Willoughby sees what isn’t there.

It would be funny if it weren’t so disgusting. A bunch of smiling women, and loony man who hates women sees “psycho coldness.”

The people behind yesterday’s conference:

The “show more” is just the source: (Dhejne 2011).

But wait.

…bother to investigate further.

WHAT?????

A 20-fold increase in suicides? And this has been kept secret all this time??

Hello, BBC, Guardian, NY Times, Washington Post – any comment?

Labour continues to be confused about what the word “woman” means.

And while a proud socialist, [Angela Rayner] is clear that first and foremost she’s a pragmatist. “Ideology never put food on my table,” is one of her top lines. Another: “We can’t fix everything overnight.” She has also said she is “hardline” on law and order, and pro-security (her brother served in Iraq). When I ask how Labour will handle the accusation from Tories that “Keir doesn’t know what a woman is”, she says, without acknowledging any shift, “Yeah, sure. We have biological women and we have trans women. And they’re both women: one is a biological woman through sex, and one is a trans woman who has transitioned. Most of the public can get that.”

Ok then, we have two kinds of Angela Rayner: one who is biological and one who has transitioned.

We have two kinds of everything: one that is real, and one that is just assertion.

Most of the public can repeat lies if they’re bullied hard enough, but that’s not quite the same as genuinely believing the lies.

The binder-promoting doctor (Dr Ronx Ikharia) was at the aggressive “protest” yesterday. The Daily Mail is the source:

A CBBC presenter has been accused of leading a transgender rights mob that yesterday set off smoke bombs and tried to storm a conference on gender issues.

Dr Ronx Ikharia, who presents Operation Ouch!, was seen using a loud hailer outside a meeting of doctors and academics at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London.

Police and security staff clashed with dozens of activists who set off smoke bombs and tried to get into the building, but no arrests were made.

Just imagine if the people inside had been holding a trans conference and the people outside had been gender skeptics. Do we think arrests would have been made?

Inside the venue, experts from the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (Can-SG) discussed issues such as the dangers of sex-change drugs for children.

Ouch!

In a speech outside the First Do No Harm conference, Dr Ronx said: ‘I am a doctor of 13 years, I am a trans, non-binary doctor and Can-SG is doing harm.’

What is “trans, non-binary”? Besides opposites?

Anyway, as for harm – how is Dr Ikharia (Ronx is her first name) not doing harm by encouraging confused teenage girls to wear binders?

Dr Ronx, 40, presents alongside twin doctors Chris and Xand van Tulleken on the popular children’s health show Operation Ouch! 

Last night, Stephanie Davies-Arai, of campaign group Transgender Trend, said: ‘A CBBC presenter should not be involved in protests against evidence-based medical care for children. That Dr Ronx led a protest that prevented attendees from accessing the conference is a serious public order infraction.’

In an Instagram post yesterday, Dr Ronx said: ‘To see people who are ‘professionals’ tut, frown and take pictures of us as if we are the enemy whilst accessing the conference was not nice. The intellectualisation of trans bodies frames our existence as debatable.’ 

Oh ffs. That “intellectualisation” is how medicine is made effective and safe as opposed to futile and dangerous. And the issue is not the “existence” of people who call themselves trans, the issue is the claims about magical changeable “gender.” At age 40 you should be all grown up.

Oh, your ribs are popping out and you can’t breathe? Well try this other binder.

The campaign to make everyone stupider continues.

The “disproportionate representation” of William Shakespeare in the theatre has propagated “white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender male narratives”, according to researchers in an £800,000 taxpayer-funded project.

Funny how they never mention class, isn’t it. Could that be because they are all, to a person, bourgeois as fuck?

But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that Shakespeare is not “disproportionately” represented. His representation is proportionate, because he was better than anyone else. He just was; sorry if that hurts the feelings of people who aren’t as good at their jobs as Shakespeare was at his.

The researchers want to challenge the “normative trend” in “classical theatre” arising from “the disproportionate representation of William Shakespeare in scholarship and performance”.

In response they are mounting a production of a comedy by Shakespeare’s contemporary John Lyly, Galatea, which features characters disguised as the opposite sex. The researchers say the play offers “an unparalleled affirmative and intersectional demographic, exploring feminist, queer, transgender and migrant lives”.

Um. Have these people even seen or read any Shakespeare? At all? He features characters disguised as the opposite sex in some of his plays. Hello, Twelfth Night? As You Like It? They’re all about characters disguised as the opposite sex.

They say the play “has almost no stage history since 1588”, adding that “Diverse Alarums”, the name of the project, “will transform this state of affairs with a unique combination of methods, ranging across early modern studies, practice-as-research, audience studies, qualitative research, trans, queer and disability studies”.

I wonder if it has ever crossed their minds that that could be because it’s not all that good? That if it had been all that good it probably would have had a stage history after 1588? That neglect is not always a mistake? That good things are better than bad ones?

It’s not some kind of weird put-up job or conspiracy of the bosses that Shakespeare can still find an audience. It’s because he was so damn good at his job. Ben Jonson discovered this to his own surprise when he read the First Folio. He had seen Shakespeare as a rival and as over-rated by the company (The Queen’s/King’s Men), but when the First Folio was published and he whipped through it he had to admit the guy had a talent.

Writing for the website Before Shakespeare, Andy Kesson, the project’s principal investigator, said that “masculinity and nationalism were crucial motivating factors in the rise of Shakespeare as the arbiter of literary greatness” and that “[w]e need to be much, much more suspicious of Shakespeare’s place in contemporary theatre”.

No, we really don’t. That would be a suspicion too many.

Oh really. Two women? Are you sure about that?

Nope they’re not women.

Not women.

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on We’re not confused or misinformed, we’re not believers.

I just listened to an old TEDx talk, and an observation stuck out: “When you start to humanize your enemy, you in turn may be dehumanized by your community.” When you start to treat the enemy (i.e., gender skeptics) as humans having potentially reasonable concerns and moral perspectives (i.e., as humans rather than transphobic demons), you lose status within your own group.

It’s the same phenomenon that leads to purity spirals, witch trials, and heretics’ exiles. It’s why apostasy is the gravest sin. To admit the possibility that the enemy is merely an opponent and not The Adversary signals to the group that your loyalty is not absolute. To have a member of the community exhibit dissent would signal that dissent doesn’t compromise humanity and dignity. As a form of memetic self-defense, the communal belief system cannot suffer the heretic, and so the heretic must be made an unperson.

I can’t get enough of the Trump Shouting He Does Too So Have 500 Million Dollars story.

After having reached out to several guarantors and 30 suretors for help posting his $464 million New York bank fraud bond, Donald Trump suddenly wants everyone to know he actually does have the cash.

In a bizarre rant on Friday morning, the man who was found to have defrauded banks and investors by overvaluing himself and the value of his properties claimed that he had accrued the wealth by way of “HARD WORK, TALENT, AND LUCK.”

AND TYPING IN ALL CAPS AT ALL TIMES.

The confession directly contradicts a filing from his legal team last month arguing that it would be “impossible” to secure a bond covering the full amount of the multimillion-dollar ruling.

Trump’s words will surely help out New York Attorney General Letitia James, who on Wednesday urged an appeals court to ignore Donald Trump’s latest effort to worm his way out of paying the $464 million disgorgement from his bank fraud trial.

No no no but see that money is supposed to be for his campaign. The New York AG can’t have it because he intends it for his campaign. Do you get it now?

Monday should be interesting.

The Telegraph:

Doctors at a gender-critical conference were ambushed by “aggressive” masked protesters who let off a smoke bomb and had to be held back by police. Dozens of officers were required to prevent the demonstrators gaining entrance to the first conference of the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender conference held on Saturday in London.

Video footage showed the protesters, dressed mainly in black and waving flags, blocking the entrance and jostling with police.

Other video footage, which the Telegraph apparently hadn’t seen, showed the protesters doing their best to smash the glass doors at the entrance and very nearly forcing at least one door open.

Held at the headquarters of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), the conference brought together doctors, academics and parents “to discuss current controversies in the care of children and young people with gender-related distress…”

And a small but foul group of fanatics felt entitled to stop them.

And here’s the view from the other side of the doors.

I have to wonder why the police are all bunched up at the back doing not much, instead of at the front keeping the “activists” from smashing the glass doors and entering the building.

Unbelievable.

I guess they’re team Do All the Harm You Can?

H/t Mostly cloudy

This is just unabashed sadistic bullying.

They booked the stand at least three weeks ago, and the bullies wait until the last minute to say “Nope we changed our minds hahaha neener neener.”

Filia’s statement:

Women’s rights charity FiLiA had booked a stand at Plaid Cymru Conference, hoping to use the opportunity to talk to delegates and Plaid Cymru politicians about a range of grass roots campaigns they support.

With less than 48 hours to go, the charity was told that they would not be welcome, and their stall booking was revoked.

FiLiA hosts the largest annual grassroots feminist conference in Europe. In 2022 FiLiA spent a year in Cardiff in the lead up to an event that saw over 1,500 women from Wales and beyond attend to discuss topics ranging from family courts to police perpetrated abuse, the environment, migration and motherhood.

Throughout 2022 FiLiA supported local women to learn to swim, campaign and make banners. We launched the international Hague Mothers project and held sessions in fundraising, art for women with mental health issues and more.

Never mind all that; men who pretend to be women don’t like it, and they get the last word no matter what.

The reason given by Plaid Cymru for excluding FiLiA from their conference is as follows:

 

“While there are many issues and campaigns on which I expect we would agree, it has come to my attention that some of FiLiA’s positions are potentially contrary to the party’s values – for instance on trans rights.

For instance??? Give me a break. We all know that’s the only issue that counts and the only one that prompts people to act like shits in this way.

We welcome robust debate, but must balance this with the need for our delegates from all backgrounds to feel as though the party conference is a safe space for them to express their identity comfortably.

What? What need is that? How are feminist women going to feel as though the party conference is a safe space for them to express their identity comfortably?

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Care is needed.

The guidance follows the BBC apologizing to Rowling twice last year. The Harry Potter author was accused of transphobia by trans rights advocates, but the claim was not properly challenged by presenters….

This is what happens when the accusation is simply repeated without challenge. It becomes taken for granted, in a smoke/fire sort of way, that Rowling must be transphobic if all these people are accusing her of being so. By assuming they are acting in good faith (or at least pretending they are), they fail to check whether or not her statements are “transphobic” at all. In bypassing this crucial step, they short-circuit their fact-checking process and uncritically take on board as accurate the aggrieved parties’ particular, peculiar definition of what is transphobic, which, as we have seen, activists are quick to apply to bland statements of what would normally be considered uncontroversial fact. This results in organizations like the BBC acting as political operatives for trans activism, employing activist language and talking points, passing off their now partisan stance as “neutrality.” Their unwillingness or reluctance to admit to capture (when it’s so obvious to everyone else) is even more infuriating, and simply further erodes their credibility.

It added that “careful and accurate use of language” is important and thought should be given to terms that some audience members may find problematic.

Yes, like calling trans identified males “transwomen” when they are not women of any kind at all. Ditto with using incorrect, female-specific pronouns to refer to them. Is there any other group for which the BBC uses novel, idiosyncratic redefinitions of common terms at the behest of activists with a vested interest?

“Some of the terms used, for example ‘cis-gender’ to identify a person who has the same sex and gender identity, are not familiar to many of our audience and may be considered offensive by some,”

They damn well are considered extremely offensive by many. Having sneering men in lipstick shout at us for our “cis” privilege is more than annoying, yes.

And it’s not just a matter of clarity, comprehension, or even offence, it’s a matter of accuracy as well. The concept of “gender identity” and its “alignment” or lack thereof with a given individual’s material, biological body is essentially a religious one. The BBC has accepted what amounts to a particular theological concept with little or no connection to reality, and is viewing the world through the lens of this concept in its reporting on aspects of reality over which this religious stance claims authority and special knowledge. It’s big of the BBC condescending to inform us in this notification what “cis-gender” means, when there’s likely no such thing as “gender identity” at all. It’s a misplaced confidence in knowledge they think is real. Why must we become “familiar” with fictional, delusional ideas in order to understand a BBC show? Telling us what the concepts mean doesn’t make them any more real. We’re not confused or misinformed, we’re not believers. It’s ironic that the BBC and other news outlets continue to refer to the everyday understanding of the reality of the immutable, binary nature of sex as a “belief,” (as if they were some obscure bit of improbable doctrine adhered to by a small sect who must be, begrudgingly, placated) when it is “gender identity” itself that is the obscure belief that pretends not just to orthodoxy, but to reality.

The BBC has decided that the “consecrated” wine and bread really are the Body and Blood of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and suggest that anyone who claims that they’re just bread and wine is not only misinformed and ignorant, but bigoted and hateful.

Webb was deemed to have broken editorial rules when he said “trans women, in other words males” during an item discussing whether biological males have an advantage in chess.

Davie said BBC journalists are “doing a very good job” in difficult circumstances, but argued that Webb was guilty of “foot fault” in his language during the August 2023 broadcast.

For those in the are not familiar to the term, a “foot fault” is (in tennis, squash, and similar games) an infringement of the rules made by incorrect placement of the feet when serving.

But tell us where he was factually incorrect. “Trans women” are males. That is a neutral statement of fact. To say that saying this out loud breaks some kind of rule shows just how far Davie and the BBC have internalized gender ideology, and how poorly they understand the very concept of “neutrality.” He is expecting everyone in the Beeb’s employ to toe the genderist line and self-censor accordingly. Davie might want to consider rethinking policy, and issuing Webb his own apology, before continuing down the path he has chosen for the corporation which will result, inevitably, in the need for even more apologies to Rowling in the future.

Gender activism:

Radio-Canada’s headquarters in Montreal was vandalized by far-left extremists last Wednesday, an act claimed online as a rebuttal to the controversial report on gender transition therapy for minors. 

Sounds like Samuel Johnson dissing Bishop Berkeley by kicking a stone and saying “I refute it thus!” (A story that’s probably apocryphal.) I rebut your controversial report by smashing your windows, so nyah!

An anonymous submission was published to Montréal Contre-Information’s website titled “Radio-Canada has blood on its hands: a look back at the shop windows destroyed on the night of March 12-13.”

The letter confirmed that activists destroyed the windows of the Radio-Canada building in response to the organization’s “decision to use its broad platform to amplify transphobic rhetoric akin to that of the extreme right.”

Blah blah blah. You’re men. Get over it.

The act of vandalism comes in the wake of the broadcast of “Trans Express,” an investigation by Radio-Canada that highlighted a 14-year-old girl in Quebec quickly obtaining a prescription for cross-sex hormones without consent from their parents or a medical referral.

HER! Her parents, you dolts! You just said she’s a girl.

While Radio-Canada’s investigative report showcased a teenager getting a prescription for cross-sex hormones in only nine minutes, it also showcased trans youth in Quebec who detransitioned, claiming that they were rushed into irreversible transitions by healthcare providers who they said did little to address their pre-existing mental health conditions. 

Well they’re all transphobes, aren’t they. Tell us where their windows are so that we can smash them.

H/t Mostly Cloudy

BBC finally gets a clue.

BBC presenters have been told to challenge guests who accuse others of transphobia after the broadcaster admitted that news items on J.K. Rowling fell short of its editorial standards. In an internal briefing note, BBC journalists and production teams were advised that “care is needed” when people are labeled “transphobic” and the term should be interrogated during on-air debate. The advice featured in a nine-page document on “reporting sex and gender” circulated to the BBC newsroom late last year.

Better yet they could just stop using the word at all. The whole point of it is to convince everyone that it’s both evil and irrational to be aware that men are not women. That’s a ludicrous place to start from. It’s not a phobia to know that men like India Willoughby and Frieda Wallace are not women and are in fact virulently misogynist. The raging phobes in this conflict are generally not on Team Women.

But it’s a start, anyway.

The guidance follows the BBC apologizing to Rowling twice last year. The Harry Potter author was accused of transphobia by trans rights advocates, but the claim was not properly challenged by presenters, including Radio 4’s Evan Davis.

Meaning he simply repeated it, yeah? Thanks, bro.

It added that “careful and accurate use of language” is important and thought should be given to terms that some audience members may find problematic. “Some of the terms used, for example ‘cis-gender’ to identify a person who has the same sex and gender identity, are not familiar to many of our audience and may be considered offensive by some,” the briefing said.

They damn well are considered extremely offensive by many. Having sneering men in lipstick shout at us for our “cis” privilege is more than annoying, yes.

Davie gave evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee this week amid concern over a BBC complaint unit ruling against Radio 4 Today show presenter Justin Webb last month. Webb was deemed to have broken editorial rules when he said “trans women, in other words males” during an item discussing whether biological males have an advantage in chess.

Davie said BBC journalists are “doing a very good job” in difficult circumstances, but argued that Webb was guilty of “foot fault” in his language during the August 2023 broadcast. Davie downplayed a report in The Daily Telegraph this week, which claimed that BBC employees had written to him “in their droves to express dismay” at the way Webb had been treated.

What, just because the BBC is punishing its journalists for mentioning that men are not women? Picky picky, right?

Come on Beeb. Maintain a grip on the truth and on the balance of power between men and women.

H/t What a Maroon

Trump admits – or rather brags – that he has the money. He just doesn’t want to spend it. He wants other people to do that, like the many gullible people who respond to his pleas for cash for his “campaign” (his campaign to make everyone else pay his expenses, that would be).

Former President Donald Trump claimed early Friday morning that he has “almost” $500 million in cash, undercutting his lawyers’ claims that he would not be able to comply with the $464 million judgment against him and his co-defendants in the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

You’d think he wouldn’t want to claim that, seeing as how he is at the same time demanding $$$ from his gullible fan base.

“Through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in all caps. “The often overturned political hack judge on the rigged and corrupt A.G. case, where I have done nothing wrong, knew this, wanted to take it away from me, and that’s where and why he came up with the shocking number which, coupled with his crazy interest demand, is approximately $454,000,000.”

Therefore, kindly send me cash now. Hurry up.

Trump hasn’t contributed any of his own money to his presidential campaigns since 2016. He had floated in 2020 that he’d personally spend what it took to win re-election, but did not do so.

…

Earlier this week, Trump’s presidential campaign asked his supporters for money in a fundraising memo, which said, “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia James wants to SEIZE my properties in New York. THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!”

Rich crook tells people to donate money to him.

[Edit: Sorry, I seem to have forgotten to include the source!]

Oh Jeeezus christ.

This is just reducing a really serious issue to –

Interviewer tells him to answer the question.

Well look, everybody knows there’s a difference between sex and gender, and I absolutely understand that, and respect that, we will not be going down the road of self-identification –

Interviewer asks “Are trans women women?”

Well look Harry –

Interviewer says “It’s a fair comment, it’s a fair question.”

Look…forrrrrrr…as you well know, the overwhelming majority of women, it’s a biological issue, it’s an issue that is absolutely central

Interviewer interjects with something about percentages.

There are some people, there’s a small number of people in this country who are born into a gender they don’t identify with.

End of clip.

Yo, sir, what if there’s a small number of people in this country who identify as Keir Starmer? You gonna let them all sleep in your bed with you?

Sir, it’s not our fault that you exaggerated the worth of your properties.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is pushing back on Donald Trump’s “extraordinary” request for a stay of his $464 million civil fraud judgment, arguing the former president’s recent request was unreliable, procedurally improper and based on a flawed premise.

“There is nothing unusual about even billion-dollar judgments being fully bonded on appeal,” Senior Assistant Solicitor General Dennis Fan said in a filing this morning. “Defendants object to a possible ‘fire sale’ if they were to sell assets to generate cash to use as collateral for a bond or as a deposit —but the alternative would be to shift the risk of executing on defendants’ illiquid assets to OAG.”

Of course defendants object to a potential fire sale, but in Trump’s case…well, nobody cares.

The AG argued that the former president has failed to demonstrate his effort to secure a bond using properties as collateral, suggesting the issue is a product of Trump’s doing because his “holdings are not nearly as valuable as defendants claim.”

What do you mean??? They’re all worth at least a trillion dollars each.

“Defendants supply no documentary evidence that demonstrates precisely what real property they offered to sureties, on what terms that property was offered, or precisely why the sureties were unwilling to accept the assets,” the filing said. “As far as the Court can infer, sureties may have refused to accept defendants’ specific holdings as collateral because using Mr. Trump’s real estate will generally need ‘a property appraisal’ … and his holdings are not nearly as valuable as defendants claim.”

Oh, I see. Trump wanted the sureties to just say “Of course, Don, what’s ours is yours, no need for any pesky appraisal, let us know if you need a kidney.”

Trump is trying to get the peons to pay his legal bills.

Donald Trump has sent out a panicked fundraising message to his supporters as he begs them to help foot his ballooning legal bills.

The desperate memo, titled “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower!”, comes as the Monday deadline to pay his $464m bond in his New York fraud trial judgement ticks ever closer.

I wonder how many shlubs will think it makes sense for them to help Trump hang on to his expensive luxuries.

The frantic tone of the plea stands in stark contrast to the statement issued by Trump spokesman Steven Cheung to CNN on Wednesday in which he dismissed the network’s reporting that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was in “panic mode” over the matter as “pure bullshit and fake news”.

…

With interest ticking ever-upwards at 9 per cent or $120,000 per day, the exact total he owes at the time of writing (Thursday 21 March) stands at a staggering $467.6m, according to the helpful Trump Debt Counter website.

…

The former president has hotly objected to a “fire sale” of his property empire – selling off assets to generate cash to meet the bond.

And instead, he wants people who have far less money than he does to bail him out. That seems fair.

Assuming his legal team cannot secure a pause in the enforcement of the financial portion of the judgement in the meantime, allowing Monday’s deadline to pass would enable Ms James to begin taking charge of his assets and leave Mr Trump to gamble on him being able to recover them later via an appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Welp, next week could be interesting.