An endorsement.

I too believe in the basic principles of liberal democracy

I think that people trying to dismantle them need to come up with some very good reasons https://t.co/s5QyXgd5QG

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 9, 2022

… Read the rest

Scottish Government to women (on International Women’s Day): sucks to be you.

THREAD: The Scottish Government has finalised the Explanatory Notes for the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 for the Freedom of Expression provision. https://t.co/CTAlLvl64x

— MurrayBlackburnMackenzie (@mbmpolicy) March 9, 2022

The then Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf stated to the Committee that he was “making an offer to those who would like to see more specific detail in the bill” & would engage with stakeholders to put more details into the Explanatory Notes to secure a “common-ground compromise”. pic.twitter.com/Y0Bv5MSKtT

— MurrayBlackburnMackenzie (@mbmpolicy) March 9, 2022

You can see how important this is. It’s about how easy it will be for the cops in Scotland to haul women … Read the rest

Apparently “queer” people have been denied access to the outdoors?

Meet the queer hikers proving the great outdoors isn't just for cis, straight, middle class folk https://t.co/gPYw3LZQR4

— PinkNews (@PinkNews) March 9, 2022

I’ll be darned. I could have sworn it was just for cis, straight, middle class “folk.” (What are “middle class folk” anyway? Is that similar to middle class peasants and middle class working stiffs?)

PN explains:

Ailish had personal reasons for setting up Queer Out Here. They grew up in the Yorkshire countryside where a love for the outdoors was practically mandatory. After university, and a period in which they stopped exploring the outdoors, Ailish “rediscovered it and found how beneficial it was for my mental

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on The problem was dogma.

The problem with this whole discussion as I see it is that beliefs are just taken as a given rather than the outcome of some cognitive process in their own right, even if it’s just accepting what you’ve always been told. My main problem with faith-based religion (and its secular equivalents) was always the part about leaving the most important questions in life – questions with real-world consequences and implications for the way we treat others – up to blind faith in the first place. I don’t think it’s any kind of excuse or mitigating circumstance to be doing the right thing as we see it if the … Read the rest

JKR is clearly all in, and for the long haul.

Someone please send the Shadow Minister for Equalities a dictionary and a backbone.#HappyInternationalWomensDay https://t.co/2dXZivMHyO

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 8, 2022

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1501291633165357056 https://twitter.com/millihill/status/1501334649754329093

This morning you told the British public you literally can't define what a woman is. What's the plan, lift up random objects until you find one that rattles? https://t.co/QoBPt5HpKf

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 8, 2022

HAhahahahahahaha that’s a good one.

Yep, all in.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on A kind of Turing test.

In atheist forums I often promoted an unpopular opinion: the religious were no less ethical than we were. On the whole, they share the same values and moral goals. Even the Nazis didn’t really differ in their sense of right & wrong, or commitment to fairness, from the people they persecuted.

Because change what you thought were the facts, and you change what’s right and wrong. If God was a God of Love and homosexuals subvert the Loving Natural Order, thus harming not only themselves but leading whole nations into damnation, then gay marriage is wrong. And fighting against it is right. It does no good to see … Read the rest

Suzanne Moore on International Women’s Day:

As a feminist, though, I would indeed like the world to be a better place for women – and by the world, I don’t mean north London or a campus in California; I mean Herat, Tigray, Guatemala. For all the arguments about equality for women amount to nothing if we lose an international perspective. Feminism is global, or it is simply an exercise in consumer power dressed up as politics. That is exactly what happened to Western feminism in the 1990s, when everything from brunching to boob jobs was “empowering”.

Seriously. You don’t see women in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or Nigeria running around exclaiming about their trans sisters – they have other … Read the rest

Meanwhile, we just can’t figure out what a woman is.

Woman’s Hour starting at 21:15:

Emma Barnett: And Labour’s definition of a woman?

Labour Equalities Shadow Minster Annalise Dodds: Well, I have to say that there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is, I mean you look at the definition within the Equality Act and I think it just says someone who is adult and female I think but that doesn’t say how you define either of those things – I mean that said obviously you’ve got the biological definition, the legal definition –

In short we just don’t quite know. There are different definitions, it all depends, you have to ask around, there’s the legal definition … Read the rest

In London you can be fined for it.

Just one in every 1,000 drivers reported for unnecessary idling of their engines were fined in central London, data has revealed.

Toxic air pollution kills about 4,000 people every year in the capital and councils have targeted parked drivers who do not turn off their vehicles.

In Westminster, more than 70,000 idling drivers have been reported since 2017 via the council’s “report it” website. But only 63 fines of £80 were issued and just half of these were paid.

Damn I wish we could report it here. People do it more than they used to rather than less.

Air pollution may be damaging every organ in the human

The Vagina Museum kept its word, with 22 tweets celebrating men pretending to be women. Like…

Sisters LANA AND LILLY WACHOWSKI (1965-, 1967-) continue to smash box office records together in their careers as directors, producers and writers. Their 1999 film The Matrix is considered one of the greatest movies of all time, and is seen by many as a transgender metaphor. pic.twitter.com/vp7Xp22y61

— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) March 8, 2022

That one in particular interests me because the man looks frankly scary. You wouldn’t want to be trapped anywhere alone with him – he has that “I’m just barely keeping my temper” look. I think the Vagina Museum chose that photo for that reason. I don’t understand why they did … Read the rest

One day. We can’t even have one day.

This #InternationalWomensDay we're going to talk about trans women in history. We've turned replies off, because we know some people would prefer these stories to be erased and silenced.

— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) March 8, 2022

They’ve turned replies off because they know this is a calculated, intentional, with malice aforethought insult to women. “This International Women’s Day we’re going to talk about men, so fuck you, Karen.”… Read the rest

Originally a comment by latsot on Sitting on the gender spectrum.

I’ve tried many times (as have others) to engage with gender identity fans on this point, asking them to state the GC position in such a way that a typical person broadly on the GC side would agree with it. A sort of Turing test. I’ve spent considerable amounts of time and effort on this and on trying to return the favour: on trying to state the TA position such that a typical TA person would agree.

You know what? I’ve never had the slightest success in either direction.

When they’ve even made an attempt to state the GC position with any honesty at all (rare), we’ve never … Read the rest

Oh and what else is Rowling up to today? Nothing much…

I will personally match donations to this appeal, up to £1m. Thank you so, so much to all who’ve already donated, you’re enabling @lumos to do crucial work for some of the most vulnerable children in Ukraine. https://t.co/XK8yTtB1nl

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 7, 2022

… Read the rest

Never?

I’ve never, to my knowledge, encouraged anyone to bully anyone else. And I can imagine only too well what Julie has had to face in her years of feminist activism. I think she’s more resilient than me- but she should not have had to be. Nor does it excuse the way she’s acting now.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 7, 2022

Where have I said that?

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 7, 2022

See TERF Wars: Why Transphobia Has no Place in Feminism, from June 2020:

Last week, beloved children’s author J.K. Rowling briefly became the world’s most famous transphobe. After the Harry Potter writer spent days defending transphobia on Twitter and in her blog, writing that she

Or to put it more succinctly –

oh. https://t.co/s4B6q5Cdfw https://t.co/pgcSLHNrGk pic.twitter.com/SVYkiOiTzz

— Admiral Invalidator (@Artofhunger75) March 7, 2022

… Read the rest

Another chapter in the crisps on a train saga.

Thoughts and prayers, Julie.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 7, 2022

Just in case you missed Apparently it’s considered unprofessional, or have forgotten the details, Laurie Penny tweeted to the world yesterday that bad reviews of her book set off her (putative) CPTSD. Julie is satirizing that absurd claim, and JKR is sharing the joke. So what does the putative CPTSD sufferer do? She makes a public fool of herself all over again. Somebody really should tell her she’s the source of her own CPTSD.

Hi Joanne. I’ve loved so much of your writing over the years. I’m the person whose mental health history is being mocked in this tweet,

How to react when your book is greeted with harsh reviews:

Wildly hateful reviews and straight-up personal attacks were placed prominently in a number of major broadsheets. The focus was almost wholly on my sexuality, my gender identity and sexual history. Everyone- my agent, my publishers, me- was taken by surprise at the viciousness. >

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 6, 2022

Apparently it’s considered unprofessional to respond to reviews. But in this case, those involved in the hit-job are the ones who behaved unprofessionally. I’m done pretending otherwise. They knew exactly what they were doing, and frankly they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 6, 2022

It’s unprofessional to write a review saying Laurie … Read the rest

The ACLU tells us:

Families in Texas are worried that supporting their transgender kids will lead to a report of child abuse. We are already seeing families being investigated. Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, saves lives, and shouldn’t be the subject of an investigation.

Supporting transgender kids is one thing, and letting them get amputations and/or puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones is another. The ACLU does not know that what it calls “gender-affirming care” (i.e. amputations, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones) is medically necessary, nor does it know that it saves more lives than it puts at risk. This is all new territory and it’s just not obvious, let alone established, that there won’t be thousands of people who regret … Read the rest

Trump said we should bomb Russia and pretend China did it. Sound and reasonable as ever.

Former president Donald Trump mused Saturday to the GOP’s top donors that the United States should label its F-22 planes with the Chinese flag and “bomb the shit out of Russia.”

…

“And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch,” he said of labeling U.S. military planes with Chinese flags and bombing Russia, which was met with laughter from the crowd of donors, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post.

Hahahaheehee it is all such a great joke.… Read the rest

Charlie Porter is a fashion journalist who thinks he’s a gender-rebel.

I am 48, a midlife point that gives me perspective on what I maybe didn’t realise before. I have always used clothing to poke at the assumptions of gender. As a kid, I had safe parameters from my whiteness and middle-class upbringing within an accepting family. Where I sit on the gender spectrum is like a comedy version of “male”, which has allowed me to pass lightly in this patriarchal society.

Others, he hints, are not so capacious in their thinking.

According to gender-critical feminists, men who voice their trans-inclusive beliefs on gender identity are bullies and misogynists. It is common among such men to desire the dismantling