NPR is on the job! If you’re at a loss for how to pronoun, NPR is there to help!

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1400121652441145344

Down pointing backhand index to you too, you lovely helpful advicey people.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1400121311318401033

We heard you the first time but ok I guess.

Shall we read their cute 101 guide? Oh let’s.

“Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It’s how someone refers to you in conversation,” says Mary Emily O’Hara, a communications officer at GLAAD. 

No, pronouns are not how we identify ourselves apart from our name. Not basically or any other way.

This guide was created with help from GLAAD. We also referenced resources from the National Center for Transgender Equality, the 

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So few readers.

The blog that former president Donald Trump launched last month after he was banned from Twitter and Facebook is no more.

Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump, said that “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” has been permanently shut down after all posts were scrubbed from Trump’s website.

Trump rolled out the blog last month after being absent from social media since January, but his effort to regain some of the attention he received with his headline-grabbing tweets largely failed. An adviser told The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey that the former president wanted to open a new “platform” and didn’t like that this platform was being mocked and had so few readers.

And the way … Read the rest

The Times reports on the Jolyon/Mermaids lawsuit:

Stonewall has backed transgender activists in a legal challenge to the charitable status of a rival campaign group that is accused of “denigrating trans people”.

I think it’s a little underhanded to call the LGB Alliance a “rival” group…as if Stonewall were some kind of obvious Rightful Owner and the LGBA a trespasser. Stonewall doesn’t own All Things NotStraight, and anyway it’s far more about the T these days.

In their objections to the Charity Commission’s decision, the groups argued that “charitable status is earned by those who serve the public good. Denigrating trans people, attacking those who speak for them, and campaigning to remove legal protections from them is the very

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Barrister Dennis Kavanagh at Lesbian and Gay News reports on the kimono guy’s lawsuit against the LGB Alliance:

The public campaign against the LGB Alliance by established trans-focused charities Stonewall and Mermaids escalated into litigation today with an appeal against the Charity Commission’s decision to award the LGBA charitable status (available here). This follows ferocious objections from the groups to the initial application for registration and a campaign of well publicised subsequent complaints to the commission itself by supporters of both charities, (many of which were dismissed as “emotional”). It seems then that 2021 Pride month will set the stage for an extraordinary legal spectacle of large, multi-million pound trans focused charities seeking to silence and effectively destroy

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While Jolyon is persecuting lesbians in London, police in Bristol are persecuting a woman who, according to them, made “transphobic comments” to someone.

Police have released a CCTV image after transphobic comments were made to a woman.

Avon and Somerset Police are investigating the incident that occurred in the St Paul’s area.

The transphobic comments were made by an “unknown woman” in Badminton Road at around 6.50pm on Thursday, May 6.

But can we trust the police on this? Can we trust them to know the comments were genuinely transphobic as opposed to ordinary statements of fact?

Also, do the police ever put out announcements like this when, say, a man calls a woman a bitch and a cunt and … Read the rest

The Fox-basher is persecuting uppity lesbians again.

NEW: LGBTQ+ people across the UK face an onslaught of attacks in the media. Those carrying out those attacks ought not to be dignified with charitable status. We’re taking action. @Mermaids_Gender @LGBTConsortium
https://t.co/7xcULz329m

— Good Law Project (@GoodLawProject) June 2, 2021

Demanding LGB people support the aims of Stonewall and others in their push for self ID, and the redefinition of “man” and “woman” as identities is deeply homophobic. We are not a hive mind, and we will not be bullied into submission.

— Duncan (@DuncanHenry78) June 2, 2021

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Should Michael Flynn be court-martialed for advocating a coup? Not quite, legally speaking. (Morally speaking he should be court-martialed and then pushed into a deep mud puddle.)

Flynn made the comment at a QAnon-themed conference in Texas this past weekend. After Flynn delivered a speech to the group, a man in the audience rose and said, “I’m a simple Marine. I want to know why what happened in Minimar [he was referring to the February military coup in Myanmar] can’t happen here.” Amid much whooping and clapping from the crowd, Flynn replied, “No reason. I mean, it should happen”—i.e., a coup should happen here. (Flynn has since denied saying this, but the videotape clearly shows he did.)

…

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Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Happy pride day punch a terf.

(Warning: not new information for many here.) I really do think that these people have somehow reconceptualized words like lesbian from descriptions to memberships. For example, atheist as a description is a word that applies to someone who does not believe in any gods. Believe in no gods? Atheist. Believe in at least one god? Not an atheist. As a membership term, it applies to someone who is part of the group “atheists”. Thus, if one is permitted entry into the group, one is an atheist. No other criteria apply, and this is how we get to normative notions of inclusion and exclusion, of “policing” … Read the rest

Trump is telling people he expects to be “reinstated” in a couple of months. That’s not how that works, Treasonbro.

It isn’t happening in a vacuum. It is happening as he faced the possibility of an indictment from the Manhattan DA.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 1, 2021

The anti-democratic conspiracy theory has been bubbling up in fringe conservative media for several months. It has no basis under the Constitution or any legitimate legal framework.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has been a prominent proponent of the theory.

So what? What’s the pillow guy got to do with anything?

Lindell has said August is when he would go to the Supreme Court to present evidence he’s acquired that would be

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The Toronto Star says there are more mass graves.

“If you think there’s another Kamloops just coming around the corner, there is one — trust me,” says Lyle Keewatin Richards, the child of a residential school survivor who is part of a group trying to preserve an unmarked cemetery near the former Red Deer Industrial School in Alberta.

According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, approximately 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children attended these residential schools. Estimates vary, but the commission put it at just over 4,000 dead, which would mean that more than one in 50 children who went to the schools died there. Most experts say the toll is likely higher.

It was a rate of

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Stonewall is having a rough day.

Meanwhile, @DawnButlerBrent asked whether we trusted @trussliz or @stonewalluk more.

I don't know about anyone else, but we will take whoever will stand up for women in the face of comments like this (remember, all to "celebrate" #pride) pic.twitter.com/LRdKHasDX7

— For Women Scotland (@ForWomenScot) June 1, 2021

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1399614477163769857

Also as that Telegraph article mentioned, Channel 4 has also dropped Stonewall.

I plan a meeting on Stonewall policies next week. https://t.co/RUAOyEdE6E

— Emma Harriet Nicholson (@Baroness_Nichol) June 1, 2021

A glimmer of light at last.… Read the rest

Stonewall even worse than we already thought surprise surprise.

Stonewall “threatened” to silence a gender-critical barrister they deemed “transphobic” by having her sacked, court documents have revealed.

Allison Bailey, a lesbian criminal barrister who helped to set up the LGB Alliance, is currently suing the embattled charity, claiming it collaborated with her chambers to put her under investigation.

Ms Bailey, who set up a crowdfunder to cover her legal bills, lodged a claim at the Employment Tribunal against Stonewall and Garden Court Chambers last year alleging that she was silenced “because both my chambers and Stonewall treat people such as me, who hold gender critical beliefs, as being bigoted and unworthy of respect”. 

The Telegraph has seen damning court … Read the rest

Graham Linehan is not bowled over by Paris Lees’s memoir.

I think we’re going to have to do an emergency Mess We’re In on Paris Lees’ memoirs.

This is the start of it. I’m not making this up. This is real. This isn’t a parody. This is actually how it’s written.

Oh gawd, I hate dialect writing. Anyway it’s stupid because it assumes that non-dialect writing represents the way non-dialect people speak, but there are no non-dialect people, so the assumption is wrong and silly and bad.

And if you want any more proof that this is a revolution of mediocre men, have a look at this pathetic review in the Guardian by Kadish Morris. It’s a masterpiece in 

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Anti-vax religious loony gets the Covid.

Conservative pastor Rick Wiles has apparently fallen ill with COVID-19 after condemning the vaccines that fight the disease, baselessly claiming they’re being used to carry out a “global genocide.”

Wiles—the founder of the conspiracy-promoting TruNews website and the senior pastor of Flowing Streams Church in Florida—asserted on this show in late April that he would not get vaccinated against COVID-19 and would survive the “global genocide.”

“I am not going to be vaccinated,” he said. “I’m going to be one of the survivors. I’m going to survive the genocide.”

He added, “You and I are witnessing the first global mass murder and it’s being led by Satan’s team on the planet. You must

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Last week BBC 4’s Woman’s Hour had host Anita Rani interviewing Paris Lees, who is a man who identifies as a woman. I took the trouble to listen to it and found that Anita Rani was strikingly gushy toward him. Some women on Twitter were critical of this choice of subject and Rani’s gush. Her response:

https://twitter.com/itsanitarani/status/1398221484779347968

If Woman’s Hour is a space to discuss everything then why is it called Woman’s Hour? Why isn’t it called Everything Hour?

More specifically, why do women have to empathise with men who identify as women at the expense of women? Why do they have to give up part of this one BBC hour that’s about women for the sake of yet … Read the rest

The Texas “no people like you can’t vote” bill has been blocked for now, because the Democrats walked out. The Gov is mad.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he intends to withhold paychecks to state lawmakers after House Democrats staged a walkout to block voting restrictions proposed by their Republican counterparts.

I wonder if he has that power. It’s not as if he sits up there every Friday handing them their checks.

A large group of Democrats walked out of the House chamber in Austin late Sunday, so there was no quorum and that prevented a final vote on the proposal, Senate Bill 7. The bill, which had appeared poised for passage, would cut back polling hours, reduce access

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Life-changing opportunities are missed.

Wallwork says it’s the IOC’s doing, and that’s true, and they suck, but it’s Hubbard’s doing too, and I think we absolutely can keep saying so. He’s blatantly cheating, and he knows it, and it’s simply revolting

Yeah, he didn’t end up on that podium accidentally, nor was a gun held to his head. “Validation” trumps fairness.

Also, would the New Zealand Olympic team be as silent if other nations fielded male ringers, if their own women’s team was made up solely of, you know,women? Or what if other countries had bigger, burlier, stronger TIMs on their “women’” weightlifting rosters? Are they good with … Read the rest

An item from the (very conservative) Federalist a week ago:

An exclusive New York City high school hired an educator to teach students about pornography, and it did not go over well with parents.

Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, an institution with a price tag of about $47,000 for the highest grade offered, held a sexuality workshop for all students in the junior class. Parents were not made aware of the training, and students were misinformed about the explicit content.

It seems to me there is a place in high schools for a certain kind of teaching about porn, though it would probably be futile. Porn-critical teaching could elucidate the ways porn … Read the rest

Making history.

A Scot has made history by becoming the first transgender woman golfer to win a professional tournament in the US.

That’s not making history, it’s cheating. Different thing.

Ayrshire-born Hailey Davidson claimed victory in a mini-tour event at Providence Golf Club in Polk County, Florida.

Hailey, 28, was finally given the green light to compete in National Women’s Golf Association events after the United States Golf Association and the Ladies Professional Golf Association changed eligibility rules to make it easier for trans athletes to compete.

That is, after the United States Golf Association and the Ladies Professional Golf Association changed eligibility rules to make it easier for men to cheat by competing against women.

Hailey said she

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Stonewall is melting, melllltiiiinnnggg…

Liz Truss, the equalities minister, is pushing for all government departments to withdraw from Stonewall’s employment scheme following a row over transgender rights.

…

The Times understands that responsibility for co-ordinating participation in the scheme rests with the Cabinet Office. The scheme counts 250 government departments and public bodies among its 850 members, which pay for guidance on issues such as pronouns and gender-neutral spaces.

Why pay for that? There are a million sources on it that don’t charge anything, besides which, it’s all nonsense anyway. Nobody needs “guidance” on pronouns.

Stonewall says the scheme is “the leading employers’ programme for ensuring all LGBT staff are accepted without exception in the workplace”. 

Oh yes? What … Read the rest