Daily review 16/04/2025

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, April 16th, 2025 - 35 comments
Categories: Daily review - Tags:

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

35 comments on “Daily review 16/04/2025 ”

  1. SPC 1
    16 April 2025 at 6:03 pm

    The White Lotus Saturday Night Live parody undressed.

    The Americans have perfect teeth, so much superior to that of the British, that it is the new world order supremacy.

    The blue lotus flower (is actually a lily of the river of Egypt). The Lily of the Valley is the Mayflower. Thus the eye over the pyramid.

    The red coats and the American blue coats (Revolutionary War).

    Is it blue toothpaste that has fluoride?

    Cleopatra's needles, fangs for the memories, are in London and New York.

    He/she who bites best.

    Or as the Flight of the Conchords put it, women of the world draw blood inside them.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/culture/360657176/saturday-night-live-comedian-apologises-white-lotus-star-mean-parody

    PS Desi of the Daily Show notes that POTUS 47 talks with a small mouth. Why is this? What is he hiding? Is he King Donald of the red teeth? Whose blood? Does he have Leviathion teeth? Maybe he has not come to drain the swamp, but to be the beast that eats up the humanity of the constitutional republic.

    Reply
  2. SPC 2
    16 April 2025 at 6:26 pm

    POTUS 44 imagines life acting the way POTUS 47 does.

    But being without white entitlement, realises he would not get away with it.

    https://youtube.com/shorts/xvriwMCa7rE?si=Nl6AohQ8tjFLtb7G

    Reply
  3. Ad 3
    16 April 2025 at 6:43 pm

    Weird sensation looking at rows and rows of antique cars trucks construction vehicles and farm vehicles piling up for Wheels In Wanaka. Hundreds and hundreds.

    Even a coal fired delivery trucks.

    Jurassic Park for combustion vehicles.

    Reply
    • SPC 3.1
      16 April 2025 at 7:51 pm

      Auckland

      https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/ferry-services/low-emission-ferries-are-coming

      Have these arrived in the southern man den yet?

      New Zealand pale ales are known for their use of unique and flavorful hop varieties like Nelson Sauvin, Riwaka, Wakatu, and Kohia, which contribute notes of white grapes, crushed gooseberries, apricot, and tropical fruits

      Reply
    • Graeme 3.2
      17 April 2025 at 8:41 am

      They'll be reminiscing of the great times they had when the power of the State did amazing things building the infrastructure that drives our society.

      They might not see it in quite those terms but they are all hankering for a return to a world like the 60's and 70's on Waitaki, Turangi and Clutha.

      Hopefully you'll be there talking about all the cool things we can be building for the next 20 or 30 years.

      Reply
  4. SPC 4
    16 April 2025 at 11:55 pm

    The United Kingdom has a Supreme Court. And those on it have gone there.

    Lord Hodge said the central question was how the words "woman" and "sex" are defined in the legislation.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg7pqzk47zo

    Reply
    • weka 4.1
      17 April 2025 at 9:24 am

      thankfully.

      The important thing to understand here is that they didn't create new law, nor policy, they clarified existing law, specifically the meaning of the words sex and woman in the Equality Act.

      The judgers were very clear at the outset that trans people are still protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment ie they cannot be discriminated against on the basis of being transgender.

      All power to the Scottish and other British feminists who worked for years to protect women as a sex class in law.

      Reply
      • weka 4.1.1
        17 April 2025 at 9:41 am

        to explain the context, for many years NGOs, government departments, schools, businesses and so on, have been creating policy that broke the law, by saying that trans women (trans identified males) were to be treated as women against the exception in the EA that protected women. eg transwomen should be allowed into women's rape crisis services.

        The court case originates with the SNP government introducing legislation to ensure women were represented on public boards, and they wanted 'women' to include trans women.

        Judgement summary yesterday (worth watching to get what they are actually saying in context)

        https://youtu.be/XxHtbTragtg?si=lPM7v7TFqqwhAt3X

        Full judgement is here

        https://supremecourt.uk/cases/judgments/uksc-2024-0042

        Reply
        • weka 4.1.1.1
          17 April 2025 at 9:44 am

          By clarifying that biological sex is protected in the EA, that protects women's rights and it frees up society to now create policy that protects trans people without negating women's rights.

          eg should trans people have a certain % of representation on public boards? Make the case and do the work, just like women had to.

          where should trans women go to the toilet? People/businesses/organisations providing public and work place toilets need to make sure that there are toilets for trans and NB people, without removing female only toilets. Again, make the case and do the work for social change. If there aren't enough mixed sex or gender neutral toilets, then change that, rather than taking away from women.

          Reply
          • Karolyn_IS 4.1.1.1.1
            17 April 2025 at 10:15 am

            Exactly. Importantly it impacts on all UK sports requiring women's sports are women only.

            Transactivists have been saying that would exclude trans people from sport. Actually, it's transwomen, not trans or non-binary IDed females, who reject participating in sports according to their (male) sex. At the last Olympics there were females who ID as transmen and as non-binary participating in the women's division of sport. It does require that such females do not take testosterone as that would be cheating re-drugs.

            But why is it that most trans IDed females don't have a problem participating in sport according to their sex while trans IDed males do?

            It's up to trans, gender diverse & non-binary IDed males to sort out a fair way to participate in sport – they won't participate in a trans only category. Maybe an open category is a way to go.

            On women's toilets. Generally there has never been enough toilets/cubicles available for females outside the domestic sphere. Maybe it's a good opportunity to maintain existing women's toilets and increase the amount of sex-neutral ones?

            Reply
    • tWig 4.2
      17 April 2025 at 9:44 am

      This ruling is another example, like the Cass report, where the views of those most affected by the legislatiom or government policy have been blatantly excluded from the process.

      According to the UK Good Law Project, an activism group that challenges poor UK law, two high profile trans KCs, people involved in the original GRC legislation spent 100s of hours putting together a submission from the trans perspective on the Supreme Court Appeal.

      'But without even giving reasons [for excluding their submission], the Supreme Court flatly refused [to accept it]. And they were left with not even one trans person before them.

      And then it got worse. They didn’t just listen to the legal arguments of those organisations. They also accepted fresh evidence from them, evidence that was never tested, evidence that would have been vigorously tested. Except the Supreme Court refused to allow anyone trans to test it.

      This was monumentally unfair to trans people, the community most closely affected by the decision, but it’s not just the unfairness. The decision to shut out from the hearing the people most closely affected made the decision weaker.'..

      The law now means that 'If you do not “pass” as a woman you are not entitled to that protection – and gender-affirming healthcare is being withdrawn so fewer and fewer trans people will pass.'

      Wes Streeting, the UK health minister has told the NHI it’s OK to deny hormone treatment for adult trans people, not just the puberty blockers for children.

      Reply
      • weka 4.2.1
        17 April 2025 at 9:49 am

        it's nothing to do with whether trans women pass or not. The clarification says that there are times/places where no males are allowed in women's spaces (that's men, trans women with a GRC, trans women without a GRC, NB males).

        If you listen to what the judgement says, it's actually stopping discrimination between people with a gender recognition certificate, and trans people without. Personally, I find the idea that gender non conforming people should have to undergo extreme body modification to be protected in law abhorrent.

        I see zero connection between this clarification of the Equality Act and access to gender-affirming care. Can you please explain what the connection is?

        Reply
        • tWig 4.2.1.1
          17 April 2025 at 12:30 pm

          'This ruling is another example, like the Cass report, where the views of those most affected by the legislatiom or government policy have been blatantly excluded from the process.'

          Wes Streeting has met with anti trans groups, saying he will advance their agenda, while not meeting with trans advocacy groups. The Labour Party hierachy is continuing the Tory culture war against trans people in the UK.

          Reply
      • weka 4.2.2
        17 April 2025 at 9:55 am

        This ruling is another example, like the Cass report, where the views of those most affected by the legislatiom or government policy have been blatantly excluded from the process.

        There were four interveners allowed to make submissions.

        Two took the position of women and lesbians: Sex Matters, and a combined submission from Scottish Lesbians, the Lesbian Project and the LGB Alliance.

        The other two were pro-trans and argued that trans women with a GRC should be included in the definition of woman in the EA. Those were the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International.

        https://supremecourt.uk/cases/judgments/uksc-2024-0042

        Reply
      • Karolyn_IS 4.2.3
        17 April 2025 at 10:24 am

        The views of trans people were not omitted from the Cass Review process. Many were consulted and involved in discussions. the Cass Review was an independent review where the committee making the final judgement had no skin in either side of the game.

        The latest Supreme Court ruling is one where FINALLY the voices of women critical of the interpretation of the law by the likes of powerful organisations like Stonewall, were heard.

        Publicly and privately well-funded transactivists, their organisations and allies have been wrongly interpreting the UK law. Up until very recently only the voices of such well-funded, pro-gender ID theory organisations have been the dominant international voices (eg Amnesty) heard and acted upon re-social and public provisions.

        Reply
        • weka 4.2.3.1
          17 April 2025 at 10:41 am

          I feel for the people with serious gender dysphoria who will be fed a bunch of nonsense, alarm and fear this week about their rights. The TRAs? Don't have much sympathy for them, they've had years of warning about this, and the grass roots feminist movement was willing to work with them on solutions early on until it became obvious that the only response was stfu bigot or go die in a grease fire.

          I haven't seen much from the TRA side yet, other than the fox killer and India.

          Reply
          • Karolyn_IS 4.2.3.1.1
            17 April 2025 at 10:56 am

            Weka: "I feel for the people with serious gender dysphoria who will be fed a bunch of nonsense, alarm and fear this week about their rights."

            Indeed. Unfortunately, the over-reach of recent transactivism has been to incorporate people experiencing extreme distress about their sexed bodies with others who now self ID as trans, NB, gender diverse, etc for diverse reasons.

            A quite balanced article on RNZ's site does mention some of the TRA fear-mongerers.

            The decision confirms that single-sex services for women such as refuges, hospital wards and sports can exclude trans women, clearing up legal ambiguity. Transgender campaigners said the decision could lead to discrimination, especially over employment issues.

            "The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms 'women' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex," Deputy President of the Supreme Court Patrick Hodge said.

            The Supreme Court said trans people – whether trans women or men – would not be disadvantaged by its decision as the Equality Act afforded them protection against discrimination or harassment.

            Trans rights campaigners said the ruling had worrying implications.

            "Today is a challenging day, and we are deeply concerned at the widespread, harmful implications of today's Supreme Court ruling," a consortium of LGBT+ organisations, including prominent group Stonewall, said in a statement.

            Trans woman and campaigner GǬEllie Gomersall said it was "another attack on the rights of trans people to live our lives in peace".

            Legal experts said the ruling showed equality legislation might need to be urgently updated to ensure trans people were protected.

            Phillip Pepper, employment partner at law firm Shakespeare Martineau, said the court's decision could "create further division and increase tensions" in the short term.

            "However, it will offer long-term clarity for businesses which have been left to interpret ambiguous, contradictory legislation on their own until this point, potentially landing in hot water as a result,”

            I'm not sure what legal protections trans IDed people need in the UK that they don't already have. Certainly if the have a Gender Recognition Certificate, they are protected against harassment and discrimination. Maybe that should be extended to all people who don't conform to sex-based norms and expectations of personal presentation and behaviour?

            Reply
            • weka 4.2.3.1.1.1
              17 April 2025 at 11:03 am

              Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic under the EA.

              (1)A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

              So agreed, they're already protected in law from discrimination against them for being trans.

              Can TW run TW only services? Can't see why not. Unlike with sex, where women and men are protected with exemptions, there is no protection for people without a gender reassignment.

              One thing I'm not entirely clear on is if organisations can choose to include TW in single sex spaces and services. Forstater seems to be saying no, and I'm sure that's true for government services. Not so sure about private businesses. Possibly will come down to not claiming the service is single sex, which won't please the TRAs.

              Reply
              • Karolyn_IS …
                17 April 2025 at 11:20 am

                The full SC decision is quite long and involves considerations of many aspects of the relevant laws.

                Legal feminist has a thread on X with some comments on the first run through of the document.

                A couple of points stand out for me:

                Only a small proportion of trans IDed people have a GRC, as shown by the number of people with GRCs (official stats) and the number of people who ID as trans in the latest census.

                The GRC application statutory declaration includes that the applicant intends to "live in the gender" they are transitioning to. However, there's no guidance on what "living in a gender" means.

                Reply
                • weka …
                  17 April 2025 at 11:46 am

                  Good read from Legal Feminist

                  Amazing to see SC judges grappling with living in a gender after all this time of the blatant sexism in many parts of society. Like women didn’t even exist

                  Reply
                  • Karolyn_IS …
                    17 April 2025 at 12:26 pm

                    Yes. The whole thing started with a small number of men when the focus was on males transitioning to 'live as women'. I supported what was then explained as transsexual M-to-F having their bodies altered so they could feel more comfortable in them.

                    At the time I didn't consider how it would impact on women's sex-based provisions, intimate care & spaces, sports, etc further down the line. No-one back then asked women collectively for our views on males 'living as women" by entering our spaces.

                    I didn't look deeply into it until I was seeing "no-debate" and censoring of anyone who questioned "transwomen are women" and sex-self ID.

                    Jane Clare Jones has looked into the origins of this movement via research of some relevant documents. Basically the whole ideology started with a well-off group of male lawyers meeting in New York. It has it's roots in US neoliberalism, and US academics like Judith Butler creating a polarity between the sex and gender conservatism of US religious groups vs those claiming sex & gender are social constructions, and is a spectrum, not a dimorphic biological reality.

                    JCJ wrote about this yesterday with the UK Supreme Court decision pending, and how (left wing) radical/materialist feminists in the UK come from a different position. They have been drawing on the legacy of UK second wave feminism. In this sex (male and female) is a biological reality, while gender, under patriarchy, is a hierarchical social construction with males dominant and females subservient.

                    Reply
                    • SPC …
                      17 April 2025 at 1:59 pm

                      The DSM 1980 (acceptance of sexual and gender non conformity in care/health treatment), preceded Butler (on gender being performative) and then the 1990's queer theory and the "neo-liberal" gender rights gathering in Texas.

                      By 1980, gender non conformity was in a variety of strands – a club scene including transvestites and sex workers and homosexuals evading non consorting laws.

                      Reading about Foucault and his approval of panopticon and the disciplinary order to exercise of sovereign power – a little too technocracy (broligarchy) cyborg … . Little wonder he died because of his appreciation of discipline in the SF Bathhouse.

                    • Karolyn_IS …
                      17 April 2025 at 2:19 pm

                      Reply SPC at 1.59pm

                      There was a fair bit of gender non-conformity, transvestitism and so-called 'sex-change' operations prior to 1990. Butler published "Gender Trouble" in 1900.

                      Jane Clare Jones, in here "Political Erasure of Sex"(PDF) dates the current transgender movement and ideology beginning in the 1990s (in Texas, not NY as I previously stated).

                      Organised activity to campaign for the rights and recognition of transgender people began in the early nineties, concurrently, on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1992, a trans woman and lawyer called Phyllis Frye established a series of conferences, The International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy (ICTLEP), which met in Houston, Texas, for a week annually, between 1992 and 1996.2 At the same time, the lawyer Stephen Whittle [transman], along with veteran trans campaigner Mark Rees, formed the trans lobby group Press for Change (PFC), after a visit to parliament to solicit support from the MP Alex Carlile.

                      JCJ argues the transwoman, transhumanist and biotech billionaire Martine Rothblatt who first publicly articulated the sex-denialist approach of current trans activism:

                      Rothblatt’s 1994 presentations are the earliest formulation I have encountered in trans activism of what we could call the ‘sex denialist’ aspect of contemporary trans ideology; that is, the claim not only that ‘psychic sex’ or ‘gender identity’ should take precedence over biological sex, but the claim that the division of humans into male and female types is in some sense not a material reality.

      • lprent 4.2.4
        17 April 2025 at 1:01 pm

        From what I can see, this looks like a pretty standard technical legal argument about the intent and wording of the UK parliaments when making legislation.

        I did a quick run through the judgement, and that was pretty much what I saw.

        The problem is to get the UK parliaments to make more explicit legislation, either making it clear what is covered (which the EA 2010 actually did), or by using the NZ legal approach of making everything more general.

        Sex as a concept is pretty damn stupid as a discriminator, and getting more so over time. Currently the only biological almost solely on childbirth bearing in mind the spread of abilities across humans. It is entirely possible to have females with the same strength as high end males, just not likely. Similarly the endurance of some males sometimes approaches that of some females.

        On the other hand, we don't legally discriminate for or against people who are short, disabled, tall, or hairy for merely biological reasons. I can't see any particular reason to discriminate for people with a set of ovaries, any more than I can see a reason to discriminate for people with a set of active testes.

        Being able to birth a child is unlikely to remain the sole purview of one 'sex' over the coming century – unless you want to discriminate against machines, medical techniques, and genetics.

        Personally I'd prefer the NZ legal approach of simply using gender and preventing discrimination based on it, the same as race, religion, age, etc. That attacks the root of the problem – idiots who insist on being discriminatory because they are idiots governed less by their minds than their societies and genetics..

        But it looks like the UK parliament is still pretty sluggish on their legal conventions and terminology. That is mostly what this judgement shows. The courts had to follow what was in the legislation.

        Reply
          • weka 4.2.4.1.1
            17 April 2025 at 1:49 pm

            Fowles seems to be missing quite a lot about how policy and interpretation have real world impacts on women. It's all very well to say that women can have women only spaces and services, but if powerholders in society decide to deny them that, then it becomes prohibitive.

            There’s the issue of ‘Stonewall law’, and perhaps he doesn’t appreciate just how much inaccurate advice has been given to such a wide range of organisations who will now have to review policy.

            Commentators are also saying that government services will need to honour single sex space eg hospital wards. I expect one outcome of the case will be that you can't call something female only if you are allowing in TW.

            Reply
        • Psycho Milt 4.2.4.2
          17 April 2025 at 6:47 pm

          Sex, far from being "pretty damn stupid" as a distinction, is the most clear and significant distinction between humans and has direct real-world relevance to the safety, privacy and dignity of female people.

          What would be "pretty damn stupid" as a distinction is identity claims, which are not only unverifiable but lacking any real-world relevance. This is why legislators use the word 'sex' when distinguishing between the sexes.

          Reply
    • SPC 4.3
      17 April 2025 at 12:53 pm

      Present

      The court decided that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

      This on being asked whether "sex" meant biological sex, or legal, "certificated" sex as defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.

      Background

      The Human Rights Act of 1998 requires UK courts, including the Supreme Court, to "take account" of the ECHR's rulings.

      A European Court of Human Rights ruling in 2002 that a trans person's inability to change the sex on their birth certificate was a breach of their rights under Article 8 and Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Thus the UK Gender Recognition Act 2004.

      Gender Recognition Act 2004 – Wikipedia

      The UK MP's then passed the Equality Act in 2010 – which was an update of earlier legislation to end discrimination, including the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

      The 2010 Equality Act added disability and gender reassignment for the first time, but as the UK Supreme Court has determined, did not change the definition of woman or sex.

      Many had acted, as if the 2004 legislation (that allowed those with the gender recognition certificate to change their birth certificate) had added the transgender into the women sex category.

      Given the Human Rights Act of 1998 is unchanged and the UK remains a member of the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the issue will move on in a range of ways.

      The relevant quote

      Judge Lord Hodge said the ruling should not be seen as a triumph of one side over the other, and stressed that the law still gives protection against discrimination to transgender people.

      Reply

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