Guardianista Kathryn Bromwich tells us what we should worry about:

Judging by column inches alone, you might be forgiven for thinking that the thing keeping women awake at night is not femicide, sexual assault, plummeting rape convictions, stalking, unequal pay, the erosion of reproductive rights, workplace discrimination, rampant online misogyny, an institutionally sexist police force, healthcare inequality, insufficient childcare provisions, or never being allowed to age.

While all these issues do get reported, a disproportionate amount of attention is given to another topic: men masquerading as trans women in order to gain access to single-sex spaces.

That’s actually not “another topic.” It’s the same topic. Men pretending to be women are relevant to femicide, sexual assault, rampant online misogyny, along with a lot of things Bromwich carefully didn’t mention, such as opportunities in sports.

Over the past few years this idea has become so pervasive it is now inescapable in the media, culture, higher education, politics and sports; Ipso research shows that reporting of trans issues increased by 400% between 2009 and 2019.

Stop right there. The idea under discussion was men in single-sex spaces. That’s a much narrower subject than “trans issues.”

Either way, though, of course “trans issues” are being reported on more. The number of people calling themselves trans has skyrocketed, just for a start. There’s a feedback loop here: trans is a hot topic so lots more people hear about it lots more often so some of them think “Heyyy, that’s for me,” so there are more people calling themselves trans, so there’s more discussion of them, so more of them think “I’m one!” and on the loop goes.

It is worth noting that trans people make up roughly 0.5% of the UK population; instances of men infiltrating women-only spaces are few and far between (in Ireland, where self-identification has been legal since 2015, there has been no discernible adverse impact).

Is this deliberate deception? She can’t really be that dim, can she? It’s not about just literal physical “spaces” – it’s about jobs and promotions and prizes and sports and politics and pretty much everything. It’s about men supplanting us in every part of life they can get at. It’s about men trying to bully us out of feminism, and often succeeding. It’s about women getting fired, punished, boycotted, berated for not agreeing that men can be women. It’s not just the toilet, it’s the ontology.

With so many real threats to women’s safety, it is confounding that this much time and attention is being lavished on a largely hypothetical risk. Every single case of someone being attacked is unacceptable, and everything must be done to protect women’s safety. Many cisgender women who support trans rights, myself included, have personal experience of sexual assault and take the topic extremely seriously. But the main threat to women comes overwhelmingly from men, not from trans women, who should not be penalised for the actions of predatory men. 

Oh dear god. Yes, the main [physical] threat to women comes overwhelmingly from men, and men who call themselves women are men. That’s the whole point. We’re being ordered, with menaces, to agree that men who say they are women are indeed women, and we refuse because men who say they are women are still men. Anyone can say anything; saying isn’t magic. Men are men, regardless of what they say.

Excluding anyone on the basis of biological difference demonstrates a spectacular failure of empathy…

Huh. Does it? So if I exclude elephants from the category “birds” that’s a spectacular failure of empathy?

Also, speaking of empathy, how about the spectacular failure of empathy of hulking men like Lia Thomas and Rachel McKinnon and Austin Killips destroying women’s sports?

What a contemptible pile of nonsense this article is.

Generous of him to provide all those selfies for free then.

Not so much circular as spiral.

If the Wickes boss had said “axe-wielding murderers are not welcome” there would have been no backlash but so what? We’re supposed to think “therefore it’s fine for the Wickes boss to say people with gender critical views are not welcome” but Tatchell’s analogy is not analogous. Knowing that men are not women is not analogous to racism.

It’s just one of those Big Lies we hear so much about, to claim that women who say men are not women are comparable to racists. Also – you know what else is not comparable to what? Genderism is not comparable to anti-racism. They’re not alike in any way.

It’s actually pretty disgusting for white men to compare themselves to Emmett Till and Medgar Evers and James Chaney. White men qua white men are not relegated to subordinate inferior exploitable status from birth because they are men. Peter Tatchell has no business appropriating anti-racism to glorify men who like to pretend to be women.

The local NPR station, KUOW, reports on a clash between virtue and profit:

The Seattle-based boutique ice cream company, Molly Moon’s, has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Seattle over alleged revenue losses during and after the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone, also known as CHOP, in 2020.

The local ice cream chain claims the city violated its constitutional rights by creating a “government-authorized invasion” and acting with “deliberate indifference towards the safety and property” of its store. The suit is seeking an unidentified amount in damages.

During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest, the Seattle Police Department left the East Precinct headquarters. Protestors then occupied a 10-block area surrounding a Molly Moon’s location.

The suit alleges that SPD’s decision to “abandon and close off” the area encouraged a “hostile occupation of the neighborhood.” It added that it left the neighborhood “unchecked by police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public.”

I remember. It didn’t motivate me to zip over there on the bus to stroll around, I have to admit. Capitol Hill (the larger neighborhood surrounding the CHOP) is always a bit raffish, seedy, noisy, grubby on and around Broadway, but part of the joke here is that the rest of it contains some of the oldest biggest grandest mansions in the city, dating from the early 20th century when magnates were flaunting their magnatehood. I guess that’s “multicultural” yeah?

Due to fears of more violence and safety concerns, the store closed for multiple days. In the past, CEO Molly Moon Neitzel stated that she supports police reform.

In a statement, Molly Moon said the suit is not meant to undermine protestor’s messages.

Cool cool. Can you say “having it both ways”?

H/t Sastra

Originally a comment by Rob on Fundamentally unjust.

I listened to an interview yesterday with Jenny Nguyen. She’s a chef who has opened a bar in Portland called the Sports Bra, that plays only women’s sport on the screens and is billed as inclusive. Jenny is a lesbian and played basketball as a youth. She says the bar is not a lesbian bar, but it is designed for lesbians, but anyone can come.

During the interview she was asked about trans women in women’s sport. She replied that it was her, and the bar’s, position that TWAW. When pressed about the advantage that TW retain, she said she didn’t know anything about that, but given what TW and ‘others in that space’ tell her about the difficulty in being trans, she was sure that any claimed benefits would be negated by those other difficulties. Frankly I wanted to scream at the willful ignorance and obvious grovelling deference to trans. Also, the way she referred to terfs you could feel the disgust and contempt, so clearly gender critical women, even if lesbian, are not welcome in her inclusive space.

It is though possibly symptomatic of the position of many non-trans supporters of that movement. They so desperately want to be kind and include these poor downtrodden most victimised people, that they blind themselves to any contrary information, refuse to process the arguments against the claims, ‘other’ those who are gender critical (all while imagining that they are committing genocide). People like that are unlikely to be peaked anytime soon. It was unsaid, but I think pretty obvious that in the cause of supporting trans women, if that means a few girls and women have to be thrown under the bus, well, that’s the price to pay for a good cause.

Replies are hilarious, I’m afraid I’m going to have to share more of them.

Oh no! What damn fools have been cheering on the Orcas?! They’ll be up here ramming our windows next! What were people thinking?!!

Orcas are not on social media? Oh come on now – I like a contrarian as much as the next person but there’s a limit.

Sometimes people just don’t think things through.

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

Think it through, liberals in Hamtramck (pronounced Hamtrammick). Are you sure a theocratic city council is what you want? Not all Muslims are theocrats, of course, but some are, and it’s a very theocratic-leaning religion. I wouldn’t rejoice for a second if Seattle elected a Catholic-majority city council, or a Southern Baptist-majority one, or a Haredi Jewish-majority one.

This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

What I’m saying. “Muslim” means something. There are secular Muslims, who view their Muslimitude as an ethnic identity or similar. Many Jews and Christians are like that. But it’s risky to assume everyone is.

Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

See, just because Trump enjoys bullying Muslim immigrants doesn’t mean all Muslims are warm caring pillars of tolerance.

While Hamtramck is still viewed as a bastion of multiculturalism, the difficulties of local governance and living among neighbors with different cultural values quickly set in following the 2015 election.

Whew. So close to getting the point but it flew right past. News flash: multiculturalism means different cultural values. You know what that means? Values you don’t share, values you hate, values that are bad values. It sounds like such a friendly word but sometimes different cultural values cannot be reconciled. How had the liberals of Hamtramck not noticed that?

“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”

It’s sad. People really do need to take on board the fact that religions can be cruel, harsh, narrow, unjust, wrong on the facts and the morals. They’re not just a bit of color; they have substance, lots of it.

This is hilarious, if only Pink News could see it. Demi Lovato stopped “using gender neutral pronouns” because omigod it was so exhausting. I’m pretty sure I know why it was so exhausting.

Demi Lovato, who now uses both she/her and they/them pronouns, publicly came out as non-binary with a preference for they/them pronouns in a moving video in May 2021, just weeks after coming out as pansexual.

Oh I bet that was tremendously moving. It’s always moving watching narcissists tell us all about their pronouns and opinions and struggles and feelings. It’s especially moving that it was just weeks after she came out as pansexual. We should all start coming out as things; apparently it’s very important and moving. I’ll start: I’m coming out as fond of sunsets.

Since then, the “Cool for the Summer” singer has reflected on their gender fluidity as feeling “equally masculine and feminine” and their approach to keeping their identity “open and free” as their gender evolves over time.

Oh oh oh have they? That sounds so unique and fascinating and profound and new.

In May 2022, they made headlines again after quietly updating their pronouns to include she/her again on their Instagram bio. At the time they clarified that they weren’t “paying attention” to the reaction of “ignorant people”, and later added that the pronoun change was due to “feeling more feminine” in an interview with Tamara Dhia on the Spout podcast.

They made headlines? For that? Really?

“I constantly had to educate people and explain why I identified with those pronouns. It was absolutely exhausting,” the 30-year-old singer-songwriter told GQ.

“I just got tired. But for that very reason I know that it is important to continue spreading the word.”

No wait hang on. It’s the other way around. The reason it was so absolutely exhausting is that you were talking complete bullshit. That’s why you had to keep explaining. You see? If you decide to have boutique pronouns for yourself, and you run around announcing the fact, people are going to ask questions. If you want a quiet life without question-exhaustion, skip the boutique parts of speech. It works wonders.

Elsewhere in the interview, they shared their exhaustion at the lack of gender-neutral spaces and the difficulties navigating everyday life as a genderqueer person forced to conform to binary ideas of gender.

“I face this every day,” the Grammy-nominated artist continued. “For example, in public toilets. Having to access the women’s bathroom, even though I don’t completely identify with it.”

Jesus christ. I’ve run out of scornful jokes. These people are so pathetic. Go donate to Ukrainian refugees, campaign against fossile fuels (without glueing yourself to any art works), climb a mountain, watch a sunset, read a book. Do things that aren’t about you.

Pink News sneers at female athletes for wanting fair competition.

An athlete declaring herself the “fastest girl in Connecticut” is suing the state after she lost a race to a trans athlete.

A male athlete. She doesn’t care that he’s trans, she cares that he’s a male competing in female races. Pink News would care too if it had any sense, because there would be less resistance to trans ideology if it gave a damn about fairness to women.

A reference guide for the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) policy states that it would be “fundamentally unjust” to prevent trans athletes from taking part in gender-specific sports categories.

Again. Never mind about trans athletes, just keep males out of women’s sports.

Since filing the complaint, [Chelsea] Mitchell has said on multiple occasions, including in an opinion piece for Fox News, that the lawsuit is about “decrying the unfairness” she claims occurred due to transgender competitors being able to run against cis women.

Again. Not “transgender competitors”; male competitors. The issue isn’t transgender, it’s male. It’s trans ideology that has so many people deluded that men in women’s sports is fair, but the lawsuit is about male competitors.

Defending both Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood is the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut (ACLU), which has said the plaintiff’s arguments are “filled with hypotheticals”.

ACLU LGBTQ+ and HIV Project staff attorney Joshua Block said: “The facts are that these plaintiffs repeatedly outperformed Andraya and Terry, and won an impressive collection of first place trophies in the process.

“There is enough room on the victory podium for transgender girls too,” Block continued. “Under Title IX, all girls, including transgender girls, should be able to participate fully and equally in athletics, in accordance with who they are.”

But transgender girls aren’t girls, which is the whole point. Yes they should be able to participate fully and equally in athletics in accordance with who they are, but who they are is young men.

Updating to add: apologies for the abrupt beginning plus lack of source. I’d been going back and forth between video and a transcript so maybe I thought I’d done a previous post with the sources. US Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did a briefing June 14 at which a reporter asked:

“Does the White House worry about the physical safety of females directly competing against males in sports?”

It’s a complicated issue, says Jean-Pierre. She cites giving schools “flexibility to establish their own athletic policies while establishing guardrails to prevent discrimination against transgender kids.”

That is not what he asked. She carefully ignored what he asked. Why did she do that? Why is it more urgent for schools to have “flexibility” than it is for girls to be safe from boys crashing into them in their sports? Why is it more urgent for the White House Press Secretary to make soothing generalizations while not answering the question about girls’ safety?

She talks about a period for public comment and sums up with “But we do understand this is a complicated issue.” Actually it isn’t, or it shouldn’t be. Just go on having separate sports for girls, for their safety and for their opportunities to win. It’s not complicated.

The question asker responds by pressing the point about the girls’ safety.

“So look,” Jean-Pierre says with a sigh, “what you’re alluding to is basically saying that trans kids are dangerous.”

There it is again, right there – The Big Lie. No he’s not “alluding to” that, he’s saying boys‘ playing against girls is dangerous for the girls for the reasons we’ve all known all our lives.

The question-asker protests and Jean-Pierre says “Well you’re saying that their safety is at risk. You’re laying out a kind of broad example or explanation of what could potentially happen, a broad a broad of what could take place; that is dangerous, that is a dangerous thing to say, that essentially transgender kids we’re talking about are dangerous.”

STOP THAT. Not transgender kids; boys in girls’ sports. Stop lying about it!

“and so that’s something I have to call out,” she says smugly. “That is irresponsible.” He protests and she says she just laid out “how complicated it is” and then cuts him off.

It’s fucking outrageous.

So it really is forbidden to talk about LGB, even when LGB is in fact the subject.

But but but but what if it’s a study about LGB people? What if the study is just not about trans people? Isn’t it ok to report on the study?

Apparently not.

That’s very very very interesting.

It’s interesting the other disciplines/professions don’t grasp that it’s good to say you don’t know when you don’t know. It’s interesting that they’re more self-protective and less thoughtful. It’s interesting that they haven’t internalized the fact that winging it is bad, because it risks disinforming. It’s interesting that the truth takes second place to the ego.

Epistemology should be at the heart of education. What do you know and how do you know it? Do you know how to confirm or disconfirm what you know? Do you check your sources? Do you mistake assertion for truth? It all matters.

If people were taught from the outset that they can’t know everything, that it’s better to learn than to pretend to know already, that we’re all easily fooled, and above all that an assertion, no matter how confident, isn’t true just because it’s an assertion…we’d all be better off.

I suppose we have Chase Strangio to thank for this bulletin:

Opposing the death penalty is one thing, and whining about “medically necessary gender-affirming care” is another, when the gender-haver was a rapist and murderer. Citing the rapist murderer’s “enormous suffering” while not citing the victims’ enormous suffering is grotesque.

More mystifying than ever. He must think he looks fabulous or he wouldn’t tweet it but…

Onlookers don’t think he looks fabulous, and wonder why he has a bikini strap growing out of his neck.

Remember, kids, this is a man age 57. What men age 57 do you know who tweet photos of themselves simpering in bathing suits?

All the rest of his time he spends bullying women on social media. Weird fella.

Dude.

Newsflash, OJ. You know who else is defying the expectations attached to the gender sex on our birth certificate? Feminist women, that’s who. We’ve been doing it for years and years and years, decades, centuries. You didn’t invent it, gay men didn’t invent it, trans people sure as hell didn’t invent it. Women too suffer bigotry because we defy those expectations – including yours. You expect us to shut up, to comply, to listen to you instead of ourselves. It’s all very standard, very masculine, very gender expectationsy. You’re not the radical hero you think you are.

My country Our candidate right or wrong. Sign the loyalty oath or lose your job.

Top Republican Party officials have a message for any candidate worried about signing a loyalty pledge to potentially support a convicted felon: There’s the door.

…

In light of Donald Trump’s indictment for his handling of classified documents, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s campaign on Wednesday requested a meeting with RNC officials about amending the loyalty pledge.

An aide took the meeting; the RNC said forget it buddy.

In a statement, RNC senior adviser Richard Walters said the GOP primary candidates are only “being asked to respect the decision of Republican primary voters and support the eventual nominee.”

So if Republican primary voters pick the worst human being on the planet, good Republicans respect that.

“Candidates who are complaining about this to the press should seriously reconsider their priorities and whether they should even be running,” Walters said.

Yeah, priorities, people. What’s the priority? Winning. It doesn’t matter what you win, so long as you win.

Carla Jaeger seems to have a bit of a specialty in reporting on men who claim to be trans invading women’s sports. Her specialty is carefully concealing the fact that she’s talking about men invading women’s sports. I shared today’s entry; there’s another from four days ago.

In March, Harcourt and Robinson formed part of the three-person panel assembled by Basketball Australia to assess the eligibility of transgender basketballer Lexi Rodgers, who applied to join the semi-professional WNBL1 South league. The application was rejected after a near-month long assessment.

Yebbut transgender how? Which kind of transgender?

She doesn’t say. Not only does she not say here at first mention, she never says. She never once spells out that Lexi Rodgers is a trans woman aka a man. Why not? I can only conclude because she or her editors or both are hell bent on promoting men in women’s sports at the expense of women in women’s sports, and willing to do bad journalism in service to this cause.

When empathy comes up, it’s all for the men who say they are women. Women don’t get any empathy.

Compelled by her recent work with transgender athletes (a “really rewarding experience”), Robinson – a professor at the University of Notre Dame – said above all, the issue must be approached with empathy, sensitivity and with an informed mindset.

“The [transgender] athletes I’ve dealt with thus far are very genuine. They’re very keen,” Robinson said.

That’s nice, but what about the women athletes? Why no empathy and sensitivity for them?

Harcourt said: “The gains in women’s sport is significant, and we don’t want to lose that. Not that I think transgender [inclusion] is a risk of that – it’s not, not at all.

“But I don’t think people realise that yet.”

Probably because it’s a big honking lie.

The joys of commerce. Nice Frogtees promotes its line of “or I will stab you” merch.

I wonder if they have any others in that vein. Move to the back of the bus or I will stab you? Get on the train to Auschwitz or I will stab you? End the strike or I will stab you? Stay south of the Rio Grande or I will stab you? Stop screaming and spread your legs or I will stab you? Obey the tyrant or we will stab you?

The text that accompanies this festive threat is slightly discordant.

This is the newest Respect My Pronouns Or I Will Stab You Shirt, hoodie, sweater, tank top and long sleeve tee. These items are created by the design team of Nicefrogtees Store. It is the best gift for you, your friends and your family as well. This item is for men, women, kids, adults, from XS to 5XL. It is a limited edition product so you can buy it for yourself or your loved ones as a gift.

This is our best seller for a reason. Relaxed, tailored and ultra-comfortable, you’ll love the way you look in this durable, reliable classic. Comfortable and light, this premium product is the best choice. High-quality print adds a statement to one’s workout or everyday routine.

Journalism simply refuses to report on this subject honestly or accurately. The Age on “Australia’s new sports trans guidelines”:

Transgender athlete Hannah Mouncey has declared Australia’s new guidelines for elite trans athletes as the best and most detailed that she’s seen.

The issue isn’t “trans athletes.” The issue is males in female sports. Journalism simply will not say that.

However, the guidelines, developed by the Australian Institute of Sport to guide Australia’s sporting codes on what to do when transgender athletes seek to join elite competitions, were condemned in a scathing statement from the Queer Sporting Alliance.

Not transgender athletes; male athletes in female elite competitions. They know this but refuse to say it.

At a time when the inclusion of transgender athletes is at the centre of a polarising debate, further complicated by the politicisation of trans rights, these new guidelines are intended to create a consistent and fair approach that balance the interests of inclusion and the integrity of sport in Australia.

Still lying, still concealing the actual issue, still presenting it as being mean to transgender athletes.

Mouncey, an elite handballer whose bid to join the AFL was rejected, said the guidelines were the best and most thoughtful that she’s seen.

Why was his bid rejected? The Age carefully doesn’t say.

In the guidelines, the AIS states that an outright ban of transgender athletes from a sport – similar to policies introduced by World Aquatics (formerly FINA) or World Athletics – could be in breach of Australia’s anti-discrimination laws. Instead, the framework emphasises the need for case-by-case assessments of trans athletes.

Again. Issue not transgender athletes. Issue male athletes in women’s sports.

They are not compulsory, however, and emphasise the assessment and eligibility of transgender athletes in professional settings is dependent on the sport. This is because what is considered advantageous differs from sport to sport.

But above all it differs depending on which sex we’re talking about.

The guidelines also recommend a testosterone threshold of 2.5 nanomoles per litre for a minimum of two years, a stricter threshold than the majority of Australian sports’ current policies. However, the guidelines include wiggle room for sports that rely less on explosive and physical power, as experts emphasise the nuance required when addressing trans eligibility in elite sport.

Finally a hint that the issue might have something to do with male athletes destroying women’s sports, but it’s a very secretive veiled hint.

Olympic swimmers McKeown and Groves have also come out in public support of transgender inclusion at the elite level.

Now that’s just weird. It’s the first mention of these two names, and we don’t know what sex they are. In contrast…

“I’m all for allowing trans athletes to compete in sport and giving them equal opportunity to pursue their dreams, have fun and compete to the best of their ability,” McKeown said. “After all, isn’t that what sports are all about?”

Groves added: “Australia prides itself on being a country that gives people a fair go, we should never deny people opportunities because of their gender … Trans people deserve to play sport like anyone else.”

Others, including Katherine Deves, the one-time Liberal candidate who has been criticised for inflammatory and offensive language used against transgender people, described the guidelines as a “betrayal” to women’s sport.

At long last a woman gets to say something, but she is called evil first so that we’ll be sure to understand that we have to ignore what she says.

It’s a staggeringly dishonest article.