The rise and fall (or fall and rise? or rise and fall and rise?) of an “influencer.”

Like cult-leaders, Instagram influencers must navigate a complex symbiosis with their followers to remain popular. Unlike cult-leaders, their lives are often funded by a commercial system of sponsored posts, a practice which Caroline abstains from. Instead, in March, as the world shut down, she started making money from selling topless photos on the platform ‘Only-Fans’.

So, photos with the tops cut off so that you get trees lopped in half or people whose faces stop at their nostrils? Doesn’t sound all that lucrative.

I tell her the way she uses Instagram reminds me of how Sylvia Plath wrote poems: art as an act

… Read the rest

Your instructions:

https://twitter.com/teaberryblue/status/1390688407609819138

In other words it’s about women. Women are women. It saves a lot of trouble. Women who call themselves “trans men” or “nonbinary” are still women. Intersex women are women. The word “women” is all that’s required, and trying to delete it from the language is not a good idea, given the subordinate status women have had imposed on us.

https://twitter.com/teaberryblue/status/1390689010264195074

You mean women planning “to hand a baby off” – which itself is a description that should get more careful thought than how to justify deleting the words “women” and “mother” from the language.

https://twitter.com/teaberryblue/status/1390706967878979589

No. I’ll go on calling women “women,” thanks, and you don’t get to tell any of us not to.… Read the rest

For a few minutes there most Republicans in Congress accepted that the insurrection wasn’t the best idea ever. They’re back to normal now though.

Odds are that the erstwhile Republican party comrades of Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming will soon vote to purge her from the ranks of their leadership. Cheney, who occupies the third-highest position in the House Republican Conference and is the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, survived a similar removal effort in early February, after she was one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former president Donald Trump. At the time, House Republicans decided to retain Cheney as conference chair by a 145-61 margin, while the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, told

… Read the rest

When in doubt, shaft the workers.

South Carolina will leave the federal unemployment programs providing extra money to jobless residents in light of “unprecedented” workforce shortages across the state, Gov. Henry McMaster announced on Thursday.

The state will opt out of the coronavirus pandemic assistance programs beginning June 30. The federal benefits include an extra weekly $300 to unemployed workers that was scheduled to run through early September.

States’ rights! States’ rights to starve their workers into accepting crap jobs with crap pay and crap conditions.

The labor shortage has affected all areas of the state’s economy, state government officials said, with the hotel and food service industries especially hard-hit. McMaster claimed the shortage was created in large part

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Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Non-binary in Huddersfield.

The media outlet reporting this story has included a helpful glossary of genderist bullshit to indoctrinate (or at least confuse) its readers. Let’s play along!

Terms you need to understand

I seriously doubt it.

There are a lot of words used within the LGBT community that you may need help to understand. Here are some of the key definitions you may not know, as explained by Stonewall.

I might not know them because they’re wrong or made up. The likelyhood of anything from Stonewall leading to an improvement in my “understanding” is close to zero..

• Non-binary – the term used to describe people who don’t feel

… Read the rest

How’s Trump’s forced retirement going? Oh you know – full of revenge and plots and shouting.

Trump is moving to handpick members of the House GOP leadership team — relentlessly attacking Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, and endorsing Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York to replace her.

He is plotting to take down Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach him for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, while continuing to stoke the false claims of a stolen election that has become a dangerous rallying cry for the party.

And he is playing host to a burbling stream of Republican well-wishers — including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif). and Sen.

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A brief conversation.

Maybe educators are more interested in creating a classroom where students can learn. Just a thought.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) May 7, 2021

What on earth does a leering cartoon horse do to make students feel safe and appreciated?

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) May 7, 2021

I haven’t had any reply. But. But! You see that one (1) like? It’s on the Garbs tweet, not mine. Guess whose like it is – go on, guess.

It’s Gegi’s! Gegi herhimtheirself!

No like for me though. Gegi isn’t very incloosive.… Read the rest

Misogynist Jolyon Maugham continues his misogynist “activism.”

I find Jolyon Maugham’s repeated targeting of @ALLIANCELGB truly disgusting. Since when did it become respectable for a heterosexual man to target a lesbian led organisation in this way? For a barrister, Queen’s Counsel, to defame LGBA as a hate group is utterly contemptible. pic.twitter.com/bJr8d5HjbA

— Allison Bailey (@BluskyeAllison) May 7, 2021

In cheering Friday news, we've found a very effective way to challenge the baffling decision of the Charity Commission to subsidise the activities of a transphobic hate group with your taxes.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) May 7, 2021

It’s actually a lesbian gay and bisexual rights group, so his venomous lie is also homophobic. What a charmer he is.… Read the rest

NARAL on Facebook:

We’re calling on President Biden to propose a budget that ensures every body can access abortion care—free from discriminatory restrictions and denial of care policies. That means dropping the Weldon Amendment, and the Hyde Amendment, once and for all. Budgets reflect our priorities, and we need a budget that prioritizes reproductive freedom.

What on earth does “GENDER AFFIRMING CARE” have to do with NARAL? What does NARAL have to do with it? And why, why, WHY is “GENDER AFFIRMING CARE” on a large banner spang in the middle where it catches the eye while “ABORTION CARE” is on a small sign off to the side where the eye misses it?… Read the rest

They haven’t retrofitted everything though, at least not yet. If you go to the abortion access page whoopsie women make a return appearance. I wonder how long that will last.

The right to choose abortion is essential to ensuring a woman can decide for herself if, when and with whom to start or grow a family. We’ll never stop fighting to protect and expand this fundamental human right.

The Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that affirmed abortion as a constitutional right for all was supposed to be the beginning of the fight for women’s equality and autonomy, not the end. Since then, we’ve been forced to defend it over and over again as anti-choice politicians and

… Read the rest

On NARAL’s front page:

“Reproductive rights are essential for achieving gender equality.” What do they mean by that? What does that sentence mean? What is gender equality?

Gender equality means an end to the social and cultural and mental arrangements by which women are seen as inferior to men in every way, and as subordinate to men as a law of nature (and nature’s “God” for the many people who believe in such a thing).

That’s what gender equality means, so that has to be what NARAL meant by it.

So then why are they trying to tell us that abortion rights are for everyone? Why are they talking about people needing abortions instead of women? Why are they … Read the rest

Golly, it was less than a month ago that NARAL was telling us (“reminding” us) that it’s not only women who get abortions. I must have given them some lip, because I now see they’ve blocked me. The big national abortion rights organization is blocking feminists who tell them to stop erasing women – that’s useful.

Anyway, they’re really pushing the “exclude women from abortion rights” line.

When we talk about birthing people, we're being inclusive. It's that simple.

We use gender neutral language when talking about pregnancy, because it's not just cis-gender women that can get pregnant and give birth. Reproductive freedom is for *every* body. https://t.co/9E9qKRMJTu

— Reproductive Freedom for All (@reproforall) May 6, 2021

No it’s … Read the rest

Jesse Singal on Chase Strangio’s casual defamation of him and subsequent evasive maneuvers to avoid blame for the defamation:

Yesterday, GQ ran an interview between Saeed Jones and Chase Strangio, one of the highest-profile attorneys at the ACLU, about trans kids that contains the following passage: I think what we’re seeing now is this moment where there are these loud voices who feel so empowered and emboldened to speak out with just utter hatred for trans people. And a lot of it emerging from the UK anti-trans discourse in JK Rowling and then that sort of being an impetus for this Substack brigade, asI [sic] like to call them—that idea of the self-victimized, well-paid writer who wants nothing more than

… Read the rest

Hahahaha Loser Trump is trying to get around the Twitter ban, and failing.

Twitter has suspended an account replicating posts from former President Donald Trump’s new blog, saying it violated the company’s rules against ban evasion.

…

The account profile for @DJTDesk — an abbreviation for the former president’s new “From The Desk of Donald J. Trump” web page — was taken down after tweeting posts identical to his messages on the blog, according to screenshots tweeted by NBC News and other users. The account featured branding identical to Trump’s website, including the same profile picture and banner, according to the images.

Pure coincidence. Nothing to do with Trump.

https://twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1390306027724320768

It was not immediately clear if the account was

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany 6.

I recently finished reading A Lot of People Are Saying – The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum. In it the authors make a distinction between “classical conspiracy theories” and what they call the “new conspiracism” which they describe as “conspiracy without the theory”. Where the former were at the very least attempts to explain real events and appealed to supposedly “scientific” data and “rational” arguments (e.g. the obsession of 9-11 truthers with the temperature of burning jet fuel and the melting point of steel), the new conspiracisms don’t attempt to explain anything (more often than not, there isn’t even anything to … Read the rest

Queen’s University promotes Gegi the leering unicorn, which is perhaps less surprising when you see that one of the “researchers” behind Gegi is at Queen’s University, and that the author of the promo is Julie Brown, Queen’s University Media Relations Officer. In other words it’s a literal promo.

Queen’s researcher Lee Airton has created Gegi.ca, an online resource that helps students advocate for their gender expression and gender identity human rights.

But why do students need to “advocate for their gender expression and gender identity human rights”? God only knows what that even means, but in any case why do they need to advocate for whatever it is?

I don’t think there’s any such thing as “gender expression human … Read the rest

Hmm.

.@gegi_ca is an online resource for K-12 students & educators seeking info about gender identity & gender expression human rights protection developed by @LeeAirton & @kylekirkup & their teams at #queensu & @uOttawa.

Learn more https://t.co/1NUHv0EeX3 | #QueensuResearch #OntEd pic.twitter.com/ic63Ipos8K

— Queen's University (@queensu) May 5, 2021

That looks…kind of creepy. Also K-12? The content looks too old for the younger ones and the style looks too young for the older ones.

But also…

https://twitter.com/jonkay/status/1390357557785530371

What?! That’s a new one to me, but if true…well, one wonders what the thinking is. (It doesn’t come up on the top results on Google.)

Scrolling through its tweets it seems to be about pushing “gender expression” in schools, because … Read the rest

Won’t someone spare a thought for the exiled and silenced Josh Hawley?

Since Jan. 6, when the Missouri Republican was photographed fist-pumping his support for some of the very fine people who would later storm the United States Capitol, Hawley has been all but banished from the media. Other than his frequent appearances on some of the most popular cable news shows in the country, his biting Twitter account, the Instagram account where he posts family snapshots and clips from cable hits, and his YouTube page collecting his nearly every utterance on the Senate floor, Hawley has suffered the worst fate known to a modern American politician: cancellation.

But as Nelson Mandela wrote while imprisoned on Robben Island, “Difficulties

… Read the rest

Sex Matters live-tweeted another judicial hearing on whether or not men can force themselves on women. R is respondent, J is judge.

R: it may be justified to exclude trans people, but that question would have to be asked 

The proportionality test will always depend on the particular facts. How could you possibly decide that every women’s refuge and every women’s changing room must always exclude transwomen? 

Well that’s easy. You could decide it the way you decide that every women’s refuge and every women’s changing room must always exclude men, because that’s what calling them women’s refuges and changing rooms means. If you don’t exclude men then they’re not women’s any more. We already know that women … Read the rest

More fawning coverage of “Laurel” Hubbard’s successful cheating:

Weightlifting has been at the centre of the debate over the fairness of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, and Hubbard’s presence in Tokyo is set to attract huge media attention as well as criticism from fellow lifters and coaches.

Her gold medal wins at the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa, where she topped the podium ahead of Samoa’s Commonwealth Games champion Feagaiga Stowers, triggered outrage in the island nation.

Australia’s weightlifting federation sought to block Hubbard from competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast but organisers rejected the move.

In other words organisers said a big “fuck you” to women in weightlifting.… Read the rest