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

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 contingent.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) October 29, 2022

Of course Jolyon is too important and too much asked to comment to pause to tell us what rights he’s talking about.

I am not complacent. What is being done to trans people in the United Kingdom is awful. I have no words,

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

Trumpy lies and rhetoric make things happen. In other news –

An intruder broke into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home early Friday morning and “violently assaulted” her husband, Paul Pelosi, according to a statement from Drew Hammill, the speaker’s spokesperson.

“The assailant is in custody and the motivation for the attack is under investigation,” the statement read.

“Mr. Pelosi was taken to the hospital, where he is receiving excellent medical care and is expected to make a full recovery.”

The motive is under investigation but I’m going to go right ahead and speculate that it’s likely to be trumpy maga-y proud boysy stop the stealy rage. The Feds are on the case.… Read the rest

Mysterious person does mysterious persony things, police seek help finding mysterious person.

Were the two teenagers girls by any chance? Or did mysterious person select teenage boys as “their” victim?

This is the police. This is the police seeking a man sexually abusing girls in a public toilet, and those police are carefully not being specific about what they’re looking for, because it’s more important to honor and protect the idenniny of the creepy dangerous man in the wig and skirt than it is to protect any teenage girls he might decide to terrorize.… Read the rest

It is an amazing speech, but not in the sense Kirsty Blackman seems to mean.

Trans rights are human rights, and as a woman I do not feel that they are in conflict with my own. I spoke today to defend the rights of others in the LGBTQI Community to simply be who they are. pic.twitter.com/n0z0QP4FpJ

— Emma Roddick MSP (@EmmaRoddickSNP) October 27, 2022

But it’s not about the right “to simply be who they are.” That’s the whole point. They’re claiming a right to be recognized, treated as, embraced as, who they are not. There are two lies in this formula, not just one. The first lie is that it’s about who they are when in fact … Read the rest

The Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary wants to provide period products for…well that’s where it gets tricky.

One of our NURS 289 clinical groups is partnering with The Moss Bag Project to provide period products for the houseless and vulnerable in Calgary! Mulitple donation boxes are in various locations on campus: Professional Faculties Building at the PPE station, Wellness Centre, UofC Bookstore, and TFDL. Donations are accepted from now until November 15th

Useful, helpful. But…

Bleeding bodies.… Read the rest