All entries by this author
Jul 21st, 2024 5:05 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Via Rev David Brindley, another case of researchers sabotaging their own research by including men in a study of women.
Submissions sought from ‘anyone who identifies as a woman, though they may have a different sex at birth’
Biological males who identify as female, and their doctors, are being encouraged to take part in a Victorian taxpayer-funded inquiry that was set up to investigate women’s pain, including chronic issues like endometriosis and menopause.
So they’re deliberately making their own research useless.
So what’s the point? Why not skip the whole thing?
The move has been panned by Women’s Forum Australia chief executive Rachael Wong, who said it “makes a mockery of women’s pain and women are understandably angry”.
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
5 comments
Jul 21st, 2024 11:08 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Not a hoax.
CNN:
President Joe Biden announced he will not seek reelection amid continued pressure following a disastrous debate performance last month that left many in his party questioning whether he should continue to seek reelection. He will serve out the remainder of his term.
So we’ve got about 15 minutes to campaign for Kamala Harris.… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
17 comments
Jul 21st, 2024 10:00 am |
By Ophelia Benson
JL at The Glinner Update:
A medical journal has published an article by a group of trans activist academics which advocates the taking of testosterone by trans-identified females during pregnancy, despite the proven and potential risks to the unborn child.
The trans activist academics are not, repeat not, academics in medical fields. They’re all sociologists.
Monthly medical journal, Qualitative Research in Health, has published an article titled ‘Medical Uncertainty and Reproduction of the ‘Normal’: Decision-Making Around Testosterone Therapy in Transgender Pregnancy’.
Scare-quotes on “normal.” That’s the ticket. Deliberately invite birth defects because “normal” is in the eye of the beholder. Yay sociology!
The authors are Carla A Pfeffer, an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan
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6 comments
Jul 21st, 2024 8:54 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The cops are in a fine old rage about the “hate crime” against a trans flag so I found myself wondering what the perps did to the flag that was so hate crimeish. Threats of murder and torture? Or not quite as harsh as that? So I went looking for the previous “hate crime.”
Pride flag vandalism investigated as hate crime
“As hate crime” – meaning it’s not actually a hate crime but the cops decided to pretend otherwise, because after all, trans people are the most persecuted injured threatened tormented people on the planet. Don’t come at me with your Uighurs or refugees or migrants in tiny boats or women killed by the Taliban, they’re happy as Larry … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Jul 21st, 2024 8:36 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh my god not a flag!!!
The Beeb:
The Metropolitan Police has appealed to the public to help it identify a suspect after three painted Pride flags in north-east London were vandalised for a third time.
The incident, which happened outside Forest Gate railway station on 19 July, is being treated as a homophobic and transphobic hate crime, the force said. It follows previous incidents of damage on 23 and 26 June outside the same station.
Det Insp James Rush said the force would “not tolerate these disgusting, inexcusable hate crimes in Forest Gate”.
Do the police ever say they will not tolerate these disgusting, inexcusable hate crimes against women? Do the police even mention hate crimes against women … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
5 comments
Jul 21st, 2024 6:47 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Lawyers accused of ‘dangerous and false’ trans suicide claims
That’s the Times saying that on Friday.
Activists lawyers are spreading “distressing and dangerous” claims that transgender children will kill themselves because of a ban on puberty blockers, a government review has found.
Professor Louis Appleby, the government’s adviser on suicide prevention, found that there was no evidence to support claims of a “surge” in suicides among trans children.
The Good Law Project, a campaign group led by the barrister Jolyon Maugham, has repeatedly invoked statistics on social media purporting to show an “explosion” in deaths among children being treated for gender dysphoria at the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust.
He loves attention, but perhaps not that kind of attention. Maybe … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jul 20th, 2024 5:10 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
God this is brutal. The Telegraph on Biden:
“Anyway” is a word that is constantly being used by Mr Biden – seemingly when he senses he is starting to lose track of what he is saying.
The US president sometimes uses it as a filler, giving himself time to marshal his thoughts before returning to the subject. More disconcertingly, he often uses it to change subject abruptly or trail off altogether.
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Mr Biden uses “look” in a similar manner to “anyway” – to throw himself a lifeline when he cannot remember how a sentence is meant to end.
The tactic, if not elegant, puts a stop to the long silences that marred his debate performance and stops him
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7 comments
Jul 20th, 2024 3:56 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh man. There isn’t enough cringe in the world to deal with this one. Jolyon Maugham claims to be in receipt of a drooling mash note from someone Very Important, but when you go to read the mash note you find that it’s obviously written by Joly himself. Nobody else on the planet could or would possibly have written it. I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t realize how obvious that is. It’s like “I agree with PollyO” all over again.
Excuse me excuse me. People don’t talk like that.
Cringe cringe CRINGE.… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Jul 20th, 2024 11:03 am |
By Ophelia Benson
We’re waiting for the wings to fall off before we decide to make an emergency landing.
Democrats were caught in an apparent stalemate on Saturday as a dug-in Joe Biden continued to endure high-profile calls to end his re-election campaign after a week of astonishing party moves to unseat the president in favor of a candidate many hope will be more likely to beat Donald Trump.
In the weeks since his disastrous debate performance against Trump, the 81-year-old Biden has attempted to fight off calls for him to step down from the top of the ticket amid concerns that his age and mental acuity are no longer up to the job.
Well you can see his point. There’s no need … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
13 comments
Jul 20th, 2024 10:31 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Originally a comment by Alan Peakall on Progress has a plan.
Perhaps better history teaching covering the real ugly complexity of the moral struggles of the past should be part of the solution. A good example to start with would the the checkered relationship between the anti-slavery Republican Party of Lincoln and the nativist penumbra adjacent to it which gave rise to a vociferously anti immigrant state government in Massachussets with a sterling record of socially reformist measures. Instead popular culture gives us Gangs of New York.
Around the beginning of the current century the aphorism that Marxism filled a God-shaped hole was succeeded by the wisecrack that European integration filled a Marx-shaped hole. I think that Francis … Read the rest
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Jul 20th, 2024 8:15 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Under the counter hormones for the kids:
The former CEO of trans youth charity Mermaids is launching a private clinic that will “exploit a legal loophole” to bypass the ban on puberty blockers, [i news] can reveal.
Susie Green, who left the controversial charity in 2022, will open Anne Health this weekend to provide a range of medical, pharmaceutical, and psychological support services – including puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and counselling – to transgender people of all ages.
But puberty blockers are not “medical services” for transgender people.
But the loopholes that Ms Green’s clinic will use to provide medication to young people raise questions about the effectiveness, scope, and robustness of the government’s ban. i understands that DHSC
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3 comments
Jul 19th, 2024 6:03 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh hey, it turns out Mridul Wadhwa is on involuntary leave. At long last. Now they need to make it permanent.
Mridul Wadhwa, a man who identifies as a woman, was sent home in May by the board of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) after being identified as the “invisible hand” behind a “heresy hunt” designed to force out Roz Adams, a counsellor with gender-critical views.
The outcry over Wadhwa’s behaviour intensified following the sentencing this week of Cameron Downing, a coercive and manipulative male sex offender, who identified as non-binary and claimed to have received extensive support from ERCC.
It’s almost as if trans ideology/activism attracts poisonous people, isn’t it.
Downing, 24, was sentenced to six years in
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4 comments
Jul 19th, 2024 5:26 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
My god, I had no idea! Jolyon Maugham is facing down Trump AND Putin AND Murdoch AND the billionaires AND the Rothermeres. That is one hell of a lot of heroic facing down. I wonder, has it made any difference yet?
By the way that 33 is the final number on a string of tweets. Yes that’s right, 33 of them. I can’t see them because blocked but I’m sure they make clear how important Jolyon Maugham is.
… Read the rest
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12 comments
Jul 19th, 2024 10:25 am |
By Ophelia Benson
24 Hour Fitness has a corporate policy on locker rooms. You can guess what it is without breaking a sweat.
RESTROOM AND LOCKER ROOM ACCESSIBILITY-TRANSGENDER EQUAL OPPORTUNITY POLICY
As set forth in 24 Hour’s Equal Opportunity Policy, all members shall have full and equal access to the club facility. Consistent with this Policy, all members shall have access to the restroom and locker room facilities that correspond to the member’s gender identity, regardless of the member’s sex assigned at birth. For example, transgender women (who were born male but identify as female) are permitted to use the women’s facilities, and vice versa for transgender men. Each member should determine the most appropriate option for her/him/themself. Any member who has
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