Worse and worser.

#Mridulgate has just become exponentially worse.

Mridul Wadhwa has, it seems NO CLINICAL QUALIFICATIONS.

He has only the following:
1. MSc in the Management of Training and Development from the University of Edinburgh, @EdinburghUni
2. BA English Literature from the…

— Dr P (@Psychgirl211) January 21, 2024

Before I go on to the rest of the tweet I’ll say that my first thought was “Do you need clinical qualifications to run a rape trauma center? Isn’t it a managerial job rather than a clinical one?” It was many other people’s first thought too, and the answer is that you don’t need them if you are indeed just managing but he hasn’t been just managing, he’s been “counseling” … Read the rest

A new consignment of geriatric shoe manufacturers from the ACLU via Chase Strangio:

In the span of just a few years, transgender people have had their rights and lives radically reshaped by a litany of political attacks against our freedom, our dignity, and the health care many of us need to live.

Wait a second. Who have had what “radically reshaped”? I’d have thought the radical reshaping was being done by surgeons like Sidhbh Gallagher of “yeet the teets” fame.

As part of a coordinated national effort to erode legal protections for trans people and push us out of public life, a wave of bills targeting gender-affirming health care for transgender people have effectively banned it for nearly one-third

Guardian rant by trans man Finn Mackay:

In December, five years later than promised, the Tories finally delivered draft, non-statutory guidance for schools on “gender questioning children”…

The document doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about this government’s hostile stance on trans identities, inclusion and rights; but, unfortunately, what it does do is further solidify in official documentation and language the politicised phrase “gender identity ideology”.

Well speaking of “politicised” what exactly do you mean by “trans rights”? What are they and how do you know?

It is in fact quite obvious what the government means by “gender identity ideology.” It means the ideology that claims men can be women and women can be men. … Read the rest

Central Oregon Daily News tells us via the US Attorney’s Office:

A federal grand jury in Eugene returned an indictment Thursday charging a Cottage Grove, Oregon, woman with posting a violent threat online, announced the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon.

Elizabeth Ballesteros West, 56, has been charged with one count of transmitting an interstate threat.

According to court documents, in late September 2023, the FBI received an anonymous tip that West was threatening coworkers on Facebook. Later, in November 2023, the FBI learned West had established an account on X (formerly known as Twitter) that she was allegedly using to post and repost memes, videos and statements containing violent messages targeting Black and Jewish people and immigrants.

Here he is in person, calling women who don’t believe men like him are women “probably misogynist.”

Remember that time Sturgeon claimed that everyone who opposed self ID was racist, sexist etc etc.
I think she was just parroting the exact same lie that her friend Murdo had been spewing. pic.twitter.com/5erZjU3DEu

— Biology Rules Ok (@OkayBiology) January 20, 2024

… Read the rest

He is such a piece of work.

Mridul Wadhwa thought @JohannLamont's Forensic Medical Services #sixwords amendment was "transphobic" because it allowed a survivor to request a female examiner, rather that one of a certain "gender".

This man never cared about rape victims other than as a form of validation. https://t.co/qlTW1dmUEh

— For Women Scotland (@ForWomenScot) January 20, 2024

… Read the rest

Susan Dalgety on the mess at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre:

Today, there are 17 rape crisis centres across Scotland, from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway. In 2020-21, Rape Crisis Scotland – the movement’s national body – received more than £5 million for its sexual violence support work, much of it from the Scottish Government.

But as the movement evolved from a voluntary service to a professional one, the principle which underpinned it remained constant. Survivors of rape and sexual assault should have access to female-only support services. Women looking after each other in a way only women can understand. Until recently that is, when gender identity ideology, which dismisses the reality of biological sex, began to assert itself in

Originally a comment by Artymorty at Miscelllany Room.

I wish there was one single all-encompassing, factual, non-polemical book about this. So far, there isn’t one. (But I’ll be honest: I’d love to write one myself.)

Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality is fantastic — analogous to Dawkins’s The God Delusion in the sense that it’s a broad overview of the definition of trans and how the concept is not backed by science — just like Dawkins did with the concept of God.

But Joyce’s (excellent) book sticks to the facts, and lacks a broader analysis of the social and political context, which has so much to do with why this nonsense idea has become so popular so … Read the rest

Yes but.

Tensions within CNN over coverage of former President Donald J. Trump burst into the open on Thursday during an internal call with the network’s journalists, as an executive candidly questioned the approach of the channel’s new chief executive, Mark Thompson.

CNN aired roughly 10 minutes of Mr. Trump’s victory speech after he won the Iowa caucuses on Monday before cutting away. The decision to cut him off prompted derision from the former president and his allies, although critics on the left questioned why CNN had taken Mr. Trump live in the first place, given his tendency to spread falsehoods and conspiracies. MSNBC chose not to take any of his remarks live.

Mr. Thompson opened his morning conference

Is your dog Mormon or Catholic or Independent Fundamental Baptist?

An agency that supplies animals to the media has asked owners whether their pets are gender neutral or non-binary in a drive to be more “inclusive”.

Urban Paws, which describes itself as the leading animal talent agency in the UK, included four gender options on the application form owners are required to complete to register their pets: male, female, gender neutral/non-binary and prefer not to say.

Well it’s an animal talent agency, so it’s wall-to-wall lovvies, so it makes perfect sense. The kind of people who want their pets to make it in show biz are the kind of people who think “non-binary” is real and that it applies to … Read the rest

Yes it’s just unfathomable that women would want to be away from men in some circumstances isn’t it. It’s like saying crocodiles speak French.

Sex based rights create division, so women should not have any rights. Seems fair.… Read the rest

Sums it up.

This is from the cross-examination of an employee at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, which is headed by trans-identified man Mridul Wadhwa. This poor sap has to pretend not to know that declaring yourself NB doesn't mean you don't have a sex!" Gender BS rots people's brains https://t.co/Ern2ATw2xi

— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) January 19, 2024

So MR, a member of the board of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, doesn’t know whether a “non-binary” person has a sex? She isn’t qualified to answer that question? She would have to ask advice before answering it?

Then what is rape? If you don’t know the most basic facts about what sex humans are how can you understand what rape is? What are … Read the rest

My Twitter is heavy on the bizarre claims at the tribunal today.

Well well well https://t.co/JTunGIbGfO

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) January 19, 2024

“Confused” as in [cough] not being over-scrupulous about the truth.

These posts are jaw-dropping. When did telling a human being's sex become a matter requiring specialist knowledge? https://t.co/UeulXOSi88

— Joan Smith (@polblonde) January 19, 2024

Do NBs get to “present as male”? What does that even mean? Where did all these brains go when they left people’s heads?

Why are some people so happy to allow themselves to look as thick as porridge? https://t.co/XqvjPQBism

— Dr Karen Ingala Smith (@K_IngalaSmith) January 19, 2024

MR is Mairi Rosko and she’s quite the piece of work.

Mairi Rosko

Originally a comment by Artymorty on This novel should be about something completely different.

Talk about Not Getting it. Here’s yet another example of Canada becoming a global joke because it’s full of goody-two-shoes bureaucratic busybodies. I can’t imagine any other country treating its own literary legacy the way we do. If Lucy Montgomery wrote characters as annoying as Canadians appear to be today, no one would have bothered with the books.

It’s infuriating. Anne of Green Gables is surely Canada’s most famous book, and that’s because because Anne’s story has resonated with girls (and maybe a few boys, ahem) around the world, across cultures. It was never about ethnic or religious cultures, it was about a girl and … Read the rest

Oh come on.

Federal commemoration of Anne Of Green Gables will be reworked with “new narratives” from Indigenous, Black and French perspectives, Parks Canada said yesterday. 

Look, if you dislike Anne of Green Gables because it’s too white then don’t commemorate it, but if you are going to commemorate it then leave it the fuck alone. It’s a brilliant work, and really very progressive in a lot of ways.

Novels depicting the red-haired orphan raised by a white, English-speaking Presbyterian couple on Prince Edward Island have been bestsellers since 1908…

WRONG. They’re not a couple, you dumbfucks, they’re sister and brother.

‘Cultures not currently presented, e.g. Acadians, Black, Indigenous and people of colour, will be shared with visitors.’

Sicker and sicker and sicker.

We’ve heard so-far of one female service user who was turned away because she wanted to deal with female counsellors, and now we see that staff who didn’t believe that TWAW would be given their P45. It’s all about him. Thanks a lot, Nicola pic.twitter.com/C7MAs6k8Dv

— Girls To The Front (@obsolete__units) January 18, 2024

Believe men can be women, or convincingly pretend to, or else you’re terminated. From a rape crisis centre run by a man. You couldn’t make it up.… Read the rest

When it’s not pronouns it’s “respect” for clerics or bosses or royal personages.

A Thai court has sentenced a man to 50 years in jail for comments deemed to have defamed the monarchy – the highest ever sentence handed down under the country’s notorious lèse majesté law.

Thirty-year-old Mongkol Thirakot was originally sentenced to 28 years for posts he made three years ago on Facebook. But on Thursday an appeals court added an extra 22 years to the sentence.

50 years ffs.

The lèse majesté law criminalises any negative comment about the monarchy. The law, which has been widely criticised, is still in force despite the election last year of a civilian government for the first time in 10

Odd choice.

ANNOUNCEMENT: We're thrilled to announce Helen Pluckrose (@HPluckrose) has joined our advisory board. Helen Pluckrose is a political and cultural writer and commentator who highlights and opposes ideological capture in vital institutions. Helen. above all, just wants people to… pic.twitter.com/1lMmr8AN3b

— Genspect (@genspect) January 16, 2024

Helen. above all, just wants people to value evidence-based epistemology and the free exchange of ideas.

Pluckrose said she still agrees with this. She does not believe women are in need of class protections because she doesn’t believe females are materially vulnerable, but she does believe “trans” are a vulnerable class. She has no political framework to recognise women’s rights. pic.twitter.com/EIkn8W4OLH

— Edie Wyatt (@msediewyatt) January 17, 2024

… Read the rest

Just say no.

It is “highly, highly unlikely” that a trans woman with a history of violence against women will be sent to a female prison, MSPs have been told.

Never mind the highly highly; just don’t do it. Ever.

Teresa Medhurst, the head of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), said such a move would only happen in “exceptional circumstances”, after a “fairly in-depth analysis of the individual’s life history.”

Oh well if it’s fairly in-depth that makes it fine.

The SPS boss was being grilled by MSPs over the service’s new Policy for the Management of Transgender People in Custody, published at the end of last year. It was developed following the row over trans rapist, Isla Bryson,