The NY Times magazine has a long piece by Emily Bazilon on “gender therapy” and the controversies around it. The language is so shaped by the current ideology that clarity is all but impossible. Like the first sentence for instance:

Scott Leibowitz is a pioneer in the field of transgender health care.

But what is transgender health care? Is it ordinary health care, for trans people? Or is it health care specific to transness? If the latter, what does that include? Blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgeries? If so, is that really health care, or is it something else? Given the drastic nature of it, and the disconnect from actual disease or injury, isn’t it more like attempted psychological care rather than … Read the rest

Same paper, same day, same front page:

New data reveals extraordinary global heating in the Arctic

New data has revealed extraordinary rates of global heating in the Arctic, up to seven times faster than the global average.

The heating is occurring in the North Barents Sea, a region where fast rising temperatures are suspected to trigger increases in extreme weather in North America, Europe and Asia. The researchers said the heating in this region was an “early warning” of what could happen across the rest of the Arctic.

…

“We expected to see strong warming, but not on the scale we found,” said Ketil Isaksen, senior researched at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and who led the work. “We were all

… Read the rest

This is what I’m saying.

Biden calls on US oil refiners to raise gas and diesel production to tackle prices

Climate change? What’s that? Ohhh right, that; yes well that’s a concern but it’s long-term, gas prices are now.

Now trumps long-term, and that’s that.

Joe Biden on Wednesday called on US oil refiners to produce more gasoline and diesel, saying their profits have tripled during a time of war between Russia and Ukraine as Americans struggle with record high prices at the pump.

“The crunch that families are facing deserves immediate action,” the president wrote in a letter to major oil refiners. “Your companies need to work with my Administration to bring forward concrete, near-term solutions that address

… Read the rest

It’s not just the Yale philosophy department (or one member of it). Yale Medicine advertises its “Transgender Glossary: Terms You Can Learn” on Facebook. It was published in March.

An entire vocabulary has evolved around people who are transgender, and if you’re not familiar with the latest terms, you can easily hurt someone’s feelings, even if that’s not your intention. Figuring out a person’s terms can be challenging—the lexicon includes words with meanings that have changed over time and could change again. And because each transgender person is navigating their own path, the best words to use in a conversation with them could vary depending on their circumstances.

It’s funny how no other oppressed or marginalized group has ever made … Read the rest

It turns out there’s a downside to setting up a bomb factory in your house.

A man’s arms were blown off by an explosion at a property that had allegedly been stuffed with an arsenal of guns, ammunition and bombs.

Oops.

The victim, who is in his 30s, was reportedly left in critical condition after the blast at around 3:10 p.m. in Warren, Michigan, on Saturday, June 11.

The explosion ripped apart the garage with a subsequent fire engulfing other parts of the house on the 20700 block of Gentner Street, Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer said.

It’s almost as if all this playing terrorist nonsense is a danger to other people as well as the bomb-maker they-self. I … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on None of the above.

It is a movement full of people who think that because bigots accuse the group of various misbehaviors, anybody accusing them as individuals of that behavior can be dismissed as a bigot, thus giving them some cover to act according to the stereotype.

One of Jason Stanley’s twitter-troll defenders has pointed out, in reference to Jane Clare Jones that “most scholars don’t have PowerPoints on hand to explain why they aren’t Nazis.”

So one is supposed to stay silent in the face of baseless accusations? Because no genderist has EVER made unfounded claims of hatred, violence and trans-genocide. They would NEVER do that. Never ever. … Read the rest

No not that kind of Christian:

A growing number of prominent Christian leaders are sounding alarms about threats to democracy posed by ReAwaken America rallies where Donald Trump loyalists Michael Flynn and Roger Stone and rightwing pastors have spread misinformation about the 2020 elections and Covid-19 vaccines, and distorted Christian teachings.

But of course “Christian teachings” is a very large, and mixed, category. Many Christian teachings fit right in with people like Flynn and Stone and even Trump.

Several well-known Christian leaders, including the president of the Christian social justice group Sojourners and the executive director of a major Baptist group, have called on American churches to speak out against the messages promoted at ReAwaken America rallies that have

… Read the rest

The Art Newspaper reports:

Unveiled as part of this year’s Parcours section at Art Basel is a work being described as the first ever public sculpture depicting a nude, openly trans woman. Designed by the American trans artist Puppies Puppies (aka Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), the work is a life-sized bronze statue in the tradition of classical sculpture, based on a 3D scan of the artist’s body. Written on the work’s plinth is the word: “woman”.

This statue:

https://twitter.com/OkBiology/status/1536723262213967874

Not “Woman”.

“Trans women are erased, murdered, arrested and exiled every day,” Kuriki-Olivo says. “When you look at trans history you see so many blank spots which can only be recovered through storytelling. In this context, my continued existence is revolutionary,

… Read the rest

I thought about doing a post on TullipR’s thread yesterday but it’s so grim I couldn’t face it.

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1536664379881660417

It’s a detransition story, and it’s painful to read…because it’s so beyond painful to experience.

https://twitter.com/TullipR/status/1536619795243839488

This is what’s being called “affirmation” and urged on distraught teenagers who aren’t equipped to understand all the consequences.… Read the rest

It’s often pointed out that one area of life that needs to be absolutely clear about who is a woman is medical care, including pregnancy.

The NHS on miscarriages:

In most cases, a miscarriage is a one-off event and most people go on to have a successful pregnancy in the future.

…

Among people who know they’re pregnant, it’s estimated about 1 in 8 pregnancies will end in miscarriage.

Many more miscarriages happen before a person is even aware they’re pregnant.

Losing 3 or more pregnancies in a row (recurrent miscarriages) is uncommon and only affects around 1 in 100 people

The words “woman” and “women” don’t appear once on that page.

H/t Milli Hill… Read the rest

When the choice is between Proud Boys and Drag Queen Story Hour:

Authorities in the San Francisco Bay area are investigating a possible hate crime after a group of men stormed into a library where a drag queen was hosting a children’s reading event, and allegedly shouted homophobic and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs.

Why do children’s reading events need drag queens?

I suppose it could be like the old panto Dame, or Edna Everidge, but we’ve seen too many reports of such “reading events” that were not that. I don’t think there’s really any burning need for drag queens to do events at the children’s section of the library.

But I certainly don’t want Proud Boys to be the ones making … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Djolaman on Rock climbing without ropes.

There’s a trope about militaries building their strategy for any war according to what worked or conspicuously didn’t in the last war, based on the people in charge often having been in more junior roles learning how things worked at the time. Examples include the US treating Vietnam as a rerun of Korea and coming unstuck very badly, or the French preparing the Maginot line to deal with another iteration of world war 1 and finding it was utterly unsuited to the technological and tactical advances that had taken place by thectime world war 2 broke out.

To a great extent we see what we expect to see, and … Read the rest

So Trump casually said his daughter committed perjury when she testified the other day. Dear ol’ dad.

During an appearance on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon, Mary Trump claimed that her uncle Donald’s dismissive comment that daughter Ivanka had “checked out” when he tried to undermine her taped testimony before the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection could be taken as an accusation she perjured herself.

…

Trump lashed out on TruthSocial at the hearing and included his daughter in his criticism claiming, “Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results,” adding she, “had long since checked out, and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Colin Daniels on Many other women and girls.

Obviously this has been going for a very long time but here in the UK the situation was exacerbated a decade or two ago when the government introduced “league tables”, ostensibly to give the public a measure of how well various institutions were performing. They did it for things like education, health and policing.

What happened, in fact, was that institutions began to focus their efforts in areas that pushed them up the table, in order to increase the funding that they received. “Problem” children, that are difficult to teach; patients, that are difficult to treat; and cases, that are difficult to prosecute, are ignored in favour … Read the rest

Matt Taibbi talks to Kara Dansky:

Kara Dansky, a former WoLF board member and the author of The Abolition of Sex, may be the most outspoken feminist in America when it comes to criticizing popular current beliefs about gender identity. A former ACLU public defender, she’s focused heavily on the presence of biological men in women’s jails, and for her troubles has been essentially booted out of mainstream progressive politics.

Taibbi admits having sat on an interview with Dansky for months because of fear of we know very well what. He apologizes for doing that.

Matt Taibbi: I’ve known some people who identified as trans or as women in my life, who wanted to be called she. As somebody

… Read the rest

Hadley Freeman writes:

Young people have always believed that they know better than the older generation, and now the older generation agrees with them. Middle-aged and experienced editors working in journalism and publishing live in fear of printing something that might displease the twenty-somethings who work in their company’s digital and publicity departments. Parents defer to their teenaged children about the correct languages to use and opinions to hold.

There was that chunk of time when, broadly speaking, the younger generation did know better about some things. The Civil Rights movement, opposition the the war on Vietnam, the return of feminism, the LGB rights movement were all partly generational conflicts. That background left practically everyone with an impression that … Read the rest

Raskin says he knew.

Jamie Raskin on CNN says he thinks the January 6 committee can prove that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election while he was lying about it and trying to overturn the result pic.twitter.com/eeZG1q7r8n

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 12, 2022

I don’t disagree with any of that, it’s just that I think Trump is peculiarly skilled at going on believing what he already believes no matter what other people are telling him – skilled at not listening, in short. He simply pays no attention to things people say that are inconvenient to him, apart from blasting them with dragon breath. He ignores them, in short. That is not a legal defense, I’m pretty sure.

“Barr … Read the rest

The Times has noticed the ACLU’s determination to erase women from abortion rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union, whose advocacy on reproductive rights is of more than a half-century vintage, recently tweeted its alarm about the precarious state of legal abortion:

“Abortion bans disproportionately harm: Black Indigenous and other people of color. The L.G.B.T.Q. community. Immigrants. Young people. Those working to make ends meet. People with disabilities. Protecting abortion access is an urgent matter of racial and economic justice.”

But nothing to do with women. It’s not just the ACLU, the Times correctly points out.

From Planned Parenthood to NARAL Pro-Choice America to the American Medical Association to city and state health departments and younger activists, the word “women” has

… Read the rest

Seeking pre-emptive pardons may turn out to be a mistake.

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack revealed at its inaugural hearing that Donald Trump’s top Republican allies in Congress sought pardons after the January 6 insurrection, a major disclosure that bolstered the claim that the event amounted to a coup and is likely to cause serious scrutiny for those implicated.

Why? Because “Pardons for what, Senator?”

The news that multiple House Republicans asked the Trump White House for pardons – an apparent consciousness of guilt – was one of three revelations portending potentially perilous legal and political moments to come for Trump and his allies.

Note to journalists: don’t ever write a sentence with “portending potentially perilous” in … Read the rest

What’s wrong with this picture?

Brace for heatwaves next week and more often, says Met Office https://t.co/kRYL6f76Px

— The Guardian (@guardian) June 12, 2022

Too easy. The story is about a heatwave. What do you do in a heatwave? Try to stay as cool as possible. What do you not do? Lie in the sun in a bathing suit.… Read the rest