Sigh.
It’s not a “belief.” It’s a fact. An ordinary humdrum fact. Nobody has to waste any energy “believing” it; it’s just there. Of course humans “exist in two sexes.” If they didn’t there would be no Stephen Whittle saying they don’t.
What is “acting on your belief” that there are two sexes? What does that mean at all? Does Whittle mean we’re not allowed to say men are not women? Is that the subtle thought?
Even the Telegraph reports on this subject using the terms of the cheaters instead of the non-cheater, reality-based ones. It makes their reporting worthless, because it’s not reporting to keep repeating a blatant lie.
Thomas’s triumph in the 500-yard freestyle event in Atlanta, Georgia, almost two years ago made global headlines and sparked a major furore in the United States and beyond over her participation in women’s races.
Her landmark victory came less than three years after she began transitioning – she had previously been ranked just 65th over the same distance in the division’s male category – and led to protests from rival swimmers.
The ugly fallout, which continues to this day, has included accusations Thomas had been allowed to use women’s locker rooms during events, thereby exposing other competitors to her “male genitalia”.
Her her, she she, and then “the ugly fallout” – why ugly? Why are the people who object to the cheating ugly while William Thomas is poor sad fragile she-her?
A growing number of sports governing bodies have been bringing in similar policies amid mounting pressure from athletes, campaigners and politicians to prioritise fairness and safety over inclusion, which a victory for Thomas would leave open to further legal challenges.
That “inclusion” is not really inclusion, because it excludes women from winning for the benefit of men. Women don’t have to be “inclusive” of men in all circumstances; the idea that we do have to is extremely rapey as well as a grotesque injustice. You might as well rule that women have to give birth on live tv with the camera aimed straight between their legs.
Less than a month before World Aquatics introduced its own policy in June of that year, Thomas said in an interview with Good Morning America: “It’s been a goal of mine to swim at Olympic trials for a very long time, and I would love to see that through.”
So what??? Lots of people would love to swim at Olympic trials; that doesn’t make it ok for them to cheat to get there. Spare us prattle of William’s hopes n dreams.
Thomas’s lawyer, Carlos Sayao, himself a former competitive swimmer, branded World Aquatics’ rules a “trans ban”, saying it was “discriminatory” and caused “profound harm to trans women”.
“Trans women are particularly vulnerable in society and they suffer from higher rates of violence, abuse and harassment than cis women,” he added.
William Thomas is not more vulnerable than women, you misogynist pig.
The US swimmer Lia Thomas, who rose to global prominence by becoming the first transgender athlete to win a NCAA college title, is taking legal action in a bid to compete again in elite female sport – including the Olympics.
Or, to put it more clearly and accurately, the male US swimmer William “Lia” Thomas, who rose to global prominence by pretending to be a woman and thus winning women’s races, is taking legal action in hopes of cheating women that way again.
Thomas has always denied transitioning to get ahead. “The biggest misconception, I think, is the reason I transitioned,” Thomas said in 2022. “People will say: ‘Oh, she just transitioned so she would have an advantage, so she could win.’ I transitioned to be happy, to be true to myself.”
Well he would say that, wouldn’t he. He’s not going to say “Yes, I pretended to be a woman so that I could win.” But that’s what he did all the same.
And guess what, if he really had “transitioned” to be happy and true to himself then he never would have done the cheating part. Why? Because that wasn’t the goal so why do it? Why invite all the grief? Why not just settle down in blissful womanyhood while not making a whole lot of women detest him?
Susanna Rustin in the Guardian:
I can clearly remember the moment I found out that Maya Forstater, the NGO researcher who lost her job in 2018 because of her gender-critical beliefs, had lost her employment tribunal. This was in December 2019, and it chilled me because I share Forstater’s view about the importance of biological sex. In a verdict that was later overturned, Judge James Tayler ruled that her opinions were “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”, and thus not protected under the Equality Act or the articles of the European convention on human rights concerned with freedom of thought and expression.
The “opinion” that men are not women is not worthy of respect. Old news, I know, and yet it still surprises.
Whatever their views on sex and gender, liberals should be curious about why women are being ostracised and punished for their conviction that sex differences are important. So should trade unionists, whose job it is to protect people’s rights at work….Outside courtrooms as well as within them, gender-critical women will continue to seek accountability for what has gone on. Yes, there are other problems in the world to worry about. But we won’t forget the 18 months during which our long-held feminist beliefs about sex were officially deemed “not worthy of respect in a democratic society” – or stop being grateful for the courage of women such as Jo Phoenix and Rachel Meade.
Never forget and never surrender.
Brendan O’Neill points out that the phrase “her penis” is not strictly accurate.
‘Her penis’ is back. Just when you thought the weirdos had put it away, here it is again, flopped all over the newspapers. A ‘trans woman’ allegedly ‘played with her penis’ in front of two young girls, reported the Daily Echo this week. ‘She’ allegedly ‘loved’ exposing ‘her penis’ to minors, says Portsmouth News. This ‘56-year-old charity shop worker’ is charged with ‘exposing her penis’ to horrified kids, says Talk TV. ‘Her penis’, they all say, over and over, like members of a lunatic cult, with no clue as to how unhinged they sound to those of us who know that the only possessive pronoun that should ever appear before the words penis, dick, todger and knob is his.
And note that these are ostensibly news outlets. Not story-tellers, not songwriters, not cartoonists, but news organizations. They’re supposed to get basic facts right.
They’re reporting on the case of Samantha Norris, who is a bloke. We know he’s a bloke because he has a cock. Mr Norris – yes, Mr – is accused of exposing his penis – yes, his – to two 11-year-old girls. He’s on trial at Southampton Crown Court. Even worse than the media’s slavish, post-truth flattery of Mr Norris’s deluded belief that he is a woman is the court’s indulgence of such anti-social insanity.
Another institution that really ought to get the facts right.
Nothing better captures the moral derangement of our times than those two words, ‘her penis’…. That such a sexist, unscientific term now falls from the gobs of so many in the elites – the press, the police, the courts – should horrify us all. For it confirms the victory of identity over truth. It confirms that everything – even science, even logic – now plays second fiddle to validating the self-delusion of the individual.
Only some brands of identity though. Not women’s identity, for instance. Boutique identities only need apply.
There just aren’t any women, you see.
Australian surf brand Rip Curl has come under fire after featuring a transgender boarder in a campaign to promote women’s surfing.
Male transgender boarder. It’s funny how they always leave that out. It’s implied, of course, but it damn well shouldn’t be implied, it should be spelled out. Every single time. Just combining “transgender” and “under fire” and “women’s surfing” is not good enough. Spell out the damn insult.
Sasha Lowerson, 44, featured on the Rip Curl Women Instagram page on Thursday as part of the company’s Meet The Local Heroes of Western Australia campaign.
It comes just months after Rip Curl dropped former brand ambassador Bethany Hamilton – one of the world’s most famous surfers – reportedly over her opposition to transgender people competing in women’s sport.
That’s nice. Drop a woman because she doesn’t want men in her sport, then feature another man in a campaign to promote women’s surfing. Go big or go home, yeah?
When Americans are asked to check a box indicating their religious affiliation, 28% now check ‘none.’
A new study from Pew Research finds that the religiously unaffiliated – a group comprised of atheists, agnostic and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” – is now the largest cohort in the U.S. They’re more prevalent among American adults than Catholics (23%) or evangelical Protestants (24%).
Back in 2007, Nones made up just 16% of Americans, but Pew’s new survey of more than 3,300 U.S. adults shows that number has now risen dramatically.
Better late than never, yeah?
Pew asked respondents what – if anything – they believe.
Well that’s a silly way to put it. Everybody believes countless things; we couldn’t function if we didn’t. We believe the next step we take won’t plunge us into a black hole.
Most Nones believe in God or another higher power, but very few attend any kind of religious service.
If there’s a higher power, why doesn’t it do something? Take away our car keys for instance?
Wow, powerful argument.
Being used to the body you’ve always been is not an idenniny, it’s just being used to what you’ve always been.
Idenniny is much more magical and profound and meaningfulish than mere being used to what you’re used to.
He’s not kidding about the shit cartoons part.
Mermaids is doing what now?
Dennis stepped in.
Yet another one. I may find myself doing these for years to come – there’s so much of it.
[High squeaky contemptuous voice]: You suggest everyone thinks like that.
No, not everyone, because we know there are fools like you, but certainly most people, you absolute monster of a smug censorious heartless last person who should be working for a rape crisis center goon. Everyone did “think like that” until about ten years ago, and now a small but intolerable minority of people have allowed themselves to become confused about it.
Even worse, in a way, is the “we are transinclusive service and that is what we do.” Well that’s not supposed to be what you do. You’re supposed to be a service for victims of rape. Being “transinclusive” has nothing to do with that.
Is this happening everywhere? Bakeries? Public transportation? Plumbing? They’ve all stopped baking or driving buses or installing new toilets and are instead busy being transinclusive?
More.
What is “ownership of their own identity”? This fool seems to take it to mean “people are what they say they are” – which is an abjectly ridiculous claim. No people don’t “own” their idenniny in the sense that if they say they’re a mouse then they’re a mouse.
We own very little, in fact. We’re thrown into the world, as the existentialists put it. We can change, we can acquire talents, we can curl our hair, but the range is pretty narrow. That’s just reality.
Yeah it’s like chocolate – some people like it, some don’t.
So policy is to lie to raped women, to tell them they’ll be seeing a woman when in fact they’ll be seeing a man. How enlightened.
Shameless lie after shameless lie.
More than 300 transgender children a year are now starting on a course of puberty-blocking drugs, figures seen by the Victoria Derbyshire programme show.
One of the transgender children we have been following for four years has now begun her treatment, which gives youngsters time to decide if they want to live as a man or a woman. “I’m happy I’ve been given [the drugs] because now I know that I won’t grow facial hair. I just don’t want a beard – I’m a girl,” says 11-year-old Jessica.
So the BBC is admitting it started “following” this deluded child when he was seven years old.
The UK’s main centre specialising in gender issues in under-18s is the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, based in London and Leeds. The number of under-18s who visited the clinic in the last year has risen by 25% to 2,519 – around 50 a week.
Doctors there say there is no single explanation for the increase but there is growing recognition of transgender people in society and more awareness of treatment options.
In large part thanks to institutions like the BBC that actively promote the “treatment options” aka medical malpractice.
Isn’t it shocking how the BBC doesn’t devote any time to trans people especially trans women.
The studios teaching trans women how to be more feminine
Trans woman Nicole Thornbur goes to specialist studios to learn how to become more feminine.
Privately-run Born Studio in Manchester offers services including make-up lessons and voice coaching to people in the trans community.
BBC reporter William Lee Adams went with Nicole to the studio to find out more.
Nicole is built like a brick shithouse but whatever.
Remember Zoe Williams (Guardian columnist) yesterday saying this?
Genuinely think that if Woman’s Hour is going to give this much uncritical airtime to GCs, then for balance the BBC should have a Trans Ally hour where we get to complain about them _the entire time_.
Yes? Well, about that…
NC: Miren said this am that she could not think of any expression of GC / sex realist beliefs that is not transphobic. Do you agree with that? Any expression is necessarily transphobic?
KT: I’ve not heard every sex-realist view expressed, so, can’t say all transphobic. Too simplifying to say that.
NC: Can you think of an expression of it you would not regard as transphobic?
KT: Not sure what you are looking for.NC: Do you understand what I mean by SR beliefs? Know what they are? Sex is binary, 2 sexes; everyone is M or F; you can’t change between them; sometimes sex matters. Is that transphobic?
KT: Yes the way those views expressed are often at the expense of trans people.
“Those views.”
NC: The way I just said them. Was that transphobic?
KT: Making judgement on just a few sentences – lacks any nuance.
Nuance ffs.
This isn’t poetry, it isn’t art, it isn’t the wonderful world of creativity. It’s just reality. Humans are not rabbits; plants are not stones; houses are not bicycles. We don’t need nuance every time we say something – often we need the opposite of nuance, i.e. complete clarity. “Did you order the Code Red?” is not a quest for nuance.
[NC is Naomi Cunningham, KT is Katie Horsburgh, 23-year-old board member of ERCC]
NC: Discussion here of having NB ppl in women-only organisation.
KT: There are no men at ERCC. Open to all genders
NC: Am talking about staff
KT: I think website says we create women-only place.
NC: Says no men
KT: Correct
Still playing stupid games. “There are no men at ERCC; ERCC is open to all genders.”
NC: You are aware some ppl think being man or woman is matter of biology. Can’t change. Some ppl think yes
KT: Yes they do
NC: So you are being unclear when you say “no men”.
KT: Disagree. T-I policy is on website. And we have a meeting to match ppl to support worker.
Stupid stupid stupid games.
NC: Are you saying that saying “no men” plus publishing TI policy, that means all SUs will be clear that there might be TW employed?
KT: We don’t employ any men –
NC: Not asking that. Asking if clear to all SUs
KT: In combination – policies, initial meeting – yes, clear.
In other words we play stupid games but we say so on the website and in the initial meeting so that’s fine then.
NC: Can you imagine an SU [service user] may be without your educational privileges, who might *not* understand that?
KT: We have diverse highly trained team, match the service standards, to put with right support worker
“Do you realize some people might not understand your stupid games?” “Oh we have a highly trained team to explain our stupid games to the peasantry.”
The smug malice of all this just makes my skin crawl.
An arts company based in Edinburgh is launching a new show about JK Rowling and her part in the transgender debate called TERF CUNT.
Civil Disobedience, which has its roots in the Edinburgh Fringe and was launched by Barry and Josef Church-Woods in May 2016, described it as a “vital think-piece on Joanne, exploring just what could motivate a person with such privilege to take such a divisive stance on issues that affect her fans”.
Ah yes, two men do civil disobedience by calling a woman a cunt as publicly and showily as they can. And while they’re at it they patronizingly call her “Joanne” as if she were four years old and they were her nanny. And they whine about her “privilege” when it arises entirely from the fact that she writes exceedingly popular books. And they call it “divisive” to defend women’s rights while they don’t call it “divisive” to trample all over women’s rights. A pair of privileged male idiots and no mistake.
It has been written by Joshua Kaplan, a “queer screenwriter and playwright”, and will be performed at The Actors Studio in New York City on Thursday, February 8. The plot involves Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson staging an “intervention” with Rowling.
Oh get a grip. Three talentless movie actors who owe their fame entirely to Rowling. They’re not seers, they’re not thinkers, they’re not very bright. Why not get Donald Duck and Goofy and Bugs Bunny to stage an intervention with “Lia” Thomas instead?
The synopsis for the show continues: “Joanne led a blessed life – for a woman. Billionaire. Literary phenomenon. Natural ginger. And most importantly, beloved. Completely beloved. Until she blew it all to hell.”
Stupid little piggies. They carefully leave out the pre-Potter part of her “blessed life” – the part where she was a single mother who’d escaped a violent husband.
I hope the first performance on February 8 is also the last.
Ram Mandir Day: With the upcoming Pran Pratishtha ceremony at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya scheduled for January 22, 2024, preparations are not only in full swing in India but are also making waves globally. In a notable gesture, the towns of Oakville and Brampton in Ontario, Canada, have officially declared January 22, 2024, as “Ayodhya Ram Mandir Day.”
The mayors of Oakville, Rob Burton, and Brampton, Patrick Brown, acknowledged the long-standing aspiration of the Hindu community and emphasised the cultural, religious, and historical significance of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir inauguration on this date. Describing it as a testament to values of peace, unity, and harmony, the local governments have chosen to commemorate January 22, 2024, as a special day in honour of this momentous occasion.
So they’ve simply never heard of the intercommunal riots that followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid? In which thousands of people were killed? Those values of peace unity and harmony?
After a wait of 500 years, the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is set to take place on January 22, 2024. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead the Pran Pratishtha ceremony, marking the culmination of centuries-old dreams and aspirations.
Who wrote this bilge? Modi himself?
H/t Seanna Watson
Here’s an interesting bit from the tribunal. (It’s tricky reading the live tweets, because of course they have to be done at speed so a lot is left out and some is scrambled, but it’s worth the effort.)
KM is Katy McTernan, a member of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre’s senior management.
“What problem?”
Really. Really. A man was “the best candidate” to head a rape crisis centre. REALLY???
That second “rape crisis centres” must be a mistake, and should be something like “trans activism” or campaigning or something along those lines. Anyway…”that’s not what was happening”? Oh really? Why else would a man apply for that job?
Wadwha was appointed head of a rape crisis centre because he’s a woman, not because he’s a trans woman. But of course he’s not a woman, so that can’t be why. What KM means is that he was appointed to make the point that he “is a woman”…at the expense of all the women the rape crisis centre is there to help. He damn well was appointed because he’s a trans woman, because there is absolutely no other reason for him to have been appointed. It was and is a calculated deliberate “fuck you” to women for the sake of “trans inclusion.”
Thread by @tribunaltweets on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
The Telegraph on the Jo Phoenix win:
The Open University “feared” being seen to support gender-critical beliefs when it failed to protect a professor from harassment, a judge ruled.
But the Open University apparently didn’t fear being seen to throw feminist women to the wolves.
Why is that?
Why is opprobrium from team luxury gender so much more terrifying than opprobrium from feminist women? Why do the small number of men who pretend to be women matter so vastly much more than half the population?
A ruling found that the Open University’s failure to protect her from harassment from colleagues and trans activists was motivated by “fear of being seen to support gender-critical beliefs” and “fear of the pro gender identity section” of the university.
So how do we get institutions to fear us even more than they fear trans activists? How do we get more scary? Halloween masks? Brandishing swords? What?
The tribunal heard that in June 2019 The Sunday Times published a letter signed by Prof Phoenix and other academics registering “disquiet over a perceived inappropriately close relationship between the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall and UK universities”.
Her views were described as “problematic and scary” by senior lecturer Dr Deborah Drake, the hearing was told and another staff member demanded she be punished.
In October 2019 Prof Louise Westmarland reduced Prof Phoenix to tears when she raised her gender-critical views in a meeting.
“Prof Westmarland said to [Prof Phoenix] that ‘having you in the department was like having a racist uncle at the Christmas dinner table’,” the tribunal found.
I wonder if Louise Westmarland ever apologized. I wonder what she’s thinking now.
