I guess if all else fails just keep saying “but it’s written down somewhere, so it’s obviously true.”

Witness for instance Morgane Oger:

Where am I arguing there is a “female essence”? I am stating a fact: I am categorized as a human adult female (and it deeply bothers fools).

That’s a very silly, tricksy, childish kind of “fact.” It’s like saying “I am too so the Queen, it’s in writing!” when it’s in writing because you just wrote it down. Oger is “categorized as a human adult female” by whom and since when and for what reason?

Writing down some words doesn’t necessarily create a fact beyond the fact that those words were written down in that place.… Read the rest

Today’s impeachment-outrage news is that Fox and some Republicans are trying to discredit the current witness, Lt Col Alexander Vindman, who was on the Ukraine call. He’s the White House expert on Ukraine, and his family emigrated from Ukraine when he was three. An opening! An opening to start up another Birtherism fight. He must be disloyal! He must be Secretly Ukrainian. He must be a Never Trumper.

The Guardian reports:

The Washington Post has uncovered footage of Lt Col Alexander Vindman, whose family emigrated from the Soviet Union when he was a child, appearing alongside his twin brother in Ken Burns’ documentary series America for a segment on the Statue of Liberty.

The segment explores the statue’s power

Yes but what does “identity” mean?

A tweet by Jameela Jamil:

This is a perfect display of how a worrying amount (not all) of cis-women essentially characterize trans women as nothing more than men playing dress up. It’s a complete denial of their identity. I personally see transwomen as strength in numbers in the fight against oppression❤️

First: no, not nothing more than men playing dress up. It’s not that simple. If it were there wouldn’t be all this to-do about it. If it were just men playing dress up no one would care. But I, for instance, do think trans women are not literally women, but rather have a fantasy about being a woman which they want to … Read the rest

How do we decide who belongs where?

I talked about this yesterday already, in reference to Laurie Penny’s “There is no LGB without the T,” but there’s always more to say. Stonewall preached the “all stand together” line in response to the debut of the LGB Alliance:

The LGBT community is at its strongest when we stand together 🏳️‍🌈 Let’s raise each other up today and every day. We are one #LGBTQFamily

That’s a lot of colors though – are they all one community and one family? And how do they know? How do we know, how does anyone know? How do we know who belongs in and who belongs out?

We know it’s not everyone. It’s a specific … Read the rest

You know that photo of Obama and others watching the raid that got Osama bin Laden?

This one?

Trump is jealous of it. His people tried to fake one up for him but they didn’t try very hard.

The chief official White House photographer for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama suggested the Trump administration was posing for Saturday’s stern-faced Situation Room picture in the wake of a U.S. military raid that resulted in the death of a major ISIS figurehead.

Pete Souza, the former director of the White House Photography Office, called the timestamp of the Situation Room picture into question Sunday morning. Souza inferred that it’s very unlikely President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and

The hideous bullies at Gendered Intelligence are doing their bit:

We would encourage everyone to write a letter of to GCC expressing your concern about the barrister in question and the new group.

Yeah! Everybody get together to get the black lesbian barrister fired! Social justice, maaaaan.

Jane Clare Jones retorts:

Stop trying to bully women who don’t agree with your ideology you jumped up totalitarians.

The more you bully us, the more people can see that this is not just about asking for compassion, it’s about asking for complete and total compliance.

We. Will. Not. Comply.

Seriously.

Any political project that decides a Black lesbian human rights lawyer is the enemy is not on the right side

From the Sunday Times:

A lesbian barrister who is under investigation for her stance on transgender ideology has said her chambers bowed to the “hate mob”.

Allison Bailey is being investigated by Garden Court Chambers after she hailed the launch of the LGB Alliance pressure group, of which she is a founding member.

Bailey was subjected to a torrent of abuse and death threats after she posted on social media: “Gender extremism is about to meet its match.”

The LGB Alliance has said its mission is “asserting the right of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men to define themselves as same-sex attracted”. Its stance that “gender is a social construct” faced immediate opposition from trans groups.

Garden Court said on

No you may NOT leave, the doors are all locked, the windows are barred, no one can hear your screams.

Laurie Penny:

There is no LGB without the T. It’s deeply disappointing that a vocal minority has devoted its misguided energies to persecuting its vulnerable trans siblings instead of building a better world together. Transphobia is shameful and has no place in any progressive movement.

But there is LGB without the T, of course. How could there not be? They’re not the same thing, so why have people become so convinced so quickly that there is no one without the other? In one direction, that is – T is allowed to caucus by itself, but LGB is not. But … Read the rest

Kate Manne’s next in the series is even loopier. To recap, the first was

Cis women confusing “erasure” with not being at the center of a discourse is fast becoming one of my pet peeves. Why not be inclusive of everyone who menstruates? There is no good reason. Obviously.

Next is

Same when it comes to pregnancy and breast/chestfeeding. The truth is, we *all* gain when these activities aren’t essentialized and made into part of some gross, reductive, naturalizing MIC (maternal industrial complex).

Gain? Gain what? What do I gain from being told that it’s not only women who menstruate, get pregnant, and breast feed? What, exactly, do I gain from that? All I’m conscious of gaining is fury and … Read the rest

Kate Manne again:

Cis women confusing “erasure” with not being at the center of a discourse is fast becoming one of my pet peeves. Why not be inclusive of everyone who menstruates? There is no good reason. Obviously.

Women who purport to be feminists who talk contemptuously about “cis women” have been one of my pet peeves for years now.

You cannot do that and be a feminist – it makes no sense. Women are subordinated and dominated and treated with contempt because they are women, so using a hostile neo-label for them that means actual women as opposed to men pretending to be women cannot possibly be combined with advocating an end to that subordination and domination. Women … Read the rest

Remember last May when Naomi Wolf was informed on live radio that she was wrong on some of her facts?

A couple of days ago her US publisher just threw the whole book out.

The US publisher of a new book by Naomi Wolf has cancelled its release after accuracy concerns were raised.

Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love details the persecution of homosexuality in Victorian Britain.

But during a BBC radio interview in May, it came to light that the author had misunderstood key 19th Century English legal terms within the book.

Legal terms that were crucial to her whole argument. She thought they recorded executions when they did the opposite.

Following the BBC radio interview,

Today Emilia Decaudin tweets:

It’s absolutely hilarious how many transphobic people from other parts of the world feel the need to jump on every tweet coming out of this account.

Was what I posted last night uncouth? Probably. Was I also out with good friends having a good time while being reminded of transphobic violence every time I scrolled through my feeds on my phone? Yes. Was every reply to my tweet ultimately transphobic in nature? Yes.

Uncouth? Not quite the right word, I think. He seems to have deleted the tweet but some of those naughty “transphobic people” kept the record.

Radical feminists can suck this guy’s dick. That’s not really “uncouth,” it’s more like rapey. It doesn’t … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on YOU become responsible.

I just don’t get it.

One of the things therapists are trained to be aware of is what’s called the “Werther Effect,” named for an 18th century fictional character who killed himself, thereby setting off a rash of nonfictional suicides inspired by the romantic depiction. Suicide is in a sense contagious, and telling vulnerable populations that there’s a good chance they will die by their own hand is verboten. Even portraying victims as somehow noble or beset upon is risky — good intentions can backfire. You wouldn’t want to set up a program in high schools warning teens that the most popular reason for teen suicide is breaking up, for … Read the rest