As always, apologies for quoting the Daily Mail, but you know how it is.

The parents of an autistic teenage boy were warned he would be taken into care after they objected to him being given powerful hormone drugs to help him change sex.

Doctors at an NHS clinic had recommended he be given puberty-blockers – which delay adolescence – after the youngster declared he believed he was female.

But his mother and father, fearing the potential side-effects of the drugs, stopped him going to the clinic. And they suspected his abrupt decision to change sex was a result of his autism.

After the boy told the school he had been barred from treatment, a teacher told his parents

It is so strange to be a nonbinary person interviewing OB-GYNs who talk about the reproductive care "women" need. I don't know how to describe it other than it feels like we're temporarily stepping into a world where I don't exist.

— Jo Yurcaba (@JoYurcaba) November 17, 2020

It is so strange to be a narcissist interviewing OB-GYNs who talk about women instead of about me. I don’t know how to describe it other than it feels like we are not talking about me. If we are not talking about me, it’s as if I don’t exist. Yes I really am that pathetic and needy. I’m so desperate to focus all the attention on me that I feel compelled to … Read the rest

It’s not that complicated.

As the only obstacle between President-elect Joe Biden and the formal start of the presidential transition, General Services Administrator Emily Murphy is struggling with the weight of the presidential election being dropped on her shoulders, feeling like she’s been put in a no-win situation, according to people who have spoken to her recently.

This was never a position that Murphy thought she would find herself in, the people said. But as the government official in charge of signing off on the election result, President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election has thrown Murphy into the middle of a political firestorm.

Facing mounting pressure from both sides, and even death threats, the sources say Murphy

Kayleigh McEnany wouldn’t know George Orwell if he sat on her lap on the tube.

McEnany dismisses public health guidelines to slow the spread of coronavirus as "Orwellian" pic.twitter.com/S70IbQIce6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 18, 2020

Enforcing rules to prevent the spread of a lethal pandemic is not “Orwellian.”

Orwell would not have admired Donald Trump. I say this with great confidence.… Read the rest

Evil Don fired a DHS director for stating the truth and bragged about it on Twitter.

…votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020

NPR adds:

In response, Krebs tweeted “Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomorrow.”

Trump lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden, in both the popular and electoral vote. Trump had for weeks prior to the election erroneously railed against mail-in voting as being ripe for fraud. The president had encouraged his supporters to vote in person on Nov. 3 — he later complained about

What? What’s he done now?

I have reversed the ridiculous decision to cancel Wreaths Across America at Arlington National Cemetery. It will now go on!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2020

Let me guess – some crowd thing, that was canceled so as not to spread the virus even more, and he pitched a fit and said SPREAD THE VIRUS MORE.

Of course he did.

On Monday, after evaluating plans to hold a large annual event in the midst of an escalating pandemic, Arlington National Cemetery canceled the event planned next month, saying it could not mitigate the risk to thousands of visitors and cemetery staff.

But on Tuesday, after criticism from Republican lawmakers and public outcry,

The full image:

I can’t begin to express how insulting to women that photo is.… Read the rest

Giuliani is earning the desired 2 20k per diem by lying in court:

Rudy Giuliani launched into a series of baseless claims about the election during an appearance on behalf of the Trump campaign in federal court on Tuesday, seeking to block Pennsylvania from certifying its election results.

Giuliani, who requested to appear on behalf of Trump this morning, alleged there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

That’s false; there isn’t a single state election official in the country who has seen widespread irregularities. The Department of Homeland Security described the 2020 election as “the most secure in American history.”

Weird that this is how he wants to tie the bow on his career.… Read the rest

Giuliani is not a cheap date, apart from that one time at the Four Seasons garden center.

Rudy Giuliani asked for $20,000 a day to assist the Trump campaign’s legal efforts in battleground states, according to the New York Times.

The Times:

The request stirred opposition from some of Mr. Trump’s aides and advisers, who appear to have ruled out paying that much, and it is unclear how much Mr. Giuliani will ultimately be compensated.

Since Mr. Giuliani took over management of the legal effort, Mr. Trump has suffered a series of defeats in court and lawyers handling some of the remaining cases have dropped out.

A $20,000-a-day rate would have made Mr. Giuliani, the former New York

See the cross and cleavage? Did I call it or what?… Read the rest

It’s #transawarenessweek

Trans men are men. Trans women are women. End of.

Ignore the #terfs and haters.

Image courtesy of @dinoman_j pic.twitter.com/Fa3JqsgeMc

— LGBTPlusProud (@LGBTPlusProud) November 17, 2020

“End of” is not a persuasive rhetorical device, let alone an argument.

The word “are” is not magic. Saying Xs are Ys doesn’t change reality. I can say “houses are turnips” but that doesn’t make it true, not even if I go on to say “End of.”

Women are human. Women are people. Those are reasonable claims, and true if we all agree on what “women” means and what “human” and “people” mean.

People have rights. That’s a moral claim more than it is a factual claim, and there’s a lot of … Read the rest

Well that’s crossing a line.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), to question the validity of legally cast absentee ballots in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state.

SENATOR Lindsey Graham has been pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to get rid of legal ballots.

That’s…a crime, isn’t it? Isn’t there a federal law against trying to mess with votes and/or intimidate voters? Isn’t that just a straight-up you can be prosecuted crime?

(looks it up)

Yes, it is. There are state laws and federal laws against doing this shit.

Raffensperger and his wife … Read the rest

The Glinner update tells us there is a social worker, therapist and adjunct associate professor of social work at the University of Southern California called Ken Howard who thinks JK Rowling needs to be punished.

Ruth spotted him commenting on a thread about JK Rowling on the LGBTQ Nation Facebook page. In comments he now appears to have deleted, Howard stated that Rowling’s defence of women’s sex-based rights needs punishing “by way of a traumatic vaginal injury”.

It’s weird what a lot of angry trans activists or allies go straight to that. Not she’s wrong, not she’s wrong and doing harm, but she needs to be violently attacked in the genitals.

But Rowling isn’t stoking and abetting violence against … Read the rest

Good question.

I answered it by, basically, expanding on the “women have to signal obedience to the patriarchy” point, but there are probably further reasons (which is not to say that any of them are good reasons). The VP has more room for experiment, I think. If Biden did it it would look flaky and pathetic, like trying to be down with the kids. Partly it’s probably as simple as “Harris is young enough to get away with it.”

But why doesn’t she recognize it as obedience to the patriarchy? Now that’s something I would love to know.… Read the rest

Is it a coup or is it not? Ece Temelkuran has relevant experience:

President Trump’s refusal to concede to his successful challenger is “giving great comfort” to “authoritarian regimes” around the world, said Joe Biden’s biographer on CNN. “This is a source of delight [for them] … ” Turkey, my country, falls into that category of authoritarian regimes. But I can tell you that what is happening in the US is a source of horror, not delight, for those on the ground. We know the signs of when a political crisis becomes a de facto coup – so here’s a word of warning.

…

[A] spectre of hesitation is haunting Washington. While the Trump administration is doing its best

Sorry but this is just silly. Obama doing the book promo:

“I think about the classic male hero in American culture when you and I were growing up,” Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic. “The John Waynes, the Gary Coopers, the Jimmy Stewarts, the Clint Eastwoods, for that matter. There was a code … the code of masculinity that I grew up with that harkens back to the 30s and 40s and before that.

“There’s a notion that a man is true to his word, that he takes responsibility, that he doesn’t complain, that he isn’t a bully – in fact, he defends the vulnerable against bullies. And so even if you are someone who

The Detroit Free Press reports:

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Monday denounced as shocking and reckless a call from a Trump administration official for Michigan residents to “rise up” over new coronavirus restrictions she announced Sunday.

“It’s just incredibly reckless, considering everything that has happened, everything that is going on,” Whitmer said in a call with Capitol reporters.

On Sunday night, Whitmer announced a three-week closure of indoor service at bars and restaurants, closure of the Detroit casinos and suspension of in-person learning for high school and college students, starting Wednesday, along with other measures aimed at bringing down surging coronavirus numbers.

Soon after Whitmer’s news conference, Scott Atlas, President Donald Trump’s top coronavirus adviser, tweeted: “The only way

Trump really wants to get that pesky wildlife refuge destroyed.

In a last-minute push to achieve its long-sought goal of allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the Trump administration on Monday announced that it would begin the formal process of selling leases to oil companies.

That sets up a potential sale of leases just before Jan 20, Inauguration Day, leaving the new administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has opposed drilling in the refuge, to try to stop the them after the fact.

“The Trump administration is trying a ‘Hail Mary’ pass,” said Jenny Rowland-Shea, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal group in Washington. “They

And this has happened:

Her profile now says

“She left because she understood the value of defiance”

so I bet we can figure out what her defiance is about.… Read the rest

Quite the sexist pig, Glenn Greenwald is.

Regardless of one's views on the trans/TERF debate, JK Rowling's victimhood complex is suffocating & narcissistic.

She's one of the world's richest & most famous people, but views herself as a supreme victim because she endures what all public figures endure: harsh criticism. https://t.co/1zjgGQZCWM

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 11, 2020

She had it coming, right? She talked back? She didn’t obey? She refused to submit?

Here's an attempt to explain the British pathologies that caused the UK — and specifically its centrist/liberal media — to become Ground Zero for anti-trans fanaticism. Reading UK websites, you'd think trans people were their greatest societal plague: https://t.co/yPoypdzm1r

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 12, 2020

Hur … Read the rest