Oh goody, an activist.

Erm. So that’s “The transformative future of #womensports” in the sense of being women’s sports played by men? That’s “embracing intersectionality and solidarity” in the sense of embracing men who invade women’s sports and thus destroy them for women?

Well why is there no solidarity with women? Can anyone explain?

Who is this Natalie Washington?

Natalie Washington is a British football player and activist, best known for her work as campaign lead for Football v Transphobia.^[1][2] She also serves as a trustee for Trans Pride Brighton.^[3]

She began playing as a midfielder for Rushmoor Community FC in the Hampshire County Women’s Football League in 2017, after training with the team since 2015.^[4][5] She also appeared in charirty matches for TRUK United FC.^[6] She has spoken out about facing transphobia in the sport, including an incident where she had to be substituted off the field for her safety.^[7][8]

In January 2017, she was allowed to play in women’s football after she had six months off for genital reconstruction surgery. Her teammates on the women’s team were very supportive, this had helped her feel more welcomed and accepted.^[9] This motivated her to become a trustee and organizer for the Trans Pride Bridgton & Hove and Campaign Lead for the Football v Transphobia campaign, which campaigns to make football a better place for transgender people.^[10]

Which campaigns to make football a better place for transgender people and a worse place for female people. Men win, women lose. How transformative.

So much warping of buzzwords here. Human rights, activist, transformative, intersectionality, solidarity, Pride, supportive, welcomed, accepted. All those words hijacked to glorify a man spoiling a women’s sport when he ought to be condemned and rebuked.

The Post on what Trump is planning for us:

Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.

In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymityto describe private conversations.Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.

In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.

To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.

More like terrifying and unconstitutional. Not surprising, to be sure, but still terrifying.

Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act…

The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.

We can only hope his head explodes first.

The NY Times is live-reporting Trump’s testimony.

Trump’s acknowledgement of some involvement in assembling the documents in question can’t be stressed enough. The modus operandi of Trump and most around him is to lay the blame at staff’s feet, or consultants’ feet or lawyers’ feet.

Trump is being asked about why he decided to drop the value of Seven Springs, one of his properties in Westchester County, N.Y., on a financial statement. “I thought it was high,” Trump says, yet again admitting his involvement in the process.

Trump appears not to realize that, because here the value was lowered, these admissions of his involvement in manipulating the financial statements are damning.

But it was good manipulating. Surely he should get points for that.

Trump was just asked his involvement in the 2021 financial statement. He tried to answer saying that he was busy with the presidency, focused on “China, Russia and keeping our country safe.”

Wallace, the state lawyer, reminded him that he was not president in 2021.

Picky picky picky.

Trump is asked how big his triplex in Trump Tower is. He says that he wouldn’t know, except for the trial, but that it’s about 11,000 feet. That’s accurate, but then he started adding thousands, saying it may be 12,000 or 13,000 feet. This is Trump’s problem in a nutshell: He exaggerates.

Hahahahaha and he even does it in court.

At times, the late morning testimony has felt like travel brochure for Trump properties. When it happens, people around me sitting in the courtroom chuckle.

Trump is mak[ing] a long ode to Aberdeen, calling it an “artistic expression,” and the greatest golf course ever built. The judge is frowning but again says nothing.

Justice Engoron finally loses patience and breaks in as Trump is calling Aberdeen, Scotland, where he has a golf club, the oil capital of Europe. “Irrelevant, irrelevant. Answer the question,” the judge says.

Trump is asked about what Wallace characterizes as an inaccuracy in a 2014 statement of financial condition. Trump ducks the question. And finally, the judge explains why he hasn’t been interrupting since the break: He is following Wallace’s lead, he says, and Wallace seems to be fine with Trump’s rambling. As we’ve noted, that rambling is helping the attorney general.

To be continued.

The protocol.

The protocol “does no more than allow lawyers and others to inform the court of the correct pronunciation of their name and their preferred gender pronoun”

Stop right there.

That’s smuggling. That’s smuggling the concept of “preferred gender pronoun” concealed by “correct pronunciation of their name.” Those two items are not the same thing. Preferred is not the same as correct, and pronouns are not a thing one gets to customize.

I suppose it’s possible to think of ways the correct pronunciation of their name could be misused the way luxury pronouns are. I suppose people could claim that “Alice” or “Fred” is pronounced “Fuck” or “Arthur Two-sheds Jackson” or similar. But if they did the court would say nope.

The two things are not the same kind of thing. Pronunciations of names can vary, and there’s little or nothing at stake when they do. I suppose Americans could say “the correct pronunciation of my name is Charles, Charrrrles, not Chahlz.” I suppose if they did it would make no difference, because you can’t order people to speak in a different accent, but even more because it doesn’t matter. Pronouns, on the other hand, do matter, especially in a court of law. “She raped/assaulted/abused me” is very different from “He” did all that.

So it’s very unnerving to see a judge bundling the two together.

Of course.

I would have linked straight to the source but you have to click through eleventy times to get to that set of nominations…but by having done so I did get to learn (to my complete lack of surprise) that 1. the male nominations appear first and 2. the male nominations are all men.

Yes, Yasmin Finney is a trans woman.

Ahh poor Fiona the lonely sheep stranded at the bottom of a cliff has been rescued at last.

The sheep, called Fiona and wearing a huge fleece, had been stranded at the foot of cliffs on the Cromarty Firth for at least two years, with an animal welfare charity having deemed rescue attempts “incredibly complex”.

But five farmers managed to haul her up a steep slope, and now plan to deliver her to a farm park.

A real farm park, not the pretend kind kids are told about when Flopsy dies in the night.

Jillian Turner first spotted the sheep two years ago while she was paddling along the coast of Sutherland with her kayak club. She assumed the sheep would make it back to wherever home was by itself and thought no more of it.

When she took the same journey again recently she was horrified to see the same animal.

Recalling her first sighting of the sheep, Turner told the Northern Times: “About half a mile before turning into the Cromarty Firth we spotted a sheep on a shingle beach at the bottom of some steep, rocky coastline.

“She saw us coming and was calling to us along the length of the beach following our progress until she could go no further. She finally turned back, looking defeated.”

The sighting made an impression on Turner and she couldn’t quite believe it when she saw the same sheep on the recent trip.

“She called out on our approach and once again followed the group along the shore jumping from rock to rock, calling to us the whole way,” Turner said.

The sheep’s fleece was “huge” and touching the ground at the back, she said, with Turner describing the experience as “heart-rending”.

“We honestly thought she might make her way back up that first year. The poor ewe has been on her own for at least two years. For a flock animal that has to be torture, and she seemed desperate to make contact with us on the two occasions we’ve gone past her.”

And now she’s saved. Well done, five guys.

Science! Very sciencey science!

You just divide the Transgender Women’s Importance of Pronouns Scale by the Narcissism of Transgender Women’s Timewasting Scale and BOOM, there’s your total rock-solid non-falsifiable proof that Transgender Women’s Luxury Pronouns matter more than anything else in the entire universe. That’s SCIENCE.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Mile-high semi-free press.

They were unfamiliar with the concept of people who had pursued so-called sex-change drugs and surgeries but later regretted these interventions and sought care to help remedy the results.

You’ve taken one side of an issue, but haven’t researched the issue enough to realize its full ramifications and fallout? You’ve been reassured by reliable sources that the other side is made up entirely of genocidal, Nazi bigots, so you don’t have to listen to what they’re saying at all. That’s a good look for journalists. I guess this sort of thing is bound to happen when you outsource your ethics, morality, and values to “reliable sources”. Like that bartender. You’re hostage to the integrity and thoroughness of those you’re letting do your thinking for you. It’s all about quality control; if you never visit the factory, how can you be sure just what they’re putting in those cans with your name on them?

Here’s another thought: perhaps something they haven’t heard of before might make a good subject for, oh I don’t know, maybe A NEWSPAPER STORY? Maybe they’ve only been reading their own paper and that’s why they’re so ignorant

I said, because people aren’t getting the whole story. Worse, there’s a concerted effort to stifle discussion about detransition.

DINGDINGDINGDING! LOOK, A STORY NOT BEING TOLD! You work for NEWSPAPERS!!! PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER!!!!

If Paley and Cohn are not transphobes, why do people online accuse them of transphobia?

“If Joe Biden is not a baby-eating, glue-sniffing Communist, why do people online accuse him of being a baby-eating, glue-sniffing Communist?” Jesus, the question answers itself. Dig deeper, look further; it’s only YER GODDAMN JOB.

Also why does the bartender get to intervene in a discussion of that kind?…Who, in short, the fuck asked him?

Maybe they were doing the whole “Undercover Boss” or “The Prince and the Pauper” thing, and the supposed underling was actually secretly in charge of everything. He felt so passionately about the issue he was compelled to break cover to put the Evil TERF in her place.

Or, maybe the janitor wasn’t available.

He accused them of manufacturing…

Yes, Paley and Cohn invented the whole idea of so called “detransition” and hired crisis actors to play “detransitioners” complete with fake mastectomy scars.

…and profiting from controversy…

Yeah, and doctors offering “gender-affirming care” do it for free out of the kindness of their hearts. They only have the very best interests of their patients at heart and are very careful to screen them to ensure that only those very few people who actually need it are rushed into life-long medicalization given the life-saving treatment they so desperately need.

and accused me of trying to conceal this “fact.”

A trans activist upset by someone concealing facts?! HAHAHAHAHA, ha ha, hoheh. Well!. Oh that’s a good one! Your movement has declared reality itself to be “transphobic” and unmentionable, and you accuse someone else of suppressing facts! Wow. Are you altogether sure exactly which side of the bar you’re on? Sounds like you’ve been sampling a good few of the wares you’re supposed to be serving. Leave some for the paying customers!

Izzat right?

What an idiot.

Yascha Mounk on Hamas and idenniny:

…the reaction to the worst murder of Jews since the end of the Second World War has continued to range from oddly muted to openly celebratory. Reacting to Hamas’s massacre in its immediate aftermath, Rivkah Brown, an editor at Novara Media, wrote that “today should be a day of celebration for supporters of democracy and human rights worldwide”. The Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter sent out an invitation to a solidarity rally with Palestine that featured a picture of the Hamas fighters on paramotors who murdered over 250 people at a music festival.

During the following weeks, hundreds of prominent artists and writers, actors, academics and medical professionals, including Tilda Swinton and Steve Coogan, signed open letters in publications such as Artforum and the London Review of Books. Virtually all singled out Israel for criticism without bothering to condemn Hamas or calling for the release of the 200 hostages the group still holds.

The reasons are several and complicated, he says, but one stands out.

It is rooted in the rise of a new ideology that insists on seeing the world through the prism of simplistic identity categories. And it now gives many people a highfalutin excuse to indulge in their basest human instincts even as they claim to fight against injustice.

Simplistic identity categories, but not all simplistic identity categories. Jews need not apply, nor need women.

By the summer of 2020, a vulgarised version of what I call the “identity synthesis”, most prominently championed by the bestselling authors Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X Kendi, was being parroted by senior politicians and the chief executives of major companies, by directors of the world’s most renowned cultural institutions and in the pages of its most widely read publications.

…

The “identity synthesis” claims that the key to understanding the world is to examine it through the prism of group identities such as race, gender and sexual orientation. It argues that supposedly universal values and neutral rules — like those at the core of liberal democracies — serve to obscure the ways in which privileged groups dominate those that are marginalised. This explains why we have (supposedly) failed to make any progress in the fight against racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. And it concludes that the only way to build a better world is to adopt norms and laws that explicitly make the way the state treats each citizen — and the way citizens treat each other — depend on the identity groups to which they belong.

…

Four common themes of modern-day social justice movements are particularly important. First, many activists now seem to believe that the world can be split into two clear categories: white people and “people of colour”…

Second, the world can simultaneously be split into another set of categories, which theoretically differ from but in practice overlap with those of race: settlers and their victims…

Third, we need to dispense with traditional notions of racism…many activists have gone a step further, supplanting the older concept of racism with one that is exclusively structural in nature. Since racism has nothing at all to do with individual beliefs, they maintain, it is impossible for members of a (supposedly) marginalised group to be racist towards members of a (supposedly) dominant group…

Fourth and finally, all forms of oppression are connected. 

Aka “intersectionality.”

Over recent weeks, these four ideological building blocks have been pressed into the service of discounting the suffering of Jewish civilians. According to the global left, Jews are white. Israel is a European settler colony repeating the crimes once committed by Americans and Australians. Since Palestinians are people of colour who have suffered settler colonialism, they are incapable of being racist and are justified in inflicting any amount of suffering on their oppressors. And if you want to be a good feminist or environmentalist — or merely an artist or academic in good standing with the juste milieu — it is your duty to sign an open letter, join a solidarity rally and make common cause with a theocratic terrorist group that happens to be diametrically opposed to every value you claim to cherish.

See also: Charlie Hebdo. See also: some of the reactions to Does God Hate Women?

The same loss of common sense is evident in the claim that all forms of oppression are interrelated. Even if this mantra is repeated ad nauseam, it cannot succeed in beating a stubbornly messy reality into submission. No matter how often activists continue to profess their belief that such causes as gay liberation and reproductive rights go hand-in-hand with the Palestinian cause, Hamas remains implacably opposed to both. Yet when reality does not comply with one’s wishes, there’s always the option to look the other way.

But, oddly enough, not to emigrate to Afghanistan. I wonder why not.

Lisa Jones tells us about the Denver Press Club and its devotion to a free press:

On August 21, 2023, I was hunting for a small, private venue in downtown Denver for a mixer. The Denver Press Club building seemed to fit the bill. It could accommodate 50 to 100 guests, serve drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and was available for rental on the evening of Thursday, November 2nd.

On August 22nd, in an email exchange with the club’s executive director, I described the event I planned to host: an evening mixer where everyone is welcome to engage in honest and open discussion about free speech and gender identity. I said Nina Paley and Corinna Cohn, hosts of the Heterodorx Podcast, would speak at the event.

The executive director replied, “Got it. All good.” He told me I needed to join the club to rent the venue. Further, my membership would need to be approved by the board.

So she applied for membership and paid dues.

On August 31st, with a reasonable expectation that the mixer would be happening at the Denver Press Club, I toured the building. During the tour, the club’s executive director generously proposed that the club would host the mixer as a club-sponsored event open to members and guests.

On September 1st, the executive director and I exchanged enthusiastic email messages confirming this arrangement. In my message, I wrote:

“As I mentioned, Nina and Corinna are not politically partisan and are not courting controversy. However, the topic of gender identity elicits strong opinions and poses challenges regarding free speech. I’m hoping this event can be an opportunity for civil, in-person conversation (rather than online flamethrowing.)”

On September 2nd, the executive director abruptly informed me by email:

“After some research about the program, Does Free Speech Have a Gender Identity and the speakers, we have decided the Denver Press Club is not the right fit. I am sorry, but we will not be able to host your event.”

Oh is that what we’re calling it now – “not the right fit.” These shoes are too small; these gloves are too big; this subject sags at the waist.

There was further discussion. There was a meeting with the president and the executive director.

We talked about the Colorado governor’s tendency to say “transitioned” instead of “fired;” several people had “transitioned” out of his administration.

I mentioned the word “detransition.” Neither Goodland nor Segall had heard it before. They were unfamiliar with the concept of people who had pursued so-called sex-change drugs and surgeries but later regretted these interventions and sought care to help remedy the results.

This is why we need to talk about gender medicalization, I said, because people aren’t getting the whole story. Worse, there’s a concerted effort to stifle discussion about detransition.

Segall wanted to know: If Paley and Cohn are not transphobes, why do people online accuse them of transphobia?

As I tried to answer, I became aware that the club’s junior bartender was standing behind me as I spoke. Eventually, he sat down across the table from me. He accused me of lying to the club. I had discredited myself by using unethical tactics to trick the club into agreeing to host Paley and Cohn, he claimed.

Specifically, he cited my statement that Paley and Cohn “are not courting controversy.” He accused them of manufacturing and profiting from controversy, and accused me of trying to conceal this “fact.”

He vowed to write a letter to the board and solicit signatures of support from other club members to bar me from the club on account of my manipulative mendacity.

I was taken aback by his vehemence. Also, I was baffled. Hadn’t anyone at the club done minimal due diligence and simply Googled Paley and Cohn sometime between August 22nd, when I explicitly stated that I wished to host them at the club, and August 31st, when the executive director offered to sponsor the event?

Also why does the bartender get to intervene in a discussion of that kind? Surely his job description doesn’t cover interrupting a meeting between two administrators and a potential speaker to challenge and accuse and attempt to bully the potential speaker? Who, in short, the fuck asked him?

On September 13th, I sent a message to Goodland and Segall:

“Thank you for meeting with me yesterday. We have an agreement for use of the press club facility, an agreement upon which I have relied. The event will proceed as planned. Promotional materials will remain in circulation.”

On September 14th, Goodland sent me a message:

“I regret to inform you your membership has been denied by the board. The club’s policy is that only members have usage of the building, so your event cannot be held here.”

Canceled by the guy behind the bar.

This week in Trump crime family news:

Trump’s elder sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, took the witness stand in New York this week and testified they had little knowledge about the financial statements at the center of the case. Next week, Donald Trump is expected to take the stand on Monday, followed by daughter Ivanka Trump on Wednesday.

In the middle of a school week.

The New York attorney general’s office has been building its case that Trump, his adult sons and executives at the Trump Organization knowingly inflated the value of assets to boost the former president’s net worth when brokering deals. Judge Arthur Engoron ruled before the trial started that documents prove the family had fudged financial statements to do this. The trial has been about whether Trump will have to pay a fine of at least $250m for committing fraud.

…

Over the three days that Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump testified on the witness stand, both brothers pointed to the company’s accountants and lawyers as responsible for handling the financial statements at the center of the case.

Ah yes, that’s how that works. Of course. It’s not the owners of the organization who are corrupt, it’s the people who work for the owners who are.

This is despite multiple emails and signed documents that show the brothers, who serve as top executives of their father’s company, were consulted by employees preparing the statements and brokered deals in which the statements were used to confirm Trump’s net worth.

All forgeries. The brothers weren’t even in the country at the time. They weren’t even on the planet.

The attorney general’s office brought in an expert witness, Michiel McCarty, the chief executive of an investment bank, to testify about the losses lenders unwittingly accrued when making deals with the Trump Organization because it had inflated the value of its assets.

McCarty explained that if lenders had been given accurate valuations for the assets, they could have charged the Trump Organization higher interest rates. McCarty calculated the lost interest for loans given for four properties in the case at $168,040,168.

Oh, is that all. I thought this was about real money.

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Bad Behaviour??? Us???

I can assure our US and UK readers that here in the Great Land of Downunder, cunt IS used as a term of endearment amongst some sub sets of men.

That sub set of men being the drunken uncles at parties, the misogynist and homophobic, sexually insecure males. Not only do they call each other “cunt”, but they also use other terms of endearment, such as “poof” to assure themselves that while their best friend may be gay, they most assuredly are straight. They refer to their wives/girlfriends as “The Missus” in fear that if they use her name she will either appear and drag them home, or at the least, be acknowledged as a separate person. And they all end the night, standing around the lemon tree, tinnie in one hand, cock in the other, because nothing says “I’m no poof” like flashing your willy at all your mates.

Originally a comment by Papito on Transing sisterhood.

The manichaeism of oppressor vs. oppressed cannot be explained rationally. It is a form of religion. All that is good is on one side; all that is bad is on the other side, and we can always tell them apart. For folks who scream about the sex binary, they sure do like their binaries.

Was Adolf Hitler an oppressor or an oppressed?

When Adolf Hitler met with the Mufti Amin al-Husseini of Jerusalem and they made common cause to kill all the Jews in the Levant, was Hitler working in favor of the oppressor or the oppressed? How about the Mufti?

When al-Husseini accepted 750K DM a month for the purposes of exterminating Jews, was he an oppressor or was he oppressed? When Himmler praised the Mufti’s efforts in doing so, was Himmler an oppressor or an oppressed?

Hamas is pursuing the exact same goal – eradication of Jews from the Levant – that Hitler paid the Mufti to pursue, and which Himmler congratulated al-Husseini for doing. It is a continuation of the Nazi goal, and the same Muslim Brotherhood which helped al-Husseini escape arrest after WWII gave birth to Hamas. They still have the same beliefs, which precede the establishment of Israel:

It is the duty of Muhammadans [Muslims] in general and Arabs in particular to … drive all Jews from Arab and Muhammadan countries… . Germany is also struggling against the common foe who oppressed Arabs and Muhammadans in their different countries. It has very clearly recognized the Jews for what they are and resolved to find a definitive solution [endgültige Lösung] for the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that Jews represent in the world.

-Al-Husseini, November 1943

How very oppressed he sounds.

The feminists that aren’t feminists:

Sisters Uncut — founded to campaign against cuts to domestic violence services — claims that the same “white supremacist patriarchy” oppressing feminists is “murdering Palestinians”.

It appeared to play down the massacre of 1,300 Israelis by Hamas terrorists on October 7, saying: “The violence of the oppressed must never be equated with that of the oppressor.”

And of course both come stamped with labels so that we can all know instantly which is which.

Explaining its alignment with the Palestinian cause, Sisters Uncut said: “As intersectional feminists we know our struggles are connected; nobody is free until we are all free. The same colonial logic of white supremacist patriarchy that oppresses feminists the world over is murdering Palestinians right now, through isra*l’s [sic] racist apartheid settler-colonialism.”

Meanwhile there are zero racist or sexist Palestinians and we know this because of the careful stamping (see above).

More recently, the group has campaigned for the rights of transgender people and minorities. On its website, the group describes itself as “women and gender-variant people who live under the threat of domestic violence”.

And thus, finally, we are told that these “feminists” are not feminists at all.

In July it supported Sarah Jane Baker, a transgender rights activist who told a Pride event to “punch a Terf” [trans-exclusionary radical feminist]. Baker had previously spent 30 years in prison for kidnap and attempted murder. Baker was later acquitted of a charge of inciting violence in connection with the Terf comment.

Even though he was in fact inciting violence with the “terf” comment.

Since the Hamas attack on October 7 Sisters Uncut has repeatedly posted on social media about the conflict. One video showed protesters holding a Palestinian flag next to a banner that said: “Trans liberation, trans revolution now.”

Makes me nostalgic for the good old Nazi-Soviet pact.

Not putting up with the bullshit any more.

Princess Ivanka gets a lot of laughter for this joke:

Ivanka Trump asked a New York appeals court to pause the $250 million fraud trial of her family and its business empire as she appeals a judge’s order requiring her to testify in the case next week.

The request to stay the entire trial came at the tail end of a Thursday court filing arguing that Ivanka Trump will face “undue hardship” if forced to testify — in part because she is scheduled to appear “in the middle of a school week.”

Ah right, the middle of a school week, and how can she juggle that plus her 9 to 5 job plus cooking and cleaning and walking the dog? There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Another law mandating lying in court:

South Australia is the latest state to endorse the use of preferred gender pronouns in the courtroom, saying it is a “matter of respect” to address parties by their chosen pronouns, and integral to “ensuring public confidence in the proper administration of justice”.

No it isn’t. Other way around. It’s a matter of respect not to lie, and not to order others to lie. People don’t get to “choose” what sex they are, and pronouns are simply grammatical indicators of what sex a third party is. (It didn’t have to be that way. In English first and second person pronouns don’t indicate sex, but third person singular ones do.)

SA follows the lead of Victoria and Queensland as jurisdictions that this year released edicts requiring court attendees to refer to parties by the pronouns they indicate being most comfortable with, such as they/them.

See how tricky pronouns are? Look at that “they” in “the pronouns they indicate” – which “they”?? The attendees, or the parties? Shoving in even more they/thems will produce yet more ambiguities of that kind, quite apart from the fact that it’s ludicrous.

It’s also sneaky of the reporter (or who knows, maybe the editor) to choose they/them for the “such as.” The stumbling block is not so much they/them as “she/her” when the accused is a man. Courts ordering women to call their male rapists or assailants “she/her” is an outrage, so the story reporting it carefully draws a veil over that appalling fact.

“The Supreme Court, District Court, ERD Court, Magistrates Court, Youth Court and Coroners Court recognise that the correct pronunciation of names and use of the preferred gender pronoun is a matter of respect and is an important component of ensuring public confidence in the proper administration of justice,” SA Chief Justice Chris Kourakis said in a practice note released on Wednesday.

Nonsense. Calling rapists “she” is not going to ensure public confidence in the proper administration of justice. Rather the opposite, I think you’ll find.

In April, Queensland Supreme Court Chief Justice Helen Bowskill released a similar practice note, recognising “the correct pronunciation of names and use of preferred forms of address is a matter of respect”.

Correct, yes. Lying and incorrect, no.

Ah yes: how the boys talk about women amongst themselves.

Dominic Cummings called the UK’s most senior female civil servant a “cunt” in a misogynistic WhatsApp message sent to Boris Johnson and Lee Cain in August 2020.

Of course he did. What’s the worst foulest evilest thing in the world? The part of women where all humans emerge into life.

He was referring to deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara, who had commissioned a report into poor behaviour within the Cabinet Office.

And he certainly made clear that there was no bad behavior in the Cabinet Office, didn’t he.

The message in full reads: “If I have to come back to Helen’s bullshit with PET [propriety and ethics] designed to waste huge amounts of my time so I can’t spend it on other stuff – I will personally handcuff her and escort her from the building. I don’t care how it is done but that woman must be out of our hair – we cannot keep dealing with this horrific meltdown of the British state while dodging stilettos from that cunt.”

How dare she do her job. How dare she challenge the boys. How dare she have female genitalia.

The inquiry heard yesterday that MacNamara had commissioned a report into the culture at Number 10 in May 2020, which – according to the lead counsel to the inquiry Hugo Keith KC – had painted a picture of “misogyny” and a “macho” culture.

So Dominic Cummings hastened to demonstrate the falsehood of that picture by calling MacNamara a cunt. No macho misogyny there, no sirree.

Speaking after the day’s hearing, the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group said in a statement: “The nastiness, arrogance and misogyny at the heart of government during the pandemic is core to the awful decision making that led to thousands of unnecessary deaths and tore families like ours apart.

“When you see that these figures had such a shocking disregard for each other, you can only imagine the disregard they had for families like mine. In Boris Johnson’s own words his government was an ‘orgy of narcissism’, with Cummings at the heart. That narcissism had deadly consequences.

“It was led by ministers and advisers who thought they could rewrite scientific advice, who thought they knew better than the rest of the world, and ‘appallingly neglected’ the most vulnerable in our society, as Cummings acknowledged today.

“Whilst they drift on to be after dinner speakers, reality TV stars or on to new highly paid jobs, we’re left having to deal with the consequences of their failures for the rest of our lives.”

Oh just blame it on Helen MacNamara.

What, again??

How many of them are there? I suppose the answer is 12, isn’t it.