The other thing about Alice Roberts’s dead people tweet [sorry Harald!] is that she’s right that the dead don’t come back to life, but then…why does she believe (or say she believes) that men do become women? Many are asking.

https://twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/status/1378073999108939783

Ahhh yes, thank you for mentioning it. No beliefs should be beyond scrutiny and criticism! Including beliefs about whether or not men are women if they say so. And yet the belief that they are is pushed on all of us, often very hard, with insults and menaces and ostracism and terminated careers. What about that, Professor Roberts?

https://twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/status/1378053572701605892

Ahhhh unscientific beliefs is it…like the belief that men are women if they say they “identify as” women. Imagine … Read the rest

Is the impulse (or habit or need) to set people straight about things a necessarily religious one? I don’t think so, I think it’s a lot broader than that, although religion is certainly one area of life where people are encouraged to do it even unto the end of days.

It’s not just the evangelism, but the conviction that people who walk in darkness must be brought into light, that marks humanists as so irredeemably Christian. pic.twitter.com/ik9lJ9gpyD

— Tom Holland (@holland_tom) April 2, 2021

I get what he means, and accept the mockery, but still – I think it’s a broader impulse than he’s implying, and also a more useful one. If you know how to get a fire going … Read the rest

Trans woman Grace Lavery interviews trans advocate Jolyon Maugham:

Maugham: I was making the point in the summer of 2020, repeatedly, that the lawyer that Keira Bell had retained was using was someone with links to the religious right.  He himself has said so.  And you can look at the cases he has brought.  They’re attacks on abortion rights.  They’re attacks on gay rights. And he has associations with organizations that have attacked assisted dying.  And he appears on the sort of tv channels of organizations who are religious conservatives, let me put it that way.  So I didn’t think he would deny that he comes from that background.  His name is Paul Conrathe. It’s certainly abundantly clear that

… Read the rest

What’s not to like?

Found another video of same event, watch the bearded man with the water, just watch what he does to a woman.

This is what TRA's normalise.https://t.co/rrP2Rm83Qt

— kira Salmon (@sillybilly700) April 2, 2021

But also watch the huge man in the tank top, and how unashamed he is to go right up to the much smaller woman and tower over her while being an angry opponent. It’s threatening as hell and he thinks he’s fine doing it because hey trans rights.… Read the rest

Even TIME is promoting the big lie.

Saying You Support Trans Rights Isn’t Enough. Here’s How to Prove It

Enough for what? Enough for whom? Why do I have to “prove it”?

The author is someone named Emme Lund. I have no idea if “Emme” is a name for female people or male people or “non-binary” people. Lund doesn’t bother to tell us before telling a story about a childhood friend.

Growing up, my best friend wore extensions in his hair, blue braids swinging down to his hips. He wore short leather skirts and platform boots. He bought me a fishnet top when I was 14 (a long-sleeved shirt I hid for years from my religious family). We used to

… Read the rest

Uh oh, the monstrous regiment of women.

In Michigan, women hold power. Not everyone seems comfortable with that.

The chairman of the Michigan Republican Party called three top statewide elected officials “witches” in a speech last week. He said he wanted to “soften up” the women — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson —  so when he had GOP candidates to run against them, they’re “ready for the burning at the stake.”

Well at least he didn’t call them cunts. Progress?

Weeks earlier, the state’s Senate majority leader said of Whitmer that the party had “spanked her hard on the budget, spanked her hard on appointments.”

In December, another state senator said

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Arcadia on Rated inadequate.

I get why it’s hard to suddenly come up with a large number of trained specialists to deal with a condition growing patient numbers by over 1000%, not to mention that apparently there is no specific training to deal with this, but more experimental guesswork and common or accepted practice.

What I don’t get is the implication that features in all these articles that, if the distressed child can’t get the appointment with the so-called specialists, that nothing else can or should be done.

If I needed a hip replacement, and couldn’t get an available surgeon, I think I’m better off waiting, even in pain, rather than turning to a dentist … Read the rest

Boys just wanna have fun.

A Morrison government adviser has been sacked after pixelated images of unnamed Coalition advisers allegedly performing lewd sex acts on the desks of female MPs were broadcast on Monday night, deepening the political crisis surrounding workplace culture at Parliament House.

The federal government was hit on Monday by new allegations broadcast by the Ten Network of male Coalition staffers engaging in vulgar and unprofessional conduct as the ABC prepared to air a new episode of Four Corners where a security guard provided a firsthand account of what she witnessed on the night Brittany Higgins was allegedly raped in the office of then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds in early 2019.

…

The report referenced images

… Read the rest

CNN tells us:

Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican being investigated by the Justice Department over sex trafficking allegations, made a name for himself when he arrived on Capitol Hill as a conservative firebrand on TV and staunch defender of then-President Donald Trump. Behind the scenes, Gaetz gained a reputation in Congress over his relationships with women and bragging about his sexual escapades to his colleagues, multiple sources told CNN.

You know, like any other frat boy.

Gaetz allegedly showed off to other lawmakers photos and videos of nude women he said he had slept with, the sources told CNN, including while on the House floor. The sources, including two people directly shown the material, said Gaetz displayed

… Read the rest

Ex-Muslims of North America has a horror story:

In November 2020, a teenage Muslim boy opened fire on a family of Ahmadis, a religious minority in Pakistan who consider themselves Muslims but are not considered such by the government. Tahir Ahmad Mahmood was killed, and his father and two uncles suffered injuries. The teenage culprit was restrained and apprehended by police, whom he told his motive: the Ahmadis “were insulting Islam” and possessed unacceptable “religious differences.”

And “unacceptable” apparently means “deserving of death.”… Read the rest

Speaking of teenagers and puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones…the Tavistock is in a bit of a pickle.

In January, England’s only NHS gender clinic for children and young people was rated “inadequate” by the country’s health watchdog – the lowest rating, meaning it is performing badly.

The findings make for sobering reading with inspectors raising “significant concerns” about the way the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) works.

Nearly 5,000 children are waiting – sometimes for up to two years – for an appointment, and the management team has been disbanded following the inspection. 

Well at least the children who are waiting aren’t getting blockers or hormones, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing? Maybe the longer you … Read the rest

Oh oops really? That’s embarrassing.

The evidence for using puberty blocking drugs to treat young people struggling with their gender identity is “very low”, an official review has found.

Uh oh. So all those kids we’ve put on puberty blockers have messed up their brain development and bone density and whatnot to no purpose? Oops. Our bad!

The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said existing studies of the drugs were small and “subject to bias and confounding”.

…

The NICE evidence review looked at what impact puberty blockers had on gender dysphoria, mental health – such as depression, anger and anxiety – and quality of life.

NICE, which provides national guidance and advice to improve health

… Read the rest

I missed these back in early March.

"Women around the world have been treated as sexual objects. Yet if sexual objectification is so categorically awful, then why do I want it so badly?

The idea that being seen as a 'sex object' is universally a bad thing is too simple, like many tenets of feminism."
— Jacob Tobia pic.twitter.com/XWjZ0SbbT0

— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) March 7, 2021

24 days later Gloria Steinem boasts of signing the open letter that says we all have to “support” men who say they are women, and accuses feminists who say no of co-opting “the feminist label.”

I am proud to sign this letter because we all must fight against the unnecessary barriers placed on trans

… Read the rest

GLAAD presents an open letter supporting “trans women and girls” – i.e. men and boys who claim to be women and girls.

In observance of Women’s History Month and Transgender Day of Visibility, we write this letter as feminist leaders in advocacy, business, entertainment, media, politics, and social justice who stand as, with, and for transgender and nonbinary people.

What does Women’s History Month have to do with trans anything? Women’s History Month is about women, not trans people. Women are allowed to have things that are for women, and we’re not required to add a shout-out to trans women to all the things that are for women. I for one am deeply fed up with having the subject … Read the rest

Oh no oh no it’s totalitarianism in our very own HomeLand.

Top Republican leaders have increasingly spoken out against the prospect of vaccine passports. The passports would serve as proof of COVID-19 immunization. Some venues and companies might require such passports before allowing people to crowd into their indoor spaces.

President Joe Biden‘s administration has provided guidance on vaccine passports for private sector businesses. However, Biden has said that there will not be a federally mandated, universal vaccine credential nor a federal database for storing citizens’ vaccination information.

Nevertheless, top Republicans have begun to vocally oppose the passports as evidence of government overreach and inequality amid the ongoing pandemic.

It’s not “overreach” to try to slow and stop a … Read the rest

Matt Gaetz says they were just good friends.

The Florida politician, a close ally of Donald Trump, claimed during the Tuesday night interview that he was the victim of an extortion plot by a former justice department official, and questioned the motivation behind Tuesday’s original reporting by the New York Times.

Gee, yes, what motivation could a newspaper have for reporting such a thing?

Gaetz, 38, claimed his lawyers had been informed that he was the subject of an FBI inquiry “regarding sexual conduct with women” and that the official was attempting to extort $25m from his family “in exchange for a commitment that he could make this investigation go away”.

Uh huh. Sure.

According to the New York

… Read the rest

Joan Smith points out that it’s a bit much to tell girls in school to be sure to report rape when in reality reporting rape tends to be a dead end, with a lot of misery on the way to the dead end. “Be sure to report rape, even though it’s futile and will also bring a world of bullying down on your head.”

Suddenly everyone is talking about a “rape culture” in schools. Not for the first time, it has to be said, but influential MPs, headteachers and senior police officers are urging anyone who has been attacked to report their experiences. “Every victim who comes forward will be believed, will be listened to and dealt with sensitively,” according

… Read the rest

An arrest has been made in that violent attack on a woman in NYC yesterday. The suspect has previous.

An arrest was made early Wednesday in a brutal attack on a 65-year-old Asian woman that drew widespread outrage after footage of the assault was released.

It does tend to draw outrage, that kind of thing – kicking a woman in the abdomen so hard that she falls on the sidewalk, then stomping on her head three times. Yes, we get riled when we see something like that. Most people have enough compassion for such a reaction.

New York City police identified the suspect as Brandon Elliot, 38, who was charged with two counts of assault as a hate crime and

… Read the rest

Another win!

Bowls England say they are updating their “historical and outdated” guidance on transgender bowlers after a trans female was barred from competing.

Stella Moore, 67, who has lived for three years as a woman, is unable [to] play for her Hampshire lawn bowls club.

There’s no such thing as “living as a woman,” any more than there’s such a thing as living as a bear or a tulip or a recycling plant.

Also, is Moore really unable to play for her club? Or is it just that she’s unable to play “as a woman”?

The Portsmouth and District Women’s Bowling Association say they have been following guidance published in 2014.

It required gender reassignment surgery three years before

… Read the rest

Another day another bullying.

A gender studies professor at University of Rhode Island is facing backlash for comparing transgender people with far-right conspiracy theory-driven website QAnon, according to the Daily Mail.

Professor Donna Hughes wrote a piece for a radical feminist site. Oh the horror.

…saying that people who think they can change their gender are suffering from a “trans-sex fantasy.” Hughes also said that transgender people, just like QAnon with the right, has radicalized the left. Going further, Hughes said the left is using transgender issues to further an agenda that harms children.

“The American political left is increasingly diving headfirst into their own world of lies and fantasy and, unlike in the imaginary world of QAnon,

… Read the rest