Yet again I wonder…how do adults let themselves get to this point?

But there is no such “right.” That has never been a right. For blindingly obvious reasons. Everybody could have claimed to be the local landowner, and then what? Everybody could have claimed to be the king, the pope, the admiral, the owner of the bank, your sister, your daughter, your mother, a daffodil, a planet – the list is infinite. There is no “right” to “be the thing they say they are.” We don’t have the right to be David Andress even if we say we are.

This is obvious obvious obvious. Everybody knows it’s obvious. Yet somehow adults go on saying it. Why? How?

Narcissistic bossy guy who pretends to be a woman tells a woman what she can say about women.

Jonathan Willoughby thinks he gets to tell JK Rowling to stop “hiding behind” the word “women.” Jonathan Willoughby is the one pretending to be a woman here, while Rowling is the actual woman talking about the way women are bullied and punished for speaking up. Willoughby’s way of persuading us that women are not bullied and punished for speaking up is to bully and punish Rowling in public. Very convincing!

Oh ffs. If you don’t understand something that basic go do something else. Leave women alone. Go shout at magpies or the man on the telly or the sky. Leave us alone.

But the issue here is not objects, it's feelings. If Dr Stock says she feels she is a lesbian we believe her. Why then do we not believe a trans woman when she says she feels like a woman? Both are responding to a sensibility at odds with their biological reality

— Billy Bragg (@billybragg) May 31, 2023

Because saying you’re a lesbian (or a gay man) is not an extraordinary claim. Same-sex attraction and love has been known about for literally thousands of years. and it doesn’t require any magic to get over the incredible bits. A man saying he’s a woman is an extraordinary claim. There’s a well known rule about extraordinary claims: go find it.

Also Stock doesn’t say she “feels she is a lesbian.” That’s your gloss so that you could compare it to “feeling” one is a woman when one is not. Stock doesn’t feel she is a lesbian, she is one.

Compare like with like. It’s a simple and useful rule for arguments.

Reminder, or new information if you didn’t know it: if you want to joke or gossip about something entirely irrelevant to a serious post, the place for that is not the serious post but the Miscellany Room.

Madeline Grant at the Times on Ed Balls trying to patronize Kathleen Stock:

Given the crisis unfolding in UK daytime TV, I shouldn’t have been surprised to turn on Good Morning Britain and be confronted with a bona fide monster. To her detractors on social media, Prof Kathleen Stock is the ultimate bogeywoman.

One of them. Let’s not forget JKR, and Maya, and Julie, and Allison, and – they are many.

You’ll be shocked – I repeat, shocked – to hear that Twitter doesn’t reflect reality. Instead, what GMB viewers saw was a clear thinker and lucid speaker with a dry and understated wit. Perhaps all those years of harassment and intimidation by maniacs have afforded Stock a certain gallows humour.

Her interviewer was Ed Balls, a former MP, who in recent years has undergone a considerable rebrand, from Brownite bruiser to the comforting voice of breakfast television. But it seems old habits die hard. Balls repeatedly insisted that Stock’s position – that humans cannot change biological sex – represents an extreme view. “I think I do know what most people think,” he smirked.

Men telling women that it’s “extreme” to know that men are not women. How did we get here so fast when it took women decades to pry the door open just a little?

She asked Balls to explain why he purports to speak for everyone. He could not, and his blustery attempts at self-justification quickly and embarrassingly backfired.

Balls’s manner will be familiar to many women who’ve engaged in arguments with a certain type of progressive man.

There’s the faint sneer, the knowing air; muscular centrism, at the point of a verbal bayonet.

In other words the clueless assumption of superiority.

The Times on That Debate:

The choice of Nancy Sinatra’s song These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ was a crude threat. It blasted out of speakers deployed by extremist members of the trans lobby as Kathleen Stock entered the Oxford Union to take part in a debate yesterday. As admirers of the 1966 hit will recall, it promises: “And one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.”

On the one hand they’re the most persecuted fragile vulnerable tragic people who’ve ever lived, on the other hand they’re going to walk all over feminist women. I’m not sure those two claims can be made compatible.

Dr Stock was backed by the prime minister before her appearance in Oxford. Defending the need for tolerance, Rishi Sunak said: “University should be an environment where debate is supported, not stifled. We mustn’t allow a small but vocal few to shut down discussion.” Quite right.

What is concerning is that Mr Sunak was not joined in this rallying cry by Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davey. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have both fallen prey to trans-McCarthyism, their leaders locked in an insane belief system that makes it impossible for them to acknowledge the biological sovereignty of women. 

I’m not sure what they mean by “the biological sovereignty of women.” Labour and the Lib Dems have signed up to an insane belief system that makes it impossible for them to acknowledge that men remain men and that women have the right to campaign for our own rights rather than the purported right of some men to pretend to be women while shoving women out of the way.

The UK’s National Education Union aka NEU issued a statement yesterday, no doubt as a hex against the danger of all those witches running around talking about women and our rights. It’s a breathtaking piece of writing, especially coming from an organization that links itself to education.

The statement is a statement on transphobia. The statement states that it is

A clear expression of the union’s commitment to protecting trans members from harassment and offensive conduct.

Then it defines transpobia.

Transphobia is the fear or dislike of someone based on the fact that they are or are perceived of [sic] as trans or trans allies. It can take place through words or actions, expressing itself as harassment or hatred or in discriminatory practices and behaviours. 

Transphobic behaviour will amount to harassment where the complainant reasonably perceives it as creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

That’s the bit I discussed a few hours ago, to note that the ideologues of transism are willing and eager to see “offensive” words or acts anywhere and everywhere. There are no limits on what the ideologues will consider “offensive.” They consider the simple fact that men are not women “offensive.” The breadth of this definition of transphobia amounts to saying nobody who isn’t already a trans ideologue is allowed to say a single word on the subject.

Note also that it’s transphobic even to dislike someone who is a trans ally. Suddenly it’s transphobic to think Owen Jones and Jolyon Maugham are condescending misogynist pigs.

The NEU goes on to explain its use of the word “trans.”

We go further than the Equality Act 2010 and define trans to mean people whose gender is inconsistent with the sex they were registered at birth. Trans people need not have had any medical transition to be considered trans. They may describe themselves using a variety of terms including non-binary and gender non-conforming.

In short there is no criterion. None. How do we know which people have a gender that’s inconsistent with the sex they were registered at birth? We don’t. Therefore we have to assume everyone is trans, and say nothing about the subject to anyone at any time, lest we be convicted of “transphobia” on the spot.

Then we get a short prayer.

The NEU’s commitment to protecting trans rights

We accept and acknowledge that trans identities are real and valid. We recognize and condemn the harm that transphobic behaviour causes.

Just in case that wasn’t clear already.

Then a reminder of the “impact” of “transphobia”:

The effects of transphobic behaviour are broad and far-reaching. Transphobia can prevent people from living full and open lives, comfortably as themselves and free from harm. It creates barriers in society and in the workplace. 

What kind of barriers? What a transphobic question – the kind that come from not validating people’s personal fantasies about themselves. IT IS MANDATORY TO VALIDATE PEOPLE’S FANTASIES ABOUT THEMSELVES.

Then we get a startlingly copious list of examples of transphobic behaviour.

• -The intentional or repeated mis-gendering of trans people (whether or not that person is present);
• -Abusing trans people whether through mockery, innuendo, insults, jokes or demeaning comments or malicious gossip about trans identity and practices;
• -Intrusive questioning;
• -Seeking to remove trans people from discussions about issues which directly affect them; 
• -Ostracising trans people on grounds of their trans status;
• -Forcing or pressurizing trans people to participate in discussions of trans identity against their wishes; 
• -Spreading the idea that being trans is a contagion or a plague;
• -Failing to listen respectfully to trans voices including those of trans children about their choices and identity.

Comprehensive indeed.

Holding and expressing gender critical views 

Nothing in this definition is intended to contravene the protections given to all protected groups under the Equality Act 2010. The NEU rejects all discrimination and recognizes that holding and expressing gender critical views is protected by law under the Equality Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, Articles 9 and 10. This means holders of these views can express them freely, as long as they do so in a respectful manner, avoiding creating an environment which is hostile or discriminatory to trans people.

And who decides? Who decides that our expressions of our views on this subject are conveyed in a respectful manner that avoids creating an environment which is hostile or discriminatory to trans people?

And is there any rule against creating an environment which is hostile or discriminatory to women?

H/t Papito.

Updating to add: The NEU instituted this policy last October, and I did a (too polite) post about it.

But they perceive everything as offensive. They perceive reality as offensive.

Also there’s the hur hur she’s a man approach.

Cath Leng points out that actually the Channel 4 program took a very trans activist-friendly view of the core issue.

It’s not an opinion that men are not women, it’s a fact. That matters.

Pink News et al. please note.

That letter, the one signed by Stephen Whittle and Finn McKay among others – it’s remarkably bad. Couldn’t they find someone to write a literate and coherent few hundred words? If they could, why didn’t they?

On Tuesday 30 May 2023, C4 is screening a documentary with the title ‘Gender Wars’.

We, the undersigned transgender and non-binary (TNB)people are featured in the documentary,

·   DID NOT AGREE to take part in the documentary viewers will see, and

·   would NOT HAVE AGREED to take part in any documentary focused on Kathleen Stock.

Either omit “are” before “featured in the documentary” or add “and” after it. For cryin’ out loud.

We wish to clarify to our peers within the TNB community that we were not told the true nature of the documentary. It was only on seeing the first preview, in late April, that we become aware of the true nature of the film.

Don’t say “the true nature of” twice in two sentences.

On seeing the previews  all shocked and have expressed our dismay and anger to those responsible.

All shocked, eh? All shocked what? Or whom?

Then there’s the substance, which is dumb.

Stephen Whittle originally declined to take part after his previous experience of working with C4 in 2018 on the much-critiqued Genderquake debate. That programme had ramped up the increasingly toxic rhetoric about the right to existence and non-discrimination of trans and non-binary people.

Nobody is saying anybody doesn’t have “the right to existence.” If you can’t make your case without these moronic lies then what does that say about your case?

We all made it clear in our conversations with Pamela Gordon that we wanted to move away from any debate or questioning of our lives, our existence, or our rights.

It’s not the lives, the existence, the rights. It’s the ideology. The debate is about the ideology, and what flows from it. There is no “right” to force everyone to endorse other people’s fantasies about themselves. If there were, everyone would say “I’m King Charles, now give me all that money.” There wouldn’t be enough money to go around, so it would fall apart before it got started.

Maya sums it up:

Lucy Mangan at the Guardian on “Gender Wars”:

Channel 4 has bitten the bullet and is the first, I think, to produce a programme giving voice to both sides of what is usually called “the trans issue”. However, the first problem it faces is that “the trans issue” is actually about 400 issues packed into one, which has partly contributed to the endless difficulties in approaching, let alone resolving, it.

What are some of them? The incompatibility with women’s rights of course. The fact that it’s not true. The damage people do to their bodies trying to make it true. The entitlement that seems to go with it for so many. The maudlin hyperbolic rhetoric. The unwarranted belligerence. The boredom.

The fact that it’s not true is a real stumbling block, frankly. If we weren’t expected to pretend it is true then it might not be – it might be just another branch of fantasy, another Let’s Pretend for adults. If it were that it probably wouldn’t also be the new pet cause of the Left, and “activists” wouldn’t be constantly trying to ruin our lives because we can’t believe it. It would just be some people’s kink, and not of interest to anyone else.

But that’s not where we are.

Wisely, Gender Wars does not try to cover everything. It looks at the phrase “trans women are women” and the ramifications, if it is to be taken not as a catchy slogan, embodying the idea that everyone should be allowed to dress, present and live as they choose, but as literal truth and the central plank of an increasingly popular and powerful ideology.

What I’m saying. It’s the literal truth bit that makes it such a poisoned apple.

We were talking earlier about existential cuteness and puppy videos.

Channel 4 (UK)’s Gender Wars aired a couple of hours ago and was apparently very good, and not one long rant about terfs.

Not available over here alas.

the roof?

No, sir, this is wrong.

The guy with glasses and a microphone asks the guy in the purple top what he has made of what’s happening, particularly of “the professor, who’s come here to be part of a debate.” Purple top guy laughs a skeptical laugh and says “When you listen to that phrase itself, ‘a debate,’ a debate about, uh, trans existence, trans rights – if we were to talk about black people, and debate your existence, how would you feel – you know, people frame it as the transgender issue, the transgender debate, the trans question – if we were to ask that of black people or Jewish people”

Let me stop you right there.

They’re not the same.

Black people and Jewish people aren’t making any extraordinary claims about themselves. There is no magic involved, no mysterious form of “identity” that contradicts the body, no black or Jewish “soul” that doesn’t match the known facts. There may be people whose claim to be black or Jewish is iffy, or just plain fraudulent, but there is no matching ideology that says “You are what you feel, not what the facts say you are.” In particular there is no mob of “activists” insisting that white people who “identify as” black are more persecuted and attacked than black people are.

This difference between the two is important.

Oooooooh Hi yourself, cutie. Aren’t you just adorable?!

Just look at the lovely little fella. The bent knee/pointed toe – isn’t that sweet? The hand behind the head – so so cute! The darling pink shorts, the rakish denim shirt tied rakishly in a rakish knot, the darling winsome smile – he’s a far better woman than all you stubborn boring women who don’t take selfies with Pointed Toe.

Suzanne Moore says the empire is tottering at last.

Susie Green, the former chief executive of Mermaids, who stood down “unexpectedly” last year, has been hiding in plain sight for so long that I sincerely hope we can see her clearly now. How this woman was ever allowed to have so much influence over vulnerable children, never mind medical professionals, is frankly disturbing. 

No medical training yet she bossed the medical professionals around and they asked her for more.

We now find that Green herself had direct influence on policy at the gender identity development service (GIDS) at the Tavistock. After being told that the Tavistock [claimed it] did not have any records of meeting with Green, when threatened by court action, miraculously it found 300 pages of them.

Which means the Tavistock has revealed itself to have lied about what records it has. That’s got to be at least embarrassing.

They reveal that Green spoke directly to the director Dr Polly Carmichael, had advisory roles on two studies and – most scandalous of all – could refer children for treatment at the clinic even when their own GPs had repeatedly advised against it. The Cass Review, remember, effectively shut down GIDS as it was not fit for purpose.

It was fit for Susie Green’s purpose, and probably no one else’s.

None of this is really about the trans rights of adults. It is about the pushing of extreme gender ideology onto distressed children. Any basic model of safeguarding has gone out of the window. It is a complete negation of the duty to ‘Do No Harm’ and at its centre is a woman who should never, ever have been given any authority.

I really hope that for Susie Green, the game is finally up.

A consummation devoutly to be wished.

JK Rowling says Patrick Strudwick told a huge brazen lie.

It’s one of those new long tweets that subscribers get to do.

As @PatrickStrud has blocked me on here (we’ve never, to my knowledge, interacted on Twitter or anywhere else) I can’t challenge him directly about the claim he published in iNews (see below) that a Let Women Speak event in Australia ‘staged a mass Nazi salute’. This is a lie so brazen, so easily disprovable and so libellous, I’m amazed it was allowed into print by a supposedly reputable news source.

For years now, women and gay people concerned about the erosion of their rights, the dismantling of safeguarding and the escalating threats and violence of trans activists have been called ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis’ by people like Strudwick for holding what, until five minutes ago, were solidly left-wing/feminist political positions. Nobody but useful idiots can be genuinely surprised that REAL fascists have spotted a glorious opportunity in trans activism. The homophobic, anti-feminist far-right has long held that the left is degenerate, foolish, immoral and authoritarian, and now they can point to the incoherent arguments of the gender ideologues, the bullying tactics of the no-platformers and the swarms of masked men threatening violence against women for wanting to retain single-sex spaces, and crow ‘we told you so’.

It’s true.

Actual Nazis have turned up on the fringes of Let Women Speak events for exactly the same reason aggressive, narcissistic trans activists are there. These groups closely resemble each other. Both are rife with misogynistic opportunists who’re using a clash of rights to push their own agendas, both are there in the hope of violence, and neither gives a damn about the women who’re there to speak out in their own voices, about their own lives, on their own behalf. It’s high time those peddling lies like Strudwick’s are held accountable and I sincerely hope @ThePosieParker takes action.

I await developments with interest.

Yes but no one says trans rights are not human rights. Trans people have human rights. The issue is fancy new bespoke rights that aren’t rights at all, because they trample on everyone else’s rights.

Guest post by Jonathan A. Gallant

Some children, particularly at early ages, like to imagine themselves being cats, dogs, lambs, or other lovable animals, and they display their choice by making appropriate animal noises. 

I have established a foundation to help empower such children in their new identity.  The program, which we call affirmative affirmation, provides psychological affirmation, instruction about the animal of choice, imitation fur, and such medical interventions—pharmacological, dermatological, and surgical—as may become available as cutting-edge research in this exciting new area proceeds.  Contributions to the foundation can be sent directly to me, preferably in cash.  We accept $, but no longer accept British, Swedish or Finnish currency.