Sean Ingle notes that the discussion has changed.

The Guardian has obtained a letter, written in 2003 by Dr Richard Budgett, in which he discusses the consequences of trans women competing in women’s sport. Responding to a government inquiry, Budgett, then at the British Olympic Association, states: “The effect of allowing male transsexuals to compete as women would be to make competition unfair and potentially dangerous in some sports and would undermine women’s sports.”

Ya think? It’s still weird that anyone would have to say that, let alone that he would “evolve” to stop saying it.

Society has shifted. Language has changed. Budgett is now medical and scientific director at the International Olympic Committee. And his views, according to

… Read the rest

Joan Smith on Rowling and the loonies who long to CanCel her:

Gender extremists hate Rowling not just because she is famous and has a platform, but because her barbs hit home. She uses language precisely, avoiding ad feminam abuse and hyperbole, while they — how can I put this politely? — do not.

It’s about this business of ratifying men as women on a mere assertion. If a man says he’s a woman then he’s a woman, says the Scottish government, and if he’s a woman why then if he blots his copybook he gets imprisoned with his fellow women.

Police Scotland admitted as much in a response to a question from a former SNP justice minister, Kenny MacAskill,

… Read the rest

Erm what?

Via Katie Herzog:

Has “the rise of transphobia” made “lesbian identity” obsolete? One “form of marginalization equates lesbianism with transphobia.” The true, traditional, correct, acceptable, approved lesbian identity is “political, nonessentialist, intersectional, and community grounded.” You were probably thinking it was to do with women loving women, but that’s obsolete. The new improved lesbianism is “inclusive of trans, nonbinary, and cis women.” Obviously “cis women” are last in the list because really, who gives a shit about women? Men who call themselves women are so much more fascinating and enlightened and – let’s face it – sexy than boring old dreary tedious women. If we understand lesbianism as “grounded in politics of inclusion” i.e. dominated by men … Read the rest

Yesterday at the hearing:

Prior to a unanimous vote to refer Mark Meadows for contempt of Congress charges, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the ranking Republican on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, read a series of text messages she said Meadows received during the Capitol attack.

In the messages, several figures, including Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, urge Meadows to get then-President Donald Trump to tell his supporters to leave the Capitol.

Cheney said Meadows, who was Trump’s White House chief of staff during the siege, turned over the materials before he stopped cooperating with the panel.

Cheney says Meadows is refusing to testify about text messages “that … Read the rest

One of those “Sir I am the world’s greatest neurosurgeon” moments.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1470433524633284614

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

Hey Meth, did you want your buttocks in separate containers or all in one?

— DaveDavidDave ✡️ (@davecorviddave) December 13, 2021

… Read the rest

He mad.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1470501649210920968 https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1470502587950682119 https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1470503313078685707

Powerful arguments.… Read the rest

What an extraordinary title:

J K Rowling keeps tweeting and we keep wondering why

Given how easy and humdrum and normal it is for people to “keep tweeting,” that amounts to saying JK Rowling keeps talking and we (who’s we?) keep wondering why. A man wondering why a woman keeps talking, and calling himself “we” to boot – it doesn’t get much more smugly contemptuous of women than that.

The bonus is that the man is Noah Berlatsky, who is a [cough] controversial sort of fella himself.

Harry Potter author J K Rowling responded in strong terms today to comments by Police Scotland about their approach to gender identity. Police Scotland said that the police would respect the gender self-identification

… Read the rest

The Times on Naughty Rowling:

JK Rowling has reopened the row on gender after characterising as “Orwellian” a police policy in which a rape can be recorded as being committed by a woman if the attacker “identifies as a female”.

She hasn’t “reopened” anything because that row was never closed. It’s been raging along quite loudly for years now. What she has done is added her massive fame on the right side of the row again.

Her intervention came as Police Scotland confirmed they would log rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being carried out by a woman if the accused identified as female, regardless of whether they had legally changed gender.

I really couldn’t care less whether … Read the rest

Not all conservatives are damn fool anti-vaxxers.

Seems the best option is

1) Keep encouraging vaccines and boosters;

2) Impose vaccine mandates where it can be done;

3) Otherwise return to normal as fully as we can, especially the schools; and

4) Let hospitals quietly triage emergency care to serve the unvaccinated last

— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 12, 2021

Cue shocked intake of breath – “He wants us all dead!!”

If, at this point, you are still unvaccinated, you are not a victim. You are a cause of the victimization of vulnerable others

— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 12, 2021

"The control of infectious disease, by its very nature, requires collective and coordinated action. … Societies that were good

… Read the rest

Rebecca Solnit summarizes the danger:

The crisis isn’t just that we had a coup attempt almost a year ago, but that the Republican party has itself become so venal, so corrupt, so ruthless in its quest for power, that it seems assured that we will see further attempts to overrule any election outcomes they don’t like. Already the kind of election laws they’ve pushed across the country seem aimed at such goals, and voter suppression has long been one of their anti-democratic tactics (it played a substantial role in Trump’s 2016 win, and the genuine illegitimacies of that election – foreign interference, anomalies the recount might have uncovered had the Republicans not stopped it – were appropriated as

… Read the rest

American bro goes on rant shocker.

American man @SethAbramson goes on rant against @jk_rowling for daring to speak out against grotesque situation in Scotland where male-bodied person who has used their penis to rape a woman can demand to be considered femalehttps://t.co/ttElkiI28C

— Susan Dalgety (@DalgetySusan) December 13, 2021

One, what’s that “(alleged)” doing there? You don’t need an “alleged” in a hypothetical! There is no alleged rapist who is going to sue you for calling him a rapist, because this is a hypothetical, so the words are general, not particular.

Two, wtf is a trans rapist? Someone who identifies as a rapist without actually raping? The issue is actual convicted rapists, not men who say they’re rapists when … Read the rest

Oh that’s okay, rape statistics don’t matter.

Police have been criticised for saying they will record rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being committed by a woman if the attacker “identifies as a female”.

Gee why would anyone criticize them for that?

The move, reported by The Scottish Sun on Sunday, comes ahead of proposed new laws to make it easier for people to self-identify as whichever sex they want, which are opposed by some feminist groups.

Feminists are funny that way. We think that only women are women, and that men (as it says on the label) are men.

MacAskill, who is the Alba party MP for East Lothian, having defected from the SNP, said: “As

… Read the rest

Letting us all know she’s not backing down and not going away.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman.https://t.co/SyxFnnboM1

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 12, 2021

… Read the rest

Guardian columnist John Harris muses on the contempt for other people displayed by Boris Johnson:

There are two elements to all this: one is Johnson’s Trumpish disdain for some of the most basic components of our democracy – the rule of law, scrutiny of the executive, an independent BBC (which he is now lashing out at yet again). The other is bound up with the prime minister’s apparently dim and disrespectful view of his fellow human beings – which, as revelations about Downing Street parties pile up, is now at the heart of our politics.

Both of those are Trumpish though. They’re very alike, but also very different – Trump entirely lacks that Etonian posh boy vibe … Read the rest

What I keep saying. People pretend to be concerned about global warming but they go right on taking cruises and trips involving air travel and buying SUVs and gigantic yachts.

… the superyacht industry is booming – and the number of vessels under construction or on order worldwide has hit a new record. According to figures revealed in the latest edition of Boat International’s Global Order Book, more than 1,200 superyachts are slated to be built – a rise of 25% on last year.

That’s ok. The people who are struggling to stay alive 50 years from now will have every sympathy with contemporary people who just need a little recreation.

“The market’s never been busier,” said Will Christie,

… Read the rest

If a rapist identifies as a woman that rapist is a woman so SHUT UP TERFS, say the police.

Police have been criticised for saying they will record rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being committed by a woman if the attacker “identifies as a female”.

Rape is a thing men do to women. Women can’t return the favor even if they want to, because women don’t have the right equipment. In other news, crime statistics should be accurate as opposed to fanciful.

Police Scotland said that they would log rapes as being carried out by a woman if the accused person insists, even if they have not legally changed gender.

Oh well if the rapist insists he’s … Read the rest

This made me sit up and take notice.

Please understand this point. Both Sophie and I are bound by institutional policies about misgendering. We are here under our real names. The targeting of us – the desire to get us disciplined or sacked for breaking those policies – is real. https://t.co/csQtvUMbmC

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) December 11, 2021

The point is to say don’t push academics to use “the wrong” pronouns, but if you stop to think more about it your hair stands on end. Universities have institutional policies about something absurdly called “misgendering”? Universities have institutional policies that forbid referring to people by what we’ve all learned from infancy is the natural intuitive unforced way to refer to people? … Read the rest

#PennCheats

Trans #Inclusion into women’s #sports is all happily theoretical💭 until someone pees in the women’s pool, so to speak. 😏

As #PennAlumni & @upennsylvania are finding out in dramatic fashion.#PennCheats pic.twitter.com/VrNAw02kYx

— Linda Blade (@coachblade) December 11, 2021

… Read the rest

Another “no she’s the evil person” open letter:

Dancers who accused a leading choreographer of transphobia have claimed she has jeopardised their safety by publicising her resignation.

She was supposed to go quietly.

Earlier this week, the choreographer said she could not “endure this humiliation any longer” and spoke to the media about her decision to resign.

However, in an open letter seen by the BBC, the dancers claim that, by going public, Kay has caused “potential detriment to our careers”.

Why would that be? Oh, because their bullying was shameful? But then the detriment is their doing, not hers. If your behavior can’t stand publicity then that could indicate the behavior is bad behavior. Maybe the dancers … Read the rest

New Zealand passes a law making it easier to carry fake proof of identity.

Parliament has unanimously passed a sex self-identification law which will make it easier to amend a person’s sex on their birth certificates.

…

Once law, it will mean transgender, intersex, gender diverse, and takatāpui people will no longer need proof of medical treatment or a Family Court declaration to change the sex listed on their birth certificate, but instead apply for it to be changed on the basis of how they identify.

“Today is a day about inclusion–having the right to have a birth certificate that reflects who you know yourself to be,” Internal Affairs Minister Jan Tinetti said, during the third reading of the bill

… Read the rest