A hot topic for today: a piece by Laura Favaro in the Times Higher about the tyranny of gender idenniny.

Warnings that the field was risky for an early career researcher to investigate came from scholars on all sides – from “gender-critical” feminists, who described being vilified and ostracised for stating that sex is binary and immutable, to those who saw that position as callous bigotry, or, moreover, “a genocidal project” (including journal editors thus endorsing censorship).

Some people warned of vilification and ostracism, others vilified and ostracized.

More than two years ago, I set out to find whether the warnings about entering this domain were justified, or, as others suggest, spurious claims made by those keen to spark a phoney “culture war”. It led me to interview 50 gender studies academics across many disciplines, including sociology, psychology and education, most of whom worked at English universities, to learn about their views and experiences of the dispute.

…

It was clear that the “gender-critical” feminist academics I interviewed had faced negative repercussions for years for expressing their view (now protected in the UK under the Equality Act 2010 following last year’s tribunal ruling that a thinktank researcher, Maya Forstater, had been unlawfully dismissed for tweeting that women could not change their biological sex). Among other experiences, my interviewees described complaints to and by management, attempts to shut down events, no platforming, disinvitations, intimidation, smears and losing career progression opportunities, including being blocked from jobs.

How did this situation become so entrenched so fast? There was certainly nothing like it in connection with feminism and its critics, was there? Opposition and emotion, yes, but surely not such systematic and intense vilification and ostracism? (Shall I call it V&O for short?) I don’t think feminism has ever had that kind of power or invoked that kind of loyalty.

From these [gender-critical] scholars’ perspective, the supporters of what is often called “trans-inclusive feminism” held near-total control in academia, deciding what was discussed in departments or included in scholarly journals.

But did trans-inclusive feminists see themselves as holding this powerful position? I spoke to 20 such academics to understand their heterogeneous, often ambiguous and contradictory constellation of ideas and to explore whether they recognised the accusations of unfair “gatekeeping” made against them.

Ha. Pretty sure that’s a No.

Despite its conceptual diversity, genderism coheres around the push for gender (identity) to replace sex in most – if not all – contexts. Unlike feminism, its political subject is not female people but rather all those subjected to gender oppression – a concept that is redefined to emphasise lack of choice and affirmation relating to gender identity.

Lack of choice is an interesting thing to emphasize. We don’t have a choice about a lot of things. We don’t choose to be humans, or animals, or alive; we don’t choose to be tall or short, born in Pakistan or Peru. We are thrown into the world, as the existentialists said. Choice is a luxury. It’s good to expand it, but it’s not always good to be enraged at its absence.

For many, the urgency of recognising this societal injustice could not be overstated. “Trans-exclusionary radical feminists” (Terfs), as they frequently labelled them, are part of nothing less than a “colonial [and] ultimately an eliminationist project” against people who identify as transgender or non-binary, some believe, as explained by Alison Phipps in her 2020 book Me, not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism.

Alison Phipps took to Twitter to object to this article and its writer today. To object to it and throw around accusations about it.

On the issue of “no platforming”, some interviewees ridiculed the idea that gender-critical feminists were victims of it, echoing influential writers such as Sara Ahmed, who in 2015 discredited claims by feminists about silencing at universities being “a mechanism of power”, even while conceding that she was “aiming to eliminate the positions that aim to eliminate people”.

“There is no such silencing, but I plan to assist it.”

Others, however, openly embraced the “no debate” position on the basis that gender-critical feminism is “hate speech” or even “rhetorical violence [that] actually does have real-world aims”, equivalent to movements such as fascism and eugenics. One interviewee who identified as a trans woman described the current situation in academia as “a political battle over an institutional space”, clarifying that: “My political bottom line is – I don’t concede to people who are interested in the eradication of me and everyone like me in the world because I consider that a genocidal project.”

In other words they lie. Systematically and often. We object to the concept of “gender identity” and to how it’s playing out, and they call that eradication and genocide. We are not seeking the eradication or genocide of anyone.

This view, together with the belief that “cis women have more power than trans people”, led genderist academics to refrain from forthrightly denouncing some transgender activists’ aggressive tactics towards feminists. These include threats and ideations of extreme violence, which, as well as being pervasive on social media, appear to be increasingly condoned at universities. For example, last year, a London School of Economics postgraduate student conference paper described a scene in which feminists critical of genderism “scream for mercy”. The paper then described the potential threat: “I hold a knife to your throat and spit my transness into your ear”, concluding: “Are you scared? I sure fucking hope so.”

That’s plucky and admirable; feminist women saying men can’t become women is pure evil.

Gatekeeping was also suggested in the responses by another 11 interviewees who held principal editorship roles at feminist, gender and sexuality studies journals. All confirmed that genderist perspectives dominate these publications, in the sense that “on the editorial board, none of us would describe ourselves as in the gender critical camp”. Editors additionally pointed to the preferred perspective of authors, readers and publishing houses. For some, it was a matter of scholarly values, with gender-critical feminism described as “wrong-headed”, “outdated” or “completely delegitimised”. Others, however, acknowledged that “the objection is a political one”.

Feminism is wrong-headed, outdated, and completely delegitimized. Back to the kitchen, wims.

Genderist academics reported personally imposing bans from academic networks and events, along with language policing of colleagues as well as students. “If students write ‘female’ in their essay, I’ll cross it out,” a sociologist told me, because “what matters is gender [identity]”.

So what matters is not the potential to get pregnant? Not the smaller less muscular body? Not expectations of child-bearing and kitchen work and submission? None of that matters any more?

Marina Hyde notes the UK has toppled into absurdity:

In the wake of the Queen’s death, these moments of hopelessly unintentional, tenuously sane hilarity have surely been produced by the behaviour of any number of our commercial brands. Them and Nicholas Witchell, anyway. It’s been like a competition to see which retailer can act the most preposterously, the most self-regardingly, and with the most complete commitment to the twee.

Could it be Morrisons, announcing that it had turned down the volume of its till beeps “out of respect”? Could it be pawnshop chain Cash Converters formally announcing its self-seclusion from social media? Or could it be – and this one’s the correct answer – Center Parcs decreeing that holidaymakers must be thrown out of its villages for the day of the Queen’s funeral “as a mark of respect”, before backtracking and permitting customers to remain on site, while ordering them to “remain in their lodges”?

Is that even legal? Health and safety measures apart? Yes the police, fire departments, and epidemiologists can tell people to stay inside in an emergency. Commercial holiday vendors? Not so much.

If you’ve felt slightly “managed” by aspects of the relentlessly choreographed elements of the past week, then this really was your Triumph of the Corporate Will. It was, all of a sudden, simply impossible not to picture oneself in one’s wood-effect, lodge-effect detention hut, cowering by the forest-mural feature wall as village guards toured the site with loudhailers while screaming “REMAIN IN YOUR LODGES!”

1984 plus Bozo the Clown.

The commercial landscape is awash with this nonsense. I know our society is measured by how it treats its most wantonly evil members, but my finger does hover over the “deploy whole-life-tariff” button when I read about Innocent Fruit Smoothies not tweeting for a few days “out of respect” for Her Majesty’s death. But of course – of course – Innocent would take this immensely self-righteous stand. Its products are just a few among an ever-growing mountain that plaster their terrible pious catechisms all over their packaging, and where the words “the good stuff” are supposed to signify something moral as well as nutritional. Sorry, but no. Stop managing me. Just sell me your crap and be on your way.

See: Whole Foods. There’s a Whole Foods across the street from a bus stop I regularly frequent, and I spend the waiting time contradicting the chat on their posters, which is invariably toe-curlingly smug. “No I don’t; no you aren’t; no it isn’t.”

Quite how we’ve got to this ridiculous place where irrelevant retailers feel moved to act like the archbishop of Canterbury is unclear, but the past week has certainly underscored the necessity of getting out of it before we submit fully to becoming One Nation Under Brands. Every one of these botched attempts at gravitas now turns me full Braveheart – and I very much hope you are with me.

I so am. Whole Foods is number one on the list.

Consistency from one hour to the next; does OJ have it?

OJ tries to conceal his inconsistency (or should we call it pathological lying? if he can accuse us of pathological lying we can return the favor, yeah?) by not saying “the lesbians who were kicked out of Pride for stating that lesbians don’t like penises” but rather “anti-trans activists invaded a Pride march.” That’s not a very honest or forthright move, especially for a journalist, especially for a journalist who has just called a bunch of people “pathological liars.”

How can lesbians be said to be “invading” a Pride march? Why does OJ think he gets to tell lesbians they’re “invading” Pride? What is a “cis lesbian”? Why does OJ think it’s ok for straight men who call themselves women to be at Pride but not ok for lesbians to be there? For that matter why does he think it’s ok for him to bully and shout at and try to silence lesbians?

Does Ted Cruz really think people are THAT stupid?

Now try 4.2 million, he says, to the 15,000 people who live on an island that is 87 square miles. Ted Cruz is a senator from a state that is 268,597 square miles with a population of 28 million.

Texas is bigger than France; Martha’s Vineyard is a third the size of Chicago.

Why would Ted Cruz try to illustrate the burden of immigration on Texas by comparing it to a tiny island with a tiny population?

Also:

“Liberals’ golf games”???????????? That’s his gotcha?

Hello and welcome to Pseuds’ Corner. Our guest today is a self-obsessed young person who would like to explain to us how special xir is.

Carla Hernando, 26, never quite felt like they fit into a particular gender. Then, when Covid-19 took hold in March 2020, they got a lot of alone time to reflect on their identity. The journey continued during Pride Month that June, when Hernando found both an article and a documentary on non-binary gender identities, by Time Out Barcelona, further opening their mind to possibilities beyond the gender binary of ‘woman’ or ‘man’.

I hope they also read up on non-human identities, to open their mind to possibilities beyond the human-chimpanzee binary.

“[Spain] is way behind in terms of gender,” believes the Barcelona-based Hernando, who uses both they/them and she/her pronouns. “I did not know what non-binary meant. I just had felt completely different my entire life.” But the more education they got about the range of possibilities outside the gender binary of ‘woman’ or ‘man’, the more they felt they related. 

It’s so exciting that Hernando uses both. I wonder how the BBC knew when to use “they/them” and when to use “she/her.” Maybe they (the BBC, that is) asked them (Hernando, that is) each time? That must have taken a lot of asking, if so.

That experience was the gateway to another discovery: the term ‘gender fluid’. Hernando felt it was an even more apt descriptor for their gender identity. 

“One day I wake up and feel more feminine, and maybe I want to wear a crop top and put earrings on. And then there’s times in which I’m like, I need my [chest] binder [to minimise the appearance of my breasts], because I’m not feeling it,” they say. The lived experience of gender fluidity – wearing a binder one day and more feminine outfit the next – is what ultimately helped Hernando discover that the term applied to them. 

Deep. Deep deep deep stuff. Profound. Life-altering. Trippy.

Gender fluidity has grown even more visible as celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Ruby Rose and Cara Delevingne embrace it in the public eye. The term is hard to pin down precisely, since it describes such a vast array of people and experiences, say experts.

“Experts”? Who and what might they be?

Come on. The term “is hard to pin down precisely” because it’s such bullshit and also because it’s so obvious. It’s NOT REMARKABLE that people feel like wearing one kind of clothes one day and a different kind another day. It’s not remarkable and it’s most certainly not A Sign of a mysterious exciting complicated new understanding of female and male.

There are of course many more paragraphs of this piffle, which I’m not going to read because what I’ve seen so far makes clear how stupid it all is.

Oh yes, what could possibly go wrong?

More and more and MORE “gender affirming care” – more castrations, more hysterectomies, more mastectomies, more puberty blockers, more cross-gender hormones, and more and more and MORE. It’s all so pink and festive and fun.

Reduce those barriers! In fact actively encourage people to wreck their bodies for the sake of a mass delusion! What have you got to lose?

Oh good GRIEF.

The same way it impinges on his happiness, Owen, to KEEP IT A SECRET THAT HE IS GAY.

On a different (yet oddly similar in some ways) subject, John Kelly knew Trump is a psycho.

Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff secretly bought a book in which 27 mental health professionals warned that the president was psychologically unfit for the job, then used it as a guide in his attempts to cope with Trump’s irrational behavior.

News of John Kelly’s surreptitious purchase comes in a new book from Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan Glasser of the New Yorker. The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

…

[Kelly’s] struggles to impose order on Trump and his underlings and his virulent falling out with the president have been extensively documented. According to Baker and Glasser, who interviewed Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general bought a copy of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump as he “sought help to understand the president’s particular psychoses and consulted it while he was running the White House, which he was known to refer to as ‘Crazytown’”. “

Kelly told others that the book was a helpful guide to a president he came to consider a pathological liar whose inflated ego was in fact the sign of a deeply insecure person.”

Came to consider? How did he not know that all along?

The authors report that Kelly’s view was shared by unnamed senior officials, quoting one as saying: “I think there’s something wrong with [Trump]. He doesn’t listen to anybody, and he feels like he shouldn’t. He just doesn’t care what other people say and think. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Same. I’ve seen plenty of people who don’t care enough, but not people who don’t care at all.

Onward again.

[As always I tweak the transcript to expand abbreviations and supply missing words and punctuation and so on, as it’s done at speed without technical aids.]

MG: moving on to LGBA attitude to Mermaids. Page 232 

MG: You deny trying to deprive Mermaids of funding or attack on their fund raising efforts.

KH: yes.

MG: You appreciate my client takes a different view. Turn back to vol 2.2. This time at 1136 and what LGBTA says here, tweet dated May 5 2020 ‘profound homophobia at heart of GI’ that’s straight attack, undermine Mermaids.

KM: straight attempt to say all these groups are displaying profound homophobia.
MG: it’s gender propaganda?
KH: [reads] statement full of feeling. Feeling behind is love for children who are confused. That’ll be seen in future decades as most wicked medical scandal.

Yeeting the teets? You think?

Skipping a bit of back and forth.

MG: the institutions you mention are responsible for profound homphobia.

KH: yes.

MG: You denied seeking to undermine Mermaids but contrary to what we see in tweet. 

KH: I don’t agree. There’s a place for challenging discussion. This is a life and death discussion. Most serious issue I’ve ever been involved in in my life as a lesbian. I find it terrifying and staggering in size of influence. I believe its our duty to challenge when promoted. 

On other hand I see Mermaids has a right to exist. We can criticise them, they can criticise us. That’s pluralistic society
MG: nature and tone from LGBA, this combative attack. Do you accept that’s your approach? Not pluralistic, but personalised.

KH: targeted commentary of danger posed to children. It’s not illegal to be confrontational.

MG: Your use of language now you don’t regret tone? You think appropriate?
KH: yes
MG: and happy to use language you just have?
KH: yes 

They go back and forth over funding and lottery money and whether LGBA tried to get Mermaids denied lottery money. MG gets insulting.

MG: I suggest that’s coyness that answer.

KH: well it isn’t intended to be coy. Intended to say it could be seen as that. I’ve never been coy in my life and don’t intent to be in the hearing. 

In other words “coyness” is a sexist taunt so FO. I too can use acronyms.

KH: 2 things by clinicians. Think David Bell talked about TATG and others at GIDS talking about homophobia said ‘soon won’t be any gay kids left to trans’. That’s hearsay but think well known to be factual.

MG: You put that in a hashtag.

KH: We were not allowed on the BBC thanks to the efforts of Mr Nicolson… it became important for us to use twitter for our voices to be heard. Our voices have been suppressed and everything we’ve spoken we’ve been called transphobic bigots.

All because of a mass delusion.

Onward.

We restart.

EJ: please sit. Kate Harris are you all right to continue?

KH: yes

MG: I apologise if I said something upsetting. I’ll put the question in brief way for a yes/no. You’d accept others use words such as SE differently to you. Or lesbian for that matter. 

I don’t know what the E in SE is an abbreviation for; it’s not in the list of abbreviations at the top. Expression doesn’t make any sense and I don’t know what else it could be. I don’t know why it’s not SO for sexual orientation. Anyway, the important thing is Kate Harris’s response.

KH: my good friend Allison Bailey said the word lesbian is taken. The word is taken by us. I’m going to speak for millions of lesbians around the world. We love other women. We will not have that stolen from us. 

There have always been men who say feel they’re a lesbian tee hee hee. Always jocular. Lesbians often a laughing stock. We will not be. We will not be erased and no man with a penis will tell us he’s a lesbian because he feels he is.

Bam!

MG: when you talk of tee hee, different than Paul Roberts.

KH: Paul Roberts is far more offensive. He had no interest in lesbians. In particular, the 4000% increase in girls who think they are trans. I felt indifference from him about these phenomena while running an lgbt Consortium. 

Almost as if the G and T matter more than the L. Almost.

KH: Contempt in this ideology that ignores women and lesbians. We formed LGBS because we were not prepared to see lesbians erased. I’m proud to speak for lesbians attracted to human females. A lesbian is attracted to another biological woman full stop. 

MG: You set up lgba to fight that?
KH: It was set up for children…we were concerned about children growing up fed a tissue of lies about the myth that you can change sex. You cannot change sex.
MG: That’s political.

I guess the background idea is that a charity can’t be political? Since that’s what this hearing is about? At any rate it’s so absurd. It’s not “political” – not inherently. It’s been made political by all the political bullshit about men who are really women because they have a feminine soul.

KH: You keep trying to make me agree without [discussing] what lies behind it which is the safeguarding of children. 

Our primary concern is that children should be given facts, education and the ability to make decisions as they get older. They have a fundamental right of going through puberty. You’re trying to suggest we’re a political campaign in a vacuum. We’re driven by concern for children. 

And the concern for children has to do with the extremely political campaign to impose gender ideology on everyone and punish all dissent. If you think gender ideology is not political you might as well go the the store for a new brain, yours is broken.

Jumping ahead a few lines.

MG: The language you use is prejudicial. You don’t talk about Gender Critical.

KH: We don’t like the term. We use ideology as it has crept like Japanese knotweed through the media, education, the BBC. Its overwhelming influence means the public is being misinformed. Adults are able to work through it. Our biggest concern is that children are lied to. That’s a red flag. 

MG: When you say evidence based, you’re fully convinced.
KH: We were once the only voice saying this, and now we’re seeing NHS changes, the Cass review, people sitting up, parents raising concerns. There is more light on it. You may say it’s extreme to use ‘ideology’ but we’ve seen how it’s used around the world.

…

MG: You say children are lied to? 

KH: yes..I’d love it if SW said look at what Anne Fausto-Sterling said about Gender Identity as not being helpful anymore. Let’s look at mass info and 4000% increase. We hope people are looking under the radar at what has been happening over the last few years.

MG: the phrase new phase of working and accusing someone of lying to children. That’s deliberate.

KH: yes deliberate, that’s why we’re so pleased that one leader has said we need to look at it. Does anyone remember the South Sea Bubble and everyone went crackers? This is a similar sign of madness. 

The madness of crowds, to be specific. See also: aliens; recovered memory syndrome; Freud; Jonestown; Heaven’s Gate; Jesus and Mo.

Can’t emphasis how many intelligentsia people have lost their minds on this issue. We heard a lot of being kids and may be a lot of people have overcorrected. It’s a new homophobia that they think they’re being kind. Just falling for a myth.

God ain’t that the truth about the intelligentsia people. The “skeptics” in particular.

MG: I want to clarify. I said lied to and you say they believed. It can’t be a lie if they believe.

KH: can’t it?

I go back and forth on this question all the time. It’s a real question. The way I answer it for myself is generally that there are some things people have no right to believe. “Right” in a metaphorical sense – literally speaking of course they do have the right. There are claims that are just too absurd for anyone over the age of 5 to believe.

MG: happy to engage in debate by accusing of lying?

KH: We want people to look at the social phenomenon of young girls on a medical pathway, mastectomies, on 2 for 1 in America. Well worth looking at, and charities like Mermaids, Stonewall and the LGBT Consortium…I’d ask why aren’t they bothered. I’d say to all we need to look at evidence.

MG: you don’t retract the word lie?

KH: cannot handle dishonesty. Sorry if offensive but it’s a lie for children to be told they were born in the wrong body.

Which is more offensive? Telling children they were born in the wrong body, or calling that claim a lie?

Powerful stuff at the tribunal this morning.

EJ: good morning AR. Peace has descended and we hope no further interruption. Good Morning everyone. Carry on where we left off Michael Gibbon KC lawyer for Mermaids.

MG: morning. Just remind where we got to. We were talking about looking at that doc, particular words and phrases, reference to sexual orientation, adversity to gay and bisexuality people, later discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. No mention of GC view? 

Kate Harris [of LGBA]: that’s correct. IS will know our app to the Charity Commission took a year. No criticism. Comes between lawyers and CC, the difference between us and other is the emphasis on the centrality of differences between men and women. Clearly laid out. 

I think what they’re talking about is how LGBA described itself to the Charity Commission, and Gibbon is hinting or saying that they didn’t call themselves gender critical and that was sneaky? He’s hinting or saying that and Harris is saying it wasn’t sneaky, if I understand correctly.

KH: Words missing as we thought this was easily understood by the majority who believe in definitions in the Equality Act.

In other words: yes duh we called ourselves Lesbian Gay Bisexual Alliance and we didn’t feel any need to say BY THE WAY THAT MEANS ACTUAL LESBIANS WHO ARE ACTUALLY WOMEN.

In other other words the burden of proof isn’t on lesbians to remind people what “lesbian” means; it’s on the people who have decided to reverse the meanings of “lesbian” and “gay” and “women” and “men.”

MG: not here to ask about law. On face of doc it doesn’t mention GC or biological sex and no definition legal or otherwise.

KH: no

MG: not suggesting didn’t have convos but ness [need?] to give definitions. 

KH: don’t agree. Gave responses following petition. Objects were based on SW, well known for last 30 years and we thought most people would understand SSE based on biology. Using language on EA.
MG: matter down the line of how EA should be understood.

MG: presume you saw the application before it was submitted.
KH: yes.
MG: this is ‘benefits of LGBA’ [reads ‘ LGBA position is only 2 sexes and gender is a social construct’]
Wasn’t something arose later, was included in app?
KH: agree 

I’m not sure if that’s “Didn’t something arise later?” or “Wasn’t something added later?”

MG: back to 236. Obviously you expressed your view of how words should be understand. You would accept in practice a lot of people use sex and gender interchangeably.

KH: since 2015 

MG: is that right since 2015?
KH: issue and why those words form central part of our thinking and activity because of those who wish to remove sex and replace with gender. We see in west Australia, Victoria, Canada.

I’m guessing she said it became an issue around 2015.

KH: Those who campaign for GI replace sex with gender. Our position is that’s very dangerous, confusing and goes against all science and reason.

MG: didn’t need to state it?
KH: we did then. Need to make even clearer [now?]

MG: other people have different understanding of SE and lesbian? You saw Paul Roberts and his understanding.

KH: You mean a lesbian can be a man with a penis?

MG: putting it in a neutral way. Lesbian can include someone who is a woman as a result of Gender Recognition [Act]? That’s how Paul Roberts understands it. 

KH (long pause)

EJ: is everything all right Miss Harris? We’ll rise for a moment and get KH a tissue and glass of water.

(Court adjourned) 

So there you have it. Oddly enough women find it upsetting to be told that a law says men can be women. Lesbians find it upsetting to be told that a law says men can be lesbians.

We find it upsetting, maddening, insulting, outrageous that the historically dominated controlled bullied sex can now not even define itself; that men are going to steal even the sex – but not of course the domination and control and bullying that does with it. Men have found a new and even more sadistic way to bully women: by pretending to be women themselves and then rubbing our noses in it.

What’s wrong with this claim?

How does one be a woman “philosophically”? I suppose he means ontologically. How does one be a woman “in practice”? I suppose he means by doing all the playacting things – wearing skirts, simpering, tilting the head, bellowing “IT’S MA’AM!!” But of course playacting isn’t how one can be a thing. It’s how one can pretend to be a thing, and it can maybe for some thoughtful people be a path to understanding how others feel. Pretending to have a physical handicap and then trying to navigate the physical world for instance can be an eye-opener. It’s funny how pretending to be a woman doesn’t seem to work that way at all.

Anyway. My main dispute is with “we are affected by all the same stuff.” No we’re not, asshole, and saying we are is such a dudely thing to say. Men are not affected by menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, systematic preference for men in most occupations, being smaller and less muscular, having less sonorous voices, and I could go on this way for hours. No, men who dress up as women are NOT affected by all the same stuff, and this claim that they are is why the whole “trans women are women” campaign is such a fucking insult.

The DoJ objects.

Donald Trump’s lawyers are causing “irreparable harm” to the government and public by delaying the investigation into his hoarding of highly classified documents at his Florida mansion, the US Department of Justice said.

Trump and his lawyers of course couldn’t possibly care less. Causing harm is Trump’s raison d’être.

The claim came in a strongly worded court filing urging a district judge, Aileen Cannon, to reconsider her ruling last week granting Trump’s request for an independent “special master” in the case.

Any bets? No, nobody is going to throw their money away on that one.

This is bizarre.

Huge queues are forming along the banks of the River Thames, as people wait to pay their respects to the Queen.

…

The UK government has published a live queue tracker for people to follow on YouTube. Currently the queue is more than two miles long and the back of the queue is now past London Bridge.

TWO. MILES. LONG.

People queuing are being warned they will need to stand for many hours – possibly overnight – with little opportunity to sit down, as the queue will be constantly moving.

The maximum length of the queue is 10 miles – with 6.9 miles from Westminster to Southwark, and a three-mile zigzag queue in Southwark Park.

So why would anyone want to do that? The end goal is a box. It’s not tea with the queen, it’s not a glimpse of the queen from a distance, it’s not being in a crowd cheering the queen up on the balcony, it’s a box. Why would anyone join a two mile long queue just to walk past a box?

Especially since it’s not all that hard to get glimpses of royals anyway, if that’s your thing.

The futility of arguing with people who believe in nonsense: Michael Gibbon KC, Counsel for Mermaids, asking questions of Bev Jackson of LGBA:

MG: Only a few questions left. Turn to disagreement with Mr Nicholson. He gave evidence that LGBA denigrated people and organisations that support trans rights.

BJ: yes that was his evidence. 

MG: People were invited to make donations in Nicolson’s name, April 2021. See eg tweets here, by LGBA. Thank a JE for donation, she calls Nicolson a misogynist homophobe. Not a sensible thing to do. 

BJ: Agree not sensible, would say mischievous. We were exasperated by his abuse of us. I believe a couple of people donated in his name and we then mentioned this and encouraged. I agree not very sensible. Was light-hearted.

MG: I would say inflammatory.
BJ: DIsagree, because JN had abused us first.
MG: There is a chronology by Mr Hewitt but not put to JN bcs after his evidence.
BJ: Not so; it had been written up long before that.

MG: Not put to JN.

BJ: He had every opportunity to do so, was published openly.

I don’t know what that part means.

MG: JN was the object of this, his evidence must be preferred?

BJ: No, we were the object of JN’s abuse.

MG: I restate, inflammatory – not mischievous or light-hearted. 

I say JN is correct, he was bombarded by abuse because of LGBA encouragement.

BJ: Completely disagree. 

Honestly. Poor poor John Nicolson, the venomous abusive rude MP who shouts at lesbians who don’t agree that men are women.

MG: Again re JN – page 1290.

Begins “Dear Boris”. Second paragraph – says would you would be surprised to hear lesbians are harassed & accused of transphobia if they refuse sex with male bodies if they “identify” as women. I say, prejudicial language by not saying “trans”
BJ: Not sure what you mean
MG: should have said trans women.

Oh there it is – you’re not allowed to say they’re men who identify as women, you have to say trans women.

BJ: I think our language is clearer. Many people think “trans woman” means someone has had surgery, no penis, so our language is clearer. 

MG: why quotes round “identifies as”? 

BJ: because “identifies as” isn’t clear, it is jargon.
MG: you are saying TW are men.
BJ: no am saying transwomen are transwomen. It is clearer.

And besides, “trans women” are men.

It’s so religion-like, so theocratic, this forcing people to lie about reality.

MG: You say LGBA is not a single issue org. I say it is, the single issue is gender-critical, opposing gender identity ideology

BJ: Disagree

MG: only purpose of LGBA.

BJ: Disagree completely.

In a way it seems foolish for Michael Gibbon to press this point, because it amounts to saying lesbians and gay men can’t have anything just for lesbians and gay men, it’s saying they have to team with trans people in everything. I’m not sure that take is as popular as he (or Mermaids) thinks it is.

The Scottish Daily Express reports on the John Nicolson testimony n backlash:

SNP MP John Nicolson has been branded a “liar” and a “misogynist” for his contribution to an official hearing challenging the status of same-sex attraction charity, LBG Alliance.

The gay rights advocates separated from the likes of Stonewall over a belief that lesbian, gay and bisexual people had different needs than transgender-identified people but now face accusations of transphobia and “hate”.

It’s not “hate” to say that people can’t magically become something they’re not. I still can’t get used to the fact that so many adults are insisting so furiously and often that men can become women.

[I]t was a statement during cross-examination, about same-sex-attracted women that enranged campaigners. He said, “You are a lesbian, if you declare yourself one”. A comment deemed homophobic by lesbians who believe you must be a biological woman to be a lesbian and who say they face abuse for asserting a transwoman is not a lesbian.

It’s deemed homophobic by non-lesbians too. It’s also deemed absurd, childish, credulous, superstitious – just generally bizarre and not fit for adult discourse.

“These silly games may be all very well for Twitter, but hurling insults and unsubstantiated accusations is not appropriate in court. Mr Nicolson may have been lulled by his party leader turning a blind eye to his bullying and his misogyny, but it hardly made for an edifying spectacle”, said For Women Scotland.

I don’t think they’re all very well for Twitter, either, not from an MP.

She thinks all this is a joke.

Oh, hell.

So what that means is that men who claim to “identify as” women must be housed with women, but women who simply are women have no right to be housed exclusively with women. Men must be forced on women and women must not refuse or reject or resist.

It’s just a brazen lie that letting male students invade women’s sports “in no way” disadvantages the girls whose sports they invade. How could that possibly be true? How could senators be that stupid? Or do I just mean misogynist?

In the afternoon it was Bev Jackson’s turn. MG is Michael Gibbon KC, Counsel for Mermaids.

MG: You say here, do LGBA sometimes avoid saying “trans” at all and you say yes because it often overshadows discussion of LGB rights. So we are left to deduce what LBGA thinks re trans from other things you say. Eg male bodied for transwomen. 

BJ: Yes we have to – unfortunate we have to say “male bodied”, some people would simply to prefer to say “men”. We are asked constantly why we had to form, why no trans, already lots of LGBT orgs. We have had to have position from the start.

In other words there’s been a lot of “how dare you start a new organization and especially one that’s not inclooooosive of trans people?!”

MG: We have to make deductions from absence of T in your name. From you not saying “trans” much.

BJ: Many many orgs worldwide started as LGB; we felt that was getting lost; it never occurred to us we’d have to deal re trans because LBG is getting lost. 

MG: Deliberate choice to exclude.

BJ: No this is wrong. There is no Q or + or anything else either in our name, only LGB. This is a group with its own needs.

It makes me hop up and down with rage, that kind of thing. People are allowed to talk and organize and campaign on lesbian and gay issues. It’s that simple. They’re allowed to do that. There is no law that says they can’t talk about that unless they also talk about trans issues. It’s grotesque and intrusive to call not talking about a different (and often hostile) group of people a “deliberate choice to exclude.” Women get to talk about women’s issues; that’s not a “deliberate choice to exclude,” it’s just talking about a particular subject.

MG: V offensive to LGB people who don’t share your GC views, and to trans people, to be called homophobes.

V offensive to LGB people who do share their GC views, and to trans people ditto, to be called transphobic.

Are we square? Are we square?

BJ: Need to say first, we support trans rights in Equality Act, protection from discrimination etc. We don’t accept that people can change sex. Some people may be offended, sure; we are offended that men can declare themselves lesbians. 

MG: You are calling LGB people homophobes. Very offensive.

BJ: I am Jewish and have been called anti-semitic. But we have to be able to tell the truth, and it seems to me that at present lesbians are more marginalised than trans people. 

Especially, I would say, male trans people. (I wonder what accounts for the difference, if there is such a difference. It’s a puzzle.)

Lindsey Graham opens a new front in the war on women:

Senator Lindsey Graham has unveiled his proposed nationwide abortion ban, which would outlaw the procedure after 15 weeks, with certain exceptions.

Not something that will ever ruin Lindsey Graham’s life. Women? Well that’s another story.

Graham said the proposal, dubbed the “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act”, would match similar laws in European countries. He said the 15-week threshold is when fetuses will feel pain, however that doesn’t quite match the science. Many scientists say fetuses can’t feel pain before 24 weeks, although the subject is complicated and continuing to be researched.

And anyway what does it mean to “feel pain” at that stage of development? Is a 15 week fetus conscious enough to register pain?

And what about the pain the woman experiences while pushing out the baby? Why does the notional pain of a 15 week fetus trump the all too real and intense hours-long pain of a grown woman?