Could anything go wrong?

Twelve trans prisoners convicted of violence or sexual crimes have been accommodated in Scottish women’s jails within the past 18 months, according to figures released under Freedom of Information laws.

The writing is annoyingly imprecise. Are the trans prisoners male? Probably, but it’s important to make it clear. “Trans prisoners” does not make it clear.

A long-awaited review by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) into Scotland’s transgender prison policy will consider ending the rare practice of transitioning male inmates demanding a move to female housing.

Only one of the prisoners had completed transition and the other 11 were self-identifying as female, it has emerged.

Finally we get clarity. We shouldn’t have to wait until the third … Read the rest

All very normal.

At the site overlooking where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated nearly six decades ago, scores of QAnon believers outfitted with “Trump-Kennedy 2024” shirts, flags and other merchandise gathered. They forecast the president’s son John F. Kennedy Jr., who has been dead for over 20 years, would appear at that spot, emerging from anonymity to become Donald Trump’s vice president when the former president is reinstated. The prophecy foretold online, of course, did not come true.

When 12:30 p.m. came, the time when Kennedy was shot, they recited the Pledge of Allegiance, journalist Steven Monacelli reported. The crowd lingered, some for more than an hour, eventually trickling away, a few vowing the Kennedy known as

Kathleen Stock is on Woman’s Hour.

Listen now: In an exclusive interview, Professor Kathleen Stock @Docstockk speaks to @Emmabarnett about resigning from her post at the University of Sussex, her experiences while still at the university and the concept of academic freedom https://t.co/mz4H8FwEUE pic.twitter.com/DgVd93eF6l

— BBC Woman's Hour (@BBCWomansHour) November 3, 2021

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on How can Manchin.

…like everyone else, he is unable to imagine a life different than the one we live.

Well, if we just wait a little, we won’t have to imagine at all: it will be here.

I tell people the economy is man-made, the ecology is not. The ecology is more complex by orders of magnitude than the economy, and we understand it far less. Which one should we be thinking about changing?

Very well put. Our global economy is a pale, weak imitation of the exchange of energy, information, and elements that happens in nature, which we have been inerfering with and disrupting to our shame, and at … Read the rest

If this is true…

Wow. In order to join @LGBTLabour, a lesbian – same-sex oriented – woman has to find two blokes to confirm she doesn't reject the possibility of male sexual partners. In other words, that she isn't lesbian https://t.co/WUdK4P0DxK

— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) November 2, 2021

So lesbians can’t be in LGBT Labour, because of being lesbian. If they want to be in LGBT Labour they have to promise they’re not lesbian, and get two men to vouch for them.

SERIOUSLY?

And does this rule apply, mutatis mutandis, to gay men? Hello? Are we still connected?

Originally a comment by iknklast on How can Manchin.

It’s fine to be optimistic, but since we’ve already passed several tipping points, it is probably unfounded. We can’t solve all our problems with solar panels and wind farms because emissions control will not solve our problems. Global warming isn’t the problem, it’s the fever that tells us there is an underlying problem. We can fix emissions all we like and still careen to ecological disaster at a breakneck pace. And, even if I thought we would reduce our emissions, we needed to do it a long time ago, say, about the 1980s…earlier would have been better, but there was still time to fix things by the end of … Read the rest

They just don’t see it. They just don’t see that it’s her idenniny, and thus unassailable.

Among those quoted by CBC was Janet Smylie, a health academic of Métis heritage at the University of Toronto, who wrote a chapter in a 2017 book on Indigenous parenting edited by Bourassa.

Smylie told the broadcaster she had done her own research into Bourassa’s ancestry. “It makes you feel a bit sick,” she said. “To have an impostor who is speaking on behalf of Métis and Indigenous people to the country about literally what it means to be Métis … that’s very disturbing and upsetting and harmful.”

But it’s her iden

Ok I’ll drop the sarcasm now and ask straight up: if … Read the rest

An investigation challenged her claims.

A Canadian official and academic specialising in Indigenous health issues has been placed on administrative leave from her university after an investigation challenged her claims of Indigenous ancestry.

Carrie Bourassa, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, has described herself as having Métis, Anishinaabe and Tlingit heritage. In 2019 she appeared at a TEDx talk wearing a blue embroidered shawl and holding a feather, where she identified herself as “Morning Star Bear”.

However, an investigation by CBC television alleged that Bourassa was entirely of European descent.

But how would the CBC know better than Bourassa? How does the CBC know she doesn’t identify as of indigenous descent? We know that identifying as is all … Read the rest

I wrote about Biden’s visit to the pope for The Freethinker.

It’s appalling that it’s become some kind of normalized tradition that US presidents are supposed to drop in on the pope, even if they’re not Catholic. Trump did it and he’s not Catholic or Protestant or atheist or anything else, he’s just empty, but still he toddled along. Obama did it, and he even let the pope return the favor.

Not appropriate.… Read the rest

Helen Joyce NAILS it. No we can’t have dialogue, no we can’t get together for a good searching conversation that will lead to a truce, no we can’t split the difference, we just have to win, that’s all.

Best clip I've seen in a long time. Can we find compromise & dialogue? @HJoyceGender: "No. I think we just have to win, that's all. The only way that we can actually get male people out of women's prisons and women's domestic shelters and so on is to actually win against them." https://t.co/2jM1Vkf2Us

— Arty Morty (@artymortyarty) November 1, 2021

… Read the rest

Whence all this drivel about the authentic self?

Also throw in Hume. Specifically, the Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section VI: Of Personal Identity.

1. There are some philosophers, who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or pleasure. To attempt a farther proof of this were to weaken

The Guardian media editor on the BBC and That article:

The BBC has rejected complaints that it published a transphobic article and has instead given a commitment to covering different viewpoints in the name of impartiality.

The corporation has faced protests outside some of its regional newsrooms, petitions from trans campaign groups and disquiet among many LGBTQ+ staff members over a piece published online last week entitled “We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women”.

On Monday the BBC said it stood by the article about the experience of some lesbians, adding it had been subject to a rigorous editing process, and that it met its editorial guidelines.

…

One BBC source said the broadcaster has received 4,819

I too keep wondering how Manchin can justify putting his personal political survival ahead of the planet.

Late in the evening on Friday 15 October an alert appeared on my phone that seemed at last to portend the end of the world. Two weeks before the UN climate summit in Glasgow – a make-or-break moment for American leadership and international ambition – Senator Joe Manchin had decided to gut our country’s best, and perhaps last, attempt to save itself. With three decades left to decarbonize the global economy, and a window of Democratic control unlikely to recur for years, Manchin’s benefactors in the coal and gas industry had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, killing the Clean

If fit for gander then fit for goose, yeah?

The International Handball Federation has responded to widespread accusations of sexism by changing its rules around women’s uniforms to allow bike shorts and tank tops instead of bikini bottoms and crop tops.

The sport’s global governing body has been the subject of international pressure since July, when the European Handball Federation made headlines for imposing a €1,500 fine on the Norwegian women’s beach handball team for wearing shorts like their male counterparts during the Euro 21 tournament in Bulgaria. At the time, the EHF described the shorts as “improper clothing”.

Yes because it’s “improper” for female athletes not to show off their tits and groins while competing.

At some point

The children stamp out another artistic endeavor.

A forthcoming production of Into the Woods at The Old Vic was cancelled after staff expressed discomfort at Terry Gilliam’s involvement, reports claim.

The former Monty Python star had been due to direct a new production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical at the London theatre in April alongside Leah Hausman.

On Thursday (28 October), it was announced that the production would no longer be taking place, with no reason for the cancellation given.

However, The Stage now reports that The Old Vic pulled the production following unrest from members of staff who felt that Gilliam’s comments to the press regarding the #MeToo movement, trans rights and racism were at odds with the theatre’s

The Times picks up the Girl Guides-Ace story:

Girlguiding has been criticised for promoting asexuality awareness, causing some parents to threaten to withdraw their daughters from the group.

The organisation, which provides activities and regular meetings for girls aged five to 18, posted a tweet in support of Ace Week, an awareness event for asexuality, acknowledging all members and volunteers who identify as such.

But there is such a thing as “Ace Week” according to whom? Asexuality is a thing that requires an awareness week how, and according to whom? People “identify as such” according to whom? Is there a week for every kind of No Thank You there is? One for people who don’t like pickles? One for … Read the rest

Now to cheer us up after the agony of a commenter who won’t reply to replies, dogs in Canada on their bus to school.… Read the rest

Housekeeping note.

I don’t have official rules. I think the tacit ones are obvious enough, in general. I guess however I need to state one rule, or not so much as a rule as a strong preference which, if flouted enough times, may lead to deletion of comments.

That rule or preference goes like this: we’re having a conversation here. That too is obvious enough, surely? We go back and forth. We exchange views. I like it that way, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

So thanks very much but I don’t want drive-by corrections by someone who never ever replies to replies to the corrections. If you won’t engage then I don’t want your corrections. That’s … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on Your instructions.

Beth Clarkson #1 wrote:

Why are people so traumatized by misgendering?

I can grant that the transgender are indeed traumatized, but not that this is the natural outcome of Dysphoria, or of “feeling like your insides don’t match your outsides.” What might normally be expected when referred to as a “she” instead of “he” is a sense of sadness, or mild frustration. What occurs instead seems to be something akin to a panic attack, or perhaps the sort of outrage someone might feel encountering a bully kicking their grandmother.

That’s culture, I think. It’s a socially-induced reaction following a template of expectations, and in extreme forms close to what’s been called … Read the rest

Haven’t we talked about this? Isn’t there some murmuring in certain quarters that Stonewall isn’t the boss of us? Aren’t there questions being asked about who made Stonewall God in charge of how Incloosiv everyone is?

Stonewall to judge NHS on LG inclusion:

NHS trusts will be judged by the controversial charity Stonewall on their LGBT “inclusion” in a £220,000 taxpayer-funded project.

The Telegraph has learnt that some 40 NHS trusts will be “benchmarked” on diversity after NHS England awarded the contract, titled NHS Rainbow Badges, to five LGBT groups.

Trusts will be given a bronze, silver or gold award depending on their ”inclusive cultures” and “trans status monitoring”, with assessors hired on a higher starting salary than nurses