The new owner of Twitter steps up.

Three days after Elon Musk purchased Twitter, the billionaire posted a tweet that advanced baseless allegations about the recent attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

What could possibly go wrong??

On Saturday, Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, posted a tweet assailing Republicans for spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” that she said had emboldened the man who attacked Ms. Pelosi’s husband, Paul, inside the couple’s home in San Francisco early Friday.

Mr. Musk’s tweet was later deleted, and it was not immediately clear who had deleted it.

In a reply to Mrs. Clinton’s tweet, Mr. Musk wrote, “There is a tiny possibility there

There’s a surprise – Bolsonaro lost.

Challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won Brazil’s election after defeating incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in a razor-close vote.

According to the country’s election authority, Lula secured 50.8 percent of the vote compared to 49.2 percent for Bolsonaro on Sunday.

So we can expect Stop the Steal agitation and violence, with Trump egging it on. Bad moon rising.

It remained to be seen if Bolsonaro would concede defeat. Without proof, he has described the voting system as fraud-prone, raising concern he may not concede, following the example of his ideological ally, former US President Donald Trump.

Bad moon.

What’s left of the Amazon hangs in the balance.… Read the rest

“Just get it right, and you won’t have to get sprayed.”

If I did this to my mother she would burn the world to the ground. A fully grown woman attempting to train her own mother like she’s a naughty puppy. The audacity is beyond me. pic.twitter.com/jxQHy7YZ9H

— Slarty Bartfast (@Poppy_yyyyyyyy) October 29, 2022

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Just a reminder.

Apart from the sting of invalidation, how are transmen and enbies hurt if abortion is treated as a women’s issue?

I think the real pushback against the framing of abortion as a women’s issue is from TiMs. Campaigns for “inclusive” language that erase women by reducing them to body parts and functions is not equally applied to men. That tells you all you need to know about the politics and optics of this “movement.” Men are the Standard; women are the Other. The Other is defined by, and in contrast to the Standard. Can’t go messing with the Standard now, can we? There’s no telling where that… Read the rest

Very normal. Not at all catastrophizing or narcissistic, no no.

The Telegraph has an article saying that Sunak plans to change the Equality Act to remove legal protections from trans people.

I've been asked to comment as the report is causing huge distress (people in tears and so on) in an already beleaguered community. So,🧵

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) October 29, 2022

He’s “been asked to comment” – he is just that important. Asked by whom? Modesty forbids. It was probably the pope, or the UN, or Amnesty International.

The Human Rights Act can't stop him and, anyway, its survival in UK law, and our membership of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, is pretty

Willoughby illustrates.

Willoughby of course is not at all desperate. Placid as a stagnant pond, he is.

Updating to add his not at all outrageous retort.

That’s not racism Sonia. It’s the truth prickling you. As someone from a minority that has had the same nasty demonisation projected on to them, why are YOU now doing it to a marginalised group? Unlike you, I stand up against all discrimination. Bigotry is bigotry.

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) October 30, 2022

Uh huh. White man Willoughby claims persecuted minority status for himself. Very convincing.… Read the rest

More ways to make it a crime to feminism:

New laws will criminalise incitement to hatred against transgender people and those with a disability, the [Irish] Cabinet agreed on Tuesday when approving a Bill intended to make prosecutions for hate speech and hate crimes easier.

The Bill will add gender, including gender expression and identity, as well as disability to a list of “protected characteristics” which already include race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnicity or national origin and sexual orientation.

But not sex. Being a woman is not a protected characteristic, while being a man who pretends to be a woman is. Women can be punished for not agreeing that men are women, but men are free to incite hatred … Read the rest

The BBC on The bleak reality behind the red light district:

Behind Amsterdam’s red light district hides a secret world of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. What is viewed by many as little more than an edgy tourist attraction is in fact an area rife with crime.

“Edgy” here refers to men renting women. Right up there with a canal ride or a visit to the Rijksmuseum.

With the advent of mass tourism, the situation has become even more out of hand. Throngs of tourists flood the narrow streets and alleys. In a bid to combat the problems, and create better working conditions for the sex workers, the mayor of Amsterdam has proposed a plan to close the windows

The FFRF (or its Twitter wrangler) didn’t answer my question about what they meant by “queer” in tweeting

“In Nebraska, kids were getting the same Sex Ed. their grandparents received. We finally updated the curriculum.” — NE State Sen. Megan Hunt, first queer woman elected to district

so I looked it up. Voterly tells us

Megan Catherine Hunt (born May 9, 1986) is an American entrepreneur and politician serving as a member of the Nebraska Legislature. A member of the Democratic Party, Hunt represents the 8th legislative district in Omaha, consisting of the midtown neighborhoods of Dundee, Benson, and Keystone. She succeeded term-limited Nebraska State Senator Burke Haar. She identifies as bisexual, and was the first openly LGBT person elected

Originally a comment by Sackbut at Miscellany Room 9.

Picture shared by Abortion Access Front (used to be Lady Parts Justice League):

Just a reminder… All gender identities get abortions! (And have since the dawn of time)

I beg to differ.

A reminder? No, a claim, and a false one at that.

All gender identities get abortions? No. Women get abortions. Women may or may not claim to have gender identities, these gender identities don’t’ get abortions, the women do. Men don’t get abortions. Men may also claim gender identities. The idea that the set of gender identities claimed by men (for example, “cis male”) is a subset of the set claimed by women strains credulity. So this fails … Read the rest

Better tweets from FFRF since that mysterious “first queer woman” one:

"I'm happy to be a nonbeliever … fighting every anti-abortion bill, and sending them home exhausted. That's what gives me pleasure." — Nebraska State Sen. Megan Hunt @NebraskaMegan #Ffrfcon2022 pic.twitter.com/M7aajfDaUL

— FFRF (@FFRF) October 29, 2022

Maybe “first queer woman” means “first non-believing woman”?

Kidding. But good that she’s an unapologetic non-believer. (If she were apologetic she wouldn’t be saying it at the FFRF conference, in fact she wouldn’t be there at all.)

‘We haven’t seen anything like this since the Fugitive Slave Act where people were incentivized to hunt other people down.’—FFRF’s new 2022 Forward Awardee Amy Hagstrom Miller, Whole Woman’s Health Centers CEO, commenting on SB 8.

Freedom From Religion Foundation tweets from its conference in San Antonio:

"In Nebraska, kids were getting the same Sex Ed. their grandparents received. We finally updated the curriculum." — NE State Sen. Megan Hunt, first queer woman elected to district @NebraskaMegan pic.twitter.com/BAIqFdpliZ

— FFRF (@FFRF) October 29, 2022

What’s a queer woman? I don’t know what people mean when they say that. I assume they don’t mean lesbian, because if they had they would have just said lesbian. Wouldn’t they? Has “lesbian” somehow become too shady to use? Is it seen as terfy? Is it exclooosianary? Is it Karenish?

She certainly doesn’t present herself as “queer”…unless “queer” now has such esoteric meanings that it has reversed itself and is synonymous … Read the rest

I don’t like crowds. I guess that’s a good dislike to have? A lot of people have been killed in a Halloween-celebrating crowd in Seoul.

At least 120 people are understood to have been killed in a crush during Halloween celebrations in in Seoul’s Itaewon district.

It was the first outdoor no-mask Halloween event since the pandemic.

“The area is still chaotic so we are still trying to figure out the exact number of people injured,” Moon Hyun-joo, an official at the National Fire Agency told Reuters news agency.

Avoid crowds.… Read the rest

Concerns over inclooosivity. Concerns, I tell you.

A Harry Potter-themed formal at Girton College has been cancelled after concerns were raised over the event’s inclusivity, due to its association with the book series’ author, J.K. Rowling.

Rowling has been the subject of significant controversy in recent years, due to her outspoken views on trans rights, which many consider to be transphobic.

It’s funny how it’s never put the other way. Trans ideology has been the subject of significant controversy in recent years, due to its habit of trampling all over women’s rights, which many consider to be misogynist. Why don’t we talk about it in those terms for a change? Why is it that Varsity and the Guardian and … Read the rest

With hey ho, the wind and the rain:

In dozens of early letters, the artist Georgia O’Keeffe raved about walking in extreme wind. “I love it,” she wrote, again and again. A few other walkers have enthused about mud, snow, rain, darkness and cold. And yet, as the days draw in and the temperature falls, most of us hang up our walking boots.

I’m with O’Keefe. Wind is very energizing. It’s not ideal to walk in really hard pouring rain, but other than that, cold and wet are great for walking.

In the last few years researchers have begun untangling some of the little-known benefits of walking in wintry conditions. It turns out that the conditions most deterring us

Women’s March is not for women. Take a hike, bitches!

We can't in good conscience allow transphobes to use our platform to give air to their appalling messages. That's why we're taking a step we wouldn't usually: blocking as many "TERFs," "Gender Criticals," & other transphobes as we can.

— Women's March (@womensmarch) October 27, 2022

In other words they’re blocking as many feminists as they can.

We can also tell GCs from firsthand experience: It's possible to be a cis woman who cares about the rights of trans people. Trans rights are human rights and women's rights.

If you also want to block transphobes, we're grateful for the @TransphobeB

— Women's March (@womensmarch) October 27, 2022

It’s the Men’s … Read the rest

Alan Johnson at Jewish News:

Should gender critical views be considered ‘shameful’ and ‘hateful’? That was the question that sprang to mind while reading an article on the Jewish News website headlined: ‘Appalled and disgusted’: Rabbi accused of transphobia over Eddie Izzard tweet’.

I am not on Twitter and I do not comment here on the rabbi, other than note he wrote the hardly-hateful comment: ‘We have to treat transgender people with the utmost kindness and respect, and accommodate them legally, but they must not be allowed to displace women’s rights.’

Yes to the “they must not be allowed to displace women’s rights” part, but I take issue with the “utmost kindness and respect” part. No we don’t have … Read the rest

I saw people talking about this guy and it reminded me of the days when I was on the same blog network as he was. Fun times.

The crass ignorance of this question, never mind the pathetic bigotry in most replies, just underlines to me that the transphobia flooding our media & politics is underpinned by a flat-out refusal to acknowledge or attempt to understand the reality of the transgender experience. https://t.co/QHpSt0iVAM

— Ally Fogg (@AllyFogg) October 28, 2022

The crass ignorance is it. So educated people all know perfectly well what “living as a woman” means? They fully grasp the distinction between being a woman and living as a woman, and understand it, and think it makes perfect sense? … Read the rest

CNN is doing live updates on the Pelosi attack:

The person who attacked Paul Pelosi was searching for the speaker of the House, according to a source briefed on the attack.

The source told CNN the intruder confronted the speaker’s husband in their San Francisco home shouting: “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?”

Police have arrested a man suspected of carrying out the attack and his potential motive is under investigation, according to the speaker’s office.

Mitch McConnell claims to be horrified. Yeah I’m sure he’s all broken up.… Read the rest

Eddie Izzard instructs Rosie Duffield to “join the 21st century”:

Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield railed against the idea of ‘gender self-identification’, speaking out at a conference of the LGB Alliance – a campaign group that claims to advance lesbian, gay and bisexual rights.

Nice impartial journalism there – calling saying something “railing” and saying the LGB Alliance merely claims to advance LGB rights.

Duffield was asked about the possibility of making “misgendering” a crime. She responded:

 “Is that a serious thing? Is that coming to Parliament any time soon? I hope not because you might as well arrest me now. I’m not calling Eddie Izzard a woman.”

In response, Izzard said: “Some people aren’t up to speed, some