He’s unhappy about the Wes Streeting interview.

When’s the last time Jolyon Maugham “interrogated” the proposition that trans dogma takes nothing from women at all whatsoever in the least? My rough estimate is that would be never.

Ok, my turn: I would like to emphasize another slightly different point, which is that Jolyon Maugham should fuck right off out of women’s rights. Women’s rights are not his to bargain away and minimize and share with men who say they are women.

Jolyon Maugham is both wrong and hugely harmful to women and our rights.

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on More emp and und.

There was an essay on Forbes the other day about gatekeeping in fandoms, which I actually think is kind of relevant.

…the accusations of gatekeeping are being used to leverage access to effectively run each fandom and acquire power as a result.

I think there is a lot of truth in the complaints fans of various properties have about “wokeness” invading their spaces. A lot of the time, the issue keeping people out of specific hobbies isn’t that the hobbyists are saying “This isn’t for you” – it’s that the hobby just isn’t the “excluded” person’s bag.

Which is fine. You’re not being excluded if the thing isn’t to your taste, to a large extent you decide what those tastes are. A piece of bad media isn’t an exclusive club, its a failed one.

Now, if we look at womanhood as a fandom – it sort of fits the pattern of dictatorial types demanding to be included in it, only to then start kicking the people who were already there out of it.

“White feminism”, “Terfs” and the focus on an “intersectionalist” feminism that represents everyone except those women convicted of having privilege, which seems to be all of them.

I’ve long been an advocate for the idea that social progress benefits everyone, not just the group that gets progressed. That said, in order to be able to function, a social justice movement has to be about its core issue – so feminism may benefit men in various ways, but it cannot be about men’s rights.

The drive for a peculiar inclusivity in which there are large parts of the movement you won’t march with because they’re not “intersectionalist” enough, sounds like the old princess bride meme. “You keep using that word…”

So we get to “More empathy and understanding” – I can see what Streeting is trying to do. I really can. He’s doing the both sides thing, in order to try and avoid antagonizing one side, to bring people to the table.

The trouble is – one side’s been flipping tables for a few years now, has been actively working to exclude voices from the other side, has sent death and rape threats to the other side, has tried to ruin the other side’s careers and in some cases succeeded in doing precisely that.

And it isn’t simply a matter of TRAs doing this – but a broader movement of social justice nitpickers.

In December, Lindsay Ellis quit YouTube due to the harassment she’d been receiving from about March, when she was declared a villain for saying a movie looked a lot like Avatar the Last Airbender. The creators of the movie credited Avatar as one of their inspirations, but somehow Lindsay saying it was similar, was racist against Asian people. It wasn’t even a particularly well regarded movie.

Ellis is not on team TERF, but the harassment was bad enough to just destroy her. Her career as a critic started at Channel Awesome, a clusterfuck of sexual harassment, at least one pedophile, egotistical wankery and general unpleasantness, and it was the social justice crowd that did her in.

How can one have understanding and empathy with sociopaths? With people who behave in ways that are utterly monstrous, while loudly proclaiming that they’re advocating for victims?

A few years ago, I would have decried this as respectability politics, but I’ve since come around on that. There is a degree of respectability that is a necessity for conversation to even be possible.

And the problem is not a “both sides” issue. Kathleen Stock isn’t trying to get book shops to stop stocking her opponents’ books.

One side’s “empathy and understanding” is being exploited by a side that shows no intention of showing either trait, that has a long history of exploiting “empathy and understanding” to get away with being vile tin-pot dictators.

And yes, I get the argument that “Freedom of speech only applies to government” – and I utterly disagree. I think civil rights can be violated by individuals and organizations that are not the government. This is why I’m a liberal, and not a libertarian.

The harassment campaigns we’ve seen over the past few years are vigilantism, which is the alt med of government. Much like the medical establishment, we know that government has a lot of problems – it is a corrupt, inefficient mess that quite frequently goes badly wrong.

This is why we regulate the government. The solution proposed by vigilantes is the same solution proposed by alt med, to turn to a parallel system that has none of the safeguards we put in place to do the same job, in the blind belief that this will not result in the same problems only worse.

The restrictions we place on government are things we’ve more or less agreed that we shouldn’t do – trying to get around those restrictions by proclaiming it isn’t government, doesn’t get around why we put those restrictions on the government in the first place.

Saying it is not government doing these things does not mean it is fine to have people arbitrarily dishing out punishments for what they consider wrongthink.

The solution here isn’t “empathy and understanding” on both sides, it is an enforcement of basic standards. Standards which should be aside from ideology. “Don’t harass people”, “don’t try and get people fired”, “don’t send death threats” etc…

These are basics.

Doing all of that stuff “for a good cause” doesn’t excuse any of it. If you stalk someone in the name of social justice, do you know what that makes you? A stalker.

The social contract by which discussion is made possible has been systematically violated at every turn, and it is not going to be fixed until we recognize who exactly has been violating it. I was recently introduced to the term “‘cry bully” – and empathy cannot fix a cry bully. Empathy is the cry bully’s weapon of choice.

We tend to think of apathy as a bad thing – but in this case, it really is necessary to apply it, because of the abuses of empathy that are rife in this debate. We need to stop acting like the would-be dictators’ sob stories are worth listening to, and start looking at what is actually being done.

The Women’s Sports Foundation? Are they sure about that?

The Women’s Sports Foundation says we need to create sport environments that allow athletes to be their authentic selves – by which they mean we need to let men pretend to be women so that they can steal all the prizes. What a peculiar thing for a Women’s Sports Foundation to mean. You’d think they’d be cheering on women rather than men who steal women’s prizes.

Progress, but…

On both sides? I don’t think they’re equivalent. I don’t think you see as much testosteroney rage on the feminist side of the argument.

Still. It’s a step.

What are we talking about when we talk about ideology?

Joe Biden marked the first anniversary of 6 January with a powerful, ideological speech about the choice between democracy and autocracy.

Is the choice between democracy and autocracy really a matter of ideology? I think of it as more basic than that. Do you want someone like Trump making all the rules, or do you prefer a system where more people get a say?

Every major news network opted for somber programming and roundtable discussions about the fragile nature of American democracy.

Except for one.

Fox News’s primetime lineup of rightwing hosts used rock guitar licks to introduce a different narrative: one of hysterical Democrats “jilling up noise” and crying “crocodile tears”. Hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham pushed conspiracy theories that undercover FBI agents or Capitol police were responsible for the breach of the Capitol and spent most of the night claiming Congress should be focused on investigating the “real rioters”, Black Lives Matter protesters.

That’s not even “rightwing” any more, that’s just “we prefer a dictatorship with a monster as the dictator.” It’s more basic than ideology and it’s more basic than party or left/right – it’s just love of absolute power combined with evil.

While Biden and the press agreed 6 January was one of the most significant dates in recent history, Carlson said it “barely rates as a footnote”, arguing that because “not a single elected official was killed” and “none of the insurrectionists had guns” that the effort to overthrow the government was “embarrassingly tepid”.

Embarrassingly? He’s embarrassed that the insurrection failed?

Even Ted Cruz isn’t evil enough for Tucker Carlson.

But [Carlson’s] biggest strut was to invite Senator Ted Cruz on the program, who on Wednesday had accurately described 6 January as “a violent terrorist attack”. Carlson was appalled at this language and demanded that Cruz explain himself.

Cruz first attempted to wheedle his way out, calling his choice of words “sloppy and dumb” but Carlson continued to berate him, making him walk back and continually apologize for his language. Carlson was dishing out a humiliation, reminding Cruz of his status as a Republican kingmaker.

Well hey we might as well cut to the chase and make Tucker Carlson president, and hand Congress over to the Fox people. The surviving Koch brother can have the Supreme Court.

Hannity claimed Trump had wanted to send 10,000 national guard troops to protect the Capitol and was blocked from getting them by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. This has been disproven. He made no direct order and was not concerned about securing the Capitol.

Whatever. Put his face on all the currency, install statues of him in every city town and village, re-name all the bridges after him.

Trump issued a “statement” (i.e. a rambling incoherent page of words) in response to Biden’s speech yesterday.

As reasonable and responsible as ever.

Elite institutions fall all over themselves to support men destroying women’s sports.

“Unwavering commitment” to destroying women’s sports.

An interesting, teasing conundrum here. Is it possible to be insulting and ragey in public for hours every day while not actually being as insulting and ragey as that would seem?

Seen on Twitter today: “I’m not nearly as mean as I probably seem on Twitter.”

The tweeter, as you’ll have guessed, is someone who is insulting and ragey on Twitter for hours every day, so much so that that “probably seem” is laughable. Probably? Probably?

Anyway, is that possible? I’m not sure it is. I think if you act “mean” (i.e. sadistic and belligerent) a lot of the time then…well, you are sadistic and belligerent, aren’t you. Acting it is being it. “Seeming” it is being it. Doing it is the same as being it – making a distinction between the two is a kind of self-exculpation that is no doubt cheering to the self-exculpater but not coherent.

If you punch smaller people repeatedly you don’t just “seem” like a bully, you are a bully. If you say mean shit to people all day then you are a person who says mean shit to people – you are as mean as you seem. There is no space between the being and the seeming.

And…if that were not true…if the self-exculpating agent really were not as mean as xir seems…then the agent wouldn’t say mean shit to people all day. You know? Am I making a philosophical error here? The two seem inextricable to me. It’s rather like the old “He doesn’t mean all that, he’s just insecure” trope. Why? How do you know? How do you know he’s insecure rather than a sadist?

Ah yes setting aside their differences.

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and her UPenn teammates set aside their differences over the last week to train for their final home meet of the season behind a cloak of secrecy.

It’s not really something the women can just set aside, is it. He’s intruding on them and stealing their chance to be first.

The twice-daily winter practice sessions passed without incident but the 41-strong team remains bitterly divided over Thomas’s record shattering feats as a newly-transitioned female, according to insiders.

They’re not actually “feats,” are they. He didn’t have any “feats” on the men’s team, so he’s not really racking up feats now that he’s competing with people who have multiple disadvantages in sport compared to men.

Who was it who instigated the attack on the Capitol?

Around the same time President Biden said former President Donald J. Trump encouraged the violence that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6, some of Mr. Trump’s most prominent supporters deflected blame for the attack during an appearance on a live online show.

It’s not a “show.” It’s a vanity project-insurrectionist plot.

On the show, hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, one of Mr. Trump’s top former advisers, Representatives Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene laid responsibility on Democrats, the Capitol Police, the federal government and others.

The socialists, the FBI, the Critical Race Theorists, the Pentagon, the feminists, the State Department. They’re all in it up to their eyeballs. ALL of them.

The circular belief system in action.

See, no women I know carry themselves with grace and respect for the goddess energy, nor would I want them to. I certainly don’t carry myself that way, and would be horrified if anyone accused me of it. Yuck. What women need to carry ourselves with is confidence that we have a place in the world just as other humans do. “Grace” is the wrong kind of thing for that. “Grace” is submissive and supplicant. Grace is apologizing for being present, and attempting to make up for it by being elegant and winsome and small.

Women aren’t accessories, women aren’t tools for prettying up the world for the aesthetic enjoyment of men, women are people just like other people, and we get to be as clumsy and obtrusive and scruffy as anyone else. Boy George can keep his “grace”; women need assertion instead of grace.

As for respect for the goddess energy – I have nothing but fart noises in response to that.

And in conclusion – “critical thinking”? That’s what that is? You may now laugh yourselves sick.

How dare ANYONE politicize a violent attempted insurrection in the form of physical invasion of the legislature complete with weapons and threats? Could there be anything more outrageous?

Yeah, that Biden, man, politicizing something as obviously apolitical as an attempt to prevent him from taking office after he won an election. Brazen indeed – practically harlot-level brazen.

This seems fairly astounding.

Those numbers. Seven hundred sixty five thousand pounds to from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office??? For what?? It’s not as if they’re building anything or healing anyone or feeding anyone. Their “work” is telling people what to think – how is it possible to spend £765,061 on that? Plus £616 k on the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme, where you’d think the need for Stonewall’s views would be zero*. £256 k on all of the Welsh government seems thrifty in comparison (but is actually quite profligate).

Jobs for the boys, eh?

*See comments for corrections on this point. It’s a grant to keep employees paid, not a payment for stonewalling.

Lord, I pray, take pity on this cardboard cutout of a deranged criminal.

And yet another follow-up to the story – Jon Stewart says with much emphasis that he’s not calling Rowling anti-Semitic and that Newsweek is full of shit for saying he is.

That’s roughly where I am, except that I’m much less keen on Harry Potter, precisely because of the crude stereotypes and Manicheanism.

More on that theme.

This is what it looks like to me – not that she did it deliberately, but that she drew on tropes without thinking about them. She didn’t have a subtle mind when she wrote the first Potter book; I’ve been surprised by the quality of her writing on the trans ideology wars.

I’m not overjoyed about saying this but it’s no good ignoring it or hiding it.

There’s a new front in the war on Rowling.

Jon Stewart has accused JK Rowling of antisemitism for her depiction of goblins in the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

A recent episode of the late-night show host’s podcast, The Problem with Jon Stewart, has begun making headlines for his takedown of the Gringotts Bank goblins, which he believes are depicted as Jewish “caricatures” in the series.

Stewart’s argument – that Rowling perpetuates anti-Jew stereotypes in Harry Potter – was based on the similarities between the books’ goblin creatures and an illustration from an antisemitic text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in 1903.

Now you could ask if there’s any reason to think she was aware of the Protocols when she wrote the book, but the trouble with that is that it was what we now call a meme. Like all of us, she could have had the stereotype knocking around in her head without knowing where it came from.

I have to be honest here: this is why I stopped reading Harry Potter back in 2001, and it’s what I disliked about the one non-Harry novel of hers that I’ve read. It was all the crude stereotypes, and the division of people into Good, like Harry, and Bad, like the people he lived with. It was the whole idea of “Muggles” – it’s just another brand of snobbery, but one you get to be enthusiastic about. I think she may have improved since then, and I certainly think her writing on women and trans ideology is far better than that, but she does have this pattern of disdainful caricatures of people. In that one novel I mentioned? Fat people. Intense and unembarrassed contempt for fat people. It’s ugly stuff. I don’t love saying it, because she’s been both brave and right about the trans ideology wars, but honesty requires it.

I’d like, or half like, to be able to say Stewart is full of shit, but I can’t. I read the passage where she introduces the bankers and…he’s not wrong. They’re little, “swarthy,” clever…and they’re bankers. All that is from The Big Book of Anti-Semitic Stereotypes. She may not have been aware of them as such when she described them, but…what can I tell you? She should have been.

Stephen Marche tells us it’s not if but when – the US is going to be dealing with a second civil war. One reason is to do with the people who go into policing and security.

The right is preparing for a breakdown of law and order, but they are also overtaking the forces of law and order. Hard right organizations have now infiltrated so many police forces – the connections number in the hundreds – that they have become unreliable allies in the struggle against domestic terrorism.

Michael German, a former FBI agent who worked undercover against domestic terrorists during the 1990s, knows that the white power sympathies within police departments hamper domestic terrorism cases. “The 2015 FBI counter-terrorism guide instructs FBI agents, on white supremacist cases, to not put them on the terrorist watch list as agents normally would do,” he says. “Because the police could then look at the watchlist and determine that they are their friends.” The watchlists are among the most effective techniques of counter-terrorism, but the FBI cannot use them. The white supremacists in the United States are not a marginal force; they are inside its institutions.

Recent calls to reform or to defund the police have focused on officers’ implicit bias or policing techniques. The protesters are, in a sense, too hopeful. Activist white supremacists in positions of authority are the real threat to American order and security. “If you look at how authoritarian regimes come into power, they tacitly authorize a group of political thugs to use violence against their political enemies,” German says. “That ends up with a lot of street violence, and the general public gets upset about the street violence and says, ‘Government, you have to do something about this street violence,’ and the government says, ‘Oh my hands are tied, give me a broad enabling power and I will go after these thugs.’ And of course once that broad power is granted, it isn’t used to target the thugs. They either become a part of the official security apparatus or an auxiliary force.”

Maybe we can…talk them out of it?

Andreia Nobre and Anna Slatz at 4w tell us:

The Brazilian edition of Marie Claire magazine has named a trans-identified male convicted of pimping and accused of facilitating child sexual exploitation as one of the country’s top inspirational women’s rights activists.

A pimp. I feel inspired already.

While the list profiles brave female advocates such as Joênia Wapixana – the first Indigenous woman in Brazil to become a lawyer – and Maria da Penha – an abuse survivor who fought to increase legal penalties for domestic violence – one name stands out.

Indianara Siqueira, a biological male prostitute who identifies as a woman, was featured on the list as the magazine’s 6th pick.

Between 2007 and 2010, Siqueira served a prison sentence in France after being convicted of aggravated pimping. In addition to his jail time, he was ordered to pay financial compensation to the trafficking victims in the amount of €50,000 (approx. $56,000 USD), but shirked the bill. Following his sentence, he was deported to Brazil and banned from entering French territory.

So inspiring!

In 2019, Siqueira was expelled from the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) of Brazil in which he had been campaigning as a politician. The Party removed him after public outrage surrounding his “takeover” of a non-profit art charity house of cultural significance, illegally converting it into boarding and brothel for trans-identified male prostitutes.

According to a PSOL ethics committee testimonial, children were also sexually exploited in the brothel operating out of Siqueira’s camp, with “various forms of human rights violations” taking place within the house as per a teenager who filed a legal complaint against Siqueira.

Just screams “inspiration,” doesn’t he.

Despite Siqueira’s disturbing history, a lauding documentary was made on him by trans activists in 2019 titled Indianara, which won 5 awards and was nominated for a total of 14. While the film was shown in Cannes, Siqueira was unable to attend due to his ban from France on his past criminal convictions for pimping.

I guess pimps identify as inspirational now.

Officially celibate religious boss says it’s selfish not to have children.

The Pope’s comments came as he was discussing parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican in Rome.

Hey if you want to know about parenthood, who better to ask than a prelate whose religion forbids him to be a parent?

“Today … we see a form of selfishness,” he told the audience. “We see that some people do not want to have a child.”

That’s not selfish though. It’s not as if there’s a child sitting there, wanting to be had. What he means by having a child is actually making a child where no child was before. It’s not selfish not to do that. It’s particularly not selfish in this world, in the perilous state it’s in because there are so many people in it. If the world desperately needed more people it might be reasonable to claim it’s selfish not to have some, but that’s not this world. It’s doubly not selfish: by not adding children to the problem of too many people driving cars and all the rest of it, and by not having children who will have to deal with the horrors of the approaching disaster.

“Sometimes they have one, and that’s it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children. This may make people laugh, but it is a reality.”

The practice “is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity”, he added.

Then why doesn’t Frank have a passel of children and grandchildren himself?