News from museum world:

A museum in London is closing one of its main exhibitions following concerns over “racist, sexist and ableist theories and language”.

The Wellcome Collection says the Medicine Man display is ending after a 15-year run. Founder Henry Wellcome, who died in 1936, collected more than a million objects to give an insight into global health and medicine. The museum has marked the closure as a “significant turning point”.

Controversial objects include a 1916 painting titled “A Medical Missionary Attending to a Sick African” which depicts an African person kneeling in front of a white missionary.

It’s pretty obvious why that would be controversial. I wonder if they could just mark it historical with a note … Read the rest

Party time!

I miss you too, babes pic.twitter.com/Zmp31aYHT3

— Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) November 28, 2022

This obsessive hounding of Kathleen is horrible and deeply strange.

Academia still has not learned the necessary lessons from this.

We need to stop coddling the bullies. https://t.co/ErSuQbGSCu

— Professor Alice Sullivan (@ProfAliceS) November 28, 2022

Alice is right. I am very disappointed in (many of) my professional colleagues in philosophy. They seem to think this is all a bit unseemly and they would rather avert their gaze from misogynist bullying and pass on by.

I thought they had more guts. https://t.co/einldEW7yd

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) November 28, 2022

… Read the rest

Zoe Williams at the Guardian tries to rebuke Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for not having approved opinions:

Five years ago, the writer said in an interview: “When people talk about, ‘Are trans women women?’ my feeling is trans women are trans women.” She has written extensively about the fire she came under after that.

…

This is the driving logic of her fear for free speech: that she can’t say biological sex is inalienable without sparking a storm. “So somebody who looks like my brother – he says, ‘I’m a woman’, and walks into the women’s bathroom, and a woman goes, ‘You’re not supposed to be here’, and she’s transphobic?” We break briefly so I can look at a photo of

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on What Jesus had.

Hang on. “Evidence” based on “Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion” is from images created centuries after the event being depicted, interpreted through the lens of gender-theoretical wishful thinking invented centuries later still. That is a helluva long chain of evidence, but then if you’re a gender studies “scholar” you can just make shit up as you go along, without the tedious burden of proof. Assertion is sufficient; it’s self ID for “evidence.”

But maybe there’s more to it than we’re giving credit for; perhaps one of these artists came into posession of a contemporaneous, eyewitness sketch made on Golgotha? We already know that depictions of … Read the rest

Speaking of rights, and “trans rights,” and the refusal ever to define exactly what “trans rights” are – a gaggle of “trans activists” have scored another self-defeating triumph.

Yet again women are being censored. The fightback will have to get even tougher and more organised https://t.co/vQxsvJRPuO

— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) November 27, 2022

Just got to Nottingham for @AHFdoco to the trans activist shower who have managed to get the film showing cancelled. A film about women with a full room of women wanting to view it. And these men and their handmaidens have stopped us. We will still meet and talk. pic.twitter.com/VgEJuiz5kN

— Jean Hatchet (@JeanHatchet) November 27, 2022

“Trans rights are human rights” they chant idiotically, as if … Read the rest

Trans rows are splitting the Greens, the Times says.

…the Green Party has now been accused of neglecting its core aims after becoming so embroiled in arguments about gender that three prominent members are suing over the issue.

The trio allege they were disciplined, abused and even assaulted over their views on trans rights. 

Wait. That’s not the right way to frame it. That makes it sound as if dissenters want to remove actual rights from trans people. We don’t. The point is that there are endless wild claims about putative trans rights that aren’t rights at all, for anyone. I don’t have any right to force people to agree that I’m a tree or a tank or … Read the rest

So would I.

Once again, I would like to know, why is this happening? pic.twitter.com/DpmPtPXwjd

— Dr Liz Asher (@Dr_LizAsher) November 26, 2022

On the one hand, anyone with a cervix. On the other hand, anyone with a prostate men aged 50 and older.

On the one hand, anyone with a cervix. On the other hand, real people who matter.… Read the rest

Trendy god-botherer says Jesus was maybe trans.

Jesus could have been transgender, according to a University of Cambridge dean.

Dr Michael Banner, the dean of Trinity College, said such a view was “legitimate” after a row over a sermon by a Cambridge research student that claimed Christ had a “trans body”, The Telegraph can disclose.

The “truly shocking” address at last Sunday’s evensong at Trinity College chapel, saw Joshua Heath, a junior research fellow, display Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion that depicted a side wound that the guest preacher likened to a vagina.

Time out. I have to spend a few minutes laughing here.

Right. Some medieval and Renaissance paintings of the crucifixion show a stab … Read the rest

Finn Mackay continues not to answer the many people who have asked “What rights are you talking about when you say ‘What do we want: trans rights, when do we want them: NOW.'”

It’s odd. It seems like a perfectly good opportunity to say what trans rights, so as to further public understanding of the trans cause.

Maybe Mackay understands that the purported rights aren’t actually rights? That no one has a “right” to force people to agree that people are a thing they visibly obviously unmistakably are not? That men don’t have a “right” to take over women’s sports? That men who say they are trans don’t matter more than women? Maybe Mackay realizes the shouting and threatening and … Read the rest

More on the friendly Florida teet-deleter:

Gallagher markets this surgery to teens on their app, with their slang and their pop songs. She has been reported to the FTC for allegedly engaging in deceptive marketing to minors. I did a deep dive into her social media and found a lot of evidence for that charge. pic.twitter.com/xq8IJU0KRt

— Sasha White (@iamGrushenka) November 24, 2022

Ah yes, that’s so funny, that face expressing confusion/disgust at the very idea that it’s not ethical to market mutilations, let alone performing them. Yes, doc, there are ethical reasons for not rushing to slice off teenagers’ breasts or penises on demand.… Read the rest

It was probably humans who killed off the megafauna.

For a long time, these extinctions were thought to be linked to natural changes in the environment – until 1966, when palaeontologist Paul S Martin put forward his controversial “overkill hypothesis” that humans were responsible for the extinctions of megafauna, destroying the romantic vision of early humans living in harmony with nature.

Well, it was harmony from the early humans’ point of view.

Prof Mark Maslin, from University College London (UCL), suggests that the unsustainable hunting of megafauna may have been one of the driving forces that led humans to domesticate plants and animals. People started farming in at least 14 different places, independently of each other, from

… Read the rest

The word seems to have gotten out at last that when trans people demand trans rights we need to get them to specify what rights. I said as much to Dr Finn Mackay and then saw that so had many other people.

https://twitter.com/Finn_Mackay/status/1596475413999407105

What rights? What rights does Mackay mean? What rights do trans people not have?

https://twitter.com/HackneyTerven/status/1596541795051409409

What are these rights you are seeking that you currently do not have?

— Ms H (@Ms_H_Survivor) November 26, 2022

I counted 12 more replies saying the same thing and then stopped counting.

Of course Mackay hasn’t answered.… Read the rest

London Fire Brigade institutionally misogynist and racist:

London Fire Brigade is “institutionally misogynist and racist”, according to a damning review into its culture.

A black firefighter had a noose put by his locker, while a female one received video of a colleague exposing himself.

Hey you know what other London institution is misogynist (and we might as well assume racist too) according to report? The police. So, that’s great.

The independent review was established by the London Fire Commissioner after a trainee firefighter took his own life in August 2020.

…

The review, conducted by the former Chief Crown Prosecutor for north-west England, Nazir Afzal, concludes that unless the “toxic culture” is tackled then other firefighters will take their

… Read the rest

So now the LibDems have a new definition of transphobia and the loonies are Leaving the Party.

A number of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats are quitting the party after a formal definition of transphobia was leaked online. A statement, later formally released during Trans Awareness Week, said it was revised due to “greater clarity to the interpretation of the law in this area.”

That is, two lawyers told them their definition is illiberal crap.

Available on the Liberal Democrats website, the new definition rejects “prejudice and discrimination based upon race, ethnicity, caste, heritage, class, religion or belief, age, disability, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation.” However, the new statement added that “Holding and expressing gender critical views, whether in internal

… Read the rest

From Sex Matters November 14:

The Liberal Democrats have revised their definition of transphobia in the light of recent legal cases. 

The previous policy which drew on the work of “organisations such as Stonewall and TransActual UK”.

The definition is dated September 2020 and written by Candy Piercy, Sheila Ritchie and Alice Thomas.

The Lib Dems have always believed trans right are human rights. Over the last year it has become clear that the Party needed to explain what that means in practice. 

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. “The Lib Dems have always believed this thing and we don’t know what it means.” If you don’t know what it means what the fuck is it you believe???

It’s enraging and contemptible … Read the rest

Liberal Voice for Women tells us:

Doubts about the legality of the Liberal Democrats’ “Definition of Transphobia” (published in September 2020, but never approved by Conference) have finally been put to rest by the publication of a second set of legal advice by a KC.

Earlier this year, the Lib Dems commissioned Guy Vassal Adams KC to provide a legal opinion on the lawfulness of the Definition of Transphobia. When that opinion remained unavailable to the membership, a second opinion from Karon Monaghan KC was sought by a member of the Federal Board and published by us here.

Now the first opinion, that was unavailable, has been made available.

While Karon Monaghan was dismissed by party trans activists

… Read the rest

A Mermaid no more.

The chief executive of Mermaids, Susie Green, has left the transgender children’s charity after six years in her post, the organisation announced on Friday.

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In recent months, the charity has found itself under intense public scrutiny, partly as a result of Mermaids’ own decision to launch an appeal against the Charity Commission’s awarding of charitable status to LGB Alliance, which has been critical of “gender ideology’’. It is understood to be the first time one charity has attempted to strip legal status from another.

Separately, in recent weeks, Mermaids also has been the focus of a number of newspaper articles that have called into question its safeguarding policies, prompting the Charity Commission

… Read the rest

This really pisses me off.

The work to end gender-based violence is far from over. But we’re committed to doing that work. Together, we can end the cycle and we can make sure women, girls, and gender diverse people feel safe – both now and into the future. #ItsNotJust #16Days https://t.co/VdUxBMmwYr

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) November 25, 2022

It says it right there in the headline – international day for the elimination of violence against women. WOMEN. But we can’t have that, can we – women just don’t matter enough to have a whole day to themselves, not even a day for the elimination of violence against us. We have to share everything.

That’s because we’re not fully people. … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on It’s like voting to annul gravity.

It’s like voting to annul gravity. Gravitation is never going to be brought to book, or appear in the dock. The world won’t give a shit, and people will keep falling down, even if you do lock up everyone who points this out unfortunate fact. Punishing the people who know how reality works, and arresting those who “calls it as they sees it” is all they’ll be able manage.

This kind of thing has happened before. Stalin’s regime decreed that natural selection was invalid. They rounded up all the geneticists and killed them or sent them to the gulags. They set about restructuring the nation’s agriculture around … Read the rest

Five an hour.

A new study by UNODC and UN Women shows that, on average, more than five women or girls were killed every hour by someone in their own family in 2021. The report comes ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25 and is a horrific reminder that violence against women and girls is one of the most pervasive human rights violations worldwide.

Yes yes yes, very terrible, now we have to talk about the tragic fate of men who say they are women.

This year’s figures also show that over the past decade, the overall number of female homicides has remained largely unchanged, underscoring the urgency to prevent and

… Read the rest