Adam Rappaport at CREW on Ginni Thomas:

Ginni Thomas finds herself in the news a lot these days. Controversies surrounding the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas range from her husband’s conflicts of interest to texts she sent pushing former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to overturn the 2020 presidential election to her roles in organizations involved in litigation before the Court.

What many people do not know is that Thomas currently is a federal government official herself. And that’s not a position she should have.

In May 2020, then-President Trump appointed Thomas to a five-year term on the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board. Created by statute in 1925, the Trust Fund Board oversees gifts to the Library and determines the investment policy of the Library’s gift and trust funds. As of the Library’s most recent financial report, the combined value of the gift and trust funds overseen by the Trust Fund Board totalled more than $200 million.

It’s not a paid job, but it’s for sure a prestige one.

Unsurprisingly, Trust Fund Board membership is rarely if ever controversial. But Thomas’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election make her unfit for any role in government, let alone one overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money.

She’s not what you could call impartial, or reasonable, or temperate.

Thomas also recently admitted she attended the January 6th “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse, though she said she left before Trump spoke. Early on that day, Thomas proclaimed on Facebook “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” and posted “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING.” Thomas also signed a letter last December calling on the House Republican Conference to expel Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for working on the House January 6th Committee, which the letter called “an overtly partisan political persecution” engaging in “political harassment” and “demagoguery.” One month later, Thomas’s husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, was the Supreme Court’s lone dissent in its order rejecting Donald Trump’s bid to withhold documents from the January 6 panel.

Both of them are pro-coup pro-sedition pro-Trump let’s destroy what’s left of democracy partisans. Not ideal.

It isn’t clear why then-President Trump put Thomas on the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board. But after her efforts to undermine democracy by overturning the election that Trump lost, she shouldn’t still be on it. Her egregious actions to push the White House Chief of Staff and others to overturn a free and fair election make her a threat to democracy and should disqualify her for any role of public trust at the Library of Congress or anywhere else in government.

Seems fair to me.

Skip the beach for now.

Swimmers have been warned to stay away after sewage was discharged on beaches across England and Wales, predominantly in the south.

Pollution alerts have been issued to beachgoers by the Environment Agency, and on some beaches signs have been put up to warn people.

The environmental campaign group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) has collected data that suggests storm sewage discharges have taken place in the waters of beaches in Cornwall, Cumbria, Devon, Essex, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland and Sussex.

Oh is that all.

Hugo Tagholm, head of Surfers Against Sewage, said: “Every year we track thousands of sewage spills at some of England and Wales’s best loved beaches. Water companies are routinely using our rivers and beaches as a sewage dumping ground, compromising the health of the environment and people alike.”

Oh well it’s only…er…shit.

Interesting. A bunch of “church leaders” in Cornwall think they have a veto over public artworks.

Since its dramatic appearance in a Cornish town centre, Earth Goddess, the tallest ceramic sculpture in the UK (and possibly the world), has provoked its fair share of controversy, with unkind critics condemning it as a gaudy piece of junk more suited to the land of the Teletubbies.

But the row has taken a religious twist after a group of church leaders wrote to St Austell town council claiming it was “offensive to God” and calling for the brightly coloured 11.5-metre-tall piece to be rebranded or removed.

That seems remarkably medieval, doesn’t it? Or papal? Or Saudiish? What business is it of theirs what a piece of public art is “branded”?

[T]he letter, signed by seven Christian leaders in the area, expressed concern that a statue of an “earth goddess” risked dividing the town and was “offensive to God”.

Tell God to get over it then. The idea that a town would be “divided” because a sculptor called her sculpture an earth goddess is ludicrous.

It said: “The choice to erect a statue of an ‘earth goddess’ means that as the leaders of the town you are actively, though likely unknowingly, choosing to reject God and instead to bring the town under the spiritual influence of an ‘earth goddess’.”

No, it doesn’t. You can’t actively but unknowingly choose to reject something. That’s just churchy gibberish.

“We understand this may sound strange and may not be language that you are comfortable with. However, as Christians we believe there is a spiritual reality to our world and so this is not an insignificant choice and has the potential to impact on the town in negative ways.”

They can believe what they like but they don’t get to impose what they believe on everyone else. It’s a bit like fake gender. Think of yourself as a woman all you like, but you don’t get to force your male self on women.

It continues: “We would ask that you consider either making significant changes to the statue … or at the very least the name is changed so that it is an abstract piece of art with no spiritual element. Or that you consider removing or relocating the statue.”

Would ask. Would if what? They don’t mean “would,” they just mean ask, but they want to veil how presumptuous that is, so they throw in a bit of periphrasis.

One of the signatories, Rev Pete Godfrey of the Light and Life Church, said the concern was not the look of the piece but the spiritual significance apparently attached to it. He added: “We see very clearly laid out by God that we are to have no gods but him and we are not to make idols, which is essentially a statue that represents another god.”

No you don’t. You see a translation of words in a very old book. That’s all. It’s not binding on anyone. We all get to ignore it.

Step one: learn what “inherent” means.

Being “assigned” something is the opposite of “inherent.” Way to ruin your own punchline.

As to the substance of the first tweet – of course they’re not. Trans women are men, by definition. “Natural women” is more a song title than a meaningful claim. “Normal women” means – ??? But biological women and born women are clear enough, and obviously men are not either of those, no matter what they call themselves.

Dumb counter-factual assertions are just dumb counter-factual assertions. They’re even born dumb counter-factual assertions if you like.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on All aboard the gender train.

What is it with everyone suddenly deciding that the naturally diverse ways humans express “gendered” interests are suddenly not just interesting, but specifically, medically interesting? It’s weird enough that we’re all suddenly obsessed with everyone’s gender “nonconformity” when at most we should just casually acknowledge that gender expression is a thing that matters to some people more than others, that different people have different gendery tastes and that’s perfectly normal, then move on. But in this crazy time we’re in, people seem to think the only way to give “gender” the weighty aura of seriousness it supposedly deserves is to put it under a medical spotlight. How is it they’ve completely forgotten that medicine is a tool to cure illness, not to exalt identity?

Just a few hours ago I was swatting away someone who’s been pestering me with his pet theory that homosexuality is actually a symptom of total femininity in males/masculinity in females, which itself is a symptom of an intersex brain condition, which means all homosexuals are actually trans people who are “really” of the opposite sex, which means they should have all had their bodies medically modified to fix them. I noticed he put a Christian cross in his Twitter bio, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s got some relevance here: his kind of “you’re actually broken and should be fixed” wordage is exactly what anti-gay Evangelicals like “trans kid” Kai Shappley’s parents and televangelist Pat Robertson have been spouting lately.

But “you’re actually broken and should be fixed” is also a core belief of people like the looney tunes at Yale Medicine, who see themselves as crusaders for the so-called “queer community.”

One group says: “I’m so anti-gay I have to help you find your proper place in society by obsessing over your gender expression and helping you change your body to ‘match’ it.”

The other group says: “I’m so pro-queer I have to help you find your proper place in society by obsessing over your gender expression and helping you change your body to ‘match’ it.”

The end result is the same. Exalting one’s “queerness” with medicine sometimes just means curing one’s homosexuality. I guess the word “queer” never lost its original pejorative sense, because being anti-gay and being pro-queer lead to the same result, and it’s not good for gays.

The Stranger also sneers at feminist women.

On Monday night, the Port Townsend City Council and Mayor David Faber delivered a message loud and clear: transphobia is not welcome in Port Townsend.

It isn’t a phobia for women to want to take their clothes off without male strangers present.

After a nasty instance of transphobic bullying at the Port Townsend YMCA made national headlines across conservative media, the quiet town refused to cede an inch to transphobic outrage culture. In a much-appreciated symbolic gesture, the Mayor proclaimed the town a welcoming place for transgender people and an unwelcoming place for discrimination of any kind. 

But it wasn’t transphobic bullying, and it wasn’t nasty. Women need spaces away from men, and they’re not the bullies in this scenario. It’s not “discrimination” in the pejorative sense for a woman to object to a man in the women’s locker room.

Earlier this month, then-YMCA member Julie Jaman took a keen interest in the genitalia of an 18-year-old employee who was helping girls use the bathroom in accordance with the YMCA’s summer camp policy.

No she didn’t. What a stupid, and obscene, and malicious lie. What a trashy thing to say.

At the council meeting, Faber read aloud: “I, David J. Faber, Mayor of the City of Port Townsend, do hereby proclaim that the City of Port Townsend values our transgender residents and visitors and urges all residents and visitors to be respectful, welcoming, and kind to everyone regardless of gender identity.”

Everyone except women, that is.

He continued, “I further proclaim that discrimination and prejudice, in any form, particularly against transgender people, are unwelcome and have no place in the City of Port Townsend.”

Why particularly against transgender people? Really: why? Why are they at the top of the list?

The widespread myth that paints trans people, particularly transgender women, as secret predators liberates vigilante bathroom cops to interrogate strangers about their genitals and to make demands that they leave the toilet. As Port Townsend resident George Marie said during the council meeting, people often use cis women’s trauma as a thinly veiled attempt to justify transphobia. 

I’m bowled over by the empathy for women’s trauma.

You know…it occurs to me that even I have some of that trauma. I suppose all women do. Even I have fought off a few sexual assaults. (Why “even”? Just because I’m not all that gregarious.) If I have I suppose all women have. I don’t consider them trauma in the sense that they haunt me, but when I pause to think about it I realize they don’t have to. They still count.

“I can sympathize with anyone who lives with the daily fears that unresolved trauma can cause… but my sympathy ends when those fears are used to target other vulnerable people,” said Marie.

Meaning men who identify as women. But men are less vulnerable than women – much less. It’s absurd to claim that the notional “vulnerability” of a man who identifies as a woman should cancel the trauma of a woman. Marie is a Quisling.

Port Townsend’s mayor is a tad flippant about women and their rights.

Women who don’t want men in their locker rooms? Bah, evil TERFs from out of town. Mute them all.

A local outlet reports on the Port Townsend protest:

As the City Council read a proclamation affirming the city as a welcoming place for all people, including transgender people on Monday night, the streets outside City Hall were full of people, the majority carrying pride flags or signs declaring support for transgender people.

Blah blah. The issue isn’t “welcoming,” especially not at the city level. No one is saying trans people are not welcome in Port Townsend. The issue is men in women’s locker rooms. Men should not be welcome in women’s locker rooms, because women don’t want to take their clothes off around random men they don’t know. It’s pretty simple.

Small scuffles broke out between protest groups and police arrested at least one person as some pro-trans activists confronted a counter-protest held at John Pope Marine Park across the street.

The woman at the center of the controversy, Julie Jaman, was joined by local activist Amy Sousa, who organized a protest against the council’s proclamation, saying the city was ignoring the concerns of women in the community.

Jaman was banned from the local pool for violating the facility’s code of conduct after a confrontation with a transgender employee in the women’s locker room.

Jaman previously told Peninsula Daily News she was showering when she heard what she described as a man’s voice and looked to see a transgender woman in a bathing suit with two young girls.

She confronted the person — an employee who was escorting summer camp attendees to the bathroom according to policy — and was quickly banned from swimming at the pool she said she’s used for more than 30 years.

What do they mean “according to policy”? There’s a policy that says men who identify as women have to escort young girls to the women’s locker room? If so, why is there such a policy?

The reporter gives the last word to Team Men In Women’s Locker Rooms, of course.

Another resident, Candace Young, had a different take on the protests.

“That group of people who are supporting (Jaman) are just bigots trying to push through their religious philosophy on other people and I’m frankly glad they were shouted down because it all comes down to bigotry,” Young said.

Yes, it’s a religious philosophy that women prefer not to take their clothes off in front of men they don’t know.

H/t J.A.

This may be the creepiest one yet.

“working with gender-expansive individuals 3 to 25 and their families” – ah yes those gender-expansive 3-year-olds, aren’t they adorable.

This is Yale. Not BCH, Yale. Is it something about New England? Just Massachusetts and Connecticut? Just Boston and New Haven? Do they grow special creepy warm-voiced doctors in tubs of earth in a lab there?

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.