This happened.

The Green Party Executive has removed Shahrar Ali from his role as party spokesperson for breaches of the Speakers’ Code of Conduct. This decision has no impact on Dr Ali’s membership of the party.

— Liz Reason (@lizreason) February 5, 2022

Bright Green provides background:

The Green Party of England and Wales has removed Shahrar Ali from his role as the party’s spokesperson for policing and domestic safety. The decision was confirmed by the chair of the party’s executive Liz Reason on Twitter…

Ali was appointed to the position in June 2021. At the time of his appointment, Ali came under considerable criticism from party members and others, many of whom alleged that he had a record

… Read the rest

Medscape tells us:

Media coverage of transgender healthcare judged to be “negative” was associated with a drop of around 30% in referral rates to gender identity clinics in Sweden among young people under age 19, a new study indicates.

“Associated with”=correlation as opposed to causation.

Malin Indremo, MS, from the Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Sweden, and colleagues explored the effect of the documentaries, “The Trans Train and Teenage Girls,” which they explain was a “Swedish public service television show” representing “investigative journalism.” The two-part documentary series was aired in Sweden in April 2019 and October 2019, respectively, and is now available in English on YouTube.

In their article published online in JAMA Network Open, the authors say

… Read the rest

The lies are already in the headline. CNN sets us up with:

Trans swimmer’s teammates claim she has ‘unfair advantage’

Scare-quotes on unfair advantage, no scare-quotes on trans or she.

Which is the real fiction here? That a large young man has an athletic advantage over young women? Or that a large young man who didn’t do particularly well competing against men but is breaking records competing against women turns out to be a woman?

Which is the more hard to believe of the two claims? Is it hard to believe that a large man has an athletic advantage over women? Is it hard to believe that a man who was meh swimming with men last year but now smashes … Read the rest

Ideologue Ben Hunte has a bad stupid mindless hit piece on the EHRC in Vice.

Employees are quitting Britain’s equalities and human rights watchdog because they say it has become “transphobic” and “the enemy of human rights”, VICE World News has learned. 

…

Three whistleblowers – still working at the EHRC – told VICE World News about an “anti-LGBT” culture being adopted by senior leaders at the organisation which is compelling non-executive staff to quit. 

But of course they don’t actually mean “LGBT” – they mean T.

This comes as VICE World News obtained leaked emails and documents showing leaders at the EHRC being actively involved in removing rights from trans people in the courts, as well as holding

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on Waaz ya sensa yuma?

Humour is a funny thing. Any subject can in principle be fit for a joke…or, rather, a joke can be fashioned out of any subject, even the ones which common decency insists there is no acceptable joke. Larry David has made jokes about the Holocaust, and Hannibal Burress has made jokes about rape, which many people have found hilarious and inoffensive (or at least inoffensive to human decency, rather than the social mores that many if not most jokes are crafted to offend).

In the former case the speaker is a Jewish man with a penchant for cynicism and self-deprecation, and in the latter case the speaker put his … Read the rest

Colin Wright on the “pronouns” question:

‘What are your pronouns?” is a seemingly innocuous question that has become increasingly common. Pronouns are now frequently displayed prominently in social-media bios, email signatures and conference name tags.

…

The Human Rights Campaign, which claims to be the “nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization,” recently tweeted that we should all begin conversations with “Hi, my pronouns are _____. What are yours?” We are told that asking for, sharing and respecting pronouns is “inclusive” to trans and nonbinary people, and that failing to do so may even constitute violence and oppression.

Even if you accept that claim (which I don’t), what about everyone else? What about being inclusive to people who understand what … Read the rest

Teaching about systemic racism is not permissible. Trying to overthrow the government on the other hand is fine.

The Republican Party on Friday censured U.S. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for joining Congress’ probe of then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, calling the Jan. 6 Capitol attack “legitimate political discourse.”

Ah yes, legitimate political discourse, with sticks and clubs and guns to back it up.

It’s too obvious to say but I’ll say it anyway: imagine the Republican Party saying that about a BLM protest at the Capitol that was half as violent as the January 6th one. It is to laugh.

The Republican National Committee on Friday passed a resolution rebuking Cheney and Kinzinger

… Read the rest

Is it edgy comedy to have a good laugh about a particular genocide?

Jimmy Carr has been condemned by anti-hate groups including the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Auschwitz Memorial and Hope Not Hate for his comments about the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community in his Netflix special.

I have no idea who Jimmy Carr is, apart from someone who had a Netflix special and fancies himself a comedian.

Carr said: “When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.

“No one ever wants to talk about that, because

… Read the rest

Fresh Air yesterday:

In states across the country, laws have been passed or introduced restricting what teachers can discuss in the classroom and what subjects and ideas should be banned from curricula. These restrictions mostly apply to subject matter pertaining to race, sexual orientation, gender identity and political ideologies and philosophies. Many of these restrictions cover K-12 schools, as well as colleges and universities.

Since January 2021, 137 bills restricting what can be taught have been introduced or pre-filed in 35 different states. Over 87 of those bills are from this year. Restrictive laws have been passed in 10 states. My guest, Jeffrey Sachs, has been tracking these new laws and bills for PEN America, a writers organization dedicated

… Read the rest

The Washington Post admits some of the truth, which makes a change.

Sixteen members of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team sent a letter to school and Ivy League officials Thursday asking that they not take legal action challenging the NCAA’s recently updated transgender policy. That updated directive has the potential to prevent Penn swimmer Lia Thomas from competing at next month’s NCAA championships,and the letter indicates the 16 other swimmers believe their teammate should be sidelined.

Thomas, a transgender woman who swims for the Quakers women’s team, competed for the Penn men’s team for three seasons. After undergoing more than two years of hormone replacement therapy as part of her transition, she has posted the

… Read the rest

Some people know who is a woman.

A county in central China has sparked controversy by offering a host of incentives to encourage “leftover” women to marry, including with unemployed men, local media have reported, amid rising concern about the country’s dwindling birth rate.

What are “leftover” women? Women who aren’t married. There’s no point to a woman if she’s not married – she’s just using up resources.

“At present, the phenomenon of ‘older young female cadres and workers’ remaining single in our county has become a very prominent problem, which urgently needs the care, help and support of the whole society,” the county government reportedly said in a document, referring to women older than 26.

Women who remain … Read the rest

Guy says women who have given birth don’t understand biology, and in evidence offers a smug smart-ass young man in…a Youtube video.

https://twitter.com/GavinCrook3/status/1489279996258574341

That’s women told.… Read the rest

Another contrarian slams the door:

Boris Johnson’s top policy aide has quit over the PM’s false claim that Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute serial sex offender Jimmy Savile when he was director of public prosecutions.

…

Munira Murza said the PM he should have apologised for the misleading remarks.

In her resignation letter, published by The Spectator, she wrote: “You are a better man than many of your detractors will ever understand, which is why it is so desperately sad that you let yourself down by making a scurrilous accusation against the leader of the opposition.”

What’s funny about this is who she is.

Mirza, who quit over Boris Johnson’s false claim that Keir Starmer held

… Read the rest

Labour woman MP says what now?

So if a perpetrator – like Wayne Couzens did- attacks transwomen as part of his offending pattern, regardless of any evidence you refuse to see this as misogyny? This isn't about subtracting recognition of oppression via biology but how a society built on that operates. https://t.co/9HHqspWQ87

— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) February 3, 2022

But…he doesn’t, does he. He didn’t. That’s the point, surely. Not that “if he did, he would be,” but that “He didn’t, because that’s not how this works.” Raping and murdering women is about women, it’s not about women and men who pretend to be women. What the Wayne Couzenses and the Peter Sutcliffes and the rest of them hate is … Read the rest

Men stealing women’s athletic prizes – cool, or no?

Less than two days after several members of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team released a letter in support of Lia Thomas, 16 team members and their families responded with a letter of their own. This letter, directed to the University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League, requested that school and conference do not engage in litigation following USA Swimming’s release of its new transgender-inclusion policy.

The letter was sent to the University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League by three-time Olympic champion Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who is the CEO of Champion Women. Hogshead-Makar has been a longtime advocate of women’s rights and has fought for equal opportunity for women’s

… Read the rest

Amnesty UK last week:

On the recent statements published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on the governments’ consultation on conversion therapy, Amnesty International UK disagree unreservedly in the EHRC’s assessment of separating protections for LGBTI people and specifically excluding trans people from initial legislation.

These statements are actively damaging to the rights of trans and non-binary people in the UK, and we find them to be disappointing and deeply troubling.

Emphasis very much theirs.

But what are these rights? What are these rights that trans and non-binary people have that mustn’t be separated from the rights that lesbian and gay people have? Amnesty UK of course doesn’t say. It doesn’t even mention. We’re just supposed to … Read the rest

So there’s a butterfly sanctuary in Texas, just north of the border with Mexico. Trump wanted to build a new section of border wall through the butterfly sanctuary, even though the sanctuary is not in Mexico or even touching Mexico. The butterfly sanctuary does not endorse this plan. Therefore, the lunatics hate the butterfly sanctuary and have been trying to break it.

A Congressional candidate and someone she called a “Secret Service agent” showed up at the sanctuary and demanded entry “so that they could go see ‘illegals crossing on rafts’.”

“Immediately, we knew what that was about,” [Marianne] Wright told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “It was an echo and reiteration of the lies Steve Bannon’s ‘We

… Read the rest

Yes, this is definitely what billionaires should be doing to hasten global warming.

A historic bridge in Rotterdam, Netherlands, is to be dismantled so that Jeff Bezos’ superyacht can pass through.

Sure, that’s fine. Waste resources on breaking a bridge so that an egomaniac can move his egomaniacal boat from A to B.

The Koningshaven Bridge, nicknamed “De Hef” by locals, has been a landmark in Rotterdam since 1878. 

Then it’s high time some piggy Yank came along and broke it. Good job Bezos.

Now, it is to be dismantled to let the Amazon founder’s 127-meter (417-foot) long luxury sailing yacht – the Y721 – to reach the ocean. The yacht will be the largest vessel of its kind

… Read the rest

Man tells Martina Navratilova she knows nothing about it.

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1486781802463350787

What does India Willoughby – a man – know about being a woman? Nothing, so what’s he doing telling Martina Navratilova she doesn’t have the relevant knowledge about the way men like India Willoughby try to silence women?

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1486787622609600512

Willoughby has ZERO idea what it’s like to be a woman in the UK (or anywhere else) yet he tries to silence women who talk about it. Sauce for the gander mate.

Updating to add Willoughby’s new level:

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1488993949889044488 https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1488996577653968919

The full image doesn’t show; the first word of the headline is “Martina.”… Read the rest

And another thing, kids: you get to win in ALL the categories!

Amy Schneider's winning streak set a record for women on "Jeopardy!" She also became a fan favorite, and to some, a new transgender icon. @Jeopardamy discusses her life, the show and what’s next with @shaneisland. Join us Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. ET. https://t.co/S3VB5VYARe

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 2, 2022

Schneider wins in the First Woman category AND the Trans category. Win win win win win! You might think that doesn’t make sense, that it should be one or the other, but NO – that kind of logic applies only to cis people. Check your thinking.… Read the rest