Owen Jones is so important that even Oxfam explains itself to him.

An Oxfam employee got in touch anonymously about the bingo game various media outlets are kicking off about.

This is the truth. Media outlets should stop fuelling bigotry against a marginalised minority with these misleading 'culture war' headlines. https://t.co/21ZaGph1Bb pic.twitter.com/MJ0F7Y8UAH

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) October 25, 2021

“Senior management agreed that it would be unethical to sell the product, and it was therefore pulled.”

I’m not sure I believe the story, but even if it is true, why would it be “unethical” to sell (or give away) the product?

It wouldn’t. It’s only because there’s this exaggerated wild-eyed panic about the Specialness of being trans that lets people … Read the rest

The Times reports that Oxfam refuses to clarify that threadbare Twitter “explanation” of its decision to erase women.

Oxfam has removed a children’s game celebrating “inspirational women” such as Marie Curie, Rosa Parks and Emmeline Pankhurst from its shops because transgender and non-binary staff complained that it did not “respect people of all genders”.

No Rosa Parks for you, bitches!

Wonder Women, a bingo game, features 48 women “who have made a mark on the world, from scientists and artists to writers, activists and beyond”.

Then it quotes Rob’s explanation on Twitter, which I think does not come across as official enough to be Oxfam’s only explanation, but it seems Oxfam doesn’t agree. We don’t even know who “Rob” is… Read the rest

Oxfam confirms yes it really is committed to erasing women whenever a trans lobby tells it to.

Hi there, thank you for getting in touch. We took the decision to remove the game from sale following concerns raised by trans and non-binary colleagues who told us that it didn’t live up to our commitment to respect people of all genders. I hope that helps. – Rob

— Oxfam (@oxfamgb) October 24, 2021

A man explains that yes indeed Oxfam removed a bingo game celebrating female achievement because of its commitment to respect people of all genders.

So. That’s clear. In Oxfam view, prodded by its “trans and non-binary colleagues,” it is no longer permissible to celebrate female achievement. It’s … Read the rest

So some members of Congress were in on it, and actively helped plan it.

As the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack heats up, some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent. 

I think we can guess who some of them were.

The two sources, both of

… Read the rest

This is police business because…………….what?

It's #AceWeek. This is a week for raising awareness about asexual identities, while also helping the #ace people within our workplaces feel more included & able to be themselves at work. We'll be sharing resources/information throughout the week to help. pic.twitter.com/HZc5upKoU6

— Police Service NI LGBT+ Network (@PSNILGBT) October 25, 2021

Raise your hands everybody who wants the police explaining you about AsxUal Idenninies.

You’re a tough crowd.… Read the rest

I have to wonder why the SMH saw fit to publish this childish drivel.

Before the movie begins, I duck off to the bathrooms. Down a dim corridor I find the signs: F and M. The same old binary. There’s no other choice. For the umpteenth time, I sigh. Which of two bad options to choose today? I’m neither man nor woman, but I must pretend to be one or the other if I’m to empty my bursting bladder. Outside the entrance, I hesitate, weighing up the dilemma.

But of course he is either man or woman. His name is Yves Reese so apparently a man but who knows, maybe he gave himself a go on, guess name. But … Read the rest

Why?

https://twitter.com/Lachlan_Edi/status/1452394898997534738

Priti Patel says don’t record crimes by men who claim to be trans as crimes by women in the statistics (for blindingly obvious reasons), and a woman cop who is co chair of the LGBT+ network for cops says well in that case don’t record women as victims? Wtf???

Where does she get the “so” and the “then”? So and then imply logic, or a chain of causation, or something along those lines. But what could such a chain be? Men who claim to be trans are not women, so they should not be recorded as women in the statistics when they commit crimes. That’s obvious. The point of the statistics is to record the truth of who … Read the rest

So Atwood posted a video.

Also this one: https://t.co/P9FMFFs4MQ

— Margaret E Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) October 24, 2021

Not a good choice of video. A big chunk of it is about Maya Forstater and of course gets a lot wrong. (Of course because they always do.) Maya sets her straight.

I am an ordinary woman who lost her job and her livelihood because someone shouted "transphobia".

The video that you are spreading accuses me of being "transphobic" based on lies and smears. pic.twitter.com/6hmBsGdOth

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) October 24, 2021

If you want to say I am a "transphobe" based on things I have written then go aheadhttps://t.co/jpZB1L5WaU

Sharing this video that seeks destroy my reputation based on internet rumours

… Read the rest

Ok get over it already.

As a violent mob pushed past barricades protecting the U.S. Capitol, then dragged, beat and bludgeoned police officers before roaming the halls with abandon on Jan. 6, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice watched and wept. The emotions, she said, were similar to those she felt on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I thought: ‘I study countries that do this. I didn’t think it would happen in my own country,’ ” Rice, a Republican who teaches political science at Stanford University, said Wednesday on ABC’s “The View.”

In her own country and with the tacit consent of her own political party. It wasn’t a national insurrection, it was a specific, partisan, one-sided, right-wing insurrection. Most of … Read the rest

Oh did they indeed.

No inspirational women allowed.

Oxfam has bowed to the transgender lobby by withdrawing a children’s bingo game celebrating ‘inspirational women’ from sale in its stores and online.

Inspirational men are no problem, of course, but women…ick.

The game, which sold for £14.99, uses pictures of 48 famous women rather than numbers on cards that are matched with tokens showing the same female figures, including Jane Austen, US civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, climate-change activist Greta Thunberg and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

And JK Rowling. Enough said.

But in an email last week, the charity told staff: ‘We have taken the decision to withdraw the product Wonder Women Bingo as it has been

… Read the rest

The Times on Stonewall:

Today The Times reports on the newest foray into corporate boardrooms under the misleading guise of breaking the gender glass ceiling. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which regulates the financial industry, has drawn up diversity guidelines. These would require every company listed on FTSE indices to declare the percentage of women serving as board members. The new rules, however, do not require that companies declare their board members’ legal or biological sex but their gender identity, regardless of when in their career they adopted it. Using this new definition, the FCA is now recommending that 40 per cent of boards should be women.

But they could all be men. Companies could comply with such recommendations … Read the rest

Women not impressed by ActiVists trying to school Margaret Atwood:

Why any self-respecting woman would want a second chance to grovel more convincingly is quite beyond me. pic.twitter.com/NfbZpCnJl1

— Eliza Mondegreen (@elizamondegreen) October 23, 2021

https://twitter.com/boodleoops/status/1452011785930874880 https://twitter.com/AndreaC61264162/status/1452013603893268482

Margaret Atwood has become one of her own handmaidens, rising up against the tyranny of extreme activist trolls https://t.co/2fj8PKMR4j via @mailplus

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) October 22, 2021

… Read the rest

By latsot, originally a comment on Today in London but it got held because of links while I was out for a walk to Lake Union and back so now it’s a post instead of a comment.

YNNB:

Yes. And the dinosaur costumes were another genius PR idea from Posie Parker. It’s impossible to see one waddling down the street (or getting on a bus)

  without paying attention. And when people do, the explanation is a perfect lead into a discussion of Stonewall.

The event was brilliant, I’m glad I went. Everyone was incredibly nice and kind and looked after each other all day. People helped me get in and out of the pub and fretted about me crossing busy … Read the rest

Theocrats pick another fight:

Thousands of supporters of a banned radical Islamist party have departed from the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore, clashing with police for a second day, a party spokesman and witnesses said on Saturday.

The group formed on Friday with the goal of reaching the capital, Islamabad, to pressure the government to release Saad Rizvi, the head of the Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan party.

“Radical” coupled with Islamist means deep hatred of women and “blasphemers.” (They consider most people blasphemers.)

Rizvi’s party gained prominence in Pakistan’s 2018 elections, campaigning on a single issue: defending the country’s blasphemy law, which calls for the death penalty for anyone who insults Islam. It has a history of staging violent protests to

… Read the rest

Judith Butler has a crappy predictable abusive piece in the Guardian complaining of a “backlash” over sacred Gender.

The attacks on so-called “gender ideology” have grown in recent years throughout the world, dominating public debate stoked by electronic networks and backed by extensive rightwing Catholic and evangelical organizations. Although not always in accord, these groups concur that the traditional family is under attack, that children in the classroom are being indoctrinated to become homosexuals, and that “gender” is a dangerous, if not diabolical, ideology threatening to destroy families, local cultures, civilization, and even “man” himself.

Meanwhile, in the real world, feminist women object to being shoved aside and told to shut up by men who claim to be women.

It

… Read the rest

Remember Charles Clymer the “male feminist” who was always talking over women? Then declared he was “Charlotte” and it all made sense? As Charlotte he gets to talk over everyone.

https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1451812631749275650

And Charles is a man. He is not a woman. Being a woman is not his experience (7 years in the army azza man) and he is not qualified to talk about what is and isn’t offensive and intrusive and misogynist to the female community. Stay in your lane Charles.… Read the rest

Let’s have a campaign against spiking women’s drinks in order to rape them and let’s make sure our campaign is incloosiv of men.

https://twitter.com/martinradio/status/1451829049047855107

The campaign started on Instagram, and that’s also where it was interrupted and hijacked and bullied into including men, thus making it a completely meaningless campaign to stop people doing something to people.

We’re sorry!!! We’re sorry we’re sorry we’re sorry – we’re so sorry we said it was about girls, we’ll never do it again, please don’t hit us, please don’t drug us and rape us, please, we promise we’ll be good, please please please please… Read the rest

Originally a comment by As the smoke rises upward on A long-awaited judgment.

One can make the same argument for selling organs. There are thousands of desperately poor people in rural India suffering from the lifelong health effects of having one kidney because they—ostensibly voluntarily—sold the other one.

Here’s another, more obscure analogy: midget bowling. If you are fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with this phenomenon, it’s the practice of tossing a little person down a bowling lane in place of a bowling ball, which is apparently high comedy to certain crass fratboy types. Some little people rent themselves out to would-be midget bowlers, but some state legislatures have passed laws prohibiting the practice, on the grounds that it … Read the rest

We’re not confused.

For anyone confused by our usage of inclusive language, please read the editorial from our August issue, which was focused on pregnancy. https://t.co/MPwCT8pV78

— The Scientist (@TheScientistLLC) October 22, 2021

I’m not confused, but I’ll have a look.

Beyond these clinical technicalities, for many people pregnancy also starts before conception in a figurative sense.

I’m definitely not confused, I know exactly what you’re doing. You’re pandering to a stupid fad for pretending that we don’t know which sex does the baby-having.

…two medical centers in the US, Baylor University Medical Center and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, are now offering uterus transplants to allow XX-carrying people lacking a functional uterus to gestate their own children

… Read the rest

The mindset.

https://twitter.com/Hitchcockian/status/1450063002296803347

What letters? The usual suspects.

And while he’s got your attention, he’d also like you to take his directions on what people it’s permitted to follow on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/Hitchcockian/status/1450564574160334856

Nine acquaintances, and he’s telling them he’d “appreciate it” if they stopped following someone because he says so. I might as well tweet that I’d appreciate it if Jeff Bezos ran his friends past me for approval.

Pompous little dictators everywhere.

Updating to add:

"If you're a physicist and you sign any letter in support of the heretic Galileo, I will never use your work in my teaching." https://t.co/iiVmKDIE1B

— Anya Palmer (@anyabike) October 22, 2021

… Read the rest