The ACLU rejoices that girls will be forced to take their clothes off in front of boys.

Trans students must have access to bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender, but there is zero need for girls to have access to bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their sex. Why is that exactly?

Peter Tatchell tries to LGBT+ a Jewish lesbian who escaped the Nazis.

She did not become an “LGBT+” activist. She was a lesbian activist.

David Semple in The Guardian November 5, 2013:

My friend Sharley McLean, the lesbian activist, has died aged 90. She was born Lotte Reyersbach in Oldenburg, north Germany, and escaped to Britain on the Kindertransport in 1939. Her father, Franz, a socialist, and her Jewish mother, Grete, were both killed in the Holocaust. Her gay uncle, Kurt Bach, died, wearing a pink triangle, in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

…

After 1945, Sharley continued working for the NHS, and had two children. In 1950, following a breakdown and an unsuccessful attempt to take her own life, she was told by a psychologist that she was a lesbian. This came as a shock, and when she later visited the Gateways, a lesbian club in Chelsea, she felt she didn’t fit in with the tweedy women she met there. But in 1953, she began a relationship with a West Indian woman, Georgina, which lasted for 24 years, although Sharley carried on living with her husband. Divorce would have meant losing her children.

Georgina’s death in 1977 was a body blow; Georgina had kept her sexuality secret and her family refused to allow Sharley to attend the funeral. But she threw herself into political activism, working for the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and later the Terrence Higgins Trust. In 1982, she founded the Hyde Park Gays and Sapphics and gave public speeches from a rickety stepladder at Speakers’ Corner every Sunday for more than 20 years. She showed great courage and enriched many lives by speaking about gay rights at a major London tourist attraction, week after week, to a largely hostile crowd.

Gay rights. Lesbian rights. Gays and Sapphics. Don’t thrust the T on people who are dead and can’t consent.

What fresh hell is this?

“PLANET GIRL” is pink – “PLANET BOY” is blue – now there’s progressive for ya!

“Which planet were you sent to as a baby?”

I beg your fucking pardon?

Why is “NON-BINARY PLANET” much bigger than PLANET GIRL and PLANET BOY and also the original or parent planet that the inferior two are sprouting out of?

The people from PLANET IDIOT need to go away and stop messing with children.

It should have happened years ago! He’s not wrong there.

Trump continues to do whatever he wants all the time.

t Donald Trump’s arraignment last Thursday for trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election, magistrate judge Moxila A Upadhyaya warned him that he could be taken into custody if he violated the conditions of his release, including attempting to influence jurors or intimidate future witnesses.

…

The judge then warned Trump: “You have heard your conditions of release. It is important you comply. You may be held pending trial in this case if you violate the conditions of release.”

She asked Trump: “Do you understand these warnings and consequence, sir? Are you prepared to comply?”

Trump responded: “Yes.”

But not 24 hours later, Trump posted on social media a message that could be understood as an attempt to influence potential jurors or retaliate against any witness prepared to testify against him: He wrote: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

More than could be, I think. He’s facing a trial. He’s been told not to try to influence or intimidate jurors. He shouts a threat on social media. Can jurors feel 100% confident that he doesn’t mean that threat for them? I don’t think so.

On Friday evening, prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith asked the court for a protective order to stop Trump from making public any of the information they were about to deliver to his lawyers under the discovery phase of the upcoming criminal trial, such as the names of witnesses who will testify against him.

…

On Saturday, the presiding judge in the case, Judge Tanya Chutkan, ordered that Trump’s lawyers respond to the prosecutor’s request for a protective order by 5pm Monday.

All through the weekend, Trump continued to threaten potential witnesses.

“WOW, it’s finally happened! Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him VP, has gone to the Dark Side,” he posted Saturday.

And Trump hasn’t stopped attempting to obstruct justice.

On Sunday he called Jack Smith “deranged”, and in another all-caps message he accused Smith of waiting to bring the case until “right in the middle” of his election campaign.

In another post he asserted that he would never get a “fair trial” with Chutkan and jurors from Washington DC.

These statements directly violate the conditions of Trump’s release pending trial.

But he’s not just some raggedy ordinary person, he’s DONALD TRUMP, so he gets to ignore what judges tell him to do and refrain from doing.

Trump is now under the supervision of the court, as would be any criminal defendant after an arraignment.

But he will continue to test the willingness and ability of the court to treat him like any other criminal defendant unless he’s reined in.

The court must fully assert the rule of law during these proceedings, even if that requires threatening Trump with jail pending his trial. And if he continues to refuse to abide by the conditions of his release, it might be time to actually jail him.

Ya think?

Trump loses another round.

A federal judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s counter defamation lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll, dealing another legal blow to the former president.

In an order Monday, Judge Lewis Kaplan said that Trump had not proven that Carroll’s statements on CNN the day after the jury awarded her $5 million after finding that Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her were false or “not at least substantially true,” which is the legal standard.

Yikes, that’s a clumsy sentence. I’d start over if I were CNN. Break it into shorter sentences for the sake of clarity.

Carroll’s attorneys have argued the only issue for the jury in January is how much in damages Trump should pay her. Trump’s attorneys argued there should be a cap on damages to avoid double counting from the jury’s verdict in the ASA case.

Nah. Gouge the mofo until he screams.

Women may not meet together. It is not allowed.

So all women are terrorists, is that where we are now?

Extraordinary.

Swansea [University] Union issues a statement:

The University recently informed the Union that an external community group, Swansea Bay ReSisters, is hiring Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre for an event on 31^st August 2023 focussing on legal and social issues affecting women and girls in Wales.

This event has not been promoted, encouraged, or planned by the University, the Taliesin or the Students’ Union.

Wait, what? Why the need to frantically distance the university and the union from a discussion of legal and social issues affecting women and girls in Wales? Is that a taboo subject in Wales?

The Union acknowledges the impact this event could have on students, staff and the wider community, but also understands that the Taliesin is bound by the same legislation and statutory duties as the wider University.

Impact? Impact? What impact? What’s so horrifying about a discussion of legal and social issues affecting women and girls in Wales? To be clear: I haven’t skipped anything from this statement, so there is no missing explanation in these first three paragraphs. That’s all there is: women are meeting to discuss issues; we apologize for the horror.

The University has previously engaged with and explained to the Students’ Union that in the UK, Universities have a statutory duty to ensure freedom of expression and freedom of speech the way in which the law defines it. This legislation binds the University to protecting the rights of any individual to express their opinions on topics, regardless of the University community or Union’s stance on the issue. The University informed us that in order to discharge its statutory duty, it took the decision to accept the booking.

The booking of a discussion of legal and social issues affecting women and girls in Wales. We still haven’t been told what the problem is.

As a Students’ Union, we have always firmly stood with our Trans and Non-Binary students and wish again to echo our support for the community at this time.

What’s that got to do with anything?

We understand that for many of our students, your officers included, this event taking place on our campus is upsetting and uncomfortable.

They understand that? How? Why is this event upsetting and uncomfortable? They’re upset and uncomfortable because women are meeting to discuss issues that affect women and girls? Why????

Please be assured that your Union will continue to work closely with the University on the impact this event may have on the student community.

There is support available for anyone affected by this issue, through our Advice & Support Centre or through the Welfare Team in Campus Life, their contact details are below.

Still not a word of explanation of how and why this event may have some mysterious kind of “impact on the student community.”

If you have any further questions, you can contact our team on fto@swansea-union.co.uk.

Trans rights are human rights.

–  Your Full-time Officers

The end. Not one word to explain the connection between women talking about women’s issues and all this upset and discomfort and impact. There are just the totemistic mentions of trans people and trans rights, but no link to the upset n discomfort n impact. Are trans people allergic to women, so allergic that they can’t be on the same campus with them even for an hour or two? Is that it?

Back in May, staff at the Edinburgh comedy club The Stand tried to shut down a planned Fringe event with Joanna Cherry, but were foiled by public outrage. Now there are new threats.

Joanna Cherry has claimed that the need for unprecedented security measures such as metal detectors at her Fringe show are “a disgrace in modern Scotland”.

The MP, who is well known for her gender critical views, is the headline act at a show at The Stand comedy club on Thursday, an event it is feared trans activists will attempt to prevent going ahead.

Her appearance had initially been cancelled after staff refused to work at it due to Ms Cherry’s views, but the venue backed down and reinstated it after she threatened legal action.

The Stand said that after taking police advice, it had been forced to take “extra measures to ensure the safety of everyone involved with staging the show and members of the audience”.

All because we know that men are not women.

She’s the perfect judge for Trump – from our point of view, not from his.

LAWYERS WHO’VE DEFENDED clients before Tanya S. Chutkan, the judge assigned to Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 election conspiracy case, have some advice for the former president and his attorneys: buckle up.

Far from the more indulgent* Aileen Cannon, the judge overseeing Trump’s Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, attorneys tell Rolling Stone that Chutkan is perhaps the toughest judge he could have gotten in the Washington, D.C. district court.

*the more hand-picked and underqualified Aileen Cannon.

“It’s probably the worst draw for Trump. She’s the worst judge he could’ve gotten handed,” one attorney with experience representing a January 6 defendant tells Rolling Stone. “She’s pleasant, she’s nice, and she’s fair, but she’s a tough judge with these January 6 cases.”

Good.

Let’s try the whole case in public shall we? In fact let’s do it on social media.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

THERE IS NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL WITH THE JUDGE “ASSIGNED” TO THE RIDICULOUS FREEDOM OF SPEECH/FAIR ELECTIONS CASE. EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS, AND SO DOES SHE! WE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY ASKING FOR RECUSAL OF THIS JUDGE ON VERY POWERFUL GROUNDS, AND LIKEWISE FOR VENUE CHANGE, OUT IF D.C.

All he has to do is keep shouting in all-caps on his twoof soshal and the whole thing will fade out.

Other lawyers are surprised to learn this:

If former President Donald Trump committed a “technical violation of the Constitution,” it doesn’t mean he necessarily broke any criminal laws, John Lauro, Trump’s criminal defense attorney, argued on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

…

“A technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law,” Lauro contended, calling it “just plain wrong” to suggest that Trump had pressed Pence to break the law.

Other lawyers beg to differ.

Here is the Museum of Pop Culture blog post by Chris Moore explaining why the museum is displaying JKR’s work but not her name, aka stealing her intellectual property without acknowledgement. Apart from the sheer spiteful nastiness it seems to me to be remarkably childish and silly for a museum administrator, but maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s just pop culturey.

Remember, this blog post is on the museum’s website, so it’s speaking for the museum, not just Chris Moore the (proudly gender-special) person.

Title: She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

Subhead: There’s a certain cold, heartless, joy-sucking entity in the world of Harry Potter and, this time, it is not actually a Dementor.

Body of text:

We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author, but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored. Yes, we’re talking about J.K. Rowling, and no, we don’t like that we’re giving her more publicity, so that’s the last you’ll see of her name in this post. We’ll just stick with You-Know-Who because they’re close enough in character.

Her transphobic viewpoints are front and center these days, but we can’t forget all the other ways that she’s problematic: the support of antisemitic creators, the racial stereotypes that she used while creating characters, the incredibly white wizarding world, the fat shaming, the lack of LGBTQIA+ representation, the super-chill outlook on the bigotry and othering of those that don’t fit into the standard wizarding world, and so much more. We’re going to be focusing on You-Know-Who’s transphobic views in this blog post because she’s really doubled down on them lately.

So, hi! An introduction is important for this post because, while I’m writing for MoPOP, I’m also an individual who has been affected by her viewpoints. My name is Chris Moore (he/they) and I am the Exhibitions Project Manager at MoPOP. I’m also a board member for the Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble and a transgender Harry Potter ex-fanatic. 

He/they used to love HP, from 1998 on.

A bit of history is important here, too. You-Know-Who started dancing around transphobic statements in 2018 and became more vocal in 2019 by supporting a person who was fired for being transphobic. In June of 2020, she fully committed to these viewpoints and went on long, hateful Twitter tirades (we recommend not reading them, but here’s Daniel Radcliffe being an awesome ally on Rolling Stone). This caused many cast members of Harry Potter to distance themselves from her… unfortunately, it also caused many cast members to support her and out themselves as being transphobic. In the same year, she released a new book under her pen name about a serial killer who dresses in women’s clothing to seduce his victims. It ends up being an entire novel of thinly veiled transphobic scare tactics.

I haven’t read it but I’ve gathered that that’s not true…unless of course “thinly veiled” means “barely at all.”

(I have to admit I’ve tried a couple of the Cormoran Strike novels and gave up both times. I have to admit I don’t like them and don’t think they’re very good. I admire JKR as an activist but not as a novelist.)

And what is MoPOP doing? If you’ve visited the museum recently, you will have seen artifacts from the Harry Potter films in Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic gallery and her likeness in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. They’re there and trying to dance around it would make me look like a bigger hypocrite. But here’s the deal… it’s complicated. Long conversations are being had and a lot of considerations around what to do with problematic people and content because instances like this are going to keep happening. I’m privileged to get to work with our Curatorial team and see the decision-making processes there, so let me give you a little bit of insight into what these are like after someone outs themself as holding terrible ideologies.

Nah, I’ll stop there, thanks, and let Pecksniff do his thing by himself.

The place should rename itself the Museum of Popular Inquisition.

Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, formerly the Experience Music Project, displays Harry Potter stuff but pretends Harry Potter was invented by no one. I call that highly unethical, bordering on plagiarism.

A Seattle Museum has airbrushed JK Rowling from its hall of fame and Harry Potter exhibition over her gender-critical views. The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in Washington hit out at the famous author and accused her of holding ‘super hateful and divisive’ opinions.

It defended its decision to remove all references to Rowling in a lengthy blog post on Saturday. The museum still has Harry Potter memorabilia on display but any mention of the author of the franchise has been airbrushed.

In other words it profits from her work but erases her as its creator. How is that not plagiarism and theft? Tickets to the museum cost 30 bucks.

Its exhibitions project manager Chris Moore, who is transgender and uses the pronouns ‘he/they’, confirmed the museum would no longer contain any references to Rowling.

‘There’s a certain cold, heartless, joy-sucking entity in the world of Harry Potter and, this time, it is not actually a Dementor,’ he wrote in a 1,400-word blog post on Saturday. 

‘We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author, but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored.’ 

She’s too hateful to be ignored and that’s why we’re removing her name from our display of her work.

How adult, how thoughtful, how reasonable, how wise, how proportionate, how free of spite and venom and loathing and contempt.

Trump typed:

I purposely didn’t comment on Nancy Pelosi’s very weird story concerning her husband, but now I can because she said something about me, with glee, that was really quite vicious. “I saw a scared puppy,” she said, as she watched me on television, like millions of others, that didn’t see that. I wasn’t “scared.” Nevertheless, how mean a thing to say! She is a Wicked Witch whose husbands journey from hell starts and finishes with her. She is a sick & demented psycho who will someday live in HELL!

Imagine saying a mean thing about someone!! Donald Trump has never said a mean thing about anyone in his entire life!

No but seriously – imagine being a donald trump with a 70+ year history of saying very mean things about a vast array of people and then bursting into flames because a woman says he looked like a scared puppy. He says meaner things than that in his sleep.

Women may not have anything for women. Women may not defend the rights of women. Women may not tell the truth about who is a woman. Women must sit down and shut up. The Great Western Railway says so.

The website of a gender-critical group was blocked on a train’s Wi-Fi network for being linked to “terrorism and hate”, it has emerged.

Sex Matters, which campaigns against the adoption of gender ideology and argues that biological sex is a reality, had its web page blocked by Great Western Railway.

Those attempting to access the site, which raises concerns about gender reassignment surgery as well as about men in women’s prisons, hospital wards and sporting events, received a message that stated: “The domain is blocked by GWR because it’s associated with the terrorism and hate category.”

Is it now. What a very strategic use of the passive voice. Associated with the terrorism and hate category by whom? One green-haired activist in Stoke Newington? And associated with in what sense? Just in the sense that the green-haired activist says so?

Ah well, you can’t be too careful, can you.

Trump the anarchist:

American democracy is only as strong as its legal system. The founders of the country created the judiciary as the third branch of the federal government to keep executive power in check and prevent corruption. So it was a cause for deep concern last week when Donald Trump unleashed a verbal tantrum on his Truth Social platform, accusing special counsel Jack Smith of “prosecutorial misconduct” even before he filed four federal criminal counts against the former president over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a bid to remain in office.

An identical barrage came last April when a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump on 34 felony charges for falsifying business records. That time, he also called for defunding the justice department and the FBI, even though the charges did not come from either federal agency. Both reactions were part of a long-running campaign by Trump to undermine the rule of law in the US and dismiss the multiple charges he faces, and has denied, as politically motivated.

It’s as if he had bitten into a mushy brown spot on an apple and declared war on agriculture. It’s as if he caught a cold and tried to get rid of all doctors. It’s as if he got bored with one of the rooms in one of his houses and decided to shut down architecture. It’s narcissism plus overkill, which could be Trump’s sweatshirt motto.

He’s a repeat criminal and the law is finally getting closer to dropping a hand on his shoulder, and his solution is to nuke the Justice Department and the FBI and every other arm of the law he can think of. Egomania doesn’t get much more egomaniacal than that.

On one level, it is shocking to hear the worries that US lawyers are expressing about the impact of Trump’s outbursts. On another, what we’re witnessing in Washington is part of a trend happening around the world. From Hungary to Pakistan, the power of judges is being reduced and legal systems are being upended.

That may sound like fun – freedomfreedomfreedom! – but only until you pause to think about it.

This is why we can’t turn it around.

More reactions to Stephen Whittle’s disgusting tweet.

There are many many more.

James Fallows makes a very good point here.

Reporters generally (or always?) don’t write the headlines and subheads; that’s the editor’s job. The first para of the story certainly pulls no punches, ending with “He is an inveterate and knowing liar.”

Another thing: there’s an ambiguity in quotation marks. It’s not always clear whether they’re straightforward (someone said this) or scare quotes. But Fallows is still right: even if ‘Lies’ is quoting the indictment, it can still look like scare quotes.

Yep, he certainly has a point there too. Habit? What a benign word for a pattern of criminal behavior.

He sums up:

To underscore a point well known in journalism but not so much in civilian world: 99% of the time, the issue w NYT framing is headlines, subheds, “social sells”—presentation on Xitter et al. Rather than stories themselves. Alas, 99x more people just see the headlines.

Framing is important.