Priorities…

Guest post by tigger_the_wing.

A lot of people do not know that the T in LGBT no longer stands for ‘transsexual’. In fact, people are these days called ‘transphobic’ for using the word ‘transsexual’ – even those who refer to themselves as ‘transsexual’. The ‘trans’ people in the recent posts I have made are those who consider themselves to be ‘under the transgender umbrella’. Here is a graphic from an information leaflet [pdf] which explains who counts as ‘transgender’:

Note: People with disorders of sexual development KEEP asking trans activists to leave them out of it and to stop using the outdated term ‘intersex’. Just as the trans activists ignore women’s boundaries, they ignore them, too.

Note 2: Male transvestites and drag performers are a MUCH bigger demographic than transsexual men. So much so that they had no difficulty changing the T to the meaningless ‘transgender’, nor changing the whole focus of the LGBT charity Stonewall to centre straight misogynist men.

Note 3: Gender variant/Gender queer is utterly without a coherent definition. Literally anyone can fit in here because *no-one* completely conforms to their society’s gender ‘norms’; partly because those change from year to year, and mostly because we all have individual personalities and tastes in clothing, hobbies, etc.

Note 4: Since gender critical feminists DEFINITELY don’t follow gender norms, by the trans activists’ own rules that makes us all ‘gender variant’, and so trans. Calling us ‘cis’ is MISGENDERING US. The worst crime anyone can commit, according to them; worse than murder.

Note 5: Trans activists have distorted Stonewall’s original mission to support the LGBT, to kick out the LGBT altogether, and bring in performers and fetishists instead.

The Observer points out that free speech is a fundamental human right and basic to democracy.

So it should concern anyone who claims to be a democrat that there is growing evidence that women who have expressed a set of feminist beliefs that have come to be known as “gender-critical” have, in some cases, faced significant professional penalties as a result.

Growing evidence, yes, as in there’s always more of it, but it’s been quite hefty for several years now.

The belief that the patriarchal oppression of women is grounded partly in their biological sex, not just the social expression of gender, and that women therefore have the right to certain single-sex spaces and to organise on the basis of biological sex if they so wish, represents a long-standing strand of feminist thinking. Other feminists disagree, believing that gender identity supersedes biological sex altogether.

That’s not right. It wasn’t a “strand” of feminist thinking, it was all of it. This idea that gender identity supersedes biological sex is comparatively new.

And that’s for obvious reasons. What kind of labor movement can you have if you think that being working class is a matter of identity rather than the brute facts of the matter? What kind of anti-racism is it that thinks it’s all a matter of choice?

As a society, we need to resolve the question of how to protect the privacy, dignity and rights of trans women while also respecting the privacy, dignity and rights of those born female.

But trans women are men, so their need for privacy isn’t quite as urgent as women’s need is.

Yet there have been clear and significant attempts to interfere with women’s freedom to express gender-critical beliefs.

The Observer then lists the recent examples we’re familiar with – Maya Forstater; Rosa Freedman and Jo Phoenix; Jess De Wahls. (They skipped Marion Millar though.)

These are just a few examples but there have been many more of women being harassed, punished, censured – and even physically assaulted – for their gender-critical views. Meanwhile, the chief executive of Stonewall has likened gender-critical beliefs to antisemitism. The chilling result is the frightening of women into silence because they fear the consequences of expressing their feminist beliefs.

Yes, and that’s been going on for several years, intensifying all the time.

For centuries, patriarchal societies have tried to limit the free expression of women. For centuries, women have fought back against attempts to curb their fundamental human rights. It should not need stating that gender-critical feminists have the same free-speech rights as all other citizens. In a democracy, there is no debate to be had about women’s freedom of speech.

Better late than never.

It’s fine, it’s ok, don’t worry, nothing’s wrong.

Sometimes people are too damn quick to say that when they don’t actually have a clue whether it’s fine or not.

Days before the collapse, Stratton, 40, the model and yoga instructor who went silent after calling her husband in Denver, had told family members that “something was wrong” with the building, according to Dean, her older sister. Stratton, who remains among the missing, had seen water damage and worried about the heavy equipment she saw being lifted to the roof for repair work, Dean said.

Heavy equipment on the roof of an occupied apartment tower; what could possibly go wrong?

Other residents had expressed concerns, too. Elaine Sabino, a transplant from New York who had lived in the tower’s penthouse for two years, complained in recent weeks “about the construction on the roof,” said her brother-in-law, Douglas Berdeaux.

Sabino, who is also missing, “said it was vibrating her unit,” he said. “She even went up to talk to the construction manager and told them whatever they were doing was making her rooms vibrate. She said she was worried that the ceiling was going to collapse on top of her bed. She also said she heard water around the elevator. A manager went up to her unit with her and looked around, and told her they’re doing some work, but everything was okay.”

Oh really. How did he know everything was okay? How could he tell everything was okay by looking around her “unit”? Was it that he didn’t see any heavy equipment actually poking through the ceiling?

He didn’t know, he just wanted her to shut up.

Résistance Lesbienne on Facebook, a public post so anyone can see it.

La vidéo des hommes transidentifiés qui noues ont agressées pendant notre action de visibilité lesbienne à la Marche des Fiertés Paris 2021 #resistancelesbienne #lesbiennepasqueer #lesbiannotqueer #gettheloutfrance #Interlgbt #Marchedesfierte

Translation: The video of the trans-identified men who attacked us during our lesbian visiblity action at the Pride March Paris 2021.

H/t Sackbut

The BBC needs better editing.

A Tongan weightlifter – and rival to transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard – who missed out on an Olympic qualifying berth has been awarded a wildcard entry to the Tokyo Games.

Nini Manumua, 21, has been handed a tripartite place by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF). She finished in 14th in the women’s +87kg division, one place short of an automatic qualification berth. New Zealand lifter Hubbard finished seventh.

Well, he finished seventh competing against women. Manumua is an actual woman.

She [Hubbard] competed in men’s events before coming out as transgender in 2013.

That is, Hubbard competed in men’s events (being a man and all) before he decided to pretend to be a woman in order to cheat his way to medals.

Her inclusion has generated significant criticism with some groups claiming Hubbard has an unfair advantage, but others see the 43-year-old as a figurehead for greater inclusion at the Olympics.

Oh we’re not just claiming he has an unfair advantage, we’re saying with emphasis that he’s cheating. It should be obvious to everyone over the age of 6 that he’s cheating.

Trump is doing a Revenge Rally. How adult.

Several hundred supporters of former President Donald Trump lined up for a rally on Saturday in Ohio, his first since the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, as he aims to bolster allies, berate his enemies and cement his influence over the Republican Party.

Several hundred, eh. There’s glory for you.

It also marks the start of his public events lashing out at elected Republicans who he views as having crossed him. He will campaign for former White House aide Max Miller, who has launched a primary challenge against Representative Anthony Gonzalez, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters that left five dead including a Capitol Police officer.

Trump has vowed to campaign against all 10. He has also endorsed a challenger to Senator Lisa Murkowski, the only one of the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him in his January impeachment trial who is up for re-election in 2022.

The guy missed his calling. He would have enjoyed his life a lot more as a Mafia boss.

Peter Tatchell trying to bully women into agreeing that men can be women. Men can’t be women. That sex is already taken.

Walk grabbed; back to Lucy Bannerman’s article.

More than 500 organisations, including councils, police forces, fire and ambulance services, NHS Trust and universities across the UK, applied to the 2020 Index last year. The 31-page application form vets organisations across a wide range of topics, from their HR policies and procurement processes to their social media activity.

How did more than 500 serious important grown-up organizations become convinced that they needed Stonewall’s approval so desperately that they would fill out a 31 page application???

And let’s not forget that Stonewall makes money from all this. Quite a racket, in the literal sense.

Here’s some of the explanation:

“Employers want to be one of the good guys,” an equality officer and former Stonewall volunteer told The Times who considered signing his organisation up.

I think there’s a word either missing or too many in that sentence, but I think I get it.

He knew that winning a spot on Stonewall’s Top 100 employers would bring bragging rights. If it won a place, his public sector employer would be celebrated and could woo the top talent with its stamp of approval as a discrimination-free workplace.

Useful as far as it goes but really it just pushes the question back a step. Why are those particular bragging rights so important? Why has there never ever ever been such a yearning for bragging rights about being a feminist workplace? Or an anti-racism workplace?

So the guy had a meeting with the goons representatives.

“There was a very manipulative tone. I remember being told, ‘well, you don’t have to apply, but if you don’t, do you really feel you have the expertise to deal with this in-house?’ It felt like emotional blackmail. The tone of the meeting felt quite high-pressured,” he said, “with a ‘We can sign you up today’ vibe — a little like a time-share presentation.”

Or even a lot like a time-share presentation.

It wasn’t the £2,500 Diversity Champion membership fee you had to pay, before being eligible to apply, that put him off; it was the “sheer volume” of work the application demanded. He had heard of another organisation that spent three months working on a submission of hundreds of pages. He declined, but plenty [of] others did not.

Organisations that wouldn’t spend half an hour on such an application for a feminist membership, I betcha.

Naomi Cunningham, barrister and chairwoman of Sex Matters said: “Stonewall sells its Workplace Equality Index as a scheme to help organisations comply with equality law. But what it offers is lobbying — it presents its own highly contentious understanding of what the law should be presented as ‘training’ on what the law is.

“It tells organisations to treat anyone who identifies as the opposite sex as if they have changed sex, and are therefore automatically entitled to use spaces such as toilets, changing rooms and showers that others rely on for privacy. That’s not the law. But Stonewall presents it as if it is and encourages organisations to treat any objections as a disciplinary matter.”

In other words Stonewall lies about the law and tells organisations to punish disobedient employees even though that’s not the law.

This paragraph made my head snap back in that “whaaaaaaat” way:

In its annual applications over the past four years, the Scottish government offered up screenshots of elected ministers’ social media activity for Stonewall’s approval, details of every Pride event attended by Nicola Sturgeon, and examples of “LGBT champions” silencing dissenting colleagues on internal forums as proof of its commitment to “equality”.

The government! Screenshots! Elected ministers’ social media activity! For Stonewall’s approval! It’s astounding. It’s like high school, only stupider.

When Stonewall asked for more, the Scottish government said it was hoping to make self-declaration the law.

Stonewall has lobbied for people to have access to single-sex spaces, on the basis of their self-declared “gender identity” instead of biological sex. The controversial proposal is opposed by many women, who fear it would open up spaces such as changing rooms, prisons, refuges and women-only shortlists to any biological male who says they are a woman.

For the simple and convincing reason that it would inevitably do exactly that, because that’s what the proposal means.

In an effort to win points, the government also described how it was “consulting on the detail of what should be included in a new hate crime bill”. The legislation, passed this year, created a new offence of “stirring up hatred” on grounds such as transgender identity, but attracted criticism for excluding women as a protected group.

Fabulous isn’t it? Women can be punished for not agreeing that men are women but everybody can stir up hatred against women with impunity.

Stonewall was thrilled.

“The sponsorship and support Scottish government provides to a diversity of LGBT groups is highly valuable and impactful…”

Of course they call it “impactful.” Stupidest word coined in the last 50 years.

The Scottish government did well one year but then slipped down the rankings the next. Oh dear. What to do?

Stonewall had advice.

“We have identified the following areas as priorities for the year ahead” came the Feedback. “Removing remaining gendered terms such as ‘mother’ from your maternity policy, and replacing these with gender neutral equivalents. Please refer to Stonewall’s Inclusive Policy Toolkit for further information.”

It erases women or it gets the hose.

An exchange:

So let’s talk about Lucy Bannerman’s article:

Stonewall has been accused of using a workplace equality scheme to “coerce” publicly-funded organisations and companies to lobby for changes to the law.

The missing agent again. Accused by whom? I guess that’s a newspaper convention, because the lede is supposed to be very stripped-down and grabby, so if the “by whom” is complicated it gets put off until later. Anway –

Documents show how the charity seeks to control what NHS trusts, government departments and local councils say on their social media accounts, demanding public support for its controversial views on gender identity, in return for points on its Top 100 Employers index.

I’m still wondering how Stonewall managed to corner the market on this. Why can’t NHS trusts and the rest just tell them to fuck off?

The Times can disclose that the charity is using the index to force organisations to lobby on its behalf, rewarding them with higher rankings if they bring their own policies in line with Stonewall’s agenda, and dropping them from the Top 100 if they do not.

Which is probably how any such arrangement works – if you flatter us we will flatter you back; if you don’t, we’ll leave you and find someone who will. The question is why everyone needs to be flattered by Stonewall. Are there any other subordinated groups that have this kind of lock on public bodies? Is there a feminist group that gets to make demands this way?

It reminds me of the lock the Muslim Council of Britain used to have on the BBC and other news media; I wonder if it was this explicit.

Simon Fanshawe, one of the original founders of Stonewall, told The Times: “[The index] started out as a way of helping employers ensure their lesbian and gay staff were well looked after, so for example, that they got compassionate leave if their partner was ill or died. It was a kind of kitemark.

“But what it has turned into now sounds more like coercion — a way of coercing employers in their language and structure, instead of encouraging them to embrace the different needs of their LGBT staff.”

So basically all about the propaganda.

More later. I need to grab a walk before it gets too hot.

So…they don’t look at the engineering reports until after the building has collapsed?

A structural engineering report provided to the Champlain Towers condominium association in 2018 found widespread issues that required extensive repairs “in the near future.”

That’s the one that just pancaked.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told NPR’s Weekend Edition that the engineer report was likely not read until years later. “I’m under the impression that it is something that nobody had seen until yesterday when we started looking back into the records to try to understand if there was anything in the record that would indicate why this building fell down,” he said.

What??

I could be wrong but I thought the whole point of such reports was to see if there is anything wrong, i.e. anything that needs fixing. I didn’t think the point was just to see if there is anything wrong and if there is ignore it.

The whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret, why didn’t you tell the world eh?

A social justice movement like any other.

No, it really isn’t. We already have a powerful tool to address the oppression of women: feminism. We don’t need a hipster bro to come along and tell us how awesome gender theory is. If he wants to help he could just tell his fellow hipster bros to shut up and let feminists talk.

MSF mourns three colleagues brutally murdered in Ethiopia

Staff at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are today in mourning after receiving confirmation of the death of three of our colleagues who were working in Tigray region, Ethiopia.

Maria Hernandez, our emergency coordinator; Yohannes Halefom Reda, our assistant coordinator; and Tedros Gebremariam Gebremichael, our driver, were travelling yesterday afternoon when we lost contact with them. This morning, their vehicle was found empty and a few metres away, their lifeless bodies.

No words can truly convey all our sadness, shock and outrage against this horrific attack. Nor can words soothe the loss and suffering of their families and loved ones, to whom we relay our deepest sympathy and condolences.

We condemn this attack on our colleagues in the strongest possible terms and will be relentless in understanding what happened. Maria, Yohannes and Tedros were in Tigray providing assistance to people, and it is unthinkable that they paid for this work with their lives.

They’re there to help.

Glinner points out that the “heehee look at us threatening violence” cover of Trans Studies Quarterly – this one –

– is just the latest in a long series. He includes 4 that we’ve all seen many times. There are many many more. Remember these at the San Francisco public library?

Hur hur. Isn’t it interesting that they do this and we don’t yet we’re constantly accused of violence and oppression?

Pliny gives the intro:

One mitigation. It still stinks but at least Manumua isn’t missing her chance.

What’s a tripartite invitation?

I’m relieved. The maddening unfairness of it was haunting me.

Andrew Sullivan is crowing.

So if an army of accountants added up all the numbers and could tell us exactly how many billions of dollars were withheld from former slaves and their descendants by a century of deeply racist laws that for instance made it illegal for those descendants to refuse a job, no matter how shit the pay and dangerous the conditions – would Sullivan still call it “racist” to try to pay back some little fraction of that massive sum?

Not to mention all the wages not paid for the three centuries before the Civil War.

To call it racist to pay back a tiny tiny piece of that stolen money is either clueless or evil.

The Post has details:

Black and other minority farmers were dealt a new legal blow on Wednesday when a Florida federal court issued a preliminary injunction halting a key part of the Biden administration’s federal stimulus relief package that forgave agricultural debts to farmers of color.

But but but there are white farmers who need help too!

Yes, but farmers of color have an actual quantifiable debt owed to them. Generations of stolen labor made it all but impossible for descendants of enslaved people to get off the bottom rung of the ladder.

Howard wrote that in crafting this debt program benefiting farmers based on race that “Congress also must heed its obligation to do away with governmentally imposed discrimination based on race.”

Before paying back the billions in stolen wages.

It isn’t a favor or a gift or a sentimental feel-good stunt, it’s a debt. It’s a debt that built up over four centuries. It’s a bit late to say oh but we mustn’t discriminate.

Some unpleasant news for Sir.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has informed Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that it is considering criminal charges against his family business, the Trump Organization, in connection with fringe benefits the company awarded a top executive, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.

If the case moves ahead, the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., could announce charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, as soon as next week, the people said.

An indictment of the Trump Organization could mark the first criminal charges to emerge from Mr. Vance’s long-running investigation into Mr. Trump and his business dealings, and raises the startling prospect of a former president having to defend the company he founded and has run for decades.

Well the startling bit was that Trump was ever president even for a second, so the startlement of his having to talk to the DA is pretty tepid.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers met on Thursday with senior prosecutors in the district attorney’s office in hopes of persuading them to abandon any plan to charge the company, according to several people familiar with the meeting. Such meetings are routine in white-collar criminal investigations, and it is unclear whether the prosecutors have made a final decision on whether to charge the Trump Organization, which has long denied wrongdoing.

Interesting that such meetings are routine in white-collar criminal investigations but, I venture to guess, in less posh criminal investigations. Almost suggests that there’s more than one standard.

Right-wingers don’t like it when left-wingers are critical of the military.

When it’s Fox News on the other hand…

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has attacked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, calling him “a pig” and “stupid” for defending teaching cadets and service personnel differing viewpoints, including aspects of critical race theory.

Huh. Imagine if some mouthy feminist had said that.

The theory—which “maps the nature and workings of ‘institutional racism,'” according to Kendall Thomas, a law professor at Columbia University—was little known outside academic circles a few years ago, but is now at the centre of a culture war. Republicans in more than 20 states have proposed or passed legislation to ban the theory being taught in schools.

Or rather not “the theory” in the sense of mapping the nature and workings of institutional racism, but rather in the sense of any discussion of race that we don’t like. The latter is a good deal broader than the former.

On Wednesday, Gen. Milley told the House Armed Services Committee that it was important for members of the U.S. military to be “open-minded” and “widely read.”

“I want to understand white rage. And I’m white, and I want to understand it,” the general said. “What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out,” Gen. Milley said, referring to the Capitol riots of January 6.

Well Tucker Carlson isn’t going to put up with that.

On his Thursday night show on Fox, he said: “The race hate—and that’s what it is—has oozed from universities and it has infected the entire country, including at the highest levels.

“Mark Milley is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Carlson added. “He didn’t get that job because he’s brilliant or because he’s brave. Or because people who know him respect him. He is not, and they definitely don’t. Milley got the job because he is obsequious. He knows who to suck up to, and he’s more than happy to do it. Feed him a script and he will read it.”

Says Tucker Carlson of Fox News. I’m sure he has no idea whom to suck up to.