I now have paid work tomorrow so I am pulling this update forward, dear readers. Sorry for the flurry of updates. I hope to try and make it to Sunday before the next update 😃
Thanks to Rex Landy for the latest choice in the Heroes season, Stickmen.
The film begins with Thomas (Paolo Rotondo) and Wayne (Scott Wills) playing a game of pool against two English men. They almost win but Wayne loses the game on the last shot due to overconfidence. Their friend Jack ( Robbie Magasiva) then arrives. His pool playing skills come to the attention of Holden (Kirk Torrance), who remarks to the bartender Dave (John Leigh) that the three friends might be good enough to play in "Daddy's game". "Daddy's game" turns out to be an underground pool tournament run by local Greek crime lord, Daddy (Enrico Mammarella). Each team pays $500 to enter and the winner takes away $20,000 tax free. The three of them agree to enter under the name "Stickmen".
Rex writes: ‘The humour is SO dry we could be in Arizona.’
Thanks as ever to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Free Speech
Free Speech Union writes ( 12 September):
Update on Help Rescue the Freedom of Speech Act!
Dear all,
Thanks to your generous support we filed our claim against the Secretary of State for Education on 5 September. The fight to save the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act has begun in earnest.
Our solicitors and counsel did a superb job putting a powerful legal argument before the High Court. You can read our Statement of Facts and Grounds here.
The cost of preparing the claim was significantly reduced due to input from the Free Speech Union's in-house legal team. Judicial review is expensive and we will do everything we can to make your donation count.
When we filed our claim we asked the High Court to expedite proceedings by ordering a single hearing where it would consider whether to grant permission to bring a judicial review and, if permission were granted, whether our claim succeeded. These questions are normally dealt with through separate procedures in judicial review.
In response to our application, the High Court has met us halfway. It agrees that, because 'the issues raised by the claim are important and may affect a large number of university staff and students', a degree of expedition is justified. We will therefore get the Court's decision on permission 'as soon as possible' after the Government has replied to our claim and will then, if permission is granted, proceed to a full hearing at a later date.
We anticipate a decision on permission in early October. The legal grounds raised are strong and we believe that the claim will proceed to a full judicial review hearing.
The importance of our campaign to save the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act is undiminished. Today the Times reported that seven Nobel laureates along with 600 other academics have written to the Secretary of State asking her to reconsider her revocation of the Act. The story can be read here.
The Times quotes Lord Sumption, former Justice of the United Kingdom Supreme Court:
‘The distinguished academics who have endorsed the campaign have widely differing views on many current controversies but are united in their defence of the right to speak out without undermining their careers.
‘The last decade has seen too many cases of academics hounded, marginalised, threatened with disciplinary proceedings, forced into self-censorship and even sacked because of their refusal to accept standard tropes about issues which are matters of legitimate debate, like gender identity, imperialism, slavery, racial discrimination and many others. These wars against those who step out of line mark the narrowing of our intellectual world and a betrayal of the vocation of our universities.’
We wholly agree, and look forward to further voices of support in the coming months.
Thank you again for your support,
THE FREE SPEECH UNION
Tickle v Giggle
Excellent discussion of the case by Anna Kerr of Feminist Legal Clinic:
BBC Under Scrutiny
From SEEN In Journalism’s substack:
BBC transgender coverage under scrutiny
We are grateful to Our Duty group for this submission to the BBC Thematic Review
Sep 10, 2024
The BBC is facing growing concerns over its portrayal of gender identity issues. A recent report by Our Duty, an organisation advocating for ethical treatment of children and families affected by transgender ideation, critically assesses the BBC’s coverage of transgenderism and highlights significant biases in its reporting. This report, titled BBC Coverage of Transgenderism, offers a thorough analysis of the BBC's journalistic practices, identifying tendencies toward promoting certain ideological viewpoints while marginalising others.
Key Concerns Raised in the Report
Bias in Framing and Language
The report notes that the BBC frequently employs terminology such as "gender identity" and "gender-affirming care" as though these concepts are universally accepted. This framing overlooks the substantial public and scientific debate surrounding gender ideology, particularly regarding its impact on children. By presenting these terms as settled, the BBC may be unintentionally promoting a particular perspective that compromises its commitment to impartiality.Selective Representation and Omission
According to Our Duty, the BBC’s coverage tends to favour stories that affirm medical transition while underreporting critical perspectives. For instance, while The Cass Review — a landmark evaluation of transgender healthcare in the UK — raised significant concerns about medical interventions for youth, the BBC has reportedly downplayed these findings. The report accuses the BBC of omission bias, leaving out stories of detransitioners and those questioning the efficacy of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.Impact on Public Trust
The BBC is a publicly funded institution with a mandate to reflect the diversity of the UK population. Our Duty’s report argues that the BBC’s selective approach to transgender issues risks alienating portions of its audience who feel their concerns are being ignored. By underrepresenting critical viewpoints, particularly those of parents, medical professionals, and researchers sceptical of current transgender medical practices, the BBC could be eroding public trust in its ability to deliver balanced reporting.
Analysis of Specific Case Studies
Our Duty provides detailed case studies within the report, illustrating how the BBC’s coverage often promotes a one-sided narrative. Examples include the BBC’s treatment of a transgender model’s victory in the Miss Netherlands pageant, which was portrayed in a celebratory light without addressing concerns about fairness or biological differences in women’s competitions. Another case study criticises the BBC for presenting the destruction of a Pride flag as a ‘hate crime’ without exploring alternative explanations or motivations for the act, reflecting a potential oversimplification of complex issues.
Recommendations for Improved Coverage
To address these imbalances, the report offers several recommendations for the BBC, including:
Diversification of Story Selection: Ensuring that stories representing a range of views on transgenderism are covered with equal rigour.
Critical Examination of Language: Using neutral and precise language that reflects the ongoing debates around transgenderism, avoiding ideological slants.
Inclusion of Critical Voices: Featuring detransitioners, medical experts, and other stakeholders who offer cautionary perspectives on medicalising gender incongruence.
Conclusion
As a public broadcaster, the BBC plays a vital role in shaping societal discourse. Our Duty’s report raises important questions about whether the BBC is fulfilling its mandate to provide balanced and comprehensive coverage of controversial topics. The call for more curiosity and objectivity in reporting is crucial for maintaining public trust and promoting informed debate.
For more detailed analysis and recommendations, readers can access the full report here:
https://ourduty.group/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/BBC-Coverage-of-Transgenderism.pdf
https://seeninjournalism.substack.com/p/bbc-transgender-coverage-under-scrutiny
Rape Crisis Scotland
I reported on Roz Adams’ successful judgment against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/sunday-bloody-sunday?utm_source=publication-search
Following that judgment Rape Crisis Scotland have just released a report. Wings Over Scotland are not very happy with this report!
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-land-of-immunity/
The report is 93 pages long and I will be attempting to go through it. Watch this space!
Hate Crime
As regular readers will know I think that ‘hate crime’ should be abolished. And as for non-crime hate incidents!!
Rachel Roberts in The Epoch Times ( 25 Percent of ‘Hate Crimes’ Shouldn’t Have Been Recorded by Police, Watchdog Finds 11 September) reports:
The police are recording too many incidents as “hate crimes” and getting involved in disputes that include “hurt feelings,” because people have different perspectives and strong opinions, the police watchdog has warned in a new report.
A review of 120 sample cases of so-called “Non-Crime Hate Incidents” (NCHIs) and hate crimes found that a quarter should not have been recorded by the police at all.
Examples included an incident when a man reported members of the public for giving him “funny looks,” which he claimed were down to his ethnic appearance. This resulted in the recording of an NCHI, with a police officer appearing to take it seriously. Another case involved a man reporting a cashier for being “racist” for carrying out money-laundering checks as he was trying to deposit a significant amount of cash.
Officers are often taking action that “may appear to contradict common sense,” and the current culture in the force appears to be, “if in doubt, record a crime,” according to Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, who authored the report.
Former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman commissioned the report into “activism and impartiality” in policing in September 2023, following a number of stories in the media about apparent police overreach following social media disputes on “politically contested matters.”
The aim was to see whether the police were being overly zealous and “politically correct” when members of the public were reporting others who they had been involved in a dispute which they believed was a “hate crime” against them.
‘Contentious, Emotive Issues’
The forward to the report states: “This has been one of the most challenging inspections we have carried out. It deals with complex legislation and regulations. It deals with policing’s sometimes invidious role in keeping the peace, meeting the needs of individuals or groups who have opposing views and simultaneously upholding everyone’s rights. And it involves contentious, emotive issues.”
The inspectors reviewed more than 4,000 documents and held interviews and focus groups with over 400 officers, staff and members of other organisations. They examined the records of 120 so-called “non-crime hate incidents,” where no crime is judged to have been committed but a record is kept.
The team also surveyed the police and the public—receiving more than 4,000 responses—and analysed over 857,000 police social media posts.
And, of course, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, aims to increase these powers: https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/vigil?utm_source=publication-search
The full article is here:
Thanks to Feminist Legal Clinic (FLC) for the next piece and note the comment at the end from their editor:
Labor bill proposes up to seven years’ jail for doxing but drops promised new hate speech laws ( 12 September)
Malicious release of personal data would be criminalised under a bill to be introduced by the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, on Thursday along with a separate bill implementing the first tranche of privacy reforms.
As Guardian Australia revealed on Monday, this will include a new right to sue for “serious invasions of privacy” and a children’s online privacy code.
The doxing bill, full details of which will only be revealed on Thursday, would criminalise “malicious use of personal data”, with a penalty of up to six years in prison or up to seven years for targeting a person because of their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, disability, nationality or national or ethnic origin.
But despite promising a bill to criminalise vilification and hate speech more generally – such as inciting hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule – the government has dropped the commitment.
[Ed: Complicated. It will also make it more difficult for women to warn others of male sexual perpetrators using a changed name or sex.]
Source: Labor bill proposes up to seven years’ jail for doxing but drops promised new hate speech laws | Australian politics | The Guardianhttps://
‘Gender identity’ in the States
Thanks again to FLC for this piece.
Transgender identity: How much has it increased? ( 12 September)
In a new paper, Brooke Wells, Jennifer Le, Nic Rider, and I [ Jean Twenge ] analyzed data from nearly 2 million American adults who completed the CDC’s nationally representative Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS). (Note that all respondents are 18 or older, so this data can show us trends among adults, but not among children or teens.)
This survey has asked people if they identify as transgender since 2014. Data were available up to 2022 when we wrote the paper. Here, I also include the 2023 data, which was just released a few weeks ago.
Among all adults, identifying as transgender increased from .53% (53 out of 1,000) in 2014 to .89% (89 out of 1,000) in 2023. That’s a 68% increase – considerable, but not the orders of magnitude seen in the number of people being treated for gender dysphoria. And even in 2023 the number of American adults identifying as transgender is still less than 1%. So far it looks like the changes are substantial, but not huge.
But what happens when we look at trends within age groups? This will better answer the question of whether identifying as transgender has increased among younger adults and if there is a generational shift.
Here, the increases are much larger. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, identifying as transgender has gone from .59% in 2014 to 3.08% in 2023 – which means it has quintupled (increased by a factor of 5) in less than a decade, a 422% increase.
Source: Transgender identity: How much has it increased?
On the substack for Parents with Inconvenient Truths About Trans, a young woman discusses her cousin declaring she is ‘trans’ and then going down the route to surgery.
Who knows, maybe we’ll even be able to share a laugh or two
Sep 11, 2024
I am not a parent of a trans-identifying child, so I’m grateful to PITT for allowing me to publish here. I have my own reasons for needing anonymity.
I have been a political leftist for as long as I have had a political consciousness, and a feminist for nearly as long. My family are all Democrats who believe whatever MSNBC and the New York Times tell them to believe. I reached “peak trans” in the mid-2010s.
I was 16 years old when my cousin, the daughter of my father’s brother, was born. Because our fathers are identical twins, our families have always been close. She had a traumatic childhood, including the tragic death of an older brother and the suicide of her abusive mother. Both occurred when she was 10. Her older brother was an amazing kid and she really looked up to him. She wanted to do what he did. Her brother played soccer, so she wanted to play too. She had an enormous poster of Mia Hamm on her bedroom wall. She wanted to wear baggy pants and t-shirts. In other words, she wanted to be able to do the “cool boy stuff” instead of the “dumb girl stuff.” Her mother wouldn’t have any of it, instead forcing her into pink dresses and pigtails with ribbons on them. She hated it.
My cousin and I had always been very close, and I did my best to help her grow into a smart, strong, capable and independent young woman. After her mother died, as she grew into adulthood, my cousin abandoned the stereotypes of femininity completely. She wore cargo pants and combat boots. She wore her hair in a buzz cut. She took up rock-climbing and became very good at it.
At some point in her mid-twenties, she came out as a lesbian. To be honest, I don’t really remember a dramatic “coming out.” One day, she just introduced the family to her girlfriend. My liberal family was very accepting of their relationship. I don’t recall it being any kind of big deal.
At one point in the mid-2010s, her girlfriend moved to the city where I was living, and they carried on their relationship long-distance. One day, during the 2016 presidential election, my cousin texted me, letting me know she was visiting and wondering if I wanted to hang out. “Sure!”, I said. “There’s a political rally on Saturday afternoon. Why don’t you and your girlfriend come over in the morning? I’ll make us all brunch and we can make signs and then go to the rally.” “lol that sounds awesome,” she responded.
I started to see the signs in the late 2010s. By that time, her attitude toward nonconformity with sex stereotypes had started to shift. As a confirmed lefty feminist, I’m all for women who refuse to conform to feminine sex stereotypes. But as a TERF, I could see that her attitude seemed to shift from “I am a woman who proudly refuses to conform to feminine sex stereotypes” toward “I am a man, and I am going to act like one.” I probably wouldn’t have noticed the signs if it weren’t for my understanding of the harms of “gender identity.” But I did.
One day her girlfriend put up a Facebook post along the lines of, “I’m reading Judith Butler on the subway and I couldn’t be happier!” and I knew it was all over. In normal times, the sentence I just typed would sound absurd. But these are not normal times, and readers of this Substack will understand what I mean immediately.
Sure enough, one day I (along with several family members, including my father and his identical twin), got the email message: “I am transgender. Please refer to me using they/them pronouns.” The message contained some other things, but readers get the gist. Even though I had seen it coming, it knocked the wind out of me. That was probably sometime in 2018 and she would have been around 30 years old.
I lay down on the sofa, had a bit of a cry, and picked my computer back up, unsure what I was going to do. By that time, my father had replied-all along the lines of, “Congratulations! We support you!”
I sent her a message (without replying-all) very cautiously suggesting she consider all the implications of what she was doing. Her terse response was, “My gender is not up for debate!” I had been a TERF long enough by then to know that if I wanted to maintain a relationship with her, I needed to leave well enough alone.
No one in my family knew at the time that I was a TERF (or what a TERF even was). But they would soon find out. The next several years were a minefield. I sent my parents everything I could find on the topic - the feminist analyses, the 11th Hour Blog, and everything by Colin Wright. PITT didn’t exist at the time, but if it had, I would have sent them PITT essays and newsletters too. I don’t think they read any of it. There were several tearful phone calls in which I begged them to think carefully about what they were supporting and imploring them to try to get her to change her mind. Because her mother passed away so long ago, my parents had a lot of influence in her life and I thought there was a chance they could have made a difference. I don’t think they understood the implications of what was happening. I think they just thought she was adopting a cool new identity. At one point they told me to stop sending them stuff and I did. Our relationship has been cordial, but tense, ever since.
A short time thereafter, my cousin posted a YouTube video on Facebook. The video is around three minutes long and recounts her double mastectomy. Someone (I have no idea who) had literally taken photos of her binding her breasts pre-mastectomy, signing admission paperwork at the hospital, and lying on her hospital bed, pre-op. Someone took pictures of her awakening from the surgery. Technicians draining the surgical site and removing surgical tape. Everyone smiling and hugging. Then, of course, there are pictures of her standing in her apartment, shirtless, scars prominently displayed and face smiling. All put together in a video collage. The sound in the video alternates between religious music and her reading a poem condemning her dead mother for her abusive behavior. At the time, it was the most cult-like thing I had ever seen. Sometime after that, she posted selfies shooting herself up with testosterone. Then came the music videos of her singing and playing guitar, her face covered in hair and her voice unrecognizable. I unfollowed her without unfriending her. I couldn’t bear the videos.
I attribute my cousin’s “trans” identity to two things:
As a child, she desperately wanted to be male, like her older brother; now, with the help of a little medical technology and Big Pharma, she can (pretend to) be one.
She has some very legitimate residual anger toward her deceased mother; this is her way of giving her mother the middle finger, in death.
It has been just over five years since she decided she was “transgender,” had her breasts removed, and started poisoning herself with testosterone. Miraculously, my family hasn’t cut me out of their lives, but we are forbidden from discussing the topic of “trans.” I recently made a little bit of headway with my mother, who understands the problems with men competing in women’s sports and still uses she/her pronouns to describe my cousin (though she got very upset at me when I referred to my cousin using her “deadname” and made it obvious she is not interested in hearing anything critical from me about the use of exogenous testosterone in female bodies).
I haven’t seen my cousin in over five years. Even though I unfollowed her on Facebook all those years ago, every once in a while, I lurk on her page to see what she’s up to. A few months ago, she posted a video rant against TERFs. I had to laugh. She and I have texted off and on, but not with any regularity. Every time she responds to a text of mine, I am shocked that she hasn’t blocked my number. But she hasn’t, still, to this day, which gives me hope. Readers of this Substack understand why.
Her birthday was last month. I texted her a happy birthday message and invited her to have a phone call. I am terrified to have such a conversation because I don’t know if I can bear the sound of her testosterone altered voice. But I wanted to make the offer. To my utter shock, she responded, wondering what I wanted to talk about. “Anything, really,” I said. “The craziness of the 2024 presidential election? The weather? I don’t want to debate you about gender, if you’re worried about that.” I didn’t hear anything for several weeks, and I assumed she was just ignoring me. But then I got a response letting me know that her dog had gotten sick and died. I expressed my sincere condolences. There will be a family wedding this fall and she asked if I’m going to the wedding. I confirmed that I am. “We can catch up then,” she said. “I’m just too exhausted to talk at the moment.”
My parents seem to have assumed over the years that, because I am a TERF I don’t accept my cousin as a human being. They have come right out and said as much. That’s ridiculous, of course, and I have no idea why they think that. I don’t know what’s going to happen during my family wedding this fall. I am desperate for her to stop killing herself with testosterone and to re-embrace herself as a woman and a lesbian. I will never stop hoping for that. But she hasn’t blocked my phone number and she’s willing to talk with me in person this fall. And if all goes well, the rest of my family will see that we are capable of talking with one another. Who knows, maybe we’ll even be able to share a laugh or two.
https://www.pittparents.com/p/who-knows-maybe-well-even-be-able?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true
Gaines for Girls
Great new podcast run by wonderful Riley Gaines. In this episode she discusses some very important American court cases with Christine Kieffer, senior counsel with Alliance for Defending Freedom.
Meta
On their substack, LGB Voices write:
Our Public Comment to Meta's Oversight Board About "Preferred Pronoun" Enforcement
Please tell Meta NOT to ban "misgendering" on Facebook/Instagram!
Sep 11, 2024
On August 29th, Meta’s Oversight Board announced it was allowing people to submit public comments regarding two cases regarding gender identity. The cases are as follows:
In the first case, a Facebook user in the United States posted a video of a woman confronting a transgender woman for using the women’s bathroom. The post refers to the person being confronted as a man and asks why it is permitted for them to use a women’s bathroom.
In the second case, an Instagram account posted a video of a transgender girl winning a female sports competition in the United States, with some spectators vocally disapproving of the result. The post refers to the athlete as a boy, questioning whether they are female.
Both posts were shared in 2024 and received thousands of views and reactions. They were reported for Hate Speech and Bullying and Harassment multiple times, but Meta left both posts up on Facebook and Instagram, respectively. After appealing to Meta against the company’s decisions, two of the users who reported the content then appealed to the Oversight Board.
We believe it would set a very bad precedent to mandate that users of Meta platforms (like Facebook and Instagram) respect people’s “gender identities” and “preferred pronouns.” That is why we have decided to submit a public comment explaining our concerns.
I’m afraid that the deadline for submissions is tonight but LGB Voices submission is here:
We are LGB Alliance USA, an advocacy organization dedicated to defending the rights of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. We are very alarmed to learn that Meta is considering banning “misgendering” as part of its hate and harassment policy.
We believe this effort is driven by a selective misapplication of the concept of “rights.” We often hear about the “rights” of transgender people to insist on certain language. But what about the rights of gays and lesbians to name reality as they experience it according to their sexual orientation? What about the rights of women to protect their boundaries — and how can women protect their boundaries when “woman” no longer means what it has traditionally been understood to be, namely, an adult human female?
Indeed, it is important to respect the rights of any individual to express their own beliefs. A person has a “right” to see themselves in any way they want to and to use whatever language they want to refer to themselves. However, that does not mean they have a “right” to make other people endorse their personal beliefs and identities. This means a person has a right to identify as whatever gender they want to, but that does not mean they have a right to make other people endorse their gender identity.
Additionally, Meta’s commitment to fostering a fair, impartial platform would be seriously compromised by enforcing the use of “preferred pronouns.” Let’s consider the videos in question that triggered this debate. One involves a woman objecting to a trans-identified male who wanted access to a woman’s restroom; another involves a woman criticizing a trans-identified male winning a sports event for girls. Surely there are good faith and well-informed arguments that can be made that bathrooms and/or women & girls’ sports teams should remain female-only. Indeed, these are hotly debated topics in school boards, state legislatures, courts, and even the federal government. There is an inherent contradiction in claiming to be open to both sides of an argument while also endorsing (and even enforcing) the language of one side. How can you claim to be a fair and impartial disseminator of information when you put the thumb on the scales in favor of males’ self-identity over the objections of women who say otherwise?
It is disturbing to think how far this sort of “pronoun enforcement” policy could go. What if a woman is sexually assaulted by a fully intact transwoman, and refers to her rapist as “he”? Could her rapist (and defenders of the rapist) report her for “hate” or “harassment?”
As an organization that fights for the rights of same-sex attracted individuals, we have a unique window into the troubling implications of “preferred pronoun” enforcement. For decades, lesbians have seen their spaces threatened and infiltrated by males who call themselves “women” and “lesbians.” Such males manipulate lesbians into having romantic relationships with them by accusing them of “transphobia” and “bigotry” if they refuse to date them. Such lesbians who refuse face ostracism from “LGBTQ” communities as a consequence. Young lesbians are particularly vulnerable, since they are often just out of the closet and lack both experience and self-confidence. Requiring that lesbians refer to such males by female pronouns only facilitates such manipulative tactics.
Now that more and more heterosexual women are transitioning and are identifying as “gay men,” gay men are facing similar trouble that lesbians have. Just like lesbians, gay men have a right to guard the boundaries of their same-sex attraction and spaces, and not be reported for “hate” or “harassment.”
We hope you understand that people who use natal sex-based pronouns are not engaging in bigotry. They are motivated by respect for biological reality, or perhaps they think that sex-based pronouns happen to be the best choice of language for the situation at hand. It cheapens the concept of “hate” and “harassment” by defining these terms to include “misgendering.”
Compelled speech is not free speech. And while we understand Meta is a private company, we urge them to remain steadfast in honoring a core value of the United States: freedom of speech. Only by upholding these principles can Meta preserve its integrity as a platform and ensure that diverse voices can engage openly in fair and impartial debate.
Thank you for considering our input.
https://lgbausa.substack.com/p/our-public-comment-to-metas-oversight?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true
The US Presidential Election
I am not going to get involved in the Presidential Election debate!
Oh, damn it, here we go….😃
Matt Osborne on The Distance analyses previous responses of Kamala Harris on gender issues.
How The ACLU Lobbied Kamala Harris To Support Illegal Immigrant Trans Surgeries
Of candidate questionnaires and ideological inquisitions
Sep 11, 2024
Working with a research team a decade ago, I discovered that the most active and influential email list in Oklahoma conservative politics belonged to a group of certified John Birchers. Their organization, Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC), watched Republican state legislators closely, assigning scores to every vote they made, even minor and procedural. Then they published the scores in a widely-read newsletter.
That’s it. That’s the one neat trick to taking control of an American state legislature. Just condition the individual office-holders of the party that is in power at the state capitol to regard their arbitrary scores as meaningful, and the politicians will do the rest themselves. Candidate scorecards are an effective way to lobby a political party in any direction across a range of issues.
In 2019, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked Kamala Harris, who was running for president in 2020, a series of questions. You can read them, as well as her answers, at the ACLU website. Because irony is dead, Harris was asked to make a binary choice by checking a “yes” or “no” box for each question and then explain her answer more fully. Harris not only wrote answers, but committed to her answers verbally.
“As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and non-binary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so?” the ACLU asked.
Her answer:
“It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”
To recap, the ACLU specifically asked Harris whether she would use presidential powers to supply non-citizens in “immigration detention” with transgender surgeries and she actually said yes. Not because she thinks that is a good idea necessarily, but because she wanted a perfect score. To earn an A+, Harris had to demonstrate mastery of the intersectional language of the progressive moment.
All undocumented migrants breaking and entering the United States are oppressed by their detention, you see, but some undocumented migrants breaking and entering the United States are more oppressed than others. Those are the transgender ones. No matter who you are in America, you get to be more special than your regular demographic descriptor through the add-on identity of ‘transgender.’ It’s the trump card (heh) of the new oppression hierarchy.
On CNN, an incredulous Erin Burnett said such agenda items as free sex changes for undocumented immigrants “are hard things to come up with.” So amazed was Burnett that she returned to the point twice during a segment with “Kfile” editor Andrew Kaczynski, who is assigned to cover Kamala Harris this election season. …
One wonders where Burnett has been, lately. A white supremacy cave, maybe? Everyone knows that taxpayer-funded gender surgeries for undocumented immigrants are essential to the plan for fighting climate change, ending sadness, and eliminating racist food deserts from cities (cit. The Omnicause Handbook, pp. 477-508). Duh!
Kidding aside, Harris’s answers to the ACLU are platitudinous because the questions invite platitudes. This is the candidate equivalent of push-polling, which attempts to alter voter behavior through propaganda framed as an opinion poll: “Candidate X supports drowning kittens while Candidate Z wants to put kitten murderers in jail. Do you support Candidate X, who is pro-kitten murder, or Candidate Z, who is against murdering poor, defenseless kittens?”
Better yet, once it becomes politically impossible to “defend kitten-drowning” in America, the ACLU can take the manipulation to another level. “Do you support transgender surgeries for helpless kittens, or do you want the literal genocide of transgender kitty cats?”
This phenomenon had generalized across the western world, especially the Anglophone world, long before the advent of ‘gender identity.’ It has now empowered the successful administrative capture of policy on behalf of gender ideology in numerous countries. Stonewall has its Diversity Champions scheme in the UK, for example, while ACON has its own point-scoring system for Australian companies, organizations, and departments. The ACLU is a key ideological enforcement agent in the Democratic Party and uses the same method.
However, such conditioning does not prepare candidates to answer questions like “What even is non-binary anyway?” No, that would elicit a thoughtful answer, which is exactly the thing they are trying to avoid. The ACLU merely makes the politicians repeat the word “non-binary” as if it was meaningful. This explains why the politicians who support the ‘trans agenda’ seldom articulate their support of such nonsense. They are simply on the side of the thing that they think sounds good to the voters they want to reach. Organizations like the ACLU pretend to speak for those voters.
Both of our political parties have done this forever, contributing to the partisan polarization of our time. But ideology is really not the point; winning elections is. Kamala Harris is not actually very ideological. She did not need to define words like “equity” to know they are supposed to be popular with Democratic presidential primary voters. In 2020, she also did not have to explain how she could run on her record as a prosecutor while calling for immigration and other law enforcement to be downsized and defunded. She just used the words, and now she doesn’t, anymore.
All she had to know or say in 2019 is that Donald Trump was mean to immigrants, that he wants to be mean to the “trans kids” by denying them hormones and surgeries, and that the two paths of oppression intersect. Anyone can learn a new language, even Kamala Harris. She has learned to speak to the progressive left. It has taught her how to speak to them.
Rather than attempt to un-make this well-established system of partizanization, sex realists should lean into it. What I propose is a “gender idiot scale” or “GI scale.” Every politician should want the lowest possible score, whereas an open-ended scale will allow politicians to be as gender-idiotic as they want, indeed they can compete at being the biggest idiot.
The units on the scale will be called “Strangios” for ACLU heir apparent Chase Strangio. A candidate who uses preferred pronouns, even “to be polite,” gets +1 Strangio, whereas a state senator with pronouns in his social media bio earns two Strangios.
Each sex realist organization will have to prioritize gender idiocies on its questionnaire. For example, supporting males in women’s sports might be worth three Strangios, while a statement of support for males in women’s jails could add four Strangios to the score. Or an organization that is more invested in sports than jails could switch the two around. The point is to score gender idiocy consistently and honestly.
Everybody can have a gender idiocy score, including sex realists. This system will be a perfect delight to the “ultra GCs,” who can let their Puritan flag fly as “Zero Strangios.” [ Dusty - the trans rights activists are the Puritans, Matt - see Andrew Doyle ‘The New Puritans’] Even Donald Trump will have a score, because he has used preferred pronouns before, for example while inviting Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner to use any bathroom in Trump Tower that he wants. (Supporting males in female restrooms should be at least +3 Strangios.)
The GI Strangios Scale will make it possible for everyone to see which candidate for any office is the biggest gender idiot. It will also allow sex realists to assign dubious awards, such as “biggest gender idiot of 2024.” We have work to do, people, and we don’t have time to fix this system first, so let’s use the tools already available to us. When in Rome, etc.
https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/how-the-aclu-lobbied-kamala-harris?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true
Well, definitely Zero Strangios for Kellie-Jay:
Endpiece by Liz
#BeMorePorcupine
#XX
#SaveWomensSport
Excellent as ever Dusty and great videos. Brilliant to see Riley Gaines doing her own podcasts.
Re KJK being attacked by Bev Jackson…I’m so disappointed by so many women in this fight. And I could only scroll through the fantastic Wings Over Scotland…..too many vomit inducing, fawning comments from handmaidens. Bev Jackson is obviously not a handmaiden but I think KJK is right. The only way we can win this is by being completely honest and outspoken, an Ultra.
Dear readers, this and the last update are proving a bit sluggish, so if you enjoyed them please spread them around if you can.
Next update will be tonight because there is a lot going on!!
Dusty