FEMINIST DISSENT STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH AFGHAN WOMEN AND WITH ALL THOSE FIGHTING FUNDAMENTALISM

Feminist Dissent sees fundamentalist movements as modern political movements of the far right which use religion to exercise authoritarian control, especially over women. The Taliban was never seen by us as simply a form of medievalist Pashtun tribalism, and certainly not as a liberation movement. The dominant views from the ‘anti-imperialist left’, Western ‘peace’ movements, Western governments and counter-terror establishments converge in ways that both stereotype and sanitise the Taliban.

…

The British Chief of Defence Staff Nick Carter’s claim that the Taliban want an ‘inclusive’ Afghanistan builds on the convenient myth that the Taliban are merely ‘tribal’, romantic men of honour who will keep order in the Badlands by controlling international jihadists so that they do not trouble Western capitals. Both US President Biden and UK Prime Minister Johnson share this view. It is a dangerous, racist, and self-serving fantasy.  For the people of the region across the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, the twenty-year war that started in December 2001 is not ending but is being continued by other means.

The Taliban began as a creation of the Pakistani military establishment and could not have succeeded without its backing. The movement’s goal is the subjugation of Afghanistan, the erasure of women from public space, and the destruction of every positive aspect of Afghan culture, both traditional and modern.  As Karima Bennoune, the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights,  has said, “Afghan cultural rights defenders have worked tirelessly and at great risk…to reconstruct and protect this heritage, as well as to create new culture. Afghan cultures are rich, dynamic and syncretic and entirely at odds with the harsh worldview of the Taliban”.

Read on

Via Gita Sahgal

Ah yes certainly, I can’t see any problem with that. Bomber wants recognition of his new idenniny and oh yes a shorter sentence please.

The militia leader convicted of master­minding the bombing of a Minnesota mosque is asking a judge to legally acknowledge her transgender identity.

Emily Claire Hari was previously known as Michael Hari, who was found guilty last year of civil rights and hate crime charges related to the bombing of the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington in August 2017.

During the trial, prosecutors said Hari was fueled by a hatred of Muslims when he devised a plan to pipe bomb the building during morning prayers. While no one was hurt in the bombing, it spread fear through the community, prosecutors said.

Never mind that, respect Emily’s womany soul.

[Defense attorney Shannon] Elkins said Hari bought military fatigues for her so-called missions but purchased female clothing for a planned trip to Thailand for male-to-female surgery, the Star Tribune reported. Hari was living a double life, Elkins said.

And buying women’s clothing is absolute proof that a man is a woman. The instant that credit card is in the hand of the female clothing store employee, the man is a woman.

Elkins cited these as factors in asking U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank to give Hari no more than the minimum 30-year prison sentence, not the life term prosecutors have requested.

Sure, why not? Obviously if a womany woman did it then a shorter sentence is fair because…um…she has 30 years worth of dishes to wash?

According to her profile this person does standup comedy.

Entire thing? No verbal humor? No ideas, just physical shtick?

No interest?

That time I went to a bookstore event with Michael Palin someone asked him about that debate. (In other clips you can see him on Cleese’s left.) He got quite serious, and said it was one of the very few times he got really angry. Muggeridge was aggressively dishonest, and it pissed him (and Cleese) off.

So, yeah. Not “safer” comedy at all, and not purely physical comedy either. Utterly stupid and ignorant claims.

Updating to add: Ooh she replied to my tweet telling her some facts. Really sharp stuff.

Our Jolyon walks into these things.

Erm…Jolyon Maugham is white and “cis” and not all that young and – the one he carefully didn’t mention – he’s a man. (He didn’t mention it because mentioning it would remind people that women don’t have male privilege.) He’s not as poshly educated as Cleese, I’ll give him that – but then he’s not as clever, either.

To sum up, Jolyon Maugham is sneering at John Cleese for having kinds of privilege that Maugham himself mostly shares. It’s almost as if Maugham thinks he’s Special. Wouldn’t that be a kind of privilege?

But it gets better.

You WHAT?????

Jolyon Maugham is not using his privilege to tell those without it they are wrong? He does it every day!

Oh but wait – I just said – he doesn’t see women as having less privilege than men. I keep forgetting that people men like him think of women as privilege-laden tyrants. So that means he doesn’t see his using his privilege to tell those without it they are wrong as…using his privilege to tell those without it they are wrong. I guess he sees it as using his pure limpid Rightness to tell those with muddy smelly Wrongness they are wrong.

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on What genocide is and is not.

Hitler didn’t wipe out 6 million Jews by calling them something else, he wiped them out by murdering them.

Exactly, it’s roughly analogous to arguing that:

Denying the existence of God

≈ denying that there’s such a thing as “God’s chosen people”

≈ denying the existence of that which the Jews are

≈ denying the existence of Jews

≈ envisioning a world in which Jews don’t exist

≈ advocating genocide.

Therefore atheism is just the Holocaust

I have never heard a single Jew make such an argument. If your kind has been murdered by the millions, you don’t have to resort to this kind of language-games and stretching of word meanings beyond the breaking point to explain what the problem is. Zyklon B doesn’t give a crap about your pronouns or how you “identify”. As I have written many times, my peak trans moment came from seeing this kind of genocidal attitudes attributed to gender critical feminists while knowing what the latter had actually said. That’s when I thought “I get it now. When TRAs are talking about feminists promoting ‘hatred’, denying the ‘rights’ of, or even advocating ‘violence’ against trans people, this is what they’re talking about: Women saying that biological sex is real, that biological females are an identifiable group with its own specific issues that are not entirely reducible to those faced by biological males who prefer feminine pronouns, and that we have to be able to address them as such.” That’s when I realized that this was a pseudo social rights movement.

Well this is horrible news.

James Underdown of CFI (the Center for Inquiry):

Tom Flynn, Giant of American Freethought, Has Died at Age 66

The world has lost a towering figure of American freethought, a man who was both on the cutting edge of secular humanist thought, as well as the foremost caretaker of its rich history. The entire Center for Inquiry family is anguished by the sudden and unexpected death of our colleague, teacher, and friend Tom Flynn at age 66.

Tom held numerous leadership roles during his more than thirty years with the Center for Inquiry, most recently as editor of Free Inquiry magazine, director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum and the Freethought Trail, and former executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism.

But this collection of titles does not nearly convey the plainer truth, which is that Tom Flynn was the beating heart of the Center for Inquiry and indeed the wider freethought movement.

More

Dammit. I liked Tom a lot.

Woman who calls herself “transmasculine” gets all shaky-like when menstrual products say “for women” on the label. (If they do – I have my doubts that anyone who needs menstrual products also needs to be told at the point of sale that they’re for women.) Narcissism forevaaaaaaaaa!

My period has never triggered feelings of gender dysphoria as a trans masculine person, but the way people talk about menstruation and frame it as a “women’s issue” makes me experience feelings of dread and discomfort.

Really? It makes her do that? Or she does it because she’s conditioned herself to think she’s supposed to, by being exposed to 50 million stupid articles and tweets and videos like this. They’re all conditioning each other, aren’t they, by exaggerating the anguish and bitter injustice of being reminded that only women and girls menstruate. They work each other up, like a slumber party watching a horror movie. This isn’t political, it’s emo-spiral.

Many things can trigger dysphoria for trans people, and the way we’re excluded from conversations around basic bodily functions is one of them.

They’re not excluded though, they just decide to exclude themselves by demanding to be treated as Special Magical Unicorns who don’t have the same boring kind of gender you dreary old slobby boomer slags have.

As a sex and relationships reporter, I get hundreds of pitches a week from companies to review their period products. From period panties to tampons to menstrual cups, my inbox is filled with emails about products marketed as “for her” or “feminine care.” 

Job one: immediately stop referring to women’s clothes via diminutives. Adults don’t wear “panties,” we wear underpants. Women aren’t children.

I feel like I want to scream and curl up into a ball, in part due to my own dysphoria, but also because I know gendering periods makes it even harder for trans people to access adequate menstrual care. 

No it doesn’t. Men can buy tampons and pads, as can women who claim to be men or “transmasculine.”

While I don’t have dysphoria about my period itself, it’s hard not to feel triggered when I get my period and have to rely on gendered pink products or information. It’s an added stress that makes it even harder for me to take care of myself.

Listen, chum, lots of us generic women without the “transmasculine” trimmings hate the pinkification of everything marketed to us too, not because We’re Not That Gender but because it’s so fucking insulting. The infantilization of all women is more important than anyone’s “transmasculinity.”

Before I found my current trans-inclusive clinic in New York City, I had experiences with gynecologists who would misgender me, deadname me, and use extremely gendered language around menstruation, making it feel unsafe to bring up any actual concerns. 

“Making it feel unsafe” in your head maybe, but then you’ve been trained to feel that, or say you feel it, haven’t you. With any luck you’ll be embarrassed by all this in a few years.

More from the pyramid:

What is this imagined community that gender-skeptics defend?

Women, for one. Are women “imagined”? No. Women are real. I don’t refer to us as a “community” because I think that word is much overused and also manipulative (so in that sense I kind of understand the “imagined community” thing), but that doesn’t mean the word “women” doesn’t name a real category of people. Do we defend women? Sure. For more see: feminism, passim.

This is the usual warping of the word “existence” – pretending that skepticism about a label=genocide. Hitler didn’t wipe out 6 million Jews by calling them something else, he wiped them out by murdering them. There’s a difference.

It can of course be a form of persecution or oppression to force people to describe themselves the way you choose rather than the way they choose – but that cuts in all directions. Feminists who don’t buy into trans dogma don’t agree that men can be women, but we also don’t agree that we are “cis” women. Feminists see men as men, but trans activists see women as “cis” women, so who is really forcing which to accept a new description for themselves?

To sum up, no, calling men men is not genocide, because of the absence of the “cide” part.

If the whole fad fell apart tomorrow, what would the result be? People would stop calling themselves the other sex. That’s all. That’s not genocide.

Stark truth.

It’s not even quite true that no one was held accountable – Hitler was sentenced to prison and served several months, during which he wrote Mein Kampf. So…

We’re in a race between global hotting and a fascist coup.

The FDA tells us Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19

First, snapshots.

On the left: no, not for you. On the right: yes, for you.

To be clear: 1: horse. 2: person. Horses take medication designed for horses, persons take medication designed for persons. Don’t swap between, don’t mix & match.

The FDA’s job is to carefully evaluate the scientific data on a drug to be sure that it is both safe and effective for a particular use, and then to decide whether or not to approve it. Using any treatment for COVID-19 that’s not approved or authorized by the FDA, unless part of a clinical trial, can cause serious harm. 

The FDA’s job, please note. Not yours (unless you work for the FDA), not Twitter’s, not Tucker Carlson’s, not Trump’s, not your neighbor’s.

There seems to be a growing interest in a drug called ivermectin to treat humans with COVID-19. Ivermectin is often used in the U.S. to treat or prevent parasites in animals.  The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses.

FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans. Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea. Ivermectin is not an anti-viral (a drug for treating viruses).

Ok. Um…how about kerosene? Would that work? Or…floor polish? Polish up your insides so the virus slides right off? Or maybe a garlic poultice with just a little ivermectin sprinkled on top?

Hmm.

Wait. They didn’t go to “a transwoman’s place of work” – they went to a pub, a well known, popular, centrally located pub. They went to a pub, to get food and drinks. I think it’s extremely unlikely they knew it was “a transwoman’s place of work” because why would they? Why would anyone?

And the literature isn’t “anti-trans,” it’s pro-feminism and pro-reality. The gender critical view isn’t “anti-trans” in the sense of wanting to abuse trans people, it’s critical of the dogma that men are women if they say they are.

If people can’t make or even perceive the distinction between those two possibilities then we can’t think or talk about much of anything at all.

The Times reports on the “we don’t allow feminist women in our pub” story:

A leading pub chain has been dragged into a transphobia row after police were called to a city-centre pub when bar staff complained of feeling “threatened” by the presence of a group of campaigners who oppose extending women’s rights to transgender people.

Yet another bad lede. Why can’t reporters write decent first sentences? Is it part of their contract not to, or what?

Also a factual mistake, the campaigners don’t “oppose extending women’s rights to transgender people,” they don’t believe that men are women and they of course opposed extending women’s rights to men, on the grounds that it’s women who need them, not men.

A Twitter user using the pseudonym “mebulous entity” said she was the bar server who ejected the group. ForWomen.Scot confirmed she matched the description of the person who asked them to leave.

Why “she”? His Twitter profile says he’s male.

A spokeswoman for ForWomen.Scot said some of those involved were considering legal action and added: “Our understanding is that on Saturday night police were called on a group of women who had booked tables in Doctors having been to a Fringe show . . . at no point was a complaint about behaviour relayed and staff continued to serve them.

“Having seen the Twitter feed of the employee in question, it is quite clear this was an act motivated by recognition of Marion Millar who arrived later.

“What was said to justify the arrival of five police officers to remove about 10 women, many of whom were already saying goodbyes, we cannot say, although we do wonder how Doctors copes with genuinely aggressive or violent customers.”

Maybe they had shiny new rainbow hate crime cars they wanted to show off.

A spokeswoman for Doctors said: “Our aim is for our pubs to be friendly and welcoming places for all and we do not tolerate any form of discrimination from our customers or teams.” They added that an internal investigation was under way.

They? Why “they” for a spokeswoman?

People seem to be getting downright addled about these pesky pronoun thingies.

Says it all.

Perfect example of the frenzied dangerous rhetorical overkill.

To violence. What violence? In what way did they attempt to “escalate to violence”? BE SPECIFIC.

The Scotsman allows itself a touch of skepticism:

A major UK hospitality chain has launched an investigation after police were called to one of its pubs after a group of women were told they had to leave because they were “transphobic”.

The women, who allege they were threatened by bar staff, left after officers were called to Doctors, on Forrest Road, on Saturday night.

However one of the pub’s employees, who describes himself as an “AGP porn addict male” on his Twitter account, said it was staff who felt threatened by the women who were “belligerent”.

There’s the skepticism. I’m not the only one who thinks a guy who calls himself a porn addict in his Twitter profile might not be the most reliable witness to how “belligerent” a group of women in a pub were.

Now Greene King, the chain which runs the pub – and 19 other premises in Edinburgh – has launched an internal investigation and police enquiries are also continuing.

According to one of the women involved, two tables of eight had been booked in the pub for a get-together of friends who are also part of a new women’s rights campaign.

A women’s rights campaign!! How could such a thing be permitted in a respectable pub??!

One woman is understood to have been wearing a t-shirt with the slogan #womenwon’twheesht, while it is has been reported on social media that campaign leaflets against the Scottish Government’s plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act, were placed in the pub’s toilets.

One of the women in the group gave an account of what happened:

“We all turned up at the pub at the same time, we were directed to two adjacent areas and we settled in for a drink, food and a catch up. At about 9pm, we were joined by another small group.

“We were told at about 10pm that we had 20 minutes to finish as our booking had come to an end. I spoke to the person who came to the table to query that as we had no finish time on our booking.

“By this time we’d all bought several drinks and had eaten and were not planning to leave. At about 10.15pm the staff member repeated the request and walked off. Since I was sceptical about it I went to the bar to try and understand what was going on.

“Another member of staff, who identified herself as the most senior member in the absence of the manager, told me that we had been asked to move as our booking had finished.

“I explained the booking email had no expiry time on it and asked why should we be made to move.

“She then told me that we needed to move and we should take the hateful stickers we had put in the bathroom with us. She slapped a sticker with the words “Adult Human female” on the bar in front of me.

“I told her I had not been hateful and I had not put a sticker anywhere. She walked off so I shouted across to her because she had been rude, and accused me and my friends of being hateful and it was quite clear that a reason was being manufactured to get us to move and leave because they did not approve of our beliefs – that sex is real and can’t be changed.”

She said another member of staff then called the police who arrived around 10.35pm and she went outside to speak to them.

“I was told that the bar staff had a right to ask us to leave, even if there was no good reason,” she said.

I wonder. What if they’re all people of Pakistani origin? Does the staff have a right to ask them to leave even if there is no good reason?

I don’t know what the answer is, in terms of legal right. The laws differ depending on where you are.

“The officers spoke to several people, and one told me that everything we had told them would be in their report to the licensing board.

“I’m pretty shocked that I had been asked to leave a pub for the first time in my life, for just having thoughts that I kept to myself. What the bar staff clearly found distasteful was the presence of women they didn’t approve of.”

So it could be that the bar has the legal right to do that but that the licensing board is another matter altogether.

And by the way…

Meanwhile…

To report racist, homophobic, and transphobic incidents…but not of course misogynist ones, because they don’t exist, and misogyny isn’t even a word, let alone a thing.

Also what does the paint job on that car have to do with racism? What does it have to do with hostility and suspicion toward immigrants? What does it have to do with class? Why has Rainbowism & Pride displaced all other forms of human rights struggle?

But he had perfectly good reasons.

People didn’t like them, you see. What more do you want?

This is the guy who called Marion “terf” and told her to finish her drink and get out:

His profile self-description is…candid:

AGP porn addict male, cumbrained, submissive, moisturised and in my lane

they/she siad/sí

‘power brat & feral’

mildly nsfw

Porn addicted autogynephile man tells woman to get out of restaurant/pub because she’s a Known Feminist and he recognizes her.

He told his story last night:

From what I gather that bit is true – someone(s) in the group left flyers in the toilet (the restroom to USians, not the plumbing fixture itself) and pubs and restaurants in general do have rules against that and any other kind of solicitation.

Yes how dare they not meekly accept being thrown out of a pub because the employees dislike their opinions. (Punishment for leaving flyers in the loo isn’t ejection, it’s being told it’s not allowed.)

Yes so entitled – what a nerve. Much like these terrible people, yes?

Greensboro Woolworths lunch counter, February 1 1960.

More on that get out of our pub you bad bad woman incident tonight.

It’s all just revolting.