Originally a comment by Artymorty on How to make a right.

There is no such thing as specifically “trans” rights. There can’t be, because “trans” is a fiction, and because making that particular fiction a basis for rights would obliterate women’s rights as well as lesbian and gay rights.

A big part of the problem stems from people’s mistaken conception of “trans people” as a fixed subset of the population — directly analogous to gay people: a small group of individuals who were born with an innate and harmless condition that caused them to be discriminated against and persecuted by the rest of society — when in fact “trans people” are an open identity group whose membership can grow … Read the rest

Classic Trump.

“It’s a great gesture from Qatar,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’”

Point completely missed SIR. Point not even within striking distance SIR.

To put it another way, you’ve just gone on the record as happy to accept any and all bribes from any and all parties.

The issue is not whether or not you would like a free lavish gift. We know you would love a free lavish gift. We know you’re greedy. We know you’re corrupt. We know you’re reckless. We know your brain … Read the rest

The Society for Women in Philosophy UK is not for women in philosophy. It’s for that other thing – the opposite.

It offers a “statement of solidarity and support in response to the recent UK Supreme Court ruling and EHRC guidance” which is not a statement of solidarity with women but rather a statement of solidarity with men who call themselves women.

(There’s no link to the statement because apparently they don’t do links; just scroll down – there’s not much on the page.)

What’s their philosophical take?

The Society for Women In Philosophy UK (SWIP UK) condemns the recent Supreme Court ruling on 16 April 2025 determining that the term ‘woman’ in the Equality Act 2010 refers to a

If you’re a woman and a teacher in the UK you don’t have a union that looks out for your interests.

Britain’s largest teaching union has voted to campaign against the Supreme Court ruling on gender, insisting trans women in schools must be allowed to use ladies’ toilets.

The Left-wing National Education Union (NEU) resolved on Saturday to advocate for trans teachers to continue to choose toilets according to ‘gender identity’.

Which is a massive “fuck you” to women.

The judgement, which states a woman is defined by biological sex, effectively means a male-born trans person can be excluded from female-only spaces.

However, the NEU’s resolution means it may now intervene to provide legal assistance for trans teachers if

Wrong.

That little nugget of wisdom is floating around on social meeja. It’s idiotic.

There is no erosion of the human rights of trans people, i.e. the human rights that everyone has. There is no such thing as specifically “trans” rights. There can’t be, because “trans” is a fiction, and because making that particular fiction a basis for rights would obliterate women’s rights as well as lesbian and gay rights. It’s unworkable to make it a “right” for men who pretend to be women to force everyone else to agree. It’s unworkable because it’s not true and it drives a tank through women’s rights.

Imagine if trans ideology faded out, to be replaced by an ideology that claims people are … Read the rest

Welcome to Racism Import Theater.

The first group of White South African refugees arrived in the U.S. on Monday under President Trump’s executive order mandating they be prioritized for resettlement — even as the broader refugee program remains largely on hold.

The 59 Afrikaners, descendants of mainly Dutch colonists, underwent expedited reviews that took months, were brought to the U.S. on a government-chartered flight, and were greeted at Dulles International Airport by federal officials — all unconventional steps for the refugee resettlement program, which can take years to process.

In other words, refugees don’t normally get expedited reviews, they don’t normally get here on a government-chartered plane, and they are not normally greeted at Dulles by federal officials. … Read the rest

Just shameless lies in the Guardian.

The article is a toe-curling pile of flattery of a fantasy writer called Jessica Townsend, so of course it has to fling some sewer scrapings at Rowling in the process.

Townsend is going into her press tour for Silverborn at a time when the world’s most famous children’s author, JK Rowling, is publicly railing against the rights of trans people.

Liars liars liars. No she is not. She is publicly railing at attacks on the rights of female people, and explaining how trans ideology is incompatible with women’s rights.

“I’m very happy to be quite blunt about it: I’m gutted. It is so upsetting and it’s so perplexing, and I will

Solidarity for…whatever, but for sure not women.

Britain’s largest teaching union has voted to campaign against the Supreme Court ruling on gender, insisting trans women in schools must be allowed to use ladies’ toilets.

In other words insisting that women must lose their rights to privacy and safety. For the union makes men strong.

Daniel Kebede, General Secretary, said: ‘The NEU is looking carefully at the Supreme Court ruling and its implications for employment. A toxic climate has been created in recent years in which trans people, a small community, are treated as if they are a risk or threat to others.’

No, men are acknowledged to be a potential threat to women in small enclosed spaces with … Read the rest

Oh has he now.

A male teacher at a primary school in the UK has told off a nine-year-old boy for calling him "sir". The teacher says he is 'non-binary' and demands to be called 'they / them'. He also sometimes wears women's clothing from the waist down at the school pic.twitter.com/PwwlQCMEKZ

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) May 12, 2025

That teacher is in the wrong job then. The very very very wrong job. Teachers are not there to teach the children how to focus all their attention on the teachers’ idenninies. That’s not what school is for. Teachers are conduits for learning, not the subjects of learning. Nobody should be burdened with having to remember someone’s luxury idenniny, and that goes … Read the rest

Bill Kristol on Trump and emoluments:

I’m old enough to remember when this was a republic. A proud republic. We were proud to be different from the principalities and powers of the old world. We were confident of our superiority to the hereditary aristocracies and monarchies that had dominated political life everywhere on the globe, and that still did in many places.

…

Now, the president of the United States is boasting of receiving as a gift a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane from the Qatari royal family. The plane will be upgraded to serve not as the Air Force One but as his Air Force One, since it will only be available for use by the government of the

BBC Woman’s Hour today talked to trans “woman” Robin Moira White about the Supreme Court ruling on whatisawoman. The chat is the first in what it says will be a series of such chats. I have to wonder why the Beeb starts this series with a man who pretends to be a woman. Why is he at the head of the queue? Why not talk to women first and men last? Or indeed why talk to men at all?

So anyway, obviously I’ll have to listen to the whole annoying thing and share the worst bits.

First question – what’s his opinion on the Supreme Court ruling that woman means woman?

Well – I don’t think the Supreme Court ruling

Completely normal. Not corrupt at all. No risk of favors in exchange for a tiny gifty. Just a kind gesture from a dear friend. Clean as a whistle.

Trump to accept luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One

Sure; why not? Heads of state accept little prezzies from other countries all the time. A huge luxury airplane isn’t worth much at all – not as much as a nice dinner at the local Chipotle.

Given the massive value of a Boeing 747-8, the move is unprecedented and raises substantial ethical and legal questions. A Qatari official said the plane is technically being gifted from the Qatari Ministry of Defense to the Pentagon, describing it more as a

Enough.

Enough. No more putting the needs of men who identify as female – and want to be validated in that identity to the extent of demanding access to women's changing rooms – above the needs of women who've been sexually abused as children. Enough.https://t.co/kBY8ekSHs5

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) May 11, 2025

And that's not even the worst part of this story. pic.twitter.com/dwYLv8Twv2

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) May 11, 2025

Every so often I feel incensed with anger that the needs of these men have been so blatantly prioritised over the needs of women, especially when it's women who are far, far more vulnerable than them, and reading this story was one of those moments.

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha)

It seems there’s a thing called the Met Gala. The two words together are very slightly familiar, but I can’t say I’ve ever paid much attention to it. Hadley Freeman was caught in Manhattan last week while the Gala was galaing.

What was once a low-key fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in Manhattan has become an annual warning about the dangers of being too rich, too thin and too obsessed with Instagram. Every year there’s a jaunty dress code “theme” — shudder — but most of the female celebrities simply do what they always do at these things, which is look as naked and/or uncomfortable as possible.

Ya. That’s a thing that’s been bugging me forever … Read the rest

The arrests have begun.

It all went down on Friday afternoon when Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark and Democratic candidate for New Jersey governor, was arrested outside an ICE facility alongside three members of Congress.

While the congresspeople—New Jersey Democratic Reps. Rob Menendez, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and LaMonica McIver—were inside the Delaney Hall detention facility waiting to be given a tour, Baraka waited outside in a fenced-in parking lot as protestors gathered on the other side of the fence. He was told to leave the fenced-in part of the parking lot and, despite complying with the request, was then detained by ICE agents.

Interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and Trump advisor Alina Habba said on X of

Sweet.

There’s just one small problem.

A boy is ranked #1 in the girls’ long jump, triple jump, & high jump in California.

His mother? Proud

Proud her son dominates girls.

Proud they look to him for “guidance.”

She even tells the girls: Don’t sit out.

Give it your all, girls! Then he can humiliate you properly. pic.twitter.com/vEVySYHpnS

— WomenAreReal (@WomenAreReals) May 10, 2025

… Read the rest

Forced teaming and Vatican rags:

In the eyes of many LGBTQ Catholics

I have to stop you right there. Seven words in and you’re lying already. There are no LGBTQ Catholics. There can’t be. It’s not a thing. LGB is sexual orientation, Q means nothing, T is genner idenniny which is 1. bullshit and 2. incompatible with LG.

NBC of course found someone to explain with all due ponderous verbiageification what the new pope means to him her them us you insert chosen pronoun somewhere.

Jason Steidl Jack, a gay Catholic and an assistant teaching professor of religious studies at St. Joseph’s University, New York, described his reaction to the election of Pope Leo, the first-ever American to lead

I see I’m not the only one who wonders.

The Supreme Court ruling correctly interprets the Equality Act, giving effect to our intention when drafting it. Single sex spaces for women are important & can exclude trans women but only where necessary. The Act, & ruling, protects rights of women while also respecting the…

— Harriet Harman (@HarrietHarman) April 16, 2025

…while also respecting the rights of trans women.”

Of course.

Plenty of irritated women were on hand to say no, you damn fool, that’s not the ruling.

Wrong! That’s not what the law ( today) & sex discrimination law says. Single sex spaces have to be single biological sex. That was the whole point of the court case.

Ok what does this mean?

Meanwhile Labour peer and former women and equalities minister Harriet Harman, also chair of the Fawcett Society, said the verdict “correctly interprets” current legislation and ministers’ intentions when it was drafted under the last Labour government. ”

She added: “Single sex spaces for women are important and can exclude trans women but only where necessary. The Act, and ruling, protects rights of women while also respecting the rights of trans women.”

It’s at the end of a piece about a “trans Labour councillor” who “has resigned from the party, accusing it of having ‘“thrown transgender people under the bus.'” It’s the usual nonsense, but what I want to know is what does “but only where … Read the rest

Of course it is.

White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller said Friday that the Trump administration is “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus — the constitutional right to challenge in court the legality of a person’s detention by the government — for migrants.

Miller’s comment came in response to a White House reporter who asked about President Donald Trump entertaining the idea of suspending the writ to deal with the problem of illegal immigration into the United States.

Asked when that might happen, Miller responded: “The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended