On the other hand, Justin Weinberg of Daily Nous also reports on Kathleen’s resignation, and to my surprise the comments are mostly not “she had it coming.” Quite the reverse. And the approval rate for the comments is high too.

The warmest comment:

Kathleen will no doubt thrive outside of academia. Any serious philosopher, however, should feel deep embarrassment and shame at how Kathleen has been treated by the profession, if I may speak with such generality. Her decision comes after many years of personal abuse, ostracisation, attempted blacklisting, wilful misrepresentation, and defamation, and that is just from philosophers, never mind the ‘protesters’.

Three factors stand out. First, a good deal of male philosophers appear to have outsourced their morals

The Guardian reports on Kathleen Stock’s resignation from Sussex, and gives the copious last word to…Pink News. Yes really.

The philosophy professor was awarded an OBE in the 2021 new year honours list for services to higher education.

But hundreds of academics criticised the decision, signing an open letter that criticised Stock’s comments on transgender and gender non-conforming people.

The link is to Pink News.

The letter claimed her “harmful rhetoric” about transgender and gender non-conforming people reinforced “the patriarchal status quo”.

“Academic freedom comes with responsibility; we should not use that freedom to harm people, particularly the more vulnerable members of our community,” the letter added.

“Conflating concern about the harms of Stock’s work with threats to academic

Julie Bindel underlines that the bullying of Kathleen Stock is intended as a warning to all of us.

Claims that Stock is a ‘transphobe’ are not only unfounded but wilfully misguided. Stock is being punished not for her views on transgender issues, but for standing her ground in the face of persistent and sadistic bullying over sex-based rights, and a belief in the immutability of biology.

In other words she was supposed to take it all back, and she refused, so she had to be made an example.

Women are supposed to cave in. Patriarchy works not by all men holding a gun to the heads of all women, but by public displays of male power, such as the treatment

Owen Jones is providing the mirth for today.

No response from Keir Starmer's team so far, except that he has unfollowed me on Twitter over this tweet. https://t.co/7l401O3bOX

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) October 28, 2021

The world totters on its axis – the top dog in the Labour party has unfollowed the great Owen Jones!

Updating to add:

What a loathsome prick.

'Queer and trans students united, never to be defeated!!'

LGBT+ students at the University of Sussex have been victorious in their peaceful protest against the employment of philosophy professor and LGB Alliance trustee Kathleen Stockhttps://t.co/JaksEOEZs8

— Vic Parsons (they/them) (@vicparsons_) October 28, 2021

He wrote the Pink News story. The title is as stupid as his tweet.

Anti-trans professor Kathleen Stock quits Sussex university in ‘massive win for LGBT+ students’

She’s not “anti-trans.” How is it a win for L students to bully an L professor out? How is it a win for LGB students to bully an L professor out? How is the win “massive”? More likely James Barry is right that Sussex … Read the rest

More book-sniffing:

A Republican state lawmaker has launched an investigation into Texas school districts over the type of books they have, particularly if they pertain to race or sexuality or “make students feel discomfort.”

State Rep. Matt Krause, in his role as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating, notified the Texas Education Agency that he is “initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content,” according to an Oct. 25 letter obtained by The Texas Tribune.

Krause’s letter provides a 16-page list of about 850 book titles and asks the districts if they have these books, how many copies they have and how much money they spent on the books.

I don’t think state legislators are supposed … Read the rest

Meanwhile Peter Tatchell steps up.

.@BBCNews has published a demonising article suggesting that a significant number of trans women are pressuring lesbians to have sex with them. This is like demonising all Muslims because a handful are terrorists. Please protest to the BBC. Sign here: https://t.co/MV1KuegCbf pic.twitter.com/CmKYN6H8UA

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) October 28, 2021

Notice that “a significant number of” isn’t the same as “all” yet he leaps from the first to the second for his stupid analogy. Also notice how glibly he simply shrugs off the part about men pressuring lesbians for sex. Not a problem for Peter so he’s not going to take it seriously or even discuss it honestly, in fact he’s going to try to … Read the rest

Joan Smith on Sussex’s failure to hang on to Kathleen Stock:

The Vice-chancellor, Adam Tickell, has written to all staff at Sussex, insisting that the university ‘has vigorously and unequivocally defended [Stock’s] right to exercise her academic freedom and lawful freedom of speech, free from bullying and harassment of any kind’.

Stock has responded by saying that the university leadership’s approach ‘more recently has been admirable and decent’, leaving open the question of what it did when she was first targeted. Because Stock and other gender critical academics, such as Professor Jo Phoenix of the Open University, have faced slurs and bullying for at least two years — so much so that Phoenix is raising funds to take the OU

Aw yeah, direct action, comrades – bully those pesky women out of their jobs.

Scum of the earth.… Read the rest

Behold: an asexual-themed “lingerie” campaign. (Side note: what even is that stupid word? I’ve never had any “lingerie” in my life, I have underwear. Just one more way women are treated as the Designated Sex Toys.)

That’s asexual-themed??? Boy you coulda fooled me. It looks entirely sexual. The posing is sexual and the “lingerie” is sexual, as are the gloves. (Gloves???) The open mouth is not sexual? Come on. The cocked leg, the boots, the weird straps, the hair, the shooting from below, the thrown back head? There’s not one thing about it that’s not sexual.

But hey, #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike! Who am I to argue?… Read the rest

They don’t usually say it quite so bluntly.

Books deemed ‘harmful to staff and students’ are being removed from region’s public school libraries

And…”harmful” how? Oh you know…just not the kind of thing the reader would have written. Which reader? Any reader, obviously. If someone says “I don’t like this,” out it goes.

The Waterloo Region District School Board is undertaking a multi-year review of its library collections to identify and remove any texts deemed “harmful to staff and students.”

Graham Shantz, coordinating superintendent in human resources and equity services outlined the ongoing work during Tuesday’s board meeting as part of an overview of the board’s 2021-2022 strategic and operational plan.

“We recognize as our consciousness around equity, oppression work

GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE!

Amazing News!https://t.co/7IzqmhE7gj

— Helen Staniland (@helenstaniland) October 28, 2021

All charges against Marion Miller, the woman who was arrested for posting a picture of a Suffragette's ribbon on social media – as a trans activist found this 'offensive', have been dropped https://t.co/kBmH5j30RU

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) October 28, 2021

The following press release has been sent by Marion Millar's lawyers.

We are pleased that sense has prevailed and we hope that future cases are considered more carefully.#WomenWontWheesht pic.twitter.com/hfH6G220f6

— For Women Scotland (@ForWomenScot) October 28, 2021

Obviously delighted with this outcome. Prosecution against Marion Millar discontinued. See full statement below. pic.twitter.com/AeEnLohsVv

— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) October 28, 2021

… Read the rest

More Ash. (She’s like a splinter that you can’t…quite…dig…out.)

My tweet can be read as what it says: consenting adults are free to sleep with, or not sleep with, whoever they like. But if all you do is talk about who you find disgusting, who you’d never sleep with because of their minority status, then maybe *that’s* a bit bigoted! https://t.co/YinPnlfbvX

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) October 27, 2021

One, but it’s not all we do. Obviously. It’s not all anyone does. It’s something we talk about when it comes up, and the rest of the time we do other things.

Second, we don’t generally say it’s disgusting…unless she means we say the coercion is morally disgusting. That is something I … Read the rest

Trump has written a letter to the Wall Street Journal. It’s about a brand new and exciting subject.

In your editorial “The Election for Pennsylvania’s High Court” (Oct. 25), you state the fact that a court wrongly said mail-in ballots could be counted after Election Day. “This didn’t matter,” you add, “because Mr. Biden won the state by 80,555, but the country is lucky the election wasn’t closer. If the election had hung on a few thousand Pennsylvanians, the next President might have been picked by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Well actually, the election was rigged, which you, unfortunately, still haven’t figured out.

He’s still got it! The old elegance, the wit, the learning, the flare. I … Read the rest

Hilarious, in its own way.

My wife walked up to the server at our local cafe. The person was possibly transgender. She wanted to engage the individual but was frozen in fear that she might use a pronoun that might offend. Therein lies the problem with this language policing. It takes perfectly natural

— Gad Saad (@GadSaad) October 27, 2021

Well, you can surely order a sandwich without any pronouns other than first person, but Gad Saad later explained that his wife had wanted to say “he’ll get the hang of it” to another server (server # 1 is new to the job) but felt nervous about the “he.” But what’s funny, in a frustrating way, is all the explaining … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Laurent on 8 years.

When I advertised a project at work to plant fruit trees and thus asked people to bring us back seeds or plantlets from their garden, out of 250 people, 1 gave 3 seeds and another one gave 6 young trees. That’s how people commit to a very easy task that would have sucked up tonnes of carbon over 20 years.

Eventually I did and do contribute to planting trees at work, currently possibly worth a commercial value exceeding several thousand bucks (and I don’t count my time).

I’m really amazed, because everywhere there is room for tree planting, even if we avoid places where trees falling are a potential risk. (Though … Read the rest

Saying it and saying you didn’t say it.

Word of advice: don’t make shit up about what someone said when their tweet is still online for all to see. https://t.co/kmo0RP3AnT pic.twitter.com/Y4Gl5cvQTM

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) October 27, 2021

Bad Ash. Dishonest Ash. Ash is pretending to think Berrelli’s tweet contained quotation marks, as in: Ash, you said “lesbians were” etc. But there are no quotation marks. Berrelli summarized what Ash said, and she summarized it accurately. Saying “it’d be fair to ask if racism plays a part” is more than close enough to “equivalent to racists.” Accurate summarizing is not “making shit up.”

Bad bad bad Ash.… Read the rest

Another version of the X on passports news:

The US has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation – a milestone in the recognition of the rights of people who don’t identify as male or female – and expects to be able to offer the option more broadly next year, the state department said on Wednesday.

What rights? What are the “rights” of people who don’t identify as male or female that are different from the rights of anyone else? Spell them out and explain why only people who don’t identify as male or female have them. Is there a “right” to be called neither male nor female? What kind of right would that be? What would … Read the rest

So stupid it burns.

The State Department announced Wednesday that the U.S. has issued its first “X” gender marker on passports, marking a step toward making passports available for non-binary, intersex and gender non-conforming people throughout the country.

Then what is the point of having sex markers on passports at all? If they’re going to have some that are meaningless why have any?

Passports don’t exist to give people tingly validation feelings. Passports have not until now been unavailable to non-binary, intersex and gender non-conforming people. Passports are official documents and they’re supposed to tell the truth about the people who have them; that’s pretty much their whole point.

“The Department of State is committed to promoting the freedom,

When laydeez are a little dangerous…

A convicted murderer and sex offender from British Columbia, Canada has been denied parole after seeking release from prison shortly after identifying as transgender.

Roger Dale Badour, 73, is currently serving a life sentence for the fatal shooting of a woman in 2011. Badour had been living on the property of Gisele Duckham, 56, at the time of the murder. Following an argument, he fatally shot her, hid her body, and then fled.

At the time, Badour was out on parole and supposed to be living in a halfway house in Victoria, British Columbia on conditions of ceasing contact with women. This condition came after Badour was released into the community from a