Some (necessarily cautious) reactions.

Brunel University has suspended the threats guy.

Murderous threats are the kind of thing that should be referred to police.

Wild Woman Writing Club had a fine old rant and I’m just going to quote it instead of posting all the tweets.

to shoot women’s rights campaigners, and several more organisations have bailed out of the sinking Stonewall ship, and several more countries have rejected self-ID, and a think tank is calling women’s rights campaigners “feminazis,” and TRAs are still calling WRCs antisemites, and a ‘pro bono’ project is attempting to get a lesbian & gay group’s charitable status revoked. So much happening, with such speed. Change is gathering pace. It makes you wonder.

Why are so many people so seemingly desperate to make women shut up about the simple fact of human sexual dimorphism, and the simple fact that #SexMatters?

That the sex denialist AstroTurf project would slam into the buffers like this was on the cards from the beginning. It was never going to work, gaslighting entire populations to forget about the birds & the bees.

Careers are swirling down the pan, placing mortgage payments in jeopardy. The plug is being pulled on hundreds of thousands of immersive fictions, forcing people to confront their pain.

What we are seeing is the reflex to blame the bringers of unwelcome news, the news being that sizeable swathes of the liberal left have been riffing on an enormous lie for reasons historians will have to make sense of.

And now the lie is visible. And those who have defended it to the hilt are going to have to save their names however they can. Because the extent of this…scandal?…grift?… propaganda campaign?…is only beginning to be revealed.

There will be years of this to come. Will disappointed true believers & profiteers feel the need to persecute the messengers for years to come? Can we prevent any more women being scapegoated for a situation which was not of our making, to which we responded in self-defence?

Really, women had no choice but to fight against our erasure in law & in language. Now the most brittle gender identity ideologues are going to be given carte blanche to take scalps? Is that really how this works?

Can’t we instead have some kind of internal memo, CC all, which says ‘an amnesty for the terven, in recognition of the fact that they have been responding to an intense & sustained rights-grab, during which time they fought back with words, stickers & ribbons only.’

Let’s have that.

I’m already climbing the walls with rage over Scotland’s assault on women, and now there’s yet another load of poison from Stonewall.

Stonewall has advised organisations to replace the term mother with “parent who has given birth” to help boost their ranking on an equality leaderboard, The Telegraph can reveal. 

That’s not “equality.” Pretending mothers don’t exist is not equality. Trying to erase women from childbirth is not equality. Trying to disappear women is not equality.

The controversial charity has advised employers wishing to be included on their Workplace Equality Index that they must remove all gendered language, and allow those who self-identify as a woman to use female toilets and changing rooms.

And “self-identify” means just “say.” A man can just say he identifies as a woman and march into the women’s areas at work.

The Ministry of Justice – which comes in fifth in the leadership board – has admitted that its HR policies have in recent years been updated to include non-gendered language and in some internal documents terms mother and father had been removed.

The Home Office, MI6, the British Army, the Department for International Trade, the Government Legal Department and the House of Commons all also appear in the top 100 on Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index.

Stonewall hates women.

Now a series of Freedom of Information requests, seen by The Telegraph, have led to warnings from lawyers that the LGBT+ charity is “misrepresenting” equality laws  in advice to Government departments, councils, police forces, NHS trusts and a raft of private companies.

Oh well, it’s only the government.

Documents released under FOI from several public bodies reveal for the first time the lengths employers must go through to get to the top of the Workplace Equality Index.

Feedback to organisations on how they can improve their application shows that several were advised by Stonewall they should “remove” the term mother and father from all their policies.

Edinburgh University were told that they would “recommend using a gender neutral term, such as ‘parent who has given birth’ whilst Merseyside Police were advised the “pregnant employee” was a “more inclusive term”.

Inclusive of what though? Not women, certainly. Going to absurd, confusing, head-scratching lengths to avoid using the word “woman” is the opposite of “inclusive.” It’s just the same old shit, where the male pronoun was the only pronoun and “man” was used as a synonym for “humanity.” It’s erasing women from public life, and we’ve had that already and campaigned against it and we don’t see why we should have to start all over again now.

The Welsh Government, which appears ninth on the list, deleted the term mother from its Maternity policy in 2019, though the term father appears once.

But it was still their Maternity policy?

The 13-page application form for the next scheme, which has been delayed until 2022 because of the coronavirus pandemic, provides both guidance for employees and examples of best practice.

It advises that the organisations should use “gender neutral language” and pronouns throughout their policies, avoid terms such as husband or wife, and offer employees the chance to use the pronoun Mx.

Ms and Mr aren’t pronouns, and neither is Mx. How about Comrade or Citizen?

They say that “guidance must make clear that all trans employees can use the facilities (e.g. toilets, changing rooms) they feel most comfortable using” and there should be “a formal commitment to introduce gender-neutral facilities”.

Thus underlining and adding exclamation points to their total, brutal indifference to women’s safety and privacy.

Gender fluid employees should be given “multiple passcards with different forms of gender expression” so they can be a different gender each day, Stonewall states. Applicants could “choose a gender marker other than male or female” or even “remove gender markers and titles from your systems altogether”.

Why stop there? Why not give species fluid employees multiple passcards with different species on them, so that employees could be a tamandua one day and a blue whale the next?

The Welsh Government – which made it to number nine on the list in 2020 – has proven to be one of the more enthusiastic adopters of the advice offered by Stonewall.

In its application they noted: “The Maternity and Adoption Leave Policy was updated in April to incorporate gender neutral language, removing binary gender references wherever possible … An accompanying policy, previously called New & Expectant Mothers Policy has been renamed ‘Policy for Pregnant or Nursing Employees’.

Pregnant fathers have rights too.

Employers are told that they could signal their commitment with badges, mugs, bi and trans flags and by profiling transwomen on International Women’s Day.

Oh that’s nice – Stonewall actively telling employers to shove women aside on International Women’s Day, and then to kick them by profiling men. Stonewall really hates women.

In its submission, Edinburgh University referred to its use of Rainbow lanyards, pens, t-shirts, cakes, flags and banners 28 times, leading to “great” feedback from their Stonewall marker.

Childish enough?

The Metropolitan Police, after its failure to make it onto the equality leader board for 2020, noted in a feedback review that it should use Stonewall to review “all HR policies”, a service offered free of charge to all diversity champions.

Oh just arrest a few women for talking back, that will take care of it.

And in case we don’t have enough material yet…

Say again?

Wo. Feminist women are…Hitler in heavy makeup.

Let’s see if Sophia Siddiqui’s writing is as malicious as that image.

The rigid biological notion that ‘a man is a man, a woman is a woman’, is central to how the far Right mobilises across Europe in order to enforce heterosexual norms.

Is it “rigid” and a “notion” though? Or is it just reality? Is it a “rigid biological notion” to say that a giraffes is not an earthworm?

Gay and lesbian couples, trans people and progressive groups that advocate for reproductive rights and gender equality continue to be demonised under a vague and malleable  ‘gender ideology’ …

When do trans people advocate for gender [or sex] equality? Trans people, especially trans women, advocate for themselves.

Moral panics around ‘LGBT ideology’ have been central to electoral campaigns…

This is why the T needs to be separated out. Yes there is homophobia, no that is not the same thing as saying that men are not women.

The past few months have seen a backlash against trans rights in the UK, led by ‘gender critical’ feminists who contend that sex is immutable and cannot be changed.

Blah blah blah; same old shit. It’s not a backlash against rights, it’s resistance to the monstering and negation of our rights. Nobody is campaigning to take any genuine rights away from trans people.

Of course the whole article goes on like that, relying on the core misrepresentation to build the entire house of cards. Along with the Hitler in lipstick and mascara image.

It’s now in the news. The Times:

A prominent feminist has been charged with a hate crime for alleged homophobic and transphobic social media posts.

Marion Millar, 50, from Airdrie, was charged under the Malicious Communications Act for tweets published in 2019 and 2020. If convicted she faces up to two years in prison.

The messages investigated by officers are understood to include a retweeted photograph of a bow of ribbons in the green, white and purple colours of the Suffragettes, tied around a tree outside the Glasgow studio where a BBC soap opera is shot.

Two years in prison for that?

Peak Stalinism.

It is one [of] at least six tweets reported to Police Scotland. The nature of the others is unclear. Millar, who owns an accountancy business, was bailed to appear at Glasgow sheriff court on July 20.

Has Police Scotland ever prosecuted anyone for sending actual violent threats to women on Twitter?

Marion Calder of For Women Scotland, which campaigns for sex-based rights, said it was “incredibly disappointing” that police had chosen to press charges. “Women won’t wheesht,” Calder said. “These charges are a fundamental attack on our human rights. We still have the right to free thought and the ability to speak our minds.”

The right but not, it seems, the freedom.

A report was made to police after a Twitter user, who was identified as a PhD student in Coventry, published a picture of a machinegun and tweeted: “Making a nice list of terfs tweeting @WomenWontWheesht because she needs target practice.” The message was removed for violating Twitter rules.

That’s a very opaque paragraph. What is “after” meant to convey there? Is there a connection between the machine gun tweet and the report to police? If so, what is the connection?

Police Scotland confirmed that a 50-year-old woman had been arrested and charged in connection with online communications offences. A spokeswoman said: “She has been released on an undertaking to appear at court at a later date. A report will be sent to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.”

Well, I hope they laugh a scornful laugh and throw the report out.

Guns identify as edgy jokes.

Threatening people with guns isn’t “an edgy joke.”

A lavender ribbon isn’t a noose, and a gun isn’t an edgy joke.

Men are not women, and men who say they are women are not victims of women who don’t agree.

David Paisley tells Gay Ireland News & Entertainment what makes him so awesome:

David Paisley is a Scottish actor and LGBTQ+ activist. He has had roles in Holby City and Casualty and currently plays Rory Murdoch in the BBC drama series, River City. He has also been fighting against the wave of transphobia that has crashed across the UK in recent years.

Just speaking out in support of trans people, even as a cis white man, has led to vicious online abuse, being targeted by a certain Father Ted writer and threats of legal action from an MP. He recently set up an organisation called the LGBT+ Glitterati to “create a positive voice of support for all members of the LGBTQI+ community.” 

All? No no no no no, don’t be silly. Not lesbians for instance – unless they’re trans lesbians of course.

I passionately support not just LGBT+ rights but women’s rights, as an ally and campaigner for Women’s Aid in Scotland. There’s a very pernicious and false suggestion that if you support the rights of trans people you must in some way be in opposition to women’s rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. LGBT+ rights and women’s rights are complimentary; we are fighting the same system of oppression and are natural allies.

No we don’t and no we aren’t. The fact that women are women and men are not is not a “system of oppression” the way “women are feeble and stupid and useful for nothing but baby-having and being fucked” is.

How do you deal with the abuse you have faced from your activism and being visible? 

Block and move on mostly. I’ve been in the unfortunate position of having to speak with the police about some online activity that crossed the line in terms of my personal safety and wellbeing, and that’s been quite challenging. It can take quite a toll, so I do recommend stepping away from social media and spending time doing things you enjoy…

While the woman you reported to the police is charged with a hate crime for tweeting an image of a lavender ribbon.

Glinner on why they charged her:

I’ve been reliably informed that the tweet for which she is being charged is this one. It’s a Suffragette ribbon.

Unbelievably, they’re claiming that this is meant to be a noose.

What does a noose actually look like?

See the differences?

One, there’s that thick heavy overlapping knot, that’s built to take a lot of weight. Two, there’s the direction: the noose is at the bottom, so that the weight of the body pulls the knot tighter and strangles the victim. Three, there’s the coarse thick rope, again built to take a lot of weight. A piece of lavender ribbon with a small pinned loop at the top is not a noose. It’s not a symbol of a noose. US history actually features a lot of noose imagery used to terrorize, and it’s not whimsical or symbolic: the noose is a noose.

That was just five months ago. That’s not a pretty ribbon with a loop at the top.

David Paisley, an actor who spends most of his time online trying to destroy gay communities, tweeted earlier this week that he was taking a Twitter holiday, and in this piece he says ”I’ve been in the unfortunate position of having to speak with the police about some online activity that crossed the line in terms of my personal safety and wellbeing, and that’s been quite challenging.”

I guess by “having to speak with the police” he means “I complained to the police”?

About a lavender ribbon.

Speaking of “malicious communication” (not to mention threats) –

Yeah whatever. TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN.

Marion doesn’t “harass and intimidate” trans people. Also, she’s a woman, and thus at a physical disadvantage compared to men like India Willoughby. This claim of intimidation, from a man talking about a woman, is the usual gaslighting bullshit that’s so central to this evil berserk reverse-everything stupid ideology.

Meanwhile…

That’s perfectly all right yeah?

Horrible, enraging news:

The rage is like bubbling lava right now.

Oh go take a running jump. Women aren’t required to “balance” our rights with those of men.

Our CEO, Sam Smethers, reflects on the importance of empathy in order to balance the rights of both women and trans women in relation to the debate around sex and gender identity.

Trans women are men. Women get to focus on our own rights. Tell the men to have some empathy for us why don’t you.

For me, it’s about independent (evidence-based) thinking, clarity of voice and speaking truth to power. On the issue of sex, gender and identity I have refused to simply pick a side, although I am repeatedly told to, and instead maintain that this is complicated and there are competing rights that need to be recognised.

No there aren’t. It’s not a “right” to force other people to agree that you’re something you’re not, or to take protections or prizes that are meant for a group other than your own.

There are two defining fears. For women, the fear of male violence defines and shapes our world view. This frames the issue of trans rights because some women feel this threat is not being acknowledged as part of the discussion of gender self-identification. For trans people, it is the fear that they will not be recognised and accepted for who they are.

Those are two radically different kinds of fear.

Also, for trans people what they want is to be recognized and accepted for who they are not. That’s the stumbling block. The story is that they “feel like” the other sex and that makes them the other sex, but saying you “feel like” something doesn’t make you that thing unless that thing is itself a mental state. You can say you “feel like” a house or a swordfish or a galaxy, but that doesn’t make you those things. It’s not reasonable to try to force the rest of the world to act as if your personal fantasy about yourself is objective reality.

This informs their response when the fear of male violence is raised because, for trans women at least, they see themselves as women who are more likely than any other group to be targeted by violence…

In other words they simply disregard women. You expect us to compromise with that? Oh hell no.

If someone describes you as a man when you regard yourself to be a woman and have done for some time, it is bound to be hurtful, distressing and will undermine your ability to live the life you choose…

Oh would you please grow up? You don’t get to “regard yourself as a woman” when you’re not one – not in the sense of imposing your belief on everyone else. These are men we’re talking about. Infantilizing blather about “hurtful and distressing” is just that.

People don’t always get to “live the life they choose” anyway, haven’t you noticed? You can choose life as a Supreme Court justice or a top tier movie star, but your odds of being either one are slim. You can choose a love object but if the love object doesn’t reciprocate then you’re out of luck.

It goes to the very heart of who you are. I think this is why trans people often refer to others denying their right to exist. Because it is about their very identity.

Sorry but that’s meaningless. Female and male bodies just are what they are. Be creative about how that plays out in your own case by all means, but female and male bodies remain what they are. One’s “very identity” doesn’t mean anything. Imagination is a powerful thing but it doesn’t actually transform us into what we’re pretending to be.

Living as our authentic selves is what we all want isn’t it?

It depends on what “authentic self” means. If it means a woman or man with a particular temperament and so on, yes, of course, but if it means the opposite sex or a different species or a visitor from Neptune, then no. I don’t think an “authentic self” is something people should think about much once they’re out of their teens. An “authentic self” sounds like a very special self, and I think people ought to stop thinking of themselves as very special. It gets rid of a lot of obstacles.

The “Good Law Project” fundraiser for their attack on the LGBA:

Charitable status is earned by those who serve the public good. Denigrating trans people, attacking those who speak for them, and campaigning to remove legal protections from them is the very opposite of a public good. 

None of that is what the LGBA is doing. He’s not very scrupulous with his accusations, that fox-basher guy.

Whatever sweet nothings the so-called “LGB Alliance” whispered into the ear of the Charity Commission

That’s just rude, and kind of sexist. We’re meant to think the LGBA people are like prostitutes.

…the truth was set out in a speech by LGB Alliance director Bev Jackson on 9 March 2020. She described their real goal as follows:

We’re applying for charitable status and building an organization to challenge the dominance of those who promote the damaging theory of gender identity.”

We’re allowed to challenge dominance. Women are allowed to challenge male dominance. The trans “movement” is riddled with male dominance. Jolyon Maugham is massively domineering.

The money is pouring in of course. Lotta “activists” out there.

Updating to add JCJ’s much more succinct (and witty) take.

Another Karen! Ok she’s not white and she’s not calling the manager but shut up, she is a Karen. She doesn’t do what male journalists tell her to do. Bitch.

Naomi Osaka, currently the highest-paid female athlete in the world, announced that she would withdraw from the French Open. She cited preservation of her mental health, the same explanation she’d provided earlier when she publicly declined to participate in tournament-related news conferences.

“Diva behavior,” declared the lead sportswriter of the Telegraph, following the news-conference revelation. “World sport’s most petulant little madam,” decreed Piers Morgan, taking a break from his bizarre Meghan Markle fixation to harass another young woman of color.

Karen. Karen Karen Karen Karen.

So from my limited, headline-osmosis understanding of the sport, here’s what I have discerned: Damned if you’re Naomi Osaka refusing to participate in a news conference. Damned if you’re Naomi Osaka three years ago, agreeing to participate in a news conference, and then fully half of the questions are about your opponent’s behavior — Osaka bested Serena Williams in a controversial match — and you end up apologizing for winning.

Damned if you’re Serena Williams, asked on the spot to publicly translate your anger into a “teachable moment” for your daughter. Damned if you’re Maria Sharapova being informed at age 17: “You’re a pinup now, especially in England. Is that good? Do you enjoy that?” Damned if you’re Serena Williams having once competed against Maria Sharapova, and a reporter approaches you at the French Open in 2018 with a question he says he’s “been waiting about 14 years” to ask, and the question is whether, more than a decade ago, Williams was “intimidated” by Sharapova’s “supermodel good looks.”

Ok but have some sympathy for the reporters, because what can you say about a female athlete? They’re just not interesting the way male athletes are. Reporters didn’t make that decision, nature did.

A 2016 Cambridge University Press study analyzed the language used to describe male and female athletes in the media. The most common words used for men but not women: “fastest,” “strong,” “big,” “great.” The most common words used for women but not men: “unmarried,” “married,” “pregnant,” “aged.”

…

Hollywood and politics have been dealing with the issue of the problematic news conference for years. The hashtag #AskHerMore was born from the exhaustion of women who longed to be quizzed on anything besides [what] they were wearing or whom they were sleeping with.

What else is there though? Women just aren’t interesting, remember?

H/t Sackbut

NPR is on the job! If you’re at a loss for how to pronoun, NPR is there to help!

Down pointing backhand index to you too, you lovely helpful advicey people.

We heard you the first time but ok I guess.

Shall we read their cute 101 guide? Oh let’s.

“Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It’s how someone refers to you in conversation,” says Mary Emily O’Hara, a communications officer at GLAAD. 

No, pronouns are not how we identify ourselves apart from our name. Not basically or any other way.

This guide was created with help from GLAAD. We also referenced resources from the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Trans Journalists Association, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, Human Rights Campaign, InterAct and the American Psychological Association.This guide is not exhaustive, and is Western and U.S.-centric. Other cultures may use different labels and have other conceptions of gender.

So what you’re saying is, everyone has to get an entire education on this subject, as in many hours of reading and memorization. What if we have better things to do? What if, to be exact, there are more important things to pay attention to? Poverty, inequality, exploitation, climate change, public health – you know, the big stuff. What if a small set of narcissistic people who want you to learn a new language to talk about them just don’t appear very high on that list?

One thing to note: Language changes. Some of the terms now in common usage are different from those used in the past to describe similar ideas, identities and experiences. Some people may continue to use terms that are less commonly used now to describe themselves, and some people may use different terms entirely. What’s important is recognizing and respecting people as individuals.

But we can do that without any “guide to pronouns.”

What follows is of course the usual jargon-riddled nonsense, uttered as usual with solemn confidence as if it were a set of facts as opposed to a sit of silly rules invented by some self-obsessed teenagers. A grown-up organization like NPR should not be anywhere near it.

So few readers.

The blog that former president Donald Trump launched last month after he was banned from Twitter and Facebook is no more.

Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump, said that “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” has been permanently shut down after all posts were scrubbed from Trump’s website.

Trump rolled out the blog last month after being absent from social media since January, but his effort to regain some of the attention he received with his headline-grabbing tweets largely failed. An adviser told The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey that the former president wanted to open a new “platform” and didn’t like that this platform was being mocked and had so few readers.

And the way to fix that is definitely to start over on a new “platform,” and not at all to become a different less stupid more interesting not quite so ridiculous person. Starting over on a new “platform” will fix everything. Readers will be in the high two figures.

The Times reports on the Jolyon/Mermaids lawsuit:

Stonewall has backed transgender activists in a legal challenge to the charitable status of a rival campaign group that is accused of “denigrating trans people”.

I think it’s a little underhanded to call the LGB Alliance a “rival” group…as if Stonewall were some kind of obvious Rightful Owner and the LGBA a trespasser. Stonewall doesn’t own All Things NotStraight, and anyway it’s far more about the T these days.

In their objections to the Charity Commission’s decision, the groups argued that “charitable status is earned by those who serve the public good. Denigrating trans people, attacking those who speak for them, and campaigning to remove legal protections from them is the very opposite of a public good.”

But the LGBA doesn’t “denigrate” trans people. It’s not “denigrating” anyone to say that lesbians are women and gay men are men. The LGBA is of course not campaigning to remove legal protections from anyone.

The groups cited a comment last year by Bev Jackson, a director of the LGB Alliance, in which she explained that her organisation had applied for charitable status “to challenge the dominance of those who promote the damaging theory of gender identity”.

So challenging dominance is wicked now? Do they really want to go with that?

The groups said on their crowdfunding page that “these purposes are reprehensible and they are not charitable; they are political objectives — to roll back legal protections for trans people”.

Only if you define “legal protections for trans people” as the right for men to invade women’s spaces and sports and prizes and jobs.

In court documents, which do not appear to have been signed by its lawyers, Mermaids states that unless the decision to grant charitable status is quashed, it “is likely to suffer financial loss”, as it “may find itself competing with LGB Alliance for donations from the public and grant-making bodies”.

Well that’s just tough shit, isn’t it. Who ever told them they were entitled to a monopoly?

Barrister Dennis Kavanagh at Lesbian and Gay News reports on the kimono guy’s lawsuit against the LGB Alliance:

The public campaign against the LGB Alliance by established trans-focused charities Stonewall and Mermaids escalated into litigation today with an appeal against the Charity Commission’s decision to award the LGBA charitable status (available here). This follows ferocious objections from the groups to the initial application for registration and a campaign of well publicised subsequent complaints to the commission itself by supporters of both charities, (many of which were dismissed as “emotional”). It seems then that 2021 Pride month will set the stage for an extraordinary legal spectacle of large, multi-million pound trans focused charities seeking to silence and effectively destroy a lesbian/gay/bisexual focused one. 

The appeal itself is crowdfunded by and appears to be promoted by the non for-profit company “The Good Law Project” but the grounds of appeal themselves name the charity Mermaids as the entity actually appealing the decision. Passing reference is also made to Stonewall who, following a week of high profile exits from its diversity scheme, make complaint that the LGBA is undermining that scheme.

Nah, Stonewall, you did that yourselves. It was you, Charlie.

Kavanagh says Mermaids may have trouble establishing standing, in which case the suit will be dismissed without getting to make its arguments. (Basically: this is none of your business anyway so your arguments are beside the point.)

The grounds themselves rehearse a number of complaints already dealt with by the Charity Commission and so the appeal, to some extent, represents an attempt at having a second bite of the cherry. Perhaps most strikingly, the grounds appear to claim that anything other than complete agreement with the gender identity position is in and of itself a de facto attack on trans focused charities. The grounds specifically complain that Bev Jackson said in March 2020 “We’re applying for charitable status and building an organisation to challenge the dominance of those who promote the damaging theory of gender identity”. The complaint that this speech is enough to make good the objection may be extremely difficult to establish in law given recent the statements by EHRC chair, Baroness Falkner to the effect that a gender critical position is a protected characteristic and the fact the body recently intervened in the Maya Forstater Appeal Case to protect extremely similar speech and thought.

Let’s hope so. Let’s hope we get to retain the right to say that only women are women.