TERFs go home

Sophie Lewis has published an opinion piece in the NY Times that I thought was an interesting explanation of the trans-Atlantic divide, How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans. There is a surprising split between British and American feminism.

If the idea that transphobic harassment could be “feminist” bewilders you, you are not alone. In the United States, my adoptive home, the most visible contemporary opponents of transgender rights are right-wing evangelicals, who have little good to say about feminism. In Britain, where I used to live, the situation is different.

There, the most vocal trans-exclusionary voices are, ostensibly, “feminist” ones, and anti-trans lobbying is a mainstream activity. Case in point: Ms. Parker told the podcast “Feminist Current” that she’d changed her thinking on trans women after spending time on Mumsnet, a site where parents exchange tips on toilet training and how to get their children to eat vegetables. If such a place sounds benign, consider the words of British writer Edie Miller: “Mumsnet is to British transphobia,” she wrote “what 4Chan is to American fascism.”

Ouch. Mumsnet gets burned. But yes, I keep hearing about this “mumsnet” phenomenon, where Graham Linehan was holding court, although I’ve never even glanced at the forum myself. What I did learn about first-hand was the strange involvement of British skepticism in ant-trans activity.

Ms. Parker and Ms. Long may not know it, but they’re likely influenced by the legacy of the British “Skepticism” movement of the 1990s and early 2000s, which mobilized against the perceived spread of postmodernism in English universities as well as homeopathy and so-called “junk science.” Hence, the impulse among TERFs to proclaim their “no-nonsense” character; witness the billboard Ms. Parker paid to have put up last fall dryly defining a woman as an “adult human female.” Such a posture positions queer theory and activism as individualistic, narcissistic and thus somehow fundamentally un-British.
It’s also worth noting that the obsession with supposed “biological realities” of people like Ms. Parker is part of a long tradition of British feminism interacting with colonialism and empire. Imperial Britain imposed policies to enforce heterosexuality and the gender binary, while simultaneously constructing the racial “other” as not only fundamentally different, but freighted with sexual menace; from there, it’s not a big leap to see sexual menace in any sort of “other,” and “biological realities” as essential and immutable. (Significantly, many Irish feminists have rejected Britain’s TERFism, citing their experience of colonialism explicitly as part of the reason.)

Been there, done that. We had an ugly influx of British “skeptics” here, demonizing trans folk, who got banned hard. See Why I banned Andy Lewis, Maria Maclachlan, and Alan Henness — apparently those were well-known names in UK skepticism, and hoo boy, were some people on the other side of the pond shocked that I would ban such highly esteemed individuals. From my perspective, they were just total asshats, and slapping the self-proclaimed label of “skeptic” on them wasn’t enough to rescue them.

Carnival of Curiosity: the Matinee…of PAIN

Unaccountably, multiple people suggested this for our fundraiser: make me sit through some awful, atrocious bit of media while everyone watches me. The form was vague, I think the appeal was entirely in making me weep.

I’ve scheduled it, but we have to get the details down now, and I have questions.

  • OK, what media? I suspect no one was thinking of an Attenborough documentary. Make suggestions! The constraints are that it’s got to be something accessible, so a YouTube something or other, or Netflix. Something by Ray Comfort (boring!), Pureflix (too easy),a horror movie (I might enjoy it), a superhero thingie (I’d probably hate it)? Name things in the comments.

  • Am I supposed to do this alone? Anyone else you’d like to drag down to hell with me? Company might make it more entertaining.

  • How? It should be streamed to YouTube for the greatest reach, but I could set up something with OBS and/or Discord, or even Zoom. Give me ideas!

This is definitely a rough work in progress, but here’s where you can watch whatever abomination we cobble together.

And remember, this is a fundraiser.

Hmmm. Maybe I should auction off the right to name the media, or to share a spot in the matinee with me?

Never drive in either of the Dakotas

It’s too dangerous. There are wild legislators driving madly with little regard for traffic laws on those long empty highways. Several years ago there was a politician whose name I forget who made the papers with his frequent reckless drives…now they’ve got Jason Ravnsborg on the prowl.

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg said in a statement late Monday that he realized he had struck and killed a man walking along a rural stretch of highway only after returning to the scene the next day and discovering the body.

The state’s top law enforcement officer said he initially thought he hit a deer while driving home from a Republican fundraiser on Saturday night. He is under investigation by the South Dakota Highway Patrol.

How do you do that? How do you mistake a person for a deer? I’ve encountered many deer while driving — I never hit any, fortunately — and they tend to bound out of ditches and cover and race with startling speed across the road, something people don’t generally do (I haven’t hit any of them, either). There’s hooves and antlers and long skinny legs on one of them, too. I know the state of zoological knowledge in the general public is woeful, but big slow ape vs. swift herbivore?

Ravnsborg has a history of speeding and other traffic violations, which seems to be a matter of course over there across Minnesota’s western border. It makes me reluctant to drive there — you never know when the governor or the whole dang state senate might show up, Mad Max style, and take you out.

Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates stole my money!

I want it back! I want everyone to get their fair share!

This new report explains that the rich have been robbing us blind since the 1970s, at least. That’s 50 years of cash I want in my pocket right now.

Just how far has the working class been left behind by the winner-take-all economy? A new analysis by the RAND Corporation examines what rising inequality has cost Americans in lost income—and the results are stunning.

A full-time worker whose taxable income is at the median—with half the population making more and half making less—now pulls in about $50,000 a year. Yet had the fruits of the nation’s economic output been shared over the past 45 years as broadly as they were from the end of World War II until the early 1970s, that worker would instead be making $92,000 to $102,000. (The exact figures vary slightly depending on how inflation is calculated.)

There was a transfer of $2.5 trillion in wealth from those who could actually use it to the über-rich. You might be wondering who to blame, who engineered this massive heist…I can think of a few crooks who’ve benefitted, but it’s also partly our own fault. We let this happen by electing lazy, greedy looters to high office.

They say the blame lies, in large measure, with decades of failed federal policy decisions—allowing the minimum wage to deteriorate, overtime coverage to dwindle, and the effectiveness of labor law to decline, undermining union power. They also cite a shift in corporate culture that has elevated the interests of shareholders over those of workers, an ethos that took root 50 years ago this week with the publication of an essay by University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.

Many of these developments, Rolf points out, have been driven by the belief that an unfettered free market would generate wealth for everyone. Thanks to the RAND study, he says, “we now have the proof that this theory was wrong.”

Oh god. Friedman. Advisor to Reagan and Thatcher, libertarian, neo-liberal monster. So much of blame for the decline of the United States can be plopped onto his too-influential shoulders. Where’s his grave? We ought to all go piss on it, at the very least.

After the symbolic desecration party, though, we should pass laws that rip the ill-gotten wealth out of the hands of the 1%.

Carnival of Curiosity: Parade of Bloggers, part II

The second event in our September fundraiser is scheduled on YouTube now: The Parade of Bloggers, part II!

This is a continuation of our Friday night event, scheduled for a more convenient time for our European colleagues. It will be just as exciting!

This is all about raising money for FtB, so as will be my custom, I’ll be routinely suggesting where you can send donations:

Carnival of Curiosity: Parade of Bloggers, part I

In ten days, the first event in our September fundraiser fires up: The Parade of Bloggers, part I!

Any of the FtB bloggers who want to show up (consent is our middle name, so this is entirely voluntary) will make an appearance, tell you about their blog, and plug any of the events they’ll be participating in. If you’ve got any favorite bloggers here you’d like to see, go ahead, comment on their blog and let them know. While we’re all about voluntary participation, we don’t mind using a little social encouragement.

This is all about raising money for FtB, so as will be my custom, I’ll be routinely suggesting where you can send donations:

Note also that during a YouTube livestream, you can use superchats to make donations and get our attention. Treat it like one of those call-in reality shows — when your fave blogger shows up, hit that superchat button!

I brought another spider home, I couldn’t resist

We took a walk last night, and found a place in some cinder block where, suspended in a framework of silk, there were these little collections of grass and twigs glued together. I pulled out this one, which is nicely boat-shaped, and inside were two egg sacs and a shy momma spider. I carried it home in my hand, which was a little tricky — as momma became somewhat alarmed that her house was moving, she would peek out and sometimes scurry around on my hand. Fortunately, I think she was also concerned about her eggs, so she didn’t go far.

This is probably a mistake — I’ve got way too many spiders as it is — but I’ll take her into the lab today and feed her and care for her and raise her little babies as if they were my own.

Hey, here’s a game! I picked this photo because the spider isn’t at all obvious in her nest. Can you find the spider?

As usual, you can find closeups on Instagram and Patreon.

Venus must be the science topic du jour

It’s in all the best webcomics!

I’ll take Paul Lynde for the center square, please. (oops, dated myself.)

Finding phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus is interesting, and it sure sounds like the scientists who found it were all cautious and conservative and thorough, so I believe them that it’s there. I have a couple of caveats about how it’s interpreted, though. Phosphine can be produced abiotically — it’s found in the atmosphere of Jupiter, for instance — but it takes a lot of energy in reactions that weren’t thought to occur on Venus, but that could be the “weird high-heat chemistry” the comic mentions. It’s also produced biotically, on Earth by the decay of organic matter, but here it’s only a small component, and it’s also fairly rapidly broken down by sunlight. So we’re postulating huge quantities of organic matter decaying on Venus to produce phosphines, or an unusual organic process that produces persistent phosphines from a small quantity of biomass? I don’t know. Sounds unlikely and strange, but I love to see unlikely and strange.

No matter what, though, don’t expect Venusian cloud-cities and communicative aliens. Phosphine is a flammable, toxic gas, and at best we’re seeing the excretions of bacteria-like organisms, and even that is not likely.

Nazis. Nazi, nazi, nazi.

When I put up that last post about shameful moments in American science policy, I felt like Science had forgotten one that I personally consider our most lethal mistake…but it’s so deeply ingrained in American culture that maybe it’s taken for granted. It’s always there, and so it’s easy to overlook. I think the greatest science lie ever has to be our history of racism which led to the enslavement and genocide of other human beings that our society judged inferior.

That crime has never gone away, and we’re currently compounding it. An ICE detention center is performing mass hysterectomies on immigrants.

On Monday, a nurse at a private immigration detention center in Georgia came forward about a range of dangerous medical practices at a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. According to her, the center has not only ignored COVID-19 protocols, but is actively performing mass hysterectomies on detained people.

The whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, worked at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) — which is operated by LaSalle Corrections — where she allegedly witnessed the company’s refusal to test detainees for COVID-19 as well as spoke to several people who each had their uterus removed as part of an unwarranted hysterectomy procedure. According to the official complaint lodged with the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, Wooten said that the facility was performing hysterectomies on people who reported having heavy menstrual cycles or other more serious pain, but that “everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad.”

“I’ve had several inmates tell me that they’ve been to see the doctor and they’ve had hysterectomies and they don’t know why they went or why they’re going,” Wooten said in the report. She also noted how ICDC consistently uses one out-of-facility doctor, who is responsible for the hysterectomies in addition to accidentally removing the wrong ovary in one patient. “He’s the uterus collector.”

It’s possible this nurse is a disgruntled employee, and that she’s misinterpreting an excess of zeal in treating sick patients as a pattern of mass sterilization, but isn’t it odd how ICE, which has never been particularly good at managing the health and safety of the inmates in their concentration camps, is suddenly so solicitous and thorough in treating the reproductive health of the prisoners?

It’s also in line with historical practice.

This isn’t the first time the United States has forced people — especially people of color — into unwanted sterilization, which is a human rights violation and a form of eugenics, according to the World Health Organization. For more than 70 years, California led the country in sterilizations; during that time about 20,000 people were sterilized against their will in state institutions. In the South, Black women were treated as “practice” for incoming medical students and had been sterilized unknowingly during C-sections. Other times, they were coerced in order to retain welfare benefits. Sterilization was so wide-spread in North Carolina that a bill was passed in 2015 to give victims financial compensation.

Of course, when it comes to undocumented immigrants, who are regularly referred to as “unwanted” “aliens” by the current president, it’s not so surprising that these practices went unreported for so long. One immigrant in the complaint put it best: “This place is not equipped for humans.”

ICE and Homeland Security were established under George W. Bush after the post-9/11 freakout. Can we stop trying to resuscitate the reputation of that horrible mass-murderer and criminal, and can we start condemning the Republicans who created the fascist Homeland Security Act, every Democrat who voted for it, and all the presidents since who have allowed ICE to continue existing? Shut it down, and fire our version of Dr Mengele, “the uterus collector”.

“the most shameful moment in the history of U.S. science policy”

In this week’s Science magazine, H. Holden Thorp damns the president of the USA.

When President Donald Trump began talking to the public about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in February and March, scientists were stunned at his seeming lack of understanding of the threat. We assumed that he either refused to listen to the White House briefings that must have been occurring or that he was being deliberately sheltered from information to create plausible deniability for federal inaction. Now, because famed Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward recorded him, we can hear Trump’s own voice saying that he understood precisely that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was deadly and spread through the air. As he was playing down the virus to the public, Trump was not confused or inadequately briefed: He flat-out lied, repeatedly, about science to the American people. These lies demoralized the scientific community and cost countless lives in the United States.

Over the years, this page has commented on the scientific foibles of U.S. presidents. Inadequate action on climate change and environmental degradation during both Republican and Democratic administrations have been criticized frequently. Editorials have bemoaned endorsements by presidents on teaching intelligent design, creationism, and other antiscience in public schools. These matters are still important. But now, a U.S. president has deliberately lied about science in a way that was imminently dangerous to human health and directly led to widespread deaths of Americans.

Congress needs to throw the asshole out now, and the American people need to elect a better human being to the office in November.