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status of the ancient Hagia Sophia church, which had been transformed into a mosque in 1453 and then into a museum in 1934, was made controversially last week.

It follows an increasingly religious authoritarian agenda from Ankara that has made Turkey the world’s largest jailer of journalists, seen dissidents imprisoned for “terrorism” and witnessed increasing military invasions of neighboring countries by Turkey.

The resurrection of Hagia Sophia heralds the liberation of the al-Aqsa mosque, the Turkish Presidency website says. “The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the footsteps of the will of Muslims across the world to come… the resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the reignition of the fire of hope of Muslims and all oppressed, wrong, downtrodden and exploited.”

The speech, which was in Turkish, was translated slightly differently to Arabic and English, apparently as a way to hide part of Ankara’s full views on how it has linked Hagia Sophia to a wider agenda.

In Arabic the speech says that turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque is part of the “return of freedom to al-Aqsa,” essentially meaning Israel should be ejected from controlling Jerusalem’s Old City where al-Aqsa is located.

Turkey’s president linked the decision to reviving Islam from Bukhara in Uzbekistan to Andalusia in Spain. This terminology, linking al-Aqsa in Jerusalem to Hagia Sophia and Spain, is a kind of coded terminology for a wider religious agenda. In the Turkish translation the same reference to Spain does not appear to be included as in the Arabic. […]

Linking the major change at Hagia Sophia to Jerusalem illustrates that Ankara’s ambitions are far larger than just reasserting Islamic prayers at the historic mosque and church in Istanbul; it is part of a larger Islamic agenda for the region.

Turkey’s ruling AK Party is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey is a close ally of Hamas in Gaza. Hamas is also rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood. This strategy by Turkey seeks more influence across the region with like-minded groups and countries, such as Qatar and the Government of the National Accord in Libya.

Turkey is seeking to supplant Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, such as Egypt and Jordan, as the main determiner of what is “Islamic.” This means Ankara’s leadership believes that its changes to Hagia Sophia are only one step of a larger religious militarist agenda in the Middle East.

just in a less stereotypical way. We are still women.

You can't help thinking that the only way this is going to stop is if the psychiatrists and the other professionals involved are held to account for the damage they're doing. 

Russell Lee – July 1941. "Port Kelley, where wheat belonging to members of the Walla Walla Grain Growers is stored and shipped by barge to Portland. Walla Walla County, Washington."

[Photo: Shorpy/Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration]

Walla Walla? Sounds Aussie to me.

[Called after the local indigenous people – Walla Walla, sometimes Waluulapam, are a Sahaptin indigenous people of the Northwest Plateau. The duplication in their name expresses the diminutive form. The name Walla Walla is translated several ways but most often as "many waters."]

ce her status because she was instantly abandoned by her online “friends” and subjected to abuse. Those who had been so quick to accept her as trans now told her that she had never been trans to begin with. Benji muses: “I would like to ask these people under what conditions do they think a lesbian can go to a gender therapist and be told, ‘No, you’re not a trans, you are a lesbian,’ because I have never heard of any situation where that happens ever.”

This comment points to a serious problem for lesbians, who justifiably feel they are being marginalized and erased by aggressive trans bullies. There’s no such thing as a “tomboy” any more. Young women judged to be insufficiently stereotypical in their presentation and interests are likely to be asked, “Are you trans?” Girls who are not yet aware they are lesbians are easy prey for the suggestion that they may “really” be a boy.

Among other things, in other words – as I've noted before in relation to the trans activist charity Mermaids – this is a particularly nasty form of gay conversion therapy. 

Chilling stuff…

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oughout three years reporting on the gender wars. When the word “woman” is replaced with “menstruator”, “mother” with “birthing parent” so the specific language of female experience is unsayable, I remember the Ministry of Truth deleting seditious vocabulary: “a heretical thought . . . should be literally unthinkable at least so far as thought is dependent upon words”.

I think of Orwell when scientists cite the reproductive vagaries of clown fish or slugs to “prove” human biological sex is not a male-female binary, because they’re terrified of being targeted by activists who’ve stupidly tethered trans rights to science denial. Here is the very definition of Doublethink: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies.”

Almost every day I hear from Guardian journalists, principled, progressive writers, who are terrified of uttering what now counts as WrongSpeak. As the tram-tracks of left-wing discourse have narrowed, any critique of Black Lives Matter or conservative Islam or, worst of all, suggesting a humane balance must be reached between trans activist demands and women’s rights, can result in vicious censure from colleagues, even demands that they are sacked. Questions imply criticism: disagreement is hate-speech.

When journalists cannot address issues for fear of losing their jobs, a void is created in the public sphere. If moderate views are unprintable, they become unspeakable. Cancellation trickles down.

Harper’s signatory Salman Rushdie has survived far worse than rants from hipster bloggers, but the Scottish children’s author Gillian Philip, who defended JK Rowling, was sacked. Many others have written to me: feminist authors dumped by agents, who in turn are frightened for their own livelihoods. Female academics endure constant professional defamation, petitions to no-platform them, exclusion from publications, talks on subjects unrelated to gender aggressively picketed or cancelled. “I was disinvited from giving lectures on courses I’ve worked on for years,” one says sadly, “including courses I’ve helped to write”.

A corporate lawyer was reported to her chief executive just for following feminist accounts on Twitter; a teacher was shopped to her head by a student intern who’d overheard her criticise the trans child charity Mermaids. A charity worker faced a complaint to her board because she’d “liked” a JK Rowling tweet: “For days, I was utterly terrified for my future. I shouldn’t have to live like this because of the views I hold.” A copywriter who queried why “woman” must be replaced with “womxn’ but not man with “mxn”, says speaking out “results in fewer chances to work on projects or limits promotion”. These people are denied free speech for utterances that are within the law….

Unlike the woke left, George Orwell didn’t spend his life scrabbling to be on the “right side of history”: he believed that telling the truth is in itself a revolutionary act.

’s nine circles of hell.

None of us chose the world in which we emerged. We didn’t pick our race, sex or natal nationality; any inbuilt leg-up or disadvantage these traits conferred at birth was not of our making. We didn’t select which awful history soaks the ground at our feet. It’s insensible to feel ‘guilty’ or ‘ashamed’ about something you didn’t do. It’s entirely sensible to feel regret, sorrow and abhorrence about the likes of slavery. It’s commendable to be informed about the past and to try to understand the nature of its wretchedness, as it’s also commendable to strain to leave the world a little better than you found it. But claiming that what happened before you were born is all your fault is not only ridiculous. It’s vain.

And, of course, it perpetuates and reinforces the racial divisions that gave rise to the whole problem in the first place.

>The cultural body had urged Turkey not to change its status without discussion.

Islamists in Turkey have long called for it to be converted to a mosque, but secular opposition members have opposed the move. The proposal has prompted criticism from religious and political leaders worldwide

Shortly after the move, the first call to prayer was recited at the Hagia Sophia and was broadcast on all of Turkey's main news channels. The cultural site's social media channels have now been taken down.

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Anna’s Hummingbird, Ardenwood Historic Farm, California. Photo: Bibek Ghosh/Audubon Photography Awards

Tennessee Warbler, Point Pelee National Park, Ontario. Photo: Natalie Robertson/Audubon Photography Awards

Magnificent Frigatebird, Genovesa Island, Ecuador. Photo: Sue Dougherty/Audubon Photography Awards

Northern Jacana, Belize. Photo: Vayun Tiwari/Audubon Photography Awards

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