All entries by this author

Always call it “gender-affirming care”

Dec 29th, 2023 10:16 am | By

Let the mutilations continue.

Ohio’s Republican governor has vetoed legislation that would have barred transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming care, he said Friday. Signing the bill would “be saying that the state, the government” knows what’s better for youth than their parents, Gov. Mike DeWine said.

So there should be no laws against beating children, or torturing them, or locking them up in a dark cold basement room, or putting them to work in factories at age 5. Parents always know better, so there should be no child protection laws or institutions at all.

Also, it makes a difference what you call it. “Gender-affirming” makes it sound wholesome and nice. Non-medical genital mutilation and mastectomy don’t sound quite so … Read the rest



Leave the men out

Dec 29th, 2023 9:44 am | By

How not to do an exhibition on women in revolt:

I wouldn’t say the circled bit makes clear that trans women are centered, but that it makes clear they’re included, which of course they shouldn’t be. Men shouldn’t be included in exhibitions about women, because men are not women. You can’t include men in an exhibition that purports to be about women even slightly without diluting it. It’s just really stupid, frankly, to … Read the rest



The indifference that dare not speak its name

Dec 28th, 2023 2:51 pm | By

Today I learned that it’s “insidious” to be not attracted to someone.

https://twitter.com/NoTruthInTrans/status/1740399241716179370… Read the rest


Amid concerns

Dec 28th, 2023 2:27 pm | By

When the Mail gets it and “progressives” don’t:

The BBC has been heavily criticised for describing playwright Noel Coward as ‘queer’ amid concerns that the term, ‘reclaimed’ by some in the gay community, is still offensive to many.

A social media post by the BBC Arts account promoting the BBC2 Boxing Day documentary about the actor, singer and composer’s life described him as being ‘queer’ in a ‘very straight world’. The same wording is used on the show’s description on the BBC’s iPlayer.

Critics accused the corporation of using ‘homophobic slurs’ saying Coward was a ‘gay man’, while another said the term ‘queer’ was an ‘insult for most gay men and women’. 

And it’s not for the BBC to err … Read the rest



D.W. Griffith’s controversial epic film

Dec 28th, 2023 11:55 am | By

What is The Birth of a Nation?

D.W. Griffith’s controversial epic 1915 film about the Civil War and Reconstruction depicted the Ku Klux Klan as valiant saviors of a post-war South ravaged by Northern carpetbaggers and freed Black people.

Similar to Gone With the Wind but without spoken dialogue.

History is usually written by the winners. But that wasn’t the case when The Birth of a Nation was released on February 8, 1915. In just over three hours, D.W. Griffith’s controversial epic film about the Civil War and Reconstruction depicted the Ku Klux Klan as valiant saviors of a post-war South ravaged by Northern carpetbaggers and immoral freed Black people. The film was an instant blockbuster. And with innovative

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Years of debate

Dec 28th, 2023 11:40 am | By

Two more down.

A Confederate monument was taken down in Jacksonville, Fla., on Wednesday, after an order by the city’s mayor ended years of debate, as officials around the United States reckon with memorials on public property that commemorate the Confederacy.

Donna Deegan, the Democratic mayor of Jacksonville, ordered the removal of two statues that were part of the “Tribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy” monument in Springfield Park.

Does Jacksonville need large heavy three-dimensional tributes to the women of the slave-owning Confedracy?

Ms. Deegan said in a statement on Wednesday that the monument had been erected as part of a campaign to promote discriminatory Jim Crow laws and intimidate Black people.

A campaign that lasted a … Read the rest



Notably missing from her answer

Dec 28th, 2023 8:15 am | By

Don’t mention the slavery.

Nikki Haley, the Republican presidential candidate and former governor of South Carolina who for years has wrestled with how to approach issues of race, slavery and the Confederacy, found herself again confronted with those subjects at a town hall event on Wednesday in New Hampshire, hundreds of miles north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Her answer to a simple yet loaded question by an audience member in the city of Berlin — “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?” — showed just how much she continues to struggle with such topics.

“I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” she

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You NEED me on that wall

Dec 28th, 2023 8:07 am | By

I watched this scene again yesterday evening (not the whole movie; I came in late) and it struck me how like Trump Colonel Jessup is. Not as flabby and laughable, of course, but every bit as enraged and murderous.… Read the rest



Cheating all the way down

Dec 27th, 2023 3:19 pm | By

Cheater wins.

The Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) has been forced to drop their new regulations on men who want to participate in women’s competitions after being sued by a trans-identified male player. The lawsuit was launched earlier this year by Natalie Ryan, who had been dominating women’s competitions prior to the PDGA attempting to rein in male competitors.

Natalie Ryan is of course a man.

Ryan first filed a suit against the PDGA in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California this past February. In his complaint, he argued that a recently-adopted PDGA policy prohibiting trans-identified males from competing with women if they had undergone a “male puberty” violated his civil rights and California laws against

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Punish the woman

Dec 27th, 2023 11:14 am | By

Geeta Pandey of BBC New Delhi reports:

It was sometime after 1am on 11 December when more than a dozen people barged into Sasikala’s [not her real name] house. The 42-year-old was dragged out, stripped and paraded naked around the village, tied to an electricity pole and beaten for hours.

A resident of Hosa Vantamuri village in Belagavi district in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, she was being punished because her 24-year-old son had eloped with his 18-year-old girlfriend.

The young woman had been betrothed by her family to another man and was to get married the next day. Her furious family wanted to know where the couple were.

So this isn’t about injustice to one woman, it’s … Read the rest



Autoupskirting

Dec 27th, 2023 10:24 am | By

Tommy Dorfman, the lovely fella who tried to make an airline worker’s life worse, isn’t a narcissistic self-obsessed dweeb at all, no indeed. Here he is “coming out” in 2021. I had to hit stop at 54 seconds because enough already, so if you manage more and it turns out he’s really not a narcissistic self-obsessed dweeb, let us know.

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He IS violence against women

Dec 27th, 2023 9:31 am | By

Morgane Oger declares himself “thrilled” to ruin yet another women’s organization. Shutting down Vancouver Rape Relief wasn’t enough for him.

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Er ner nert mersgernderd

Dec 27th, 2023 7:11 am | By

Oh joy an opportunity for self-promotion!

Fame at last – Newsweek!!

A video by transgender actress Tommy Dorfman, in which she accuses Delta Air Lines Employees of “intentionally” misgendering her, quickly went viral and sparked a fiery debate on social media.

He’s an obvious guy. People who work for airlines have to deal with a lot of people, most of them stressed, all day every day. They … Read the rest



“The odor” is politer than “the stink”

Dec 26th, 2023 3:47 pm | By

I didn’t realize it was Adam Kinzinger who set off the “Trump smells” alarm. I take that to mean it’s actually true.

https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/status/1736027329447575691

I’ll do better than wearing a mask; I’ll never go near him ever.… Read the rest



Fast approaching

Dec 26th, 2023 11:34 am | By

A point of no return passed?

The Amazon rainforest experienced its worst drought on record in 2023. Many villages became unreachable by river, wildfires raged and wildlife died. Some scientists worry events like these are a sign that the world’s biggest forest is fast approaching a point of no return.

And no doubt other scientists worry that events like these are a sign that the world’s biggest forest is slowly but not all that slowly approaching a point of no return. In short, droughts in the Amazon rainforest are a very bad sign as well as a very bad thing.

Bom Jesus de Igapo Grande is a community of 40 families in the middle of the forest and has been

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Still a slur, beebers

Dec 26th, 2023 11:11 am | By

The BBC taking care to annoy gay men by using a familiar slur for “gay men.”

Replies are fierce.

https://twitter.com/IanGee2023/status/1739702441413591436… Read the rest


Comply or else

Dec 26th, 2023 9:00 am | By
Comply or else

You will repeat the lie or you will be punished.

Queen’s University orders every single person on campus to comply with transgender names and pronouns or face punishment

Queen’s University Belfast has toughened up its code of conduct so that refusing to recognise someone’s self-declared gender is now a “zero tolerance” disciplinary matter. Specifically, the university’s new code demands that both staff and students use whatever name and pronouns an individual demands. Failure to do so is now treated as bullying and / or harassment.

It also applies to anyone who makes “derogatory” jokes about transgenderism.

All jokes are derogatory. There shall be no joking.

This new code covers not just staff and students but anybody who sets foot on

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Homeopathic life coaching

Dec 26th, 2023 7:54 am | By

What is a “life coach”?

I’ve suddenly noticed that there are people who go around calling themselves “life coaches,” which seems like quite a presumptuous thing to call oneself. So I consulted Google to confirm what I suspected: it’s a way to charge people for advice without having to get any professional qualifications. Anybody can put up a shingle saying “Life Coach” and charge whatever fees they like.

Some sources consider this an exciting advantage – for the life coaches, that is.

Modern lifestyles are fast paced, highly competitive and come with the added pressure of meeting (often unrealistic) expectations. Many people find it difficult to juggle personal & professional responsibilities and do justice to both. Against this backdrop, a

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Fragrant

Dec 26th, 2023 5:32 am | By
Fragrant

Trump’s Xmas message:

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Guest post: A stupid and evil bug of the human brain

Dec 26th, 2023 5:07 am | By

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on The course is taught from an Ethnic Studies perspective.

And why is “Identity” the first item in the list? Why is it on the list at all?

Once you rule out the trivial meanings of “identity” (i.e. x=x, people are whatever they happen to be etc.), what’s left is practically synonymous with “ingroup vs. outgroup” or “us vs. them” thinking, the very things the old “Left” was trying to get away from. I’m under no illusion that “who I am” has not to a significant degree been shaped by growing up Norwegian, white, male (in the biological sex sense, not the “gender identity” sense) etc. But that’s a stupid and evil bug … Read the rest