If only people could grasp that they’re not the same thing.

Student psychotherapist wins apology over expulsion for gender-critical views

James Esses has reached a settlement with the Metanoia Institute in London, which specialises in training counsellors and psychotherapists. He lost his place on the course after campaigning against the government’s proposed ban on conversion practices.

Esses launched an online petition in April 2021 highlighting concerns that the proposed ban on conversion practices – the practice of attempting to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity – might end up criminalising explorative therapy for children with gender dysphoria. He was expelled from the course by email shortly after.

That’s where the Guardian goes wrong, right there – sexual orientation … Read the rest

If her voice can be heard, next thing you know she’s pregnant with some stranger’s kid.

The Taliban’s new decree bans women’s voices from being heard by men outside their family. This regime has progressively banned women from work, education, travel, media, and public life, reducing their existence to mere reproductive functions with no voice or face. pic.twitter.com/NwULdOZfAQ

— Habib Khan (@HabibKhanT) August 21, 2024

… Read the rest

Trump explains to his advisors that he can’t take their advice because he’s too stupid.

DONALD TRUMP HAS NO PLANS TO HEED the advice of his aides and limit himself to policy contrasts when he debates Kamala Harris. He wants to make it personal.

“This is just the way I am. I hate my opponent. I hate my opponents,” Trump told a confidant who advised the former president to consider backing away from calling the vice president “stupid” or “dumb” at their high-profile standoff in a few weeks, which he has done repeatedly.

Trump explained to the confidant that he’s treating Harris the same way he did Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. “Hillary, Joe, Kamala. It doesn’t matter. I just

How dare a woman expect a hostel for women to exclude men?

An Australian traveller in France who complained there was a trans woman in a female-only bathroom at their hostel was shocked to be told that she had broken the law by raising her concerns.

Melbourne woman Cassandra was visiting the French city of Lyon to watch the Olympics women’s soccer on July 26 and 27. 

She booked a women’s dorm and got there late at night when everyone was asleep.

On the first morning she was shocked to see a trans woman, who she initially thought was a man, in the bathroom. She asked to speak to the hostel manager.

Derp. A trans woman is a man. That’s … Read the rest

Joyous Apostasy Day all. Celebrate! Blaspheme. Argue. Reason. Enjoy the wind in your hair.

Today is #ApostasyDay, established by #ExMuslims International with @CEMB_forum in 2020.

6,500 have already signed call to end #apostasy laws, commemorate victims & affirm freedom of thought & conscience.

Join us. https://t.co/ert6UQ4k5f pic.twitter.com/yQ0Ki0gizr

— Maryam Namazie مریم نمازی (@MaryamNamazie) August 22, 2024

… Read the rest

Fury at the BBC again:

Sickening, disrespectful & deeply offensive that the BBC would call Samantha Holden anything other than a ‘woman’. Also, the sanitised language of “sex worker” dignifies only the pimps and punters, never the women themselves, whether they’re involved in prostitution or assumed to…

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) August 21, 2024

The BBC using the term “sex worker” to describe Samantha Holden is a partial editorial decision to sanitise the abuse and exploitation of women… which in this case ended tragically in murder. For shame. https://t.co/yZrYkCOifn

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) August 21, 2024

I’d hoped we’d moved on from dark days ‘murdered sex worker’ labelling. Not so @BBCNews. Appalling headline in same vein as 1970s ‘Yorkshire

That is funny.

Donald Trump has apparently been stewing on a speech given at the Democratic National Convention by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The former president on Wednesday singled her out in a Truth Social post as “the nastiest speaker on Monday evening… as it pertains to your favorite President, me.” He added: “Her total hatred, and statements made about me, had no bounds.”

Trump calling other people “nasty.” Trump complaining about hatred and statements. But the funniest –

…on the very distinct possibility I will win the Presidency, wouldn’t it be better for the people of New York State to have a Governor who got along with the President? Adversarial relationships are not good in politics!”

Really?! … Read the rest

Newsweek sees fit to publish a bizarrely sloppy piece on That Bad Woman by one Ryan Smith, its Senior Pop Culture & Entertainment Reporter.

Author J.K. Rowling has fallen silent on her usually busy X (formerly Twitter) feed, after Olympic gold medalist boxer Imane Khelif filed a legal complaint in France for alleged cyber harassment over statements regarding her gender.

“After” a lot of things. After the sun came up, after we all became a day older, after time passed…and after Rowling went on vacation. That little word “after” can be a sly way of implying causality without actually ascribing causality. That of course is what Newsweek is letting its pop culture boffin do here.

On August 9, lawyers for

Yikes.

I used to admire Mona Eltahawy.

When those racist transphobes are spurred into action by the tears of a white woman who should’ve stayed out of the boxing ring because she couldn’t take the punches, you know that we win by refusing their gender binary goalpostshttps://t.co/wAASezTfNv

— Mona Eltahawy (@monaeltahawy) August 20, 2024

“the tears of a white woman” “should have stayed out of the boxing ring because she couldn’t take the punches” – the punches of a man, that is, which women in women’s boxing aren’t supposed to have to take.

What an absolutely shit thing to say.… Read the rest

The who have done what?

Over recent years the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has updated their curriculum guidance in all subject areas to include themes of social justice. They have done this by requiring that all courses include elements of Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

I didn’t know there was such a thing as the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, but now that I know, I’m baffled to learn that it “requires” political content in all subject areas. What, even physics, geology, astronomy, engineering, mathematics? What the flaming hell for?

One might well question how to incorporate the values of EDI into a course on abstract algebra or

Trump wants more people to die in order to boost his chances in the election.

Donald Trump has been speaking with the powers that be about Israel’s war on Gaza—but it’s not in an effort to end the genocide.

Instead, Trump has allegedly been talking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avert a cease-fire deal, fearing that doing so could help Vice President Kamala Harris win in November, according to PBS.

That’s right, he’s trying to block a cease-fire for the sake of his job prospects.

… Read the rest

Christina Dalcher on what people don’t know about Islamist countries:

Indeed it is.

I lived and worked in one of those countries.

I watched housemaids forced to ‘accompany’ the men they worked when those men went to drink with their buddies.

I watched expats plan ‘midnight runs’ when a local with enough ‘wasta’ made threats.

I was there when a… https://t.co/ab486BqsdJ

— Christina Dalcher (@CV_Dalcher) August 20, 2024

I was there when a group of academics who dared to criticize the government for not being democratic were removed from their homes in the wee hours and not heard from afterwards.

I was pressured into putting a religion on my visa because ‘atheist’ would be problematic.

I heard women speak of

Frustrating. I can’t find the source of the quoted passage, Google says it’s never heard of it, SEEN hasn’t so far answered my question. There’s an answer but I haven’t been able to find it yet.

Meanwhile – somebody said this:

Following last week's Bookbrunch interview with a senior editor @Hachette, our legal adviser has asked for evidence from @Bookbrunch, @LittleBrownUK that SEEN in Publishing has denied anyone's 'basic humanity' or done anything to make anyone feel 'unsafe or unwelcome'. pic.twitter.com/kg85f5CJ0q

— SEEN in Publishing (@SEENPublishing) August 20, 2024

“It can make them feel unsafe and unwelcome in an industry where I don’t think that’s the case. There’s a very small minority that speaks loudly about these topics, … Read the rest

She’s just not that into you.

Taylor Swift has yet to endorse any presidential candidate this election cycle. But former President Donald Trump says he accepts the superstar’s non-existent endorsement.

Trump posted “I accept!” on his Truth Social account, along with a carousel of (Swift) images – at least some of which appear to be AI-generated.

One of the AI-manipulated photos depicts Swift as Uncle Sam with the text, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.”

Also on Team Trump: Al Capone, Amelia Earhart, Rachel Maddow, David Beckham.

Swift’s fans – known as Swifties – have gotten political this election cycle. Immediately after President Joe Biden stepped aside and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, a large group of Swift’s fans formed a community called

A long string of clips from last night at the DNC. I haven’t watched most of them yet; just the tweets make me tear up. You may notice a theme.

I did watch the kids singing the anthem one. And the Maxine Waters one. She said “Fannie Lou” and I was a goner. Fannie Lou always makes me tear up. Always.

I did manage to stay dry-eyed for the one about snacks.

I'm going to put together a thread covering night 1 of the 2024 DNC in Chicago, featuring a headlining speech from President Biden. Follow along for clips and commentary. pic.twitter.com/yOxFrG3j9e

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2024

… Read the rest

More on Smyth Harper:

The UK's Independent Office for Police Conduct has revealed that its head of communications, Smyth Harper, a trans activist who repeatedly posted online abuse aimed at women, including calling them Nazis if they don't believe men are women, is no longer an employee pic.twitter.com/jp79JILyAX

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) August 19, 2024

Looks like all we know is that he's left the organisationhttps://t.co/YydNDwwOuj

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) August 19, 2024

Yes – a trustee. Notice that they don't use the full names for their trustees. Something Pride in Surrey was also doing, before password protecting the pagehttps://t.co/YJ8ie3YmAX

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) August 19, 2024

Seems a very odd choice for head of communications for the police a non-departmental … Read the rest

Conservative judge just says no to Trump.

Retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative legal scholar put on the bench by President George H.W. Bush, is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump, whose candidacy he describes as an existential threat to American democracy.

Harris is a former prosecutor. Trump is a convicted felon. You do the math.

“In the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law,” Luttig wrote in a statement obtained exclusively by CNN. “As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for

“You don’t know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t.” https://t.co/hIYIymDhZo

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 19, 2024

The quotation marks indicate a quotation, so I looked for it. Apparently it’s Fran Lebowitz who said it.

Anyway it’s true. It’s weirdly bizarrely shamingly true. I don’t know anyone as blatantly obviously shamelessly as stupid as Trump. It’s possible that I know some people who are approximately that stupid but if so they don’t flaunt it the way he does…which means they are less stupid than he is.

You can object that this unsurpassed stupidity of his got him elected president, but on the other hand it made billions of people aware of how profoundly stupid he is when … Read the rest

In other parts of the world:

"Taliban sentence woman to stone in Balkh"

"The primary court of the Taliban in Shulgarh district, Balkh province, has issued a sentence of stoning to death of a woman on the charge of extramarital affair."

(retweet of article in Persian, Google translation in screenshots) https://t.co/0Npn8T4Y2R pic.twitter.com/je9G557VnD

— Lily Maynard (@LilyLilyMaynard) August 18, 2024

… Read the rest

Police in Iran shoot a woman in the spine, paralyzing her, because they don’t like her hair.

The family of Arezou Badri, a 31-year-old woman shot by Iran’s police on July 22 for allegedly violating mandatory hijab laws, is under intense government pressure to withdraw their complaint.

Badri, a mother of two, was left paralyzed after the shooting, an incident that has ignited outrage both within Iran and on the international stage.

The family’s complaint regarding Badri, who suffered severe spinal cord injuries and remains hospitalized at Valiasr Hospital in Tehran, was heard in a court this week. However, the family remains dissatisfied with the outcome and the judicial process.

This is because she has hair on her head. … Read the rest