Wait a second.

Florida court rules teenager ‘not mature enough’ to have abortion

Quick question – which requires the most maturity: having an abortion or having a baby?

I’d say it’s having a baby. Even if the teenager doesn’t raise the baby, just having it requires a lot of maturity. There are things you should do or avoid doing while gestating a baby; it takes maturity to find out what they are and do or avoid doing them. It takes physical maturity just to deal with the whole thing. It takes a hell of a lot of maturity to push a baby out.

The 16-year-old initially petitioned to terminate her pregnancy, citing being a student and unemployed as reasons she is unprepared to have a baby.

A court ruled she was not mature enough to make the decision to have an abortion, blocking her from getting one.

She’s not mature enough to make the decision to have an abortion, but she is mature enough to be forced to have the baby she doesn’t want to have. How does that work exactly? I can’t make the numbers come out right.

In order for a minor to get an abortion in Florida, they must provide a physician with written consent from a parent or legal guardian, or request a waiver.

But actually having an actual baby requires no such hurdles to overcome.

This makes no kind of sense. It’s not as if the state is going to make sure that baby has a good and happy upbringing with a minimum of two loving adults raising it. That baby could be doomed to a miserable infancy and childhood with an underage mother who didn’t want it and was unable to finish school because of the baby.

It’s not about the baby, is it. It’s about punishing the girl.

Erm…this isn’t already the case?

Police officers violent to women will be sacked under new guidance

New guidance? What was the old guidance?

The College of Policing has reviewed the penalties for breaches of police standards in a bid to “bring common sense and consistency” to the process.

It concludes violence against women or girls by police officers will always have a “high degree of culpability”.

What did it have until now?

Setting out the current problems, Chief Constable Andy Marsh, the college’s chief executive, said: “I have spoken before about my frustration at having to re-admit officers to my workforce who I thought should have been shown the door.”

That does sound frustrating.

Another target:

A female comic and healthcare worker says she has been spat at on the street and shunned by long-time colleagues for daring to put on a performance about biological women.

Well…women. They’re garbage, innit. The only decent women are men.

Award-winning funny woman Elaine Miller’s Fringe show Viva Your Vulva: The Hole Story has been the target of abuse from those judging her as a “transphobe”. She says that at the end of the Edinburgh show she makes a reference to the importance of language in getting across healthcare messaging.

She doesn’t mention trans women, because they’re not what she’s talking about. Can you imagine?

As well as attacks from strangers Ms Miller said fellow comics and staff she has worked with harmoniously for four years have shunned her, adding that in some cases she has worked successfully with them throughout six different festivals.

You have to shun. If you don’t, other people might think you’re contagious.

“I’ve been berated in the street, I’ve been harassed and ignored. It’s very like high school. It’s the strangest thing for grown ass adults. I go into a room and they turn their back on me. This is not appropriate behaviour from an adult,” she said.

Her posters have been defaced by LGBT stickers obscuring event details in an attempt to limit attendance.

No punishment is enough.

Honestly. They can’t even be consistent.

On the one hand Dundee man, on the other hand people who menstruate. It’s only the word “women” that is unsayable. Why is that? Is it because women are such unspeakable garbage that our rights and dignity and worth are all blotted out by the horror of us?

Outrage as man put in charge of period dignity:

Jason Grant was announced as the period dignity officer for the Tay region in a role believed to be the first of its kind, after Scotland became the first country in the world to protect the right to free period products in law.

Critics say the job should have gone to a woman instead. Ya think???

Susan Dalgety, a columnist for The Scotsman newspaper, told Sky News the appointment “takes mansplaining to a new level”.

“Jason has said being a man will help him reduce stigma and that it is time to normalise topics like menstruation and menopause,” she told the broadcaster.

“Periods are normal life for women, we don’t need some bloke in a blood red polo-shirt raising our awareness”.

But wait. Perhaps he is the best person for the job after all.

The Period Dignity Working group, which has representatives of Dundee and Angus College, Angus Council, Dundee City Council, and Perth College, said Grant was the strongest candidate for the job.

“The role builds on some fantastic work which has been gathering speed across the Tay region for several years, led by a passionate group of people of all genders, ages and backgrounds,” a spokesperson said.

But why are they presenting it as a plus to have people “of all genders” involved. The issue isn’t about or for or relevant to “all genders”; it’s about and for only the one gender, which isn’t that of Jason Grant.

At the time of his appointment, Grant said that he wanted to prove that period dignity and related issues were not just a “female topic”.

Yes, they always do. That’s exactly what we object to. They want to take everything that’s about or for or with women and make it “not just a female topic” any more. They want, in a nutshell, to take everything away from women. Every single thing.

“I think being a man will help me to break down barriers, reduce stigma and encourage more open discussions,” he said in a statement announcing his appointment.

See, if he weren’t thick as a plank he wouldn’t have said that, because what? What? Being a man will help him do all that, because women are too feeble and stupid to do it?

“It’s time to normalise these topics and get real around the subject. I believe I can make progress by proving this isn’t just a female topic, encouraging conversations across all genders and educating and engaging new audiences”.

Fuck off, boy. Leave women alone. You’re not the boss of us.

Solidarity with Salman:

Hundreds of writers are to gather in New York this week to read from Salman Rushdie’s works, in a recreation of an event first held after the fatwa on the author was issued in 1989.

Authors including Paul Auster, Tina Brown, Kiran Desai, Amanda Foreman, AM Homes, Siri Hustvedt, Hari Kunzru and Gay Talese will be among those taking part in the “Stand with Salman” event.

The writers will gather on the steps of the New York Public Library on Friday morning, exactly a week after 75-year-old Rushdie was stabbed during an event at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York.

…

Friday’s event is being organised by PEN America, the New York Public Library, Rushdie’s publisher Penguin Random House, and House of SpeakEasy. PEN America said those gathering would “read from selected texts from Rushdie’s body of work”.

Read on.

Word is that Boston Children’s Hospital has removed all its Whoopee Gender-affirming Everything videos from its website, so it’s useful that people have saved them. Here we have another example of the oh so perky cheery celebration of tampering with adolescents’ puberties.

“Potentially sensitive content” indeed.

“And the really nice thing about puberty blockers? is that they are reversible. So it’s a really nice way for an adolescent to be able to explore their gender.”

Yes it’s all just so nice.

So that’s women’s rights gone.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has become the first appellate court in the country to find that gender dysphoria is covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act, after a transgender woman sued Fairfax County for housing her with men during her time in jail.

Oh ffs. Gender dysphoria may be a disability; it doesn’t follow that men get to force themselves on women.

“Being transgender is not a disability,” the court wrotein an opinion issued Tuesday, but “many transgender people experience gender dysphoria,” or distress over the discrepancy between their identity and their assigned sex. “A transgender person’s medical needs are just as deserving of treatment and protection as anyone else’s.”

But men forcing themselves on women isn’t a medical need.

The decision in the case of Kesha Williams comes amid a wave of legislation across the country limiting transgender youths from accessing medical treatment, discussing sex and gender in school, or playing sports and using bathrooms that match their identity.

The issue isn’t sports and bathrooms that “match their identity,” it’s boys and men destroying women’s sports and taking over their spaces.

“When states have cut transgender people off from basic protections under law, we have seen federal courts step in to correct that,” said Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which wrote an amicus brief in Williams’s case.

What about women’s basic protections under law?

The trouble is you can’t have both. Either women get to keep those protections, or they are forced to lose them to men who claim to have “gender dysphoria.” It’s not obvious that men need those basic protections more than women do, even if they have “gender dysphoria.”

BCH tries to convince us that it’s the victim here.

BCH does not and will not, it says fiercely, “perform a hysterectomy as part of gender-affirming care on a patient [that is, a girl] under the age of 18.” But it will on a girl 18 or older. It will also continue to refer to medically unnecessary hysterectomies as “part of gender-affirming care,” as if that category were as well-established and reliable and sciencey as how to mend a broken bone.

What if they’re wrong? What if the whole idea of “gender-affirming care” is just another fad like Recovered Memory or The Wandering Uterus?

BCH says with apparent confidence that the attention to their “gender-affirming care” is based on a “false narrative.” But what if the “narrative” isn’t false? What if it’s the claim that removing a healthy uterus is “gender-affirming care” that’s a false narrative?

If they’re lucky, climate change will render it all moot.

Boston Children’s Hospital is claiming to be the victim in all this.

Boston Children’s Hospital has become the target of a harassment campaign based on inaccurate information about its transgender surgery program. Hospital staff say the campaign includes aggressive calls, emails and death threats for some providers.

Obviously there shouldn’t be threats, but “aggressive calls”? Define “aggressive.” Is it aggressive to say hospitals shouldn’t be performing medically unnecessary hysterectomies? Especially on girls age 18 or 19? Is it aggressive to say hospitals – especially children’s hospitals – shouldn’t be actively promoting and celebrating such elective surgeries?

“We are deeply concerned by these attacks on our clinicians and staff fueled by misinformation and a lack of understanding and respect for our transgender community,” the hospital said in a statement. “We are working with law enforcement to protect our clinicians, staff, patients, families, and the broader Boston Children’s community and hold the offenders accountable.”

The thing is, when “understanding and respect for our transgender community” turns out to mean mutilating people’s genitals, we start to wonder what incomprehension and disrespect would look like. We start to wonder how BCH can be so very confident that none of these young “patients” will ever come to regret having their genitals mutilated.

The campaign started last week with criticism of a video posted on the hospital’s website about hysterectomies. Several conservative social media accounts shared posts about the video on Twitter. The hospital performs hysterectomies on patients 18 and older, but not on children as some of the posts claimed.

There it is, you see: WBUR gives away what bad faith all this is by failing to spell out what kind of hysterectomies they’re talking about. These aren’t your medically necessary hysterectomies because of cancer or other medical issue, these are elective hysterectomies because of a socially-spread delusion that people can change sex. It’s funny that WBUR didn’t say that.

Surgeons at Boston Children’s have said they would consider performing other procedures, including phalloplasty, or penis construction, on 17-year-old male transgender patients. But hospital staff say that hasn’t happened because no 17-year-old has met required legal and other criteria.

Again. Say what? Penis construction? That’s a thing – a normal humdrum thing that you do on request? A bit of minor plastic surgery?

Never you mind, it’s only “the far right” who thinks it’s a bad idea to mangle people’s genitals for the sake of a fad.

Libby Brooks at the Guardian raises an eyebrow at the hiring of a man to be period wrangler:

The appointment of a man to a new regional role promoting period dignity has provoked criticism and consternation.

Why? Perhaps I can explain. It’s because men don’t know, do they. They don’t know what it’s like to have a period. They don’t know what it’s like to be mocked or shunned or banished for having a period. They don’t know what it’s like to be a young girl and have this thing happen to you. They don’t know what it’s like to wonder if you’re smelly that day. They don’t know anything about it from the inside. With half of humanity to choose from, why would you shrug your shoulders and choose someone who doesn’t know to do the job? Women understand periods from the inside, and men don’t, so why on earth hire a man?

That’s why.

Jason Grant, who has previously worked in tobacco sales and as a personal trainer, was announced as the period dignity regional lead officer for the Tay region earlier this week, in what is believed to be the first role of its kind in the country and prompted by groundbreaking women’s health legislation.

Yay groundbreaking women’s health legislation!!! Now let’s hire men to run it all!!

In a press release announcing his appointment, Grant said: “I think being a man will help me to break down barriers, reduce stigma and encourage more open discussions. Although affecting women directly, periods are an issue for everyone. We’ll also raise awareness of the menopause, which, although a natural process for women, has wider repercussions in the world of work and family.

“It’s time to normalise these topics and get real around the subject. I believe I can make progress by proving this isn’t just a female topic, encouraging conversations across all genders and educating and engaging new audiences.”

No. No no no no no. In a world where men are still hired and promoted more readily than women are, no, we don’t need men to bounce up to “prove this isn’t just a female topic,” especially since yes it damn well is.

He shouldn’t have applied in the first place.

The whole thing is a giant calculated insult.

Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for having thoughts.

A Saudi student at Leeds University who had returned home to the kingdom for a holiday has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists.

…

Salma al-Shehab, 34, a mother of two young children, was initially sentenced to three years in prison for the “crime” of using an internet website to “cause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security”. But an appeals court on Monday handed down the new sentence – 34 years in prison followed by a 34-year travel ban – after a public prosecutor asked the court to consider other alleged crimes.

…

By all accounts, Shehab was not a leading or especially vocal Saudi activist, either inside the kingdom or in the UK. She described herself on Instagram – where she had 159 followers – as a dental hygienist, medical educator, PhD student at Leeds University and lecturer at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, and as a wife and a mother to her sons, Noah and Adam.

Saudis have a lot of money invested in Twitter.

Khalid Aljabri, a Saudi who is living in exile and whose sister and brother are being held in the kingdom, said the Shehab case proved Saudi Arabia’s view that dissent equates to terrorism.

“Salma’s draconian sentencing in a terrorism court over peaceful tweets is the latest manifestation of MBS’s ruthless repression machine,” he said, referring to the crown prince. “Just like [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi’s assassination, her sentencing is intended to send shock waves inside and outside the kingdom – dare to criticise MBS and you will end up dismembered or in Saudi dungeons.”

While the case has not received widespread attention, the Washington Post on Tuesday published a scathing editorial about Saudi Arabia’s treatment of the Leeds student and said her case showed that “commitments” the president had received on reforms were “a farce”.

“At the very least, Mr. Biden must now speak out forcefully and demand that Ms. Shehab be released and allowed to return to her sons, 4 and 6 years old, in the United Kingdom, and to resume her studies there,” it read.

He probably won’t though.

News from Port Townsend:

An angry white crowd screaming at a Black woman pleading for civil rights. Threatening her. Intimidating her. Senior women linking arms to protect a rape survivor trying to speak. A lesbian being shouted down by a mostly male mob decked out in Pride colors. A man with an AR-15 imposed over a Trans flag on his ball cap, the impression of a handgun in his left cargo pants pocket, hiding behind sunglasses and a mask that made identification difficult.

This man:

“DEFEND EQUALITY” with an assault rifle and a concealed face. That kind of equality.

Most of the jeering, intimidating mob of hundreds pressing elder women against the wall of the Cotton Building appeared to be from out of town. According to another journalist covering the event, the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club was there, the group that provides armed “security” at Antifa riots. Antifa was there, clusters of men dressed in black with black face coverings. Several women were knocked to the ground by large men who broke through their linked arms. They tore down flags and tried to steal equipment being used to amplify and record the event.

Seriously? Antifa men in black with faces covered knocking women to the ground? This is the left now? Because women don’t want to share locker rooms with men?

This guy was there:

Read the whole thing; if even half of it is true it’s horrifying.

Adding via Sastra:

The buffoons who hired a man to be Period Officer are saying they were right to do it and shut up.

A group in Tayside has defended its decision to appoint a man as a period dignity officer.

Jason Grant’s hiring sparked a heated online debate, with critics saying the job should have gone to a woman.

…

The job advert said the suitable candidate needed a “successful track record of engaging and empowering a large range of people from a diverse range of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, in particular young people who menstruate”.

Maybe everybody all along the line was confused – maybe none of them realized menstruation is something male people are not equipped to do, ever, under any circumstances.

Mr Grant will also discuss issues around menopause as part of his role.

Ah great, what menopausal woman doesn’t want some very young man explaining menopause to her?

The period dignity working group, which has representatives of Dundee and Angus College, Perth College, Angus Council and Dundee City Council, said Mr Grant was the strongest candidate for the job.

A spokesperson said: “The role builds on some fantastic work which has been gathering speed across the Tay region for several years, led by a passionate group of people of all genders, ages and backgrounds.

“By changing the culture, encouraging debate and removing the stigma around periods, we look forward to supporting the delivery of this important work across the region.”

They can’t. The insult of hiring a man for that job will render all their clueless attempts to “remove the stigma” not only worthless but yet more insult.

Are they really all such halfwits that they don’t understand it’s women and girls who are stigmatized when menstruation is stigmatized? Are they really all such halfwits that they don’t understand that excluding women and girls from this job of all jobs just underlines what contempt they have for women and girls?

Oh look, the actual job advert for the “Period Dignity Officer” –

Job Description

(This post is funded through Period Dignity Partnership and will be hosted by Dundee and Angus College)

Period Dignity Regional Lead Officer
Regional Post (working with community partners Dundee & Angus College, Perth College, Dundee City Council and Angus Council)
35 hours per week / Fixed-Term to 1st August 2024
Salary: DA10, £33,153 – £36,126

Working in partnership across the Tay Cities Region to aid in the implementation of the Period Product Act, this post aims to coordinate and streamline the approach to Period Dignity across Perth & Kinross, Dundee and Angus.  The Lead Officer will provide outstanding project leadership and management for a range of activities, events, and outcomes. This will include engaging with staff, partners, communities and young people in developing and delivering a campaign that stretches across our regions, raising awareness and understanding of the Period Product Act and the expanse of work happening in our respective communities

It will include engaging with “young people.” Any particular kind of people besides young? Nope, just people.

Energy, enthusiasm and excellent interpersonal skills are needed, backed up with a qualification at degree level and a successful track record of engaging and empowering a large range of people from a diverse range of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, in particular young people who menstruate.  

Ohhhhh there we go – young people who menstruate.

Experience of successful working with a wide range of stakeholders, to deliver project outcomes and enhanced opportunities for young people, clients or others is needed, coupled with evidence of devising and delivering marketing and promotional campaigns to reach various audiences.  

Etc etc etc, yadda yadda yadda. No mention of girls or women; not one.

Are the walls closing in on Treasonboy?

The US Department of Justice has asked a judge not to release the affidavit that gave the FBI probable cause to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, worsening distrust among top Trump aides casting about for any insight into the intensifying criminal investigation surrounding the former president.

The affidavit should not be unsealed because that could reveal the scope of the investigation into Trump’s unauthorized retention of government secrets, the justice department argued, days after the Mar-a-Lago search warrant showed it referenced potential violations of three criminal statutes.

Aha. Could it now. How interesting.

In arguing against unsealing the affidavit, the justice department also said that the disclosure could harm its ability to gain cooperation from witnesses not only in the Mar-a-Lago investigation but also additional ones that would appear to touch on the former president.

“Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations,” prosecutors added.

Well don’t do that. Get those witnesses to sing like canaries.

The existence of potential witnesses who could yet cooperate in a number of investigations against Trump – seemingly people with intimate knowledge of the former president’s activities – rattled close advisers once more on Monday, further deepening distrust inside his inner political circle.

Good good good. Rattle them like castanets.

The lack of insight into what the justice department intends to do with the investigation into Trump’s unauthorized retention of government documents has deeply frustrated the Trump legal team and aides alike in a week of perilous moments for the former president.

At least one lawyer on the Trump legal team – led by former assistant US attorney Evan Corcoran, who also acted as the lawyer for Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon – has called up a reporter covering the story for any insight into how the justice department might next proceed.

Oh good. I hope they’re sweating through all their expensive shirts.

But towards the weekend, and following the revelation that the FBI removed a leather-bound box from the property and already knew the location of Trump’s safe, scrutiny shifted once more to anyone else who had not yet been suspected – including members of Trump’s family, the sources said.

Better and better.

Water cuts in the southwest states:

Water cuts are expected to be announced Tuesday to western states in the grip of a severe “megadrought” that has dropped levels in the country’s largest two reservoirs to record lows.

The flow of the Colorado river, which provides water to more than 40 million people across seven states and Mexico, will be stemmed to reduce supply to Arizona and Nevada initially, if the federal government confirms the proposal.

The crisis, which has dropped levels in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US to an 80-year low of barely one-quarter its 28.9m acre-feet capacity, is threatening the future of the crucial river basin.

It turns out to have been stupid and shortsighted to think the Colorado was simply an infinite permanent water supply to an enormous desert.

The crisis also means power cuts. Less water, less power. Deal with it.

They are dealing with it, aren’t they? Aren’t they?

Since you ask – no.

Officials warned the seven states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – last year to prepare for emergency cuts. In June, officials said the states must figure out how to use 15% less water next year or have cuts imposed on them.

The predicament has prompted tensions between states with different priorities for the water they receive, and talks have failed to yield any agreement.

Brilliant.

Ontology for fantasists.

That’s a general principle then? So if you live your life as a snail you are a snail? If you live your life as a rutabaga you are a rutabaga? A car, a tree, a river, a planet, anything and everything?

Please offer further detail.

The Times on the bad behavior of Joanne Harris:

JK Rowling and fellow writers have accused the bestselling novelist Joanne Harris, who is head of the Society of Authors, of betraying the principle of freedom of speech in her stance on gender identity.

Rowling said that Harris, who wrote the award-winning novel Chocolat, had “consistently failed” to defend female authors who disagreed “with her personal position on gender identity ideology”, allowing the women to be intimidated into silence.

She cited the cases of two authors, Rachel Rooney and Gillian Philip, who had suffered “severe personal and professional harm” because they dared to “challenge a fashionable ideology which has been remarkably successful in demonising those who protest against the current attack on women’s rights”.

Rowling tweeted her outrage at the attack on Rushdie, and Harris responded with a sarcastic poll asking writers if they’d ever received threats. She was asked if she’d ever expressed sympathy for Rowling and she said yes.

In a statement to The Times, Rowling said she had received no messages of support from Harris. “I was startled to read this,” she said, “as I’ve received no communication whatsoever from Harris expressing sympathy for the death and rape threats I’ve received.”

So by “yes” Harris meant “no because I don’t like her opinion that men are not women.”

[Rowling] also highlighted remarks by Kate Quarmby, an author who sat on the society’s management committee, who said she had raised the subject of death threats made against Rowling in 2020 and 2021 and asked “that the society put out a statement condemning them”.

Quarmby added: “This did not happen and has not happened since.”

Rowling said:

“Harris has consistently failed to criticise tactics designed to silence and intimidate women who disagree with her personal position on gender identity ideology and has said publicly, ‘Cancel isn’t a dirty word. We habitually cancel things we no longer want.’

“I find it impossible to square the society’s stated position on freedom of speech with Harris’s public statements over the past two years and stand in solidarity with all female writers in the UK who currently feel betrayed by their professional body and its leader.”

Sorry, solidarity is only for the men.

Scotland is drunk.

Obviously men know more about periods than women do.

Dundee man and former personal trainer Jason Grant is the newly appointed period dignity officer for the Tay region – who has the task of promoting access to free sanitary products across schools and colleges – where he will also discuss issues around the menopause.

…

Mr Grant gushed of his new role as he claimed it affects men and boys too and people regardless of gender in a nod to inclusivity toward a minority of young trans men.

No it doesn’t. Menstruation affects women and girls only. It’s not “inclusive” to hire a man to tell women about menstruation.

He told the Dundee Courier: “I’m absolutely buzzing about it. It’s definitely pioneering as Scotland is the first to do this. It’s about making people aware of the availability of period products for anyone of any gender, whenever they need it.”

But it’s not “people” in general who need to be made aware, it’s women only. It’s not “inclusive” to go out of your way to insult women.

“And it’s important whatever we do is done with dignity, so people know that there’s no judgement.”

Get out, sonny. This is none of your business. This is the opposite of dignity just as it’s the opposite of inclusion. Take your prurient “no judgement” somewhere else.

Mr Grant’s role is advertised online with a salary of between £33,153 and £36,126 a year on a fixed term contract running into 2024 – while it is expected other roles of this kind will be set up elsewhere.

All going to men?