior tutor Andrew Spencer sparked controversy last month by announcing they were boycotting a visit by Helen Joyce.

In an email to students they said the bestselling author’s views on transgender people were ‘offensive, insulting, and hateful to members of our community’. In the October 19 message the pair said they could not ‘stay neutral’ and would avoid the talk, which had been organised by Arif Ahmed, a Gonville fellow and professor of philosophy.

We knew that much, but there’s more.

But the academics also prevented Professor Ahmed from publicising the event on Venn, the college intranet system, Varsity student newspaper reported.

Why would a beauty pageant, i.e. a Prettiest Woman contest, let a man compete in the first place? It’s a stupid concept, but it at least has a basic outline, or did until the other day. Even the law agrees.

[Brian] Nguyen’s win came just days after a San Francisco Court ruled that women’s beauty pageants were not legally obligated to let trans-identified males to compete.

The case had been brought to court after a trans activist, Anita Green, filed a lawsuit against Miss United States of America after they barred him from competing in 2019. In their decision, the judges in the case said that forcing pageants to include “transgender” contestants amounted to compelled speech as beauty

Trump is clinging to the window sill.

According to anonymous insider reports, Mr Trump still harbours presidential ambitions – and is leaning toward announcing another presidential bid from his Mar-a-Lago home next Tuesday. After this week’s disappointing midterm results for Republicans, where Mr Trump’s hand-picked candidates struggled to win key races, the former president’s advisers are counselling him to wait for the dust to settle.

“Like, you know, sir, a year or two. That would give you plenty of time to campaign for the 2028 election.”

Instead, with his Thursday social media posts and evening press-release diatribe against Mr DeSantis, Mr Murdoch’s Newscorp and all his critics, Mr Trump seems intent on throwing that dust in his enemy’s eyes.

I’ve been putting this one off for a couple of days, but time is up. It’s about that guy in New Hampshire who won a scholarship by winning a beauty pageant.

The photo makes it all too clear what kind of body type is considered good, appropriate, conforming, acceptable in female people – extremely small, thin, dainty, with one permanently bent knee and a short skirt. That’s the right kind of body and presentation and skirt to have, but it’s not the kind to win. The winner is built like a fullback and wears a dress that trails on the sidewalk. He’s also a male person. The competition appears to be for female people, but a man … Read the rest

Geneticist tells us women don’t actually exist. Honestly they don’t, he says.

A good example of how an 'educated' person can seriously argue that there are no such thing as women. They are a figment of our imaginations.

Students are being taught this. pic.twitter.com/6nIlTXiIti

— Andy (@lecanardnoir) November 11, 2022

He’ll have to let us into a rather shocking secret, researcher Gordon Strathdee says. “The reason us [sic] scientists find this question so hard to answer is that women don’t actually exist. Honestly they don’t. They’re all just a figment of your fevered imagination.

The reason is that “woman” and “man” are just categorisations that humans have invented to make communication easier. But these things are concepts, that exist only … Read the rest

Trump is fuming.

Former President Donald Trump ripped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a flurry of posts on Truth Social on Thursday, calling him an “average Republican governor with great Public Relations.”

In a public statement also posted on Truth Social, Trump unleashed on his one-time ally, offering a taste of the potential insults to come if the two face off in 2024. The Florida governor is seen as a potential 2024 presidential hopeful, which could challenge the former president’s hold on the GOP should DeSantis decide to run for president.

…

“And now, Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games! The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused

Once the glaciers melt, they’re gone, so the rivers go too. That’s happening in the Camargue:

People have always been attracted to the Camargue because of the abundance of species and resources it contains despite the challenges of living between the ebb and flow of an ever-evolving delta. Its nutrient-rich wetlands contain an enormous amount of biodiversity, making it one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. The Rhône river has long served as the Camargue’s lifeline, bringing fresh water from the Alps and dampening salt levels in the Camargue. As rain and snowfall decrease, it’s becoming a less reliable fresh water source, with researchers estimating the river’s flow has reduced by 30% in the last 50 years.

Do it now or you won’t be able to do it at all.

Mary Trump, former president Donald Trump’s niece, has warned that the clock is ticking for the Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide on whether to indict her uncle now that the midterm elections are over.

…

The former president’s niece argued that the decision whether or not to indict her uncle [will] have to take into account not just the amount of evidence against him, but also the actions he might take in retaliation.

“I guess it comes down to one — I guess if they feel that they have enough evidence to indict, which it would be shocking if they didn’t.

Oof. This rivals the daisy ad in power.

WOW. This video just DESTROYED the NRA and the Republican candidates they own.

RT this to remind EVERY voter that now is our chance to get weapons of war off the streets. pic.twitter.com/SDp5bbG2l2

— Billy Baldwin (@BillyBaldwin) November 7, 2022

… Read the rest

Victoria Smith on Izzard and not being trendy:

Like many, I saw Izzard as someone who got it, who understood that women, like men, are full, complete human beings, not a set of stereotypes to be put on and taken off at will. Izzard’s descent into boorish sexism has surprised me; I thought he was better than that. Then again, his boorishness is in fashion, whilst the resistance of women such as [Rosie] Duffield and me is forever out of date. 

…

Whilst numerous studies have indicated that younger men are no less sexist than their fathers — that, on the contrary, they may be more so — this has not dented the view that the young, supported by

A sign at the The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London:

This one pic.twitter.com/AWUcIEHM9F

— 🦖Leonora Christina 🦕 (@JammersMinde) November 10, 2022

A scramble to apologize without any mention of what was wrong with the “signage.”

Earlier today on-campus signage was shared on social media, the signage has since been removed. We apologise profusely for any offence this has caused. We have issued a statement, available here: https://t.co/FBvYGthpy3

— ICMP London (@ICMPLondon) November 10, 2022

The statement issued:

Earlier today on-campus signage at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (ICMP) was shared on social media.

Our intention, following discussions with our student community, had been to communicate the definition of TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) to help clarify what

I’ve just spent a few minutes trying to figure out what the Equality and Human Rights Commission is, with not much success. I can’t tell what its relationship to the government is. They don’t explain it very clearly.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is Great Britain’s national equality body and has been awarded an ‘A’ status as a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) by the United Nations.

What’s a national body? What’s a body in this context?

As a statutory non-departmental public body established by the Equality Act 2006, the Commission operates independently. We aim to be an expert and authoritative organisation that is a centre of excellence for evidence, analysis and equality and human rights law. We

Oliver Brown at the Telegraph talks to a woman who had to race against “Lia” Thomas:

The day after she watched Thomas – who until starting hormone therapy was ranked a mere 554th as a man – vanquish every female rival in the country, she found that they would be direct competitors in the 200-yard freestyle final. They finished, ultimately, in a dead heat for fifth. 

Except, only Thomas was allowed to hold the fifth-place trophy, with Gaines told by an official that it was “for photo purposes”. She would need, she was told, to make do with the award for sixth.

They both won the fifth place but she was ordered to take sixth. Insult to injury.

Thomas

Arrgghh.

Current numbers:

Frisch: 155,579

Boebert: 155,506

Arrgghh.

Update: it seems the remaining ballots are from Frisch-leaning counties. Hoping! I long to see her return to obscurity.

UPDATE: Democrat Adam Frisch is poised to upset Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert in CO-3, based on a 9NEWS analysis of remaining ballots, which are largely in counties where Frisch holds strong leads. #copolitics

— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) November 10, 2022

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Donors are disgusted.

but the new bit is thinking feminism and anti-racism didn’t work that way, why is that? Well why is that? Because fragile is the last thing we want to be or appear to be or claim to be. It’s degrading. It pulls against equality and ordinary inclusion in public life. So…why is it so appealing to “the trans community”? Why do we hear so very very much about it?

I think part of it that campaigns against sexism and racism were eager to argue their position, to have the opportunity to present the facts of the matter to the court of public opinion, to win hearts and … Read the rest