Speaking of Dillahunty and dogmatism and the infallibility of personal beliefs…from last year:

Nearly headless nick is now brainless and heartless, as well. Sorry that you can't change and grow and learn…and be supportive of the people who are actually being threatened. https://t.co/eUk6ygQtWY

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) September 30, 2020

No, it's not. She is transphobic, did say transphobic things and the fact that two things CAN be true doesn't mean they are.

We ARE condemning misguided hate. You're excusing it. Bye.

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) September 30, 2020

… Read the rest

Jonathon Van Maren writes:

French clinicians are also now taking a stand. In an open letter published four days ago on the L’Express website (and covered almost nowhere in the international press), over fifty medical professionals and prominent academics, including doctors, legal experts, educational experts, philosophers, sociologists, psychiatrists, judges, and psychoanalysts, excoriated transgender ideology and condemned “sex reassignment” in children. Published in association with the Observatory of Ideological Discourses on Children and Adolescents, the letter is worth reading in full:

The link doesn’t work, but we can read the translation JVM shares.

We can no longer remain silent about what appears to us to be a serious drift committed in the name of the emancipation of the “transgender

Where vaccine-resistance gets us:

The United States surpassed 700,000 deaths from the coronavirus on Friday, a milestone that few experts had anticipated months ago when vaccines became widely available to the American public.

An overwhelming majority of Americans who have died in recent months, a period in which the country has offered broad access to shots, were unvaccinated. The United States has had one of the highest recent death rates of any country with an ample supply of vaccines.

Why? Because we also have one of the highest rates of stupid.

The new and alarming surge of deaths this summer means that the coronavirus pandemic has become the deadliest in American history, overtaking the toll from the influenza pandemic

More calls to fire and shun people who don’t believe men are women:

AN SNP politician has retweeted a message calling for Joanna Cherry to be expelled from the party.

Kirsty Blackman, the MP for Aberdeen North, appeared to endorse the post amid an ongoing row over trans rights.

Or trans “rights.” The issue gets wildly confused because of the chronic failure to specify which “rights” we’re talking about. Just saying “trans rights” makes it sound as if the issue is basic human rights, when in fact what is contentious is the claim that men who identify as trans have a “right” to invade women’s spaces and take women’s prizes and jobs with no questions asked. It’s not a basic … Read the rest

Meghan Cook at Insider informs us that contestants on Survivor have just one set of clothes, so they can’t change into dry clothes after swimming. That’s not healthy.

Insider has previously reported on the potentially life-threatening consequences of wearing the same clothes and underwear for an extended period of time.

(Mind you, they could wear underwear and dry their clothes, then wear clothes and dry their underwear. But never mind, that’s a tangent.)

Gynecologist Dr. Mary Jane Minkin also previously told Insider that sitting around in damp clothes can create “a wet, moist, warm environment” that can lead to unwanted bacteria and yeast.

Specifically, competing in wet clothes for extended periods of time puts players with vaginas in an

Who are the voices on the police and institutional misogyny that need to be amplified right now (obviously exclusively women)?

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) October 1, 2021

Oh dear. That would be all the feminist women he’s blocked.

What a question from a guy who is so determined to ostracize and silence women who defend our own boundaries and our very definition. He wants to amplify our voices now after all these years of obsessive de-amplification? And he finds it obvious that he’s talking exclusively about women?… Read the rest

Catherine Bennett notes that judges and cops and politicians are still saying that some women deserve to be murdered:

[Sarah] Everard was, Lord Justice Fulford said, “a wholly blameless victim”. Ah. The other sort – the woman who contributes to her own death at the hands of a pitiless stranger – evidently lives on in the mind of the senior judiciary. Forty years after the police and prosecution virtue-rated victims of the mass murderer Peter Sutcliffe, the criminal justice system applauds a female victim who lives up to the highest patriarchal standards. Sir Michael Havers said at Sutcliffe’s trial that “perhaps the saddest part of the case” was that “the last six attacks were on totally respectable women”.

As opposed … Read the rest

Speaking of “people who need abortion rights,” I’m horrified to see that even Margaret Talbot is doing it. She does at least say “women” too, but there’s way too much peopleing.

Starting with a “women” passage:

Mississippi’s brief to uphold its law offers, among other rationales, the assertion that women’s lives are so much freer, more equal, and more replete with birth-control options now than they were in 1973, when Roe legalized the right to abortion nationwide, that we can let that right go by the wayside.

You know what that’s like? It’s like the Supreme Court saying, in the Shelby ruling, that voting rights are not an issue any more, so we can stop protecting them. It was … Read the rest

All those people shouting “freedom freedom freedom” in response to mask mandates? They’re stooges for the Koch brothers.

There’s a letter to school administrators going around, invoking the sacred institution of Parental Choice.

“I do not believe little kids should be forced to wear masks, and I urge you to adopt a policy that allows parental choice on this matter for the upcoming school year.”

But the heartfelt appeal is not the product of a grass roots groundswell. Rather, it is a template drafted and circulated this week within a conservative network built on the scaffolding of the Koch fortune and the largesse of other GOP megadonors.

That makes the document, which was obtained by The Washington Post,

This is the kind of thing that makes this conflict so maddening.

I can't support the creation of an underclass of women who have no safe space away from men because they aren't what people like @MForstater think a "woman" should look like.

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) October 2, 2021

First, “I’ve also discovered today, which I did not know, that @MForstater has publicly said women should be denied access to women’s spaces if other women think they look like men.”

Wrong. There’s no “think they look like men” about it. We all publicly say that men should be denied access to [at least some] women’s spaces. That’s it, that’s the say. Men should stay out of women’s spaces. … Read the rest

Trump thinks Twitter should be forced, forced, to let him use Twitter to incite insurrection and civil war.

“Plaintiff Donald J. Trump respectfully moves for a preliminary injunction directing, inter alia, Defendant Twitter, Inc. and all persons acting in concert with Defendant, to reinstate Plaintiff’s access to Defendant’s social media platform(s),” the filing said.

It argued that Twitter was “censoring” Trump by indefinitely banning him from the platform, adding that the company “exercises a degree of power and control over political discourse in this country that is immeasurable, historically unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous to open democratic debate.”

Violent insurrection and civil war are not open democratic debate. Trump has zero interest in open democratic debate.

Twitter banned Trump

Alex Jones is liable.

Alex Jones, the right-wing conspiracy theorist and founder of Infowars, is responsible for all damages in two lawsuits stemming from his false claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a “giant hoax,” a judge ruled this week.

District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County, Tex., issued default judgments Monday against Jones and Infowars after he did not comply with court orders to give information in a pair of 2018 lawsuits brought against him by families of two children killed in the 2012 massacre. Jones repeatedly failed to hand over documents and evidence to the court supporting his damaging and erroneous claims that the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., which killed 26 people, 20

I’m not the only one who thinks so, either.

When I say that we’re not doing enough to
“challenge men for violence against women & girls,”
am I to say we’re not doing enough to
“challenge people for violence against people?”
I will not do that
It doesn’t put the blame where it belongs
It doesn’t protect those most at risk

— nazir afzal (@nazirafzal) October 2, 2021

There are many many more furious retorts, but they’re all replies so the Guardian tweet would reappear with each one so I’ll leave it at that.… Read the rest

The Guardian is trolling us.

Pregnant and breastfeeding people are facing abysmal vaccination rates and increasing health risks from the Delta variant, and they urgently need to be vaccinated, experts warn.

…

Only one-third of pregnant adults in the US have received the Covid vaccines – less than half the vaccination rate of all American adults. And stark disparities exist among different communities, with only 15.6% of Black pregnant people vaccinated so far.

At the same time, pregnancy is a risk factor for serious illness from the coronavirus. Being pregnant and unvaccinated doubles the risk of needing intensive care for those who have Covid, and leads to a 70% increased risk of death. In August alone, 22 pregnant people

Trans-identifying man Laurel Hubbard has been named New Zealand Sports Woman of the Year. Who has not been named that?

This is Lisa Carrington. She is a New Zealand canoeist.

She won three gold medals at Tokyo 2020 and became NZ’s most successful Olympian ever. pic.twitter.com/lP4O8IztRt

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) October 2, 2021

This is Emma Twigg. She is a New Zealand rower.

She won her first Olympic gold medal at Tokyo 2020. pic.twitter.com/u1eZlqu6MF

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) October 2, 2021

These are the New Zealand women rugby 7s.

They won gold medals at Tokyo 2020.

Michaela Blyde
Kelly Brazier
Gayle Broughton
Theresa Fitzpatrick
Stacey Fluhler
Sarah Hirini
Shiray Kaka
Tyla Nathan-Wong
Risi Pouri-Lane
Alena Saili
Ruby Tui
Tenika Willison

Man named sportswoman of the year.

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard has been named sportswoman of the year by the University of Otago. 

So insulting. They’re rubbing our noses in it.

She is the first transgender winner of the award in its 113 year history celebrating sporting greatness. 

He is the first man to win the award for women.

Ms Hubbard competed at the Tokyo Olympics earlier this year in the 87+ kg womens’ weightlifting. 

Mr Hubbard.

Ms Hubbard, who transitioned in 2012, qualified for the Olympic Games after the International Olympic Committee changed their rules to allow women to compete if their testosterone levels are below a certain threshold. 

Mr Hubbard qualified for the Olympic Games after the … Read the rest

But…

The tragic murder of Sarah Everard was the result of an unforgivable abuse of power by a serving police officer. I am committed to doing everything in my power to address this including making sure the police treat violence against women and girls as a priority. @BBCLondonNews pic.twitter.com/aFyGk6RSKI

— Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (@MayorofLondon) October 1, 2021

Everything in his power?

Really?

Then why did he sack Joan Smith without a word of explanation?

Why has he ignored her since? Why has he refused to explain or meet with her or anything else?

It was entirely within his power not to sack Joan. She wrote the damn book on the subject. He should apologize and ask her to … Read the rest

Originally a comment by tigger the wing on Women’s fault.

This is how I remember things were for those of us born in the fifties. When I left secondary school in 1976, all general education was still being run, and paid for, by the government. So they had a vested interest in making sure that, insofar as possible, only those teens who would stick at studying and actually gain a good degree were funnelled into university. So kids were tested at eleven to assess what kind of further learning they were suited to, and the more academically-minded kids were sent to grammar (arts and sciences track) and technical (engineering track) schools, and those of a more practical bent were … Read the rest

WHAT???????????

Just when you think the absurdity of victim blaming could not possibly go any further, here is a Police Commissioner openly blaming Sarah Everard for what happened to her on BBC radio https://t.co/brN6rRSf2q #FixTheSystemNotTheWomen pic.twitter.com/eja5uJp7z2

— EverydaySexism (@EverydaySexism) October 1, 2021

Yes definitely because the police are always so understanding when people resist arrest, as everyone knows. So stupid of Sarah Everard not to shout “NO!” and flag down a bus (because there is always a bus coming down the street at any given moment, and the drivers always stop for people waving at them nowhere near a bus stop).

The BBC has the aftermath:

A police boss who said women “need to be streetwise” about powers of

The Stonewall thread:

Amidst the current manufactured moral panic around trans people, it's important that governing bodies' policies are based on solid evidence about the reality of sport & inclusion.

The new guidance fails to properly reflect that safe, fair trans inclusion in sport already exists.

— Stonewall (@stonewalluk) September 30, 2021

Sport plays an important role in giving people pride, and a sense of community and belonging.

Sport should be a safe haven for trans people, just as much as it is for anyone else. The new guidance destabilises the progress that has already been made for trans inclusion.

— Stonewall (@stonewalluk) September 30, 2021

Sinister liars. If they succeed in making sport a “safe haven” for trans women … Read the rest