Breathtaking. (You know how sometimes when you read something really appalling you find yourself not breathing as you read on? I don’t think I’m the only one.)

A university has “confiscated” the findings of an academic studying Britain’s gender wars in a row over her “dangerous” research data, The Telegraph can reveal. 

Dr Laura Favaro began the first ever taxpayer-funded study into whether social scientists at universities feel censored over their views on transgender issues in March 2020 at City, University of London.

But it has descended into chaos, with the study’s author allegedly hounded out of the university, stripped of the findings she collected and barred from publishing them amid claims of transphobia.

How can they do that???

Dr Favaro is now bringing an employment tribunal claim against City for harassment, victimisation and whistleblowing detriment, and claims she was discriminated against for her protected philosophical belief in the reality of biological sex. 

The Telegraph says she was invited to move from Spain to City’s Department of Sociology but it doesn’t say who invited her – whether it was City or some other institution or what. The study got £18,000 from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and £10,000 from the British Academy. The Telegraph says Favaro has done a summary report but it hasn’t been published yet; the Telegraph doesn’t say why or at whose behest.

Her study involved 50 individual interviews with academics in gender studies who identified as feminists, a representative survey of social scientists with 650 responses and hundreds of documents and tweets.

Scholars told her that they had threats of violence in the gender debate, hostility from colleagues, and others said they felt their careers “can’t survive that sort of backlash”, and that they have to have “secret conversations” to avoid reprisal and because “we are all so afraid”.

Her final work has not been published, as it was derailed by complaints about an article for Times Higher Education in which she warned that “a culture of discrimination, silencing and fear has taken hold”.

Again, skimping on the information here. Derailed by whom? What’s the point of telling us she was invited but not who invited her, and her work was derailed but not who derailed it?

Following this, she says, her line managers told her that the study had “become an institutionally sensitive issue” and that “City considers my data to be dangerous” and is “frightened of making it public”. 

A research participant who “did not like the findings” and academics sympathetic to trans issues were among those who complained. One, Dr Sahra Taylor, a City lecturer, claimed it was an “attack piece on trans people [and] our existences” that has “clearly caused harm to many interviewed”. 

We’ve seen claims of that kind a billion times by now. We don’t find them credible.

City found following an investigation that there was “no evidence” that the research breached any ethics criteria.

But City allegedly locked the email account Dr Favaro used to communicate with survey respondents, and demanded that she hand over all of her interview and survey data and delete any copies of it, before making her redundant on March 31, despite her claiming she has a permanent contract.

How can they do any of that? It sounds completely grotesque.

Hahahaha I got a spam comment in Latin. I’ve been trying to check them before deleting lately, because one or two genuine comments (from non-first-time commenters) got put in spam a week or so ago. Latin is a novelty.

First para:

Qui nam amet placeat ab reprehenderit. Consequatur rerum non natus numquam qui ipsum qui quod. Temporibus inventore dolore et eveniet consequatur impedit a. Dolores facilis autem id occaecati.

Google translate:

For he who will be pleased by the rebuke. The consequence of things is never born who himself who what. In times of discovery of pain and consequences, it prevents a. But it was easy to be blinded by sorrows.

I love “who himself who what,” also “it prevents a.” That’s pretty much how my unseen translations looked back in the day.

What not to do.

Twelve people have died from heatstroke while many others have been admitted to hospital after attending an awards ceremony in India’s Maharashtra state.

The government-sponsored event took place in an open ground under a blazing sun and lasted for several hours.

In one of India’s hottest months.

Just don’t do that. It’s not difficult. Heat kills. Don’t put on events in the open when it’s hot.

Thousands of people attended Sunday’s event, which was held to felicitate a prominent social activist.

Many people complained of dehydration and other heat-related ailments after attending the function.

Navi Mumbai – a city close to financial hub Mumbai – where the event was held, recorded a maximum temperature of 38C (100F) on Sunday. Health experts have advised people to stay out of the sun during the peak heat hours of 11am to 4pm, especially during April, which is considered to be one of the hottest months in India.

…

Opposition leaders have accused the government of jeopardising people’s lives. Former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said the event had “not been planned properly” and called for an investigation.

Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe Patil accused the state government of negligence and said people had died because the event was held in April.

India recorded its hottest February since 1901 this year, and the country’s weather department has also forecasted an “enhanced probability” of heatwaves between March and May.

Don’t throw open-air events during the hottest months. Wake up and smell the climate change

Whittle actually said welcome!!! And meant it totally sincerely and not at all sarcastically teasingly figuratively please beat them uply!!!

Originally a comment by latsot on Refusing to serve.

I was outside the pub in the beer garden (damn pub had a step to get in) so I didn’t see any of this. But the Scottish and Irish witches outside with me didn’t take it lying down. There was a lot of protest singing, mostly about penises, led by actual Julia Long, which I have to say I didn’t expect. There’s video circulating, I’ll post it when I’ve had chance to find it.

The attack on Tony was shocking. He’s a lovely and gentle man who attends loads of women’s events, all over the place, supporting quietly in the background and helping out. I hope the police acted quickly in getting hold of the CCTV from the pub.

It was an incredible couple of days in Belfast. I was mooching around at the back during the actual event, talking to the other naughty kids, and I didn’t hear a single word. I’m watching the video now.

I’m especially looking forward to Brandubh’s talk (the 14 year old who read out her poem). I was talking to Brandubh and he mother throughout the day and her story is a horrifying and important one. I’m going to put her in touch with Glinner to see if he wants to write about it on his substack (I’m quite sure he will).

This is Bran’s talk:

Judy Blume clarified or explained or reworded or something yesterday.

It doesn’t really clarify though. More like that other thing. What does “support the trans community” mean? What does “stand with the trans community” mean? Why does she feel nervously compelled to say she does both in one short statement? Why does she mention a “trans community” at all? Why does she say “the trans community” instead of “trans people”? Was she told to word it that way?

As for “LGBTQIA+ people” (I guess it’s ok to call them people but not trans the community?) – what does the Q mean? Why is the A there? Was she handed a script and told to tweet it or else?

I don’t know. At any rate it’s clearly a very public backstab of JK Rowling.

H/t Rev David Brindley

Originally a comment by Rob on Give a New Zealand welcome.

First, not a ******* NZ welcome, the trans lobby can own that one all to themselves.

Second, advocating violence.

Third, The haka is not about intimidation, it is about honour and honouring.*

Fourth, to use the haka in the way he advocates would do both sides great dishonour and back in the day would be grounds for war.

Fifth, is a white English bloke really suggesting that white Irish and English (presumably) people appropriate the culture of brown Maori from the other side of the planet for their own nefarious purposes? Because if he is (he is), there are a lot of people who’d like to have a word with him about that.

No matter how he tries to spin that, he’s just disgustingly wrong from one end to the other.

* Haka and how they are used is a lot more complex than I can cover here, plus I’m not expert in the nuances and it’s not my culture to be definitive about. In modern use the most common haka we see are a challenge to an honoured foe, or a welcome (combined with a challenge) to an honoured guest. Traditionally one type of haka was used to prepare warriors psychologically and physically for battle. Haka are the cultural property of the particular family/grouping/tribe that used or developed that haka. The best known of them all is undoubtedly Ka Mate. The use of this Haka by the All Blacks rugby team resulted in most New Zealanders being able to have a crack at performing it (often badly) and many non-NZers and even companies using it. As a result the Iwi (tribe), Ngati Toa, that the composer came from took a legal challenge to demonstrate ownership.

Trans man Stephen Whittle, who advertises himself as “Prof” and OBE, PhD on Twitter, urged people to use violence against Kellie-Jay Keene in Belfast.

This movement sure does bring out the best in people.

Gee, they finally noticed.

‘Dangerous’ inmate Barbie Kardashian to move prisons amid fear she could follow through on threats.

Prison bosses are struggling to find a suitable segregation unit for dangerous transgender inmate Barbie Kardashian.

The 21-year-old was last month jailed for four-and-a-half years for threatening to rape, torture and murder her mother.

It is understood Kardashian will be moved from Limerick Prison in coming weeks because staff do not feel safe with her being housed there.

…

A source said Kardashian, who was born Gabrielle Alejandro Gentile and changed her name by deed poll, is deemed too dangerous to mix and poses a serious threat to inmates and staff.

The source told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “Meetings are set to take place this month to discuss a better location for Kardashian.

“She is deemed very dangerous and requires a number of prison staff to open her cell and accompany her anywhere she goes.”

Like Hannibal Lecter.

In 2020, Ms Kardashian was granted a gender recognition certificate by the Department of Social Protection, in recognition of her identifying as female.

Which couldn’t possibly be just more aggression, right?

The court heard Ms Kardashian is currently on a waiting list to be assessed for “appropriate medical treatment” in relation to her gender.

What would appropriate medical treatment in relation to her gender be? Medical treatment for the gender you aren’t isn’t “appropriate” so what can that claim mean? I can’t parse it.

We need to set up a campaign group of women, says Ellie Mae O’Hagan, Head of External Engagement at The Good Law Project. Huh. We women agree, which is why several such groups exist. Standing For Women is one.

https://twitter.com/elliemaeohagan/status/1647585735883517952

Oh, women who support “trans rights,” by which the Good Law Project means “do everything men who identify as trans tell us to do.” No thanks – no anti-feminist women’s groups for me.

Oh no, we’re emboldened and vocal. How horrifying.

Honestly what a fool to set herself up for derision that way, complaining about women being emboldened of all things. We’re supposed to be timid and shy and in hiding? She sounds like men complaining about the Pankhursts. We’re supposed to be afraid and we’re supposed to be silent. What an enticing political stance!

Snerk. Yep, that is right.

Remind us why they deserve all this?

Queen Elizabeth II may have been styled the “people’s monarch”, but for much of her reign, and especially its last 40 years, the amassing of vast wealth was simply de rigueur for the UK’s financial and landed elites.

As the Guardian investigation into the cost of the royal family reveals, the late queen was at the forefront of her class’s pursuit of wealth extraction. Using royal privilege, the crown secretively exempted itself from public scrutiny and taxation. Royal fortunes soared. And this was the rule, not the exception.

She wasn’t “styled ‘the people’s monarch'” by me thank you very much.

The consequent optics for the incoming head of state are [bad]. His family’s vast accumulation of wealth is all the more glaring when juxtaposed with soaring levels of poverty and hardship among his subjects, including as many as 3 million children. But the one is part of the cause of the other. While the king may not have uttered “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”, the parallel with the “great princess” who apparently did is not fanciful. Monarchy helps make vast disparities of wealth seem normal and natural, an enchanting part of our jolly heritage to be questioned only by mean-spirited and unpatriotic scoundrels.

Plus also their vast wealth is itself one of those vast disparities, to put it mildly.

This is where an incoming Labour government might make a stand. It could embrace rather than resist the change symbolised by the crowning of a new king. And it could do so in ways that in turn symbolise a new conception of public life: built on transparency, not the hiding of wealth in tax havens; on integrity, instead of the easy acceptance of gifts and payoffs; and on economic justice, rather than the hoarding of wealth by a few.

You’d have to start over with a completely different crew though.

The police are on the scene.

I’m wondering what the temperature is in Belfast. Two people in short sleeves, one person in a puffa jacket. Is it cold or hot?!

But more seriously I’m wondering if the cop will arrest the victim.

More from the annals of violence against people who reject gender ideology.

There’s also this but the audio is useless so I can’t actually tell what he said.

That “refusing to serve” thing…what does that remind me of…hmmmm…………….

Judy steps up next to Joanne and Hadley Freeman tells us about it. Power trio!

You can try to explain Judy Blume in numbers: her books for children have sold 90 million copies worldwide, most famously Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Over a 54- year career she has won more than 90 literary awards and been translated into 32 languages.

But this doesn’t explain her impact on generations of children, particularly girls. Blume, more than any other author before or since, taught kids about masturbation (in Deenie), menstruation (. . . It’s Me, Margaret) and sex (Forever). She reassured them that hating your younger sibling sometimes is normal (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing) and that terrible things can happen to good kids and they’ll survive (Tiger Eyes). Most of all she taught them that it’s fine to be exactly what they are: ordinary kids.

There’s a new movie adaptation of It’s Me, Margaret.

I tell Blume how strangely thrilling it is to see a movie about children where none of them are in possession of magical powers. “Yes, children are so used to superheroes now, aren’t they?” she says. Even in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books the kids are magic, and I love those, I say.

“And I love her,” Blume immediately interjects. “I am behind her 100 per cent as I watch from afar.” Blume is referring to the abuse Rowling has received for speaking up in defence of women’s sex-based rights, and given that Blume has faced repeated attacks since the 1980s, for her books’ descriptions of adolescent sexuality and puberty, she knows what it’s like to be pilloried as an author.

Why was she pilloried?

[The movie] also keeps in all the details — adolescent lust, the chat about menstruation, Margaret’s anxieties about religion — that have caused the book to be attacked multiple times by right-wing religious groups, alongside other Blume books for similar reasons. Blume has long been a courageously punchy critic of these groups, and just the day before she and I talk it was reported that Florida politicians are considering a ban on any discussion of menstruation in schools’ sex education before the 6th grade, when children are 12.

Well you can see their point. If you teach kids about menstruation when they’re 10 they might just start doing it right then and there.

“It’s so bad. If it was bad in the 1980s, this is triple quadruple that, because this time it’s coming from the government, who are making laws. They say they want to protect kids, but it’s more like they want them to not think or ask questions,” she says.

It’s strange how the attacks on you have come from the right, whereas the ones on Rowling have come from the left, I say.

But a strange, twisted, upside-down version of the left, that believes in magic and detests women.

The only way to defend “the right to bear arms” is to make sure everyone has more and more and more guns. Literally everyone: toddlers included.

South Dakota’s governor told an audience of people that her two-year-old grandchild has several guns.

While speaking on Friday at a National Rifle Association (NRA) lobbying leadership forum in Indiana, the Republican governor Kristi Noem told audience members her toddler grandchild has multiple guns, reported Mediaite.

The toddler granchild is not yet two, and she has a rifle and a shotgun. (It’s not clear what “having” means. I don’t suppose they’re in her toy box. It could just mean that they’re officially her guns, but she can’t just grab one and start shooting. Then again these are lunatics, so maybe she is literally packing heat.)

Noem also signed an executive order during her remarks that seeks to “further protect the second amendment rights of South Dakotans”, and was joined on stage by the NRA’s CEO, Wayne LaPierre.

“South Dakota is setting the standard for the most second amendment friendly state in the nation,” said Noem when discussing the executive order.

By which she means gun-friendly. The way you demonstrate your extreme cuddly friendliness toward the second amendment is to have more guns than anyone else, which requires buying new guns every few days in order to keep up.

Like this kind of thing for instance. Why aren’t the BBC and Labour and the Independent constantly lamenting the fact that abused women can’t escape their abuse because they have nowhere to go? Why isn’t that as tragic and desperate as the plight of men who enjoy pretending to be women?

More than 10,000 women escaping domestic abuse across England were refused safe housing last year, amid warnings that many could be left homeless or driven back to dangerous partners as a result of a “woeful” lack of safe accommodation.

Official figures seen by the Observer found that almost 8,000 households referred to a safe accommodation service did not receive support because there was no capacity. A further 3,000 were denied places because the shelter “could not meet the needs of the household”, with figures suggesting this was often due to mental health issues, drug and alcohol use or disability.

Why do we hear so much about the tragic plight of men who claim to be women and so little about actual women trapped in violence and/or homelessness?

“Anyone who’s facing domestic abuse and who is not assisted to enter safe accommodation is at such huge risk. The consequences are that they’re exploited and abused on the streets, or they are driven back in an abusive relationship,” said Hannana Siddiqui, head of policy, campaigns and research at the women’s rights group Southall Black Sisters. “If they’re not provided with proper housing and support for themselves and their children, then what choices have they got left? A lot of them are very low income or no income.”

But we don’t hear much about this, because so much oxygen is used up on bemoaning the anguish of men who say they are women.

Even this article manages to steer the conversation back to those men.

Leni Morris, chief executive of the LGBT+ anti-abuse charity Galop, said: “We see LGBT+ victims of abuse having to choose between staying in dangerous abusive situations or risking street homelessness. We often spend days trying to find accommodation for people we work with – sometimes for that person to arrive at that refuge space and face homophobia or transphobia from other residents and have to flee again.”

What kind of “transphobia”? Does she mean Galop sends a man who claims to be a woman to a women’s shelter and the women are terrified? That kind of “transphobia”?

Ahhhhhh just in case you wanted a little cheerer-upper…

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Oppression for the Bugatti set.

I think collective guilt and shame about the past’s homophobia casts a long shadow in the minds of progressive Euroamericans. And as for gay people ourselves, we can add personal trauma to the mix. We seem as a society, gay and straight alike, to be transferring all of our unresolved feelings about gay rights over to the trans phenomenon.

I was having dinner with someone the other night, who is sympathetic to my position. But he was very gravely concerned about the plight of “vulnerable feminine gay boys” and their anguish in the hands of cruel Republicans passing so many “anti-trans hate bills.”

I tried to take apart each of the preconceptions packed into such sentiments: trans doesn’t mean gender nonconforming; there are many ways to address anxiety over gender nonconformity that don’t involve gender identity or gender medicine; a lot of legislation being introduced is no doubt partly cynical culture-war baiting on the part of Republicans, but nevertheless, legislation to pull back on medical experiments on kids and the elimination of women’s spaces is agreeable in principle; mostly this movement is driven by entitled transvestites who’ve found a loophole and are making a giant power-grab; the curbing of free speech and general environment of panic around this topic is dangerous; homophobic and misogynistic tropes are being reinforced; etc, etc…

And he didn’t disagree with any of my points at all. But I could see that his heart wasn’t budging. A deep, emotional attachment to this cause has been generated, and it’s going to take a lot of deprogramming to undo it. This is the domain of religious belief, not rational thinking. Even among some of the most atheistic people.

I keep wondering about this “most vulnerable” thing – the endless repetition of the claim that trans people are “among the most vulnerable” or just plain “the most vulnerable.”

Why do people think that?

In a world where we have wars, genocides, torture, rape, poverty, earthquakes, floods, droughts, poverty, epidemics, secret police, criminal gangs, poverty, racism, enslavement, exploitation, poverty – how is it that people who claim to be the gender that doesn’t match their bodies are described as “the most vulnerable”?

That’s a genuine question, because I have no idea what the answer is. It’s like sitting in front of a person with multiple broken bones and severe burns, complaining about a scratch. It’s Luxury Oppression. It’s Pretend Oppression for the Comfortable. You’d think even lefty men who hate women would notice that part.

University and College Union aka UCU issues a statement:

The Government’s plan to review the Equality Act 2010, with a mind to change existing provisions in relation to sex and gender, is an attack on the limited rights and protections to which trans people are currently entitled.

Changing the understanding of ‘sex’ to refer solely to ‘biological sex’ would effectively eradicate the ability of trans people to gain full legal recognition for their gender identity. This flies in the face of established UCU policy in favour of self-identification, and would enable acts of discrimination against trans and non-binary people to go unchallenged.

So UCU has a policy in favour of self-identification. Is that an inclusive policy? Does it include all possible self-identifications? Should people be able to force everyone to endorse their self-identification no matter what they identify as?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)  is there to protect and uphold the rights of all groups who face discrimination. This must include trans and non-binary people…

But it must also include women, and some of the purported “rights” that trans ideologues demand have the unfortunate side effect of obliterating women’s rights. Why should the demands of trans people outweigh the rights of women? Please explain.

This must include trans and non-binary people, but at the moment the EHRC is failing in this part of its remit. It’s advice to the government on this issue has highlighted a number of ways in which trans people would be excluded as a result of the changes being considered. 

Excluded how, from what? You mean women’s sports and prizes and records and firsts? But all those things are meant for women, not men who call themselves women. If women are forced to share them with men, that excludes women.

Time and again, the Tory Government has shown itself to be against trans and non-binary inclusion – from blocking the path of Gender Recognition Act (GRA) reform in Scotland to their manufactured culture war against the trans community, one the of the UK’s smallest and most vulnerable groups.

Mindless cliches repeated for the billionth time instead of anything thoughtful or reasonable. No thought about what inclusion means, no analysis of what a “community” is in this context, of how we define “groups,” of why trans people are “most vulnerable” while apparently women are not. Childish activisty slogans in the place where thought should be. Where are the adults??

No legislation is perfect, but seeking to change an established law in a way that would actively remove rights from a marginalised group is deeply troubling.

What about all the women who have had their rights removed? Why does the UCU not even mention them?

We are also clear that our own union is an inclusive one which recognises that trans men are men, trans women are women and non-binary people’s identities are valid. 

It doesn’t “recognise” that nonsense, it capitulates to it while trying to make the rest of us do the same.

Where where where are the adults?