Another woman speaks up:

The double Olympic champion Katie Archibald has sharply criticised the transgender policies of the International Olympic Committee and other sports bodies – saying they have not only let down female cyclists by underplaying biology but left trans women, such as Emily Bridges, facing intense scrutiny.

Maybe, but the intense scrutiny on Bridges is his fault as well as that of sports bodies. He should have been sharply aware all along that he should never compete against women, end of story.

Archibald, who won the second of her cycling gold medals in Tokyo last year alongside Dame Laura Kenny in the Madison, said it was wrong for governing bodies to ignore the science that shows trans women who have gone through male puberty have a retained advantage in strength, stamina and physique.

However, she also expressed deep sympathy for Bridges, who broke the junior men’s 25-mile record before transitioning in 2020, saying she was only following the rules of cycling’s governing body, the UCI, before it decided to block her racing as a woman last month.

Not “only.” Not really. Yes cycling’s governing body is at fault but Bridges’s conscience was AWOL. It’s an unfair advantage, it’s obvious that the advantage is unfair, and people should just stop.

“It is my opinion that the international governing bodies of several sports have let down transgender athletes, in particular transgender women, with their inclusion policies,” Archibald said in a statement.

“These policies have put the athletes, their involvement in sport, and their personal lives under intense scrutiny when all the athletes have done is follow the rules and enter a category they were encouraged to enter.”

But they shouldn’t have. Archibald is being generous, but too much generosity is how we got here in the first place, and I think we need to shelve it. The athletes all know it’s unfair, and they do it anyway. I’m way more interested in the unfairness to women than I am in the unfairness to men who are trans.

I am so fucking livid about this. All this time and still they think it’s ok to set up a panel of five men to talk about how much of women’s sport it’s ok for men to destroy in the name of “inclusion.” WHAT ABOUT WOMEN?? Do they even realize we exist? Do they think we’re computer programs? Blowup dolls? Aliens? Hello hello is this microphone even on?

They’re just trolling us.

Yay! Let’s talk about fairness and safety for women [though we carefully don’t say “for women”] in sport by asking a bunch of men what they think!

Oh wait, isn’t there one woman included? The token woman you might say?

No.

Taunty McTauntface. Dr Blair Hamilton is not a woman. Hastings Football Club on “social media abuse” of Dr Blair Hamilton:

Hastings United Football Club would like to respond and condemn the disgraceful and tasteless comments made on Twitter since the announcement of Blair Hamilton’s call up to the England Women’s University Squad.

The ‘U’s will continue to support equality in football and are proud to have Blair Hamilton represent us on the national stage. We do not condone messages of abuse, many as always coming through online accounts where the individuals hide behind a username. Online abuse is still abuse and the accounts have been reported and passed on to Twitter.

All our staff, players and supporters stand alongside Blair and will continue to support her both on and off the pitch.

Insultingly, they file this under “Womens News.” [sic]

They also, also insultingly, don’t say what the “abuse” was, or what it was about. I’m making a wild guess that it wasn’t abuse and it was about putting a man on a women’s football team.

pause to confirm

Oh yes, it’s this guy:

We’ve seen that photo before.

So yes, a panel of five men, one of whom identifies as a woman and feels entitled to compete against women in football, are getting together to decide what rights women can have.

The story of the groomers and their sex show for “children as young as 5” is being framed in the non-conservative press as a matter of threats and abuse against the organizers as opposed to a matter of grooming.

The Guardian for instance:

Sex education theatre show for children cancelled after ‘violent threats’

The Family Sex Show organisers receive abuse over UK production aimed at children as young as five

A theatre show that promised to reimagine sex education by discussing the issue in a frank and open manner with audience members as young as five years old has been cancelled after “violent threats” were made against its organisers.

But small children don’t need “sex education” apart from a few basics. That kind of “sex education” is of interest to no one except groomers, who want to train children to be compliant with their molesters.

The company added it would have offered “safe and positive learning to children, young people and guardians about rights, bodies, sex and relationships, advised by safeguarding and educational specialists”.

Its statement said: “We believe that what has happened is reflective of structural and societal attitudes towards relationships and sex education as well as art, culture and who is allowed to create and what we are allowed to engage with in the UK.”

Of course it is. It’s reflective of “structural and societal attitudes” that small children shouldn’t be tricked and manipulated into thinking it’s fine for adults to, say, guide a small hand to the adult’s genitalia.

The Independent takes the same line. (The BBC, the Guardian, and the Indy all seem to be reporting This Egg’s Twitter version of the story.)

The Family Sex Show, an educational theatre production aimed at children, has been axed after the venue said its staff had been subjected to “unprecedented threats and abuse”.

The show, which covers themes such as gender, consent, pleasure, queerness and masturbation, was due to open at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory in May.

What does “queerness” have to do with sex education? What is “queerness”? How is it different from same-sex attraction? Above all why would anyone want a random theater group teaching sex ed on stage?

Girlguiding UK issues a statement:

We have been involved in a legal case with a former volunteer since 2018 and we have now reached a settlement. Please find our statement below.

Girlguiding’s full statement regarding its legal case with Katie Alcock:

Girlguiding celebrates the ever-growing diversity of its membership. We are committed to balancing the views, needs and wants of all of our members in a complex and changing world. It’s important that we do this in a thoughtful and respectful way, reflecting our volunteer code of conduct. So we have a diversity and inclusion strategic plan which underpins our commitment to inclusion.

Define diversity. Define inclusion.

Diversity meaning girls from all backgrounds, excellent, keep doing that. Diversity meaning boys, then you’re not Girlguiding any more. Same for “inclusion.”

Girlguiding recognises that gender critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act and that there are girls and volunteers who hold gender critical beliefs within our membership. We respect and value their right to do so, and to express those beliefs. Girlguiding is also, and shall remain, a home for trans people. Whatever their protected characteristics, all our young members and adult volunteers are welcome within Girlguiding.

All trans people? So male trans people as well as female ones? Then it’s not Girlguiding any more.

Our priority is to ensure that we offer a safe space where all girls are welcome to have fun, learn, and grow, and feel that they can be who they truly are. 

But when they say “all girls” they mean…?

Girlguiding has evolved for 110 years and will continue to evolve to ensure that it remains a forward-thinking, inclusive and diverse organisation where all girls, young women and volunteers feel welcome and belong.

But when they say “all girls” they mean…?

On another subject – I would love to know why on earth the image at the top is of a girl’s hand holding a pen incorrectly.

Oh, great. Who is the judge who struck down the mask mandate? A Trump appointee, age 35, rated unqualified.

US District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle has been serving as a federal judge in Florida for more than a year. Notably, the Senate vote confirming her to the lifetime appointment came in mid-November 2020, after the presidential election. She had been given a “not qualified” rating by the American Bar Association, based on her limited amount of experience post-law school.

Terrific! And she’s risking people’s health and lives, especially bus drivers, for a childish and stupid idea of freedomfreedomfreedom, meaning I can do whatever I want to and other people don’t matter.

Activist asks: Why can’t I just do whatever I want to? Why????

Columnist Leanne Wood in The National [Wales]:

“Being trans in the UK is fucking agony right now.”

My friend’s words last week following publication of guidance for separate and single-sex service providers by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. She goes on: “So now the EHRC want to help people exclude me from taking a piss in a bathroom that I’m comfortable in”.

As if that were the only possible criterion.

Here’s the thing: the fact that he’s comfortable in the women’s toilets doesn’t mean that anyone else is comfortable in the women’s toilets while he’s in them. It’s not just automatic or obvious that his comfort matters more than anyone else’s. It’s very odd that he assumes it does. Trans dogma is like that – it trains people to think their comfort is the only comfort that counts.

Trans people are protected under the Equality Act (2010) with several exceptions around access to some spaces. EHRC guidance seeks to exploit these exceptions.

Wtf? How is it exploiting exceptions to use them? That’s what they’re for. And the issue isn’t trans people not being protected, it’s women and girls needing protection. Again, what men who identify as trans want doesn’t automatically trump what women and girls need. Leanne Wood has apparently been well trained to think it does.

Trans people should have every right to use whatever facilities they want and to go wherever they want.

Of course they shouldn’t, any more than anyone else should. People can’t just use whatever they want and go wherever they want; that’s not how any of this works. That’s a small child’s view of life.

After all, gender reassignment is a legally protected characteristic and the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) (2004) allowed people to change their legal gender. So what’s the problem? 

Well, for a start, the problem is that none of that equals “trans people can do whatever they want and go wherever they want.”

There’s a lot more drivel along the same lines. It’s pitifully unreasoned and unargued.

The BBC seems to be nostalgic for the Jimmy Savile days.

A sex education theatre show aimed at children has been cancelled after the venue said it had received “unprecedented threats and abuse”.

Is sex education really something you want to do in a theater?

The Family Sex Show, featuring topics such as consent, pleasure and queerness, was due to be performed at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory in May.

Wtf is “queerness”? And who on earth wants some random theater company “educating” children about it?

The show also explored topics such as non-sexual nudity and gender and was aimed at children as young as five.

Who wants to take children age 5 to a sex show at a theater? Besides groomers?

Its creators ThisEgg, who were advised by safeguarding and educational specialists, said they had received “violent and illegal threats” from “a small group of people with extremist views”.

Onlookers are saying the bit about safeguarding and educational specialists is not true, and the BBC has allowed itself to be misled. This Egg’s website seems to be highly dubious.

Why don’t you little kids draw the masturbating animals you found on the internet? What could be more jolly??

Miriam Margolyes declines to shun JKR.

The actress who played Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films has offered sympathy to JK Rowling over accusations of transphobia.

…

Younger Potter stars including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, the three principals, all distanced themselves from Rowling after she expressed her views on the importance of biological sex.

Being the clueless ungrateful young toads they are.

“There isn’t one answer to all these trans questions,” [MM] told Radio Times. “We all know people who are slightly pansy or a bit butch or whatever you call it. But I think the vituperation that JK Rowling has received is misplaced. I don’t know her at all. I admire her as a human being. She’s a generous woman, she’s a brilliant writer.”

Margolyes, 80, responded to the suggestion that she could broker an understanding between Rowling and Watson: “I would if anybody asked me.”

Rowling, who denies being transphobic, was not selected for an official Platinum Jubilee reading list announced on Sunday despite being Britain’s most successful living author.

Well, to be fair, “successful” [in terms of sales] really isn’t the only relevant criterion for an author.

Margolyes, who published her memoir This Much is True in September, also spoke out against Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, who has announced cuts for the BBC and a plan to privatise Channel 4. “It’s inconceivable to me that a woman of limited intelligence can be given such a vital role,” Margolyes said. “She doesn’t know anything about anything.”

I like her.

You’d think people in India would have had enough of communal [aka religious] violence during Partition, but apparently not.

The procession had begun peacefully. Marching through the streets of Delhi’s Jahangirpuri district on Saturday, the devotees had gathered to celebrate the Hindu festival of Hanuman Jayanti. But the peace did not last long. As the evening drew in, an unauthorised parade began to gather. This time, men clad in saffron, the signature colour of Hindu nationalism, filled the streets brandishing swords and pistols, and started to shout provocative communal slogans.

Previous agreements between Hindu and Muslim residents for the procession to avoid passing by a local mosque, which was holding evening prayers, were ignored.

“A Hindu mob smashed beer bottles inside the mosque, put up saffron flags there and chanted Jai Shri Ram [Hail Lord Ram],” said Tabreez Khan, 39, a witness. “A caretaker of the mosque started resisting them, leading to a brawl. It was only after they started to desecrate the mosque that Muslims got angry and clashes started and stones were thrown.”

Good old religion, inspiring people to kill each other. What would we do without it.

The events in Jahangirpuri were far from isolated. Over the weekend, almost 140 people were arrested in connection with incidents of communal violence and rioting between Hindus and Muslims in the states of Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka during celebrations of Hanuman Jayanti.

Can’t they just fight over football instead?

The surge in communal violence has sparked concern among many in India who fear the country is becoming more polarised than ever along Hindu-Muslim lines. For many, the blame has been directed at the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi. The BJP is accused of overseeing a religiously divisive agenda and emboldening hostility towards India’s 200m Muslims, relegating them to second-class citizens. Meanwhile, Hindu vigilante groups such as VHP have been allowed to operate freely and have increasingly begun to take the law into their own hands.

Don’t elect theocrats to run countries. Ever.

“There is a strong case to be made that we are passing through the most difficult phase for Muslims in independent India,” said Asim Ali, a political researcher at the Centre for Policy Research thinktank, writing in the Telegraph, an Indian newspaper. “Being in the crosshairs of the dominant party of the country is a bad place to be for a community, and the Hindu nationalist stance towards Muslims seems to be becoming more hostile with time.”

Of course deciding Muslims or Hindus make a “community” is part of the problem in the first place. You can make anything a community, or you can make nothing a community. The word and the concept can tip over into bullying in a heartbeat. Community and identity are two of the most destructive words in the language (and the other languages).

Activists and academics have pointed to increasingly violent rhetoric against Muslims seeping into India’s mainstream, stirring up communal tensions to dangerous levels. In December 2021, a religious assembly of Hindu holy figures was held in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, during which the speakers called for a genocide against Muslims. Last week, police arrested Bajrang Muni Das, a Hindu priest accused of threatening mass rape against Muslim women during a speech two weeks ago in presence of officers.

How spiritual.

The Washington Post has a piece on something called Libs of TikTok, apparently a Very Influential Twitter account of the angry right-wing variety. It’s somewhat interesting, as such things are, but the writing is terrible – don’t their editors edit?

The anonymous account’s impact is deep and far-reaching. Its content is amplified by high-profile media figures, politicians and right-wing influencers. Its tweets reach millions, with influence spreading far beyond its more than 648,000 Twitter followers. Libs of TikTok has become an agenda-setter in right-wing online discourse, and the content it surfaces shows a direct correlation with the recent push in legislation and rhetoric directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

What the reporter, Taylor Lorenz, means is of course as usual the T “community.”

Throughout its increasingly popular posts and despite numerous media appearances, the account has remained anonymous. But the identity of the operator of Libs of TikTok is traceable through a complex online history and reveals someone who has been plugged into right-wing discourse for two years and is now helping to drive it.

You see what I mean about the crappy writing.

Chaya Raichik had been working as a real estate salesperson in Brooklyn when, in early November 2020, she created the account that would eventually become Libs of TikTok.

It went through several names before settling on that one.

In January 2021, Raichik started talking about traveling to D.C. to support Trump on Jan. 6 at the Stop the Steal rally. When violence broke out at the Capitol that day, she tweeted a play-by-play account claiming to be on the ground. “They were rubber bullets from law enforcement. 1 hit right next to me,” she said. She posted videos from the crowd and spoke of tear gas being deployed nearby. After saying she left the riot, she used Twitter to downplay the event, claiming that it was peaceful compared to a “BLM protest.”

…

Just four months after getting started, Libs of TikTok got its big break: Joe Rogan started promoting the account to the millions of listeners of his hit podcast. He mentioned it several times on the show in August, then again in late September. “Libs of TikTok is one of the greatest f—ing accounts of all time,” he said. With his seal of approval, Raichik’s following skyrocketed.

I like a rags to riches story.

I very often think accusations of virtue-signaling are unfair, even when I do think the accused is being fatuous or censorious or worse. Even then I generally think there’s some intention of doing good. Other times, though, it’s just unmistakably “Look at me I have ascended to the highest level.”

Like this:

Too funny. Please be assured that I have told the organisers to make sure all the other people they invite are not white women like me and that they are trans not like me. Behold my saintly generosity.

This farking idiot.

Former president Donald Trump voiced regret Wednesday over not marching to the U.S. Capitol the day his supporters stormed the building, and he defended his long silence during the attack by claiming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others were responsible for ending the deadly violence.

“I thought it was a shame, and I kept asking why isn’t she doing something about it? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi doing something about it? And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge,” Trump said of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in a 45-minute interview with The Washington Post. “I hated seeing it. I hated seeing it. And I said, ‘It’s got to be taken care of,’ and I assumed they were taking care of it.”

Pelosi and the rest of Congress and their staffs were in hiding from the violent lunatics Trump had unleashed on them. They were trying not to get killed. Trump was sitting on his fat ass in the White House watching it happen on tv, loving every second of it.

During the attack, Trump watched television, criticized then-Vice President Mike Pence and made calls pushing lawmakers to overturn the election as the violent mob of his supporters ransacked the Capitol. He was eventually persuaded by lawmakers, family members and others to release a video asking his supporters to go home — 187 minutes after he urged them to march to the Capitol during a rally near the White House. He was described by advisers as excited about the event.

Of course he was.

The former president praised organizers of the rally, some of whom have now received subpoenas from federal authorities, and repeatedly bragged about the size of the crowd on the Ellipse, when questioned about the events of Jan. 6.

“The crowd was far bigger than I even thought. I believe it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to. I don’t know what that means, but you see very few pictures. They don’t want to show pictures, the fake news doesn’t want to show pictures,” he said. “But this was a tremendous crowd.”

I can’t stand the stupidity. I know that’s far from the worst thing about him, but I can’t stand it.

Trump also delved into foreign policy, lashing into NATO for not doing more to help Ukraine — Trump has repeatedly lampooned the organization — and said he’d threatened NATO leaders during a 2018 meeting in Brussels, a notion his advisers denied vigorously at the time.

“A lot of people are a little bit surprised, I think they’re very impressed with Ukraine, but they’re not impressed with what NATO is doing, because a lot of people think NATO could be doing more,” Trump said, speaking in general terms.

You know, Trump’s good friend Alotta Peeple, who always thinks exactly what Trump thinks.

When asked whether he had changed his mind on Ukraine, a country he regularly criticized as president, he began speaking about his impeachment trial that was launched after he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son Hunter Biden and find an email server.

“I liked Zelensky from the beginning for one reason. When we had the impeachment hoax, based on a perfect phone call, he totally backed me up, and I didn’t ask him to do that. They asked him, and he said, he absolutely did nothing wrong,” Trump said. “He said there was no quid pro quo. He didn’t even know what his people were talking about. He thought they were crazy. … So I gained great respect for him there.”

Jesus christ. The Post asked him about Ukraine and the war going on there, and he answers with what Zelensky did for him. He should be glued to the floor and beaten to death with ugly neckties.

But I believe when you see massive election fraud, I can’t imagine that somebody who won the election based on fraud, that something doesn’t happen? How has it not happened? If you are a bank robber, or you’re a jewelry store robber, and you go into Tiffany’s and you steal their diamonds and get caught, you have to give the diamonds back,” he said.

Trump’s stolen a lot of money over the years. Some of it he stole from workers and contractors he refused to pay for work done.

Glued to the floor, I tell you. Get the neckties ready.

Via Old London Photographs:

Absolutely hideous.

Sigh. Laurie Penny pretends not to know that some autistic people can’t function independently in order to defend people who trans autistic children and adolescents.

Watching lifts open and close for hours on end isn’t being “interested in lifts.” LP is despicable.

Julie Bindel on That Lunch:

I have been in contact with Jo Rowling for two or three years. She got in touch with me on Twitter having seen the abuse that I had been receiving at the hands of misogynists since 2004. I don’t know when she picked up on what was happening to me, but she was clearly concerned about women’s rights and safety.

…

We have talked regularly ever since and I soon learnt what an amazing person she is. She has a wonderful sense of humour, in fact, she is one of the funniest women I have known, and has an enormous amount of integrity and generosity.

…

This lunch has now become infamous, but contrary to the idea held by some on Twitter, there was no plotting, we didn’t sit around coming up with an evil plan. I’ve never heard Jo say one anti-trans thing, I’ve never even heard her say one anti-trans word. She is pro-women’s rights, and to some people that is somehow the same thing when clearly that is nonsense.

Misogyny has managed to become more acceptable through the guise of trans rights but some of us have been in the movement for decades and we have fought with our blood, sweat and tears for the single-sex spaces and refugees that have been built.

We would happily fight beside trans people for their own safe spaces, we don’t want anyone to be vulnerable to male violence and we have the skills to help. We just don’t want them to be taken from women in the process.

There will be more meetings, more lunches, more gatherings. This movement is growing and we are fighting against misogyny, not against trans people.

The tide has turned. The ordinary person in the street, who once might have thought this argument was just the product of the mad rantings of two loony groups, has now seen it for what it is: deeply unfair.

Onward!

The singing fanatics story originates in a Facebook post by an evangelist named Jack Jensz Jr. “Worshipping our King Jesus 30,000 feet in the air!” he exclaims, not mentioning “Intruding on unwilling passengers 30,000 feet in the air!”

There are some “Yay Jesus!” comments and some very hostile ones.

Alex Jones is trying to get out of paying.

Companies owned by US radio host Alex Jones, including his right-wing website InfoWars, have filed for bankruptcy.

The move comes as he fights defamation suits brought by families of those killed in a 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school.

Mr Jones, who falsely claimed the shooting was a hoax, has been ordered to pay damages in the lawsuits.

So he’s declaring bankruptcy instead.

In the US, declaring bankruptcy provides a route for companies to remain in operation and negotiate their debts, with settlements overseen by the court. It puts a hold on other litigation.

Troubles for the radio host and conspiracy theorist stem from his false claims about the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, one of the worst school shootings in US history.

He repeatedly claimed the massacre, in which twenty children and six adults were killed. was a ploy to push gun control, staged by actors and the mainstream media.

Which is a remarkably disgusting thing to do. He had zero reason to think that was true, and saying it was obviously sadistic toward the survivors.

In three separate lawsuits, families of those killed at Sandy Hook have said his lies enriched his business, including InfoWars, while leading to their harassment by his followers.

He should get a job digging out septic tanks.

What I’m saying. We can’t stop. We refuse to stop. We keep driving straight at the edge, accelerator to the floor.

Three members of the Just Stop Oil campaign held on remand by Warwickshire police were taken to Coventry magistrates court on Monday morning.

Katheryn Dowds, 28, Jake Handling, 27, and Josh Smith, 29, pleaded guilty to aggravated trespass at the Kingsbury oil terminal after their solicitor did not appear to advise them, according to a campaign source.

Dowds was fined £327, and Handling and Smith were fined £150 each. All were then released, only to be immediately rearrested and held again by police for breaching a high court injunction banning protests at the Kingsbury site, Just Stop Oil said.

We refuse to apply the brakes, and we punish people who try to persuade us to apply the brakes.

Just Stop Oil has been staging direct actions, including mass trespasses, tunnelling and blockades, at oil terminals and in locations around the Midlands and the south-east of England since 1 April in an effort to disrupt the supply of fossil fuels. They have vowed to continue until the government agrees to a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects.

We can’t stop. We’ll never stop. Don’t look up.