Originally a comment by Sastra on But I want to, he said.

@Sonderval #10:

Very insightful, and clearly expressed. This misapplied attitude of “look below the surface, it’s almost always more complicated than it appears to the simple-minded” is I think one of the main motivators for an atheist/skeptic/humanist embrace of gender ideology. It’s a sort of forced-teaming with the theory of evolution to go with the forced teaming with homosexuality and gay rights. The combination leads to a very comfortable, smug certainty that they can’t possibly be wrong. A science-oriented person ought to be just as wary of that.

YNNB #8 is undoubtedly correct about the different motivations. I’ll add in the natural human tendency to think small … Read the rest

“I’ve seen far too many criticisms of it so far to be able to say that.”

Patrick Harvie refuses to accept that the Cass Report is a valid piece of scientific research. pic.twitter.com/FCHTQy1hJr

— Sam Taylor (@staylorish) April 21, 2024

Derp.

Of course he has: because he sought them out, and because his mates and allies are all firmly trapped in the ideology. … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sonderval on But I want to, he said.

What do they see that I don’t see???

They “see” the same thing we all see. But they do know that if you are smart you look deeper than the obvious, and that looking only at the surface is what stupid and bigoted people do.

Smart people (having read Kant) know that “I think therefore I am” is not as convincing as it looks on first sight.

Smart people know that species, despite looking clearly distinct, actually evolve.

Smart people know that space and time are not what they seem.

Smart and non-bigoted people know that despite looking different, members of all races are just human.

So … Read the rest

CBS is less dishonest than NBC, which is damning with faint praise indeed. They do manage not to say the assault was an assault, not an “altercation.”

A 13-year-old is facing charges after a student at one Montgomery County middle school was assaulted at lunch with what students describe as a Stanley cup. Upper Gwynedd Township police said the teen will be charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault and other charges.

Less deceptive, but still pretending nobody involved has a sex.

Superintendent Todd Bauer started the meeting with a statement about the attack, which took place at lunchtime Wednesday afternoon. He said a seventh-grade student was assaulted by another student in an alarming attack. As a result, that

NBC Philadelphia lies and conceals and deceives in its shockingly dishonest reporting on the Pennbrook school assault. Aren’t there any professional regulatory bodies that discourage lies and deception in journalism? Are they toothless?

A seventh grader is recovering in the hospital after a physical altercation between students during the lunch period at a Montgomery County middle school.

Liar! It wasn’t an altercation, it was an assault. It was a crime. Call it an alleged assault if you have to for legal reasons, but don’t call it an altercation. Don’t mislead the readers.

A female student was attacked from behind with a 40-ounce Stanley brand mug, according to a source who spoke with NBC10. The attack is alleged to be unprovoked.

Oh oh oh says the man, running is so important to me.

“Running is so – such a crucial part of my like my being” he says – not pausing for a single second, of course, to remember that the same is true of the women he runs “with” and that therefore he should stop competing with them.

They never do. They never ever do. They tell us self-pityingly how much the cycling football running swimming rugby yadda yadda means to them and never ever ever stop to think about anyone other than their precious selves. … Read the rest

Guest post by Jonathan A. Gallant

An Inside Higher Education article on “Critical Studies” announced another triumph of this modern academic approach to socially constructed categories:  “For instance, critical childhood studies investigates how childhood is socially constructed, understood and experienced cross-culturally and trans-historically.  It challenges the notion that childhood is a natural and universal stage of life...”  

  Permit me to announce the new, related approach of Critical Mortality Studies.  This field will interrogate the social construction of death, challenging the notion that those who are assigned to the category of “deceased” are any different from you, me, or the Associate Dean for DEI.  They are just on their own position along the spectrum of vitality, and should therefore be … Read the rest

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania…

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE ASSAULT AT PENNBROOK SO FAR:

– The boy identifies as a girl named "Melanie."

– The boy had been permitted to use the female restrooms at the school.

– The boy had only recently been transferred into the school where the assault took place.

– The boy…

— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) April 20, 2024

– The boy maintained a “hit list” of girls to assault.

– The school was well aware of the boy’s violent tendencies, and reportedly had him solo-escorted into school every day.

– The victim was bludgeoned in the head repeatedly with a Stanley tumbler.

– School administrators had been warned repeatedly about the boy’s violent tendencies, but appear to

The Times on the bullying of Hilary Cass:

Dr Hilary Cass has criticised the spread of “disinformation” around her report, including from a Labour MP, as she revealed she had been told not to travel on public transport over safety fears.

In an interview with The Times, the paediatrician behind last week’s landmark review on the treatment of transgender children said that young people were being put “at risk” by the spread of false information.

At risk of ruining their lives, at that.

Following publication of her 388-page report, figures including the Labour MP Dawn Butler repeated claims that Cass had not included 100 transgender studies in it. Calling the assertion “completely wrong”, Cass said that it was “unforgivable”

Dr Cass can’t take a bus any more.

The highly-regarded paediatrician who conducted the most thorough review ever undertaken on the medical evidence for transitioning gender-confused children has been advised not to travel on public transport for her own safety. 1/3https://t.co/tdtbkXyOAk

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 20, 2024

'Follow the money' may be a conspiracy theorist trope and I hate the X cliché 'let that sink in', but when a respected paediatrician is advised not to travel by bus, and when lobby groups fall over themselves to discredit a meticulous medical review, both might seem to apply. 3/X

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 20, 2024

… Read the rest

If nothing else, we get the satisfaction of knowing Trump had to listen to a bunch of people saying what a pile of ordure he is.

He seems “selfish and self-serving,” said one woman.

The way he carries himself in public “leaves something to be desired,” said another.

His “negative rhetoric and bias,” said another man, is what is “most harmful.”

Way too mild, but better than nothing.

It’s been a dramatic departure for the former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, who is accustomed to spending his days in a cocoon of cheering crowds and constant adulation. Now a criminal defendant, Trump will instead spend the next several weeks subjected to strict rules that strip him of control

Trump got told to sit the fuck down yesterday. Got told it and had to take it.

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan was wrapping up a contentious hour of debate with lawyers on both sides Friday afternoon, when he clarified that a contempt hearing—where he might punish Trump for repeatedly ignoring a gag order and continuing to publicly speak threateningly about witnesses and jurors—would commence Tuesday morning.

But just as the judge neared the end of his sentence, Trump abruptly stood up—apparently thinking the day was over. Immediately, Merchan turned his face to the former president and said in a firm voice: “Sir, can you please have a seat.”

His long, black robes dangled from beneath his

Utterly disgusting.

“We’re not interested in defining what a woman is, the patriarchy’s been doing that for long enough.” SMIRK.… Read the rest

This is a farking outrage.

Biden hands over Title IX to trans people

The Biden administration has finalized new Title IX regulations that codify protections for transgender people, as well as enhance protections for victims of sexual assault or harassment and pregnant people.

What was Title IX? The federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities.

The new regulations officially add “gender identity” onto the list of protections from sex-based discrimination for the first time, though the administration said it has already been applying this standard.

So that will be the end of protections for women.… Read the rest

What for?

NHS bosses have been accused of ‘woke pandering’ after they brought out a banner featuring flags for 21 genders or sexualities.  Different terms for those who consider themselves not belonging to any sex, or are a combination of both, are included on the banner at Royal Stoke Hospital. 

The familiar Gay Pride flag, which features a rainbow, appears on the banner alongside a selection of lesser-known identities – such as Polysexual, Demiromantic and Genderqueer. The collection of flags is titled ‘Everyone is welcome here’.  

Well duh. It’s the National Health Service, not a social club or a kindergarten or the House of Lords. Of course it lets everyone in; that’s its job. And if you are going to make … Read the rest

I saw a couple of hours ago that Daniel Dennett has left the stage, and I put off mentioning it because it displeases me.

Let’s turn our minds back to December 2006 and the day Judge Jones issued his ruling in the Kitzmiller case. It inspired me to fire off an email to Richard Dawkins inviting him to comment for publication here, which he immediately did, eloquently.

Judge John Jones has given the Founding Fathers the first really good reason to stop spinning in their graves since the Bush junta moved in. It would have been a scandal if any judge had not found against the ID charlatans, but I had expected that he would do so with equivocation: some

Victoria Smith on Scotland’s belated “pause”:

This is a tremendous relief and, to some of us, a surprise. As Dr Hilary Cass noted, evidence-based care for vulnerable children has been disrupted by those who prefer “a social justice model”. Being in favour of the sterilisation of autistic and gay children — or “protecting trans kids”, as it’s been known — has long been a way to advertise one’s right-side-of-history credentials. It has also, in the eyes of certain Scottish politicians, been a way to indicate that one’s own country is young, progressive, and forward-looking, rather than mired in stuffy old principles such as “child safeguarding”.

It’s worth pausing over that third sentence for an hour or two. All these … Read the rest

The BBC reported yesterday:

Scotland’s NHS has paused prescribing puberty blockers to children referred by its specialist gender clinic. The Sandyford clinic in Glasgow also said new patients aged 16 or 17 would no longer receive other hormone treatments until they were 18. It follows a landmark review of gender services for under-18s in England. Dr Hilary Cass’s review said children had been let down by a lack of research and there was “remarkably weak” evidence on medical interventions.

And very drastic “medical interventions” they are, too – and in fact they’re not really “medical” as commonly understood. More like anti-medical.

Like other parts of the UK, Scotland has seen a rapid rise in the number of young people

Labour has a new campaign ad.

Replies are scathing.… Read the rest

I find myself wondering why, when we’re told that the feeling of being trans is so real and overwhelming that it trumps the dull facts, it’s so urgent and imperative to change the body so that it matches the feeling.

Unless, of course, it turns out that this real and overwhelming feeling is solely about the appearance.

But then what becomes of the core claims about the self, the identity, the soul?

These thoughts arose as I was reading a rant by Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir on the Cass Report evil terfs etc etc etc.

Waiting lists for trans-related healthcare in the UK are atrocious, with people in England waiting an average of seven years for a first appointment, despite