There’s a big internecine war over The Pronoun Issue at the moment. I’m staying out of it, partly because it’s too volatile and partly because I see what the “It’s ok to be polite/kind to individuals” side means.

But. If someone grabbed me by the throat and insisted on knowing what I think about it, I would say I continue to think we shouldn’t use luxury pronouns for anyone.

(I’m so ancient I remember gay friends calling each other “she” in a jokey camp way. See also: Nathan Lane in The Birdcage. An innocent time.)

Here’s why I continue to think that: it’s because the luxury pronouns nudge us into thinking of the luxury people just the way they want us to think. They trick us. That’s how language works. The effect isn’t nullifed just because we know that men aren’t women; the nudging goes on at a level outside our conscious control.

That’s why such a point is made of the luxury pronoun use. It’s not (only) because trans people like to hear it, it’s because it manipulates how all of us think.

If women and men were treated as equals it wouldn’t matter, but they’re not, so it does.

The Daily Mail tells us:

The NHS has axed a programme backed by Stonewall which told hospitals to stop using the words ‘woman’ and ‘mother’. Health service bosses have ended funding for the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme after the Mail revealed how it rewarded trusts for dropping ‘gendered language’.

As if it were a good idea for hospitals to drop gendered language. Sure, in hospitals, nobody knows what sex is.

As many as 77 NHS trusts across England had signed up to be graded by Stonewall and the LGBT Foundation, which back trans rights, on how inclusive they were towards patients and staff. They gained points for referring to women in maternity wards as ‘clients’, renaming female health clinics ‘colposcopy clinics’ and asking patients what their pronouns are.

One briefing showed that staff were branded ‘transphobic’ if they questioned the NHS’s focus on gender identity.

And being “transphobic” is worse than, say, not knowing what sex a patient is.

The Times has a long flattering piece on celebrity archaeologist and “trans ally” Alice Roberts. There’s an interesting moment where…

She says she chooses her words carefully, and it is not long before she is doing so again. We have been talking about men’s and women’s brains and whether there are fundamental intellectual differences between them. Ten years ago, she made a Horizon documentary with Michael Mosley called Is Your Brain Male or Female?. “And the answer is very simply, no. You cannot separate the brain from the culture that it is immersed in from the moment the baby is born, and even before. Your brain is going to develop in a way that is responding to that culture.”

I am not trying to propel Roberts back to a 2019 skirmish in the trans wars in which she tweeted that “biology is, quite simply, messier and more wonderful than some people like to believe” and advised doubters to “ask a clownfish” — a clownfish being a fish that starts life as male but becomes female. It does, however, strike me that if human female and male brains are the same, how can it ever be said that a baby possessing male genitalia was born into the wrong body.

There is quite a pause.

“I think that’s a very difficult philosophical question. It’s very difficult to pin it down, isn’t it? And we’ve had decades of feminism where we’ve been trying to get away from women being reduced to their genitalia. My own feeling is that you approach everybody as an individual.”

So respect an individual’s right to present as they wish?

“I think you would do that in normal society, wouldn’t you?”

First, the short one. Yes of course “you approach everybody as an individual” but that doesn’t require agnosticism on what sex the individual is. In fact in general agnosticism is not possible: we know what sex people are because we have our whole lives of knowing what sex people are to provide the clues. We may have been little agnostics as toddlers, but by the time we’re old enough to chat to the Times we can’t help knowing who is what sex.

Next, the longer one. Would you “do that in normal society”? That’s a general rule is it? So everyone is a blank slate and we all have to start from zero on every encounter? “Is this a human or a frog? Is this a living being or a rock? Is this a woman or a man?” Life is like that is it?

Give me a break.

And scientifically?

“Science can offer solutions to some questions and not to others. Science doesn’t necessarily tell us how to treat each other. We have to be very cautious if people are trying to use science in that way. I think there are big moral and ethical questions that exist almost separate to science.”

But that wasn’t the question. The question wasn’t “how should we treat each other?” but “how can it ever be said that a baby possessing male genitalia was born into the wrong body?”

Andrew Billen of The Times however finds her non-responsive response just the ticket.

I feel she has conceded exactly the ground necessary to foster a civilised truce in this particular culture battle. 

Nope.

I’m reading an Atlantic piece by Robert Draper from October 2022 and got distracted wondering about one claim near the beginning.

In March of 2020, I sat in a federal courtroom in Utah and watched a man stand before the judge and murmur through sobs, “This wasn’t me. This wasn’t me.”

The defendant, a 55-year-old health-insurance salesman named Scott Brian Haven, wasn’t protesting his innocence. He openly acknowledged that over the two-year period before his arrest in the summer of 2019, he had placed 3,950 calls to the Washington offices of various Democratic members of Congress, spewing profanities and threatening violence against them.

But as the prosecutor listed a sampling of Haven’s vile threats in the courtroom, the defendant—a devout Mormon who served meals to homeless people in downtown Salt Lake City—seemed unable to recognize those sentiments as his own…

…Haven, as it turned out, got his news from the conservative talk-radio-show hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh—and, of course, from the president he so admired, Donald Trump.

It was that. The setup is here’s a guy with enough compassion to help feed homeless people, yet he “so admired” Donald Trump. My curiosity about that got between me and the rest of the piece.

What is there to admire in Trump?

That’s a real question. It’s easy to think of lots of people who are bad but also have unmistakable good or at least attractive qualities. Trump is not one of those people, or at least, I get stuck when I try to figure out how anyone can see him as one. Know what I mean?

He’s certainly not the familiar charismatic baddy who seduces everyone with charm and wit and beauty. He’s also certainly not the ordinary mixed-bag baddy who is greedy but generous or cruel but brave or destructive but honest. If you had a lineup of good qualities and a lineup of bad ones, Trump’s qualities would all be in the bad column.

What is it that otherwise decent people admire in him? How can otherwise decent people admire him? It’s like a magic spectacles fairy tale or similar. What do they see that we can’t?

All I can come up with is a bastard child of Telling Truth to Power sort of thing. He’s blunt, he’s honest, he’s not afraid to insult the rich and powerful. He insults everyone, and that shows how truthy and authentic and incorruptible he is.

Mind you, he doesn’t insult Putin, but that’s because…um…er…

Any other explanations?

Following up on the last one, in which the BBC quoted “Cade Hatton, co-chair of the LGBTQIA+ Greens group” talking about “the most vulnerable” by which of course he didn’t mean the W or the L or the G but rather the T. Is Cade Hatton among The Most Vulnerable xirself I wondered?

Cade has a page at LGBTQIA+ Greens. The complete written content of the page:

Cade is a disabled, queer, trans nerd who spends most of their time either playing video games or sewing.

They joined the GPEW at sixteen, over ten years ago.

They’re passionate about climate justice, LGBTIQA+ rights, and their dog Gizmo, and cat Booker.

If Cade really spends most of xir time playing video games and sewing I have to wonder about xir qualifications for the job.

The BBC on Shahrar Ali’s win:

The Green Party discriminated against former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali during a row over his gender critical beliefs, a court has ruled.

The court found the Green Party had improperly dismissed Dr Ali as a party spokesperson because it had failed to identify any misconduct.

Sigh. No. It didn’t dismiss him because it found no misconduct. Its dismissal of him was improper because it found no misconduct. Clarity in writing is important!

Dr Ali called the result a “landmark case”.

He called the result the latest in a “series of judgments” supporting gender critical beliefs, since the High Court ruled Maya Forstater’s belief people cannot change their biological sex was protected under the Equalities Act.

I know we’re stuck with it, but it really is maddeningly destructive that we’re trapped in this “belief that people cannot change sex” spiral. Of course people can’t change sex, nor can they change age, or species, or place of birth. Brute facts are just brute facts, however much we dislike them.

Responding to the judgement Cade Hatton, co-chair of the LGBTQIA+ Greens group, said: “We must be able to rely on our most visible members – our spokespeople and elected representatives – to both hold up the ethos and the democratically chosen party policies that support the most vulnerable members of our society.”

And The Most Vulnerable=trans people, right? Not women, right?

Lefties (or people who think they’re lefties) cheering for theocracy. News flash: theocrats are not big fans of lefties. Theocracies are not socialist utopias.

Belief belief belief, but it’s not a “belief”; it’s reality.

Sure, it’s a “belief” in a silly narrow sense, but it’s not a “belief” in the sense of being tentative or contrary to fact. It’s not like a religious belief, because religious beliefs can be anything at all and are subject to no checks.

The BBC leans heavily on the b word:

The Green Party discriminated against former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali during a row over his gender critical beliefs, a court has ruled.

But “gender critical beliefs” aren’t beliefs as commonly understood. It’s not a “belief” to know that humans are not cats, it’s not a belief to know that turnips are not chainsaws, it’s not a belief to know that the Hawaiian islands are not in the Atlantic.

I know we have to talk about it that way now in order to defend our right to utter this “belief,” but it’s a crappy situation.

But the judgement upheld political parties’ right to dismiss spokespeople whose views differ from party policy.

…

The Chair of the Green Party of England and Wales’ executive, Jon Nott, said: We are pleased that the court has recognised that a democratic political party has the right to select those who speak for it on the basis that they can and will communicate and support party policy publicly.”

There again – it’s not a “view” and it’s not a “policy.” Trees are not horses; hammers are not marmalade; men are not women. Things are what they are and not something else.

Worthy of respect!

Just what the world needs: Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin.

For much of it, Carlson sat in silence as Putin expounded his dubious historical theories about Ukraine, aired his grievances, and pushed MAGA talking points designed to appeal to Carlson’s core audience.

…

Putin has used these theories to justify his brutal invasion of Ukraine, where, according to the UN Human Rights Council, Russia has used mass killings, rape, and torture in an attempt to subjugate the country. Putin even published an essay on the theories just ahead of the invasion.

It matters because Putin is seeking to erode support for Ukraine among the GOP voters who form Carlson’s core audience, as congressional Republicans continue to block a $66 billion Ukraine aid bill.

Carlson seemed to lack the knowledge, or willingness, to offer even the most cursory pushback. 

Well you see Putin isn’t some disgusting crazed Marxist like Obama or Biden.

For instance, he allowed Putin to claim that the 2014 Maidan protests, in which Ukrainians took to the streets to demand freedom from Russian control, were a CIA plot. There is no evidence of this.

He also allowed Putin to claim, unchallenged, that Russia sought peace with Ukraine before launching the 2022 invasion. There is no evidence of this, with Russia illegally seizing swaths of Ukraine in 2014 and stoking conflict in the east of the country.

Putin was also able to state, unchallenged, that the invasion was a bid to “de-Nazify” the country, and not a campaign of revanchist conquest it is in reality.

Putin was given a two-hour platform to further undermine Republican support for Ukraine, and offer an alternative version of history in which the US and NATO are the true aggressors.

I guess because Carlson (like Trump) is not so much a Republican or a conservative as he is an agent of chaos-plus-profit. Smash everything and give me $$$.

More ugly behavior:

Ireland women’s basketball team refused to shake hands with Israel before their EuroBasket 2025 qualifier in Riga.

Israel player Dor Saar said on Wednesday that the Ireland team is “quite anti-Semitic”. Basketball Ireland said the comments were “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate”.

Ireland players also lined up for their anthem beside the team’s bench rather than the centre of the court before the game, which Israel won 87-57.

But it’s the Israel players who are being “inflammatory.” I see.

Climate change can’t be stopped, the male takeover of everything that belongs to women can’t be stopped, Trump can’t be stopped.

The Supreme Court seems poised to reject attempts to kick former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot.

A definitive ruling for Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president, would largely end efforts in Colorado, Maine and elsewhere to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot.

Conservative and liberal justices alike questioned during arguments Thursday whether Trump can be disqualified from being president again because of his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, ending with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

His “efforts to undo his loss” included several crimes, but we have to let him go ahead and destroy everything.

A whole year.

For the first time, global warming has exceeded 1.5C across an entire year, according to the EU’s climate service. World leaders promised in 2015 to try to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5C, which is seen as crucial to help avoid the most damaging impacts. This first year-long breach doesn’t break that landmark Paris agreement, but it does bring the world closer to doing so in the long-term.

Urgent action to cut carbon emissions can still slow warming, scientists say.

But urgent action is not happening and is not going to happen.

El Niño is part of the picture, but the picture remains grim anyway.

An end to El Niño conditions is expected in a few months, which could allow global temperatures to temporarily stabilise, and then fall slightly, probably back below the 1.5C threshold. But while human activities keep adding to the levels of warming gases in the atmosphere, temperatures will ultimately continue rising in the decades ahead.

And we know human activities keep adding to the levels of warming gases in the atmosphere because we are helpless to stop them. Democratic governments can’t and authoritarian governments don’t give a shit.

The knots get tighter and tighter.

Transgender Irish dancers can compete in categories that match their gender identity, An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) has decided. Irish dancing’s governing body made the ruling following legal advice and weeks of debate.

Late last year a teenage transgender girl based in the US qualified to compete in this year’s upcoming world championship. The success of the dancer, who is understood to have previously competed in a male category, prompted some complaints from parents and discussion within the world of Irish dancing.

I don’t know enough about Irish dancing to know if being male makes much of a difference in competitions, but even aside from that…what is the point of adding a sprinkling of males to the female category? Unless they doing it to annoy, because they know it teases.

In a memo to members this week CLRG chairperson Sandra Connick said that over the last number of weeks “there has been considerable internal and external discussion concerning the eligibility of transgender dancers to enter competitions that align with their gender identity”.

That is, “there has been considerable internal and external discussion concerning the eligibility of transgender dancers to enter competitions that align with their gender identity instead of their physical sex.” If they had to spell it out every time maybe it wouldn’t fool so many people.

“CLRG’s policy has always permitted dancers to compete according to their gender identity in line with its child protection policy, which states that CLRG does not discriminate against any child for any reason,” Ms Connick said.

When was it decided that it’s “discrimination against” people to know what sex they are and tp act on the knowledge?

Parkrun deletes everything.

Parkrun has abruptly removed all gender, course and age records from its websites after rejecting a campaign to compel transgender runners to record their sex at birth.

With backing from former Olympic athletes such as swimmer Sharron Davies and marathon runner Mara Yamauchi, groups including Women in Sport and the Policy Exchange have been urging Parkrun to stop allowing entrants to self-identify their gender, accusing event organisers of “sex discrimination”.

What kind of sex discrimination? The kind where you allow, indeed encourage, men to infiltrate women’s sports and thus ruin the sports for women. That kind.

The Policy Exchange found that at least three Parkrun female records were held by transgender women and campaigners said that by having publicised records for age, gender, number of wins and courses, Parkrun must follow governing bodies like UK Athletics by protecting a natal category for women and girls.

If you’re going to publicize results then you can’t fake them. It’s only fair.

Parkrun had refused, arguing that it was a community event and public health charity that was primarily about inclusion rather than competitive performance, with records only designed to add interest and widen participation.

Then why have races at all? Why not just have aimless wandering around, instead?

The move, however, will be deeply controversial with the many runners who find the data and competitive element to be a major incentive for participation. Parkrun performance also currently counts towards a competitive athlete’s grading on the Run Britain website.

“Numerous men losing their s— over parkrun deleting/hiding data is quite a revelation,” said Yamauchi following the changes. “I knew men care deeply about their own sports but this is really something. Shame so many of them have had NOTHING to say all these years while their fellow men have decimated women’s sports.”

The campaign group Fair Play For Women added: “Parkrun have been letting men hold female course records. Women complained saying it was unfair. Rather than resolve the issue Parkrun has removed EVERYONE’S records from its website.”

It’s fine to trash women’s sports, but HOW DARE YOU mess with men’s?

When will the trendies learn to stop giving material to the Daily Mail?

The British countryside is a ‘racist, colonial’ white space, wildlife charities have insisted in a report to MPs. The claim was made by Wildlife and Countryside Link, a group with 80 members including WWF, the RSPCA and National Trust.

…

The group said ‘our policy recommendations ensure that all people have the right to a healthy natural environment – all people must have access to nature’. But it added: ‘Racist colonial legacies continue to frame nature in the UK as a ”white space” and people of colour as ”out of place” in these spaces and environmental sector.’

Do they? Where? How?

It continued: ‘Cultural barriers reflect that in the UK, it is white British cultural values that have been embedded into the design and management of green spaces and into society’s expectations of how people should engage with them.’ It said the perception that green spaces are dominated by whites can prevent people from ethnic minority backgrounds from using them.

What are these white British cultural values that have been embedded? What is the evidence that they have been so embedded? How does Wildlife and Countryside Link know there is such a perception?

It could be that the Mail is just being selective in its reporting. Toward the end of the story it admits there is a chain of reasoning involved.

Link’s Mr Benwell said: ‘Sadly, evidence shows that people of colour in the UK are more likely to live in areas with less green space and that are more heavily polluted, and at the same time they are significantly less likely to visit natural spaces.’

Or to put it another way it’s poverty that makes it difficult for people to visit natural spaces, and race and poverty are linked.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on The T is not the LGB.

Tatchell’s wrong, of course, about bisexuality.

Sexual orientation is not culture-bound, and it doesn’t change with the political tides. There doesn’t appear to be all that much variation in the amount of same-sex sexual behaviour across times and cultures (despite what the artsy elites of ancient Greece and Rome wanted us to believe). There are two instinctual factors in sexual behavour: sexual attraction and sexual aversion, and both are almost universally polarized along the sex axis.

The vast majority of people exhibit a very strong preference for the opposite sex, and a moderate-to-significant aversion to the same sex. A tiny minority exhibit the same pattern but with the sexes switched: they have a very strong preference for the same sex and a moderate-to-significant aversion to the opposite sex.

Thus, the reason straight people aren’t having all that much gay sex isn’t because of social taboos, it’s because they’re born with an inclination to dislike it, either a little or a lot. Conversely, the reason so many closeted gay people do have straight sex is because they’ve historically faced significant social pressure to overcome their inborn inclination to dislike it.

This strong bias most of us have in favour of one sex over is not a product of social conditioning. Preferring one sex over the other is not like other physical characteristic sexual preferences — it’s not like preferring brunettes over blondes or Asians over African Americans or short people or tall people or younger people or older people. Those other things have much more to do with personal taste, which is almost completely culture-bound.

Bisexuality as a sexual orientation in its own right is a subjective term that generally describes the small number of people whose instinctual aversion to their non-preferred sex is weak enough that it’s overridden by cultural/social factors — taste, in other words. In females, aversion to their non-preferred sex is generally weaker than in males, thus females are more likely to have sexual encounters with both sexes.

Cultural factors can move the needle a little bit: if your aversion level towards your non-preferred sex is low to moderate to begin with, you’re more likely to overcome it through social pressure or in some cases lack of availability of your preferred sex. (Which is why some straight men in prison have same-sex encounters while others don’t. Same goes for teens in boarding schools, etc. Strong hormone levels and a lack of preferred-sex partners can push the moderate- to low- averse males to dabble in same-sex hanky panky.)

Young people are actually facing a lot of social pressure to identify as anything-but-straight and to even experiment with same-sex encounters to prove their liberal credentials. Social/cultural pressure to override their own aversion is playing a factor in the increased numbers of people identifying as “LGBTQ+”.

This may be music to Peter Tatchell’s ears, but I find it to be very upsetting news. No one should feel ashamed or coerced about their sexual preferences, straight or gay.

This is pretty much a straight-up lie.

What most people will understand by “criminalizing life saving health care” is that people are being denied medicines or surgeries or both to treat life-threatening illnesses. What the ACLU of course means by “life saving health care” is surgeries and/or cross-sex hormones to create an artificial resemblance to the opposite sex. The latter is, obviously, not life-saving in any ordinary sense. The underlying idea is that without help in trying to change sex, trans people will kill themselves. That’s not what “life-saving” means.

Think of a scenario in which a man threatens to kill a woman if she won’t have sex with him. Would the ACLU whine at the recalcitrant woman that she should provide the life saving fuck the man insists he needs?

The ACLU needs to stop trying to blackmail us all into promoting cross-sex hormones for people who want to pretend to “change their sex.”

There’s a lesbian visibility week? Who knew?!

DIVA is all worked up about it.

Who else is excited for Lesbian Visibility Week 2024? Taking place between 22 April – 28 April, next year’s celebration of the wonderful lesbian community and all LGBTQIA women and non-binary people is set to be bigger than ever. Therefore, DIVA needs some reinforcements! 

Oh I see, so it’s not a lesbian visibility week, it’s a lesbians and some men visibility week. Kind of a different thing.

We are delighted to be bringing the legendary activist Nancy Kelley onto the DIVA team for Lesbian Visibility Week 2024. Nancy has spent her career campaigning for human rights and social justice on issues ranging from poverty and mental health to refugee protection. She served as the CEO of Stonewall between 2020-2023, working towards improving and defending LGBTQIA rights. 

That is, working towards creating new unworkable “rights” for men who call themselves lesbians, at the expense of the rights of lesbians. Way to go, Nancy!

Nancy said: “I am absolutely thrilled to be working with Linda and team DIVA to make Lesbian Visibility Week 2024 the most joyful global celebration of LGBTQI women yet”

Wtf are LGBTQI women? And why is she swapping them in for lesbians? Lesbians are not gay men, they’re not trans, they don’t all identify as “queer,” and intersex is a different subject altogether.

So typical to claim to be promoting lesbian visibility by shoving lesbians aside in favor of men playing dress-up.

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on They.

They censor our speech. They undermine our governments with bribery and blackmail. They’ve captured our media, banks, and virtually all of academia.

According to Politico, pro-Palestinian content is much more widely available on social media than pro-Israel content.

Israel has a history of being the most actively condemned nation by the UN. In 2020, al Jazeera reported that Israel was 3 times more likely to be condemned by the UN than other nations.

Member States:

Member States select people to represent them at United Nations meetings and conferences. The individuals selected present credentials to the UN to show that they are legitimate representatives of their country. The credentials are issued by the Head of State or Government or by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

So our governments are simultaneously captured by Israel, and sending people to the UN who vote to condemn Israel. Suuure.

Meanwhile lets just ignore Dubai’s role as a destination for moneys stolen through corruption, and a host to Hamas’ leadership.

In Media, Owen Jones wouldn’t have a job if that was true, and so far as the universities are concerned, there has been way too much stated support for the mass rape and murder of Israelis and Jews in general for this to have any currency whatsoever. The backlash against these universities would not have happened if they had been “captured” the way the tweet alleges.

It is based on the acceptance of conspiracy theories, complete with the natural armoring of said theories. Every source that could possibly work to falsify the theory – well that’s obviously all been captured by the Zionists.

To the point where, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, reality has an obvious and well known Zionist bias. I mean it is our governments, it is our universities, it is our social media, it is even our banks!

TLDR: I’m going to be on the side that isn’t peddling conspiracy theories straight out of Nazi Germany, thanks.