Mick Hartley

Discovering their inner Trixiebell

We heard the other day that Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is expected to announce that transgender prisoners with male genitalia will no longer be able to serve time in female prisons. But how did this nonsense start? Jo Bartosch at Spiked:

So how did we ever arrive at a situation where convicted rapists and the like were allowed to simply self-identify as women? The path here was paved by the misguided actions of activists, the cowardice of professionals and the credulity of dimwitted politicians.

Broadly speaking, it started in 2015 with a petition illustrated by a snap of a photogenic criminal called Tara Hudson. Hudson, a repeat violent offender, was given a custodial sentence after headbutting a barman’s teeth out. He was described in court as having a ‘worrying criminal record’. Just one month prior to his conviction Hudson was interviewed by the Mirror under a different name as he was working as a glamour model and Playboy TV chat host. ‘I’m actually a bloke’, he said. Meanwhile, advertisements for sexual services provided by Hudson described him as a ‘shemale’ boasting a ‘seven-inch surprise’.

When Hudson was first sent down, he was placed in HMP Bristol, a men’s category B prison. He then asked to be moved to a women’s prison, though he admitted he had never legally changed gender out of ‘laziness’. It was around this time that Hudson became an unlikely trans-rights pin-up and the allegedly ‘harrowing reality of being a transwoman in an all-male prison’ was suddenly headline news. (Though given Hudson’s headbutting history, it seems likely he would’ve been able to hold his own in a men’s prison.)

A petition was then circulated calling for the ‘British judicial system, as a whole, to immediately address the dangers Ms Hudson is facing, and amend her sentence that she may spend it in an all-women’s prison instead’. It quickly gained over 150,000 signatures.

Ah, we Brits love a nice petition.

Hand-wringing MPs from across the political spectrum quickly jumped on the bandwagon. The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas, then Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and then Conservative MP Ben Howlett called for Hudson to be transferred to a women’s prison. Howlett, who was on the Women and Equalities Select Committee, stated: ‘We will be pressing the Ministry of Justice for a formal line following this and work to ensure there is no repeat of this situation in future.’

Their wish was granted when, a year later, the MoJ changed its guidance to allow ‘transgender offenders to experience the system in the gender in which they identify’.

If there is one thing that is known about prisoners as a demographic, it is surely that they are more unscrupulous than the general population – and certainly more willing to exploit situations to their own advantage. In the years since the MoJ changed its guidance, the number of male prisoners suddenly discovering their inner Trixiebell soared. MoJ figures show a rise in trans-identifying prisoners from 70 in 2016, when the data were first collected, to 139 in 2018.

No one asked female prisoners what they thought of their new bepenised cellmates. Quite the opposite. Those who dared to refer to these male prisoners as ‘he’ or ‘him’ were told they could face additional time on their sentence.

The problem of men in women’s prisons became so acute that in March 2019 a specialist facility for high-risk male offenders who identify as women – called Wing E – had to be set up. This followed the widely publicised case of convicted rapist Karen White (previously known as Stephen Wood), who was transferred to a women’s prison where he went on, unsurprisingly, to assault female inmates. Despite the specialist trans facility, at present, there are still 40 self-identified transwomen prisoners locked up along with women.

Clearly, this madness has gone on for far too long. Dangerous men should never have been housed in women’s prisons. With Raab’s new proposal, at least a semblance of sanity looks set to be restored.

Capitulation to a bewildering and extreme ideology

It would seem that the Labour Party, far from backtracking on its support for trans ideology in the light of recent developments, is actually doubling down. Joan Smith:

I haven’t signed a pledge since I was thrown out of the Brownies. One minute I was telling Brown Owl I wasn’t keen on the bit in the Brownie Promise about doing my duty to God and the Queen, and the next thing I knew I was out on my ear. Now I’m wondering if a similar fate awaits those of us who don’t sign up to the latest series of pledges promoted in the run-up to internal elections in the Labour Party. Will feminists who disagree be banned from meeting round the toadstool? Do we have to pretend to believe a load of gender woo-woo if we want to remain in the party?

The authors of the five pledges — five, for God’s sake! — evidently think so. Against a background of the trans colours (pink and pale blue, so absolutely no stereotyping there), the pledges display the usual queasy combination of buzzwords like inclusivity with barely-concealed authoritarianism. “I will call for an urgent investigation into the backlog of transphobia complaints involving senior members of the party,” declares pledge number two. “Labour cannot become a truly inclusive organisation unless LGBTQ+ members can trust that action is being taken to deal with transphobia,” it goes on. 

The authors are Jess Barnard, Chair of Young Labour and a candidate for the National Executive Committee; and Alex Charilaou (“he/they”) who is standing for Labour Students Trans Officer. Barnard has history here, having announced a couple of years ago that she was blocking “terfs” (a common slur against feminists who believe human beings can’t change sex) on Twitter. 

The Labour Party, it has to be said, is quite a long way behind the curve when it comes to this word “transphobia”. Most sensible people understand by now that it’s a term of abuse, used as a stick to beat anyone who doesn’t accept the frankly outrageous demands of gender extremists. Suggest that male-bodied people shouldn’t change with women and girls in female dressing-rooms? Transphobia! Criticise the police for skewing crime statistics by referring to male rapists as “she”? Transphobia! 

In the real world, thanks to a couple of landmark legal decisions, it is now clear that holding such views is protected by law. Two women, Maya Forstater and Allison Bailey, went through hell to establish they had suffered discrimination because of their gender-critical views, and the success of their claims has changed the atmosphere around the issue of women’s rights. (It’s important to frame it this way because what is often presented as the “trans issue” is actually about existing rights being taken away from women and girls.) The public has finally realised that the influence of trans activists is wildly disproportionate, with baffling outcomes such as the loss of women’s toilets in museums and theatres. It’s happened without public consultation or consent, and few organisations have got the issue as badly wrong as the Labour Party. 

Anyone who hoped sensible voices might prevail, following the Forstater and Bailey judgments, need only look at the tone of the latest performative nonsense aimed at members of the party on social media. We’re not just being asked to accept that men can become women, and vice versa, which is taken for granted in some sections of the party. Now we’re supposed to support “extending representation of the trans and non-binary community at all levels of the party”, without any explanation of what that would mean for other protected groups, such as women or disabled people. We’re admonished that “trans lives are not a political football in a culture war”, and the party “should give no ground to those that fail to recognise this”. Feminists, you’ve been warned! 

The Labour Party is always in danger from its activists. Back in the Corbyn days one of the most conspicuous problems was a blanket support for Palestine that clearly headed way over the line into antisemitism. The damage to the party was huge, and Starmer's been active in trying to deal with that particular issue. In the meantime the activists have moved on to another issue, gender nonsense, that's probably even more damaging to the party's appeal. Starmer, perhaps because more than ever he wants to keep the activists onside - or perhaps because he's really not that smart - is letting them take the lead. But the tide's turned. Labour needs to stop digging.

It feels as though the party has learned nothing since the leadership contest just over two years ago. It was profoundly shocking to discover then that most of the candidates were willing to sign a pledge card libelling feminist organisations as “trans-exclusionist hate groups” and calling for the expulsion of “transphobic” members. Among the signatories were several current members of the shadow cabinet, including Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, although Sir Keir Starmer confined himself to signing a different pledge. (That was bad enough, confirming the party’s commitment to self-ID, which would make single-sex spaces almost impossible to enforce.)

A great deal has happened since then. Many organisations including government departments are turning their backs on Stonewall, one of the principal advocates for abolishing single-sex spaces. A group of lesbians and gay men have founded their own organisation, the LGB Alliance, to counter the influence of trans activists. Employers are on notice that they can’t punish employees who “like” gender critical posts on social media. Leading Tories have run with the issue, understanding that the public doesn’t want to have “gender-neutral” toilets or to see adult males competing in women’s sports....

The last thing the party needs in the run-up to a general election is another bloody set of pledges that underlines its capitulation to a bewildering and extreme ideology. It is to the party’s shame that it has done nothing to stop feminists, including women who have campaigned against sexual and domestic violence, being threatened with disciplinary measures by a handful of activists. I can’t say being thrown out of the Brownies broke my heart, but defending the rights of women in the Labour Party is a hill I’m willing to die on. 

Stealing dogs

They love their dog meat in North Korea - which is why, in these hard times, there's something of a problem. The latest from the Daily NK:

Thefts of domesticated animals, particularly dogs, have recently grown rampant in South Hamgyong Province, Daily NK has learned. 

According to a source in South Hamgyong Province on Wednesday, the province has recently been suffering from frequent thefts of domesticated animals being raised at private homes.

In particular, many dogs are being stolen, reportedly by hard-up locals who cannot afford to buy dog meat, a popular restorative dish during the so-called sambokcheol, traditionally considered the three hottest days of the year.

North Koreans consider dogmeat a miracle cure for stamina, so much so that eating it during sambokcheol supposedly cures illnesses. People suffering hardships, however, cannot even think of buying it.

Because of this, more and more people in distress are stealing other people’s dogs to feed their families.

The source also said that with the price of dog meat increasing annually as more and more people seek it out on sambokcheol, many hard-up locals are stealing dogs to sell to make money, rather than to eat them themselves.

The source said this is one of the reasons domesticated animal theft is so prevalent around the sambokchol. 

“Agricultural villages in Hongwon County are swarming with animal thieves nowadays,” said the source. “The thieves have gotten so good at it that the animals are gone without a trace in the blink of an eye. The animals people have carefully raised are gone when they wake up in the morning.”

In fact, in one village in Sinhong-ri, Hongwon County, thieves made off with animals even after the community put three-to-four man teams on night watch, much to everyone’s embarrassment.

North Koreans often supplement their income by buying small dogs in winter to grow and sell during the summer sambokcheol season, when the price is the highest. This is why people invest a fair amount of money in dog food, even when they themselves have little to eat.

As more and more of these treasured dogs go missing in the blink of an eye, people are spending sleepless nights keeping watch over their animals. With the recent start of the sambokcheol season, many North Koreans are having an especially tough time as thieves sometimes break into homes even in broad daylight to steal dogs.

The source said people who were already struggling are being reduced to “beggars with homes” when they are robbed.

“Even if you report the theft to the police, they do little. In fact, the police just make absurd requests for cigarettes or booze in exchange for making an effort to catch the thieves,” he said.

Ships and boats

Some photos from a bike ride down the Lea to Docklands and Greenwich:

Green water at Bow

Looking back to Stratford

The Götheborg of Sweden in South Dock.

Greenwich

Brown lawn at the Old Royal Naval College

A massive cruise ship, the Viking Venus, looms into view.

Docklands from Rotherhithe

All in the hope of winning a gold star

The Athena Swan Charter "is a framework which is used across the globe to support and transform gender equality within higher education (HE) and research. Established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment, the Charter is now being used across the globe to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women." All good stuff, then - "advancing the careers of women in science" - but you'll notice that weasel word "gender". As Alice Sullivan and John Armstrong note, thereby hangs a tale:

From 2016 to 2020 the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in effect required that institutions avoid gathering equalities data on sex if they wished to be eligible for research funding. This happened despite universities’ clear public sector equality duty to monitor data on the protected characteristic of sex.

How did this happen? In 2011 the NIHR announced that from 2016 only organisations with an Athena Swan Silver award would be eligible for funding. At the time, the Athena Swan charter was a scheme to promote women’s careers in Science, Technology, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM), and so who could object? NIHR could not have predicted that by 2016, gender-identity activists would have subverted Athena Swan to such an extent that it no longer collected data on sex.

In 2016 the organization running Athena Swan published new guidance on trans inclusion that declared it was “more inclusive” to gather data on gender identity rather than sex. Institutions were not strictly obliged to follow this guidance, but it would have been brave to do otherwise when substantial funding was at stake.

In a pattern that has become familiar, the guidance to drop sex in favour of gender identity was developed in consultation with trans-rights organizations but not with women’s groups or data experts. A few activists within universities were able to disproportionately influence policy. Without fanfare, universities stopped monitoring sex discrimination.

Following criticism, Athena Swan has dialled back from complete capture by gender identity theory, reverting to recommending that equalities monitoring should include the protected characteristic of sex. But it remains committed to ensuring that the charter reflects “gender as a spectrum”.

How have university policies been subverted so successfully? By exploiting a very human weakness: we will do anything for a gold star. Universities send their policy documents on gender equality to Athena Swan in the hope of receiving a Bronze, Silver or Gold award. As a result, they lost sight of their own policy aims, outsourcing them to an external organisation.

This model is prevalent throughout higher education. It is shared by Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index and the Race Equality Charter as well as Athena Swan.

It was a canny move by Stonewall et al to introduce their award scheme. The kind of people who set these policies in educational establishments tend to be the kind of people who love the idea of being awarded stars and medals. The loved it as kids, and they love it now as adults.

Athena Swan has provided a perfect vehicle for policy capture, which activists have been happy to exploit. The activists have even been remarkably open about their intentions. Tzanakou and Pearce have noted the “potential in utilizing Athena SWAN as a site of resistance and means to foster collective solidarity to work against neoliberal practices”. Sally Hines, a member of Athena Swan’s “Gender as a Spectrum” working group has blogged that its “recognition of sex and gender as existing on a spectrum” is a potential first step to a vision where all staff and students receive gender identity training that would “entail a discursive shift from anti-trans rhetoric as ‘opinion’”. Hines is well known to consider any feminism that does not acknowledge “transwomen are women” to be anti-trans.

The same outsourcing model is now being used in schools with schemes such as the “Stonewall School & College Champions Award” and “Gender Action”. The latter ostensibly campaigns against the use of sexual stereotypes in schools, which sounds laudable. But the principal problem they list with such stereotypes is that they imply “a person’s biological sex is fixed”.

With the best intentions, our educational establishments are handing control of their policies and curricula to unaccountable private bodies. Membership of these schemes has encouraged universities to accept advice which encourages legally dubious actions, including misrepresenting the Equality Act 2010, failing to collect equalities data, and failing in their duties to ensure both freedom of belief and academic freedom. They have been willing to flout the law, and all in the hope of winning a gold star.

The vilification of gender critical university workers

Here's Kathleen Stock's comment in the Times on the UCU revelations. Strangely not online, so....

Suing the Tavistock

Well who on earth could have seen this coming? - that young children pressed into life-changing and irreversible damage by doctors operating under a false and dangerous gender ideology might start looking for some recompense for the harm they've suffered?

Tavistock gender clinic ‘to be sued by 1,000 families’

The Tavistock gender clinic is facing mass legal action from youngsters who claim they were rushed into taking life-altering puberty blockers.

Lawyers expect about 1,000 families to join a medical negligence lawsuit alleging vulnerable children have been misdiagnosed and placed on a damaging medical pathway.

They are accusing the gender identity development service [GIDS] at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust of multiple failures in its duty of care.

This includes allegations it recklessly prescribed puberty blockers with harmful side effects and adopted an “unquestioning, affirmative approach” to children identifying as transgender....

The law firm Pogust Goodhead has since announced it is pursuing a group litigation order against the trust, which has treated 19,000 children with gender dysphoria (the feeling that one’s emotional and psychological identity differs from one’s birth sex) since 1989.

Former patients given puberty blockers are joining the “class action” lawsuit and papers are due to be lodged at the High Court within six months.

Tom Goodhead, chief executive of Pogust Goodhead, told The Times: “Children and young adolescents were rushed into treatment without the appropriate therapy and involvement of the right clinicians, meaning that they were misdiagnosed and started on a treatment pathway that was not right for them.

“These children have suffered life-changing and, in some cases, irreversible effects of the treatment they received . . . We anticipate that at least 1,000 clients will join this action.”

So - speculative at the moment, but it looks like it'll happen. As indeed it should.

The UCU witch-hunt

The UCU - University and College Union - was notably unhelpful to philosophy professor Kathleen Stock when she was forced out of Sussex University for her gender-critical views, echoing the absurd "transphobia" cries of the protestors. According to this Times report, it's part of a pattern:

A group of hard-left academics has been accused of stifling free speech on university campuses by plotting a witch-hunt against colleagues on gender identity.

University and College Union (UCU) members pledged to compile a list of university backroom staff suspected of holding gender-critical beliefs, the minutes from a meeting leaked to The Times reveal.

The plan was to use this information to “inform” UCU university branches of their colleagues’ views, accusing them of being “transphobes” and “gender-critical activists”.

Academics said members of UCU, the lecturers’ union that represents more than 120,000 academics on UK campuses, were amplifying attacks on gender-critical feminists, with those speaking about sex-based rights compared to Holocaust deniers.

A witch-hunt indeed. A very nasty witch-hunt.

During a UCU meeting in September last year, its LGBT members standing committee agreed to email a survey to LGBT members at universities across the country.

Minutes stated that the survey would “get information about gender critical equality, diversity and inclusion consultants … employed in HR departments of various institutions”.

It suggested that a question could be included in the survey asking: “Are you aware of your institution employing EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] consultants in the sector and if so which ones.”

The minutes added: “The last question is to get information about how many HR and senior HR staff/consultants are gender critical and then to inform branches, so that they are aware of any problems which may arise in a particular branch.

“Some of the EDI consultants are transphobes and prominent gender critical activists.”

They need to be identified and neutralised with immediate effect.

One academic, who spoke anonymously for fear of repercussions, claimed: “These minutes are compelling evidence that UCU is seeking to discriminate against and harass members who believe in sex.”

Well yes, that would seem to be the general idea. Against those members who believe in science and not in some postmodern cult.

Leaked minutes also reveal the extent to which the UCU’s general secretary, Jo Grady, supported those accused of helping to force out Dr Kathleen Stock from Sussex University.

Stock, 50, a philosophy professor, quit the university in October 2021 after what she described as a “bullying and harassment” campaign over her gender-critical beliefs.

Grady, 38, a senior lecturer in employment relations at the University of Sheffield, was elected as the UCU’s general secretary in 2019.

She has been bolstered by a new faction of union members — called UCU Commons — branded “hostile to academic freedom”. Three members are on the UCU committee that planned the survey on colleagues’ trans views.

Grady, who earned £140,213 in salary and benefits in 2021, attended a meeting of the same committee in January this year.

The leaked minutes reveal she had met with the University of Sussex’s UCU branch “late last year”, after Stock’s resignation. Instead of backing Stock, the Sussex branch of the UCU called for an investigation into “transphobia” at the university....

The LGBT committee meeting, with Grady in attendance, also warned of the need to tackle “transphobes” repeating “hostile views”, in ways other than educating them — suggesting plans to force them out.

The minutes state: “Supporting branches in combating transphobia is important through education but there are a small core of people who are so entrenched in their views and the UCU needs to address this issue … It is important to look at ways of tackling these transphobes as they put forward hostile views which make campuses very unsafe places for trans people.”

The UCU whistleblower told The Times: “That passage made my blood run cold. They mean feminists, like me. There’s no ambiguity — they are talking about their own members. The whole thing is just horrendous.”

Strange bedfellows perhaps, the hard-left union activists (if they can be characterised as hard-left) and the trans gender-cultists, but this is where we are now.

Russia "helping crush our freedoms"

It's not just Ukraine which feels the dead hand of Russia's gangster state. This is from the latest Private Eye, no. 1579, out on the streets today:

The Channel 4 documentary Myanmar: The Forgotten Revolution from a couple of weeks back is still available to watch.

Queer archaeology

Non-binary skeletons and gender neutral ancestors: Elizabeth Weiss, professor of anthropology at San José State University, on how Queer Theory is taking over the archaeology departments.

According to woke archaeologists and anthropologists, ancient human remains should no longer be classified as either male or female. Apparently, this is because we do not know how these people would have identified themselves.

Last month, for instance, the Black Trowel Collective, a group of American archaeologists, said we should be ‘wary of projecting our modern sex and gender identity categories on to past individuals’. Some academics have even started to explicitly label ancient human skeletons as ‘nonbinary’ or ‘gender neutral’.

This attempt to stop the sex identification of skeletal remains, dating hundreds or even thousands of years old, probably sounds like a slightly absurd academic squabble – of concern only to archaeologists and anthropologists. But it has far-reaching implications.

There are always exceptions to the norm, but most individuals can be classified, according to biological characteristics, as either male or female. Trans activists in the archaeological community are now rejecting this mode of classification. And they are doing so for a reason: they are trying to erase the reality of biological sex in the present by erasing it in the past. They want to make it look as if the natural human condition is nonbinary....

This is a very new development within archaeology and anthropology. As recently as 2019, a female Viking warrior was discovered, which the media heralded as evidence that male and female roles vary from one culture to another. Some outlets even claimed it raised questions about how Vikings understood their ‘gender identity’. But Neil Price, an archaeology professor at the University of Uppsala, urged caution. He argued that we should refrain from thinking of skeletal remains in terms of gender identity. ‘This is a modern, politicised, intellectual and Western term’, he wrote, ‘and, as such, it is problematic (some would say impossible) to apply to people of the more remote past’.

Less than three years later, academic caution has been cast to the wind. In Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas, published this year, University of Kansas anthropologist Jennifer Raff claims that anthropologists have no idea whether a biologically female hunter, whose remains were discovered at a 9,000-year-old Peruvian site in 2020, would have considered herself female, or belonging to some other gender category.

In the same book, Raff also claims that binary sex division is a ‘duality imposed by Christian colonisers’. This touches on one of the most important aspects of the trans agenda in archaeology. This movement to retroactively de-sex skeletons is in fact part of a larger attack, within anthropology, on Western civilisation. For instance, James Aimers, a professor of anthropology at State University of New York, wrote in 2016 that: ‘Our tendency to impose unexamined Euro-American ideas about sex and sexuality on the past has the potential to represent ancient people in normative ways that may not be reflective of their experiences.’

But the sex identification of skeletal remains is made on the basis of biological reality, not ‘Euro-American ideas about sex and sexuality’. 

But surely the blessed Judith Butler has shown us that sex has no reality as a biological category, but is truly a western social construct. Before the Christian colonisers arrived with their gender stereotypes, nearly everybody was trans.

The presence of the trans agenda in anthropology and archaeology is part of the broader anti-Westernism pervasive in academia today. This academic anti-Westernism may present itself as ‘progressive’, elevating the values and worldviews of other societies and peoples above those of the West. But it has also led to widespread sex discrimination in archaeological facilities around the world.

For instance, anthropologists are willing to bar females from handling warrior remains if an ‘indigenous’ tribe requests it. And in field schools run by anthropologists at ‘progressive’ places, such as the University of Washington, collaboration with Native American tribes has led to rules that include excluding menstruating women, who are viewed as unclean by some Native Americans. At San José State University, where I work, protocols were put into place by archaeologists, after consultations with Native American tribes, barring ‘menstruating personnel’ from handling skeletal remains. This rule was removed when my lawyers and I pointed out that this is clearly sex discrimination.

This is why fighting the nonbinary / trans narrative in archaeology is so important – because it is a part of a battle against the regressive anti-Westernism so prevalent in academia today.

West Side story

New York ca. 1910. "Marine terminals -- Hudson River docks along West Street."

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

We are all alone

More from the exciting world of academia, from Reduxx - PhD Student Masturbated to Fantasy Child Sexual Abuse Material For “Research”.

An academic article published by a PhD researcher at the University of Manchester is raising concerns from child safeguarding experts after it was discovered the article was focused on the writer’s experience masturbating to fantasy child sexual abuse material.

Karl Andersson, a Swedish-born academic, is currently a PhD student at the University of Manchester in the Japanese studies department. According to his Researcher biography on the University’s site, his focus is on how “fans of subcultural comics in Japan experience desire and think about sexual identities.”

In April of 2022, an academic research paper written by Andersson was peer-reviewed and published in the Journal of Qualitative Research. The paper, titled “I am not alone — we are all alone: Using masturbation as an ethnographic method in research on shota subculture in Japan,” outlines Andersson undertaking an “experimental method” of masturbating to shota pornography.

Shota, a shortened version of shōtarō complex, refers to comics, cartoons, and other forms of visual media which focus on young boys in erotic and sexualized situations. The boys are primarily depicted as prepubescent, often having hairless bodies and very small features, and may be engaged in romantic or sexual situations with other young boys or even adult men. Less commonly, the boys are shown in sexual situations with adult women.

The medium is largely regarded as a form of fantasy child pornography...

Um. I suppose it's some sort of logical conclusion - though I'm not sure to what.

Anyway, here's the article in Qualitative Research, should you wish to explore further.

For a period of 3 months, I would masturbate only to shota comics. For this purpose, I would use dōjinshi and commercial volumes that I have bought or been given during fieldwork in Japan. In short: I would masturbate in the same way that my research participants did it. After each masturbation session I would write down my thoughts and feelings – a kind of critical self-reflection – in a notebook, as well as details about which material I had used, where I had done it, at what time, and for how long. I would not be allowed to have any other sexual relief during this ‘fieldwork’ in my own sexuality: no regular porn, no sex with another person, no fantasies or memories – it had to be shota every time. I happened to live alone during this experiment, and I had newly become single after a long relationship – these factors probably contributed to my willingness and eagerness to explore this method.

Hamas: the dog that didn’t bite

Some interesting points on the recent Israel-Gaza conflict:

Israel had been planning a “decapitation” operation against Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza “for months” and was able to exploit fractures in the leadership, intelligence sources told The Times.

The two sides called a ceasefire over the weekend to end three days of hostilities that left more than 40 people dead, including 15 children, in Gaza. The fighting was the worst violence in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 11-day war in May last year.

Unlike previous escalations in Gaza, Hamas stayed out of this round of hostilities, for fear of jeopardising recent agreements by Israel to expand the number of Gazans with work permits in Israel and new infrastructure building projects. Officials noted that Hamas was “quite happy” to see its rivals come under attack.

Israel started preparing for an imminent attack from Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) after news emerged that the group’s secretary-general, Ziyad Nakhalah, who is usually based in Damascus, had been to Tehran for meetings with senior Iranian officials. PIJ receives nearly all of its money from Iran.

Nakhalah, the main conduit with Iran, was said to be under pressure to deliver an attack on Israel’s borders, which Tehran hoped would divert attention from the discreet negotiations it is holding on reviving the nuclear agreement with the world powers....

According to the Israeli military, about 20 per cent of PIJ rockets misfired, causing 15 civilian deaths, including eight children’s. As Mansour, 46, tried to rally his embattled fighters, he was located by Israeli intelligence and on Saturday night the house he was hiding in with two of his subordinates was hit. All three were killed along with four civilians there as well.

Isolated and without any of its senior leadership remaining in Gaza, PIJ was pressured by Hamas and the Egyptian government to agree to a ceasefire on Sunday night.

We saw one of the misfired rocket on Lebanese TV yesterday.

This Times editorial is helpful:

Fuel lorries were again crawling into Gaza after a three-day war against Israel ended with the destruction of most of the leadership of the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group. That a truce was reached relatively quickly is down to three factors: the weakness of the jihadists, the failure of Hamas to come to the assistance of the PIJ and Israel’s reluctance to engage in a protracted war ahead of November elections.

The short, sharp conflict was designed to give Iran’s proxy a bloody nose but it may have far-reaching implications in a Middle East that is slowly beginning to reshape itself. When the PIJ operates out of Gaza it does so in the quiet understanding that it will be backed in an ultimate showdown by the much larger and more powerful Hamas group.

This time Hamas was the dog that didn’t bite. The PIJ is bankrolled by Tehran, indeed its leader was in the Iranian capital during the brief war, but it has only short-range rockets, most of them easily intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system. Hamas, since its last war with Israel, finds itself with depleted rocket capacity, damaged attack tunnels and a growing dependency on the Israeli labour market. Israel employs 14,000 Gazan workers every day, an important contribution to the strip’s run-down economy. Crucially, Hamas seems content to see the defanging of its insurgent rival. It let the war run its course....

The crude balance: Hamas remains the established management of Gaza until it replenishes its arsenals; Iran has been embarrassed; the PIJ has lost its clout; and Mr Lapid has chalked up a few credits as a war leader before the general election. Moreover, Hamas has intriguingly opened up the possibility that it could be open to cautious peace-broking. It would not be the first time a terrorist group shifted ground and acknowledged that its followers might want a pause from the eternal struggle with a supposedly historical enemy.

Indeed the basis of the Abraham accords, the emerging understanding between Gulf states and Israel, is that co-operation between former foes and a shared suspicion of Iran’s hostile meddling can create a road to shared prosperity. Not many Arab states, though trumpeting their support for the Palestinians, have leapt to the side of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the past weeks. Its proximity to an ineffective Tehran has become toxic. Perhaps other Iranian proxies could draw some lessons from that.

As more and more players in the Middle East are realising, the problem is Iran, not Israel.

Waters under the bridge

We know Pink Floyd's Roger Waters to be an unsavoury anti-Israel pro-Putin nutjob, so no surprise here. Still...

The former Pink Floyd member recently sat down with CNN’s Michael Smerconish (who notably loves Waters’ music but disagrees with some of his political views) to defend some of the extreme messages during his show, such as including president Joe Biden in a slideshow of “war criminals.”

“Well, he’s fuelling the fire in the Ukraine, for a start – that is a huge crime,” he answered when asked why he added Biden in the lineup. “Why won’t the United States of America encourage [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, the [Ukrainian] president, to negotiate, obviating the need for this horrific, horrendous war that’s killing… We don’t know how many Russians.”

Killing a few Ukrainians too, but presumably they asked for it.

Smerconish told Waters he’s “got it reversed” by “blaming the party that got invaded” but Waters defended his stance: “Well, any war, when did it start? What you need to do is look at the history, and you can say, ‘Well it started on this day.’ You could say it started in 2008 – this war is basically about the action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border, which they promised they wouldn’t do when [Mikhail] Gorbachev negotiated the withdrawal of the USSR from the whole of Eastern Europe.”

He also dismissed Smerconish’s comment that Americans are “liberators.” “You got into World War 2 because of Pearl Harbor. You were completely isolationists [beforehand],” Waters argued. “Thank gGd the Russians had already won the bloody war by then. Twenty-three million Russians died, protecting you and me from the Nazi menace.”

“I would suggest that you… go away and read a bit more, and try to figure out what the US would do if the Chinese were putting nuclear armed missiles into Mexico and Canada,” he added.

When Smerconish then noted that the Chinese are “too busy encircling Taiwan as we speak,” Waters snapped back with this proclamation: “Taiwan is part of China. That has been absolutely accepted by the whole of international community since 1948. If you don’t know that you aren’t reading enough. You are believing your side’s propaganda. You can’t have a conversation about human rights and Taiwan without actually doing the reading.”

“The Chinese didn’t invade Iraq and kill a million people in 2013 [!],” Waters added. “Who have the Chinese invaded and slaughtered?”

The Tibetans? The Uighurs? 

It'd be nice to think that a few people who believe Waters to be right on Israel might read this and realise that the man's a complete buffoon - but I'm not holding my breath.

A transgender papa

Well, this is weird. 

A brown woman breast-pumps while a white man feeds the baby? Not quite:

Women’s Health Action (WHA), a New Zealand breastfeeding charity, is being criticized by women’s rights campaigners for creating a series of e-cards with what was deemed as  “racist” content. One of the cards seems to be showing a white man bottle-feeding a baby, while an indigenous woman, presumably Māori, is shown pumping breast milk.

According to WHA, the campaign  “Step Up for Breastfeeding: Educate and Support,” created eight cards for World Breastfeeding Week in 2022, containing images of women in several stages of breastfeeding.

However, women’s rights activists were shocked to see among the cards an image of an indigenous woman sitting on a sofa, with breast pumps attached to both her breasts, while a white individual, with masculinized features, is bottle-feeding a baby, sitting on the floor.

On social media, the image caused confusion, as some people weren’t sure what the bottle-feeding person’s sex was. The e-card itself doesn’t contain an explanation.

Only when visiting the WHA website does a person find out the e-card’s message. According to a video on WHA’s website, the white woman bottle-feeding is a “transgender papa,” who gave birth to the baby. The indigenous woman being pumped for breastmilk is her partner and has induced lactation because the woman who gave birth has had a double mastectomy. According to WHA, these cards were made to support “transgender and non-binary parents” in breastfeeding.

Phew. 

Not only has the trans man had her breasts cut off - the obvious thing to do really when you're planning to have a baby and want to breast-feed - but she's also got lovely hairy legs. But still she gave birth and hired a native woman - no sorry, asked her partner (no echoes of "black mammy" nursemaids here, no sir) - to provide the milk. All clear?

“Breastfeeding is never achieved alone,” says the charity on their website. WHA claims that the campaign’s goal is to promote and celebrate breastfeeding by “recognising and honoring all the people involved in the breastfeeding journey.”

Really? Surely it's nearly always achieved alone, by the mother. But boring old "cis-mothers" don't seem to count.

Further, WHA uses a resource called “Supporting transgender and non-binary parents”, created by PATHA (Professional Association for Transgender Health Aoteroa). The guide by PATHA claims that “transgender and non-binary parents make up about 1% of the postpartum population at present.” WHA adds that this number will continue to increase as the “social stigma” associated with being transgender or non-binary” will decrease, because “more people are feeling safe to identify and be open about being transgender and non-binary.”

The PATHA resource promotes the idea that people have “genders” that differ from their “assigned sex at birth” and that the increased social tolerance of trans people has led to “access to gender affirmative care.” WHA also compares the social acceptance of trans identities with acceptance of people who are left-handed. Additionally, the PATHA guide promotes gender identity beliefs to children questioning their sex, claiming that the number of trans people will increase because they will freely “explore their gender identity."

WHA, which was set up 37 years ago, has received funding from the New Zealand government via the Ministry of Health for over a decade. Other funding bodies are the Lottery Grants Board and Foundation North.

It's a brave new world down there.