Monday 19th April - Same Shit, Different Dogma
The American Humanist Association has stripped Richard Dawkins of a 25-year-old award because he dared to challenge gender identity ideology.
Dawkins is a renowned scientist, academic, author and atheist commentator. In 1996 the American Humanist Association (AHA) named him Humanist of the Year in recognition of his work challenging unevidenced faith-based positions.
The AHA has just stripped Dawkins of this award because of his work challenging unevidenced faith-based positions.
Earlier this month Dawkins questioned the validity of gender identity ideology in a tweet referencing Rachel Dolezal. The AHA was quick to react and issued a statement, stripping him of the 1996 award and claiming, “Richard Dawkins has over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values.”
So science must be ignored when it proves inconvenient to the new dogma and all heretics must be excommunicated? An ironic position for a humanist organisation.
Meet the new priests...
Tuesday 20th April - Some Good News At Last
The LGB Alliance has been awarded charitable status. This is excellent news.
Their becoming a registered charity, however, has been dogged by attempts to defame and sabotage them.
From transphobia to funding from right-wing US fundamentalist Christians, the Charity Commission investigated all of the accusations levelled against LGB Alliance… and dismissed them. It concluded that “The purposes of LGB Alliance, as properly construed in accordance with the legal framework, are charitable and beneficial”.
Obviously, this news did not go down well in certain quarters.
The LGB Alliance are now facing a savage backlash and are still being defamed and attacked on a variety of fronts. Obviously, the Charity Commission’s 4000+ word report about the LGB Alliance is being ignored by those determined to disparage them.
As Josephine Bartosch writes in The Critic: “The LGB Alliance ought not to be controversial. Founded by veteran gay rights campaigners, it exists to ‘advance the interests of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals’. But the decision of the LGB Alliance not to include the ‘T’ (those who identify as trans) has seen them branded hateful bigots… The temper tantrum thrown by woke politicians and organisations over LGB Alliance becoming a charity is telling; like over-indulged children they are not used to hearing ‘no’”.
Wednesday 21st April - The Izzard Effect
American singer/songwriter, Ezra Furman’s announcement that he is now a ‘transwoman’ has been met with the usual unquestioning universal validation.
Furman is a 34 year old musician who has previously described himself as ‘queer’ (ie bisexual) and as ‘non-binary’ (ie he sometimes wears a skirt).
In a Facebook post this week he has now ‘come out’ as a ‘trans woman’ and revealed that he has a child, describing himself as a ‘Mom’.
Immediately, websites were updated to reflect Furman’s new pronouns and status and various media outlets couldn’t wait to coo over him and his ‘motherhood’.
That Furman is unquestioningly fawned over as a ‘mom’ when actual mothers are forced to refer to themselves as ‘chest feeders’ and ‘birthing parents’ couldn’t make it any clearer that gender ideology is a men’s rights movement.
Also Today - Leave Them Kids Alone
Thanks to Safe Schools Alliance for drawing attention to the ‘unscientific drivel’ children are being taught about gender woo in schools.
A parent got in touch with SSA over this particular piece of work their child had been given. It is aimed at KS4 pupils, ie 14-15 year olds. It references ‘non-binary’ identities, uses the term ‘cisgender’ and asks about the ‘three categories of biological sex’.
Clearly, this school has been ‘captured’ and this agenda-driven teaching is in contravention of Department of Education guidelines.
If you are concerned about the subjects being covered and the materials being used in your child’s school, SSA have produced this vital guide to making a complaint.
Thursday 22nd April - The Ever Shifting Goal Posts Of Gender Ideology
THE STAGE: Gender Ideologues in the theatre are demanding the cancellation of stage productions in which trans characters are played by non-trans actors.
This latest decree is in response to the casting announcement that Miles Western will play the transsexual character, Bernadette, in a forthcoming UK tour of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
An open letter signed by ‘transgender and non-binary theatre-makers’ demands that venues refuse to house productions in which non-trans actors play trans characters and that actors should refuse trans roles if they are not trans.
"What you do when you cast a cis man – put him in a dress, and label him as trans – is you let violence happen to a transgender woman in the future. A member of your audience will see a man in a dress, read your programme, and will think: ‘Haha, that’s a man in a dress’, and you are allowing that violence."
Aside from the ludicrous hyperbole about ‘violence’, this statement completely ignores the inconvenient truth that the people driving gender identity ideology are men in dresses.
Activists who demand that Eddie Izzard, Ezra Furnham and Alex Drummond et al really are women just because they say so cannot then complain about a man who does not differ from them in any way being cast as a transwoman.
You cannot defend the intact males who stalk lesbian dating sites in one breath then spit fire over a ‘man in a dress’ appearing in Priscilla with the next.
If you are genuinely concerned about the public’s perception of transwomen, then these are the men in dresses you should be condemning.
Speaking of which…
Friday 23rd April - These Are Not Women’s Crimes
SIDMOUTH HERALD: A trans-identified male has received a prison sentence after being caught in an online ‘sting’ operation by paedophile hunters.
“Jessica” Smith is a man. He sent numerous sexually explicit messages to two people he believed to be 14-year-old schoolgirls (though in reality they were decoys from a vigilante group). He then sent photographs of his genitals, asked for reciprocation and invited one of the ‘girls’ to visit him at his home and bring a 12-year-old friend.
The article calls Smith a woman, refers to him with female pronouns throughout and performs linguistic gymnastics to describes him as being ‘in male persona’ when caught by the vigilantes. When did journalists get so frightened of telling the truth?
Saturday 24th April - No Country For Bold Women
THE SCOTSMAN: Susan Dalgety writes about the Scottish women fighting to defend their sex-based rights and the politicians who seem determined to destroy them.
The Scottish election is just weeks away.
The SNP manifesto suggests that, if returned to government, the party will press ahead with their planned self ID legislation, a policy supported by the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Greens. Any objection to this policy is met with allegations of bigotry and transphobia.
Earlier this week leader of the Scottish Green Party, Patrick Harvie, appeared on BBC Radio Scotland. He likened women defending their sex-based rights to racists, calling them ‘horrible and toxic’.
Also this week, Nicola Sturgeon appeared in a video and stated her ‘chosen pronouns’, thus signalling exactly whose side she’s on in the gender debate. Then her friend, New York based actor, Alan Cumming, wrote an article in The Times, dismissing feminist concerns over self ID laws as ‘fear of the unknown’.
As Susan Dalgety writes:
“Scotland’s women do not fear the unknown. We know only too well what scares us. Rape and sexual assault. The pain of menstruation, the challenge of the menopause. Genital mutilation. Poverty wages, domestic violence, careers interrupted because of childbirth, dying in childbirth, infertility, walking alone at night. And the sound of footsteps too close behind us…
We don’t fear the unknown, Alan. We didn’t choose our pronouns, Nicola. We are not racists, Patrick. We are women. We are adult female humans. And we will not be silenced.”
Sunday 25th April - Thumbs Down For Mixed Sex Toilets In Irish Schools
Earlier in the week The Irish Times reported on Department of Education plans to equip all new primary and secondary schools with mixed sex toilets.
The article makes only a cursory mention of the evidence that girls feel uncomfortable and unsafe in mixed sex facilities to such an extent their health and education can be affected. Instead, it quotes the groups who prioritise ‘the needs of trans and non-binary students’ and suggests that there is little opposition to the new toilet design.
A few days later, however, and a number of readers’ letters proved that this really isn’t the case.
“I would like to know when we magically evolved to have reached a point where young girls no longer require privacy, dignity and safety while in states of undress or dealing with periods…
If students wish to use gender-neutral toilets, surely they are a tiny minority who can be catered for without removing the rights of every girl in the school to female-only facilities.”
Sinead Fulcher, Drogheda, Co Louth.
“It was great to see your coverage on the proposed introduction of gender-neutral toilets in schools. I would suggest that a good idea would be to ask the opinion of the boys and girls who it will affect.”
Jacky Stewart, Dublin 12.
“Where will girls be able to get pads and tampons? Will they have to ask the teachers, because they are too embarrassed to use a dispenser in a mixed-sex space? Will they be too embarrassed to ask the teacher too? …It is not “inclusive” to ignore the practical problems faced by 50 per cent of the population.”
Dr Annette Neary, Barna, Co Galway.
“This step by the Department of Education intrudes upon the safety, dignity, privacy and comfort of girls in school. I am a mother of five – boys and girls. None of my children, some of them adults, believe that this is a good move by the Department of Education. They are all appalled at the lack of understanding of the needs and wishes of young girls and women.
The department has said that the decision to move to mixed-sex toilets in schools was taken after consultation.
With whom did the department consult? What stakeholders were asked for their opinion? Were any groups or organisations consulted? If so, which groups?”
Madeleine O’Dowd, Wexford
Women aren’t buying it.
See you next week.
"That Furman is unquestioningly fawned over as a ‘mom’ when actual mothers are forced to refer to themselves as ‘chest feeders’ and ‘birthing parents’ couldn’t make it any clearer that gender ideology is a men’s rights movement."
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you for this! You nailed it!
I've seen so many posts referring to LGB Alliance as an anti-trans hate group. You might as well say that the Heart Foundation hates people with cancer unless they change their name to Heart and Cancer Foundation. It's sickening, I hope LGB Alliance get to sue at some point.
In another item yesterday (26 April), Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 discussing the Turkish Baths in Harrogate deciding to do away with single sex sessions where nudity was optional. I've been to these baths and I'm quite shy so wore a swimsuit but after about 20 mins decided to strip off because most others were and we were all women, various ages, shapes and sizes, some with scars, some near perfect. It was so liberating to be in that space and not feel at all self-conscious. Now they are going to insist on swimwear at all sessions - the programme was treating it like a joke, inferring it was all to do with prudishness and Brits being hung up. The real reason is that the council know that female only sessions will be invaded by male bodied people claiming to be women and insisting on being allowed to get naked with actual women. Hence the council are talking about making it more inclusive by making everyone cover up. This nonsense has to stop.