Erm…

Nicola Sturgeon warns of ‘push back’ on women’s rights and misogyny ‘on the rise again’

A significant chunk of the rise caused by…uh…Nicola Sturgeon.

Ms Sturgeon has previously come under fire from women’s rights campaigners for her support for trans rights, such as allowing trans women to access women-only spaces.

That is, she’s been sharply criticized by women’s rights campaigners for insisting that men who pretend to be women can intrude on women’s spaces and everything else that belongs to women. That’s not a “right”; it’s the nullification of a right.

Discussing the relevance of the new book, Ms Sturgeon: “Having gone through many years of what felt like progress, there seems to be push back again, women’s rights are under threat, reproductive rights are under threat, there’s a lot of abuse and toxicity towards women on social media, and misogyny seems to be on the rise again.”

It does indeed, and she helped.

Ms Sturgeon added: “There are so many women that have been mischaracterised and distorted in history. I think it’s important to try to redress that and set the record straight.

“But there are probably even more women who have never been written about at all. There are not enough stories about women down the ages. The more we have the better.”

Indeed. The more stories we have about real women, women who really were or are women, the better.

The stupidity of “India” Willoughby takes the breath away.

Before offering your opinion on the latest move by the government to improve the ‘NHS Charter’ – ask yourself this.

How would you feel if a woman you know, perhaps vulnerable, was forced into being treated in an all-male ward at a hospital. How would that woman feel?

Apparently he thinks men are the only people who know how to read. We who are reading this thing he has written must be men, so the way to get us to think about the issue is to present a hypothetical about a woman we know. It doesn’t occur to him to ask us how we would feel, because it doesn’t occur to him that any of us could be women. That’s quite a blind spot.

Terrified, most likely. And that is exactly how I would feel in the same situation. My instincts are the same as most women – I just happen to be trans. 

That is, he just happens to be a man who likes to pretend to be a woman.

So, he underlines the fact that women fear being forced into all-male wards as an argument that he should be allowed on female wards.

You couldn’t make it up.

“Women fear being helpless in the presence of men, and that’s why I, a man, should be allowed to join helpless women in their women-only wards.”

And he put this in writing for a news outlet. It’s jaw-dropping.

Also – on the one hand it’s the male wards that are the horror and insult, but on the other hand no he damn well will not accept a single room because [????????]. He starts with “Oh imagine the fear for some random woman you know” and continues with “How dare you offer me a single rooom??!!”

Let me be clear. I would never, ever go on an all-male hospital ward. I’d rather die at the scene of my injury or illness than be placed on one. 

Ministers say that trans patients could be treated in separate rooms – but that is just humiliating segregation, hinged on the idea that my presence around cis women is offensive or dangerous. 

He’d rather die than go on an all-male ward! A separate room is humiliating! The only solution is to let him terrorize and humiliate women! Obviously!

Again, I need them to know that when I say I’d rather die than go on an male ward, I’m serious. 

He seems to think that’s some kind of conversation stopper. He seems to think we would miss him.

Update: I started in medias res here, thinking I’d already shared the origin story, but I must have been to busy swearing about it on twidder. It was this:

/update

It’s even worse than that. The actor who plays Viola, Georgia Frost, is one of the trio who went to JK Rowling’s house and then publicized their visit with the (obviously intended) result that her address was plastered all over social media. A very nasty piece of work. It’s all the more annoying because Viola is a marvelous character and Georgia Frost is clearly not. She doesn’t deserve to play that part.

 For this is the very same Georgia Frost who this week appeared in a picture taken outside the Edinburgh home of Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

Frost was standing next to fellow ‘trans activists’, ‘drag king’ Richard Energy (real name Janina Smith) and drag queen Holly Stars. 

The picture, which clearly showed Rowling’s address, was posted on social media.

Its effect? To stir up online abuse of the author, who has found herself accused of transphobia ever since she mocked an online article in June 2020 which used the words ‘people who menstruate’ instead of ‘women’.

The trio, whom Rowling has accused of trying to ‘intimidate’ her for ‘speaking up for women’s sex-based rights’, were carrying placards with the messages ‘Trans Liberation Now’, ‘Trans Rights Are Human Rights’, and ‘Don’t Be A Cissy’…

The Mail goes on to detail the abuse that rained down on Rowling as a result of this malicious act.

Much of the onslaught is unprintable. Rowling contacted the police, who said in a statement that they were aware of the incident last Friday and ‘inquiries were continuing’.

Frost, Smith and Stars said they stood by their actions but revealed on social media the following day that ‘while we stand by the photo, since posting it we have received an overwhelming amount of serious and transphobic messages so we have decided to take down the photo’.

They received nasty messages. They don’t say a word about the nasty messages they incited people to send to JKR.

Malicious brat Georgia Frost does not deserve to play Viola.

Now look here, this won’t do at all, threatening people we don’t like with death by violence.

Oh rilly? say a great many people who remember when Kirsten Oswald MP beamed joyously in front of placards threatening death by violence.

Concerned. Deeply concerned.

False narratives. Shall we talk about false narratives?

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people can change sex.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people who feel discomfort or misery about being the sex they are should without question immediately start the process of pretending to be the other sex by taking cross-sex hormones and having drastic surgeries.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that people who warn against taking cross-sex hormones and having drastic surgeries are evil sadistic right-wing monsters who want to harm people who think they’re the opposite sex.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that tampering with puberty is an excellent and healthy thing to do.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that all this tampering is “health care” as opposed to reckless quackery at best and a horrifying medical scandal at worst.

Let’s talk about the false narrative that the “Trans Safety Network” is promoting safety with this alarmist catastrophizing bullshit.

Vagueness instead of argument example #eleventy billion.

“support trans people”?

What’s that supposed to mean?

Gender skeptics don’t drop trans people or push them over or throw them off cliffs. We don’t not support trans people. What we do is decline to pretend to believe they are the sex they are not. That’s not some kind of opposite of “support.” It’s a refusal to buy into fantasy, a refusal to lie, a refusal to pretend not to know what we know.

None of this is about “support.” Trans people aren’t babies, nor are they floppy people with no bones who need to be propped up by benevolent bystanders. They’re just people who have bought into a delusion, and we’re just people who say the delusion is a delusion.

Pink News is cross because the profundities of a “non-binary person” were greeted with mirth rather than awed respect.

Dee Whitnell, who founded the #TransKidsDeserveToGrowUp solidarity campaign, released a YouTube video earlier this month in which they discussed how transgender people might find themselves “changing or exploring [their] expression or gender identity depending on the season”.

In the video, Whitnell talked about their own experiences with expression and how it changes throughout the year, as well as the concept of “genderseason” and how other trans folks might explore their expression.

In other words Dee Whitnell has noticed that people’s feelings are influenced by external factors like the weather, how early or late the sun sets, how they feel about wearing sweaters or t shirts, and similar. You don’t say.

“This isn’t saying that all trans individuals experience this because that’s just not the case, or that seasons determine your gender identity or expression. However, it can influence it,” Whitnell said.

“I feel more masculine in the summertime. I wear more masculine clothing, I wear shorts. I normally have my hair up more and I just feel more ‘boy’, whereas in the winter – for some reason – girl mode comes out and I’m loving skirts and dresses and having my hair down.”

Is that fascinating or what?

Pink News goes on to say that Fox News (do the two deserve each other?) reported on these deepities in order to mock them.

“To those people who see it and think it’s somebody literally identifying as the season, it’s not. It’s just a way for trans people to explore their expression and identity, and [to] be able to put words to it.”

And to be able to go on and on and on and on about it, so that they can talk about themselves until all the rivers run dry. Who doesn’t want that??

Listen to this article

3:03 / 5:18

“It’s not only this pushback from cisgender individuals who don’t believe trans and non binary people exist but also trans people who don’t believe non binary people exist.” 

Uh oh. Trouble in paradise. It’s not just those fiends the cis who don’t understand, it’s also trans people. It’s a whole new war on a whole new battlefield. Trans people are the new terfs and nonbinary people are the new trans people. Or is it the other way around? Or do they switch depending on what season it is?

Here’s Dee:

Putting aside the whole trans and/or non-binary thing for a second, I would have trouble chatting with Dee for a completely different reason, which is that I can’t see past the pieces of metal driven into uncomfortable places on the face. Studs and things in the nostrils and lips and upper edges of the ears distract the bejeezus out of me. I can just barely tolerate the metal zippers on jeans; all other metal is banned from the premises.

The self love branding is good though. Yes kid you got that bit right.

La Leche League doing a quiet brag about how inclooosive its policies are.

Replies are closed. Quote-tweets are scathing.

Breastfeeding should be inclooosive.

Six trustees of a nationwide breastfeeding support group have been suspended for demanding that biological men be excluded from their services.

The British wing of La Leche League (LLL), which gives mother-to-mother support to those finding it hard to breastfeed, has been told by its US-based board of directors that the service cannot be single sex and they must support “male lactation”.

Also they can’t say “mother” and they can’t question gender ideology.

It’s perfectly simple, and easy if you’ll just shut up and pay attention. The baby learns to identify as getting milk out of Daddy’s nipples. Problem solved. Can we move on now?

One leader from LLLGB, the name for the charity’s British wing, said: “Many breastfeeding supporters like me feel utterly disheartened by the way our charity has become obsessed and sidetracked by sex and gender issues. In the most recent diktat, we were informed that our charity is not and ‘cannot become a single-sex’ charity.”

Indeed not! It must be a reality-denying charity instead. So much more interesting, don’t you think?

Late in 2023, a group of trustees questioned the US-led board, LLLI about its shift to gender ideology, and asked to remain single-sex.

In February 2024, LLLI told them: “We focus on providing breastfeeding support and understand the importance of making our spaces welcoming to all those who want to breastfeed or give their babies human milk. We don’t argue with parents or other leaders about how they identify; we accept them with respect, just as they say they are, and do not refer to them with words that conflict with their identity.”

“We are proudly, systematically stupid and credulous, and we bully any women who refuse to be stupid and credulous about men who want to ‘breastfeed’ infants.”

They suspended the six trustees, saying; “The continued promotion of LLL as an organisation that excludes people is damaging LLL’s credibility.” However, LLLI does allow groups in countries which do not accept trans rights, including many Muslim ones, to exclude biological men.

Oh does it. “Lesser breeds without the law” is it? How very colonialist of them.

Oh how about that, the BBC does know who is a woman when it comes time to pay the salaries.

Four senior female news presenters have accused the BBC of “grinding down” women on pay and failing to tackle persistent pay discrimination at a tribunal court hearing in London.

The presenter Martine Croxall – alongside Karin Giannone, Kasia Madera and Annita McVeigh – accused the broadcaster of conducting a “sham recruitment exercise” after they lost their jobs when the BBC merged its domestic and global news channels last year.

In witness statements the women, aged between 48 and 54, said they had been discriminated against because of their sex, age and union membership.

Plus their failure to identify as trans. Maybe it’s not too late?

In documents the women said that Jess Brammar, the BBC’s then editor of news channels, “privately assured four other chief presenters – two men and two younger women – their jobs were safe, but admitted she couldn’t say much ‘for legal reasons’”.

In witness statements the women said that while some of them were demoted, others faced a pay cut. They added: “No men and no women younger than us suffered these detriments.”

Well it’s only fair. If you’ve got the bad taste to be female the least you can do is be young.

Whoops.

The Guardian attempts to report on a massive attack on women’s rights without ever mentioning women. Look, look, women treated as not deserving of rights over their own bodies, except we take it back about the “women” part, we don’t know what that word means, we never heard of any people called that, we don’t know whose rights these are that we’re writing this piece about.

These fucking idiots.

How can you report on a massive war on women’s autonomy while adamantly refusing to mention women?

You can’t. You fucking can’t. By erasing women from this news article you join Team Delete Women’s Rights.

The Guardian, or reporter Carter Sherman, or both, literally don’t use the word once. It appears once, but that’s in the name of a clinic the story cites. They don’t voluntarily use it to specify the people whose rights are being destroyed one single time.

Euphemisms for “women” bolded:

A six-week abortion ban went into effect on Wednesday in Florida, cutting off access to the procedure before many people know they are pregnant and leveling the south-eastern United States’ last stronghold for abortion rights.

The ban went into force weeks after Florida’s state supreme court issued a decision clearing the way for it to take effect. Strict bans now blanket all of the American deep south, increasing the strain on the country’s remaining clinics. The closest clinic for most Floridians past six weeks of pregnancy is now several states away in North Carolina, which outlaws abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Last year, Florida abortion providers performed more than 84,000 abortions, state data found – including more than 9,000 for out-of-state patients…

On Tuesday, the last day before the ban took effect, an abortion clinic in Gainesville, Florida, was trying to squeeze in as many patients as possible. The clinic had added hours throughout April, but the rush was compounded by the fact that, in addition to the impending ban, Florida requires people to have an in-person consultation at an abortion clinic at least 24 hours before they get the procedure or take abortion pills. A patient could have arrived on Tuesday exactly six weeks into her pregnancy, but have been too late to get an abortion given that the ban came into effect on Wednesday.

Oops how did that “her” get in there? You wanna watch that, boys.

On Tuesday, the female team of staffers at the clinic, Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center, had to explain these complex regulations to bewildered callers and patients over and over again, as the phones rang off the hook for hours.

I wonder why the team of staffers at the clinic is female. I wonder if they all avoid the word “women” as carefully as the Guardian does.

Before the six-week ban, Kristin, director of Bread and Roses, said that the clinic rarely saw people before they hit six weeks of pregnancy.

“Most people don’t know they’re pregnant until at least six weeks,” Kristin said in an interview the week before the ban took effect.

I wonder if she really did say “Most people.”

“We try to get people in as quickly as possible, but sometimes we’re one or three weeks booked out, so it’s rare that someone is in before they’re six weeks.”

Mustn’t say “before she’s six weeks.” That would be injurious to the men who want to shove women aside.

Compared with 2020, there were nearly 9,000 more abortions in Florida in 2023. Out-of-state abortion patients accounted for almost 60% of that increase, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Bread and Roses used to see 20 to 30 patients daily, but in April, the clinic started to see closer to 40 patients a day, Kristin said. The clinic tends to see somewhere between three to 10 out-of-state patients every day, she said.

…

“This is going to be awful, and it’s going to impact the whole south-east,” said Dr K, a family medicine doctor who performs abortions at Bread and Roses. “I just have no idea what these patients are going to do and where they’re gonna go.”

Well at least they’ll have the comfort of knowing that the Guardian refuses to call them women.

But it’s such a tiny tiny minority of people, do we really need to spend so much time on a tiny tiny tiny minority of people?

Oh dear god the stupid.

Well, first, “trans women” isn’t a name. It may be a label, but at bottom what it is is a noun accompanied by an adjective. That’s all. You can attach any adjective to any noun; doing so doesn’t automatically create a truth. I could label Thomas Willett here “stupid boy” but that by itself wouldn’t make it true that Willett is a stupid boy.

Second…seriously?

Pretend women are women, it’s in the name.

Fake women are women, it’s in the name.

Bogus women are women, it’s in the name.

Counterfeit women are women, it’s in the name.

Imaginary women are women, it’s in the name.

Do we see the problem yet?

Revolutionaries today! They ain’t what they useta be! Why in my day we would go whole hours without chocolate in order to bring down The Man.

Originally a comment by maddog1129 on Spike.

This isn’t civil contempt, this is criminal contempt. Being adjudged in criminal contempt of court is a violation of DJT’s bond conditions. He is out on pretrial release because he posted a bond in each of his four criminal cases. A condition of bond in every one of those cases is not to commit a criminal offense against any state law or federal law. “Violate no law,” is a standard bond condition in every criminal case. DJT is now subject to having his bond revoked in those cases, and being held in pretrial detention.

With regard to contempt sanctions, judges generally use a progressive approach. Fine first is typical. Remains to be seen what comes second. The judge would be perfectly within his rights to order such a contemptuous defendant jailed for any subsequent violations of court orders. I heard one commentator suggest that the judge might hold any further punishment for contempt in abeyance until the end of trial. IOW, the judge could say, I will sentence you on these 4 new (another hearing is set for Thursday on 4 new counts of contempt), and any additional instances of contempt, at the end of trial. I will also take your contempt violations into account at sentencing in this case, if you are convicted. Thus, additional instances of contempt will not only result in sentences in their own right — limited as they are by New York last to a maximum of $1,000 and/or 30 days jail per violation — but also affect the ultimate sentence for any crimes of which the jury finds you guilty.

If it were up to me, I’d revoke his bond and order him into pretrial detention. Then I’d sentence him to 30 days per new contempt violation, to run consecutively.

Darn it it’s so hard to convince everyone that you’re not the baddy when your target will insist on talking herself. Joan Smith deeply sympathizes.

If you want to see a human being squirm, just say the words “Rosie Duffield” to Sir Keir Starmer. He immediately looks like a man who wishes he was somewhere else — at the dentist, maybe, or having an intimate medical procedure. It happened again this morning, when he was asked by Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain whether he was going to apologise to the Canterbury MP after finally admitting she was correct to say in 2021 that only women have a cervix.

Instead of answering he burbled about how well he and Rosie get along and how they “discuss a number of issues.”

This is not how Duffield sees it. She says Starmer hasn’t spoken to her for two-and-a-half years, and it’s not for want of trying on her part. Her efforts to talk to him about the bullying she’s endured from party members (and indeed anything else) have come to nothing, as she revealed in an article earlier this month.

Welp if Starmer hasn’t spoken to her in 2.5 years then it looks as if he’s telling a whopper when he says they chat about them there issues.

“Have I heard a word from [Starmer]? Or from senior colleagues?” she wrote. “No!” She added that the party leader has “almost no personal contact with his backbenchers. The last message I sent to Keir, practically begging for support, was ignored.”

Brave Sir Robin ran away.

A decent man would throw up his hands and admit he was wrong. Instead, Starmer takes refuge in platitudes — but they’re dangerous platitudes. He says he talks to Duffield. She says he doesn’t. He says he wants to have a discussion with her and “anybody else” about sex and gender. So why have I been waiting more than three years for a response to my letter on this very issue, which described attacks on women members of the Labour Party by trans activists? He still hasn’t replied after I spoke to him in person at a dinner in May 2022.

So I guess maybe he’s not a decent man?

Annnnnnnnd when the judge does fine Trump Trump wins because he just sends out another “send me money” to his credulous fools.

Donald Trump’s campaign immediately sought to capitalize after the judge in his New York criminal trial ruled him in contempt of court — the latest example of how the former president’s campaign has flipped negative legal developments into a financial boost for his reelection bid.

“A Democrat judge JUST HELD ME IN CONTEMPT OF COURT!” read a Tuesday morning email soliciting donations for Trump National Committee, a joint fundraising committee that includes Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Of course the judge HELD HIM IN CONTEMPT OF COURT because HE WAS IN CONTEMPT OF COURT but never mind that, just send him $$$.

Trump is already a fairly prolific fundraiser, but moments of legal jeopardy have driven some of his best fundraising in the past.

In March, his campaign got a big spike in donations after New York Attorney General Tish James took a step toward seizing the former president’s assets if he couldn’t make bail in a civil case. Last fall, the campaign raked in more than $4 million in a day after Trump got his mug shot taken in Georgia, where he faces charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Words fail me.

Same thing, Willoughby says. A gay man on a men’s hospital ward is the same thing as a man on a women’s hospital ward. The same thing.

I pointed out yesterday that calling a man who threatened to kill Rosie Duffield and JK Rowling a “troll” is offensively trivializing. I see I’m not the only one who thinks so.

You’re god damn right it does.