A tedious conversation:

But everyone isn't free to define herself in whatever terms she deems fit. We can't define ourselves as heads of state, doctors, pilots, many more items, unless we really are those things.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 29, 2020

I'm not, I'm responding to the words of the tweet.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 29, 2020

No I'm not, I'm replying to "Eddie Izzard, who is free, as is everyone else, to define herself in whatever terms she deems fit." You're not free to define what I said and meant.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 29, 2020

I know what I said, and that I said it in response to a wild claim that we can define

… Read the rest

The really scary thing is the abject apology Jessica Cluess felt compelled to give.

https://twitter.com/JessCluess/status/1333906316247457794

Well, I tell you what, if she does learn more about “Ms. Germán’s important work with #DisruptTexts” she won’t be impressed. She probably knew that when she said it. She was either appeasing the bullies or mocking them, or perhaps both at once.

Having just read a bit of Ms. Germán’s important work I can report that it has no value. She’s not literate enough to do that kind of work; she’s not sufficiently interested in literature to do it. She’s the wrong person for the job.

The reality is there are already teachers reading against the grain, encouraging students to think critically about what … Read the rest

The Lorena Germán – Jess Cluess contretemps has nudged my curiosity, so I looked for more.

Way back last July:

https://twitter.com/JessCluess/status/1280214961709555719

Oy. You mean, like Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton? For example?

Fast forward to today and she’s being bullied in the usual fashion.

https://twitter.com/MagpieLibrarian/status/1343978007778750465

So how about this DisruptTexts crew of educators?

Here’s Lorena Germán on how (and why) to disrupt Shakespeare.

We knew that suggesting educators disrupt Shakespeare would be a challenge for many. We were pleased to see the openness to the idea and the willingness to engage. But then again, it could be because we’re “preaching to the choir” and we acknowledge that educators hesitant to

… Read the rest

From the Wall Street Journal:

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #DisruptTexts, critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts—everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss.

Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular—especially those “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: “Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic

… Read the rest

Small backwater towns are not all Frank Capra and social capital. They can be all MAGA and fuck wearing masks, instead.

Ten years ago, Dr. Kristina Darnauer and her husband, Jeff, moved to tiny Sterling, Kan., to raise their kids steeped in small-town values.

“The values of hard work, the value of community, taking care of your neighbor, that’s what small towns shout from the rooftops, this is what we’re good at. We are salt of the earth people who care about each other,” Darnauer says. “And here I am saying, then wear a mask because that protects your precious neighbor.”

But Darnauer’s medical advice and moral admonition were met with contempt from some of her friends, neighbors and patients.

… Read the rest

The Gender Studies professor strikes again.

If it’s snowing in your area today please put some food out for the endangered lesbians.

— Sally Hines (@sally_hines) December 29, 2020

It’s particularly dangerous for lesbians when snow turns to sludge as despite their sturdy appearance ten year old Doc Martins may crack and let water in. Please knit rainbow socks to protect a lesbian today.

— Sally Hines (@sally_hines) December 29, 2020

Hur hur. So funny. Lesbians are not endangered! Yes, there are a lot fewer of them in the rising generation but that’s because they’re glorious inspiring trans men instead! Which is obviously so much better! So let’s laugh ourselves sick at the very idea that fewer lesbians means fewer … Read the rest

This is a Labour MP.

If you're offended by other people's choice of pronouns, given everything else that's going on might I suggest getting some perspective? Solidarity with Eddie Izzard, who is free, as is everyone else, to define herself in whatever terms she deems fit. pic.twitter.com/OJYyY0Zjxo

— Charlotte Nichols (@charlotte2153) December 28, 2020

But that’s not true. Everyone isn’t free to define herself in whatever terms she deems fit. I’m not free to define myself as Charlotte Nichols MP, for instance. Many many kinds of defining oneself as something or someone one is not are criminal fraud, while others are reckless endangerment, and others are rape, and we could go on this way. We’re not free to tell lies … Read the rest

The conversation seemed to start well.

Mine does. I have written and spoken more than any other mainstream journalist in the UK on lesbian identity/sexuality/oppression/joy/culture. But I get told by some trans activists and allies that because I don't involve men as 'lesbians' I'm a bigot & a transphobe. Any advice?

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) December 28, 2020

But it didn’t go on well.

I think as a lesbian I have an obligation to inform/remind others that the bottom line is ONLY WOMEN can be lesbians

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) December 28, 2020

…”you drawing the lines of who gets to be one” – well if there are no such lines then what are we even talking about? What even … Read the rest

The Glinner Update leads with one of those Women of the Year items.

Monday 21st December – Even A List Of Women Isn’t Just For Women

THE TIMES: The paper’s 50 Women of the Year list was published.

It included three males.

Imagine a 50 BAME or Black People of the Year that included three white people.

The first was Valentina Sampaio, a transgender model from Brazil who has posed for Victoria Secret and featured in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue.

The second was High Court judge, Victoria McCloud, who transitioned in the late 1990s. In 2010 McCloud was hailed as only the second ever woman to become Queen’s Bench Master. Though, of course, he wasn’t.

Smile when you steal … Read the rest

South Oxfordshire is catching up.

A local authority will ensure all its buildings have a gender neutral toilet in a bid to help transgender people.

Will it also ensure that all its buildings have women’s toilets? Or is it going to create its “gender neutral” toilets by converting the women’s. Probably.

The council’s constitution, policies, forms and internal and external communications will also be gender-neutral.

Eh? What does that mean? What if a policy is about women? How can they make all forms “gender-neutral”? If they do that how, for instance, can they tell whether or not they’re failing to hire or promote women?

The motion also stated the council, which covers Henley, Didcot, Wallingford and Thame, respects that

… Read the rest

Big news!

I'm proud to be the first openly transgender woman to be elected co-chair of @GreenPartyWomen

It's great to be elected alongside a majority of women who support all women and non binary people

I'll make a full statement on my vision for an intersectional @TheGreenParty shortly

— Kat Bristow (@KathrynBristow) December 28, 2020

He’s proud to be the first man to be elected co-chair of Green Party Women.

Never mind, he has that winsome head-tilt, so what does it matter that he’s taking a woman’s position away from a woman.

https://twitter.com/KathrynBristow/status/1343550687704215552

Actual women can just go jump off a bridge, right?

https://twitter.com/AdiDee_Gee/status/1343546170656882690

Yeah, all women, dammit, including the ones who are men! About flipping time!… Read the rest

Don’t do that.

Globally, ethnic minority pregnant and birthing people suffer worse outcomes and experiences during and after pregnancy and childbirth. These inequities have been further highlighted by #COVID19. Watch this panel discussion on #MaternalJustice. https://t.co/RcflQQapQo pic.twitter.com/N5m2s2SRdi

— Harvard Med Postgraduate and Continuing Education (@HMSPostgradCE) November 8, 2020

It’s not “people,” it’s not randomly assorted “people” who somehow found themselves pregnant, it’s not a wide-open set of people that we have no word for. It’s women. It’s the sex that has always been viewed as and treated as both inferior to and subordinate to men. If you can’t call them “women” then you lose sight of that systematic subordination, and the contempt and loathing that goes with … Read the rest

From The Telegraph:

Lesbians are facing “extinction” because of the “disproportionate” focus on transgenderism in schools, a controversial campaign group for gay rights has claimed.

The LGB Alliance, which has been branded a “trans hate group” by Pink News and other vocal critics, was set up in October 2019 amid concerns that Stonewall, the UK’s leading gay rights charity, had become too fixated on gender identity.

Its founders, Kate Harris and Bev Jackson, claim to have been “cancelled” for questioning gender identity theory and airing their concerns about the erosion of women’s rights in the face of the transgender movement.

Their detractors claim their refusal to include the ‘T’ in their LGB Alliance is transphobic…

But why should that … Read the rest

I just had to ruin the rest of your day (or night if you’re 8 time zones east).

https://twitter.com/LabelFreeBrands/status/1343116320171122689… Read the rest

Number 9473381 in the series “Why we really really need to call racist white women ‘Karens’.”

There was no direct connection between the “Central Park Karen” incident in New York City and the police killing of 46-year-old George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, beyond the coincidence of timing.

But let’s plant the idea anyway.

The specter of Karen persisted as Black Lives Matter protests and civil unrest spread around the country following Floyd’s murder and reckonings with racism began to roil institutions, toppling careers as well as statues. More than just an amusing meme, Karen allowed for a new kind of discourse about racism to gain credence in the US.

Actually it’s a very old kind of discourse: the misogynist kind.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on How things actually are in the world.

Shannon @ #20:

Let’s tackle these in reverse order.

3) Multi-gender social orders do not entail what you think they do. Whether we examine the Navajo or the Indian “genders”, what we find is not a system of biological classification, but instead a patriarchal hierarchy of normative worth stinking with misogyny and homophobia. The function of these systems is to exalt the masculine and crush the feminine. In those systems where the additional gender or genders are categories of male people, those genders are for males whose masculinity is perceived as deficient or corrupt in some way. Masculine deficiency can be such things as … Read the rest

Pandemics are not good for mental health.

The coronavirus crisis poses the greatest threat to mental health since the second world war, with the impact to be felt for years after the virus has been brought under control, the country’s leading psychiatrist has said.

Dr Adrian James, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said a combination of the disease, its social consequences, and the economic fallout were having a profound effect on mental health that would continue long after the epidemic is reined in.

Bad things are happening and they’re making people anxious and sad.

Modelling by the Centre for Mental Health forecasts that as many as 10 million people will need new or additional mental health

… Read the rest

Legal feminist gets to the core of it, as good legal minds are so skilled at doing.

The question I find interesting here isn’t really a legal question. It is this: what is it that’s special about treatment with puberty blockers that makes the Tavistock think that parental consent isn’t good enough? If a child needs a vaccination to reduce the risk of a potentially serious childhood disease, parental consent is good enough. If a child needs a filling to deal with tooth decay, or an extraction to deal with an overcrowded mouth, the same. If a child needs surgery to pin a broken bone, the same again. 

I remember strongly dissenting to treatments of that kind as a … Read the rest

Child poverty, we have it.

Even prior to the pandemic, the United States lagged other developed nations in child poverty levels. More than one out of every five American children lives in poverty, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data. As the pandemic continues to exacerbate the underlying crisis of American poverty, 45 percent of all children now live in households that have recently struggled with routine expenses, according to a report out this month from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, or CBPP. Black and Latino households have been especially impacted by the economic starvation that the mishandling of this pandemic has wrought, and these populations were already disproportionately likely to grow up poor.

… Read the rest

Archaeologists in Pompeii have found an ancient fast food shop.

Known as a termopolium, Latin for hot drinks counter, the shop was discovered in the archaeological park’s Regio V site, which is not yet open the public, and unveiled on Saturday.

Traces of nearly 2,000-year-old food were found in some of the deep terra cotta jars containing hot food which the shop keeper lowered into a counter with circular holes.

Like the big metal pots you have on steam tables now.

The front of the counter was decorated with brightly coloured frescoes, some depicting animals that were part of the ingredients in the food sold, such as a chicken and two ducks hanging upside down.

The golden arches of … Read the rest