A thing that calls itself a rape and sexual abuse counselling centre changes the subject to…pronouns. I guess rape and sexual abuse are so trivial that something more serious was needed?

A person’s gender is always valid. Even if you don’t understand. It's important to show respect and if you don't know, just ask them. #PronounsDay #InternationalPronounsDay pic.twitter.com/Pqho8LoEpJ

— Rape & Sexual Abuse Counselling Centre – Co.Durham (@RSACCdarlo) October 19, 2022

Replies are closed. Retweets are hostile.… Read the rest

Oh yay, we’ve got some of the world’s worst air quality today. Go Seattle!

As the days of smoke-filled air from ongoing wildfires in the Cascades continue, air quality in Seattle remains an issue.

It’s been unremittingly bad for two weeks now. Today it’s worse.

The city ranked fifth worldwide for poor [bad] air quality and pollution as of Wednesday morning, according to IQAir, a Swiss air-quality technology company that also operates a real-time air-quality information platform. Portland and Vancouver, B.C., also ranked in the Top 10, along with cities in China, India and Pakistan.

Where oh where oh where are the adults? Where did they all go? What are they doing? Why are they hiding? When will they get a fucking grip?

Today is International Pronouns Day. Using people’s chosen pronouns affirms human dignity that fosters inclusivity, respect and a sense of belonging. Visit our website for four simple ways you can help raise awareness. #PronounsDay https://t.co/Ceufm1EMvX

— Waterloo Region DSB (@wrdsb) October 19, 2022

First the boring obvious for the millionth time: there’s no such thing as “people’s chosen pronouns” because people don’t get to “choose” special personal meanings for public language.

Much more to the point, humoring people about “their pronouns” absolutely does not affirm human dignity, it treats people as if … Read the rest

Billy Bragg writes in the New Statesman about how “reactionary” people have to be accountable, apparently to people like for instance Billy Bragg.

When pressed on whether his idea of accountability included the abuse suffered by JK Rowling following her statements on trans women, [Graham] Norton suggested that it might be more illuminating to talk to trans children and their parents, rather than merely amplifying the opinions of a celebrity or author – even a very good one. 

Says a celebrity writing in the New Statesman, which he probably wouldn’t be able to do if he weren’t a celebrity.

But more to the point: what are “trans children”?

What if there are no “trans children,” but only children swept … Read the rest

Victoria Smith in The Critic:

Self-censorship is like housework: the vast majority of it is done by women, and men only notice when they think we’ve missed a bit. 

She’s writing about Graham Norton and his ill-informed views on JK Rowling, but of course the pattern is ubiquitous.

This is true not just about discussions of sex and gender, but female experience both in the home and in public space: there is so much we do not say, to which men remain completely oblivious. They do not appreciate all our silences, all our accommodations. All they notice are the inconvenient truths we do choose to utter. For those, we are damned. 

One comfort here is that that makes being … Read the rest

But we were told this never happens.

A woman was allegedly raped by a sex offender at a women’s shelter in Ontario, Canada after the predator identified as transgender in order to gain access to the facility.

Shane Jacob Green, 25, was arrested on August 24 by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). At the time, the OPP issued a notice stating Green had been charged with two counts of sexual assault, four counts of failing to comply with a probation order, and one count of failing to comply with a release order.

But new details have emerged through the Toronto Sun revealing that Green’s crimes occurred while he was staying in a women’s emergency shelter in Parry Sound.

He’d already … Read the rest

And fourteen billion eyes rolled in unison.

Today is International Pronouns Day, and we're looking to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace.

Here are some tips:
✨ ASK
✨ RESPECT
✨ PRACTICE#PrideInSport #LGBTQ #InternationalPronounsDay #Pronouns #Respect #Dignity pic.twitter.com/0sHbSQ0y05

— Commonwealth Games Australia (@CommGamesAUS) October 19, 2022

… Read the rest

Primum non nocere.

Sure is wild to be in trial over medical care where the claim is that the medical care is harmful and should be banned when the care is the only reason why you are able to be alive and lawyering and defending it.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) October 18, 2022

There’s so much wrong with this one tweet from an ACLU lawyer.

One thing wrong with it is that trying to change people’s sex isn’t “medical care.” Even if it treats something (misery, anxiety, self-hatred) it isn’t medical – it doesn’t cure any illness or mend any bone. I don’t know exactly what it should be called, but I think “medical care” is way too misleading, not … Read the rest

And speaking of Saudi Arabia and grotesque levels of suppression and punitive absence of rights, meet Ron DeSantis’s Florida:

This is wild!! https://t.co/nRoMggpAsp pic.twitter.com/UOKEF84ulU

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) October 18, 2022

I stopped breathing while watching this clip. You know how you do, in shock and disbelief? Like that.

The Tampa Bay Times has details:

When police went to arrest Tony Patterson outside his Tampa home in August, he couldn’t believe the reason.

“What is wrong with this state, man?” Patterson protested as he was being escorted to a police car in handcuffs. “Voter fraud? Y’all said anybody with a felony could vote, man.”

Body-worn camera footage recorded by local police captured the confusion and outrage of Hillsborough County

Whichaya gonna choose, human rights or the ability to gas up the ol’ SUV every couple of days?

It’s the SUV every time, of course.

A US national held in Saudi Arabia has received a 16-year jail sentence for writing tweets critical of the government, his son has told the BBC.

Saad Ibrahim Almadi, 72, who also has Saudi citizenship, was arrested in November after he travelled from Florida to Riyadh to see his family. His son has now spoken out for the first time publicly, going against what he says has been US official advice.

Ibrahim Almadi said he did not want to see his father die in prison. He alleged that Saad had been held in conditions

Even Amnesty International stopped short of calling it a right, in fact it explicitly disavowed calling it a right.

Amnesty International has formally adopted a policy calling for the decriminalisation of adult sex work and repeal of most laws around the world controlling prostitution.

The organisation’s stance on protecting sex workers is set out in a global programme published on Thursday that draws on fresh research about the industry in Argentina, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and Norway.

“This policy does not argue that there is a human right to buy sex or a human right to financially benefit from the sale of sex by another person,” Amnesty said. “Rather, it calls for sex workers to be protected from

Oh good, another man reports on a man in charge of a rape crisis center and the evil women who don’t want men running rape crisis centers. The man reporting is Adam Ramsay at Open Democracy, and the man in charge of the rape crisis center is Mridul Wadhwa. Adam Ramsay just can’t say enough about how evil these women are for objecting to men forcing their way into women’s spaces.

Warning: this piece discusses transphobia.

Warning: this piece is hostile to women.

“It’s only recently that I’ve really stopped looking over my shoulder or not thinking actively that I could be harmed,” Mridul Wadhwa, the [Edinburgh] centre’s director, told us. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think I

Dammit.

An Iranian athlete who made headlines for refusing to wear a hijab while competing overseas has reportedly gone missing.

Elnaz Rekabi, 33, shunned the Islamic Republic’s restrictions while representing her country at the Asian Sport Climbing Championships in Seoul on Sunday.

Sources close to Rekabi told the BBC that they had been unable to contact her since Monday night.

I was listening to BBC World Service just now and they reported that she’s on a plane bound for Tehran, and the betting is she’ll be arrested on arrival.

All because she doesn’t wear a fucking blanket over her head while climbing a rock wall.… Read the rest

Another friendship broken over the endlessly escalating demands of trans ideology:

A schism has erupted in environmental politics after the Scottish Greens voted to cut ties with the UK party over claims of “trans abuse”.

Meaning abuse that identifies as abuse but is actually just a non-conforming opinion?

Members overwhelmingly backed a motion to suspend “formal association” with the Green Party in England and Wales on the second day of their Scottish party’s conference in Dundee.

Terfs in the sugar bowl was it?

The Rainbow Greens, a group representing LGBTQ+ members of the Scottish Greens, submitted the motion, accusing the Greens of “transphobic bigotry”, “homophobic bigotry” and disrespecting the devolution settlement.

I’m beginning to wonder of Scottish trans … Read the rest

The New Scientist last week:

Men who played rugby union at an international level are more than twice as likely to develop dementia as the general population and three times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease https://t.co/PqnMxoDx6U

— New Scientist (@newscientist) October 9, 2022

New Scientist today:

Among people who menstruate, the length of their menstrual cycle may vary according to their ethnicity. https://t.co/PLviWf625w

— New Scientist (@newscientist) October 17, 2022

… Read the rest

Willful, determined stupidity from David Futrelle:

Does J.K. Rowling believe that trans people — or at least trans women — don’t deserve the presumption of innocence? That seems to be the clear implication of an op-ed she wrote for the Times (UK) today. But she is cagey enough in her wording that she can and probably will figure out a way to say, my goodness, I wasn’t saying anything of the kind.

Or to put it another way, she’s precise enough in her wording that she is in fact not saying anything of the kind.

Before we get to her wording – presumption of innocence isn’t a magic talisman that applies to everyone on all occasions in all … Read the rest

Jennifer Rubin says don’t go thinking forced birthism isn’t part of Trumpism:

Pundits and politicians tend to observe a bright distinction between the Donald Trump MAGA movement’s assault on democracy and the right-wing evisceration of women’s reproductive rights.

Do they? I hadn’t noticed. I don’t. I suppose if asked I would say I think any opposition to abortion Trump claims is basically opportunistic, but then that’s true of nearly everything Trump says. I’m sure he’s quite happy to stick it to the bitches along with sticking it to the feminists and lefties and Democrats and yadda yadda, but I doubt he has a systematic worked-out plan as opposed to a determination to do whatever he feels like doing in the … Read the rest

We must not keep males out of women’s sports unless a male actually smashes a girl to the ground leaving her concussed.

“A wise legislature does not go out looking for social issues to tap,” said [North Carolina] Republican House leader Tim Moore when he declined to put the Save Women’s Sports Act up for a vote last year. Moore said the House would not consider legislation prohibiting biological males from competing against girls in school sports without examples.

Now the House has its example (but it said examples – how many does it need?).

During a girls’ tournament last month, a Highlands High volleyball player pelted a Hiwassee Dam High player in the forehead with the ball during a

When the cops are criminalish themselves:

Metropolitan [London] police officers suspected of serious criminal offences including sexual assault and domestic abuse have been allowed to escape justice, a damning review has found, with the force’s leader admitting that hundreds of racist, women-hating and corrupt officers have been left in the ranks.

Not really what you want in a police force. Cops who hate women aren’t the ideal people to call if you’re a woman reporting a rape.

Massive failings in how Britain’s biggest force roots out wrongdoing were exposed in a report by Louise Casey, which found “systemic” racism in the Met, and misogyny.

One officer faced 11 claims including sexual assault, harassment and domestic abuse, but remains in