I’ve run out of exclamations.

She “only gets to.” It’s like cutting down on chocolate, isn’t it.

But hey, $$$.

I swear. This makes “recovered memory” and Satanic panic and even Freudianism look harmless in comparison.

This is where the Vocabulary Mandate gets you.

The Vocabulary Mandate makes that sound true, if you’ve been following it strictly enough. But it’s not true; it’s absurd. Disobey the Vocabulary Mandate and we’re back in the real world where that’s not how it works.

“Are you suggesting girls are taking a back seat to boys?”

“Uh, yes. Where have you been?”

“In life? No. Absolutely not. How many women have been senators? How many men? I can’t think of any credible data that suggests that men have more privilege than women but can think of plenty of data that suggests the reverse.”

Vox had the numbers as of November 1, 2016.

Throughout American history, 1,917 US senators have been men — and just 46 have been women.

Back seat? Yes.

It’s “oppression” for women to want to compete against women, and girls against girls?

By men, who will never face this particular obstacle.

But it’s not oppression. Women and girls who don’t want to compete against men and boys are not oppressing anyone. Men and boys who insist on competing against women and girls, on the other hand, are.

These men. I swear.

Man casually dismisses women’s rights.

Funny that he puts the words in the mouth of a mommy of an athlete instead of the athlete herself. There are adult female athletes, you know, and they do lose prizes and awards and wins if they are forced to compete against men.

New outrage – healthcare systems asking what sex you are.

It’s medical. It’s about physical bodies. The medical people need to know some basic facts about the bodies in order to treat them. It’s not about “outing” and it’s not something to stir up Twitterfury about.

Sex at birth may cause misdiagnosis, while giving fictional sex…won’t?

It won’t make any difference to the outcome, but it’s still good to know that Trump’s lawyers’ claims are falling apart because of that phone call.

Former President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense is looking more threadbare: New statements by Republican lawmakers appear to undercut key claims from his defense team about how much Trump knew about the unfolding January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and when he knew it.

New details emerged Friday about a January 6 call between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, in the midst of the attack. First recounted in January by Washington state Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was one of just 10 House Republicans to vote for impeachment, the call gives insight into Trump’s state of mind on the day of the insurrection and suggests his sympathies lay with the rioters.

The defense had argued that “the president would never have wanted such a riot to occur because his longstanding hatred for violent protesters,” but Trump’s conversation with McCarthy — as well as his long history of inciting violence well before the attack on the Capitol — flies in the face of that claim.

His longstanding hatred for violent protesters my ass – does no one remember Charlottesville? He hates all protesters on that side. It’s not violence he hates, it’s opposition to Trump.

Ultimately, this account appears to have changed the shape of the trial. Lawmakers and observers originally predicted a quick end to the impeachment proceedings as soon as Saturday; however, lead House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has now called for Beutler to be deposed, and for her notes about Trump’s conversation with McCarthy be subpoenaed. Witnesses, including Beutler, could also be called to testify.

Notes. There are notes.

Trump has been criticized for sending a tweet attacking Pence at 2:24 pm Eastern time on January 6, writing that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

According to a spokesperson for Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) Trump called Lee at 2:26 pm, two minutes after sending that tweet, and he passed his phone to Tuberville at that time. Lee has reportedly provided impeachment managers and the defense team a record of this call verifying the call, which lasted for about four minutes.

Pence was evacuated from the Senate chamber at 2:15 pm, according to Politico. Reporting suggests that the mob, which chanted “hang Mike Pence” and erected a gallows outside of the Capitol, came within seconds of encountering the former vice president as he was evacuated.

Despite Tuberville having informed Trump about the situation at the Capitol, van der Veen was unequivocal on Friday: “The answer is no,” van der Veen said in response to a question from Sens. Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. “At no point was the president informed the vice president was in any danger.”

But he was informed.

But 17 Republicans aren’t going to vote to convict.

On the other hand Trump could be in prison by 2024. It’s got to be a logistical nightmare to run for president from prison.

You know, if at least 50% of the wording of your Denunciation is simply a copy of 9 million other Denunciations you could at least pause to wonder if any of it is actually true.

Sanctimonious inquisitorial toads.

The Senators are part of cancel culture. Impeaching Trump is exactly like petitioning the university to cancel a talk by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers put up a pugnacious if brief defense presentation in his impeachment trial Friday, saying his rally speech before the Capitol riot was “ordinary political rhetoric” and blasting the proceedings as a “sham” fueled by Democrats’ “political hatred” for the ex-president.

If it’s true that Trump’s rally speech before the riot was ordinary political rhetoric, then why did all those people storm up Pennsylvania Avenue and batter their way into the Capitol? Why did they beat people with flagpoles, smash windows, storm along corridors shouting threats, walk the halls yodeling “Naaaaaaaaaancy, where arrrrrrrrrrre you?” Why did they erect a gallows, yell “Hang Mike Pence!”, chase Eugene Goodman up the stairs? Why did they force their way into offices and conference rooms? Why were so many of them armed? Why were bombs found in the cars of some of them? Why are there so many videos of them screaming threats?

Parts of the attorneys’ presentation invoked the former president’s language and arguments, with his lawyers charging that Trump’s second impeachment trial is “constitutional cancel culture” while making numerous false claims.

He lost the election. That’s not “cancel culture,” it’s losing an election. He’s already “canceled,” the point is that what he did on January 6 was criminal and a violation of his oath of office.

They know he did it. They were there.

In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men.

A furious McCarthy told the President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.

Well if it comes to that, who the fuck did McCarthy think he was talking to? Did he expect Trump to be reasonable or truthful or even law-abiding?

The newly revealed details of the call, described to CNN by multiple Republicans briefed on it, provide critical insight into the President’s state of mind as rioters were overrunning the Capitol. The existence of the call and some of its details have been previously reported and discussed publicly by McCarthy.

Trump’s state of mind was yippee hooray these are my people. It wasn’t omigod this is antifa coming to eat our livers, it was haha eat shit democracts they gonna kill you.

The Republican members of Congress said the exchange showed Trump had no intention of calling off the rioters even as lawmakers were pleading with him to intervene. Several said it amounted to a dereliction of his presidential duty.

But they won’t vote to convict him.

Speaking to the President from inside the besieged Capitol, McCarthy pressed Trump to call off his supporters and engaged in a heated disagreement about who comprised the crowd. Trump’s comment about the would-be insurrectionists caring more about the election results than McCarthy did was first mentioned by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, in a town hall earlier this week, and was confirmed to CNN by Herrera Beutler and other Republicans briefed on the conversation.

“You have to look at what he did during the insurrection to confirm where his mind was at,” Herrera Beutler told CNN. “That line right there demonstrates to me that either he didn’t care, which is impeachable, because you cannot allow an attack on your soil, or he wanted it to happen and was OK with it, which makes me so angry.”

Yes, it annoys me a good deal too.

Nailed it.

Actor James Dreyfus today slammed trans activists as ‘misogynistic guys in skirts’ for waging a war of hatred against Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

The Gimme, Gimme, Gimme star, 52, claimed those involved were ‘angry, young, anarchist people’ who harboured a deep hatred of women and ‘what they represent’.

He also accused them of being behind an alleged campaign of threats to kill and rape women in order to ‘put them back in their place’. 

Gee, where would he get that idea? Apart from Twitter and Facebook day in and day out.

A group of trans activists condemned Dreyfus last year when he was among 50 actors, writers and journalists to sign a letter in support of JK Rowling following backlash to her views on trans people.  

…

Dreyfus said he had been ‘cancelled’ after showing support for the author in the letter as he criticised social media as ‘a monster we have created’.

See also: Trump on Twitter.

Instagram bars a vax denialist:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now blocked from Instagram after he repeatedly undercut trust in vaccines. Kennedy has also spread conspiracy theories about Bill Gates, accusing him of profiteering off vaccines and attempting to take control of the world’s food supply.

“We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, told NPR on Thursday.

Kennedy has been a prominent voice in the anti-vaccine community for years, speaking out against childhood vaccines and promoting controversial and disproven claims that seek to link vaccines with autism.

In the past year, Kennedy’s beliefs about vaccines have intersected with the COVID-19 pandemic. He has told his followers not to trust “mainstream media, government health officials” and doctors who say the coronavirus vaccines are safe, recently highlighting a rare and tragic case in which a woman died hours after receiving the vaccine.

Someone should tell him about the much less rare cases in which people die of the coronavirus.

In early 2017, Kennedy met with then-President-elect Donald Trump, urging him to create a commission to study vaccines’ safety. It was an instance, as NPR reported at the time, of “Trump embracing the fringe when it comes to the science of autism and vaccinations.”

In response to that meeting, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement saying “vaccines protect children’s health and save lives.”

While Kennedy works hard to stop them.

Helen Saxby wrote about Allison Bailey and Garden Court Chambers and Stonewall in October 2019.

Garden Court Chambers is ‘investigating’ Allison Bailey for being a founding member of the LGB alliance. This is no surprise given its associations.

Two years ago, on Tuesday October 3rd 2017, I attended a meeting in central London entitled ‘Progress and Challenges in Advancing Equality for Trans People in the UK’. It was held at Garden Court Chambers, in association with the Human Rights Lawyers Association.

That was just two weeks after the assault on Maria MacLachlan at Speakers Corner, Saxby points out.

Bex Stinson of Stonewall was first to speak. We were told that the Trans Inquiry was incredibly important regarding the recommendations it published, but that the government response to the report was lacklustre. We learned that trans people are demonised and dehumanised, and that there is a hostile environment at the moment: every week there is a new piece in the press attacking trans people. The language we’re seeing now is like Section 28 all over again: trans people face hostility. The new GRA should recognise all identities, there should be right of autonomy, no diagnosis of dysphoria should be needed. We need strategic legislation: human lives are involved. We’re facing a serious tide of anti-trans sentiment.

Next up was Michelle Brewer of Garden Court Chambers and the Trans Equality Legal Initiative (TELI). Brewer started by pronouncing that chambers is a safe space: there would be NO DEBATE about trans rights existing. TELI, we were told, was a group of human rights lawyers and trans rights activists, set up to educate the legal community and to support grass roots organisations. We need to be educating ourselves – in court at the moment there is apparently misgendering and deadnaming. It is the responsibility of lawyers not to use ‘cis-normative’ language. It needs to be safe. There is a hostile environment. The example was used of the appalling deaths of trans people in prison, including one just last week.

We’re in the weeds already, you see, because sometimes in court it matters who is a man and who is a woman. In Maria MacLachlan’s case it mattered, because the judge ordered her to refer to the young man who assaulted her as “she” and “her.” Under oath.

Jane Ryan of Bhatt Murphy was next to speak. Ryan told us that trans people know more than she does because she hasn’t read enough Butler and Foucault. She went on to expand on the problems trans people face in prison: the criminal justice system is inherently binary, and often gender ID is not respected. Strip-searching by a prison officer of the opposite ‘gender identity’ to the prisoner is an example of unlawful discrimination.

But forcing a female victim to call her male assailant a woman is not, apparently.

There was then a Q and A which was mostly used up by requests for Bex Stinson to talk about transitioning at the bar, and for Bernard and Terry from GIRES, who were in the audience, to stand up and speak about their work. My companion that evening, Julia Long, kept her composure long enough to ask a question about the changing meaning and definition of ‘gender identity’, and Michelle Brewer answered with an assertion that ‘what gender means to the individual’ is the best way forward for trans people to explain themselves, so this is the definition needed in legislation.

Legislation based on what X means to the individual…what could possibly go wrong.

The rights of women were never on the table. Female prisoners expected to be housed with potentially violent males, female prison officers expected to intimately search male bodies, female asylum seekers expected to be housed with males, female litigants expected to refer to their male attackers as ‘she’, female crime statistics expected to incorporate male rapists, females in general expected to take a man’s word for it rather than believing what their own experience is telling them: none of these examples apparently merit a human rights approach when they are set against the perceived rights of trans people. The ease with which women’s rights can be sidelined, by people whose job it is to uphold the law, highlights the vulnerability of those rights: we cannot take anything for granted. Everything could be taken away tomorrow, not necessarily by legislative change, but simply by policy capture instigated by lobby groups while nobody was looking.

Lobby groups like Stonewall, for instance.

Two years on from the ‘Advancing Trans Equality’ meeting, and this week a barrister from Garden Court Chambers became the subject of a public shaming on social media for the sin of expressing her views on gender. Allison Bailey is a founding member of the new LGB Alliance, a group which has been formed to do the job which Stonewall once did, and look after the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. A lesbian herself, Bailey has publicly voiced her support for those who are same-sex orientated, in opposition to Stonewall’s new insistence on same-gender attraction. She compounded her transgression by chairing the Woman’s Place UK meeting in Oxford on Friday October 25th. The backlash has been instant and severe, including a Twitter pile-on instigated by Owen Jones, a call to arms from Gendered Intelligence (since deleted), and subsequent complaints to her employer, which Garden Court Chambers are ‘investigating’.

Apart from their association with TELI, Garden Court is also home to other trans activists and allies. Alex Sharpe is a prominent trans activist on Twitter, unafraid to use offensive slurs against women. Sharpe submitted written evidence to the Trans Inquiry in 2015, as did Claire McCann. Both pieces of written evidence ignore women’s existing sex-based rights. Despite this, Garden Court members know they can wear their trans-allyship with pride, and they are duly celebrated on social media for doing so. The same pride cannot be assumed by those standing up for women, or for same-sex attraction. On the contrary, to be seen as an ally to women is often to invite condemnation. There is little support out there for the supporters of women. A law firm, especially one which has signed up as a ‘Stonewall Diversity Champion’, can promote the rights of one group of people at the expense of another and be applauded for it, as long as the group they are overlooking is women.

Replace the word “women” with “Karens” and it all makes sense.

It’s on.

A…what?

Yes, There’s a Safe Way to Have a Cannibalism Fetish.

A…what?

As a fetish educator, I’m so tired of seeing the Armie Hammer allegations used against the BDSM community.

A what educator? The what community?

But most stories and commentary have remained focused on the sensationalism of his supposed cannibalism fetish and have ignored the real issue: that the foundation of true BDSM relationships is consent. We spoke to Jet Setting Jasmine, a master fetish educator, licensed clinical psychotherapist, and co-owner of Royal Fetish Films, to discuss why this is so damaging.

Ah yes consent. As long as you consent it’s fine if this strapping lad starts cutting away bits of you for dinner. I’m guessing that the “cannibals” are men and the dinners are women. Just a hunch.

Here’s what I’ve been seeing people get wrong in the conversation around Armie Hammer and the abuse allegations against him: His alleged cannibalism fetish itself isn’t the problem. The problem is, if the allegations are true, whether he used his power to groom these women into participating in a lifestyle they had truly not consented to.

That’s a lifestyle now? Someone chowing down on your flesh is a lifestyle? And the women who are devoured are “participating” in that “lifestyle”?

A cannibalism fetish, or vorarephilia, is characterized by a person who fantasizes about consuming someone or being consumed. The key word there is “fantasy.” The fetish never goes so far as actually eating or killing someone, of course—that’d be illegal. Just having the conversation around eating someone, and being sexually stimulated by that, is considered a cannibalism fetish.

And it’s fine, because people never – literally never – go from fantasy and talking about it to actually doing it. That would be illegal. Nobody ever does anything illegal. That would be illegal. Never mind the fact that there are many documented cases of people going from fantasizing about illegal act X to performing illegal act X; this is completely different because is that a bottle of steak sauce?

Any form of grooming into a lifestyle without consent is a violation. Consent is the difference between BDSM and non-BSDM encounters. We cannot actually consider an encounter true BDSM if there isn’t consent involved. The minute that a hookup does not have clear consent, it has already fallen out of BDSM and into an inappropriate interaction.

Well yes, that is inappropriate, but it’s too late to do anything about it, because he’s already killed her.

Can these people really be that stupid???

This week’s Jesus and Mo:

There are, naturally, some sanctimonious comments about “punching down” – because of the obscure but binding rule that if a man puts on a skirt and tilts his head coquettishly he becomes the most marginalized person in the universe.

The Patreon

Massive surprise – some of the insurrectionists have a history of violence against women. Who could possibly have predicted that?

The message popped up on Katya Brock’s phone just after 10 a.m. one morning in September: “Do the right thing and kill yourself already.”

She was alarmed, but no more so than she had been by all the other messages: “I have better things to do than speak to a whore”; “Nobody loves you”; “Narcissistic whore.” Her ex-husband, Larry Rendall Brock Jr., had been sending them like clockwork for three years. A court had ordered the couple to communicate through a specialized portal while their contentious divorce was finalized. Larry often used it for threats.

And Larry was at the Capitol on January 6. Knock me down with a feather.

Larry, a 53-year-old Air Force veteran, is one of the hundreds of insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 and is now facing federal charges. He sported a combat helmet, a bulletproof vest and carried zip-tie handcuffs. His threats to Katya also went beyond those messages ― HuffPost uncovered numerous 911 calls from their home for domestic disputes, including one in 2016 in which Larry was described as making a “terroristic threat of family/household,” according to a police summary of the call.

Larry’s history of abusive behavior is part of an alarmingly common trend among the rioters who have been arrested so far for their roles in the insurrection. After reviewing police reports and court filings, a HuffPost investigation found that at least nine insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol have a history of violence against women ― ranging from domestic abuse accusations to prison time for sexual battery and criminal confinement.

That number seems very low. They must have only started digging.

Another one. (You’re ok with this, ACLU? This is what you want? This is what you consider a civil liberty?) Another man wins a women’s race. I hate having to cite The Federalist, because I really do not like their politics on any other subject, but nobody else is reporting on it.

Sherry Mix puts in 10 to 15 hours a week training for elite-level mountain and fat-tire bike races in the region. The Verona, Wis[consin] woman says it’s hard work but rewarding to the women who ride.

But as “equity” politics are further infused into just about every aspect of life, including competitive sports, cyclists like Mix are forced to compete on an unequal course. Last month, Mix finished third in a Snow Crown Fat Bike Series event in De Pere billed Fattyshack. The winner of the USA Cycling-sanctioned event was Kenzie Statz, a cyclist who was born male and now identifies as a transgender woman.

…

Statz has been finishing in the money in a number of races. Before transitioning and competing in the women’s events, it appears Statz didn’t fare nearly as well in the men’s competitions.

Mix said Statz is a really nice person, and she has nothing against transgender people wanting to compete in a terrific sport. But Statz, like other men who identify as women, often have a distinct physiological advantage over their fellow female opponents that cannot be denied.

“We’re just trying to figure out what we can do. You get these guys actually training, they’re just naturally faster and stronger than women. It’s just science, how bodies work,” Mix said.

I doubt that Statz truly is a really nice person, because a really nice person would be sharply aware of how unfair it is for someone with a male body to compete against women in most sports. A really nice person wouldn’t do it.

Also…I don’t think the competing against women is just happenstance, just an odd little exception in an otherwise decent guy’s life. The reason I think that is that Statz has to know what an advantage he’s giving himself, and that that advantage is exactly why he shouldn’t dream of doing it. It’s unfair and selfish and a bully move, so no, however pleasant he is in person, I don’t believe he’s really nice.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden vowed to use the Department of Education to investigate and address any violations of transgender students’ civil rights, including removing federal funding or risking legal action. Sure enough, one of President Biden’s first acts in office was to issue an executive order that, in part, demands transgender students be allowed to compete on opposite-sex sports teams.

One of his first acts. I didn’t post about it because I wanted to ignore it for the time being, but I sure as hell wondered what the big fucking hurry was.

A few weeks later, Montana’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter used Biden’s executive order to threaten the state’s federal funding if it passed legislation protecting women’s sports by banning men who identify as women from participating.

So that’s how “I apologize for not answering the question” woman got to recite the mantra.

“I understand they’re [transgender athletes are] looking for a place to belong, but I don’t think putting them in the women’s category is the right answer,” Mix said.

She said other cyclists feel similarly, but they’re afraid to speak out for fear of being labeled bigots and the threat of losing their licenses to compete. USA Cycling-sanctioned races require a license to enter.

“People are scared to say anything. It’s deemed bullying,” Mix said. “They can tell you you can’t race. They can kick you out of a race. I could have my license taken away.”

It’s another twist in the left’s conflicted culture wars. The losers, critics say, are the women who have worked so hard to advance the rights of women to compete.

“Most of us are riding 10 hours a week, easily 15 hours a week in the summer. We train every day for this,” Mix said. “To have a guy come in and take that away, that’s why women fought so hard to protect our equal rights. It’s like taking those equal rights away.”

That’s exactly what it is.

I’ve been meaning to get back to that paper by Alison Phipps, kind of the way one gets back to a mosquito bite.

Reactionary feminisms, which coalesce around debates about sex workers’ rights and transgender equality, magnify the political whiteness of the mainstream and deliberately withhold womanhood and personhood from marginalised Others.

Now there’s an outright lie. Feminism that opposes pimping doesn’t withhold womanhood or personhood from prostituted women, it argues that prostitution exploits women. Gender critical feminism doesn’t withhold womanhood or personhood from anyone, it simply doesn’t repeat the lie that men can become women by identifying as women. It’s not “witholding womanhood” from men to say they are men, any more than it’s witholding bearhood from rabbits to say rabbits are rabbits. Being a bear is not an option for rabbits and being a woman is not an option for men. We are what we are. We can comfort ourselves with fantasies, but we can’t bully and threaten other people into pretending our fantasies are reality.

Trans women are defined as ‘biological men’ while trans-exclusionary feminists are ‘adult human females’. Sex workers’ rights are juxtaposed with ‘women’s safety’, a manoeuvre in which the womanhood of sex workers is implicitly denied.

She can’t be that stupid, can she? Prostitution is extremely dangerous for the prostitutes, aka sex work is extremely dangerous for the sex workers. How does saying that implicitly (or explicitly) deny the womanhood of sex workers? Farming is also extremely dangerous, as is mining, as is construction work, as is meat processing – is it denying the manhood or womanhood or humanity of the workers in those industries to say that? Hardly; it’s the first step in reforming the industries and improving the protections for workers in them.

This reasserts the normative economically productive body and reproductive sex. It conjures up colonial sex difference and bourgeois white womanhood as a symbol of moral order, set against the racialised and enslaved inhabitants of colonised and settled territories and the multi-racial, ‘dangerous, immoral, and libidinal lower classes’ of the metropolis…

She’s not really even trying to say anything there. There’s no real meaning, and no real thinking, it’s just deploying a set of Approved words and phrases so that people will think she’s one of the Good Ones. It’s frivolous, it’s vain, it’s self-admiring, it’s careerist – all while pretending to be very very extra enlightened and left-wing. It’s such crap.

Meanwhile today –

Attending and reporting on in tweets.

Much of the reporting is procedural, on questions like whether names can be redacted.

I have a problem with that claim. It’s true in a literal sense, which may be how he means it (literal in the sense that discrimination is just choosing this instead of that, like pears instead of apples for instance), but if he means the political version of the word, I think I differ. Racist views are widely held but I don’t think it’s an unjust form of discrimination to call them bigoted.

Hearing will resume tomorrow.