Never heard of antibiotic resistance then?

Patients will be able to obtain antibiotics from pharmacies without seeing a doctor under new plans aimed at reducing the need for GP appointments.

Thérèse Coffey, the health secretary, has pushed to make antibiotics more freely available and has said that she has previously handed out her own supplies of the medicines to friends and family who were feeling unwell.

She what???

One, she shouldn’t have “supplies” of antibiotics – you have to take the whole prescription. Two, you’re not supposed to give them away like after dinner mints! Three, they’re not for “feeling unwell”! Four, there are different antibiotics, they’re not interchangeable or random or all-purpose. Five, antibiotic resistance is a crisis the way climate change is a crisis. Six, antibiotics shouldn’t be “more freely available” (see 1-5). Seven, how in hell is this idiot health secretary???

Sources close to the health secretary denied suggestions from sceptical officials that “she thinks anyone should just be able to get antibiotics”, saying that such comments reflected initial questions from her early days in office.

Coffey had to be convinced by Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, that the rise of antibiotic resistant superbugs was a significant problem, after suggesting at the start of her tenure that the drugs should be made far easier to obtain in order to free up doctors.

So why in hell is she health secretary? No one that ignorant should have that job.

Pushing for easier availability of antibiotics has been branded “moronic” by some medical experts, who increasingly see the menace of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the gravest threats to modern medicine.

No shit. It’s a horror show.

The overuse of antibiotics speeds up the rate at which bacteria develop resistance to such medicines. As the drugs stop working, common infections could once again kill and treatments ranging from chemotherapy to hip replacements could become too risky to attempt.

And, like climate change, this isn’t some distant future possibility thing, it’s already happening. It’s in progress.

Coffey should be moved to a different post. Secretary of Hobbies perhaps.

NPR is so captured.

This story is part of a series looking at transgender inmates in the U.S. and the challenges they face in confinement and upon release. The series focuses on topics such as being incarcerated in prisons that do not reflect their gender identity, the medical hurdles faced behind bars and rehousing after being released.

Does the series ever focus on the results for women when men are incarcerated in prisons that do reflect their “gender identity”? The danger, the loss of privacy, the fear?

“Christina” Lusk had just been told he would be getting “surgery to affirm her gender identity” but before it happened he was busted for dealing meth.

She pleaded guilty. She has since spent about three years incarcerated in a men’s prison. She faces relentless harassment and crippling loneliness, she said, and now she wants this mistreatment to end.

He wants to shift the burden onto women, which just goes to show that he has no idea what it’s like to be a woman.

He’s suing the Department of Corrections.

After her guilty plea in 2019, Lusk was sent to the Moose Lake men’s facility. Lusk believes that she, a trans woman who has a reissued birth certificate that states she is female and who has undergone gender-affirming procedures, should be placed in the women’s prison in Shakopee, Minnesota. (It should be noted that the authenticity around a trans person’s gender identity is not inherently tied to surgeries, other medical treatments or changes to legal documents. Some people don’t take these steps for a variety of reasons.)

It’s not tied to anything. It’s bullshit. It’s also dangerous to women. It’s nauseating to see NPR oozing sympathy for meth-dealer guy while ignoring the plight of women who would have to share space with him.

Lusk is now 57. It was only a few years ago that she really started living freely as herself. A psychiatrist told her she had gender dysphoria. That’s a medical term used to describe the deep discomfort caused by a mismatch between a person’s assigned sex at birth and their gender identity.

No, it’s not a medical term. It’s a pseudo-medical term at best.

When Lusk detailed some of the instances of abuse she has dealt with, she started to cry. She took a long pause and quickly wiped the tears from her face.

“That’s why I want to move to Shakopee. I don’t think the women are going to be as aggressive and horrible to me,” she said.

Men are aggressive and women are less aggressive, so he, a man, wants to impose himself on women. Nice for him, not so nice for the women.

NPR finally gets around to a reluctant mention of this angle near the end of the piece.

The state has started slowly moving inmates who have requested a change and gone through steps for approval. Opponents of the policy say they’re concerned about the potential for assault by inmates transferred from men’s facilities.

They do??? Who could possibly have dreamed of such a thing?

Lusk, as well as many other trans individuals NPR spoke to for this project, said there will no doubt be people who are not transgender, nonbinary or intersex who try to take advantage of housing policies like this.

But they say it’s up to the prisons to establish guidelines that help secure approval for nonviolent offenders, while weeding out any cisgender inmates acting in bad faith. It can be done, they said.

Yeah you just weed them out. That’s how we do it everywhere else in life so that’s why there’s no rape or abuse or violence against women. Problem solved. Thanks, NPR!

The same old stupid lies:

Being a sports star does give [Olympic diver Tom Daley] a platform that’s useful for more than just reverse pike backflips. He was “furious” after a ruling by the diving body FINA in June to ban transgender women who have gone through male puberty.

“We should be sending out a message to everyone that everyone is welcome no matter who you are, where you come from, your gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, whatever it is, everyone should feel welcome when they try sport,” he says.

Welcome in sport, yes, but not men welcome in women’s sport. Easy for Tom Daley to ignore the problem with letting men invade women’s sport.

We don’t get into the question of fairness, here: the counter-argument runs that divers who were born biologically female would be at a clear competitive disadvantage. But Daley’s point is a broader one. “I just think of myself when I was younger. I’m not transgender, obviously, but if I was told as a gay man I was never going to be able to compete because of who I was, then of course I’d never have tried.”

But that’s not what transgender people are told. Nobody is telling them “You can’t compete because of who you are.” But if men who claim to be transgender take over women’s sport guess what – women are being told it will become impossible for them to compete because the men will always win.

It’s always interesting to see the police getting the law completely wrong.

See, the problem with that is, it’s not a crime. If it’s not a crime it can’t be a hate crime, because as many people are patiently pointing out TO THE POLICE, there is no stand-alone hate crime: there has to be a crime first, which can then have the category “hate crime” added. It’s not a crime to get someone’s name wrong, even on purpose. It may be rude, but it’s not a crime.

Meanwhile, as I keep saying, rape is almost never prosecuted.

Trump sent the January 6 committee an angry letter:

The same group of Radical Left Democrats who utilized their Majority position in Congress to create the fiction of Russia, Russia, Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, the $48 Million Mueller Report (which ended in No Collusion!), Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, the atrocious and illegal Spying on my Campaign, and so much more, are the people who created this Committee of highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots, whose records in life have been unblemished until this point of attempted ruination. The double standard of the Unselects between what has taken place on the “RIGHT,” and what has taken place with Radical Left, lawless groups such as Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others, is startling and will never be acceptable, even to those who will be writing the history of what you have done to America.

This memo is being written to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt, and despite strong and powerful requests, you have not spent even a short moment on examining the massive Election Fraud that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election, and have targeted only those who were, as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself. Those who committed the Fraud, thereby having created the Crime of the Century, go unblemished and untouched, but those who fought the Crime have suffered a fate that was unthinkable just a short time ago. We have a two-tier system of Justice in the United States that cannot be allowed to continue. A Majority of people in our Country say that the Presidential Election of 2020 was determinatively dishonest, including the fact that many Legislatures were overridden by local and State politicians and judges on vital regulations and requirements, which is totally illegal and UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

It’s such elegant writing, don’t you think? Reminds you of Burke, or Thoreau, or a tantrumming child.

In addition, the Unselect Committee has willfully ignored the fact that days before January 6, 2021, I recommended and authorized thousands of troops to be deployed to ensure that there was peace, safety, and security at the Capitol and throughout Washington, D.C. on January 6th because I knew, just based on instinct and what I was hearing, that the crowd coming to listen to my speech, and various others, would be a very big one, far bigger than anyone thought possible.

I love his quiet boasting, don’t you? He knew “just based on instinct” and what he was “hearing” (i.e. seeing on tv) that there would be a lot of people in town – it’s awe-inspiring, that’s what it is.

As it turns out, it was indeed one of the largest crowds I have ever spoken before, a very wide swath stretching all the way back to the Washington Monument. The massive size of this crowd, and its meaning, has never been a subject of your Committee, nor has it been discussed by the Fake News Media that absolutely refuses to acknowledge, in any way, shape or form, the magnitude of what was taking place. In fact, for such a historic event, there are very few pictures that accurately show the event, or how many people were really there. Incredibly, it seems that pictures showing the size of the event were perhaps cancelled, scrubbed, deleted or, in any event, not available, but we still have some—as attached.

Who deleted them??? Who, I say???? Was it Obama? Was it the New York Times? Was it the Harvard Law Review???

Despite very poor television ratings, the Unselect Committee has perpetuated a Show Trial the likes of which this Country has never seen before.

Ratings! They can’t even get the ratings! Donnie gets the ratings!!

There’s an appendix, with photos of…the crowd.

Sometimes the stupidity goes on and on and on until it’s out of sight, like Route 66 or the Trans-Siberian railway. Behold an online summit devoted to research on a famous 18th century lesbian, requesting “your pronouns” and then removing a lesbian who provides sarcastic ones, and then blocking anyone who criticizes this lesbian-hostile behavior.

So, obediently, we consult the Code of Conduct:

Anne Lister Research Summit is committed to providing a welcoming and harassment-free environment for participants of all races, gender and trans statuses, sexual orientations, physical abilities, physical appearances, and beliefs.

No it isn’t. It’s explicitly (and apparently proudly) not providing a welcoming environment for belief that gender idennniny is bullshit, or for all trans statuses, or for all gender statuses.

The Anne Lister Men Can Be Lesbians Research Summit.

Who is the bully in this scenario? Is it really the gender skeptic who is doing the bullying?

This made me feel quite ill, but then I learned that the painting is behind glass. The National Gallery says there’s a little damage to the frame, but none to the painting.

Pelosi takes charge:

There was a video going around today of King Choss dissing Liz Truss.

All very well, but what gets my pained attention is the protocol that dictates she has to bow to him. She does it twice, a quick little bob, but it’s still a mandatory cringe. It’s revolting. She’s doing an actual job, however badly, and he’s just a relic of the absurd institution of monarchy. People shouldn’t have to make propitiatory gestures to talentless firstborn sons who have some genes in common with Queen Victoria. It’s silly and it’s degrading.

A “public order offense.”

What public order offense officers?

“You called someone a muppet.”

You can actually hear them saying that. With a straight face. Four cops.

Meanwhile rape is almost never prosecuted.

SCOTUS to Trump: No.

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request from former President Donald J. Trump to intervene in the litigation over documents seized from his Florida estate.

I was wondering about that yesterday. Would even an extremely right-wing court with three out of nine members owing their places there to Trump really be on his side over theft of top secret documents, refusal to give them back, lying about them, threatening people over them? It seems not.

The court’s order, which was a sentence long, was a stinging rebuke to Mr. Trump. There were no noted dissents, and the court gave no reasons, saying only: “The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Sept. 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the court is denied.”

I suppose Virginia “Gini” Thomas is fuming.

Mr. Trump asked the court last week to step into the tangled case, saying that an appeals court had lacked jurisdiction to remove about 100 documents marked as classified from a review of the seized material. The Supreme Court’s action means that the special master in the case, and Mr. Trump’s legal team, will not have access to those documents.

I hope the sting is very painful.

H/t Mike Haubrich

Gee, I wonder why he did that.

Days before the New York attorney general filed a lawsuit accusing Donald J. Trump and his company of fraud and seeking to shut down some of their business in the state, Mr. Trump’s lawyers created a new company in Delaware.

The new company’s name had a familiar ring to it: the Trump Organization, the same name as his old company, now threatened by the lawsuit. And on Sept. 21, the day the suit was filed, the new Delaware company filed paperwork in New York, seeking to be recognized there as the Trump Organization II.

But it totally won’t be a place to stash all the money so that New York state can’t touch it, no no no no, of course not.

Those maneuvers were detailed for the first time in a court filing on Thursday from the attorney general, Letitia James, who raised the prospect that Mr. Trump was seeking an end run around some of her lawsuit’s harshest potential punishments.

Who, Trump? He never does that kind of thing.

Mind you his lawyers swear up and down that it’s all aboveboard, but somehow James doesn’t entirely believe them.

Alina Habba, a lawyer for the former president and his company, said in a statement that Ms. James’s filing was “simply another stunt.”

“We have repeatedly provided assurance, in writing, that the Trump Organization has no intention of doing anything improper,” she said.

And Trump does not have a long long history of providing assurances and then doing anything improper anyway?

Come on.

Remember those first tweets of JKR’s on the subject? How hedged and cautious and hyper-polite they were?

Those days are over. Yaboosucks.

The resistance is spreading. There’s a group called Evidence-Based Social Work Alliance.

As a coalition of qualified practitioners, academics and social work students, we came together in response to our individual concerns regarding the uncritical use of gender identity theory in social work and other professions. As a group we believe social workers have a responsibility in law, underpinned by professional ethics and values, to promote and uphold the safeguarding of children. Children and young people with gender dysphoria are presenting to the profession and we are being silenced in our attempts to understand and discuss the evidence-base approaches to exploring this phenomenon.

They have news today:

Social Work England to discontinue case against social worker for “offensive” Facebook posts about Mermaids and “gender identity” policies.

A registered social worker who is appealing against a warning issued by Social Work England (SWE) in 2021 has been informed that it does not intend to defend its position at a review hearing which starts on Monday 17 October. The official warning followed a complaint by a single person that posts by the social worker on her private Facebook page were ‘offensive’ and ‘disgusting’ because they criticised the concept of gender identity. SWE’s decision followed receipt of submissions on the case.

It seems like only yesterday that adults knew perfectly well that their fantasies were personal to them and in no way suitable or permissible to impose on other people.

The posts which were deemed “offensive” and “disgusting” comprised articles, blogs and cartoons critical of or satirical about “gender identity”. Raising concerns about charity Mermaids was found to be illegitimate and bigoted. The charity is now at the centre of a growing scandal, including a trustee with links to paedophile groups on its board and serious safeguarding breaches in its contact with children. Many of the posts were from mainstream publications. Others were from legitimate campaign groups such as Fair Play for Women. None of the posts used abusive or derogatory language nor singled out any individual for targeted harassment. There was no evidence that the social worker had ever behaved in a discriminatory way in her previously unblemished social work career. None of the posts were personally offensive towards anyone All were a reflection of the social worker’s protected “gender critical” beliefs.

Although SWE now wants to withdraw from the review, it has not acknowledged the case made in the submissions that the views expressed are entirely legitimate and necessary to be publicly expressed by a registered social worker.

Maggie Mellon said “EBSWA believes that the case should be heard in full. It is essential that SWE is required to either defend or to withdraw its entire case against our colleague. SWE’s conduct has sent out a chilling message to the entire profession that they may not raise concerns about any aspect of belief in ‘gender identity’ without facing accusations that their fitness to practice is impaired. SWE should make it clear that it will not sanction social workers for merely expressing criticism or concern about claims made about “gender identity” and their impact on social work practice.”

“Gender identity” is the opposite of social. That’s the whole problem in a nutshell. It’s individual. It’s a fantasy in the head; it can’t be social. Fictions can be social, as for instance with movies and plays, novels and stories, but personal fantasies – fantasies about the self – can’t. It doesn’t work, and people should stop trying to make it work, at the expense of everyone who is aware that it doesn’t work.

I missed this last week. Elon Musk tried to appoint himself “peacemaker” between Ukraine and Russia by telling Ukraine to give Putin what he wants. Ukraine told him to fuck right off. Who does he think he is?

Elon Musk drew backlash on Monday from Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his unsolicited advice on how to bring about “peace” amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.

Who is he to give advice? Who asked him? Who does he think he is?

In a Twitter poll, Musk suggested a path to “Ukraine-Russia Peace” that included re-doing elections “under UN supervision” in the regions of the country recently annexed illegally by Russia. The land grab, covering nearly a fifth of Ukraine, followed referendums that have been widely dismissed as “shams” by much of the world.

The billionaire Tesla CEO also suggested making Crimea, a region Russia invaded and annexed from Ukraine in 2014, “formally part of Russia.” He added in bullet points: “Water supply to Crimea assured” and “Ukraine remains neutral.”

Ok fine how about we all go invade Elon Musk and then make peace by keeping half of what we invaded and telling Elon Musk what he has to assure supplies of to us.

“Fuck off is my very diplomatic reply to you,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk wrote in response to Musk’s Twitter thread.

Can I join the ambassador in that? Fuck off, Elon. You made a car. You’re not a god-emperor.

Russian officials, on the other hand, welcomed Musk’s tweets. Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia and a former Russian president and prime minister, tweeted Musk “kudos” and predicted Musk’s next tweet would say that “Ukraine is an artificial state.”

Well they would, wouldn’t they.

UK news media are sycophantically promoting Eddie Izzard’s campaign to be elected a Labour MP for Sheffield. They’re not sycophantically promoting the campaign of Sheffield councillor Abtisam Mohamed. What is it that indicates Izzard would be a good MP? Experience, training, education? Anything?

Abtisam, who has represented Firth Park ward on the council for the Labour Party since 2016, will now seek to be nominated by city party branches.

…

Abtisam said why she wants to become an MP: “It’s about making sure that the local voice is heard at a national level, being able to challenge the current situation with decisions being made by the Conservatives and the impact that has on us as local communities and on public services.

“I want to be able to take that back to a national level. My strengths are that I’m from the community. I always make sure I listen to local views and I’m listening to what people want and establishing services that meet their needs.”

For Eddie Izzard, on the other hand, it’s about Eddie Izzard, and being called “she” a lot. As far as I can tell he has no connection to Sheffield.

Nearly a billion.

Jurors ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Wednesday to pay nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims’ relatives and an FBI agent, who said he turned their loss and trauma into years of torment by promoting the lie that the rampage was a hoax.

The $956 million verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host for spreading the myth that the massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.

The verdict came in a defamation lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the 2012 shooting, plus an FBI agent who was among the first responders.

Jones wasn’t in the courtroom, he was too busy doing Infowars.

“All made up. Hilarious,” he said. “So this is what a show trial looks like. I mean, this is the left completely out of control.”

The left? Really? They’re going with that? They really want to say it’s the left that doesn’t torture the parents of murdered children by telling lies about them on a popular amateur talk show? They really want to own that level of brutality and sadism?

Originally a comment by iknklast on You have to get water there.

This is my field, building and restoring ecosystems. Doing it on Earth we get it right less than 3% of the time. It is more than just water, and how likely are the lunar poles to provide enough water to keep more than a handful of humans for a short time? Who knows? There is research going on to determine how much water is on the moon…and other planets.

But there are a myriad of things we depend on, many of which we might not even know about. Fungus. Bacteria. Plants. Animals. Protozoans. Water. Soil. Atmosphere.

A moon colony – or any other planet – would not be more likely to succeed than an Earth colony, it would be less. And the expense is simply unacceptable to keep a handful of rich assholes in a colony on the moon while they strip the earth of its resources – because that is what they will do. And probably still die, because space is not friendly to human life.

The reality is our solutions will not come from purely technological ingenuity. That might be necessary (for instance, including nuclear power in the mix, though I remain skeptical it will ever be sufficient enough to replace all other forms of energy because of some limitations). There are technological things we can do, some we are doing, but space colonies are still the stuff of science fiction. EVERY TIME I talk to someone about this, I get the same sorts of answers. A writer I know (a prof in my writing program) has been writing a book about the moon from this standpoint. I asked him once if he planned to consult any scientists, since his sources didn’t include any so far. He said yes, he planned to talk to NASA psychologists about the possibility of mental problems in astronauts.

Really? You’re not going to consult ANY biologists? You’re talking about LIVING on the MOON, and you’re not going to listen to BIOLOGY, which is, simply defined, the study of LIFE?

Biology has been dismissed at every turn. I find it difficult to get environmental activists to consider biology. It is impossible to get those interested in space colonies to consider biology. Trans won’t consider biology. Creationists won’t consider biology. Quack herbalists and others won’t consider biology.

FACE IT, EVERYONE. Biology is the science of us. Of our pets. Of our crops. Of our forests and grasslands and hot springs and oceans and deserts and any other place life exists. If you dismiss biology, you dismiss life, and if you dismiss life, you really aren’t talking about LIFE on other planets, you’re talking about STUFF on other planets.

The basic requirements for life:

Food

Water

Shelter (at least for some forms of life)

Atmosphere

A livable temperature range

A livable pH range

An appropriate level of gravity

An appropriate level of pressure

Lack of exposure to radioactivity

At this point, few if any of these are available on other planets, or on the moon. Those who are in love with technology insist we can make them. Many of these are people who dismiss single-payer healthcare as too expensive.

Let that last sink in. Thank you.

The Independent tells us:

Transgender prisoners “with male genitalia” should no longer be held in women’s prisons, the justice secretary has announced.

That is, men should no longer be held in women’s prisons, even if they claim to be trans.

In a parliamentary statement, Brandon Lewis said he would bring forward a new policy on the issue later this year.

“Under the reforms, transgender prisoners with male genitalia should no longer be held in the general women’s estate,” he added.

“This will not be a blanket rule; exemptions to these new rules will be considered on a case-by-case basis. This will also apply to transgender women who have been convicted of a sex offence.”

What will? The rule, or the fact that exemptions will be considered? What will also apply, the rule, or the fact that exemptions will be considered?

A parliamentary committee previously found there was a risk of violence, sexual assault, self-harming and suicide “where trans prisoners are not located appropriate to their acquired/affirmed gender”.

What about the risk of violence and sexual assault when men are located “appropriate to their acquired/affirmed gender”? That’s the important bit. The issue is women in prison trapped with men who could assault them.

Several trans women have killed themselves in male prisons in the past decade.

How many? This is really crappy reporting. Unclear and lacking basic information.

Last week, Mr Lewis told the Conservative Party conference that it was “not right that transgender prisoners, when convicted of serious sexual offences or those who have not had reassignment surgery, are housed in the general women’s prison estate”, vowing: “This will end.”

The new justice secretary said there had been sex attacks and inappropriate relationships involving transgender inmates in recent years. He suggested that the use of “specialist cells” could be increased to “further protect women in prison”.

The statement came days after official figures showed that police-recorded hate crimes targeting transgender people had rocketed by 56 per cent in a year.

That’s nice. Quote the justice secretary pointing out that putting men in with women is dangerous to the women, then “balance” that obvious fact with “hate crimes” (which we know from bitter experience can include just skepticism about magic gender) “targeting” trans people.

Galop, an LGBT+ anti-abuse charity, said transphobic narratives in the media and by senior politicians have been allowed to grow without challenge and were translating into “violence against our community”.

The N word. Suddenly it’s a “narrative” that men are more dangerous to women than women are to men.

Suella Braverman, the new home secretary, has focused on trans issues in recent weeks, wading into a Twitter row over the gender identity of a child sex abuser and hitting out at “biologically male police officers strip-searching female suspects”.

“Wading into” and “hitting out at” – very neutral, much impartial.

The former attorney general has been strident in her views at a series of events and interviews, replying when asked what a woman is that “a woman has two X chromosomes, a woman gives birth, a woman does not have a penis”.

Oh oh oh how strident, how shocking, how wicked.

The Indy is embarrassing.

I don’t think this claim is true:

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis has spoken out against violence against trans people in a revealing interview with Spain’s Cadena SER radio network. The 63-year-old performer explained how her trans daughter receives death threats, and expressed alarm about the “terrifying” rise in transphobia.

“I have a trans daughter. There are threats against her life just [for] her existence as a human being,” she told Cadena SER on Tuesday. “There are people that want to annihilate her and people like her. The level of hatred… [It’s] as if we haven’t learned from fascism, [as if] we haven’t learned what the result of that is: the extermination of human beings. That is terrifying.”

I don’t believe her. I think she’s doing what it’s become second nature to do for so many zealots: translating refusal to believe magical claims about the self into threats of annihilation. I think she’s translating disbelief in a category into a desire to kill the people who claim to be in the category.

I suppose it’s possible that an offspring of a movie actor gets attention from weirdos, including weirdos who threaten people like movie actors and their offspring. But systematic threats to kill Curtis’s offspring for being trans? I don’t believe it.

The interview was shared on Twitter by trans activist Carla Antonelli, who was the first trans member of parliament in Spanish history. In the tweet, Antonelli asked: “Is someone going to stop this hate and injustice. Or only when it’s too late?”

The first trans member of parliament in Spanish history, but of course far from the first male member of parliament in Spanish history. I wonder if there could possibly be a motivation to call oneself trans other than the overpowering feeling of being “in the wrong body”…