A Week in the War on Women: Monday 3rd October - Sunday 9th October
Monday 3rd October - Tail Wags Dog
BANGOR DAILY NEWS: A university in Portland is providing an alternative class for students who object to a teacher that upholds biological sex.
Last month students at the University of Southern Maine (USM) staged a mass walkout after one of their tutors told them there are only two sexes.
Christy Hammer was teaching a graduate course called ‘Creating a Positive Learning Environment’ which is part of the university’s Extended Teacher Education Program. The class involved a discussion about sex and gender in which all but one of the students argued that sex is on a spectrum while Hammer maintained that there are only two biological sexes.
The following week a ‘non-binary’ student, Elizabeth Leibiger, brought up the subject again. She had been absent from the class at which the subject was originally raised but she heard about the discussion from her classmates and was intent on resurrecting the same topic. She told the Bangor Daily News, “I asked [Hammer] how many sexes there were. She said, ‘Two.’ I felt under personal attack.” At this point, Leibiger walked out of the class.
The other students followed Leibiger out of the class. They accused Hammer of transphobia and wrote to the Department of Education and Human Development, asking for a facilitated restorative justice meeting. Their request was granted but the meeting didn’t quite go as the students expected. Hammer, quite rightly, maintained her position that sex is binary and ‘gender identities’ are designations within the sex classes of male and female. As a result, the students are refusing to take Hammer’s class and demanding that she be sacked.
The USM authorities have decided not to remove Christy Hammer from her class. However, they are pandering to the students’ demands by making an alternative, identical class available. University spokesperson, Gina Marie Guadagnino, said, “We have developed an alternative plan for this class and will be opening a new section of this course for those students who would like to move”.
Elizabeth Leibiger, the student who instigated the walkout, isn’t satisfied with this outcome. She told The Bangor Daily News, “I think that the next step USM needs to take is being clear what accountability will look like for Christy Hammer”.
Leibiger plans to become a high school teacher after graduation. Heaven help her students.
Tuesday 4th October - Mermaids’ Very Fishy PIE
THE TIMES: It has been revealed that one of Mermaids’ trustees has links to paedophile organizations and has written extensively on pro-paedophile and ‘child sexuality’ subject matter.
Dr Jacob Breslow is an Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality in the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics. (Though very soon after this story first broke, the LSE website was updated to say that he is currently taking a sabbatical.) Various revelations this week have made clear that Breslow has a history of expressing pro-paedophile sentiments in his work.
In 2011 he presented a paper at an event organised by B4U-Act, an organization founded by convicted child rapist, Michael Melsheimer. It describes itself as promoting services and resources “For individuals who are sexually attracted to children” and is credited with popularising the term ‘minor attracted persons’ for paedophiles.
Breslow’s presentation at B4U-Act’s 2011 ‘scientific symposium’ was titled ‘Sexual Alignment: Critiquing Sexual Orientation, The Peadophile, and the DSM V’. It promoted the treating of paedophilia as a valid sexual orientation. In his paper Breslow compared sexually abusing a child to masturbating on a shoe.
In 2016 Breslow submitted his thesis for his Philosophy doctorate. It was called ‘The Theory and Practice of Childhood: Interrogating Childhood as a Technology of Power’ and Breslow described it as exploring ‘the queer life of children’s desires’.
Last year Breslow published ‘Ambivalent Childhoods: Speculative Futures and the Psychic Life of the Child’. A chapter called ‘Desiring the Child’ begins with a description of a 12-year-old child simulating sexual intercourse for an audience of adults. “As his movements transition from those that mimic break-dancers to those that mimic sex acts, repeating the easily citational gesticulations of pelvic thrusts… I find myself caught up in exhilarating waves of memory, identification, and desire”.
During the online book launch Breslow asked, “What do we do when queerness is aligned with projects that are less easy to sit with that are less sort of respectable? …Is it really that children or young people having sex is the problem? Or is it the conditions under which that sex happens?” He also criticised the ‘carceral state’ for its treatment of sex offenders and reiterated a previous questioning of the need for a sex offenders register.
Jacob Breslow became a Mermaids trustee in July 2022.
When this story broke, Mermaids issued a statement:
“Mermaids has been made aware of Dr Breslow's historical participation in a conference that is completely at odds with our values. Once notified we took swift and decisive action to investigate. Dr Breslow tendered his notice on the same day. We will be reviewing our processes and procedures in light of this event to make them even more robust.”
If Mermaids were genuinely unaware that Breslow’s work and research focuses on the sexuality of and adult attraction to children, it raises huge concerns about the charity’s safeguarding protocols around the recruitment of staff and volunteers.
Didn’t they even glance at Breslow’s biography on his employer’s website?
Didn’t they check any of the links which a quick net search of Breslow’s name will bring up? (Like this 4W article published in January 2022.)
Didn’t they cast an eye over Breslow’s own blog?
Didn’t they even bother to read the book Breslow wrote only last year?
Breslow didn’t keep his paedophile sympathies a secret; they are all over the internet for all to see. But if Mermaids honestly didn’t find them (and that’s a big IF), it’s because they didn’t bother to look.
If this is how easily a paedophile sympathiser can slip through the net and be appointed a trustee, what else is lurking beneath Mermaid’s rock?
Also Today - This Never Happens
STOKE ON TRENT LIVE: A man burst in on a half-naked woman in a Primark ‘gender neutral’ changing room.
A 45-year-old woman was using the changing room in a Stoke branch of Primark when a man opened the curtain to her cubicle while she was undressed. She told the paper, “I went to tell staff 'there’s a man in here' and the lady said ‘yes, it’s gone to unisex now’… I complained to Primark but I didn’t hear anything back”.
On another visit to the same branch the woman encountered a group of teenage boys in the changing area and expressed concerns about the safety and privacy of her daughter who also shops in the store. "There’s a lot of young girls in there. It's a big changing room that goes around corners. I don’t think it’s safe.”
In light of numerous adverse new stories Primark appeared to renege on their ‘gender neutral’ policy and promised that women-only changing rooms will be reinstated in their stores soon.
However, Primark then clarified that these changing rooms will be open to ‘self-identifying women’ - ie males - rendering the changes meaningless and leaving women still in danger of voyeurs and predators.
Wednesday 5th October - Global Misogyny
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is currently staging a ‘re-telling’ of the Joan of Arc story in which St Joan, the courageous and brilliant military leader and feminist icon, is portrayed as ‘non binary’ and using they/them pronouns.
‘I, Joan’ has drawn widespread criticism over its erasing of such an important female role model and its obscuring of the fundamental part Joan’s sex played in her fate.
Apparently, it isn’t possible to be both a woman and a ‘fucking warrior’; you can only be one or the other.
Shakespeare’s Globe was not content with upholding regressive gender stereotypes and erasing one of history’s rare female central characters.
On Wednesday the theatre tweeted a video of the play’s prologue, quoting from the play’s opening lines; “Trans people are sacred. We are the divine”. (Eh?)
The prologue continues, “We are practicing our divinity by expressing authenticity”. (This ‘authenticity’ seems to require wearing a breast binder to crush and debilitate Joan’s female body.)
A few hours later, the theatre tweeted and gushed over a poem which it described on its website as a ‘creative response’ to the play.
The poem is nothing but an outpouring of misogyny and an attack on the feminists who are trying to defend their sex-based rights and protect their children. It refers to such women as transphobic terfs and bitches who are full of garbage. It also describes them as being blindly led by men. “I don’t know how they’re alive.”
This is how the poem appeared on the theatre’s website.
In response to a slew of criticism, the theatre had to issue a hasty apology, deleting its tweet and removing the poem from its website. But it was too late. We’d already seen this vile misogyny being ‘loved’ and upheld as ‘truth’ and ‘creativity’.
In validating such hate speech against women, Shakespeare’s Globe is keeping some very dangerous company.
The theatre needs to remember that under the Equality Act 2010, sex is a protected characteristic. And that thanks to Forstater v CDG and Bailey v Garden Court Chambers, gender critical opinions are legally protected. And that the news in recent weeks proves only too well that ‘terf’ concerns around child safeguarding have been more than vindicated. And that there are burgeoning numbers of detransitioners who bitterly regret ‘lopping titties off’.
Shakespeare’s Globe describes itself as “A world-renowned theatre, education centre, and cultural landmark.” It is publicly funded via the Arts Council. It should not be pushing a political ideology on its audience, especially an ideology antithetical to science and so rooted in misogyny and homophobia.
I know what Shakespeare would have said about Joan of Arc:
“A child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman.” (Loves Labours Lost - Act I, Scene I)
Also Today - The Bleedin’ Obvious
THE TIMES: Half of the trans-identified male prisoners in Scotland only developed a trans identity after their conviction.
Half of the transgender inmates in Scottish prisons began transitioning after they were convicted, it has been revealed.
A freedom of information request to the Scottish Prison Service has revealed that of the sixteen trans inmates currently incarcerated, eight only began claiming a trans identity while “In custody following their remand or conviction for their current offence”.
The prison service also revealed that six of these trans-identified male prisoners are sex offenders. An undisclosed number of ‘trans women’ are under consideration for a move into the female prison estate.
Kenny MacAskill, the former SNP justice secretary, commented, “This is extremely worrying. The statistics confirm the anecdotal evidence that some male prisoners are opting to self ID as females not through any desire to transgender but to avoid being imprisoned in the male estate. That is an abuse of the system and a threat to vulnerable women”.
Meanwhile, the SNP are still insisting their proposed self-ID legislation doesn’t pose any threat to women’s rights or safety.
Thursday 6th October - I Can’t Believe It’s Not Satire
REDUXX: A dangerous sex offender has been awarded $2.5 million after taking legal action against the state which refused him ‘gender affirming surgery’.
Adree (formerly Mason) Edmo is a violent sex offender who served time for abusing the young man he was dating and for sexually assaulting a child.
In 2018 Edmo’s former partner, Brady Summers, spoke to KIFI Local News 8 and tearfully recounted the violence and sexual violence he had endured at Edmo’s hands. “He was a predator. He had his way with me. It was brutal. He would beat me on a constant basis. I had to keep my head low. I had to be careful what I said, careful what I did. And the final straw of me escaping was him beating me with a frying pan.”
After serving time for assaulting Summers in 2010, Edmo was back in prison in 2011 having been convicted of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy.
Following this conviction, Edmo began ‘identifying as female’, demanding ‘gender affirming’ surgery and a transfer to a women’s prison. His request was denied, although he was supplied with hormone treatment.
In 2017 Edmo began legal proceedings against the state of Idaho and the department of correction’s medical provider, Corizon Correctional Healthcare. The following year US District Judge, B Lynn Winmill ruled that the state should pay for Edmo’s surgery. The state appealed, arguing that the clinicians treating Edmo maintained he did not qualify for the surgery due to his ‘uncontrolled mental health issues’ and pointing out that Edmo had refused to participate in therapy in preparation for the procedure.
Edmo claimed he had been suffering with gender dysphoria and ‘living as a woman’ prior to his incarceration. However, the evidence does not uphold this claim.
Nor do the mugshots taken of him in 2010 and 2012.
In his 2018 interview with KIFI Local News 8, Brady Summers maintained that Edmo had not identified as trans prior to his conviction but had always ‘presented’ as a masculine man. He “Never once indicated anything of gender dysphoria,” said Summers.
The Court of Appeal documents told a similar story. “Records reveal that, prior to 2012, Ms Edmo exclusively presented herself [sic] as male and no mention was ever made of her [sic] expressing issues with her gender identity”. When Edmo was arrested for fraud “A photograph taken upon her [sic] intake shows Ms. Edmo presenting as a male”. Furthermore, “The records from that earlier period of incarceration are devoid of any documents in which Ms. Edmo ever identified as female or raised issues regarding her [sic] gender identity.”
Having been convicted and sentenced for the sexual abuse of a child in 2011, Edmo participated in Pre-Sentence Investigations (PSI) that included detailed life histories, a psychosexual evaluation, interviews with family members, and a polygraph test. “Tellingly absent from the 147 pages are any statements that Ms. Edmo identified or appeared female, that she [sic] questioned her [sic] identity as a homosexual male, or that she [sic] had any distress with her [sic] male genitals”.
Nevertheless, the appeal was unsuccessful; Edmo received his reassignment surgery and was subsequently transferred to a women’s prison in 2020.
He was released in 2021.
This week Judge Winmill awarded Edmo roughly $2.5 million in legal fees and court expenses.
Friday 7th October - These Are Not Our Crimes
THE HERALD SUN: A trans-identified male with a huge social media following has been accused of child sexual abuse offences.
44-year-old Rachel Queen Burton is an Australian TikTok celebrity with around 36,000 followers. He is the father of four children but describes himself as ‘a proud trans woman’ who is ‘living my best life with no regrets’.
In many of his videos he is scantily clad, lip-syncing to songs and/or dancing provocatively. In one video he mouths along to a clip from the film Jumanji - “Oh my God there is literally a penis attached to my body right now” - while pulling down his Demin shorts under which pink underwear is clearly visible.
In another video Burton brags that he has received his new birth certificate and is now legally female.
This week Burton appeared in Adelaide Magistrates Court on a number of child sexual abuse charges. He was taken into custody in June when his TikTok appearances stopped abruptly. Burton faces eight charges including gross indecency and producing child exploitation material. Prosecutors asked for the case to be adjourned for 10 weeks so that his electronic devices can be analysed.
When local news outlet, Adelaide Now, reported on the case, it described Burton as a woman and referred to him with female pronouns.
Saturday 8th October - More Mire At Mermaids
DAILY MAIL: A Mermaids trustee believes biological sex is a ‘concept’.
Dr Katie McDowell ‘identifies as queer, trans & non-binary’, uses they/them pronouns and is a Mermaids trustee.
She believes that biological sex is a ‘concept’. “Because what do you mean by that? Do you mean chromosomes? Do you mean hormone levels? Do you mean genitals? Everybody is obsessed with genitals. Does it mean… what you look like? Because you know obviously you can have tall women, you can have very short men. So I think even biological sex, which is what the gender critical people are obsessed with, is not as simple as it's made out to be.”
(Worryingly, Dr McDowell is a junior NHS paediatrician, a profession one would hope comes with a basic understanding of reproductive biology.)
In addition to her science denialism, Dr McDowell also maintains that anyone who does uphold the reality of sex - those she describes as the UK's ‘very active gender critical movement’ - are “Very, very anti-trans and spearheading this horrendous attack on trans human rights”.
Sunday 9th October - Leave Them Kids Alone
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Vulnerable teenagers with gender issues are being sold dangerous ‘DIY’ hormone drugs by shady online suppliers.
An investigation by The Sunday Times has revealed that vulnerable gender-confused youngsters are buying dangerous prescription-only drugs illegally from online pharmacies.
On social media sites such as Reddit, users are directing adolescents who identify as trans to online outlets which operate illegally and will supply drugs that affect hormone levels. Parents have warned of a particular Reddit forum with almost 40,000 members which is dedicated to providing advice about taking shortcuts to procuring powerful drugs without medical supervision.
One of the drugs being suggested is spironolactone, usually used to treat fluid retention due to heart failure, but recommended on Reddit for the suppression of testosterone levels. Another drug is dutasteride, an androgen inhibitor prescribed to treat an enlarged prostate but being recommended to suppress testosterone. Neither medication should be taken without the proper supervision of and prescription from a medial professional.
The Sunday Times was able to buy drugs online within minutes, without needing to provide any proof of age and without requiring a prescription.
Also Today - The Political Player
REDUXX: A trans-identified male politician has repeatedly posted pornographic content on social media and seemingly lied about his past as a ‘sex worker’.
In July we reported on a conference centred on tackling human trafficking. It was interrupted by Maria Clemente, a trans-identified male and trans activist who was elected to Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies last year. He stormed onto the stage to protest against a feminist speaker who called for the abolition of the sex trade.
Clemente was aggressive and combative, chanted “Sex work is work”, screamed over the conference speakers, lashed out at one of the conference officials and, when a member of the audience challenged his words, asking, “Women were born to be whores?” he responded, “Well I am a woman and I am a whore. I love it!”
In recent weeks he has been posting extreme pornographic content to his Twitter account.
He posts photographs of himself in skimpy lingerie.
He posts videos of himself in his underwear, pouting and blowing kisses.
He posts photographs of himself in fetish gear.
He posts videos of himself performing a striptease.
But, more shockingly, he posts extremely explicit pornographic content including lurid close-ups of erect penises, male genitalia immediately post-ejaculation, and even videos of himself performing oral sex on men he refers to as ‘daddies’.
This is a politician paid approximately £3,300 per month to serve and represent the Mexican electorate. Hard to imagine a woman behaving like this without losing her job and being eviscerated in the press.
VICE praised Clemente for uploading such content in an article titled ‘Mexico’s First Trans Politician is a Sex Worker Who Has No Problem Tweeting Her Own Porn’. It included a comment from Clemente that his explicit posts are intended to generate more clients for his ‘sex work’.
The day this article was published, however, a Twitter user claiming to be Clemente’s estranged husband, Iván Sheridan, issued a statement stating that Clemente is lying about being a prostitute and, while he has never sold sex, he has paid for it.
“I’ve known you for almost six years and I can assure you that you have never done sex work… Don’t forget that you met me when I was practicing, and that I received payment for my services for a long time. A lot of people know that.”
Does play acting as a prostitute and porn star validate Clemente’s warped view of womanhood? Hard not to feel that he is fetishizing the sexual exploitation of women and posting that fetish all over the internet. Remember what he shouted at the conference? “I am a woman and I am a whore. I love it!”
See you next week.
If you search 'mermaids our staff and trustees' and click images, it appears photos that have been deleted from the Mermaids website are visible.
Do people know that Rosy Rowley who worked for the NSPCC for years in safeguarding joined Mermaids in 2019!?
https://www.oneeducation.co.uk/news-blog/safeguarding-conference-2022-keynote-speaker-krystyna-hebb
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