Piety interlude:

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump declared in March, in a video posted on Truth Social. “I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again.”

In the video, Trump, who has a long history of endorsing and selling things, is clutching the God Bless the USA Bible – a “patriotic” take on the holy text that Trump is now hawking for $59.99.

“I want to have a lot of people have it,” Trump continued. “You have to have it for your heart and for your soul.”

Well of course he wants to “have a lot of people have … Read the rest

So, kicking and screaming, the UK manages to return to the arrangement that allowed women to engage in public life instead of being tethered to home by the size of their bladders.

New restaurants, offices and hospitals in England will be required to have separate male and female toilets, in a move ministers say will combat growing concerns about “privacy and dignity” in gender-neutral facilities.

The law will mean newly built non-residential buildings require separate facilities, and cannot solely have “universal” lavatories.

The need for women’s toilets had been understood since the late 19th century, until the bright sparks of the 21st decided that women are trash.

However, the policy has been criticised as being transphobic since it was first

Today Elon Musk gave JK Rowling advice on what to write.

While I heartily agree with your points regarding sex/gender, may I suggest also posting interesting and positive content on other matters?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2024

The sex/gender issue aside, it’s such an odd thing to say and do. No, of course you may not “suggest” what kind of thing we should “post content” about i.e. discuss. Of course you may not tell us what to talk about. You can ban us from Twitter, but you don’t get to manage us as if we were ballet dancers and you were Balanchine. Get out of here with that crap.

So now of course the “trans allies” are gloating.… Read the rest

I feel as if it’s 1996 and we’re living the Sokal Hoax all over again.

The NY Times reports, apparently without shrieks of laughter, on a conference on – wait for it – queer food.

When Sasha DuBose uses the word “queer” to talk about food, it’s a verb, not an adjective. To Ms. DuBose, queering food is “taking how we define food and how we engage with it and twisting it, making it more fun.”

But food people already do that. It’s called coming up with new recipes.

Besides which, there is no one way that people “engage with” food. There are a vast, unmanageable number of ways people engage with food. Oddly enough, humans are very interested … Read the rest

The BBC reported four days ago on the jailing of Manahel al-Otaibi.

Two human rights groups have condemned an 11-year prison sentence handed to a Saudi fitness instructor and women’s rights activist by a terrorism court.

Manahel al-Otaibi, 29, was convicted of charges related to her clothing choices and expression of her views online, Amnesty International and ALQST said. These included calls for an end to the guardianship system and videos of her shopping without an abaya, they added.

And that’s “terrorism.”

ALQST said she was initially accused of violating the Anti-Cyber Crime Law, including “opposing the laws relating to women, such as the male guardianship system and the hijab law”; “participating in several hashtags opposing these laws”;

Catherine Bennett at the Guardian asks some inconvenient questions about Saudi Arabia and its role as host of the Women’s Tennis Association finals.

She cites Manahel al-Otaibi, a 29-year-old fitness instructor and women’s rights activist.

[T]here could hardly have been a more convenient time for human rights organisations to report, as they did last week, that al-Otaibi whose circumstances were for months unknown, is serving 11 years in prison for the “terrorist” offences of wearing “indecent clothes” (ie, not an abaya) and supporting women’s rights. Her sister, Fouz al-Otaibi, fled the country in 2022 to avoid similar persecution. Fouz tweeted last week: “Why have my rights become terrorism, and why is the world silent?”

11 years in prison. … Read the rest

How much “evolution of understanding” does it take?

Gillian Keegan has said she will no longer use the phrase “trans women are women”, explaining that her understanding of the issue has “evolved”.

Why did it need to “evolve”? Does she not know what a woman is? Despite being one herself?

In 2020, in response to a question from an LGBT+ forum in her Chichester constituency, the Education Secretary made the statement that “trans women are women”, adding that trans people should have equal access to “safe spaces”.

Safe spaces in the sense of women’s safe spaces? Trans people including the male ones? Male people should not have access to women’s safe spaces.

But. Good that she’s become better informed, … Read the rest

Originally a comment by tigger_the_wing on Hormones do not negate.

If hormone levels are going to be used as a way of dividing people into sporting classes, then current levels aren’t accurate enough; lifetime levels must be taken into account.

Oh, look! We already do that! Men, and women who have ever been doped with steroids like testosterone, have already been barred from women’s sport! See? We don’t need to ask intrusive questions about someone’s self-described ‘gender’! We can simply continue to exclude men and take blood and urine samples to ensure fairness!

I find it astonishing that people are tying themselves in knots to avoid admitting that humans come in two sexes, which need to be separate in … Read the rest

Putz says what now?

On Tuesday the Garrick Club will hold a historic vote to decide whether to start accepting women as members. Some prominent figures, however, have already made their feelings clear. Stephen Fry, Sting and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler have co-signed a letter, announcing that they “won’t feel able to continue as Garrick members” if women aren’t admitted. And the BBC’s John Simpson has publicly declared that he too would “find it impossible to stay”.

This is of course supremely noble of them. I have only one question.

After their many years as members, have they really only just discovered that the Garrick excludes women?

I suppose they must have. After all, if they’re so horrified by

A post on the Cambridge University Press blog is so bad it appears to have been written by two children, but in fact the named authors are academics. It honestly strains belief.

First paragraph:

Kathleen Stock identifies as a philosopher of (expert on) sex and gender identity partly on the grounds that she has spent years (let us take her word for it) thinking, researching, and building careful and comprehensive arguments about these issues.

“expert on” is not a synonym for “philosopher of.” The two are not the same thing.

“let us take her word for it” is sheer childish sneering.

She also says, ‘it’s not hate speech to say males can’t be women’. But this claim is

That’s what they’re calling it now? “Extreme body modification”? The Beeb:

The ringleader of an extreme body modification website wanted to be “the architect of his own body” after his marriage broke down, a court has heard.

Marius Gustavson and others carried out multiple mutilations on his “eunuch-maker” site.

Excuse me? How do you go about mutilating people on a website?

Through his “eunuch maker” site, Marius Gustavson and other “like-minded individuals” carried out multiple mutilations, “the scale of which is without precedent”, prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC previously told the Old Bailey.

The 46-year-old Norwegian required hospital treatment after having his penis and leg removed during body modification procedures.

Well he would, wouldn’t he.

He appeared for sentence alongside

Thought for the day: self-obsession is not progressive.

Someone should tell Professor Sue Fletcher-Watson. Urgently. By the way her pronouns are she/her, she says so herself.

But she says so much more than that, and all of it is About Her.

I’m a bisexual scientist. It’s only fairly recently that I’ve said that out loud, and I thought I’d say a bit about why that is and why I’m writing this blog.

So first, when I was starting out, there just weren’t opportunities like this.  Pride yes, but Pride IN STEM?  Definitely not.  I think I completely disregarded the idea that any aspect of my personal identity might be relevant to my science or my academic career.

You were right! You were right then, … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Give it all away.

Hormones do not negate the advantage conferred by longer levers, the reason that men can throw things further than women can.

Hormones do not negate the larger lungs and hearts that confer an advantage in any competition that requires stamina, eg distance running, field sports such as the various footballs and hockey.

Hormones do not negate the effect of muscle twitch, which along with longer levers, is why men punch so much harder than women.

And finally, hormones do not negate the sense of entitlement that appears in so many mid level males who will do anything to win, even if it means wearing lippie and a … Read the rest

Oh honestly. Why.

Creating hormonal classes within certain sports could balance athletic fairness with respect for gender self-identification by recognizing the biology that matters while not simply equating hormone levels with gender identity. Read more of my oped: https://t.co/xqRZ344ska

— Alice Dreger, Ph.D. (@AliceDreger) May 3, 2024

Why do we have to balance???

Why, especially, do we have to “balance” when the balancing harms women and doesn’t harm men? Why does anyone even call it “balancing” when the losers are women and the gainers are men? Especially when the person calling it that is a woman? Especially when the woman is Alice Dreger?

Why why why why why the FUCK do we have to keep giving away women’s rights … Read the rest

Passive-aggressive bullshit alert:

Nervous to share this, but deep breath…

I received life-saving care on a female-only ward. Don't transgender women deserve the same?

For my beloved @GlamourMagUK: https://t.co/a19FTnvury

— Luce (@frontrowshoes) May 3, 2024

“Nervous to share this” – what are we meant to conclude from that? That women who know men are not women are mean angry bullies and will say HARSH WORDS to her – so unlike men who never ever say anything harsh to women at all no matter what.

As for her question – the same as in “a female-only ward”? Of course not. Why would they? Does she think male-only wards don’t get lifesaving care? Does she think female-only wards rescue women from … Read the rest

Erm…

Nicola Sturgeon warns of ‘push back’ on women’s rights and misogyny ‘on the rise again’

A significant chunk of the rise caused by…uh…Nicola Sturgeon.

Ms Sturgeon has previously come under fire from women’s rights campaigners for her support for trans rights, such as allowing trans women to access women-only spaces.

That is, she’s been sharply criticized by women’s rights campaigners for insisting that men who pretend to be women can intrude on women’s spaces and everything else that belongs to women. That’s not a “right”; it’s the nullification of a right.

Discussing the relevance of the new book, Ms Sturgeon: “Having gone through many years of what felt like progress, there seems to be push back again, women’s rights

The stupidity of “India” Willoughby takes the breath away.

Before offering your opinion on the latest move by the government to improve the ‘NHS Charter’ – ask yourself this.

How would you feel if a woman you know, perhaps vulnerable, was forced into being treated in an all-male ward at a hospital. How would that woman feel?

Apparently he thinks men are the only people who know how to read. We who are reading this thing he has written must be men, so the way to get us to think about the issue is to present a hypothetical about a woman we know. It doesn’t occur to him to ask us how we would feel, because it doesn’t occur to … Read the rest

Update: I started in medias res here, thinking I’d already shared the origin story, but I must have been to busy swearing about it on twidder. It was this:

/update

It’s even worse than that. The actor who plays Viola, Georgia Frost, is one of the trio who went to JK Rowling’s house and then publicized their visit with the (obviously intended) result that her address was plastered all over social media. A very nasty piece of work. It’s all the more annoying because Viola is a marvelous character and Georgia Frost is clearly not. She doesn’t deserve to play that part.

 For this is the very same Georgia Frost who this week appeared in a picture taken outside

Now look here, this won’t do at all, threatening people we don’t like with death by violence.

This is horrific. So far beneath the bottom of the barrel. Should never have been published. Needs taken down now. https://t.co/AXc88WsQIl

— Kirsten Oswald MP (@kirstenoswald) May 3, 2024

Oh rilly? say a great many people who remember when Kirsten Oswald MP beamed joyously in front of placards threatening death by violence.

Concerned. Deeply concerned.

We are deeply concerned by the new @rcgp guidance, which depends on a number of concerning false narratives spread through the media to propose severe interruptions to trans people's access to care through general practice.https://t.co/b2mY2dP9zi

— Trans Safety Network (@trans_safety) April 29, 2024

False narratives. Shall we talk about false narratives?

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people can change sex.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people who feel discomfort or misery about being the sex they are should without question immediately start the process of pretending to be the other sex by taking cross-sex hormones and having drastic surgeries.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people who warn against taking cross-sex … Read the rest