Holy shit this is disgusting.

The Valley Girl accent and vocal fry don’t help, but the content is………..the word for it doesn’t exist. I need a mashup of horror and disgust and rage. The sanctimonious bloodless corporate-speak about renting women to gestate babies “to the specifications” of the smart shopper – it’s grotesque and foul.

“What this matching process entails is a gestational carrier through a vetted agency that has undergone a stringent medical review”

Note that “that.” It’s not who, it’s that. A “gestational carrier” (which has to be some kind of machine, right?) is a thing that has undergone a stringent review by skilled engineers.

“a stringent medical review by the Donor Concierge Internal Medical Records Review Team”

Notice that their respect for their own moneymaking scheme is so intense that it gets 7 capital letter words in one sentence, while the woman who is paid to be a “gestational carrier” gets zero and is a “that.”

Also “Donor Concierge.” Fucking hell. What a suppurating combination of yuppy moneybags preening and callous exploitation of actual human beings. Concierge!!!!! It couldn’t be more disgusting if that had been their goal.

“a vetted agency that has undergone a stringent medical review that is a team of nurses with over thirty years of experience, that’ll ensher that you are not only getting a gestational carrier candidate”

Let me just repeat that, shouting.

A GESTATIONAL CARRIER CANDIDATE

“a gestational carrier candidate that is meeting your specifications and ideal preferences”

She leans into that your specifications with all the unction of the dedicated panderer to the rich. This luxury bathroom comes fitted with all the luxury extras and luxuries and luxuriosities that are suited to your greedy desires and lusts. This is a fucking human being manufactured by another human being she’s talking about!

“but also is going to meet ASRM guidelines”

ASRM=American Society for Reproductive Medicine

“and is going to meet the medical qualifications for your reproductive clinic.”

Isn’t that awesome? It’s like buying a Mercedes, knowing that you can take it to any approved Mercedes clinic if anything goes wrong.

“Through the Donor Concierge Donor matching process, you will have not only access to a wealth of knowledge from the Case Management team and the Medical Review team”

What kind of knowledge? The “you” in this scenario is the one person who is at no kind of physical or medical risk whatsoever. The “gestational carrier” and the object she is “gestational carrying” are at all kinds of risk, psychological at a minimum, but the sperm donor? He’ll be fine no matter what. But he’s the one paying, so he gets all the oil.

“not only access to a wealth of knowledge from the Case Management team and the Medical Review team, but someone to help you along the way, holding your hand”

Your hand. Not that bitch who’s doing the work, but you, Mister Moneybags.

“holding your hand, making sure that you are not alone in this journey.”

You must be pampered at every turn, sir. The bitch gestational carrier just has to get on with it.

“You will be assigned a case manager to help assist you through your journey”

What journey? What journey?

“your journey with the Donor Concierge team. We look forward to helping you build your family”

We look forward to helping you buy luxury children via the bodies of desperate women.

“We look forward to helping you build your family and finding your dream surrogate.”

There aren’t enough vomit emojis in the world for this.

Will it ever sink in? Will they ever get the point? Will they ever stop saying this?

But it isn’t “for who we are.” THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT. It’s “for who we are not.” The demand is for respect and recognition of a fiction, a game, a lie – a fiction-game-lie that intrudes on and weakens the rights of other people, in particular the half of human beings who are female.

It’s beyond ridiculous to keep howling about respect for who we are when what they mean is respect for who they are not. Beeee-yond.

Women win a volleyball tournament. Men storm the court and run around jerking off.

Santo Amaro University has expelled several students after footage of them went viral this week.

The ugly scenes in São Paulo, Brazil, saw male students from the futsal team sitting on the sidelines watching the women’s volleyball team with their pants around their ankles.

After the team won the volleyball championship at São Camilo University, the players stormed the court and appeared to perform a group masturbation celebration.

As one does…if one has nothing but contempt for women.

São Camilo University confirmed the incident originally took place in April, though footage of the moment went viral over the weekend.

Cool cool. So it was no big deal until the media found the story.

“Unisa, an institution with more than 55 years of history, vehemently repudiates this type of behavior, completely antagonistic to its history and values,” the school said in a statement.

Then why weren’t the students expelled last April?

The new Dick and Jane book. See Dick pay for sex; see Jane used by Dick.

The city of Berlin has prompted outrage from locals after offering a graphic picture book on prostitution to children via its official website. The book, titled Rosie Needs Money (Rosi sucht Geld), is advertised as a resource for youth aged 6 to 12 years old.

For the girls in case they want to go into the trade, for the boys in case they want to look forward to paying women to be raped.

Bizarrely, the book concludes with quotes from children and young people who live in areas where street prostitution takes place. Most of the sentiment is overwhelmingly negative, and presented as examples of attitudes towards prostitution in youth which require discussion.

“I’m ashamed to live here… I can’t sleep well at night… Why is there no prostitution next to a town hall?” wonders one youth.

“I’m afraid of the johns. Even though I have curtains, I’m afraid to change in my room. Why do we residents and the ladies have to suffer just because the men can’t find a wife?” asks another.

Because that’s called being “sex-positive.” Complaining about it is called being “sex-negative” and “mean to sex workers.”

Arrow said that the decriminalization of the sex trade in Germany has resulted in the exploitation of migrant women, and emphasized that there had been a recent increase in the numbers of women from Ukraine who had fled their home country after the Russian invasion. According to government statistics, the amount of women from Ukraine registered as “prostitutes” doubled between 2021 and 2022.

It’s very kind of Germany to help Ukraine this way.

Last year, Reduxx reported that Google searches for terms such as “Ukrainian girls,” “Ukrainian porn,” and “war porn” spiked during the first week of the conflict.

It was later learned that a Berlin-based “sex work” advocacy agency “made up of trans and non-binary sexworkers” used social media to solicit Ukrainian refugee women for information on entering the legal German sex trade.

Ah, well then. The only inclusive thing to do is embrace all this lovely sex work advocacy with open arms legs.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Safe haven:

Even if we granted that adolescents who are “really” transgender would feel so bad they might commit suicide if they didn’t get surgeries to “correct” their genitals, the inextricable flipside of that is that adolescents who turn out to be “not really” transgender would feel so bad they might commit suicide if they did get surgeries which rendered their genitals “incorrect.”

Surely, then, it would be best to wait until they’re adults for surgeries. The risk of enduring a couple years in adolescence with the “wrong” genitalia is far outweighed by the risk of enduring the entirety of one’s adult life with genitalia that’s been surgically rendered “incorrect.”

That’s granting an awful lot, of course. But the point is, even in the baby blue and rose-coloured worldview of gender ideology, the logic still doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Add to that the fact that these surgeries don’t really change genitalia from male to female, and that there are risks (the surgery has an incredibly high complication rate, up to 50% in some clinics), side effects (lifelong medical patienthood and a significantly lowered life expectancy), and main effects (sterility)…

I give up!

To misquote Jonathan Swift, you can’t reason someone out of a position he was never reasoned into. The tools of rational argument won’t get us anywhere with these people. This is a socio-cultural/quasi-religious phenomenon. People came into these beliefs through strange eddies in modern political and cultural dynamics. And those are the tools we’ll have to use to get people out of it. Whatever benefits the gender ideology tribe is offering to its prospective members, we need to identify them and undermine them, or counter-offer with something better. And I’ve actually got an idea about where to start. Hear me out:

Ironically, the appeal of gender ideology is its unpopularity — most people don’t actually like it.

All the civil rights movements started out unpopular, and only became popular through arduous campaigning and struggle. This pattern repeated itself enough times that everyone absorbed three things:

1. The eventual outcome for all civil rights movements is success and widespread adoption by society. Why should the next one turn out any different than all the ones that have come before it?

2. The eventual outcome for those who oppose civil rights is social shame. For this reason, overt opposition to sex equality, racial equality, sexual orientation equality, disability rights, etc, has largely quieted down. (I may still have anti-gay colleagues, but no one’s said anything overtly homophobic to me in a workplace for 20 years because they know they can’t anymore.)

3. The eventual outcome for those who embrace civil rights is social capital — virtue. The earlier someone joins a new civil rights movement, the more virtue she will eventually receive. The very earliest adopters of civil rights eventually get statues and holidays in their honour.

This pattern suggests that the more overt opposition a (supposed) rights movement has, the earlier it is in its inevitable trajectory to widespread adoption, and the greater the virtue will be amassed by those noble souls who were the earliest to heed the calling of progress. It’s counter-intuitive, but it’s the same pattern of human behaviour that has driven people to join religious sects. Call it the economics of religion.

It’s kind of like a pyramid scheme where the product is “progressive values” and the reward is “virtue.” It doesn’t actually matter what you’re selling; the point is that you always have to have more people below you to sell it to, or the whole thing collapses. The other civil rights causes have lost their usefulness precisely because they no longer have a huge pool of outspoken opponents. There isn’t an anti-gay or anti-Black equivalent of JK Rowling, and by progressive logic today, that’s a weakness for those movements, not a selling point.

The best way to stop a pyramid scheme is to point out to everyone that it is a pyramid scheme. You don’t keep people out of Amway with bad reviews of the junk they sell; you do it by showing them that the whole thing is a scam and if you sign up, you’ll go broke. Unfortunately for some, they don’t get the message until they start seeing people around them go broke.

For this reason, we don’t need more science to prove that there are only two sexes or that sexchange surgeries are risky and harmful — deep down, everybody already knows this, just like deep down every Amway salesman knows his products are garbage.

We need to show people that gender identity ideology is an ersatz “civil rights campaign” and those who get on board are not going to end up alongside Martin Luther King, the Suffragettes, and the Stonewall rioters on some imaginary Mount Rushmore of civil rights heroes. We need to remind them of the very real civil rights they’re destroying right here and now, nevermind some imagined future where they’ll reap so much virtue.

Unfortunately for many, they won’t get that message until they start seeing people around them regret the surgeries they’ve been sold.

Wouldn’t you think Canadian MPs would know a little about WWII? It’s a long time ago but not that long, and anyway it cast a very long shadow. A very very very fucking long shadow, on account of the many millions of people who were killed, and on account of the gruesome specter of genocide. On account of the UN and the UDHR, on account of nuclear weapons, on account of the Bloodlands.

Governed by imbeciles:

Full tweet:

It seems the ‘conversion therapy’ ban is over, for the time being at least. Thank God.

But let’s not forget the inanely grinning, brain-dead MPs (of all parties) who held up these placards in May of last year, advocating a policy which would have criminalised anyone trying to *prevent* tomboy girls and camp boys from being steered towards untested drugs and surgery.

None of this lot are homophobic, in the traditional sense. But they hadn’t bothered either to stop and think, or to question a campaign where the ‘vibes’ felt right. The exact opposite function of what MPs are for.

We are governed by imbeciles.

Imbeciles who smile happily as adolescents are mutilated.

Sastra raises the perennial question of what we are talking about when we talk about how “some women have a penis” [and related subjects, which are infinite in number]. She asks if it’s a matter of new discoveries in science or new sensitivities to human rights, which is a very good question.

I was thinking about the purported “new sensitivities to human rights” yesterday, wondering for the billionth time why there is such heightened sensitivity to and compassion for men who claim to be women when there was never such sensitivity to and compassion for feminist women with their old sensitivities to human rights. Why are the sensitivity and compassion so very heightened, so frantic, so loud, so hyperbolic, so laced with threats? Why are so many people so extremely passionate and agitated about this form of “liberation” when that was never a thing for feminism? It’s as if feminism had been for “Karens” all along.

I was thinking about it, and it occurred to me that maybe it’s because most people or nearly all people or all people are in fact more or less squicked by fake genitalia and medically unnecessary mastectomies and the like. Maybe it’s because most people or nearly all people or all people actually don’t want to “date” trans people and they feel horribly guilty and ashamed as a result so they overcompensate.

Could that be it?

Originally a comment by Sastra on Brain rot.

If “some women have a penis” does that mean:

1.) There have always been some women who have a penis, but we only now realize this because of new discoveries in science.

2.) There have always been some women who have a penis, but we only now admit this because of new sensitivities to human rights.

3.) Women-with-a-penis is a totally new thing, the result of advances in medical science.

4.) Women-with-a-penis is a totally new thing, the result of advances in human rights.

My guess is that people who believe “some women have a penis” would dearly love to say it’s #1, mostly push #2, and fall back on #3 or #4 if they’re either forced into it, or feel like it ought to help their case on #2.

Tattoo v neovagina.

I think I get what the reasoning is from their point of view: gender transition procedures are (in at least some instances) literally life-saving. People will die without them.

If that thought is accurate the reasoning may possibly make some sense. But is it accurate?

Well, first, not all magic gender-havers claim to be suicidal, or threaten to act on suicidal thoughts, or do in fact commit suicide. Second, blackmail by claims of suicidal ideation is just that: blackmail. That doesn’t make any difference on the personal level – if parents are convinced their kid will kill xirself then claims about blackmail and the wider society aren’t going to mean a damn thing to them – but it does make a difference on the policy level and especially on the rhetorical level. In other words it would be nice if activists for trans ideology would stop using suicide as a blackmail lever.

So, to sum up, kids under 18 ruining their bodies and their futures are not comparable to kids wanting tattoos. Tattoos are not comparable to luxury hysterectomies or penis removals. Tattoos are at worst unattractive or annoying to others. Medically unnecessary hysterectomies or penis removals or puberty blockers are in another category altogether.

For this reason, saying “Golly gee minors can’t decide for themselves whether to have a tattoo but they absolutely can decide to destroy their sexual parts” is reckless and idiotic.

Originally a comment by Francis Boyle on Who, literally, does she think she is?

I realise now that I was very naive to think, as I did for a long time, that the puritan impulse couldn’t survive in a pluralist culture. I’m not sure how the managerial mindset is related to puritanism beyond the fact that they both love putting things (and thus people) into boxes, but the two certainly find it easy to make common cause in promoting authoritarianism. Orwell is certainly relevant here but so is Mill. Without a willingness among the ordinary population (which is to say everyone who doesn’t see themself as a “thought leader”) to tolerate ideas they personally find disagreeable it is all too easy for the managers to appoint themselves priests. (“Don’t worry about the mysteries. You’ll never understand them but we’ve got it for you. We have a direct line to God/Stonewall”.) The totalising impulse, which I think is the puritan impulse in another form, claims that all values can be reduced to one value and thus the work of determining how those values can be put into practice can easily be outsourced. Just find someone/some organisation that “shares your values” as if it didn’t actually work in the opposite way. (Billy Bragg apparently wants that job and seems to imagine that having written a few so-so songs is a suitable qualification but he really should have gotten an MBA or gone into the public service if he wanted to be really successful.)

I have to say I’m scared. It’s almost as if we’ve jumped back a hundred years and the only alternative to one authoritarianism is the other authoritarianism. I just hope that this time we find something less destructive than a World War to demonstrate that the boring rule of law (and agreed norms – I’m looking at you Trump) is preferable to the thrill of being an ideological warrior. (Maybe we could just exile all the flag-wavers to some MMORG. The Metaverse might turn out to have some use after all.)

MP says some women have a penis.

Yes really. An MP actually said that – on the record, in public. A woman MP said that.

It’s not “vilification of trans people” to say that women don’t have a penis.

Breathtaking.

No. Lesbians may not hold lesbian-only events. No.

I really would like to know if it’s normal for an administrator at a healthcare network to lie and threaten and rage at patients and/or employees of the network who don’t believe men can be women and who don’t subscribe to the new religion that underlies that claim. If it is normal it obviously shouldn’t be. What business is it of Chandra Berkan-Hozempa’s if patients or employees or both attend a protest? Or participate in it? Or have opinions she dislikes? How is it her job to send out furious denunciations and warnings about a protest that has nothing whatever to do with the body she works for?

She’s the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Island Health, by the way. It’s becoming all too apparent that DEI is not what it says on the tin, and is a massive threat to the rights and freedoms of people who have the nerve to say things.

Oh good, there’s a source document. Let’s read it together.

Island Health is aware of the anti-2SLGBTQIA protests and counter-protests that are being planned across Canada on Wednesday, September 20th 2023.

And? What business is it of Island Health that there is a protest scheduled? Why does Island Health have to comment on it at all? Let alone threatening and libeling the protesters?

To be clear, Island Health respects the right for 2SLGBTQIA+ people to live in peace, without fear of discrimination, harassment and threat of violence, and recognize that the human rights of the trans and 2SLGBTQIA+ community are not up for debate.

Do they not get bored and embarrassed barfing out that endless string of letters over and over? The shorter UK version is bad enough, and this one is ludicrous.

More substantively, no one is trying to take the 2blah community’s rights away.

Gender identity and expression are protected grounds under the BC Human Rights Code (Bill 27 – 2016: Human Rights Code Amendment Act, 2016) in addition to the existing grounds of sex and sexual orientation. There is no place for transphobia, homophobia or discrimination of any kind in our Island Health community.

But masses of time for womanphobia, apparently.

Please note, these dangerous, misguided and hate driven campaigns are a concerning matter of safety and public health, not only for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, but for anyone who may be questioning their identity or even for visible and open allies. These rallies are an insult to human dignity, expression and rights for us all. As an organization, we stand against hate and discrimination, and stand in solidarity with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

What a venomous malicious libelous crock of shit.

Please note, any anti-2SLGBTQIA+ messaging or commentary that targets community members will not be tolerated.

What does that mean? Will employees who attend the protest be fired?

 2SLGBTQIA+ staff, colleagues and their allies have a right to a work environment free from threat of violence, harassment, embarrassment and discrimination.

So do women. Remember them? Ever heard of them?

Any comments, questions or concerns can be directed to Chandra Berkan-Hozempa (Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) [except for women]…

Wow. Canada really is very…erm…restrictive. And scary.

The whole image:

I would not want to work at any institution where Chandra Berkan-Hozempa had power over the staff.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Pink News has bad writers.

Here’s an idea: how about those attendees not interested in, or distressed by, a Harry Potter panel not go to that panel? If they are so fragile that the mere presence of such a panel at a large event upsets them so, they are likely too unwell to go anywhere, or do anything, as there’s no telling how many times they might unexpectedly run into the words “Harry” or “potter” whilst in the course of their travels. Either one on its own is bad enough. The two together? It must be like encountering a critical mass of harmful, verbal material, resulting in permanent injury and psychic scarring. Louis Slotin redux, but with words instead of uranium. “Tickling the Wizard’s Tale” * perhaps? Maybe it would be best for them to stay at home.

As for those performatively posturing on behalf of these weepy wilters, maybe they could have just come up with a waver for them to sign. Or the charity could hve pulled out. I know that’s not going to let them be seen “doing something,” but I’d bet there would have been more people disappointed at the cancellation of the HP panel than traumatized by it. The Comic Con organizers are cowards. They bowed down to bullies, allowing themselves to used as another avenue to demonize and punish JK Rowling, which is the real point of this power play.

Surprisingly, this Pink News article includes a link to the podcast series The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, and actually gives Rowling the last word:

Rowling, who has repeatedly denied transphobia allegations, claimed on the podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling that her comments on the trans community had been “profoundly” misunderstood.

“When I first became interested, then deeply troubled by what I saw as a cultural movement that was liberal in its methods and very questionable in its ideas, I absolutely knew that if I spoke out, many folks would be deeply unhappy with me,” Rowling said.

“Time will tell whether I’ve got this wrong … I believe there is something dangerous about this movement, and it must be challenged.”

*Dr. Louis Slotin died of massive radiation exposure during a demonstration of critical assembly, when he accidentally brought two spheres of fissile material too close together, too quickly. This seat-of-the-pants demonstration was known as “tickling the dragon’s tail.” More about this small, fatal nuclear accident here.

Uh oh. Salt water contaminating the drinking water in a highly populated area.

Drought-like conditions in the Midwest over the summer have created a growing water problem in the New Orleans area this fall.

Water levels of the Mississippi River have dropped low enough to make the river less resistant to a mass of saltwater flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico. This circumstance, known as saltwater intrusion, is endangering the drinking water systems in and around the city, as well as smaller municipalities to the south.

Is that scary enough yet?

Officials in Louisiana and with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers say that a “saltwater wedge” could reach water treatment plants near New Orleans in October and are working to slow the influx while also bringing in more fresh water to the region. Many water treatment facilities cannot handle water with high salinity levels, which corrode pipes and cause metals in the pipes to leach into the water.

…

The Corps of Engineers is also getting barges to transport water that can be combined with water at the treatment facilities for safe drinking. Colonel Jones said about 15 million gallons will be delivered in the coming days, but the demand at treatment facilities could ultimately rise to at least 36 million gallons per day. Colonel Jones said that the Army Corps was working to get access to more barges but that he was confident that figure could be met.

And that’s very easy and sustainable (and not at all yet another addition to the problem). Just ship in 36 million gallons of water every day. Piece of cake.

Many coastal communities, like parts of the Jersey Shore, Long Island and the Outer Banks of North Carolina, are no stranger to saltwater intrusion, which also occurs when storm surges or high tides top areas that are low in elevation. As sea levels rise along the coasts, the threat of saltwater intrusion does, too. Other countries like Bangladesh are grappling with that reality.

Nah, it’s just liberal scaremongering. Buy another SUV to piss them off.

H/t TheDudeDiogenes

This may be a contestant for the Most Passive-aggressive Subhead Ever prize:

A Harry Potter panel due to be held at London’s Comic Con event in October has been cancelled after conversations with an LGBTQ+ charity.

Who cancelled it? Who had the conversations? What is the connection between the cancelling and the conversations? What LGBXYZ charity?

Obviously a subhead can’t give all the relevant information, but that doesn’t mean it has to wrap itself in the passive voice repeatedly. It’s like the “activism” as a whole – all the creepy endless spying “something was said to someone by someone” hissing and pointing. Scandal-mongering without any scandal to work with. More succinctly: bad thinking leads to bad writing. That subhead is bad bad bad writing.

LGBTQ+ helpline Switchboard explained that the charity is due to appear at the event, which runs from 27 to 29 October, but that it raised “concerns” after finding out that a Harry Potter-themed panel was also due to take place. 

More garbage writing. Also why does this clumsy writer – one Emily Chudy – put scare quotes on “concerns”? Why doesn’t Pink News get better writers?

“When we agreed to host a Pride Lounge at this year’s MCM London Comic Con, we did so with the aim of connecting with their diverse fan community,” Switchboard wrote on Twitter. 

Ohhhh, I see – Pink News is working up a tweet into a news story. Ok, I do that myself often enough, so I don’t object to the principle, but then why pretend otherwise at the beginning?

“However, at that time we were unaware of their plans to feature any panels using the Harry Potter IP [intellectual property] … Upon learning about this, we felt compelled to express our concerns about the potential impact on our community, particularly trans individuals.”

Switchboard explained it had since been in “conversations” with the London Comic Con organisers, who were “receptive to our concerns and feedback from their fans”, and then decided to cancel the Harry Potter panel. 

Yet more garbage writing. Who decided to cancel the panel? Switchboard, or the London Comic Con organisers? Whatever; it was one of them. The story is: London Comic Con had a Potter-themed panel on the schedule; some “activists” saw an opportunity to cancel something so they picked a fight on Twitter and got the panel cancelled. Let’s have a big round of applause for our winners.

H/t Mostly Cloudy

It seems like only yesterday that no one would have said anything this stupid even for a hefty bribe.

It’s nothing to do with “governing.” It’s knowing.

News flash: women need to know which people are men, partly for our own safety. We don’t think we have a “right” to “govern” and we don’t consider it “governing” to know the difference between women and men.

We’re not the ones trying to “govern” people on this subject. It’s the public relations arm of trans ideology that’s so keen on ordering everyone to say men are women if they say they are. It’s trans ideology that polices our words, not the other way around.

And yes of course it’s our business. See above.