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Marion Post Wolcott – September 1941. "Transport truck in service station. Scottsbluff, Nebraska."

[Photo: Shorpy/Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration]

"Serving America's Valley of the Nile"? A reference apparently to the schemes of one George H Payne:

When Omaha businessman George H. Payne (1864-1937) formed the Payne Investment Company in the early 1910s, he launched what would become one of the largest colonization efforts in the West. The company’s promotional periodical The Land Owner, “A Journal of Opportunity,” on April 15, 1911, advertised the company’s aim  “To Put the Landless Man on the Manless Land.” According to this special Scotts Bluff edition,  “Unlimited Water Supply, Fertile Soil and Plenty of Sunshine Makes Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska ‘The American Valley of the Nile.’” 

pported the transgender community, the principle of inclusion should not be "at the expense of others".

"Anyone that has trained weightlifting at a high level knows this to be true in their bones: this particular situation is unfair to the sport and to the athletes," she said in May. "Life-changing opportunities are missed for some athletes – medals and Olympic qualifications – and we are powerless."…

Laurel Hubbard is among the top ranked athletes in the world in her category.

She has a good chance at winning a medal, as several others won't compete due to rules by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) that that there should be only one lifter per category from each country.

Hubbard's participation in previous competitions had sparked controversy in the past.

In 2019 she won a gold medal at the Pacific Games in Samoa, beating an athlete from the host nation, which triggered outrage.

And here is Hubbard on the podium at the time, collecting his gold:

The women at silver and bronze, as you can see, don't look too pleased. Understandably. They've been robbed of their rightful winning places – after all their training and their hard work and their dreams – by a man.

Ideally the other competitors would withdraw in protest against an unfair competition – "we don't compete against men" – but that's expecting too much of a sacrifice from the women athletes. It's not their fault they find themselves in this ridiculous situation, which anyone with any awareness at all can see is a nonsense.

ned about gay children who were referred to the service having been bullied. This may have motivated some to say they wanted to change sex and that he “tried hard not to let [them] get drawn into the service”.

Bristow told the clinic that gay staff felt they “had to keep sexuality on the agenda, as otherwise it was completely ignored as a topic”. He said there was a group of gay clinicians with these worries and that four had left at the time of his exit interview.

Despite the loudly proclaimed concerns by groups like Stonewall that conversion therapy is a threat to lesbian, gay, bi and trans people alike, this is the real scandal: convincing troubled young people, who'd very likely develop as perfectly healthy lesbians or gays if left alone, that they're somehow born into the wrong body and require puberty blockers and all kinds of serious medical interventions as the only route to happiness. This is conversion therapy – in the name of gender ideology.

ged. When she donated a work for raffle to raise money for period products in India, a male embroiderer hoped he’d win so he could burn it. One prominent stitcher of cheery flowers and “be kind” homilies has ranted non-stop about the injustice of it being De Wahls’s work that the snobbish RA chose when it finally allowed embroidery into “its hallowed halls”. Rather than her own, maybe?

Adichie’s essay wonders whether such vitriol is really to win compassion for trans people. Or has their cause become a legitimised outlet for baser feelings: professional jealousy, misogyny, amorphous rage? Now that shifty serotonin buzz from hurting someone you dislike comes with social cachet. What fun! You’re a good guy, for being vile.

As people sweat in silence, fearful that one misspeak will mean they’re next to be cancelled, De Wahls thinks of her childhood. “It’s Stasi bullshit. Like when my parents ordered me not to tell anyone we watched West German TV. But I refuse to back down. If I don’t, maybe young women will feel more bold.”

How bizarre that the art world, the crucible for shocking and subversive ideas, balks at the mere fact of biological sex. As I write, the RA’s tremulous head of commercial just told De Wahls “everyone is still thinking”. I’d hope such cogitation includes the Maya Forstater ruling which recently defined gender-critical feminism as a legitimate belief. De Wahls’s embroidered flowers would make a fascinating test case.

You can read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay here.

Those of us, meanwhile, who have some familiarity with the art world will not find it in the slightest degree bizarre that this "crucible for shocking and subversive ideas" should be at the forefront of this kind of censorship and group-think. Subversive ideas maybe – but only the right kind of subversive ideas.

ad, in her capacity as founder of the Schools Inclusion Alliance, a group that aims to “put inclusion at the heart of every school”. It featured as guest speaker Emma Cusdin, founder of Global Butterflies, who spoke about her own transition from male to female. “The LGBTQI world is an amazing rainbow of positivity and labels. We love labels. We love terminology, we love flags, we love parties,” Cusdin told staff.

“Young people are finding amazing ways to self-identify. At the last count, we stopped counting at 150 gender identities that people are self-identifying. We did a little quiz in terms of what are the 150. I know about 30, in terms of what the definitions are. Don’t be afraid to ask, ‘That’s a new term to me. What does it mean to you?’ ”

Asked how teachers should deal with “non- accepting parents”, Semple said: “I think a lot of the time when we’re working with parents they haven’t had access to the same material and training and education that we as teachers have had. So I think there’s an element of supporting parents with education.”

How very patronising. Those stupid parents – not up to speed with the latest gender ideology.

A source said: “I think it’s outrageous they gave us this training and that we should be OK with it. Staff are scared to speak out because the conversation is so toxic, and parents don’t want to criticise the school because they want to protect its reputation and their investment.”

Stonewall aren't mentioned in the article, but this move has the Stonewall stamp all over it. Especially given this latest revelation, from the Telegraph yesterday:

Teachers should drop the terms boys and girls in favour of “learners”, and mix up the sexes in PE classes, Stonewall has told schools.

The controversial LGBT charity is urging teachers to ditch all gendered language and gendered uniforms and suggests that children should compete against the opposite sex in sport.

A series of guidance documents state that uniform policies should "give the option to wear a skirt as well as the option to wear trousers". One of Stonewall’s guides said that its work in primary schools was funded by the Government Equalities Office.

Stonewall advises school staff that they should: “Avoid dividing learners by gender, whether in the classroom (you could divide them by their favourite colour, month of birth or something else) or through uniform, sports activities or other aspects of school life.”

Trans pupils can use the lavatories, changing rooms and dorms on school trips that they feel most comfortable in, another booklet states.

To be a member of the Stonewall School & College Champion schools, establishments have to pay a yearly fee, starting at £150 plus VAT for those with less than 100 pupils, and rising to £800 plus VAT for those with more than 2,000 learners.

St Paul’s, the prestigious private school in London, is reportedly among the hundreds of primary and secondary schools that are members. 

lass=”ArticleContent” style=”padding-left: 40px”>The plenary meeting examined constructive opinions that were put together and adopted with unanimous approval a resolution reflecting additional measures for thoroughly carrying out major state policy tasks for this year and a resolution on unconditionally fulfilling the grain production plan by concentrating efforts of the entire Party, the whole army and all the people on the farming for this year.

The plenary meeting discussed as the fourth agenda item the analysis of the present international situation and our Party's corresponding direction.

The respected General Secretary reviewed and assessed major changes taking place on the international political arena in recent days and the external environment of our revolution.

Especially he made detailed analysis of the policy tendency of the newly emerged U.S. administration toward our Republic and clarified appropriate strategic and tactical counteraction and the direction of activities to be maintained in the relations with the U.S. in the days ahead.

The General Secretary stressed the need to get prepared for both dialogue and confrontation, especially to get fully prepared for confrontation in order to protect the dignity of our state and its interests for independent development and to reliably guarantee the peaceful environment and the security of our state.

"…especially to get fully prepared for confrontation…"

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[Photo: Shorpy/Carl Mydans for the Resettlement Administration]

span style=”font-size: 11pt”>These horrendous "transphobic views"? 

The artist wrote a blog in 2019 which said that a woman is “an adult human female” and “not an identity or feeling”, adding: “I can not accept people’s unsubstantiated assertions that they are in fact the opposite sex to when they were born.”

Maya Forstater, who won an appeal after losing her job following tweets stating trans women were “not women”, has raised concerns over the action taken against Ms de Wahls.

She told The Telegraph: “Organisations have got used to overreacting to complaints of transphobia. They need to take a deep breath, look at the Equality Act and consider that everybody has rights.

“These coordinated complaints ruin people's lives and their reputations and make organisations fearful. It is McCarthyism and many people are afraid.”

The campaign groups Sex Matters has written to the director of the RA in a letter stating: “The Royal Academy is carrying out an egregious and blatant belief discrimination against textile artist Jess de Wahls.”

The letter claims the decision to pull the artist's work came after a “handful of coordinated complaints”, adding that the decision goes against “your values as a forum for artistic expression”.

The group has urged the RA to reinstate Ms de Wahls' works and apologise to the artist.

Yes, it's pathetic.

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[Photos © Daniel Kordan]

of the executive committee asked various Labour elected representatives if they would be interested in speaking at the rally. On 24 May, the rally organisation team asked Councillor Laurie Burton and Laurie agreed to speak. At the time, the team checked through Laurie’s recent twitter timeline and saw no concerning material.

It is, of course, always a good move to check through someone's twitter timeline first. You know….just in case.

So what is the wretched Councillor Laurie Burton guilty of? 

On 10 June, Laurie posted a tweet describing the procedural decision in favour of high-profile transphobe Maya Forstater at an employment tribunal as a “victory for women’s rights” and a “victory for free speech”, invoking two dangerous transphobic tropes. Earlier this evening, we announced that Laurie had agreed to speak at our rally, and we linked to his twitter account, not having checked through it again since the team spoke to him on 24 May. The transphobic tweet was then drawn to our attention.

We are incredibly ashamed that, having made a public statement in the past that Labour has a transphobia problem, we failed to be cautious and check again before endorsing a councillor we were not familiar with. Our naivety has led to us contributing to that problem, we had a responsibility to know better, and we are sincerely sorry.

As Labour Nexus has said in the past, trans rights are not up for debate. Trans rights are human rights. If that statement is contentious for you, listen to trans voices and educate yourself, or leave.

Laurie Burton has been reported to the Labour Party, and we sincerely hope that the leadership will defy our low expectations and punish him.

"High profile transphobe Maya Forstater"?? The woman who's just won a court case to the effect that gender critical beliefs are "worthy of respect"?

If that isn't absurd enough, the grovelling apology puts the icing on the whole pathetic performance. 

Uniting the party, one shooting in the foot at a time.