The guy who stopped the shooter:

Richard M. Fierro said he was at a table in Club Q with his wife, daughter and friends on Saturday, watching a drag show, when the sudden flash of gunfire ripped across the nightclub. His instincts from four combat deployments as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan instantly kicked in. Fight back, he told himself.

In an interview at his house, where his wife and daughter were still recovering from injuries, Mr. Fierro, 45, who left the Army in 2013 as a major, according to military records, described charging through the chaos at the club, tackling the gunman and beating him bloody with the gunman’s own gun.

…

When the shooting started,

… Read the rest

Digging right through the barrel:

Just when you think the bottom of the barrel has been scraped, Monty pushes it one step further. pic.twitter.com/Ecl5VnBsMv

— FeministRoar (@FeministRoar) November 21, 2022

https://twitter.com/katecra/status/1594755614277779460 … Read the rest

But this

never

happens.

https://twitter.com/i_heart__bikes/status/1594536306318532614 https://twitter.com/i_heart__bikes/status/1594536315420385280 https://twitter.com/i_heart__bikes/status/1594536324744216577 https://twitter.com/i_heart__bikes/status/1594536334898741249 https://twitter.com/i_heart__bikes/status/1594536344100909056… Read the rest

The Colorado Sun gives background on Club Q:

Matthew Haynes opened Club Q 21 years ago with the goal of making sure LGBTQ people in Colorado Springs had a long-lasting place to call home.

Except that’s not exactly how Matthew Haynes words it, at least not in this story.

Haynes says Club Q has always been a community center more than anything else.

“There have been so many happy stories from Club Q,” he told The Colorado Sun on Sunday morning. “People meeting and relationships being born. So many celebrations there. We’re a family of people more than a place to have a drink and dance and leave.”

…

Haynes, who is a co-owner of Club Q, said he

… Read the rest

Here’s a strange thing: Club Q in Colorado Springs describes itself as a gay or gay and lesbian adult bar, yet most of the headlines call it LGBTQ+. When did adding the TQ+ become absolutely mandatory with no exceptions? Why can’t lesbians and gay men organize and talk and agitate as lesbians and gay men? Why are they being forced to add trans people, when being trans is not the same thing as being lesbian or gay?

CNN: What we know about the suspect in the Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub shooting

NBC News: Live updates: Colorado LGBTQ nightclub shooting victims mourned as community pushes for answers

Washington Post: Shooting at popular LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs leave at least 5 … Read the rest

Trade union catastrophizing:

“It’s great to be able to be loud and proud – and I will continue to be loud and proud against homophobia and loud and very proud to be a trans ally, and I will ensure that UNISON always remains the best trade union for LGBT+ workers.”

That was the pledge from UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea this morning, when she addressed the union’s LGBT+ conference in Edinburgh, as she applauded the fact that being “loud and proud” was the event’s central theme.

Proud to be against homophobia and very proud to be a trans ally – there’s always that little extra that signals the category “trans” is the most urgent, the most in need of … Read the rest

Endless relentless nagging:

Staff at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) have been told they should not use the terms “gender critical” and “protecting women and girls” in order to be trans allies, The Telegraph can disclose.

But what if they want to be allies to women? What if they are women? What if they think being an ally to women – half of humanity – is vastly more urgent than being ally to a tiny minority of humanity in thrall to a delusion?

Thousands of officials were emailed for “transgender awareness week” and told it was “vital that we keep scaremongering and misinformation at bay”, with trans hate crimes up 56 per cent in a year.

“It is vital … Read the rest

Hmmm.

Politico a month ago:

Now, despite the setbacks Russia has suffered on the battlefield, [Fiona] Hill thinks Putin is undaunted. She sees him adapting to new conditions, not giving up. And she sees him trying to get the West to accede to his aims by using messengers like billionaire Elon Musk to propose arrangements that would end the conflict on his terms.

“Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin,” Hill says.

And then they buy Twitter to be even more dedicated messengers for Putin.

Reynolds: We’ve recently had Elon Musk step into this conflict trying to

… Read the rest

Health Education England is some sort of government body, described slightly differently by each source I saw, and it came up with this new and exciting version of the usual sludge:

Health Education England statement of intent, publicly committing to trans inclusion and equality in support of the trans and non-binary community.

What is “trans equality”? What is the absence of “trans equality”? What are they talking about? In what way are trans people not already “equal”?

As for “inclusion,” we know what that means, and that’s the problem. It means men being “included” with women and (much less urgently and insistently) women being “included” with men. That’s a stupid idea of “inclusion.” We don’t have to “include” lawyers … Read the rest

NHS Scotland wants to do more of it, faster.

Scotland’s NHS is planning to fast-track irreversible surgeries for transgender patients, documents seen by The Telegraph reveal.

Quick, before someone stops us.

An NHS Scotland report, suggesting new transgender treatment rules, calls for “barriers” to gender reassignment surgery to be removed and proposes radical measures to make operations more widely available.

These include allowing GPs, rather than specialists, to send patients for procedures and that a “single opinion” is enough to refer for surgery in most cases.

Let’s err on the side of reckless haste, because why not?

The report goes on to call for an “affirming” model of non-surgical care to still be delivered to children, despite an

… Read the rest

Uh…whut?

Of all the campaign groups in all the world you’d think this would be the least relevant to the trans ideology.

Endometriosis UK stands in solidarity with the trans community. We will not tolerate hate speech on our platforms. You can read our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion statement here: https://t.co/rZ8qD999sk

— Endometriosis UK (@EndometriosisUK) November 19, 2022

Endofuckingmetriosis??? Are you serious?!… Read the rest

Blah blah blah grovel grovel grovel trans trans trans. Meanwhile Sadiq Khan still has not explained why he dumped Joan Smith from her role as head of the Mayor’s Council for Women, or even had the minimal courtesy to tell her why, despite her repeated requests for an explanation.

Transphobia has no place in our society.

On Transgender Day of Remembrance, we honour the lives taken by anti-trans hate crimes.

We stand in solidarity with London's trans and gender non-conforming communities.

And we vow to do everything we can to protect trans rights. pic.twitter.com/h6235MKEe3

— Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (@MayorofLondon) November 20, 2022

… Read the rest

Soppy gloppy blobby nonsense, issued by a parliament, an actual real world governing body.

Today, we remember the trans individuals who have lived, loved, fought and fallen.

We remember their spirit and their message that everyone deserves the right to be exactly who they are. #TransDayOfRemembrance pic.twitter.com/otrEF6pOf8

— Welsh Parliament (@SeneddWales) November 20, 2022

What on earth do they think they mean, “everyone deserves the right to be exactly who they are”? People don’t need a right to be exactly who they are, they just are who they are, exactly or otherwise. What they mean, of course, but are too dim or too evasive to say, is that they want people to have a “right” to force everyone else to … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The feminists seem to, as it were.

…he has many trans and intersex* friends who are “deeply upset” by JK Rowling.

Then their “upset” is not in good faith, and not based on facts. If trans activists and their allies can’t be bothered actually reading what Rowling actually wrote, but condemn her out of hand on the sayso of trans “thought leaders,” then their “upsetedness” is not worth paying attention to, or taking seriously.

In his dangerously honest and conciliatory understanding of Rowling’s position, Fry has unwittingly outed himself as a heretic. As Ophelia has noted, in trying to place himself in the “reasonable” middle ground, or above the pettiness … Read the rest

The Times also reported on the Cambridge debate on the right to offend:

Noisy protests were held outside a Cambridge Union debate as an academic abused for her views on gender told students they were terrified of causing offence.

Some kinds of offence. They’re not a bit worried about causing offence to feminist women.

Students angered by the presence of Professor Kathleen Stock banged drums and chanted slogans outside the chamber during the event, even though the philosophy professor was not speaking about transgender rights.

Never you mind what she was speaking about, she’s a contaminant. She could be speaking about lilacs and roses and she’d still be a contaminant.

One of the students due to speak in favour

… Read the rest

Alex Massie in The Times:

In the spring of 2018, Katie Dolatowski, then aged 18, sexually assaulted a ten-year-old girl in a supermarket lavatory in Kirkcaldy. A month earlier, Dolatowski had been apprehended filming a 12-year-old girl in another supermarket toilet. She — for although Dolatowski was born male, convention now decrees that she be referred to by her preferred pronouns — received a three-year community payback order and was banned from engaging with, or otherwise contacting, children.

A few weeks ago he was found living in a women’s refuge in Leeds. He was arrested for not alerting the police to his change of address.

Last week, Falkirk sheriff court heard Dolatowski admit to attacking another inmate at Polmont

… Read the rest

Victoria Smith, as usual, zooms right in on the matter.

A common accusation thrown at women who seek to assert boundaries is that they are "weaponising trauma". Some people's pain is so inconvenient it's either "self-pity" or it's positioned as a weapon used against others.

— Victoria Smith (@glosswitch) November 19, 2022

And those some people are…you know who.

He said it starting at 10 minutes:… Read the rest

Hide all the women.

The word “woman” could be erased from specialist NHS clinics dealing with female health issues under proposed new transgender inclusivity rules.

Weird how “transgender inclusivity” always means erasing women. Never men.

A report proposing new NHS treatment guidelines in Scotland suggests “a general move away from gendered healthcare” and warns that trans people are put off attending services if they are targeted at a certain sex.

If that’s true then trans people need to grow the fuck up.

It also calls for laboratories to “decouple” reference ranges in test results from “gender markers”. Men and women have different healthy ranges on a series of criteria, for example in blood tests.

The report claims ranges

… Read the rest

Stephen Fry is anxious about his trans friends. (Does he have a lot of them? It seems unlikely. There aren’t many trans people, and most of them are very young.)

Stephen Fry has urged calm in the debate over transgender issues, but said he has many trans and intersex friends who are “deeply upset” by JK Rowling.

Many? Come on.

“I know that JK Rowling doesn’t want to see trans people bullied, alienated, shut out of society, made to feel ashamed, guilty, laughed at, all those things.

“But I also know that there are people who believe that safe feminine spaces and the idea of difference between sex and gender is very important, and that they repudiate with all

… Read the rest

The NY Times four days ago:

Elon Musk continued cutting Twitter’s work force in his third week of owning the social media company, firing employees who had criticized him and eliminating contractors.

So his filter for employees is personal vanity as opposed to skills. How might that go wrong?

Early on Tuesday, Mr. Musk’s team ordered nearly two dozen Twitter employees who had pushed back publicly and privately against him to be fired, three people with knowledge of the matter said. The billionaire, who completed a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last month, later confirmed the exits on the platform and mocked the former employees.

Thus no doubt inspiring remaining employees to think very highly of him.

Mr. Musk’s

… Read the rest