The Telegraph on the Arts Council’s horrible treatment of one of its officials because she doesn’t believe in magic:

Subhead:

Employment tribunal rules Denise Fahmy faced a hostile environment because of her view that people cannot change sex

Her “view” – it’s a “view” now that people can’t change sex. Is it a “view” that people can’t fly, that people can’t walk up walls and on ceilings, is it a “view” that people can’t live underwater, is it a “view” that lions are not crows and fish are not birds?

Knowing that people can’t change sex isn’t a “view,” it’s just reality. The “view” here is that people can change sex, and it’s looney tunes. The earth is frying and melting and here we are regressing to the middle ages where we can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Denise Fahmy took Britain’s biggest arts funding quango to an employment tribunal after she resigned as a grants officer having challenged a decision to withdraw funding for LGB Alliance, a group that represent gays and lesbians.

The group had been given £9,000 to make a film for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee to celebrate how the lives of gay men had improved under the monarch’s 70-year reign.

But the funding was withdrawn by ACE in spring 2022 amid “hostile” claims the group was neo-Nazi and transphobic – a claim LGB Alliance denies.

For the very simple reason that it’s not true. See that’s a view – that LGB Alliance is neo-Nazi. It’s a little story the fanatics tell themselves. It’s a view through a very muddy windowpane.

Simon Mellor, the deputy chief executive, held a Teams meeting in April 2022 in which he expressed his “personal view” that LGB Alliance “has a history of anti-trans-exclusionary activity” and so funding them was “not within the spirit of the Jubilee fund”.

His comments prompted Ms Fahmy, 54, to then question why the funding had been removed, what message that sent about “freedom of speech” within the organisation and ask what protection there was at the council for gender-critical beliefs – the conviction that people cannot change their biological sex.

There again: it’s not a conviction. Of course people cannot change their sex. You can test this easily at home. Try to change your sex. Finished? Did it work? This is what I’m saying. It can’t be done. Fahmy isn’t the one with the “belief” and the “conviction”; the bullies who bullied her are the Believers.

Leeds Employment Tribunal has found Ms Fahmy, from Huddersfield, was the victim of harassment after a colleague then circulated an email and petition on the ACE intranet targeting those deemed “anti-trans”. The petition, which contained some extreme comments, remained up for 26 hours. The judges felt it should have been taken down sooner.

One email claimed “gender-critical views were seen as a cancer… [which] needs to be removed from our organisation”.

All because she knows people can’t change sex.

H/t Alan Peakall

Hey listen up, influencers want to tell us a thing.

LGBTQ Celebrities & Allies Call on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter to Stop the Flow of Anti-Trans Hate & Malicious Disinformation About Trans Healthcare

Celebrities! Well then! If celebrities call we must answer.

As celebrities, influencers, and prominent public figures with significant followings on social media, we the undersigned are calling on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter to

Let me just interrupt for a second. Can you imagine calling yourself an “influencer”? Or a “celebrity”? Or a “prominent figure with a significant following on social media”? Because I can’t. The very idea makes me cringe until I’m no bigger than a spider. Yuck. The pomposity of it, the self-flattery, the conceit. So right from the outset I think this is a bunch of fools and their Letter to the Masses is worthless.

we the undersigned are calling on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter to fulfill the promises you’ve made to transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming and all LGBTQ users in your terms of service. There has been a massive systemic failure to prohibit hate, harassment, and malicious anti-LGBTQ disinformation on your platforms and it must be addressed.

But of course what they mean by “hate” is anything that’s not instant enthusiastic deafening approval of The New Laws of Gender, so their InterVention is worthless as well as conceited and laughable.

There are several more paragraphs of drivel and then a long list of names, almost all of which are of obscure entertainers and “influencers.”

Excuse me, I gotta go influence some blueberries.

Joan Smith at UnHerd:

Time and again, women are having to go to court to protect themselves against trans activists.

The cowardice of organisations that won’t stand up for free speech and women’s legal rights is one reason for this. The latest institution to be shamed for its behaviour towards people who hold gender-critical views is Arts Council England (ACE), which has just lost a claim brought by a former employee, Denise Fahmy. The Leeds Employment Tribunal came to the unanimous decision that Fahmy, who had worked for ACE for 15 years, was subjected to harassment because of her gender-critical beliefs. 

In other words a woman was subjected to harassment by Arts Council England because she knows that men are not women. You couldn’t make it up, as the saying goes.

Read Joan’s account of the details.

All of this is scandalous. ACE is a publicly funded body, which means that the cost of defending the case — and Fahmy’s compensation — will be paid for by taxpayers. It’s been clear for more than two years, thanks to the Maya Forstater judgment, that a belief in biological sex is protected in law. So why did ACE waste public money to oppose Fahmy’s claim, instead of offering an apology and asking itself how such a toxic atmosphere was allowed to develop within the organisation? 

The irony is that ACE is widely regarded as a “liberal” institution, prepared to take risks on what should be regarded as art. But we know from bitter experience that “liberal” organisations, including Left-wing and centre-left political parties, have been among the first to genuflect before trans activists. They appear to be afraid of their own staff, raising questions about how far gender ideology is influencing other decisions.

It’s the new theocracy and I say the hell with it.

Originally a comment by latsot on Rainbow autism.

The forced-teaming of T with medical conditions and disabilities has been going on for quite a while. We’ve seen it most with DSDs (for the obvious reason) and with autism. In the latter case it is certainly at least partly because of autistic people being over-represented in the newer part of the alphabet community, as others have said. I’ve spoken about this to quite a few people with autism and they say there’s a strong sense that autism is completely captured and perhaps now intractably tangled. They feel that autistic people like them, especially children, are targeted because they are more susceptible to the concept of a magic bullet and less likely to change their minds…. and that messages like these are an aggressive and disturbing part of that targeting.

Messages like “no [condition or disability without the alphabet]” are relatively new (the past year or so) but are increasing in frequency and scope. In the last few months I’ve seen it directed at all sorts of conditions and disabilities and most often at disability in general.

This is very obviously an unwelcome ‘queering’ of disability, which is unlikely to have a good outcome for disabled people. Be clear: the claim is not that Gender Dysphoria is a disability or mental illness; that is still a forbidden message. The claim is that, like disabled people, trans (etc) people need certain help in order to live their lives on a somewhat level playing field to everyone else.

I’ll leave you to speculate on what I think about that claim.

The main problem is that so many of the medical condition and disability charities (especially the latter) are 100% captured. A large number of alphabet people have or claim to have disabilities. So it’s proving hard to resist the forced-teaming.

Sites like the revolting Steph’s Place were quick to capitalise on this. I won’t link to it, but the intention is rather clearly and prominently spelled out, there. It says something along the lines of “there will always be transphobia, but you can’t criticise disabled people…”

It’s saying that’s why being trans should be considered a disability, because then nothing trans can be criticised. It’s No Debate 2.0.

Originally a comment by Papito on Rainbow autism.

The prevalence of autistic kids among those who self-identify as trans is much higher than that in the population at large. Sometimes it seems the entire complex taxonomy of gender identities and rules was created by autistic people; who else could be bothered. As you mentioned here in February, Barnes says, in Time To Think, that the Tavistock ignored evidence that 97.5% of the kids showing up there were autistic, and 35% of them moderately to severely so, versus around 2% in the general population. The Venn Diagram is practically concentric circles.

Growing up autistic – especially if you don’t know it – can be exhausting, alienating, and confusing. A simple answer like Trans comes along and promises everything is magically better if you transition, plus you get this incredible Pokemon-like complexity of definitions and transforms, and you to get to yell at everybody to follow your complex rules, and everybody will clap for you.

The associations representing autistic people and kids have been taken over entirely by TRAs. You can’t go seek community, as an autistic person, without encountering such cheerleading. You can’t run an autistic support group without bowing to them.

This tweet could be read as “I will immediately lose my job working to support autistic people if I’m not also trans-affirming.”

Jesus christ. I remind Jane Caro that women are vulnerable to male violence as opposed to the other way around, and she replies with stats on trans v “cis” people. I could swear she used to be a feminist.

Yet another idenniny we have to affirm and respect and fight for:

So autism is somehow linked to LGB now? Also TQ+?

How? Why? What is the link?

I started out thinking there was no link, apart from the sweeping “different,” which applies to everyone in some way, but it occurs to me that maybe the link is literalism. Trans ideology is pathologically literal about the fictitious gendered soul, and autism tends toward literalism in general. Could that be the link?

Canada is out of its tiny little mind.

From September 2020:

RUGBY CANADA PROVIDES UPDATE ON FEEDBACK TO PROPOSED TRANSGENDER GUIDELINES [pdf]

Rugby Canada has completed their feedback submission to World Rugby as part of the consultative process regarding circulated draft transgender guidelines. The submission included the full version of Rugby Canada’s Trans Inclusion Policy, as well as documented lived experiences of Canadian rugby trans participants that were consulted as part of the feedback process.

What about the documented lived experiences of Canadian rugby female participants? And what about biology and physics and what we know happens when a huge muscular man crashes into a woman?

The criterion that matters here is Trans Inclusion and not Women’s Safety.

Why?

Why is it worth breaking women’s bones and giving them concussions for the sake of trans inclusion? Why do men who say they are trans even want that? Why doesn’t the very idea make them want to puke, instead? What is wrong with people?

Rugby Canada CEO Allen Vansen stated, “Our trans inclusion policy was written and developed by Sport, Law & Strategy Group, and is aligned with the guidance document ‘Creating Inclusive Environments for Trans Participants in Canadian Sport.’ Participation in community rugby in Canada is encouraged based on the gender in which a participant identifies and is not to be subjected to requirements for disclosure of personal information beyond those required of cisgender athletes.”

Why???

Why is the inclusion of men in women’s rugby more important than the safety of women in women’s rugby? Why does male entitlement trump women’s safety? How do these damn fools sleep at night?

“As a national Union of a G7 nation, we recognize our leadership role in this area,” said Rugby Canada Board Chair Tim Powers. “Rugby Canada believes that all individuals deserve respectful and inclusive environments for participation that value the individuals’ gender identity and gender expression. We want to ensure that all participants have access to programming and facilities in which they feel comfortable and safe, and will continue to take all steps necessary to do so.”

But what about women? And their safety? How are women supposed to “feel safe” when they’re having to play rugby against men?

I’ll never understand this.

Helpful tip: if it’s 119F / 48C, outside it’s not a good time to go for a strenuous hike on a trail with no shade or water.

A Florida man and his teenage stepson died after hiking during extreme heat at Big Bend National Park in Texas, officials said.

The boy fell ill along the trail and lost consciousness, and his stepfather was killed in a car accident as he tried to find help, authorities said.

Bad stepfather. Don’t take your kids out hiking in extreme heat.

The man, 31, and his two stepsons were hiking along the Marufo Vega Trail on Friday in 119F (48C) heat when the 14-year-old fell ill. While the stepfather hiked back to his vehicle to seek help, the teen’s 21-year-old brother tried to carry him back to the trailhead, according to the National Park Service.

The Big Bend National Park’s Communications Center received a call requesting emergency assistance at about 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT). “The Marufo Vega Trail winds through extremely rugged desert and rocky cliffs within the hottest part of Big Bend National Park,” the park service said. “No shade or water makes this strenuous trail dangerous to attempt in the heat of summer.”

And this was the heat of summer under a heat dome that was breaking records, so yeah, not the time or place for strenuous exercise.

There it is.

Link

H/t NightCrow

Stoney Creek Camels Rugby Club is on Facebook.

Their most recent post is June 23, announcing the game the next day.

There is one comment on the post, but it’s “not visible” – which I surmise means it has been hidden, which I further surmise means it was a question about the man who played in the match, and perhaps about why the video of the match was made private yesterday.

It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup.

Originally a comment by Sastra on She stands by the vulnerable i.e. men.

But the platitudes about “standing by the downtrodden” only make sense from a feminist perspective if you genuinely believe that men who sincerely believe they’re women really are women. How did we get there?

Confusion, analogy, and platitudes. Such as:

1.) Women have historically been “defined by” their sex, limited by patriarchal assumptions about how having a womb means you must have babies and being physically appealing to men means they can own you as a commodity.

2.) If only people would consider women as people in their own right, regardless of what’s under their skirts! Let women make their own choices!

3.) So let’s do feminism. Let there be more choices. Choice is good. Being true to yourself is good. Recognizing that every woman is different is good. Getting rid of stereotypes is good. Separating the woman as a person from the accident of her biology is good. Letting women “define themselves” is good.

4.) Therefore, defining “woman” as a sexual category must be bad. If we trust women to know who they are that must include trusting them to know they’re women in the first place.

5.) This naturally entails that trans women are women just like a black woman is a woman or a disabled woman is a woman. If it’s difficult to believe this — well, it’s always difficult to overcome entrenched bigotry and include people who are different. Those women who don’t even try to accept other women into feminism aren’t being consistent feminists.

I think the 4th step is where the mischief gets serious.

The BBC is excited about London Pride.

Some of London’s buses and trains are being wrapped in rainbow colours as part of this year Pride celebrations. Transport for London (TfL) is launching a campaign celebrating the city’s LGBTQ community ahead of Saturday’s parade.

Those featuring on posters include Gok Wan, Bimini from RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nick Grimshaw and Queen MoJo. “We are proud to continue to support Pride by sharing Pride messages across our network,” Patricia Obinna, TfL’s director of diversity & inclusion said.

That’s nice but…has London Transport ever wrapped some of its trains and buses in feminist colors? Or celebrated the city’s female community in any way?

It seems not. If you do a Google image search for “London Transport Pride” you get a riot of colors. If you do a Google image search for “London Transport feminism” you get a rather drab mishmash.

I guess women just aren’t fun the way the LGBTQ+++++++ community is.

This is thinking deeply? I’d hate to see what shallow looks like.

By “the vulnerable” she of course means men who say they are women, as opposed to the women who say they are not.

How did we get here? How did we get to a place where adults solemnly insist that men who claim to be women are vulnerable while the women who say no they’re not are the bigoted persecutors of those poor weak vulnerable men?

“Pride”

Where we are now:

Ok. Got it. There was a man playing. Not even a “trans woman” – just a man. How did that happen? Did he just say “My name is Susie” and that was all it took? Or what? I’d love to know more.

But. We still have no indication that three women were dropped on their heads, apart from one person on Twitter saying so. Arty seems to have watched the damn thing and didn’t see any serious injuries.

Inching toward progress maybe?

I googled NRU Stoney Creek v Fergus and found a video of a match, which I shared, but she replied to say that’s the wrong match. Why not link to the right match then? I don’t know. I can’t tell if she’s playing games or just unfamiliar with how to share information on Twitter.

A first-time commenter called “anon” provided this link, which does seem to fit.

Greg Abbot condemns construction workers to death:

In a week when parts of the state are getting triple-digit temperatures and weather officials urge Texans to stay cool and hydrated, Gov. Greg Abbott gave final approval to a law that will eliminate local rules mandating water breaks for construction workers.

Abbott and the Texas legislators who wrote and passed this law are knowingly, deliberately increasing the risk of heat stroke and death for construction workers in a very hot state. The deaths will happen.

The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun. It also prevents other cities from passing such rules in the future. San Antonio has been considering a similar ordinance.

People die that way. It’s not unusual.

Texas is the state where the most workers die from high temperatures, government data shows. At least 42 workers died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers’ unions claim this data doesn’t fully reflect the magnitude of the problem because heat-related deaths are often recorded under a different primary cause of injury.

But the bosses don’t want to give away those ten minutes every four hours, so pfffffffft, let them die, there are always more crossing the border.

Unions expect heat-related deaths to go up if mandated water breaks go away.

“Construction is a deadly industry. Whatever the minimum protection is, it can save a life. We are talking about a human right,” said Ana Gonzalez, deputy director of policy and politics at the Texas AFL-CIO. “We will see more deaths, especially in Texas’ high temperatures.”

The National Weather Service is forecasting highs over 100 degrees in several Texas cities for at least the next seven days.

Never mind, Abbot and the legislators are inside with the AC going.

H/t Rev David Brindley

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Week 3.

Welcome to the new normal.

One of the things that gets brushed aside in the right’s politicization of climate change is that things don’t just get warmer; they get destabilized. Not only do weather patterns change, they become chaotic. It’s not just a different set of new temperatures and amounts of precipitation to be adapted to, but a constantly changing kaleidoscope of conditions, without enough stability for things like growing crops, which rely on particular, reliable combinations of conditions. The further our excursion from previous conditions, the more unstable things get. And this is just the agricultural realm. What happens to all of the current biomes when the patterns of flower and pollinator, plant and grazer, predator and prey are uncoupled suddenly and unpredictably? The emergence of a new, stable climate regime is unlikely to happen on a timescale convenient to human civilization; it can’t start at all until we stop doing all the things that are causing this disruption in the first place. We have to stop lighting fires before we can hope to see what might be left after the flames have gone out.

These are issues that can’t be fixed by dialing up the AC. This is food on the table stuff. At some point, those that have it will be unwilling to sell it to those that don’t, whatever the price, because you can’t eat money. Climate change denialism has always ignored these underlying issues in their preference to maintain the status quo, prioritizing the preservation of profit under business-as-usual to retooling how we do things to allow our continued survival without destroying the bio-geo-chemical basis of that survival. We’ve invented a technologically driven culture that thrives on ever accelerating change and innovation. But that culture has been dependent upon a steady, reliable basis for growing food. If we push the the Earth to the point where it becomes an ever-accelerating engine of change and “innovation,” that will erode or destroy the foundations of our being that we have taken for granted for too long. Turnabout is fair play, and the laws of physics play for keeps. We’re all along for the ride on this submarine, and its implosion is as inevitable, as that of the Ocean Gate Titan; it’ll just take a bit longer. It’s “Fuck around and find out,” writ on the largest scale we could possibly manage. Having failed to learn from the smaller scale, regional failures we’ve already passed through unnoticed, because there were still places outside the zones of failure that carried on, we’ve now graduated to disaster at a planetary level. Go us. We will suddenly discover that food doesn’t come from supermarkets, and parking lots, and highways, but from clean air, clean water, reliable rain and sunlight, and the interplay of life, climate, and geology that give rise to them.

Another man takes another place that was supposed to be for a woman.