Proud of what?

Four men described as leaders of the far-right Proud Boys group have been charged in the US Capitol riot, as an indictment ordered unsealed on Friday presents fresh evidence of how federal officials believe members planned and carried out a coordinated attack to stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

…

The latest indictment suggests the Proud Boys deployed a much larger contingent in Washington, with more than 60 users “participating in” an encrypted messaging channel for group members created a day before.

The Proud Boys abandoned an earlier channel and created the new Boots on the Ground channel after police arrested the group’s leader, Enrique Tarrio, in Washington. Tarrio was arrested on 4 January and charged with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December. He was ordered to stay out of the District of Columbia.

Proud boys putting boots on the ground in order to vandalize black churches. Don’t they sound nice.

Proud Boys members, who describe themselves as a politically incorrect men’s club for “western chauvinists”, have engaged in street fights with antifascist activists at rallies and protests. Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling it as a hate group.

So we’ve got male dominance, western chauvinism, “political incorrectness,” street fighting, and…legal action against being called a hate group. If you call yourself all those things and boast of doing all those things, aren’t you just outright saying you’re a hate group? Street fights aren’t a sign of affection, are they?

There is some useful bluntness in this thread:

I think “and it never will” is over-confident…but at the same time I also don’t see how the ideology ever could map onto how most people experience reality. Trans women aren’t ever going to gestate and push out babies, so…

I gotta say I love that one. Your ideas are shit and you only have three anyway.

Fox News is Team Putin.

This week, asked by ABC News if he considered Vladimir Putin a “killer,” President Biden responded in the affirmative. Putin responded by challenging Biden to a debate this weekend. At this point, Donald Trump’s allies immediately weighed in on Putin’s side.

Putin “is openly mocking the president of the United States for his own amusement,” Fox News host Sean Hannity proclaimed last night, “and frankly, I find it, as an American citizen, humiliating.”

Junior got in on the act.

Yeah right Biden is the empty suit.

What’s more significant is the context of Putin’s taunt. Biden’s response was a reference to Trump’s repeated refusal to acknowledge that Putin murders his political opposition in a way American presidents don’t. In 2015, he batted away Joe Scarborough’s accusation against Putin by responding, “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing too, Joe.” In 2017, when Bill O’Reilly tried the same argument, he shot back, “There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. Well, you think our country is so innocent?”

As Jonathan Chait points out, funny how Putin never challenged Trump to a debate. It’s not because Putin thought he would lose…

You…what?

“This image” of 24 female bums “has become a symbol of female empowerment”??? In what universe? What on earth do women’s buttocks have to do with empowerment?

What “positive message” does this drive? The only message I see is “Look look women butts doncha wanna get some of that???”

Gah we cannot win, can we. On the one hand “thongs are hawt!!” and on the other hand “this hairy six foot man with the beer gut is actually a woman and you have to be inclusive to him I mean her.” Between the two feminism has no room to breathe.

Updating to add:

NPR’s manipulative language was to introduce a conversation with a pediatrician.

Often missing from the culture-war aspect of the debate is a focus on the type of questions that Dr. Eric Vilain has spent much of his career researching. Vilain, a pediatrician and geneticist who studies sex differences in athletes, says there are no good faith reasons to limit transgender women’s participation in sports, especially at the high school level. Vilain has advised both the International Olympic Committee and the NCAA, and says these laws generally aren’t based in scientific evidence, but rather “target women who have either a different biology or … simply look different.”

Easy for him to say. It’s not his rights that are being rapidly carved away by men who say they are women.

Supporters of these bills say they are meant to eliminate any competitive advantage that transgender athletes may have. So I’d like to ask you if there is data on this and what does it show?

We know that men have, on average, an advantage in performance in athletics of about 10% to 12% over women, which the sports authorities have attributed to differences in levels of a male hormone called testosterone. But the question is whether there is in real life, during actual competitions, an advantage of performance linked to this male hormone and whether trans athletes are systematically winning all competitions. The answer to this latter question, are trans athletes winning everything, is simple — that’s not the case.

Oh yay, it’s simple. It’s not credible, but it’s simple.

And lastly, I would say that every sport requires different talents and anatomies for success. So I think we should focus on celebrating this diversity, rather than focusing on relative notions of fairness. 

Aw yes, what a beautiful thought. Let’s celebrate the diversity of men destroying women’s sports, because what could be more inspirational and diverse than that? It fair makes my eyes well up with tears of joy!

The endless struggle to pretend we don’t know what we know. It must be exhausting.

Throughout the country, roughly 35 bills have been introduced by state legislators that would limit or prohibit transgender women from competing in women’s athletics, according to the LGBTQ rights group Freedom for All Americans. That’s up from only two in 2019.

Yes of course it’s “up,” because more boys and men are doing this.

The latest action in this push came last week, when Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed into law the “Mississippi Fairness Act.” The law prohibits schools from allowing transgender female students to compete in female sports and cites “inherent differences between men and women” as one of the reasons to block these athletes from competition.

The quotation marks can be just ordinary quotation marks, to convey “this is the exact wording in the bill”…but they can also be scare quotes, to convey “can you believe the absurdity of thinking there are inherent physical differences between men and women?”. Choosing that particular bit of wording to put in quotation marks can’t help but suggest skepticism or mockery.

The often heated debates around these bills have centered on whether transgender women and girls have an unfair advantage over cisgender women — a term used for those who identify with the sex assigned to them at birth.

A term used by dogmatists to make strange the routine humdrum knowledge that men are not women and women are not men.

Proponents say the legislation is needed in order to maintain fairness in women’s athletics by reducing what they believe is an inherent competitive edge of trans athletes who identify as female. Critics call that a false argument and say the proposals are being used as a way to discriminate against transgender Americans.

But how can it be a false argument, NPR? Could you explain that bit? Could you possibly let us in on the secret of how it can be possible that men don’t have an inherent competitive edge?

Also, the issue isn’t “transgender Americans,” it’s boys and men who cheat girls and women in athletic competitions.

But we mustn’t ever spell that out.

About that Violence Against Women Act…

The House approved with bipartisan support a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a popular 1994 law that protects and provides resources for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. The measure passed 244-172.

So the 172 are for violence against women? Good heavens no, it’s just that they love guns more than they hate violence against women.

The most contentious issue in the House-passed bill is a provision that expands the criminal threshold to bar an individual from buying a gun to include misdemeanor convictions of domestic abuse or stalking. It would also close the so-called boyfriend loophole to expand the definition of who is affected by existing gun prohibitions to include dating partners. “This legislation makes it clear that Democrats consider gun ownership a second-class right,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va.

And that remark makes it clear that Republicans consider gun ownership a right that trumps women’s right to continue existing.

But then the Democrats throw it all away.

The House-passed bill would also strengthen existing protections for transgender women to access women’s shelters and serve in prisons that match their gender identity.

That is, the bill would “strengthen existing protections” for men to invade women’s shelters, thus making them no longer women’s shelters, and to be locked up in women’s prisons, thus making them unsafe for women.

All lives matter! Not just women’s! Shut up about women! Shut up shut up shut UP.

Of course there’s also the question of what it means to build bridges across people, but whatever. The point is: ALL LIVES MATTER.

Tatchell squares the circle.

Listen up, ladies, says Peter Tatchell – you need safety from male violence but that doesn’t mean we can’t force you to be “inclusive” of men in your safety from male violence. We want you to be safe! All of you! Including the male ones! So in order to be safe from male violence you have to be “inclusive” of men by pretending they are in fact women. All lives matter!

We have always been at war with…Singal.

The short inglorious career of…

Sinister.

Is all this happening in the basement of a pizza shop in DC?

I find that Planned Parenthood Ottawa has blocked me on Twitter, no doubt via one of those Lists (since I don’t think I’ve ever interacted with them). It seems bizarre for an organization of that type to block people – what if they block people who need their services? There are other routes but still, it seems…disobliging.

Anyway. Their focus is odd.

Tut. Those fogies in Illinois said “women.” How clueless can you get?!

What does any of that have to do with Planned Parenthood?

Why is it “time” for PP to address “transphobia”? Why does PP feel called to use such harsh and violence-hinting language and imagery?

Tweeps are pointing out that PP Ottawa is the one that held a conference on “the cotton ceiling” and how to bash through it.

He really does say that.

Oops.

A Milwaukee County Children’s Court judge and former president and CEO of the Cream City Foundation, which runs the city’s drag queen story hour program, has been arrested on seven counts of child pornography.

Brett Blomme, 38, was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly uploading 27 images and videos of children being sexually abused on the messaging app Kik.

Oh that kind of drag queen story program.

Not that millions of women pointed that out or anything.

Blomme was held overnight and released with a signature. He has been ordered to stay off social media and file-sharing services and is not allowed near any children except the two that he adopted with his husband.

Uh………about those two that he adopted…

Blomme is accused of uploading the images both from his home and from the judge’s chambers.

Oh, clever, do it from work, at your job as a judge. Brilliant.

The alleged pedophile judge was the president and CEO of the Cream City Foundation, which runs the Milwaukee Drag Queen Story Hour for local children. As of early Thursday morning, however, all articles and mentions of him had been scrubbed from their website. The links were still cached by Google’s search engine and his role remained detailed on his LinkedIn page.

Never you mind, Drag Queen Story Hour is in no way grooming, it’s good cheerful happy fun times.

Assistant Attorney General David Maas, who is prosecuting the case, has argued that Blomme should not have any unsupervised contact with children — including the two that he and his husband adopted.

Including and in fact especially, since they live with him and are thus completely vulnerable.

Updating to add: see Sackbut’s comment @ 9 for some corrections to this story – chiefly that Blomme wasn’t such a high-up at Cream City Foundation.

Yesterday in Atlanta:

Shootings at two massage parlors in Atlanta and one in the suburbs Tuesday evening left eight people dead, many of them women of Asian descent, authorities said. A 21-year-old man suspected in the shootings was taken into custody in southwest Georgia hours later after a manhunt, police said.

The attacks began around 5 p.m., when five people were shot at Youngs Asian Massage Parlor in a strip mall near a rural area in Acworth, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Atlanta, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Jay Baker said. Two people died at the scene and three were transported to a hospital where two of them also died, Baker said.

…

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in statement Wednesday that its diplomats in Atlanta have confirmed from police that four of the victims who died were women of Korean descent. The ministry said the office of its Consulate General in Atlanta is trying to confirm the nationality of the women.

The killings came amid a recent wave of attacks against Asian Americans that coincided with the spread of the coronavirus across the United States.

Encouraged by Donald Trump’s insistence on calling it the “China virus,” especially when people begged him not to.

Guess what Trump was doing yesterday.

In Scientific American of all places:

Trans Girls Belong on Girls’ Sports Teams

But “trans girls” are boys, so no they don’t.

In February 2020, the families of three cisgender girls filed a federal lawsuit against the Connecticut Association of Schools, the nonprofit Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and several boards of education in the state.

The girls are not “cisgender.” That’s a stupid made-up word to make female people seem like just one section of a larger category of female people. It’s a manipulative cheat. Girls are girls. Boys who either think they “feel like” girls on the inside, or claim to in order to win sporting competitions they otherwise lose, are not girls. The set of girls does not consist of cisgender girls and trans girls; there are only girls. Boys are boys. That’s what the words mean. An apple isn’t a trans potato, and a potato isn’t a cisvegetable potato. Things are what they are, and they don’t become some other thing by putting the word “trans” in front of them.

The families were upset that transgender girls were competing against the cisgender girls in high school track leagues. They argued that transgender girls have an unfair advantage in high school sports and should be forced to play on boys’ teams.

Did the families really argue that the boys should be forced to play on boys’ teams? I doubt it. I think what the families argued is that the boys should not be allowed to play on the girls’ teams, end of story. I don’t think anyone wants to force the boys to do anything, I think the goal is to stop the boys forcing the girls to compete against boys on their own teams.

State legislators around the country are pushing bills that would force trans girls to compete on boys’ teams.

Again: I don’t believe it. The point is not forcing girls to see their teams taken over by boys; what the boys decide to do then is their problem.

There is no epidemic of transgender girls dominating female sports. Attempts to force transgender girls to play on the boys’ teams are unconscionable attacks on already marginalized transgender children…

Blah blah blah, and never mind about the attacks on already marginalized girls.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time people have tried to discredit the success of athletes from marginalized minorities based on half-baked claims of “science.” There is a long history of similarly painting Black athletes as “genetically superior” in an attempt to downplay the effects of their hard work and training.

Boys who claim to feel like girls are not a “marginalized minority” in the way black people are. Girls are not a privileged majority in the way white people are. Comparing this issue to racism is scummy.

Recently, some have even harkened back to eras of “separate but equal,” suggesting that transgender athletes should be forced into their own leagues. In addition to all the reasons why this is unnecessary that I’ve already explained, it is also unjust. As we’ve learned from women’s sports leagues, separate is not equal. Female athletes consistently have to deal with fewer accolades, less press coverage and lower pay. A transgender sports league would undoubtedly be plagued with the same issues.

Therefore, boys should be allowed to compete against girls so that the girls will get even less in the way of accolades, press coverage, and pay.

Much science.

Updating to add: L Beatrice published an article at Uncommon Ground last August titled “Why Jack Turban Should be Investigated by the American Medical Association.”

Jack Turban, insistent critic of Abigail Shrier’s book on transitioning of young girls, constantly claims puberty blockers are safe. He is paid by a firm that manufactures them.

Leo Igwe writes:

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) is shocked by the news of the expulsion of a 6-year-old pupil, Catherine Karma, from your school. According to the report, your school expelled Ms. Karma in connection with some suspicions of ‘witchcraft’. Your management concluded that she was a ‘witch’ and was involved in ‘witchcraft activities’. You claimed that her presence would endanger the lives of other pupils and staff.

The decision to expel Ms. Karma is shameful, outrageous, and difficult to comprehend. First of all, how did your school confirm that Ms. Karma was a witch? How were you able to ascertain that she indulged in witchcraft activities (whatever that means)? In fact, what does your school understand by witchcraft?

From the report, your school expelled Ms. Karma based on the notion that she had magical powers and could kill or harm other pupils and staff through occult means.

How could you believe this nonsense? How could you accept that this six-year-old girl had such powers? Now think about this, if Ms. Karma had the supposed magical powers, don’t you think that she would have used them to resist her expulsion from the school? Your school did not stop at merely entertaining this mistaken notion, the management went further to punish her and now truncate her education and training based on misplaced fears and anxieties.

Look, even if some students entertained such misconceptions, what should be your duty as a school? Your role is to educate and enlighten pupils and lead students out of ignorance and superstitions. Your role is to dispel irrational fears and anxieties, not reinforce these misconceptions. By expelling Ms. Karma, your school has failed in its role as an educational center. Your school has betrayed the academic and enlightenment trust that the parents and the society repose in it.

AfAW urges you to take all the necessary measures and ensure that Ms. Catherine Karma continues her education without any further disruption. Your management should ensure that this educational failure does not repeat itself in your school again.

Thanks in anticipation of thoughtful consideration of this letter

Sincerely

Leo Igwe Ph.D Religious Studies(Bayreuth)
Chief Executive Officer, Advocacy for Alleged Witches
Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW)

One the one hand boys who “identify as” girls and take their athletic prizes, on the other hand boys who shove cameras up girls’ skirts.

A school vowed to take action after sixth form students expressed fury over a reported “upskirting” incident on a spiral staircase.

A group of male students were allegedly caught taking photographs up the skirts of girls using the transparent glass staircase, in the centre of the sixth form canteen area, at Broughton Hall Catholic High School on Friday.

What kind of complete idiot puts a transparent staircase in a mixed-sex school?

Some students told the ECHO that girls have been advised to “wear shorts” under their skirts and were told there may be plans to install frosted glass panels at the West Derby school.

That sounds comfortable, and convenient, and not at all shaming, and not any kind of financial burden. Also brilliant to tell the girls wear an extra layer of clothes instead of telling the boys to stop being leering pervy female-hating shits.

The girls at the school say it’s been a problem for years, the officials at the school say this is the very first they’ve heard of it.

“It used to make us really uncomfortable. We would ask if we could wear trousers but we were told no, we had to wear skirts. There were girls sent home for coming in with trousers on.”

“You have to wear those garments that make it unpleasantly easy for boys to peer and photograph and grope and even rape. Them’s the rules.”

Several other young women who attended the school shared their disgust on social media.

One said: “Today I’m genuinely embarrassed to say I went to Broughton Hall high school and sixth form. In the sixth form building in the middle of the canteen there is a spiral staircase which has glass surrounding it.

“For years girls have said they feel uncomfortable walking down those stairs in skirts yet the school has done nothing about fixing that problem.

“It’s now been said that a group of around 15/20 lads have been sitting at the bottom of the stairs taking pictures of girls walking down them.”

And the adults running the school couldn’t figure out that this would happen because…they’re robots?