A win for girls for a change:

Last week, Sierra Leone’s parliament enacted landmark legislation to ban child marriage. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Bill 2024, which makes marriage for anyone under 18 a criminal offense, seeks to protect girls from a harmful practice that has long violated their rights and hindered their development.

Child marriage is a serious problem in Sierra Leone, where 30 percent of girls and 4 percent of boys are married before age 18, with even higher rates in rural areas. Around 800,000 girls are currently married in Sierra Leone, half before turning 15.

Jeezus. 400 thousand girls married before turning 15.

Child marriages fuel the high adolescent pregnancy rate in Sierra Leone

We’re doomed. Toast. Dead in the water.

While Republican candidate Donald Trump faces criticism for the number of falsehoods he uttered, much of the attention has been focused on President Joe Biden’s poor performance.

Biden appeared to struggle in several of his answers. As a result, concerns about his age and mental fitness have only risen further. Some Democrats have even asked after the debate whether the president could be replaced as the party’s presidential candidate.

Toast.… Read the rest

Oklahoma embraces theocracy:

Oklahoma’s top education official has ordered schools in the state to begin incorporating the Bible into lessons, in the latest US cultural flashpoint over religion in the classroom. A directive sent by Republican state Superintendent Ryan Walters said the rule was compulsory, requiring “immediate and strict compliance”.

All lessons? How can you “incorporate the Bible” into math lessons, science lessons, geography lessons? History, yes, but algebra, no.

In a statement on Thursday, Mr Walters described the Bible as “an indispensable historical and cultural touchstone”.

“Without basic knowledge of it, Oklahoma students are unable to properly contextualize the foundation of our nation, which is why Oklahoma educational standards provide for its instruction,” he added.

It’s true that … Read the rest

Look closely at the direction of this short clip.

Notice the size of the man compared to the woman. That was a choice.

Notice how he comes in and positions himself right next to her.

Notice that his right hand is almost a fist.

Notice his scowl.

Those were all choices.

“Look, bitch. If a large man joins you in an elevator and practically stands on top of you, scowling and clenching his fist, you’d better just shut up and take it or we’ll shame you in public.”

This, from the Victorian Government, is "trans".

Women who listen to their survival instincts are dangerous bigots making the men who pretend to be us unsafe.

Taxpayer money was used to create

Wait wait wait what happened to inclusion? What about inclusivity? Is that all of a suddenly over?

Pflag Edmonton is also on Facebook. It has strict instructions at the top of the page that this group is open only to gender-diverse, trans, two-spirit, gender non-conforming, and non-binary individuals. Hey, I could go! I’m gender non-conforming. I could go, but I’d rather be fired out of a cannon. Apparently so would everyone in Edmonton apart from two count them two people.

That’s how many have signed up. Two.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on Falling for the bollox.

When I was banned from a popular atheist site I’d been frequenting for years, every single one of my comments I’d made in the past 3 months disappeared and was replaced by a notice that it was (possible? probable? ) spam. That’s how I realized I was blocked. Not only did my arguments and concerns on transgender and related issues get deleted, but absolutely everything I’d written on atheism, humanism, church/state separation, and the dangers of Trump got axed. Jokes, agreement, encouragement, and consolation were now deemed “spam.” They were unworthy of being observed, and violated the topic of the space even when they were not only obviously and … Read the rest

A paper I’m not much motivated to read.

A (m)Other’s Work Is Becoming Undone: Liminal Belonging and Trans Potentialities

Aw yeah, the oh so cute English Department parentheses; that’s always a good reason to read no further.

The Abstract:

In this relational ethnography, we write as two white afab genderqueer/trans parents who often find ourselves at best pulled between spaces and parts of ourselves, and at worst pressured to choose between the false dichotomy of our “illegible” place within transness/queerness and “aparent” place within motherhood. Weaving together autoethnographic vignettes of our lived experiences with the writings of QTBIPOC thinkers and pedagogues and their anti-racist white comrades, we reflect on themes of liminality, loneliness, hope, grieving, and love in mothering, kin,

Nevertheless NPR still of course has plenty of time to drivel on and on about the alphabet soup.

During Pride month, it can be easy to find books on LGBTQIA+ topics displayed prominently in libraries. But searching in Spanish for those books is difficult. That’s because Spanish search terms for relevant topics aren’t in the catalog.

Because Spanish-speakers haven’t yet caught up to the English-speakers in the business of creating new vocabulary and rules and punishments around the alphabet soup?

Cifor is working with a professor at Northeastern University in Boston to create a Spanish Homosaurus. It’s like a glossary for Spanish terms that libraries can integrate into their subject catalog. The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and the

Nina Totenberg can still say “woman” and NPR doesn’t even Correct her. One tiny bit of the raft to cling to. She can also say “mother”!

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, in a 6-3 opinion, temporarily allowed abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho. The opinion was erroneously posted on the court’s website on Wednesday.

The decision reinstates a lower court ruling that temporarily allowed hospitals in the state to perform emergency abortions to protect the life of the mother, and the health of the mother.

…

Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA, in 1986 to prevent hospitals from refusing care for uninsured patients or dumping them on other hospitals. The law says that

Twitter’s new trick is labeling gender-skeptical replies “probable spam” – despite the glaringly obvious lack of spamness. Like:

The recognition of sex is accepted by billions who understand how it works keeping the species going. And how many male dominated societies have limited the rights of women. Genderism is an ideology that claims sex is irrelevant. Some institutions have fallen for this bollox.

— Robyn W Leigh (@WRobynLeigh) June 27, 2024

How is that “probable spam”? In no way. It’s not. It’s argumentative; it dissents from trans dogma; it’s not spam.… Read the rest

Actual CNN headline:

Mistakenly posted Supreme Court document indicates pregnant people in Idaho should have access to emergency care – for now

Actual lede:

A document that was mistakenly posted on the US Supreme Court website Wednesday indicates that the court may allow abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho, at least temporarily. The state would not be allowed to deny an emergency abortion to a pregnant person whose health is in danger, at least while the case makes its way through the courts.

Not Twitter, not Pink News, not the ACLU, but CNN. Mainstream news outlet.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Bro can’t understand.

I despise the “just leave those little people over there alone” argument. It says that people with gender dysphoria are a tiny insignificant minority who aren’t worth examining further, which is not a model of tolerance, it’s a model of profound ignorance. It says, “I don’t care if the surgeries work or not, I just want to put those people out of my mind as much as possible. So I’ll just assume the surgeries are hunky-dory, because it’s the easiest way for me to get out of having to think about or care about those unusual genderbender people.”

“I don’t care if many of the people in the trans movement … Read the rest

The Telegraph last September:

An investigation by the Telegraph has found examples of literary agencies making clear their preference for authors deemed under-represented or marginalised – normally meaning people of colour, disabled writers and those from the LGBTQ+ community – prompting concern that authors who do not meet the criteria are becoming “ostracised”.

Ash Literary, an agency looking “for extraordinary stories for children that reflect and celebrate the diversity of our world”, states on its submissions page: “We are not interested in stories about white able-bodied WW2 evacuees but would welcome that story from a disabled, LGBTQ+ or BIPOC [black, indigenous, and other people of colour] perspective.”

Which is absurd as well as disgusting. How many indigenous lesbian gay … Read the rest

More cheerfully, JKR is on fire today.

.@sally_hines, I've given your book 'Is Gender Fluid?' to several people who want a short primer on what gender identity ideology's all about. So far, 100% of readers have rated it self-contradictory, unevidenced bollocks. You have my permission to use that quote on the cover. https://t.co/gUw8EHnyTz

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 26, 2024

Then a compact little essay:

Gender identity “is a core part of who we know ourselves to be”. It can be “fixed or fluctuate”, absent or neutral. There is no explanation of how we’re supposed to identify our core as male, female or both, though the books’ photographs suggest that if we feel like beauty pageant winners

Then try harder.

"I can't understand why we don't just get on and allow a very small number of people undergoing gender reassignment to live their lives in a happy, comfortable way."

SNP Campaign Manager Stewart Hosie is asked about the differing views in his own party on gender. #BBCR4Today

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) June 26, 2024

… Read the rest

Of course David Tennant’s pious wish for Kemi Badenoch to stop existing is being framed as “a row” between the two of them as opposed to a white man publicly wishing for a black woman to stop existing.

Rishi Sunak has intervened in a row between Kemi Badenoch and actor David Tennant, saying the Doctor Who star is “the problem”.

But it’s not “a row between” Badenoch and Tennant. It’s Tennant publicly wishing non-existence on Badenoch – publicly as in: in a public speech at a sleb event.

Tennant suggested at the British LGBT Awards last week that he wanted a world where the equalities minister “doesn’t exist any more”, and said she should “shut up”.

No he didn’t… Read the rest

Labour v women chapter 7 thousand:

Labour has “a lot of work to do to earn the trust” of women in the wake of rows about transgender rights, the shadow health secretary has said. Wes Streeting said it had taken the party “a while to navigate what has been a pretty complicated and at times toxic debate”, saying it was now time to “show some humility” for the hurt caused.

Oh [Bronx cheer]. Try rage instead of hurt. We don’t need the not so subtle reminder that you fools see women as the whiny sex, the sex that gets “hurt” if you give all its rights away, the sex that doesn’t do rage because it’s not ladylike.

Gender-coded … Read the rest

News I’ve been dreading for some years:

Frederick Crews, Withering Critic of Freud’s Legacy, Dies at 91

A literary critic, essayist and author, he was a leading voice among revisionist skeptics who saw Freud as a charlatan and psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience.

Mr. Crews, a professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, was the author of more than a dozen books. Most recently, he wrote “Freud: The Making of an Illusion,” a deeply researched evisceration of Freud’s reputation and therapeutic insights that drew wide critical attention when it came out in 2017.

He was a longtime contributor to The New York Review of Books, where his essays and reviews explored the works Melville, Twain and Flannery O’Connor,

Thick thick thick. Thick as a whole load of planks.

The shadow secretary of education thinks that men who “go through a process” should be using the women’s toilets. What “process”? There is no “process” that turns men into women, just as there’s no “process” that turns stallions into mares or bulls into cows.

I suppose the idea is – whether they know it or not – that if men are willing to go to all that trouble then we owe it to them to let them take what belongs to women. They’re sincere, they made an effort, they jumped through hoops, they really really want to. Sorry, wimz, you lose.… Read the rest

I think I know the answer to this dudely question.

I only have one thing to ask: honestly who the fuck does she think she is? pic.twitter.com/8SGgbkSu4P

— Ally Fogg (@AllyFogg) June 25, 2024

She’s someone who amassed an enormous amount of money and influence and clout by writing novels that sell in the millions. She’s someone who decided to put some of that money and clout to use disputing the more unreasonable claims and demands of trans activists, and defending feminist women. I expect she would agree that she fits that description, and I think that’s probably who she thinks she is.

Some people who reply to Ally Fogg are asking who the fuck he thinks he is.

pic.twitter.com/OMYLulZLlQ