… Read the restDemocrat Jonah Wheeler stood alone before a capacity crowd in the Peterborough Town Hall as critics, leaders in his own party, and even some childhood friends railed against the 22-year-old state representative’s vote for legislation deemed “transphobic” by progressive activists.
Wheeler (D-Peterborough) was unapologetic during Tuesday night’s question and answer session sponsored by the Peterborough League of Women Voters as he explained why he broke with his party and voted for HB 148. The bill protects the right of local institutions to keep biological males out of women’s locker rooms and bathrooms.
“Nobody should be discriminated against because of who they are,” Wheeler said. “We can respect trans women, and we can respect the rights of women who object to
All entries by this author
Unapologetic
Mar 26th, 2025 10:28 am | By Ophelia BensonBBCphobia
Mar 26th, 2025 8:56 am | By Ophelia BensonBad BBC. Bad. Sit. SIT. You’re a very bad BBC.
University of Sussex fined £585k in transphobia free speech row
That’s on the main page. If you click on the link you get “University of Sussex fined £585k in transgender free speech row”
Spot the difference? Transphobia v transgender free speech.
Bad bad BBC.… Read the rest
Sorrows come not single spies but in battalions
Mar 26th, 2025 6:22 am | By Ophelia BensonBreaking news in Sussex rebuke drama – our good friend latsot has turned up one of those sinister Connections that can explain so much.
Given this reaction, it's interesting to note that Sasha Roseneil was Sally Hines' PhD supervisor. https://t.co/V2bk8HV78P
— latsot (@latsot) March 26, 2025
Oh of course she was. The only thing as of course would be Hines being Roseneil’s PhD supervisor. The professors of transology train each other to preach the gospel of transology wherever gullible students are found, and they link arms to bully Enemy Women out of academia altogether. … Read the rest
Certain groups
Mar 26th, 2025 5:51 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Financial Times on Sussex and Stock and all that:
An English university is set to be fined a record £585,000 over allegations it failed to uphold free speech and academic freedom, in a landmark ruling in the debate over student rights on campus.
England’s higher education regulator found “significant and serious breaches” of free speech and governance issues at the University of Sussex, according to a draft press release seen by the Financial Times.
The Office for Students press release, to be published on Wednesday, said a policy intended to prevent abuse or harassment of certain groups on campus had created “a chilling effect” that might cause staff and students to “self-censor”.
Well that’s the thing, isn’t … Read the rest
Sussex owes a LOT of money
Mar 25th, 2025 5:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonBig news!
BREAKING: Sussex university faces record £585,000 fine for failing to uphold free speech and academic freedom.
OfS found its on “trans and non-binary equality” created a “chilling effect” on campus. pic.twitter.com/Q5Azjux6cO
— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) March 25, 2025
… Read the restAn English university is set to be fined a record £585,000 over allegations it failed to uphold free speech and academic freedom, in a landmark ruling in the debate over student rights on campus.
England’s higher education regulator found “significant and serious breaches” of free speech and governance issues at the University of Sussex, according to a draft press release seen by the Financial Times.
The Office for Students press release, to be published on Wednesday, said policies intended
Guest post: It’s all real estate and vanity
Mar 25th, 2025 10:57 am | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by KB Player on In the wake.
I absolutely don’t get this. In our imperial days (British variety) we were known as perfidious Albion for betraying our allies (actually we were no more perfidious than France, the Habsburgs, Russia, or any of our rivals) but we were polite to them before stabbing them in the back. It’s sheer prudence to be so, just in case perfidiousness is no longer in your interest. This blatant rudeness serves no purpose at all.
If you have vassals – and we in Britain have been a servile vassal to our imperial overlord – there’s no point in humiliating them unnecessarily. Humiliate them in deed if it serves your purposes, but … Read the rest
Don’t ask
Mar 25th, 2025 9:54 am | By Ophelia BensonFrom the NY Times Ethicist column, currently provided by philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah:
44 year old woman has been unable to conceive.
After three years of trying and multiple I.V.F. attempts (fortunately covered by insurance), my doctors have said that, at 44, I won’t be able to get pregnant with my own eggs. My husband and I have decided to pursue egg donation, which, unlike adoption, is covered by our insurance.
Ah right – they want to go the cheaper route.
… Read the restI’d like the donation process to be as open as possible, ideally knowing our donor so our child could have a relationship with her. Most clinics, however, still use anonymous donation. Private donor-egg agencies that facilitate communication are
The antithesis
Mar 25th, 2025 9:28 am | By Ophelia BensonEurope just isn’t one of the cool kids any more.
The European Union is, in many ways, the antithesis of the principles that Mr. Trump and his colleagues are championing. The bloc is built around an embrace of international trade based on rules. It has been at the forefront of climate-related regulation and social media user protections.
Well rules are for peons. The best people do whatever they want all the time, because they’re the best people. Regulation and protections are horrible things, because they hinder the best people for the sake of peons.
… Read the restIf the relationship between the United States and Europe were merely transactional, it would be relatively easy for Europeans to just spend more on the
New low
Mar 25th, 2025 4:22 am | By Ophelia BensonLet’s zoom in on that 37 second chat with former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, now the Secretary of Defense in the Trump regime. The reporter asks him about the grotesque security breach (or rather annihilation) and he reacts with a smirk and a chuckle and
You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called “journalist” who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again, to include the, I don’t know, the hoaxes of Russia Russia Russia, or the fine people on both sides hoax, or the suckers and losers hoax – this is a guy that peddles in garbage [sic], it’s what he does.
What. a. scumbag.
He’s asked about a massive security breach in his department … Read the rest
Highest level of fuckup
Mar 25th, 2025 3:34 am | By Ophelia BensonThe plaudits are rolling in.
From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of fuckup imaginable. These people cannot keep America safe. https://t.co/xhYuJXAenx
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) March 24, 2025
Oh for God's sake, the administration has already confirmed the authenticity of the message. https://t.co/AxQGqqyux3
— Brit Hume (@brithume) March 24, 2025
And speaking of “so-called journalists” – what qualifies Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense?… Read the rest
But her emails
Mar 24th, 2025 5:22 pm | By Ophelia BensonOopsie.
(“But her emails…”) https://t.co/yTwT8PkEsD
— emily m (@maitlis) March 24, 2025
Nope, not kidding.
Pete Hegseth texting out war plans like invites to a frat party. https://t.co/vPqblS7znv
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) March 24, 2025
This is a DEI hire, by the way. pic.twitter.com/0Us0t25xUV
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) March 24, 2025
Nooo, it’s snappy dresser hire, a looks the part hire, a sir yes sir hire. Trump picks people based on how they look on tv.
… Read the restThe fact that a reporter was inadvertently given access to this in real time shows that Pete Hegseth & the rest of this crew are bumbling incompetents who are going to get a lot of intelligence officials and others killed at some point.
Unilaterally decided
Mar 24th, 2025 10:23 am | By Ophelia BensonWell I’ll say one thing about Trump: there is no insult too petty for him to make.
For more than 100 years, people in Stanstead, Quebec have been able to walk into Derby Line, Vermont to enter the border-straddling Haskell Free Library and Opera House – no passport required.
But municipal and library officials said on Friday that U.S. authorities have unilaterally decided to end the century-old unwritten agreement. Coming at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries, the decision is prompting an outpouring of emotion in communities on both sides of the border, which in places has been marked simply by flower pots.
Throw out those sissy flower pots and install some guys with machine guns instead. … Read the rest
They can buy tickets
Mar 24th, 2025 10:08 am | By Ophelia BensonThe charm offensive isn’t working.
… Read the restOver the past 24 hours, the Greenlandic government has dropped its previous posture of being shy and vague in the face of Mr. Trump’s pushiness. Instead, it has blasted him as “aggressive” and asked Europe for backup. And the planned visit may only strengthen the bonds between Greenland — an ice-covered land three times the size of Texas — and Denmark.
Better the colonial power you know than…Donald Trump.
Even the dogsled race has reacted coolly. The organizers of the race — the Avannaata Qimussersua, Greenland’s Super Bowl of dogsled races — said on Sunday of Ms. Vance and her son, “We did not invite them,” but added that the event was open to
In the wake
Mar 24th, 2025 7:26 am | By Ophelia BensonGreenland says we didn’t invite them, we don’t want them, we’re not going to party with them, we think they’re rude to show up uninvited, we wish they would take a hint.
Greenland’s politicians have condemned plans for high-profile US visits, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s threats to take over the island.
Second Lady Usha Vance will make a cultural visit this week, and a separate trip is expected from Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
Outgoing Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute Egede described the plan as aggressive, and said the duo had not been invited for meetings. Meanwhile, the island’s likely next leader accused the US of showing a lack of respect.
What’s a “cultural visit”? Especially one … Read the rest
Gone to join the choir invisible
Mar 23rd, 2025 4:07 pm | By Ophelia BensonUgh.
Today:
Exactly.
My son, Xavier, died. He was killed by the woke mind virus.
Now, the woke mind virus will die.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 22, 2025
I thought it was true for a few minutes, until I looked for more sources.
Nobody died. It’s the old “he’s dead to me.” His kid fell for the gender idiocy, and that’s a terrible thing, but it’s also a terrible thing – it’s a worse thing – to tell the world your kid is dead when what you mean is he went in a direction you can’t stand.
I don’t blame Musk for hating the direction, and I don’t blame him for being furious about the gender idiocy. I do … Read the rest
Not you, sir
Mar 23rd, 2025 3:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonMen who pretend to be women are not examples of “female leaders.” Ever. They’re the negation of female leaders. They’re men who shove their way into women’s everything and thus shove women out. Flattering and rewarding them for doing so is just another notch on the Comprehensive Attack on Women belt.
ITV News has run a nine minute interview with one of the 'ten female leaders' in the history of Medway in Kent. This particular 'female' is a man who talks about being 'transgender' for the entire interview https://t.co/3lz8IcqNOS pic.twitter.com/82oNAlr20F
— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) March 23, 2025
No credentials that qualify her
Mar 23rd, 2025 12:31 pm | By Ophelia BensonWhat credentials does Sam he/him have? What credentials are there? What is the body of specialized knowledge that qualifies people to talk about the alphabet people?
Remember, @ProfAliceS has no credentials that qualify her to comment on LGBTQIA+ people.
She is just a homophobe and a transphobe who was hired by the far right to write far right propaganda.
— Sam (he/him) (@mushycrouton) March 22, 2025
A mealy-mouthed imitation of robust intellectual inquiry
Mar 23rd, 2025 12:01 pm | By Ophelia BensonSarah Ditum reviews a book by one of the tame feminist crowd:
… Read the restThe Guilty Feminist started in 2015 as a place for [Deborah] Frances-White to share lightweight material for women who liked the idea of the “feminist” label but weren’t sure about the detail. When Donald Trump arrived, though, Frances-White’s audience — and her self-perceived importance — ballooned.
…
You could argue that in the 2010s progressives began behaving like a cult: obsessed with internal obedience, utterly dislocated from the outside world.
Many people have made that observation about the left before now. What’s surprising about Six Conversations We’re Scared to Have is that Frances-White has joined them (she knows a thing or two about cults, having spent her adolescence
When Mommy chooses the gender
Mar 23rd, 2025 11:02 am | By Ophelia BensonThe stats are all every which way.
From a GP agreeing to change the documented identity of a baby because its mother was raising it in the “gender” of her choice to male sex offenders being recorded by the police as “women”, data and official statistics have been “corrupted” by extreme gender ideology, a report found this week.
The government-commissioned investigation by Alice Sullivan, a professor of sociology and research specialist at University College London, revealed that public bodies – including the NHS, the police and even the military – have been collecting information on gender identity rather than biological sex since 2015. As a consequence “robust and accurate data” have been lost.
The NHS, for instance, … Read the rest
Guest post: It’s not gendered souls out on the track
Mar 23rd, 2025 5:33 am | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Shared realities.
The book in question is called Open Play: The Case for Feminist Sport, by Sheree Bekker and Stephen Mumford. One of the blurbs quoted on its Amazon page says:
… Read the rest“Sport has been in desperate need of a fresh, nuanced approach to gender, one which has women, nonbinary, and trans people at its core. Open Play challenges the patriarchal system that has dictated women’s participation in sport around the world. Its philosophy is simple yet revolutionary amongst the status quo of so-called ‘feminist’ approaches to sport. This book is not just a must-read, it should become foundational in the future of women’s sport from the grassroots to professional