The BBC continues its futile struggle to convince us that what sex a person is can be that person’s very own choice.

You might have heard the term non-binary. People use it when they don’t fit into the categories of female or male.

No, people use it when they’re vain and self-absorbed enough to think they’re Not Like You Tame Conventional Peons.

Caitlin Benedict came out as non-binary last year. But as they’ve found, it doesn’t mean they know all the answers straight away. In fact, they had so many questions, they decided to make a podcast about it.

Save yourself the trouble, Caitlin! Just catch on that we all “feel we don’t fit” into some category or other and get over yourself.

My friend and co-presenter Amrou talks about how hard it is for some people to get their heads around using “they” and “them” for us, rather than “he” or “her”. They once told me about the time someone had said to them, “Excuse me, he uses they/them pronouns.” How I laughed at the irony. Of course I wouldn’t do anything like that, I thought: I am a perfect woke non-binary person. But literally a week later, I fumbled over someone’s pronouns and said to Amrou, “Oh, does he use ‘they’?”

Being non-binary doesn’t make you suddenly immune from doing silly, offensive things. But I’ve learned from having people trip over themselves to apologise (with a 15 minute backstory that feels a lot like an excuse sometimes) for calling me “she” instead of “they”. The best thing you can do is say sorry and then just get on with it.

No, the best thing you can do is stop setting these ridiculous traps and just get on with your life.

I kept a few little bits of makeup: the eyebrow stuff that makes my eyebrows even darker and bushier than they come naturally, but also a little pot of pale brown shimmery eye shadow. I hadn’t even bought it. It was given to me by a friend. I kept it but I didn’t wear it. How could anyone take me seriously as a non-binary person with my girly face AND girly eyeshadow on top of that?

I brought this up with Jamie Windust, editor of FRUITCAKE magazine, when Amrou and I got to speak with them for the podcast. “Why would it be gendered?” they said. I was embarrassed. Of course there are conventions – makeup is for girls, rejecting all skincare until you look like you’ve lived in the Arctic all winter is for boys. But those conventions feel so restrictive, so pointless. I am learning not to think about them. Instead, I’m trying to make every decision based on how I feel and what I think.

Right. Now ditch the “non-binary” part. See how that works? Ditch the conventions, without claiming to be fascinatingly special. Ditch the conventions without talking about yourself.

Jeezus.

Scottish police have been accused of targeting JK Rowling by inventing a fictional character called “Jo” who thinks that sex is binary and bizarrely calls for transgender people to be sent to gas chambers.

“Bizarrely” is not the right word.

Let’s get one thing straight: there’s no wiggle room here for Scottish police to say oh they didn’t mean Jo Rowling. Of course they did. They’re obsessed with “trans rights” and evil people who don’t believe trans ideology. Of course they didn’t call this gas chambers fan “Jo” at random with no reference to JKR intended whatsoever at all.

At an official Police Scotland hate crime event, attendees were presented with a “scenario” in which Jo is described as a passionate gender-critical campaigner who, like Rowling, believes people cannot change sex and has a large social media following.

Women’s groups claimed the character was a thinly veiled parody of the Harry Potter author, whose Christian name is Joanne and is called Jo by her friends, and fuelled unfounded conspiracies that there was a link between gender-critical beliefs and Nazism.

It’s not a parody, it’s an incitement, and of course the Harry Potter author is the target.

The hate crime “youth engagement” event, held in February, was part of a programme of events organised by Police Scotland for LGBT history month.

Ahead of the enforcement of controversial new hate crime laws coming into force on April 1, other sessions were given to police officers in which concerns about male-bodied people having access to women’s facilities were mocked and described as “completely ludicrous”.

This is the cops, don’t forget, not a bunch of dim-witted kids talking nonsense. This is the police. (Why exactly is it ludicrous for women to fear men having access to our locker rooms and toilets? Please do explain, Ossifers.)

The hate crime event, which was supported by Police Scotland and jointly organised by the Scottish LGBTI Police Association and the Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) campaign group, invited attendees to consider the case of “Jo”.

She is described as an “online influencer” who is “very active” on social media platforms TikTok and Instagram, with a “large following”. Rowling is active on X, formerly Twitter, and has 14 million followers.

The fictional scenario states that Jo “travels around university campuses” to “debate her beliefs about the LGBTI community”. It states that Jo “often gets very passionate about her beliefs and will say things like ‘there are only two genders’” and “too many attention-seeking wannabes”. Rowling regularly expresses similar sentiments on social media. The scenario concludes by stating “Jo posted her most recent video with the caption ‘they all belong in the gas chambers’”.

The police did that. The police.

I’m honestly having a hard time believing it. The gas chambers bit is just…I don’t have the words.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany Room.

Here’s a story I came across from Canadian Press that has been carried on a number of news services:

Transgender people bear brunt of misinformation about gender identity, experts say

(They have no idea how true that is, but not in the way they’re thinking; trans identified people pay with their health and well-being for the misinformation they’re fed. I’d say that’s “bearing the brunt” alright. This story contains some of that very disinformation from these “experts.”)

Dupré Latour, a trans woman who grew up in West Africa and immigrated to Canada five years ago so she could affirm her gender identity, believes that religion, stereotypes and misconceptions help people justify their hate.

Well what about the lies, intimidation, and denial of reality? I can imagine that one could develop an antipathy towards transgenderism without needing to draw upon religion. There are plenty of “stereotypes” and “misconceptions” within genderism itself, and I wouldn’t trust this man’s definition of “hate.”

She is saddened that many believe that transgender identity is merely a trend.

I don’t care how sad he is, social contagion is a thing, and it preys upon confused youth, many of whom are suffering from other problems, none of which will be solved by transing them. Many, if not most, of these children and youth would, if not shunted into the “gender affirming” pathway, desist, and grow up to be gays and lesbians. How real can it be if it’s something you can grow out of? If it looks like a trend, and walks like a trend, and talks like a trend, it can’t very well be fundamental and innate, can it?

“But we’ve always been there,

Nope.

…it’s just that now, we are in an environment, in a favourable era, but it’s not a trend: these are people who make sacrifices, people who don’t love themselves, who look in the mirror and hate themselves and who have no choice to go through this to live their lives in the image of what society expects.”

The sacrifices are no proof that it’s not part of a trend. People will do any number of harmful, deluded things in persuit of something that is not real. And as for self hatred, and problems with self image, see above regarding comorbidities that transing won’t fix.

Advocates have for years said that misinformation clouds much of the debate over transgender rights in Canada, especially when it comes to youth.

Advocates think that puberty blockers are like a pause button; Advocates think that puberty blockers are safe when used off-label. They believe that it’s possible to go through the “wrong” puberty, whereas a human body is primed to go through just one, which will happen only once. There is no “choice” in the matter, no Door Number Two, no Plan B. Blockers prevent the natural growth and development programmed into the body. Disrupting that is not hitting “pause.” There is no alternative puberty that can be offered the person denied the one and only puberty they will ever have a chance of experiencing. To suggest otherwise is clouding misinformation.

Not allowing the use of preferred pronouns can heighten levels of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts among non-binary and transgender youth, said Annie Pullen Sansfaçon, a professor at the Université de Montréal’s department of social work and a gender identity researcher for the past 15 years.

And how much of that is because they’ve been told that’s what they’re “supposed” to be feeling? No discussion of gender identity touching on children fails to claim this; kids doing their own “research” and self-diagnosing as trans are going to see this formula all the time. It’s become part of the script, it’s part of what kids have been told is key to getting their own way. It’s what’s expected of them. It’s a bunch of self-selected subjects and no control group.

GRIS-Montréal, a community organization, has been holding workshops and conferences in schools about sexual orientation for 30 years. Since 2017, the organization has also broached the realities of gender identity.

Great; forced teaming. Though I have to laugh at the oxymoronic idea of “the realities of gender identity.” As if.

Marie Houzeau, the organization’s general manager, said the same prejudices and myths that existed in relation to homosexuality in the past are now transposed to gender identity, ..

Bullshit.

…even though it’s established that one cannot influence the orientation or gender identity of someone else.

More bullshit. If people couldn’t be “influenced” in regards to their “genderidentity” there would be no detransitioners.

She said there is a huge disparity in the amount of reliable information circulating in schools.

“We know that young people receive a lot of information through social media, some follow influencers and that constitutes their main source of information,” Houzeau said.

“We also know the phenomenon of algorithms and echo chambers that ensure that young people only receive information that is in line with what they already think, it can lead to misinformation for some people if they follow people who themselves have opinions based on misinformation.”

Yes, and you’re not doing that at all, are you?

On the other hand, some youth have the right information and can share it with their peers to help debunk transition and treatment myths, she said.

What do you consider to be the “right” information? What myths are you passing off as truth? What’s your take on puberty blockers? Do you think that sex is “assigned” at birth? Is there more than one sex? Can humans change sex?

Pullen Sansfaçon said one common misconception is about puberty blockers — medication prescribed to adolescents who are beginning a gender transition. She stressed these drugs are not given to children before puberty hits.

The medication is not permanent and simply slows down the puberty process, buying time for a young person to weigh their decision more carefully. If a person stops taking it, puberty resumes its course within a few months, Pullen Sansfaçon said.

Hey look, there’s a myth right there, the pause button. The vast majority of children put on blockers end up being given wrong sex hormones.

According to recent studies, gender-affirming care has psychosocial and mental health benefits for youth. During adolescence, hormone blockers reduce the risk of suicidal ideation.

But other studies have caused several countries to stop the use of blockers for children, and found that gender affirming care does not result in improvement in mental health issues or suicidality. And let’s not forget the damning revelations of the WPATH papers and what they mean for the entire concept of “best practices” in “gender affirming care.”

“These are medications that can save a person’s life,” Pullen Sansfaçon said.

These are experimental procedures that can permanently fuck up a person’s life.

It’s the same thing for gender-affirming surgeries.

Indeed, these can permanently fuck up a person’s life.

The Canadian Paediatric Society says age cutoffs for funding such surgeries vary by province and territory in Canada, but genital reconstructive surgery is restricted to individuals who are 18 or older.

But the genitals aren’t being “reconstructed,” they’re removed and replaced with a non-functioning resemblance of the other sex’s organs. Just as a glass eye is not actually a functional eye that restores sight when worn, a “neo-vagina” isn’t a vagina at all; a “neo-penis” is not a penis. Sexual function is not restored, it is lost.

Top surgery to remove or augment breast tissue is generally limited to those 16 and older.

Using the euphemism “top surgery” to replace the more accurate (and unavoidably more charged) double mastectomy is dishonest and minimalizing. You’re not changing a t-shirt, you’re removing healthy breasts.

A followup with a psychologist is also required. Sam Lajeunesse, a 43-year-old trans man, can attest to its benefits.

What about more psychological consultation beforehand? If gender clinicians were really concerned for their patients’ well-being, the best case scenario would be desistance through watchful waiting. That would be their first, best choice for resolving or dealing with their patients’ issues. A pathway that avoids pharmaceutical and surgical interventions should be considered a better course than one that requires more aggressive “treatment.” But watchful waiting is now off the table, thanks to “experts” like these.

Pullen Sansfaçon said that some effects of hormone therapy can be reversed, sometimes through corrective surgery.

So sometimes the diagnoses are incorrect? Sometimes mistakes are made? And the times when “corrective” surgery can’t “reverse” the effects of hormone therapy? Ooops.

Medical and surgical help for young transgender and non-binary people isn’t new; standards of care have been set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health since 1998 and have been updated over the years.

Oh dear.

Lajeunesse and Latour describe discussions about their gender identity as a sort of eternal “coming out.”

That makes sense, in that they will never become the sex they are not, whatever the course of “treatment.”

“Often, people will say, ‘You’re a man,’ but no, I’m not a man, I’m a trans woman,” she said with pride. “And sometimes, it’s heavy to always have to explain that you can’t address me as a man.”

But you are a man, and nothing you do, nothing done to you, changes that. And I can address you as a man if I like, because that’s what you are. You might have found doctors willing to cater to your delusions, who in turn encouraged you to force others to do the same, but I will not let you dictate my reality. You are not a woman of any kind, and never will be.

And as for “misinformation,” apart from actual right wing bigots, I doubt you’ll find any amount of deception or dishonesty to match the amount and degree employed by genderists on a regular basis. “Gender affirming” clinicians sell promises of the impossible while trivializing, downplaying, and euphemizing the risks and consequences of the regime they are selling. They have joined in the effort to make talk therapy that might lead to desistance illegal, and made the procedures and treatments they are offering sound harmless and reversible, falsely suggesting they offer their patients some kind of “choice” in matters where they can have none, and the ability to make changes that cannot be made.

Hey, here’s an idea, don’t put any religious messages in secular public spaces. But also yes, calling us all “sinners” is especially obnoxious and intrusive. That’s true even when it’s GB News saying it.

Outrage has been sparked by a King’s Cross display board featuring an Islamic teaching that describes people as “sinners” who must “repent.”

On the 9th day of Ramadan, the holiest month for Muslims, the central London train station featured a “Hadith of the day.”

Well don’t. Just don’t. Don’t feature a psalm of the day and don’t feature a hadith of the day. Just leave it alone. You’re a train station, not a church or a mosque. Mosques don’t put up billboards advertising railway journeys, so why should railway stations be advertising Ramadan?

It says: “The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) [Peace Be Upon Him] said: All the sons of Adam are sinners but the best of the sinners are those who repent often.”

Shut up.

A Network Rail spokesperson said: “King’s Cross station is made up of a diverse and multi-cultural workforce and at times of religious significance, messages such as these are displayed to celebrate the station’s diversity and inclusivity.”

It’s the opposite of diversity and inclusivity to announce that we’re all sinners.

Trump has only 5 days…

Donald Trump’s lawyers are asking a New York court to put a $464m (£365m) fine in a civil fraud case on hold, as the former president finds himself in a precarious financial situation that could ultimately see his most prized properties taken. If Mr Trump wants to continue his appeal in the case without the state seizing the fine from him, he must submit the full amount in cash or secure a bond from a private company by 25 March.

But he’s tried to secure a bond and everyone has told him no.

He’s trying to get a stay, and opinions are divided on whether he’ll succeed or not.

Ultimately, if Mr Trump does not get a pause and the court offers no compromise option, he could appeal directly to New York’s Court of Appeals. But with a deadline of 25 March to pay the judgement or post a bond, he is working on a tight timeline and is seeing thousands of dollars in interest added to the penalty sum each day.

Small comfort, but something is better than nothing.

If Mr Trump cannot find a way to pay the fraud judgement or secure a bond by 25 March, Ms James can begin to collect the fee and take his assets. She has said she will do so if he fails to pay.

Experts say this is another worst case scenario for Mr Trump, as he could lose some of his most famous properties. They can take any of his buildings – not just those in New York – including the 58-floor Trump Tower and his sprawling Florida club, Mar-a-Lago.

Oh please please please take Mar-a-Lago. And evict him.

The Telegraph reports that the BBC director general has told MPs that it’s no big deal that the BBC forces its reporters to lie about the sex of Our Trans Siblings.

Tim Davie, BBC director general, accused people of “whipping up” outrage as he defended the corporation’s stance on the topic.

The BBC last month upheld a complaint against Today programme presenter Justin Webb after he described trans women as “males”. The broadcaster’s Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) found Webb had broken impartiality rules after a listener complained the comments amounted to a personal opinion.

But of course it’s not a personal opinion, in the sense of not being an impersonal fact. It is precisely an impersonal fact that men are not women. You could change the words “men” and “women” to whatever arbitrary collection of letters you liked, but the fact behind the words would remain the same.

It’s disturbing that the head honcho of a major news organization doesn’t realize it’s not an “opinion” that men are not women.

Gender-critical activists who believe that sex is biological have accused the public service broadcaster of falling short in its impartiality obligations.

No no no no no, stop. Stop doing that. We don’t “believe” sex is biological. This isn’t some silly personal whim of ours. Go ask some bears, or some swans, or some crows. We know “sex is biological” and we know the BBC knows “sex is biological” and is lying about it and trying to force us to lie about it with them. That’s not going to happen, Beeb.

The Telegraph reported that senior female members of staff have written to Mr Davie to express their concerns about the decision. One wrote: “If the BBC is to censure journalists for being factual we are slipping into very dangerous waters.”

See? Factual. It’s not a god damn “belief” so stop saying it is. The “belief” is that men can be women; the reality is they can’t.

This is how much this horrific ideology has eroded the ability to distinguish between opinion and fact even of outlets like the Telegraph that aren’t generally considered trendy-lefty.

Mr Davie said he did not believe the BBC suffered from institutional bias on trans issues, but added that it was “an area of controversy”. He said: “It’s also an area where I think we need to have confidence in our journalists to ask, talk, discuss these issues. We don’t have no-go areas in the BBC.”

Oh puhleeeeze.

The director general added: “We have to be kind and caring in this and listen to people and be nice.”

Meaning they have to be nice to trans people and their “allies.” They do not have to be nice to women. God no; what an idea.

Civil servant being sued for saying up is not down.

A lawyer and the government department she works with are being sued after she made gender-critical statements at work, including expressing the belief that only women menstruate.

That’s not a belief though. It’s just a fact, a simple humdrum quotidian fact like a billion other facts. It’s not a clever idea to sue people for stating impersonal facts of the type “only women menstruate.”

Her name is Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley and she is a chairwoman of a civil service network that represents staff with gender-critical views.

She is one of three key signatories of an explosive letter sent in October to the cabinet secretary warning the impartiality of the civil service was under threat because anyone with gender-critical views was “openly and unlawfully bullied and harassed”.

She herself is of course being bullied and harassed.

Duemmer Wrigley will appear at an employment tribunal next week accused of harassment for several comments and posts shared in the workplace. An employee of another body affiliated to Defra is suing the government department for allowing the network to exist and Duemmer Wrigley personally for her views.

These include a statement made during a seminar on female autism that “only women menstruate” and a link to My Body is Me!, a book that encourages young children to understand and accept their bodies. A post in which she celebrates “diversity of belief” and explains that being gender-critical is a protected belief has also been penalised.

In short this is yet another of those situations where people are energetically punished and hassled for refusing to lie about basic impersonal facts.

The Sex Equality and Equity Network (Seen) is an official civil service network with more than 700 members in 50 government departments who support the belief that biological sex is binary and immutable. 

But it’s not a belief. See above. Not belief; just basic fact. It shouldn’t need “support.”

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on When fraudulently inflating goes wrong.

It depends how you look at it, I suppose. Disgorgement is a funny remedy in some ways.

Usually civil damages are compensatory — the court is attempting to make the plaintiff whole for a loss it suffered. That’s not what this is, of course. As the Trump defense team insisted repeatedly, the plaintiff in this case (the state of New York) didn’t suffer any monetary loss here. The state can say it was “harmed” in the sense that it has a general interest in promoting fair and honest business practices in its jurisdiction, but that’s a rather amorphous type of harm. The banks who loaned the money all got paid back. Arguably they were “harmed” in the sense that they could have charged a higher interest rate had they known the true facts, but in any event they didn’t sue. We can hypothesize that, but for Trump’s fraud, some other buyer would have purchased these buildings and sold them for a profit, but there’s no way to say who that would have been or what profit they would have made.

A lot of media accounts are referring to the judgment as a “penalty,” and while I wouldn’t say that’s inaccurate, it’s also not the kind of “punitive damages” that people are used to, as in what E. Jean Carroll got.

Did the Trump defendants simply get put back to where they would have been without the fraud? Arguably. But arguably not. The injunctive relief — the restrictions on defendants’ ability to run their business, or any business in NY — certainly put them in a worse position. The monetary component maybe does, because it’s not necessarily true that Trump couldn’t have purchased the properties honestly and still made some or all of the same profits. Or at a minimum, they could have put their funds and collateral to use on other projects where they might have made at least some profit. That’s not unusual in disgorgement cases — essentially, the defendant often loses a lot of the “benefit of the doubt” about what would have happened in the alternative world where defendant behaved properly.

The prejudgment interest is not insignificant, either. And of course there’s the attorneys’ fees and reputational loss (though at this point, Trump’s business reputation may be as low as it can go, and/or a fraud judgment against Trump may help by rallying MAGA donors as much at it hurts). Finally, there’s the timing issue: getting whacked with a judgment of this size all at once, which the Trump defendants apparently lack the liquidity to pay or bond, is worse than simply getting less profits over a period of years.

So, I wouldn’t say that the Trump defendants can just brush this off as a “heads we win, tails we draw, oh well, it came out tails, no big deal, we’d do it all over again if we could” situation. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for feeling this isn’t a big punishment.

Party’s off.

A foundation which stirred controversy by planning to give awards named for the late US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch said on Monday it had canceled the ceremony.

“While we believe each of the honorees is worthy of our respect for their leadership and their notable contributions, the foundation has decided that the planned ceremony in April 2024 will be canceled,” Julie Opperman, chair of the Dwight D Opperman Foundation, said in a statement.

You believe incorrectly. Of all the people whose notable contributions you could have chosen, you chose Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk. They’re both bad people – proudly bad people. They’re bullies, they’re mean, they’re power-mad. You had no business linking them with Ginsburg.

Opperman added: “Justice Ginsburg was known for her civility.”

No she wasn’t! What a stupid thing to say. You might as well say she was known for having arms. I’m confident she was civil but that’s absolutely not what she was “known for.” She was known for doing much more difficult things than being civil.

The move came a day after James Ginsburg, the late justice’s son, called the decision to give Musk and Murdoch RBG awards – originally known as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership awards – a “desecration” of the memory of his mother.

If you want to give Musk and Murdoch awards do that on your own time. It’s grotesque to drag Ginsburg into it.

Ginsburg helped establish the award in her name, saying it would honour “women who have strived to make the world a better place for generations that follow their own, women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility, and who care about the dignity and well being of all who dwell on planet Earth”.

Does not describe Musk and Murdoch, now does it.

H/t Lisa

It starts today.

From next month in Scotland you’ll be able to drop into a sex shop, make an anonymous accusation of hate crime against someone you dislike and potentially see your bete noir locked up. You think I’m joking – that this is an April Fool come early. I only wish it [were]. In two weeks’ time, this will be the law of the land in Scotland under the SNP’s iniquitous Hate Crime Act which makes ‘stirring up hatred’ a criminal offence punishable by 7 years in jail.  

The sex shop in question is an LGBTQ-friendly establishment in Glasgow’s Merchant City. It is a ‘third-party reporting centre’ set up by Police Scotland to make it easier to accuse someone of hate crime. There will be 411 of these snitching centres across Scotland located everywhere from mushroom farms to caravan sites. Trans activists across the land will be able to accuse JK Rowling, 24/7, of being a transphobe. 

I have questions. Isn’t all this accusing someone of hate crime itself “stirring up hatred”? Can’t we in turn just accuse our accuser of “stirring up hatred”? Won’t the whole thing just turn into a dense knot of people accusing each other until they run out of breath?

The trans campaigner India Willoughby has already tried to have the novelist prosecuted for misgendering him/her. After the complaint was dismissed by Northumberland Police, Willoughby’s supporters made clear they will be accusing her in Scotland. They might even succeed.

Oh? We have boatloads of examples of Willz stirring up hatred. He hardly ever does anything else.

The Scottish government’s definition of ‘stirring up hatred’ is so vague that ministers have given up trying to explain it. They just refer you to the Police Scotland website where a hate crime is defined as ‘any crime which is understood by the victim or any other person as being motivated, wholly or partly[,] by malice or ill will towards a social group’. 

Well then it’s a crime we’re all convicted of the second the accusation is made. If all it needs is someone “understanding” what you say as being motivated, wholly or partly by malice or ill will towards a social group then there is no way you can defend yourself against the charge. You can’t prove that your accuser doesn’t understand it that way, and neither can anyone else. Bang: guilty as charged.

The Scottish Police Federation, an organisation not perhaps known for defending freedom of speech, has warned that the law would ‘paralyse freedom of expression for individuals and organisations by threatening prosecution for the mere expression of opinion’. The First Minister, Humza Yousaf, insisted that this was scaremongering and no one could be prosecuted for what they think. However, it is clear that what they say can and will be prosecuted if the ‘victims’ perceive what they think and say to be discriminatory. 

If no one will be prosecuted for what they think, why is the law worded the way it is?

Man bullying woman episode 3 billion.

Scientific American took it upon itself to change the language of that pregnancy study to exclude the word “women” from its findings. What should it change its name to? Bullshit American? Fashionable Nonsense American? Women Don’t Exist American?

Behold, the abstract, with emphasis added:

Pregnancy is a unique neuroplastic period in adult life. This longitudinal study tracked brain cortical changes during the peripartum period and explored how the type of childbirth affects these changes. We collected neuroanatomic, obstetric and neuropsychological data from 110 first-time mothers during late pregnancy and early postpartum, as well as from 34 nulliparous women evaluated at similar time points. During late pregnancy, mothers showed lower cortical volume than controls across all functional networks. These cortical differences attenuated in the early postpartum session. Default mode and frontoparietal networks showed below-expected volume increases during peripartum, suggesting that their reductions may persist longer. Results also pointed to different cortical trajectories in mothers who delivered by scheduled C-section. The main findings were replicated in an independent sample of 29 mothers and 24 nulliparous women. These data suggest a dynamic trajectory of cortical decreases during pregnancy that attenuates in the postpartum period, at a different rate depending on the brain network and childbirth type.

Developments:

Tick tick tick

NPR on the Opperman Foundation absurdity:

The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation has presented the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award to accomplished women including Barbra Streisand and Queen Elizabeth II since its inception in 2019.

But this year, the Opperman Foundation selected four men, including conservative media titan Rupert Murdoch and billionaire Elon Musk, and Martha Stewart. Ginsburg’s family blasted the selection last week, saying the decision is an “affront” to the memory of the late justice and her values.

“This year, the Opperman Foundation has strayed far from the original mission of the award and from what Justice Ginsburg stood for,” Jane Ginsburg, daughter of the Supreme Court justice, said in a statement.

“Strayed from” is putting it politely. Raced away from at 500 mph would be more like it.

“This year we selected leaders in different fields. We honored men for the first time,” Opperman said in a statement. “We thought RBG’s teachings regarding EQUALITY should be practiced. We did not consider politics.”

Yes you honor “teachings regarding EQUALITY” by giving a boost to rich people, white people, straight people, titled people, and above all male people. Giving a boost to women is an affront to EQUALITY.

Stewart, Musk, Murdoch, Michael Milken and Sylvester Stallone were the five “iconic” and “exceptional” recipients of the 2024 RBG Leadership Award, the foundation had said in its initial news release on Wednesday.

Milken, an investment banker famous for creating the junk bond market, was arrested in the late ’80s for securities fraud. After he was released from prison, he built a reputation on his philanthropy. President Trump pardoned Milken in 2020.

Stewart served time in a federal women’s prison from October 2004 through March 2005 for her part in a stock scandal.

Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX, has been accused of antisemitism and, since taking over Twitter — now known as X — reportedly allowed pro-Nazi content to proliferate on the platform, prompting companies to pull ad revenue.

Actor Stallone of Rocky fame has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault, all of which he denies and for which he’s never been charged.

They’re iconic! Also, EQUALITY.

The Opperman Foundation put out a statement yesterday the stupidity of which boggles the mind.

PHOENIX, March 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The purpose of the RBG Leadership Award is to remember Justice Ginsburg and to honor her. She changed America by teaching us that all are EQUAL. The opportunities available to millions of women in the last 50 years speak for itself.

Yes indeed, the opportunities speak for itself. Maybe get an adult to write your press releases in future.

Anyway, no, that’s a very childish and crude summing up of Justice Ginsburg. She focused on the way women were treated as not “EQUAL”. Her point was not “all are EQUAL so let’s keep giving all the prizes to men.” Not even close.

This year we selected leaders in different fields. We honored men for the first time. We thought RBG’s teachings regarding EQUALITY should be practiced. We did not consider politics. Instead, we focused on leaders, who, in their own way, have made significant contributions to society.

Murdoch? What “contributions to society”? Also “RBG’s teachings regarding EQUALITY” were not that men should continue to win all the prizes.

How do people get so confused?

This ought to be 100% parody but IT ISN’T. The award was intended for women…

The organizer behind an honor named for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a lifelong champion of women’s rights and liberal causes, is canceling the award ceremony scheduled for April after facing blistering criticism from her family and friends over several of this year’s planned recipients.

Justice Ginsburg helped establish the award in 2019, the year before she died. It was originally intended for “women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility,” but four of the five intended recipients this year are men. 

That right there is more than bad enough but it gets insultingly worse. Four of this year’s five “planned recipients” are men, and hahaha joke’s on you, bitches, they’re some of the worst men anyone could find.

Among them are Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur who frequently lobs tirades at perceived critics; Rupert Murdoch, the tycoon whose empire helped give rise to conservative news media; and Michael R. Milken, the financier who was a face of corporate greed in the 1980s and served nearly two years in prison before becoming a philanthropist.

I mean seriously?? What is even the point? What is the point of giving an award to Musk and Murdoch and Milken? An award for what? Why do they need an award? Of all the people on the planet those three seemed the most deserving of an award? An award in the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg?? What is the thinking here?

“The last thing we intended was to offend the family and friends of R.B.G.,” Julie Opperman, the chairwoman of Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, which awards the prize every year, said in a statement on Monday. 

Oh fuck off. Never mind anybody’s family and friends; explain what can possibly be the point of giving an award (intended for women) to three of the richest and worst bad men on the planet?

Ms. Opperman explained that the reason for including men as recipients this year was to reflect and uphold Justice Ginsburg’s “teachings regarding equality.”

Yeah great joke but now seriously tell us why you did it.

The foundation “did not consider politics” but focused on selecting leaders who “have made significant contributions to society,” she said.

“Leaders”? What leaders? They’re not leaders, they’re men who made themselves a lot of money.

The intended recipients this year, who also include the businesswoman Martha Stewart and the actor Sylvester Stallone, were scheduled to be honored with the renamed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award at a gala next month at the Library of Congress. 

Why is it renamed? Why leadership? It’s a power-worship move – it’s a grovel to power-loving men who wield their power to break everything and insult everyone. It’s a flaming insult to RBG herself.

H/t Sackbut

Not reassuring.

What he says:

Neale Hanvey: The Hate Crime Act should deeply worry all women and LGB people

2nd October 2023

I MAKE no apology for what I am about to write because it may be the last time I am able to do so. In a few short months, the Scottish Government’s Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 will come into effect and my world and that of women up and down Scotland will enter a very dark place. Our contribution to political discourse will not only be ignored by government, it may cease to be lawful. Discussing the fundamental characteristic that defines us, our sex, is likely to be considered an aggravated hate crime. I still struggle to believe this illiberal control on freedom of thought and expression is happening in Scotland, the country of the Enlightenment, the country that only 10 years ago was gripped by an independence campaign of hope, vision and ambition. Growing up in the industrial macho culture of Fife was no picnic for a young gay guy like me but, despite the challenges of Aids and Section 28, I was able to forge a happy work and home life while being able to demonstrate in the workplace and in public for equality before the law. It was also an extremely tough environment for many women and there was tremendous solidarity between the women’s movement and gay rights movement as we worked together to effect legal protection in statute. Back then, many people had to conceal their sexuality at work lest they were sacked, so finding your crowd behind the blacked-out windows of a gay bar was a release and somewhere you could luxuriate in just being yourself among trusted friends. Life in the 1980s was by no means perfect but I remember those days of solidarity and shared endeavour fondly despite the tragic losses to the ravages of Aids. Under this new legislation, introduced to parliament by the current First Minister when he was justice secretary, that social world and activism of the 1980s is likely to be considered criminal. The legislation’s exclusion of “sex” and “beliefs” as protected characteristics means women do not exist as a sex class for the purposes of the act. This also casts doubt on how anyone can lawfully exercise their now-established Equality Act protections for gender-critical beliefs without that being declared a hate crime.

And although the act includes sexual orientation to be a protected characteristic, it is silent on the definition of sex, so the same applies to lesbians and gay men who are by definition homosexual and attracted exclusively to same-sex partners. [Con]sequently, the disgusting and frequently violent misogynistic abuse meted out against Joanna Cherry MP, Joan McAlpine, Johann Lamont and brave female detransitioners from cry-bully activists is not captured by this definition as a hate crime. They are all fair game in this First Minister’s Scotland.

Abuse of women is not considered a hate crime, but saying a man is a man is.

Jumping ahead:

I fully expect to be accused and arrested under this law. So far, I’ve had repeated vexatious actions against my office; I’ve suffered murderous threats as the trans rights activists cheer on.

I’ve been dragged through the media for highlighting gender reform conflicts with women’s rights and child safeguarding and I am abused regularly on social media by those who claim to be on the right side of history. Newsflash – they’re not.

The bar for prosecution is extremely low. No corroboration is required and the definition of “harassment” is ill-described and includes a wholly subjective test of “causing the person alarm or distress”. Such nebulous scope invites vexatious and malicious complaints, prosecutions, convictions and potential incarceration.

Homosexuality was not decriminalised in Scotland until 1981. This bill re-introduces this harm in its effect as it seeks to criminalise the act of defining who and what women and same-sex-attracted people are and in so doing erases the rights and protections we fought so long to establish. It must be repealed, but until then all we have is courage.

And a firm intention to stay out of Scotland.

The Times on Trump’s perilous situation:

The judge in the civil fraud case, Arthur F. Engoron, levied the $454 million penalty and other punishments after concluding that Mr. Trump had fraudulently inflated his net worth to obtain favorable loans and other benefits. The case, brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, has posed a grave financial threat to Mr. Trump.

It would be interesting to know how the $454 million penalty compares to the money he pocketed via inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loans.

The company providing the bond would essentially promise to cover Mr. Trump’s judgment if he lost an appeal and failed to pay. In exchange, he would pledge cash and other liquid assets as collateral, and he would pay the company a fee as high as $20 million.

But Mr. Trump does not have enough liquidity to obtain the bond. The company would require Mr. Trump to pledge more than $550 million in cash and securities as collateral — a sum he simply does not have.

Loser!

Although the former president boasts of his billions, his net worth is derived largely from the value of his real estate, which bond companies rarely accept as collateral. Mr. Trump has more than $350 million in cash, a recent New York Times analysis found, far short of what he needs.

Well maybe he should have thought of that before he decided to do all this inflating his wealth to obtain fraudulent loans activity. What goes around comes around, as the saying goes. He cheated, he got caught, and now nobody wants to help him deal with the penalties. Whose fault is that? Not ours. Not Obama’s. Not Rachel Maddow’s. I kind of think it’s his own fault.

HAhahahahaha Trump can’t find anyone who will oblige him in the matter of the bond.

Donald Trump‘s effort to secure a bond to cover a $454 million judgment in a New York civil fraud case has been rejected by 30 surety companies, his lawyers said on Monday, inching him closer to the possibility of having his properties seized.

The former president must either pay the sum out of his own pocket or post a bond to stave off the state’s seizure while he appeals Justice Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16 judgment against him for misstating property values to dupe lenders and insurers.

Trump, two of his adult children and other Trump Organization executives had so far approached the 30 companies through four separate brokers without success, his lawyers said. The other defendants face judgments totaling $10 million.

A bonding company would be on the hook for any payout if Trump loses his appeal and proves unable to pay.

And oddly enough they don’t want to be on that hook. What goes around comes around, Don.

Willoughby demonstrating what a stalwart feminist woman he is.