In honor of Pride month, here’s a list of countries in the Middle East that recognize same sex marriage: 1. Israel

11 trans people have been murdered in the United Kingdom since 2000. All of them were killed by somebody they knew. In that timeframe, 20 trans people have committed homicide in the UK, including one stranger killing. There is no trans genocide. There isn’t even any real persecution. When it comes to homicide, trans people are the safest demographic in the western world, and it’s past time that members of that community stop pretending to be the most victimy victims ever to be victimized.

So how am I supposed to turn the pages?

This is what I don't understand about the US rich, europoor thing. Yes, US salaries are much higher than UK ones for the same sort of job. Yes, fuel, energy etc cost a fraction in the US of what they do here. So everyone in the US should be living like kings, but aren't. Why?

“Free Palestine.” I grew up on those words. In Lebanon, most people around me wanted a free Palestine for a very practical reason — to send the Palestinian refugees back. The civil war that tore my country apart was ignited in no small part by the Palestinian armed factions who turned Lebanon into their launching pad. “Free Palestine” meant: free us from them. In Damascus, where my father’s family lived, the sentiment was different but equally self-serving. Palestine must be returned to the Arabs, its righteous owners. No one asked follow-up questions. No one was expected to. Palestine was central to Islam, most Arabs are Muslim, therefore supporting the Palestinian cause was reflexive. A non-brainer in the most literal sense — no brain engaged at all. Nobody stopped to point out that Palestine is not an Arabic word. Nobody found it strange that Jerusalem, the supposedly third holiest city in Islam, is not mentioned once in the Quran. Not once. Nor is Palestine. The entire theological and political architecture of this cause rests on a foundation that their own scripture doesn’t bother to acknowledge. What was actually happening was indoctrination. A systematic, generational rejection of Jewish sovereignty — and frankly, of any minority sovereignty. Jews, Christians, Druze, Kurds, Assyrians, Yazidis — the Arab world has been remarkably consistent in how it treats people who are different. We just don’t talk about that. Instead, in the West, we talk about Palestine. In the West, a civilization that has elevated human rights to its highest moral currency, the Palestinian cause has become the one exception to every rule. In the queue of human suffering, Palestinians cut the line every time. Homosexuals executed in Gaza and hanged from cranes in Iran? Palestine first. Women imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for campaigning for the right to drive — a right they were denied until 2018 — girls sold into marriage in Afghanistan, women erased from public life entirely under the Taliban? After Palestine. Political dissidents ground into dust in Syrian and Egyptian prisons, journalists disappeared in Libya, children starving in Yemen while their rulers wage proxy wars, entire populations hollowed out by hunger in Sudan? All of it waits. Christians ethnically cleansed from Iraq and Syria, the Arab world methodically emptied of every Jewish community it once held — a demographic erasure carried out across a century with surgical patience and near-total Western silence? Palestine is still first. So let’s end where we started. Free Palestine. Which Palestine, exactly? The Roman invention? The British administrative line? The British Mandate covered the entire territory of what is today Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan. In 1921, 78% of that mandate was handed to the Hashemite family — a dynasty imported from Hijaz in present-day Saudi Arabia — and became the Kingdom of Jordan, which it remains to this day. A foreign royal family, on the majority of historic Palestine, ruling it as a monarchy. Nobody protests that. No flags, no chants, no encampments. The remaining 22% was designated for the Jews, became Israel, and is the only part that any pro-Palestinian activist has ever had a problem with. So when you say Free Palestine, you mean that 22%. You mean the Jews. And free it from whom? From a people with a three-thousand-year-old documented presence in that land, to restore the glory of a name coined by Roman colonizers, a name lifted from the Torah, a name that has no roots in Arabic, no mention in the Quran, and no history as a sovereign state? You are not chanting for liberation. You are chanting for colonialism — the Roman kind, repackaged for social media. Free Palestine is not a cause. It is a colonial term, coined by invaders, recycled by the indoctrinated. The least you can do is have the intelligence to understand it and the decency to reflect on your position. 📍#Israel

This whole toilet thing really grates on me. It is not difficult to find single occupancy, most commonly, unisex toilets in the UK. I have been using these exclusively for the past 2 decades, before and after transition. My bodily autonomy and ability to use synthetic hormones to augment my body as I see fit leaves me with the responsibility to navigate society in a respectful manner. If you are unaware of what you will face after “transitioning” then you shouldn’t be taking the drugs or having the surgeries. If you haven’t thought about all the consequences of your own actions you shouldn’t be prescribed anything. If you haven’t done enough inner searching to come out the other side strong enough to take what will inevitably get thrown at you then DON’T DO IT. Further to that if you do not want to deal with the backlash after you have started the process, shut up, sit down and stop making your entire being about being a flag waving, justice warrior for a cause that has been manufactured by (mostly) men to claim victimhood and regain power in a society that was slowly being pried from their fingertips

Let’s have a think about what’s happening in Makerfield. This by election is costing taxpayers £226,208. And it’s happening because a Labour MP chose to step aside to make room for Andy Burnham’s leadership ambitions. He admitted that himself. But here’s some more interesting figures. If Burnham wins, he’ll have to resign as Greater Manchester Mayor too. That triggers another election costing taxpayers around £4.7 million. So in total, nearly £5 million of public money could be spent not on improving services, fixing roads, supporting communities or helping struggling families, but on political career ambitions. People are struggling with bills, crime, NHS waiting lists and communities being ignored. Yet Westminster politics still seems focused on who climbs the ladder next. That’s what frustrates people. Not democracy. Political games made to look like democracy.

Let me tell you, then, Jessie, why I’m a TERF. See, there’s a man in California who’s doing life for a third strike armed robbery. His first two strikes came from kidnapping young women on two known occasions, and forcing them to fellate him. Mr. Carroll is a 6’2, 250 lb, fully intact man with a beard. He doesn’t take estrogen or wear women’s clothing. He doesn’t use a woman’s name. Nevertheless, the state of CA agrees with Carroll that he is actually a woman, and he was transferred to a CA women’s prison, where he was given a female cellmate. He impregnated her. Technically it was rape, because inmates can’t legally consent, but that didn’t stop the prison officials from giving him another female cellmate. Whom he also raped. When this victim reported him, he counter-accused. She - all of 5’1 and 120 lbs - went to solitary, and he — 6’2 and 250 pounds — got a third female cellmate. Whom he also raped. Mr. Carroll is back in the men’s prison he should never have left, and it only cost three women the injury of being raped for the state to figure that out. You claim to care about poor women — do you care about the incarcerated woman impregnated during her prison term? They’ll take her baby when it’s born, too — so the trauma affects a second generation. This is not an isolated incident. Incarcerated women are incredibly vulnerable to sexual abuse, even when they aren’t knowingly locked in cells with a convicted male sex offender whom guards know raped his last two cellmates. Oh — and to make matters worse, the judge has decreed that the victims must referred to Mr. Carroll as “she.” You claim to be a feminist, and yet you have turned your back on perhaps the most vulnerable population of women in the Western world. You claim to be a feminist, yet you abandon other women to suffer at the hands of violent men, brushing aside their pain with a quip about toilets and genitals. Genitals become extremely important when someone is forcing his way into yours. Ask me how I know.

If British jews are to be held responsible for what happens in Gaza...then by the same reasoning British Muslims should be held responsible for the massacres of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria

WHY DON’T OUR MOTHERS HELP US UNDERSTAND PERIMENOPAUSE. WHY DID I HAVE TO DO THIS BY MYSELF? They never told us shit. Nothing. Nothing about the actual role of estrogen in like, every single neurological function. Not the anxiety, or itching or PVC’s and palpitations. Not the histamine reactions, or the pelvic floor issues, or the sore joints occasionally. They didn’t say a word about mood swings or how important progesterone is or what it does or what happens during luteal. THAT ENDS NOW. MY DAUGHTER WILL BE PREPARED, DAMMIT. Ladies, if you have a question I have become an effing encyclopedia of women’s health over the past 3-4 months. Holy shit what a disservice. Hot flashes? Ha! I’d trade 90% of this shit for hot flashes.

@KemiBadenoch has helped me more than any other MP barring @_RobbieMoore Not only that but they have treated me with respect and acknowledged my potential after a life of facing the opposite. They have helped me grow confidence in myself. They approach me for my advice on the grooming gang issues, taken time to learn from my experiences and given me a platform to speak my own mind rather than taking the credit. She has gone out of her way to thank me and make sure im ok during difficult times. I have alot of respect for kemi and I think not only is she a power house in politics, she is a genuinely nice and caring woman.

Labour Politicians on twitter: we all understand that you all have to say stuff like this. It just doesn't ring true. Either you are collectively deluded, you are transparently desperate to keep your job, or it's a smiling smokescreen before you put the knife in on Monday.

Apparently it’s not my beliefs that are the problem. It’s the way I express them. So let me express them for you. I believe women have the right to single-sex spaces - particularly in intimate settings such as toilets, changing rooms, hospitals and domestic violence shelters. Not only because the overwhelming majority of violence against women and girls is carried out by biological males, but because women deserve privacy, dignity and comfort. I believe women have the right to fair sport - from grassroots to elite level. Not only so they can accurately compare their performance against other female bodies, or avoid losing medals, scholarships and financial opportunities, but so they are not placed at risk of injury - or worse - by competing alongside people who are typically quicker, heavier and stronger. I believe women deserve their own categories in awards across every field - including the arts, sciences and engineering. Because someone born male who identifies as a woman can never experience life as a biological female. So to do otherwise is not a level playing field. I believe humans cannot change sex. And that being a woman is not a ‘feeling’. It is not about dresses, make-up or long hair. And no amount of drugs, surgery or paperwork can change a person’s sex. I believe the words “woman” and “mother” should not be replaced with so-called “inclusive” language that erases women from motherhood. Because only female humans who have gone through puberty can conceive, carry a baby and give birth. And because clear communication in healthcare should take priority over identity-based language. I believe people who choose to live as the opposite sex are fully aware of their biological sex and medical history. To suggest otherwise is insulting. There is therefore no need to change medical language to accommodate those choices. I believe women and girls have the right to say ‘no’ to men in their single-sex spaces - including men who identify as women. Because women cannot know, on sight, which men present a threat. They cannot reasonably be expected to “pick and choose” based on how kind, feminine or non-threatening someone appears. I believe the risk of offending a small number of masculine-presenting women or females who identify as men, does not justify removing women’s single-sex spaces altogether. And that forcing women and girls to share their single-sex spaces with men - against their will - is a violation of their boundaries. I do not believe humans can change sex. Therefore I do not believe trans women are women. So I do not believe people who identify as trans women should have access to women’s spaces, sports or other female-only categories. I believe trans people deserve the same rights as everyone else. They already have those rights. Demanding access to women’s single-sex spaces is asking for additional rights - rights that conflict with women’s boundaries, protections and, here in the UK, the law itself. I believe a society that cannot accept women’s right to single-sex spaces - and that labels women hateful or bigoted for defending those rights - is an unhealthy one. I believe the majority of people agree with me. And find my views perfectly reasonable. But that a small minority within politics, public bodies and major institutions have embedded harmful ideologies that make others afraid to speak honestly. And the punishment is the process. There are real consequences for speaking openly: social ostracism, damaged relationships, reputational attacks, loss of income, loss of work and of status. I do not believe there is anything in this statement that could reasonably be described as hateful, abusive or offensive. Not that this ultimately matters. Because my tone is not the problem. The problem is simply that I am saying things some people do not want to hear. I am speaking truths some people would rather remain unspoken.

Can I remind anyone in the UK voting tomorrow that it's the LOCAL elections and it's about the bins and the potholes, and whichever far left or far right nutter you vote for because they're not Labour or Tory will make zero difference to national politics.

From The Times this morning. Is there anything Zack Polanski hasn't claimed to be?

It's a phenomenon know as "Schrodinger's Trans" in which women's spaces, sports, language, etc is so irrelevant and unimportant that women shouldn't mind giving them up while simultaneously being so consequential and necessary that men will die if they can't have them.

I’ve posted this before, but there are a lot more of y’all now, and I think it’s worth repeating. Imagine a scenario in which large numbers of white people start saying that they “feel black,” and that because of this feeling, and their enjoyment of stereotypically “black behavior,” they are now not just black themselves, but the most marginalized and vulnerable type of black person. Imagine them insisting that they should be the main focus of all activism meant to help PoC. Imagine them having operations to darken their skin and mimic stereotypically black features. Imagine them walking around in blackface, and saying it’s the exact same thing as actually being black. Imagine them being honored as black citizens by the White House, being summoned to talk to the President about issues facing the black community, being supported by celebrities, and having laws passed to make white people who identify as black a protected class. Imagine these people demanding membership in black organizations, insisting that they receive a share of the reparations that CA is about to pay, and demanding they be given awards created specifically to honor black achievement. Then imagine them getting their way. Now imagine mobs of them showing up to black events that don’t include them, carrying threatening signs and air horns to drown out any speakers with noise. Imagine them coming up with slurs for any black person who doesn’t accept that white people are black if they say they are. Imagine them calling for the rape, torture, and mass murder of any black person who disagrees with them. Imagine them getting black people doxxed, harassed, assaulted, fired from their jobs, and investigated by the police for saying that you have to be born black to be black. Now imagine the government supporting their demands. That’s exactly the position that women are in right now, with a few extras, like being locked in cells with dangerous men, the sexual predation of lesbians via coercion, and the increased risk of sexual assault in what used to be female-only spaces. Our oppressors are now claiming not only the right to oppress us in whole new ways, but the right to erase our identities as women and rewrite the meaning of womanhood in ways that suit - and include - them. If you wouldn’t support this kind of behavior towards black people, you have no business supporting this kind of behavior towards women.