Originally a comment by Artymorty on More carefully, this time.

I can tell you how I understood trans to be part of the Pride rainbow, and I suspect it’s the same for many others:

I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. In my mind, I always had a vague discomfort with transsexualism’s connection to gender stereotypes, but told myself not to think too much about it because I didn’t know what their experience felt like and I couldn’t judge, analogous to how homophobes don’t know what being gay feels like and don’t understand that it’s not a choice. And besides, these people were gender-role outsiders like us but only more so, coping with homophobia in their own way: very butch lesbians and very effeminate gay — and disproportionately nonwhite — men. (E.g., ’80s drag ball “vogue dancing” culture from the movie Paris is Burning or the TV series POSE.) So I had a rough sense that it was about being not just gay but doubleplus gay and also often discriminated along another axis to boot (woman; ethnic minority). These were very vulnerable people pushed to the furthest edges of society who often couldn’t find work outside of prostitution. And people like that absolutely exist — some trans people do fit that description.

From there it was kind of a boiling frog effect as my understanding of trans slowly broadened to include heterosexuals and not-particularly-gender-nonconforming-seeming males (e.g., Caitlyn Jenner; the dad in Transparent) and it never occurred to me that they weren’t any less oppressed than the first group of trans people even though they weren’t gay or women or nonwhite or poor or homeless or prostituted. Slowly the sympathy I had for the first group transferred to the latter, and I started to see trans people as oppressed simply because they are trans — because of the clothes and pronouns they prefer, and not because of underlying things like being extremely gender-nonconforming while female or nonwhite — and I didn’t readjust my thinking about whether or why this group of people is automatically more vulnerable than me. Their demands got louder (eg “trans women are women, period”) and the frog slowly boiled. Now I was expected to train myself to picture trans people as visibly more-or-less indistinguishable from “cis” people — anyone around you might or might not be trans and how would you even know if you haven’t asked them or seen their genitals! — but at the same time they were still the most oppressed people in the world. (But if they’re indistinguishable from everyone else, how are they oppressed, a little voice said. The answer: because a group of radical feminists won’t accept them as their adopted sex even if they’re indistinguishable from their “cis” counterparts. These feminists are working to unmask innocent, covertly trans people and force them back into their natal sex roles. Or something. I didn’t really bother to check.)

It was gender-neutral bathrooms that started me questioning things. At my workplace it didn’t make sense that we had to get rid of the women’s washroom altogether to accommodate transwomen. Surely we all agreed that women need separate spaces from men — surely the “woke” activists believed in feminism — and surely there were better ways to let (innocent, undetectable or minimally detectable, or more like suspectedly-but-we-dare-not-ask) trans women know we’re not going to challenge them if they use the women’s washroom. Surely if trans women were women, they’d be just as uncomfortable with men in their washrooms as “cis” women would be. Surely they’d be just as opposed to gender-neutral washrooms as any other women would be. But they aren’t — because they are not women. This is where I climbed out of the boiling water and my comrades kept cooking. For them, gender-neutral washrooms were just the beginning of gender-jumbling everything. The less trans activism made sense the more the kids started dismantling everything else in order to accommodate it. Now the very idea of distinguishing women from men is suspect. Now I’ve got female colleagues responding to my issues about the gender-neutral bathrooms with, “Well, I don’t have a problem with men in the women’s washroom.” (Implying that any woman who does is somehow inferior or wrong and not doing her duty to make room for transpeople.)

The behaviour of the bloggers at a certain supposedly progressive website (wink-wink) floored me, and then I really started looking into things and was shocked at the naked misogyny and male-entitled behaviour in trans activism. And the mass trans hysteria surrounding children and adolescents terrifies me. And now I’m watching more and more people begin to peak-trans as the whole thing starts to spin apart.

A striking headline:

Florida woman sets person on fire in Taco Bell, and then may have gone on arson spree, cops say

Underneath is, I guess, a mugshot of the Florida woman:

A Tallahassee woman may have went on a arson spree Wednesday and Thursday, starting at a Taco Bell where a woman was set on fire, cops say.

So apparently the Miami Herald has illiterate reporters and no editors, but more to the point, I’m puzzled as to why in the headline the beardy guy in the photo is called a woman while the woman he doused in gas and set on fire is called a person.

On Wednesday, Mia Williams, a 32-year-old who was born male but identifies as female, walked into a Taco Bell, doused a woman with gasoline and then set them on fire, Tallahassee police said.

Them? Why them? Mia Williams set HER on fire.

Williams ran away and the victim was taken to a hospital by helicopter with serious injuries. As of Friday, the victim was still being treated, police said.

But at the end of the article we are told Williams was charged with homicide so it appears the woman person died of her horrific burns. But don’t misgender Williams! Feel free to misgender the victim, but DO NOT misgender the male perp who killed the woman.

After Williams fled the Taco Bell there was a string of fires and a police pursuit.

At around 6:40 a.m., a Tallahassee fire truck spotted Williams on a bike and began following her. When an officer arrived, he tried to stop Williams by tazing her twice, but both shots weren’t effective, police said.

As Williams continued to ride away, the officer decided to drive his patrol car over a curb and pin the front tire of Williams’ bike to fence because “[she] was a serious risk to public safety.”

Ah thank god for “[she].” The cops must have referred to Her as “he” and thank god the alert reporter or editor caught it and fixed it in brackets. Too bad they didn’t catch and fix “may have went” and the other solecisms, but obviously rightgendering Williams is by far the most urgent thing about this story.

Police eventually arrested Williams and found a cigarette lighter in her pocket.

Williams was only charged in relation to setting the person ablaze at the Taco Bell, not with the fires that followed.

Tallahassee police say the car and church fires are still being investigated by fire officials.

Williams was charged with premeditated homicide, resisting an officer with violence and aggravated on an officer.

I wonder what it is that is causing this huge surge in women committing violent crimes.

Updating to add: the reporter is on Twitter (and getting quite a few critical comments), so I asked him about the being treated/homicide charge conflict and he said last he knew the victim was being treated and the police charge was what it was. Doesn’t really change anything but at least it wasn’t a typo.

Kate Manne…

Congratulations to @rachelvmckinnon on her amazing accomplishments! And fuck the haters.

By “haters,” sadly, she means the people – especially the women – who simply don’t think men should compete in women’s races, even if they do “identify as” women.

An observer today:

I’m now absolutely convinced Kate Manne doesn’t understand her own book.

Manne’s reply:

Because I deplore white cis women like you making #downgirl moves to trans women? Um, no. Read my book again. More carefully, this time.

Oh yes, “cis” women objecting to being shoved aside by men who say they are women – those are the women philosopher Kate Manne deplores. In other words all women are privileged and suspect; it’s only men who claim to be women who get her approbation and solidarity.

You couldn’t make it up. Imagine any black activist ever expressing contempt for actual black people while heaping solidarity on white people who “identify as” black. It wouldn’t happen. If a few outliers did do that they would be viewed the way Omerosa Manigault and Paris Dennard are, not the way Kate Manne (author of Down Girl) is.

It turns out feminism was just an interval, and now we’re back to situation normal women are worth nothing.

Colorado! Home of the wall!

You may not leave, you may not choose which people you consider allies, you may not distinguish among reasons or categories, you may not form new organizations, you may not do anything except what you’re told.

@GrahamSmith_ lays out the rules:

The alliance is a deliberate attempt to marginalise and exclude trans people. Trans people have always been part of the lgbt community and to try to exclude them is clearly motivated by transphobia.

Notice the tautology. “Trans people have always been part of the lesbian gay bisexual trans community” – well no shit, Sherlock, it’s right there in the name. But that doesn’t mean people can’t notice that that “community” is actually somewhat randomly assembled, because sexual orientation is not the same as gender identity. It doesn’t mean people can’t decide they would like to form a group (and maybe a community) solely around sexual orientation (the non-conforming kind). It doesn’t mean people need Graham Smith’s permission to do that. Same-sex attracted people are not required to caucus with trans people any more than they are required to caucus with straight people.

Forming a group / community / alliance of LGB people is not marginalizing or excluding trans people unless you think any kind of group / community / alliance marginalizes and excludes anyone who isn’t part of the group / community / alliance.

But another advice-giver took it even further:

There is clearly no good faith present in an organisation that forms a group and specifically signals in its name it does not include Trans people. Just a sickening example of ‘othering’ that we can live without.

Nobody can form a group that doesn’t include trans people. Nobody. Not knitters, not Game of Thrones fans, not socialists, not libertarians, not birdwatchers, not quilters, not foodies, not voting rights activists, nobody.

Make a note of it.

Via @faintlyfalling –

I saw this tweeted out by someone who claims to be a gender therapist. The imagery of your presumed “true self” emerging out of the corpse of your “wrong body” disturbs me greatly.

That, yes, but even more, to me, the creepy anime sprite representing WOMAN. She’s about 10 years old but with tits and presumably the all-important front hole, her eyes are the size of plates, and her hair could roof a building while everything else about her is barely there. Tits, hair, and eyes; what more do you want?!

That’s not what being female is. That stupid toon doesn’t represent Woman or Girl or female, it’s just a sketch of a sex doll.

Even uglier.

The White House’s trade representative in late August withdrew a recommendation to restore some of Ukraine’s trade privileges after John Bolton, then-national security adviser, warned him that President Trump probably would oppose any action that benefited the government in Kyiv, according to people briefed on the matter.

The warning to Robert E. Lighthizer came as Trump was withholding $391 million in military aid and security assistance from Ukraine. House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into allegations that the president did so to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business activities of former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. As part of the inquiry, lawmakers are closely scrutinizing the White House’s actions between July and September.

The August exchange between Bolton and Lighthizer over the trade matter represents the first indication that the administration’s suspension of assistance to Ukraine extended beyond the congressionally authorized military aid and security assistance to other government programs. It is not clear whether Trump directed Bolton to intervene over Ukraine’s trade privileges or was even aware of the discussion.

Amnesty International has an inspiring inspirational aspirational empowermenting inspiringational tweet for us:

Trans rights are women’s rights.
Queer rights are women’s rights.
Disability rights are women’s rights.
Abortion rights are women’s rights.
Migrant rights are women’s rights.

And women’s rights are human rights.
11:01 AM · Oct 22, 2019· Falcon Social Media Management

Sic. Yes really.

Note the very last item: Falcon Social Media Management. We’ll come back to that.

But first, what is this garbage? What is their point? To remind women that we alone of non-dominant groups don’t get to have our own struggles, our own rights, our own campaigns, our own petitions for redress of grievances? That we alone need constant reminding to Think Of Others instead of ourselves? That we alone are expected to budge up and move over and share? That we alone are constantly harangued about intersectionality and inclusion while other non-dominant groups aren’t? That we alone are constantly interrupted with “Yes yes yes but trans people queer people disabled people migrants so stop talking about yourselves you selfish bitches”?

Well fuck that noise.

And that obnoxious “stfu ladeez” doesn’t even come from Amnesty but from a paid social media marketing firm. That’s what Falcon Social Media Management is.

Talk about adding insult to injury…

Life in the sewer:

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham on Thursday doubled down on her boss’ “human scum” attack on so-called “Never Trump” Republicans and seemingly expanded it to include anyone who has worked against the president’s agenda.

“The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.“Watch out for them, they are human scum!”

The president’s tweet set off a firestorm about the his rhetoric—in this case about a notably small subset of Republicans, some of whom are likely to vote for him anyhow—and so Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade asked the top White House flack: “Does he regret that?”

“No, no, he shouldn’t,” Grisham replied. “The people who are against him, and who have been against him, and have been working against him since the day they took office are just that.”

Representative Elijah Cummings is lying in state at the Capitol today, and his colleagues are paying their respects.

The splitting off of the LGB Alliance from Stonewall is shining a light on the difficulty a lot of people have with figuring out who is part of The Community and who is not. Like for instance in replies to a tweet in which they invited comrades to join the effort:

We had our pre-launch meeting last night. The amount of positive energy and expertise in the room was truly inspiring! Please DM us if you want to join in our efforts. We have a mountain to climb but we will succeed!

A confused reply:

We are stronger when united. When you choose to create factions within our community we are all diminished. You do the work of those that wish us the most harm. If you want me to choose, I won’t choose bigotry.

Wait. Who is “we”? What is “our community”? Who are “you”? Who are “those”?

What people make up the we who are stronger when united? Not the whole population, obviously, because somebody has to make up the group “those that wish us the most harm,” but so then who? Who are the people who make up “our community” and who are the people who don’t?

This is the whole point. The reply (which is echoed by many others) is assuming that trans people are (obviously and necessarily) part of The Community along with lesbians and gays, and also assuming that that assumption is self-evidently correct. But it’s not. The two are not the same thing. Yes, both deviate from a certain version of “normal,” but it’s not the same version that they both deviate from. The two can look similarish at a casual glance, but that doesn’t mean they are the same, and the tensions that roil the supposed “community” make that plain.

Abstractions, how do they work.

Mieke Eoyang, who is an expert in the field, explains why the whole barging into a SCIF stunt is not cute.

A few words on why Gaetz stunt to storm the SCIF to disrupt Laura Cooper’s deposition is a VERY serious national security problem.

Note, I worked in that SCIF for HPSCI and handled cybersecurity issues while there.

Aside from disrupting the testimony of a DoD official shedding light on the President’s attempts to extort a sham investigation into the child of his most feared political rival by withholding military aid that Congress gave to resist a Russian invasion…Storming the SCIF without respecting the security protocols that require people to leave their electronic devices *outside* the space, is actually compromising our national security.

First, the SCIF itself is a secure facility designed to prevent electronic eavesdropping so members of Congress can receive highly classified information about how the nation collects information on its adversaries, and on *very* sensitive intelligence operations.

Foreign adversaries are constantly trying to figure out what goes on inside those rooms to figure out what the US knows about them, to out US high-level sources in their governments, to know what the US government knows and use it against us.

The facilities are carefully designed and controlled to ensure that electronic signals, surveillance methods, or other listening devices do not compromise the information discussed in these rooms. I will not, for obvious reasons, go into details.

Bringing electronic devices into a SCIF, and this SCIF in particular is *very* problematic, especially when done by members of Congress.

Because Members of Congress (and their electronic devices) are high-value targets for compromise by foreign intelligence services.

Members of Congress have access to a wide range of sensitive information, including, in the case of these members, conversations with the President of the United States. They travel internationally, receive emails from the public, and meet with foreign dignitaries.

As politicians, they’re also highly sensitive to revelations of derogatory information, which means that foreign adversaries are very interested in collecting same.

They also tend to be lax in their security protocols. This means they may not know they have been compromised. For example, their phones can be turned into listening devices without their knowledge.

This is why outside HPSCI there is a security guard and a series of cabinets for people to leave (and lock) their electronic devices while they are inside the room.

Failure to follow this protocol can violate the security of the entire SCIF.
After an incident like this happens, countermeasures have to be taken to ensure the SCIF is not compromised. It is a time-consuming, technical process, which again, I will not discuss.
But in “storming the SCIF” without observing the security protocols, Rep. Gaetz et al, endangered our national security & demonstrated they care more about a political stunt than protecting intelligence information.

I cannot emphasize enough how serious this is.

To ensure that the information was secure, the members should give over their electronic devices for scanning to ensure no malware was on them, and that they have not compromised the SCIF.

If they don’t want to give them up, they should have checked them before entering.
So, to recap:

To disrupt testimony from a DOD official on how the President endangered national security for both the US and Ukraine by withholding military aid, the President’s allies further endangered national security by storming the SCIF with their electronic devices.

Good to know.

Disconcerting.

H/t What a Maroon and Screechy Monkey

In more hopeful news – The Telegraph reports Stonewall have split over the trans-mania issue.

Europe’s biggest LGBT rights organisation has split after being accused of promoting a ‘trans agenda’ at the expense of gay and lesbian rights.

Stonewall is known for campaigning for the equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people across Britain. The charity’s mission statement says that it aims ‘to create inclusive and accepting cultures’.

However, following a meeting on Tuesday night – and amid an ongoing row about trans inclusion – the charity has divided and forged a splinter group.

Announcing themselves as the LGB Alliance, the group, formed of ‘influential lesbians, gay men and bisexuals’ met in central London last night and forged the new organisation in a bid to ‘counteract the confusion between sex and gender which is now widespread in the public sector and elsewhere’.

Simon Fanshawe, who co-founded Stonewall in 1989, was among those speaking at the event last night in central London.

In a press release announcing the new group, which will be formally launched in January, the LGB Alliance said that its participants included former employees and supporters of the lobby group Stonewall, as well as doctors, psychiatrists, academics and lawyers with expertise in child safeguarding.

It added that all members had agreed a foundation statement which prioritised biological sex over gender theories which they regard as ‘pseudo-scientific and dangerous’.

Yesssss.

Bev Jackson, a co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, said: ‘LGB people like us have been writing to Stonewall for over a year – trying to set up a dialogue with them. It’s about the fact that they have chosen to prioritise trans people and have almost abandoned their original mission: protecting people who are same-sex attracted.

‘Sadly, we do still need protection. Young lesbians in particular are suffering; experiencing huge social pressure to transition to male if they do not conform to traditional gender stereotypes.’

They organized a petition asking for a dialogue, signed by nearly 1o thousand people, but Stonewall looked fixedly in the other direction.

The members of the new Alliance agreed, as part of a 20-point position statement, that:homosexuality is same-sex (not same-gender) attraction; lesbians are biological women who are attracted to other biological women; sex is not ‘assigned’ at birth but observed and it is not transphobic for lesbians to have their own spaces and institutions which exclude male-bodied people.

Just as it’s not transphobic for women to have their own spaces and institutions which exclude male-bodied people.

Paul Twocock, Chief Executive, Stonewall said: ‘There is no truth to reports of Stonewall ‘splitting’, so please ignore the alarmist headlines. These stories don’t refer to any current Stonewall staff or trustees. There is no equality for lesbian, gay and bi people without equality for trans people. We’re all united in our mission to achieving acceptance without exception for all LGBT people.’

Sad about the name, but leaving that aside (stop sniggering you there in the back) – why is there no equality for lesbian, gay and bi people without equality for trans people? Equality meaning what, exactly? If it means “acceptance” then what does that mean?

We know what it means with respect to LGB people: that love and attraction to people of one’s own sex is not oooky or sinister and not a reason to persecute or shun people. But in the case of trans people it’s no longer enough to say not oooky or sinister and not a reason to persecute or shun, now the imperative is to say everyone is required to believe trans people’s claims to be the other sex, in all cases, no matter what, no matter how obviously opportunistic and cynical. That’s a different kind of thing. It’s more intrusive, more demanding, more inquisitorial, much more apt to get up in your face and start demanding what you really believe. It’s different. It’s different, and worse.

And that’s not “equality.” Equality doesn’t mean accepting all of people’s claims about themselves. If it did, people could for instance just claim to be not misogynist or racist, and that would be the end of it. Would that lead to equality for women and people of color? Like hell it would.

Whoopsie, it seems the brave rebels who stormed their own Congress have realized they’re getting themselves in trouble. Caroline Orr @RVAWonk:

They’re all realizing that live-tweeting from inside SCIF is a huge security breach and now they’re trying to tweet their way out of it.

It’s staff tweeting! We’re not tweeting!

Oh look, another one:

I’m not quite sure it becomes not a security breach if they send it to staff who then send it to the world. I kind of think it’s the whole sending it thing that’s the breach. Could be wrong.

Meanwhile Trump is busy winning hearts and minds by calling critics in the Republican party “human scum.”

The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!

Naturally I learned this because “human scum” is trending on Twitter. Of course it is.

Also – he pinned the tweet!

He’s frantically RTing Ever Trumpers staging their coup.

Like Rep. Jody Hice (Georgia):

Stepping out of Schiff’s dungeon for a quick update. Members and the thousands of constituents they represent have a right to know what’s going on in this “impeachment inquiry.” Schiff’s efforts to hide this process from the American people will not stand. #StopTheSchiffShow

But her emails.

God, these people.

Representative Mark Walker (North Carolina):

UPDATE: We are in the SCIF and every GOP Member is quietly listening. Meanwhile, Adam Schiff, clearly peeved that he will no longer be able to hide his impeachment sham, is threatening Ethics punishment for all of us. His fake intimidation can’t hide his lies–Open the process!

His profile:

US Congressman. @housegop Vice Chair. Ranking Member on Subcommittee for Intelligence and Counterterrorism. Former Pastor

Rep. Matt Gaetz (Florida) advertising his upcoming show this morning:

COMING UP: Rep. Matt Gaetz will lead a delegation of Republican members of Congress to the House Intelligence Committee deposition, where they will demand increased transparency and inclusion in the impeachment process from House Democrats. WATCH LIVE: https://facebook.com/CongressmanMattGaetz

And his show in progress:

I’m gathered here with dozens of my congressional colleagues underground in the basement of the Capitol. If behind those doors they intend to overturn the results of an American presidential election, we want to know what’s going on. #StopTheSchiffShow

“Stop the Schiff Show” is cute because you know you’re meant to think Shit Show haha so funny just like Trump calling him Adam Shit haha that’s where we are now.

Again, this is Republicans, the lawnorder party, breaking every rule in the book to try to protect the criminal treacherous lying president from lawful investigation by colleagues in Congress. That’s what this is.