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.

I think I’m pretty conformist and orthodox on the whole Covid precautions issue, including the parts that are about not infecting other people as opposed to avoiding being infected myself. But I don’t know…

This aft I was walking down a side street and a woman pulling a grocery cart hove into view at the corner, and stopped to put a mask on. I kind of wondered “Mask?” because I was the only person in sight, but oh well – but then as the distance between us shrank she snarled at me: “I’d cross the street but my house is right there” – pointing ahead. For a second I thought she was joking but then I realized – cross the street?? Because one person is on the same side as she is, with plenty of room for us to avoid each other? So I turned to watch her as she passed me, and she snarled again “Whatever” and then some steps later “Idiot.”

??? There is no general outdoor mask mandate now. Crowded outdoor events, yes, but just being outside, no. As I say, there was NO ONE else in sight – it wasn’t crowded. Also I’m vaxxed and she almost certainly is too.

I kind of felt like running after her and smacking her on the back of the head, but I didn’t.

There was a terf gathering in Edinburgh today.

In the evening they went to a pub.

The police were summoned.

Good one.

Alabama is having a big Covid surge so NATURALLY failed president Donald Trump is having a “rally” there. Make Pandemic Great Again.

Donald Trump was due to stage a rally in Alabama on Saturday night, in a city that has declared a Covid emergency and in support of a congressman who both backed Trump’s attempt to overturn the election and this week sympathised with a man who threatened to blow up the US Capitol.

The former president will speak in Cullman, Alabama, in part in support of Mo Brooks’ bid for a US Senate seat.

Like other southern, Republican-run states, Alabama is struggling with a surge in cases of Covid-19 fueled by the contagious Delta variant. On Thursday, the city of Cullman declared a state of emergency.

So along comes Trump to make the situation worse. It’s what he does.

In a statement on Saturday, Trump said he expected a “huge crowd and tremendous enthusiasm” as there was “much to discuss, mostly having to do with bringing our country back”. Local media reported that organisers expected about 40,000 to attend at York Farms. The former president was set to take the stage at 7pm local time.

Dr William Smith, chief medical officer for Cullman Regional, told CBS42: “We view this as a potential ‘super-spreader’ event, just like last week’s Rock the South that was [at the same location]. We’ve seen an increase in patients since that event last weekend and we’re concerned we could see the same impact.”

That’s the wrong attitude altogether. What’s a few hundred or thousand lives compared to an opportunity for Trump to shout at clouds?

This is so profoundly contemptuous of women: pretend woman goes to Brazil to get a “womb transplant” so that he can have a baybee.

I wonder how many pregnant women in favelas could use better health care. I wonder how much pretend-woman’s “transplant” and ensuing care is going to cost.

Jessica Alves has revealed she has travelled to Brazil in her bid to become the first known transgender woman to have a womb transplant.

The Celebrity Big Brother star, 38, shared her hope that she would be able to get pregnant after undergoing the £30,000 transplant.

It is possible that Jessica could fall pregnant through IVF if she decided to go through with the transplant.

Millions languish in poverty and the planet is heating up like a pot of soup on a stove, but do let’s pay attention to men trying to get pregnant.

Jessica told The MailOnline: “There are some very good doctors here that could hopefully do it. The surgery is do-able, the same way that surgery is done on a biological woman. To a transgender woman is is exactly the same thing.”

Wut?

If he means trans women can have surgery just as women can, then duh, sure, but if he means his planned surgery to make a male body pregnant, then duh, of course it’s not the same thing. I guess he’s stupid as well as self-obsessed?

Jessica rose to fame as Human Ken Doll due to spending more than £600,000 on altering her looks with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures.

She had spent a fortune “trying to become the man she thought she should be” before coming out as transgender.

Earlier this year she spent a further £13,700 to undergo gender confirmation surgery in Bangkok in Thailand.

In other words he’s a fucking lunatic. No doctor should enable this revolting role play.

As the news was pouring in from Kabul, the Biden administration saw fit to make a big fuss about that most oppressed group in the universe – people who think their sex isn’t their sex.

“that would keep you from playing on the sports field” is the usual lie. You’d think government officials would manage to avoid blatant lies like that, but it seems not. The “obstacles” would be to boys and men taking places for girls and women. That’s all. They boys and men can still play, just not on the other teams. “Oh but they’re on estrogen, which puts them at a disadvantage.” Ok, but it doesn’t follow that they get to transfer that disadvantage to girls or women. If somebody has to be at a disadvantage in this scenario, it shouldn’t be girls and women. Why? Because they’re already at a disadvantage in multiple ways. How is this not obvious??

Good health is one thing and cross-sex hormones are another.

Judith Wright tells us:

My local Labour party voted through a motion for the online women’s conference which took place at the end of June. The motion (that I drafted) asked Labour to re-endorse its manifesto commitment to sex-based rights. It also called on Party leaders to condemn the abuse received by women. It stated that the misogyny that women face for speaking out  “would not be tolerated were it directed at a person/people with any other protected characteristic.”

Predictably, our perfectly reasonable motion was rejected by the conference arrangements committee because they claimed “it diminish(es) the experiences” of these other groups of people.

Meaning…what? That it diminishes those experiences because in fact women’s experiences of abuse really are more trivial than anyone else’s? That’s what they went with?

I appealed against the decision and forwarded this to Marsha deCordova, Labour’s Shadow Women and Equalities Minister and Charlotte Gerada, the National Women’s Officer amongst others.

Aaand none of them replied. Soz, women too last century.

Labour’s approach to concerns about the threat to single sex spaces and services is to stick their fingers very firmly in their ears. Clearly proving that they aren’t bothered about the treatment of women when we campaign to defend our rights. Can you imagine that a complaint like this would be ignored if it were about racism or disability or, God forbid, “gender reassignment”? 

Women had their chance. There was a little window in the late 20th century, and that window has now closed. Take it up with Complaints, which has an office in Ulan Bator, open one day a year. Next!

The women’s conference was the predictable farce that many of us knew it would be. The chair kept telling delegates that we must include men who say they’re women in anything and everything we do. I managed to speak about the spurious reason for rejecting my motion and the urgent need for sex-based rights to be discussed. I was constantly interrupted and eventually cut off. I was the only speaker at the conference to be shut down in this way.

Apart from my brief contribution there was no mention of the huge elephant in the room.

In fact there was no debate on anything. It was more like a motivational event where we all had to applaud everything that toed the official party line, part of which seemed to be, men can take part in the women’s conference if they simply self-identify into womanhood. One such man was granted the privilege of speaking during a “discussion” on Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) despite the fact that I know of at least one woman who was prevented from speaking even though her local party had submitted a motion on this issue.

Complaints office. Ulan Bator. Sunday May 47 next year. Goodbye.

Biden seems to have overpromised to European allies.

President Joe Biden told key allies in June that he would maintain enough of a security presence in Afghanistan to ensure they could continue to operate in the capital following the main U.S. withdrawal, a vow made before the Taliban’s rapid final push across the country, according to a British diplomatic memo seen by Bloomberg. 

Biden promised U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders at the Group of Seven summit in Cornwall, England, that “critical U.S. enablers” would remain in place to keep Kabul safe following the drawdown of NATO forces, the note said. British officials determined the U.S. would provide enough personnel to ensure that the U.K. embassy in Kabul could continue operating. 

Sooooo they’re now pretty pissed off at him.

The British document also showed that the U.S. was privately briefing  allies that they should be prepared for a Taliban offensive before any settlement that might have allowed former President Ashraf Ghani to remain in power. U.S. diplomats said that the Taliban would “test the Afghan government militarily” before they started taking seriously peace talks that were taking place in Doha, the note said.

Ah test it, is that what they were doing – so they “tested” it and next thing you know they had taken over every inch of it.

Trans dogma as professional requirement:

[A] social worker who was critical of aspects of transgender ideology has been sanctioned by Social Work England (SWE), the regulatory body for social workers. In July this year, a female social worker was given a one-year ‘warning order’, following a complaint from a member of the public that she ‘used social media unethically’. Case examiners at SWE agreed that she made a number of posts on Facebook that were ‘discriminatory in nature’. According to the disciplinary report, she shared links ‘to fundraising pages for people and / or organisations which appear to hold and / or have publicised discriminatory views’. She also ‘shared and signed petitions that pursue a discriminatory goal’. Because of this, Social Work England ruled that her ‘fitness to practise is impaired by way of misconduct’.

The social worker’s posts expressed ‘gender critical’ views in relation to the increasingly toxic and polarised transgender debate. Case examiners at Social Work England say explicitly in their report that ‘no evidence has been offered that would suggest that the social worker acted in a transphobic manner while at work’. Similarly, examiners heard testimony from her line manager that she ‘has never practised in a discriminatory way’. In other words, the whole basis of the case against her was that she expressed the ‘wrong’ views about trans issues on social media.

And the ‘wrong’ views aren’t that X people are inferior or naturally subordinate or both, they are simply that people are the sex they are and not the other one. The ‘wrong’ views are views that were universal until a few years ago. The ‘wrong’ views are about a matter of fact, on which the ‘right’ views are more eccentric and fantasy-based and hard to believe than the ‘right’ views – in other words a professional body is making it a disciplinary matter to believe obvious facts instead of non-obvious fictions. Apparently you have to believe (or at least pretend to believe) that people are whatever sex they say they are if you want to be a social worker.

So if a woman is married to an abusive man, and they have kids and no money and are struggling, if the man says he’s a woman any social worker who takes their case has to agree with him, including if the woman married to the man doesn’t agree that he’s a man.

How’s that going to work out?

Chapter 572 of the Infantilization Chronicles:

Romeo and Juliet audiences have been given an entire page of warnings about suicide, fake blood and stage fighting for a new prodution at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Oh gosh, really? Suicide? Fighting? I had no idea, I thought it was about a couple of kittens who find a ball of yarn and hilarity ensues.

The double suicide of the star-crossed lovers has been deemed a mental health issue in a guide reminding viewers that the actors playing Romeo and Juliet do not really die at the end of the play.

They don’t??? Who knew?

This “sensitivity” is all the more bizarre given the movies and tv shows and video games everyone is steeped in. I could see Cousin Joe from deep in the country who’s never seen a play or a tv show or a movie and has never read a book and never talked to any humans needing to be told that the actors aren’t really dead, but other than that…

More seriously…I think people who are so fragile that they can’t deal with onstage violence probably don’t go to the theater. I also don’t think this is a left-right thing particularly, it’s more a…what…therapy culture versus get a grip culture. There’s a kind of cult of fragility going on, which we’re all too familiar with in relation to the people who keep yelling that trans people are the most oppressed ever. Encouraging people to think they’re so weak and excitable that they think stage murder is real is not doing them a favor. Most people are not made of crystal and don’t shatter at a touch.