There are some oddities in the Nottingham Council axes Julie Bindel’s talk at the library story.

Council chiefs cancelled a talk by Julie Bindel, the feminist writer, on protecting women from male violence because it contradicts their position on trans rights.

The talk was scheduled at (and by) the library. Do city councils generally oversee items like what talks libraries are allowed to present? Do they generally veto decisions of that kind, on the grounds that they don’t like the speaker’s ideas?

It doesn’t sound right to me. I’m not an expert in city government but I live in a city and I did work for a city department for several years. It’s my impression that city departments do their … Read the rest

Even the National Women’s Law Center refuses to say it.

Interesting trick, being a national women’s law center while refusing to mention women.

https://twitter.com/nwlc/status/1540669950276280323

Blah blah blah do this do that but above all DON’T MENTION WOMEN.

https://twitter.com/nwlc/status/1540398281703956483

No sign of women in that one – you, our, we, our, our, we, we, you – but no women.

President Biden just announced that his administration will defend people's right to access mifepristone and travel across state lines to access care.

Ensuring people can access abortion care through this chaos will require all of us doing everything possible to support access. https://t.co/iZ7kQzhEU2

— National Women's Law Center (@nwlc) June 24, 2022

People people. Sssshhhhh don’t mention women.

One tiny stumble – … Read the rest

Obama does it.

Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 24, 2022

Someone – Americans – but no women.

Today, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade, opening the door to statewide bans that disproportionately harm Black people. pic.twitter.com/qfx1exf4dT

— Movement 4 Black Lives (@Mvmnt4BlkLives) June 24, 2022

People.

You you you our we you:

SCOTUS may have just ended our constitutional right to abortion, but know this: Abortion is health care, and you deserve to control your body and your future, no matter what.

… Read the rest

Planned Parenthood also not helping. Pinned tweet:

BREAKING: The Supreme Court just overturned Roe v. Wade, ending our constitutional right to abortion. We know you may be feeling a lot of things right now — hurt, anger, confusion. Whatever you feel is OK. We’re here with you — and we’ll never stop fighting for you.

— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) June 24, 2022

You, you, you, you. Who? Who are you?

Women. Women, of course, but it doesn’t do to say so.… Read the rest

ACLU not helping AS USUAL.

If you’re a person trying to to get an abortion, don’t give up.

Contact your local abortion clinic to find out if they are able to provide the care you need and what other options are available. You can also find a list of clinics that are still open at https://t.co/BWvkaGY8ko.

— ACLU (@ACLU) June 24, 2022

It’s not persons this enslavement is done to, it’s WOMEN.

The ACLU is so determinedly not an ally that it’s become an enemy. Yesterday of all days they still erased women – when talking about abortion needs!… Read the rest

More responses to Nottingham City Council’s libelous and misogynist actions and statement:

https://twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1540682255852519424 https://twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1540654865759731713

The misogynists that succeeded in persuading the library to cancel my talk. Two of them told me I was Julie Burchill, and that they had come to protest her Stupid as well as nasty is a very dangerous combination. pic.twitter.com/YuUBoIa0fk

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) June 25, 2022

We held the event in the street, because Nottingham City Council banned us from library: pic.twitter.com/36Vl528y8K

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) June 25, 2022

… Read the rest

Reactions to Nottingham Council’s breezy libeling of Julie Bindel are harsh.

A library banning a woman writer with a history of writing about women's rights. How very progressive.

— Rosie Duffield MP (@RosieDuffield1) June 25, 2022

“This is why we cancelled a lesbian woman who has decades of track history working for women and girls and their safety because some unfathomable influential trans identified men told us to hate her so we did” …. Cowards.

— Jean Hatchet (@JeanHatchet) June 25, 2022

An excellent question. I'd also like to know if Stonewall had sight of this before publication, since they are being blamed for the decision.

— Billy Bragg in a Billion (@CroneInAMillion) June 25, 2022

You might want to

… Read the rest

Nottingham City Council offers a “statement.”

https://twitter.com/MyNottingham/status/1540610180920008704

Ok I read the statement. It’s a complete crock of shit.

[Generalized apology and explanation and warning. I’m going to be swearing a lot for the foreseeable future. I’m feeling a level of rage and alienation I wasn’t expecting (it was very unimaginative of me not to expect it).]

A complete crock of shit, I say.

Nottingham City Council has cancelled a booking to use a space at Aspley Library for a talk by author Julie Bindel today (Saturday 25 June). This is due to the speaker’s views on trans gender rights being at odds with aspects of the council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

Explain yourselves! What views? What aspects? … Read the rest

From Pliny:… Read the rest

Starting today.

Abortion bans that were put on the books in some states in the event Roe v. Wade was overturned started automatically going into effect Friday, while clinics elsewhere — including Alabama, Texas and West Virginia — stopped performing abortions for fear of prosecution, sending women away in tears.

“Some patients broke down and could not speak through their sobbing,” said Katie Quinonez, executive director of West Virginia’s lone abortion clinic, whose staff spent the day calling dozens of patients to cancel their appointments. “Some patients were stunned and didn’t know what to say. Some patients did not understand what was happening.”

…

In Alabama, the state’s three abortion clinics stopped performing the procedure for fear providers would

… Read the rest

Fresh Air yesterday:

The Supreme Court is wrapping up its term, and it’s expected that the court will overturn Roe v. Wade. A draft of Justice Alito’s majority opinion that was leaked early last month would end the federally guaranteed constitutional right to abortion and allow states to write their own abortion laws. This is happening as we approach the 50th anniversary of Roe. We’re going to talk about how we got here and what might happen next.

My guest, Mary Ziegler, has written several books and many articles and op-eds about the debates and battles over abortion. She says overturning Roe isn’t the final goal of the anti-abortion movement. Her new book is called “Dollars For Life: The

… Read the rest

Still the Times – sorry it doesn’t provide links for individual pieces the way Guardian Live (for instance) does.

Representative Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, was seated in the same Planned Parenthood where she chose to have an abortion after an assault, listening to providers and advocates talk about the challenges of their work at a roundtable when her chief of staff passed her a phone. The Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade.

“Sitting in the same place where it was easy to access, and sitting in the same place where those rights were stripped away from people who right now are in the same situation that I was in,” she recalled. “It broke me down. I was just

… Read the rest

Compare and contrast:

Around the world, many governments have been moving toward easier access to abortion, with more than 50 countries liberalizing their laws in the past three decades.

But the US, proud of its unique backwardness, is dashing in the opposite direction.

By contrast, a recent Supreme Court brief filed by abortion providers said that overruling Roe puts “the United States in the company of countries like Poland and Nicaragua as one of only a few countries moving toward greater restrictions on legal access to abortion in the past 20 years.”

Priest-ridden Ireland is better than we are.… Read the rest

When Boris Johnson is better than the US Supreme Court:

Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, characterized the Supreme Court decision as a “big step backward.”

Speaking at a news conference in Kigali, Rwanda, at a meeting of leaders of Commonwealth countries, Mr. Johnson acknowledged that the ruling was from another jurisdiction, but added that “clearly it has massive impacts on people’s thinking around the world. It’s a very important decision.”

“I think it’s a big step backward,” Mr. Johnson said, “I’ve always believed in a woman’s right to choose, and I stick to that view, and that’s why the U.K. has the laws that it does.”

Well not exactly – the UK doesn’t have the laws it does because … Read the rest

Next level:

Another speaker—Matt Sande, legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin—calls the likely repeal of Roe v. Wade “a great first step,” adding that his group will then work to remove the exception for saving the life of the mother from the 1849 Wisconsin anti-abortion law that could go back into effect if Roe is overturned. “This is a spiritual battle,” he says, urging people to “just pray they stick to this [leaked draft] Alito decision.”

Emphasis mine.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by artymorty on A pivotal moment.

That openness attracts some transgender people who empathize with Ariel’s agony of being trapped in a body that feels wrong.

That’s a euphemistic way of saying there’s a big overlap between crossdressing and roleplaying as a mermaid (or a furry, or something infantile like a child’s doll or even a child in diapers). And I can imagine that mermaid-dom has much of the same problem as furrydom (and babydom and doll-dom and trans-dom): that parents let kids and young people get involved thinking it’s harmless roleplay or some kind of special identity, completely unaware that for a lot of the adults in the group, it’s a highly sexual activity. I’ve … Read the rest

As expected, Trump’s Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade.

The Supreme Court on Friday overruled Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years in a decision that will transform American life, reshape the nation’s politics and lead to all but total bans on the procedure in about half of the states.

In a decision that sends a message to American women that we are not fully autonomous humans, that we don’t have basic human rights, that we don’t deserve basic human rights, that we are not allowed to veto a takeover of our own bodies, that our own bodies don’t even belong to us.

In a decision that sends a message to … Read the rest

Uh oh. Are terfs about to be shoved off the naughty step by merfs?

Mermaids, that’s what the M stands for. We take you now to Sydney for

There was a pivotal moment in Queen Pangke Tabora’s life that eclipsed all others: It was the moment, she says, when she first slid her legs into a mermaid tail.

She what? Where did she get it? Did she murder a mermaid? Did she buy it on the black market from someone who murdered a mermaid? Those things don’t just come off like a pair of jeans you know – they’re the mermaid’s below the waist body.

For the transgender Filipina woman approaching middle age, seeing her legs encased in vibrant, scaly-looking

… Read the rest

Verso deleted the “womb carriers” tweet, and then tried to claw back a little of its credibility.

Key texts for understanding feminism at the intersection of class and race— 40% off!

— Verso Books (@VersoBooks) June 23, 2022

You first.… Read the rest

It looks as if the blockage has been dissolved.

The International Hockey Federation (IHF) and World Triathlon have joined a raft of governing bodies reviewing their policy on the involvement of transgender athletes in women’s sport following last weekend’s ruling by swimming’s top body FINA.

Yesssssssssssssss. Do that.

“We are conducting a review of our transgender policy and this is a current work in progress in consultation with the IOC (International Olympic Committee),” a spokesperson for the IHF told Reuters on Wednesday.

World Triathlon are working on their own guidelines which will be released after the approval of the Executive Board in November, following a review by the medical committee, women’s committee and equality, diversity & inclusion commission.

Once

… Read the rest