Suzanne Moore on Laurie Penny’s attempt to claim oppression by Julie Bindel:

I do find it bizarre how an actual lesbian, à la Bindel, can be criticised by a person (I won’t use the offensive word woman) in a heterosexual marriage to a bloke for putting down “LGBTQ authors”. (I don’t know if said bloke is self-identified as a bloke, and care even less.) Penny plays as ever to their American audience; Bindel doesn’t play this game at all. She doesn’t have the time; she has actual feminism to do. 

…

I do realise it is very “bio-essentialist” of me to refer to myself being the mother of an actual young person, because the Penny persona depends on being

… Read the rest

The Times on the police abuse of Jennifer Swayne:

Jennifer Swayne, 53, was detained for more than 12 hours after placing posters around Newport that made claims about trans women in prisons and said “humans never change sex” and that men in dresses should stay out of women’s spaces.

She accused Gwent police of operating “like the Stasi” after they raided her home and took a book of essays on “the theory and practice of transgendering children”. Edited by Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans, an academic previously no-platformed by university students, the book contends that politics rather than science accounts for the rise in the number of transgender children. Swayne said that police did not say why they took the book,

… Read the rest

The BBC also did a sloppy lazy story yesterday on how the Newport police abused a woman for putting stickers on lampposts. Some of the wording is identical to that of the trainee reporter for the South Wales Argus; I don’t know if one copied the other (or which came first) or they both drew from another source. Anyway it’s bad and insidious crap.

A 53-year-old woman has been arrested after stickers were placed around a city “directed towards the transgender community”.

A sloppy lazy unsupported claim right in the lede. Who says that’s how the stickers were “directed”? Why say that in the lede when in fact the stickers don’t mention “the transgender community”? Why tilt the story … Read the rest

A guy in India has set out to persuade men to stop treating women’s bodies as swear-words.

The speaker, Sunil Jaglan, begins with a question, “Raise your hand if you have used cuss words that name mother’s, sister’s or women’s intimate body parts?”

People smile sheepishly, looking around for moral support before awkwardly raising their hands, “Everyone here has used gaali, sir, this is normal,” says one man.

…

“But, is it right?” asks Jaglan.

To this, the women shout: “Of course not! Why target us or our body in your slurs? Why don’t people understand when they use misogynist profanities they actually target their own mothers and sisters? Is this what we are teaching our kids?”

Yes, … Read the rest

It’s not pro-life, it’s anti-women. The pregnancy is everything, the woman whose pregnancy it is is nothing.

The family of a Polish woman who died on Tuesday after doctors refused to perform an abortion when the foetus’s heart stopped beating have accused the government of having “blood on their hands”.

The woman, identified only as Agnieszka T, was said to have been in the first trimester of a twin pregnancy when she was admitted to the Blessed Virgin Mary hospital in Częstochowa on 21 December. Her death comes a year after Poland introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

Don’t go to hospitals named The Blessed Virgin Mary if you can possibly help it. Try … Read the rest

Just as you can’t “cut ties” with the Supreme Court.

Basic law primer

You cannot, by statute “cut ties” with the EHRC

It was established by statute to ensure your compliance with the act.

You might as well say you’re “cutting ties” with the charity commission.

Enjoy your childish tantrum.
We will enjoy them being adults.

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) January 27, 2022

It’s very Trumpy to say you’re cutting ties with a supervisory board you can’t cut ties with.

Libby Brooks at the Guardian has more:

The UK’s equalities watchdog has written to the Scottish government asking it to pause plans to simplify the legal requirements for gender recognition.

LGBT+ equality campaigners hit back at the unexpected

… Read the rest

More indignation.

Statement: LGBT Foundation to sever all ties with the EHRC – Our response to EHRC statements on upcoming LGBTQ+ legislation. https://t.co/1Ho11f5cEp pic.twitter.com/7Dqy08MLFt

— LGBT Foundation (@LGBTfdn) January 26, 2022

These organizations don’t seem to have paused to ask themselves what human rights are, ever at any time. The result is that they end up sounding like small children who think they have a “right” to all the ice cream they want right now this second.

Rights aren’t simple. They’re not a matter of just “I want this therefore I have a right to it.” They have to be judged on the basis of their impact on other people. They’re a balancing act. The T+ people seem to think … Read the rest

Stonewall responds to the EHRC:

Today’s statements from the EHRC are an attack on trans equality and undermine EHRC’s core purpose of regulating, promoting and upholding human rights.

What is trans equality? What does that mean? In what way do trans people not have equality? It’s not part of “equality” to identify as something you’re not and then force the world to accept your self-identification.

The two statements – in response to plans to legislate for a ban on conversion therapy in England and Wales, and Gender Recognition Act reform in Scotland – effectively seek to exclude trans people from improved rights and protections. 

But the putative conversion therapy isn’t conversion therapy, and it’s not a right for people … Read the rest

UN Women on Twitter is so stupid.

Every.
Time.
You.
See.
Sexist.
Behaviour.
CALL.
IT.
OUT.

— UN Women (@UN_Women) January 26, 2022

I’ve “called out” @UN_Women’s sexist behavior several times. Fat lot of good it did me.

Only yesterday they behaved sexistly.

No matter

who we are,
whom we love,
what our gender is,
when we were born,
where we come from;

why we fight is the same:

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL.

— UN Women (@UN_Women) January 25, 2022

No, why we fight is not the same “no matter what our gender is.” If you say it is you’re saying there’s no need for feminism, and that, given the realities, is intensely sexist. Tell women in Afghanistan that “why … Read the rest

Femicide Census has written an open letter to Gwent Police.

Dear Chief Constable Pam Kelly and Superintendent Vicki Townsend,

Two women at the top, supervising cops who arrest and abuse a woman for posting feminist material.

We write from the Femicide Census, the UK’s only resource documenting the number of women killed by men. Our research has been used by the Home Office and the police, for example, when state bodies need to cite data on women killed by men. This is because the UK government and state agencies fail to collate this data.

Why? Why do they fail or refuse to collate the data? I’d be interested to know.

On 25 January 2022 we were alerted via Twitter

… Read the rest

And so the incompetent hacks (unless, worse, they’re doing it on purpose) roll up to spread the malevolent lies. A “trainee community reporter” in the South Wales Argus:

GWENT Police have issued a plea to people in Newport to not remove any posters they see in the city – after sharp objects were found behind some.

No they weren’t. Someone claimed they were, and the police took the claim seriously, or pretended to.

The warning comes as a 53-year-old woman was arrested on Sunday, January 23 after being caught spraying stickers to two lampposts by patrolling police officers.

Lampposts that, as I understand it, are already covered in stickers. (Also you can’t “spray” them. The police said they were … Read the rest

Guest post by Jon Gallant

Our increasingly woke life in the arts and sciences and in the groves of academe includes sanctification of membership (or claimed membership) in certain favored sub-populations.  In New Zealand, for one example, the Aukland artist Peter Robinson has built his career half-seriously as a Maori artist—out of a Maori inheritance of 3.125%, a single great-great-great-grandparent.  At the University of Saskatchewan, Prof. Carrie Bourassa (who sometimes presented herself as “Morning Star Bear”) has become an influential figure in “indigenous” Canada, based on a Metis grandfather who had, it turns out, as much reality as the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and Buraq, Mohammed’s flying horse.  I propose to follow a similar path, but one a little more … Read the rest

Meanwhile –

https://twitter.com/N3KOcardiff/status/1486060042000420869 https://twitter.com/N3KOcardiff/status/1486115863224848387

A surprise? Why? It’s women they hate.

https://twitter.com/N3KOcardiff/status/1486118375168385024

“Cute” characters who don’t suggest trans people in any way, thus promoting the happy-clappy fiction that trans people just need to be Who They Really Are (which is a cute anime character).

https://twitter.com/N3KOcardiff/status/1485752128908009473… Read the rest

Gwent police have issued a statement about their ludicrous and abusive arrest of Jennifer Swayne on Sunday.

Statement following a 53-year-old woman from Newport being arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and displaying threatening or abusive writing likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

But there was no reason for “suspicion of displaying threatening or abusive writing.” All they had to do was look.

I don’t think it’s normal police practice to arrest people for putting posters on lampposts. I think they give tickets or citations; I don’t think they haul people off to jail.

Superintendent Vicki Townsend said:

“We’ve received several reports in relation to posters containing offensive material appearing in Newport between October and January.

“Officers on patrol

… Read the rest

Here’s a piece of good news at last – racial gerrymandering is racial gerrymandering.

Alabama Republicans illegally discriminated against Black voters when they drew the state’s seven new congressional districts last year and must quickly redraw the plan, a federal court has ruled.

The ruling is hugely consequential, a blunt assessment of the way lawmakers use their power to draw district lines to dilute the influence of Black and other minority voters.

Pending lawsuits in North Carolina and Texas similarly allege that lawmakers illegally drew districts on the basis of race.

It sounds as if this could be the undoing of the Shelby ruling. Unless of course the Supremes get involved.

The seventh congressional district in Alabama, which

… Read the rest

It seems like such a self-immolating way to sell one’s new book.

A critic who reviewed my new book made a huge fuss about refusing to use my preferred pronouns in the review. My publishers made the mistake of politely informing the magazine. I would have warned them against it, knowing how vicious transphobes can be to LGBTQ authors. >

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) January 25, 2022

Eye roll. Of course Julie Bindel didn’t make “a huge fuss.” Laurie Penny, on the other hand…

Referring to a person by a name or with a pronoun you know will hurt them is a quick, easy way to let the world know who you are. Anyone can make a mistake, but doing

… Read the rest

Man writing about Lia Thomas in the Times pretends not to know what everyone knows:

So much is open to interpretation each time Thomas jumps into the pool. She is a transgender woman, and has excelled this season while competing on the women’s team. She owns the best marks in the nation among college swimmers in the 200 and 500 freestyle, but for some, her success has also set two pillars of the sporting ethos — inclusion and fair play — in conflict.

So little is open to interpretation if you’re not being dishonest. Thomas is a man, so of course he “has excelled” while competing on the women’s team. He’s excelled by cheating.

Thomas has become a red-meat topic

… Read the rest

The title is a story all by itself.

Laurie Penny drops a bomb on The Critic magazine in pronoun row

Pronoun row? Next up: all out nuclear conjunction exchange.

AUTHOR Laurie Penny has criticised Right-wing magazine The Critic as “rude and childish” for failing to use their preferred pronouns.

First sentence, and already we see why pronouns should be accurate as opposed to Crafted to Your Personal Taste. Whose preferred pronouns – the magazine’s? Laurie Penny’s? It’s not clear. That can happen anyway, when there is more than one she or he or they, but using the accurate ones at least keeps those ambiguities to a minimum. Using luxury pronouns does the opposite, with a vengeance.

And then of course … Read the rest

Sarah Phillimore summarizes a podcast on which Jennifer Swayne talks about her experience in the Newport jail last night.

She has splints on her arm. They put her arm up her back and she screamed. She said she was not moving. They got a van. Hardly any room to fit her in. In the end she had to lie on her back.

— Sarah Phillimore (@SVPhillimore) January 24, 2022

JV – Harry Miller's victory seems to have no effect in Wales. Why is that?
JS – I don't know. Police officer's eyes looked dead, as if in a cult.

— Sarah Phillimore (@SVPhillimore) January 24, 2022

Yes seriously why IS this? Why can they put a disabled woman in a … Read the rest

Ok Newt.

Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, stoked outrage on Sunday by predicting members of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack will be imprisoned if Republicans retake the chamber this year.

So he’s saying the Republicans plan to kill what’s left of US democracy if they win.

One of two Republicans on the committee, Liz Cheney, said: “A former speaker of the House is threatening jail time for members of Congress who are investigating the violent attack on our Capitol and our constitution. This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels.”

…

Calling the members of the 6 January committee “wolves [who] are going to

… Read the rest