Women just don’t matter at all.

It is lawful for transgender women to be housed in female jails in England and Wales, the High Court has ruled.

A female prisoner, known as FDJ, had challenged the Ministry of Justice over aspects of the policy.

She claimed she had been sexually assaulted by a trans prisoner but the MoJ did not say whether it accepted this alleged incident had taken place.

The judge ruled barring all trans women from female prisons would ignore their right to live as their chosen gender.

But what about women’s right to live away from male violence?

Why isn’t that right vastly more important than some fanciful made-up “right” to live as a “chosen” i.e. … Read the rest

So…it looks as if this phenomenon could set whole continents on fire.

Storm-producing fire clouds threw out hundreds of thousands of lightning strikes over wildfire-stricken British Columbia and northwestern Alberta provinces in Canada Wednesday and Thursday, bewildering meteorologists. https://t.co/QnyZ9yPq7G

— SFGATE (@SFGate) July 1, 2021

Lightning strikes cause fires. The horrific fire season in California last year was partly caused by thousands of lightning strikes.

"This is a literal firestorm, producing *thousands* of lightning strikes and almost certainly countless new fires."

Read more: https://t.co/R7mUV6aglI pic.twitter.com/QwlAMRcIg0

— SFGATE (@SFGate) July 1, 2021

Fire clouds spark 710,117 lightning strikes in western Canada in 15 hours: The numbers shared by @COweatherman from a lightning siege in western Canada are mind blowing. https://t.co/hHUAd2OIxf via

… Read the rest

You got the science wrong no you got the science wrong.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700553668239360 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700558755827714 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700562597883908 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700570520850445

I think he has an extra “not” in that last sentence.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700574358654977

Why yes, it does. I thought so at the time, especially since he was so pissy to me during the DJ Grothe/TAM brouhaha. Allyship with Grothe and TAM then, and allyship with Our Trans Siblings now. Never allyship with feminists, because I guess that would just be too boring.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410700579022774276 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410730408673615874 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1410732371121373185

Why, what could go wrong? Apart from self-mutilation and whatnot.… Read the rest

Okaaaaay so now we’re just not bothering with any kind of consistency.

https://twitter.com/Red07859895/status/1410542908856483841

She totally sees the contradiction, yes? Not quite.

I stand by that.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) July 1, 2021

Nobody’s body is a threat, and the denial of the reality of male violence is as much a part of the way power operates as the violence itself.

If you can make those two claims consistent with each other, you get the Nobel Prize for Broken Reasoning Repair.… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/AliciaSmith987/status/1410506669226926080… Read the rest

More on Lytton:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1410619556700241928

Like those videos from Paradise when it burned to the ground.

Lytton mayor Jan Polderman tells CBC that "the whole town is on fire" #Lytton #BCwildfires #BC https://t.co/VugLfDNAkQ

— Georgia Straight (@georgiastraight) July 1, 2021

"We're hearing many reports and confirmations that the village of Lytton, there's a lot of structural damage. We've heard of the hospital, Main Street, the ambulance location as well. The core of the village has been devastated."https://t.co/WdRSASy8kf

— Global BC (@GlobalBC) July 1, 2021

Wildfire service says Lytton, B.C. blaze ‘out of control’ as residents flee https://t.co/UvPpCdW8OE

— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail) July 1, 2021

LATEST: The majority of #LyttonBC has been destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire, the area's

… Read the rest

An entire British Columbia town has burned up.

The fire started in the late afternoon and by 6 p.m., the mayor had issued an evacuation order for the entire town of Lytton. …

Ninety per cent the small B.C. village has burned in a devastating wildfire, the town’s local member of Parliament says. 

Brad Vis, who represents Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon, says the fire that tore through Lytton and forced the entire community to evacuate Wednesday has led to significant structural damage including in the town’s centre.

…

“We heard that we lost our hospital again, plus the ambulance, and it sounds like the whole town’s burning,” said Terry Wagner, an evacuee, late Wednesday.

Lytton Mayor Jan Polderman ordered an evacuation

… Read the rest

Does she understand anything?

No.
Nobody‘s body is a threat. Nobody’s body is morally superior to anyone else’s. No matter their race, sex, gender, ethnicity, age, ability, size or anything else, nobody’s body makes them worthy of contempt.
To suggest otherwise is the essence of supremacist thinking. https://t.co/RajAFuviZ7

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) July 1, 2021

If it were true that nobody’s body is a threat then rape would not exist. There would be no word for it because there would be nothing for the word to name. If it were true that nobody’s body is a threat then physical violence would not exist.

On this one I can’t even guess what she thinks she’s thinking. It’s not that she doesn’t … Read the rest

Glinner on the destruction of Green Party Women:

This, from Mumsnet, has been circulating on Twitter today. It concerns drug pusher and abusive male, Kathryn Bristow.

Graham shares a message from a Green Party member:

“I am writing with the latest antics of Kathryn Bristow, who has now declared themselves the sole chair of green party women.

A couple of days ago Kathryn Bristow decided that it was a bad idea for women to be able to interact and speak freely in the internal members-only  Green Party women discussion space. It began with him removing posts on LGBT issues, in order to make it a ‘safe space for all women and non-binary people’.

Women objected, Bristow made threats of … Read the rest

Ari Berman (author of the voting rights classic Give Us the Ballot) on the horrific ruling:

Breaking: Supreme Court upholds GOP voting restrictions in Arizona, further weakening Voting Rights Act & giving green-light to GOP voter suppression laws. 6-3 opinion by Alito. Kagan dissents https://t.co/YTt9hzew3n

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) July 1, 2021

5 of 6 conservative Supreme Court justices were appointed by GOP presidents who initially lost popular vote & confirmed by senators representing minority of Americans

American democracy completely broken

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) July 1, 2021

In 2013 SCOTUS gutted Voting Rights Act. Since then 26 states have enacted new voter suppression laws

Now conservative majority shredding what remains of VRA, giving green-light to greatest rollback of

… Read the rest

Nina Totenberg says the Voting Rights Act is basically dead.

The U.S. Supreme Court for all practical purposes rendered the landmark Voting Rights Act a dead letter on Thursday.

The 6-to-3 vote was along ideological lines, with Justice Samuel Alito writing the decision for the conservative court majority, and the liberals in angry dissent.

At issue in the case were two Arizona laws. One banned the collection of absentee ballots by anyone other than a relative or caregiver, and the other threw out any ballots cast in the wrong precinct. A federal appeals court struck down both provisions, ruling that they had an unequal impact on minority voters, and that there was no evidence of fraud that would have

… Read the rest

The right-wing Supreme Court approves voting restrictions.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday made it easier for states to enact voting restrictions, endorsing Republican-backed measures in Arizona that a lower court had decided disproportionately burdened Black, Latino and Native American voters and handing a defeat to Democrats who had challenged the policies.

So, that’s it, that’s the ballgame. We’re fucked. Republicans can now pass all kinds of laws that make it harder for poor people, working people, immigrant people, brown people to vote, thus expanding and consolidating their power from this moment on. We are fucked.

The Arizona ruling clarified the limits of the Voting Rights Act and how courts may analyze claims of voting discrimination.

The “mere fact

… Read the rest

Hello hello yes please do walk all over me, it’s what I’m here for, can I do anything else for you?

A retiree in Suffolk has made history as the first transgender woman to star on the front cover of the Women’s Institute magazine.

A man has “made history” as the first man to star on the front cover of the Women’s Institute magazine. It’s extremely history-making for men to appear on the front covers of magazines.

WI member Petra Wenham, 74, has spoken to WI Life – the publication for the group’s members – after she was asked to discuss her work as as a speaker and activist for a Suffolk chapter of the branch, Cake and Revolution.

… Read the rest

Another victory in the war on Karens:

Bill Cosby is being released from prison after the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania vacated his 2018 conviction on sexual assault charges and judgment of sentence. Victoria Valentino, one of Cosby’s accusers, told CNN she was “stunned” by the court’s decision.

Valentino said she had recently received a letter stating that Cosby’s parole was preemptively denied due to a lack of remorse and a refusal to participate in programs for abusers.

She said that when she first heard about Cosby’s release she was “shocked.” Valentino said her phone was bombarded with messages from media, loved ones and survivors.

“For this to come out of left field is — it’s a gut punch,” Valentino

… Read the rest

Laurie Penny tries to rehabilitate herself.

THREAD:
The question of how to balance different peoples’ needs in public spaces is important. It’s being had in bad faith right now, by people who want to make the case for excluding minority groups- but it speaks to something important that lots of communities are considering.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) June 30, 2021

That’s good, isn’t it? She accuses us of bad faith while in the same breath claiming we want to “make the case for excluding minority groups.” Way to have the discussion in good faith. No, Comrade, we don’t want to make the case for excluding minority groups. That’s not accurate or fair.

And often- too often- a request that a

… Read the rest

If it doesn’t convince anyone the first 500 times, try again.

I see a lot of ‘gender critical’ people frantically rules-lawyering here- all sorts of specious explanations as to why their ‘treat all trans women as potential sex criminals’ is different from homophobes’ ‘treat all gay people as potential sex criminals’. Seems I struck a nerve.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) June 30, 2021

The dishonesty battles with the stupidity for first prize.

As always, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s anxious adherence to the rules or genuine delusional belief – in fact it’s impossible to tell just as it’s impossible to tell if any given naked man in a women’s changing room genuinely believes he’s a woman or is just … Read the rest

Matt Taiibi has a hilarious piece on a new book by Robin DiAngelo.

Nice Racism, the booklike product released this week by the “Vanilla Ice of Antiracism,” Robin DiAngelo, begins with an anecdote from the author’s past.

I just have to interrupt to say how much I love “booklike product.”

She’s in college, gone out to a dinner party with her partner, where she discovers the other couple is, gasp, black. “I was excited and felt an immediate need to let them know I was not racist,” she explains, adding: “I proceeded to spend the evening telling them how racist my family was. I shared every racist joke, story, and comment I could remember my family

… Read the rest

You’ve probably seen the Wi Spa video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyPyXMnr93I

LA Magazine does not approve of the woman who doesn’t want a naked man in the women’s section with her.

Mineral salt massages and hydro-dermabrasion facials weren’t enough to calm the nerves of some patrons at Wi Spa over the weekend. The tony Koreatown health club became the scene of a showdown over nudity in gendered spaces after a customer confronted spa staff about a trans woman with male genitals being allowed to disrobe in the spa’s female section. The ruckus was caught on camera and quickly went viral on Twitter on Sunday, fueling a furious online debate—with threats of a boycott against the spa—about the rights of trans people to use

… Read the rest

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Manhattan district attorney’s office is expected to charge the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with tax-related crimes on Thursday, people familiar with the matter said, which would mark the first criminal charges against the former president’s company since prosecutors began investigating it three years ago.

Another twig added to the haystack of sleaze that is Trumpworld.

How disgusting it is that this filthy man spent four years telling us what to do.

Word is Trump won’t be charged; Weisselberg has refused to be turned.

This one is about not paying taxes on fringe benefits, which sounds laughably trivial given what we know about Trump, but little acorns, you know.

The tax-related

… Read the rest

How do they know he identifies as a man?

A group of customers at a cafe in the Aegean district of Soma rescued a woman from a male attacker identified only as T.Ç. who broke a glass on her head and battered her, local agencies reported on June 29.

Video footage showed T.Ç. sitting across from his wife at a cafe before getting up, walking over to her side of the table with a glass and breaking it on her head, and attacking her with a knife he picked up off the table. 

The security footage shows customers run to the woman’s rescue and batter the man in an attempt to fend him off of the woman.

It shows a … Read the rest