Cis-supremacists aren't persuadable

Three days ago, in a Substack note, re: the possibility of persuading governments to implement an Israel–Gaza ceasefire:

Substack note

In reply:

Substack note

Substack note

This is true in general, and it's also how a lot of transphobia works. The transphobe posits themselves (or some general idea of a normal, ordinary cis person, whom they claim to represent) as the arbiter of human reasonableness. The transphobe says: "Everything trans people say sounds unreasonable to me. Therefore, trans people's arguments are objectively unsound, and their claims are wrong. That's why trans people are unpersuasive to me and unpersuasive to just about everyone else too."

If this kind of person cared about whose arguments (or existence, or communications style, etc.) persuade whom, they'd look at the evidence. Lots of cis people say "I'm fine with trans people, thanks. Actually, I find trans people quite persuasive." Yet the transphobe discards that personal feedback, as well as the obvious fact that trans people simply are part of society, as well as any sociological data about what kinds of people accept whom and in what numbers.

This kind of transphobe is not a persuadable person. They're primarily interested in perpetually reasserting their own supremacy and their paternalistic prerogative to decide what's right for other people. In their mind and heart, any desire for equal rights and liberation for others is a distant second.

'No one ever asked women'

Germaine Greer wrote in The Whole Woman (1999):

"No one ever asked women if they recognized sex-change males as belonging to their sex or considered whether being obliged to accept MTF transsexuals as women was at all damaging to their identity or self-esteem."

To this, Serano notes that Greer's very use of a term like "sex-change males" shows that "she feels entitled to gender us in whatever way she feels is appropriate." She also uses the term "women" to refer only to cis women when the context of the sentence calls for a distinction between cis women and trans women. Furthermore, "Greer grants these [cis] women cissexual privilege when she suggests that they (along with her) are equally entitled to be consulted about whether transsexual women should belong to their sex or not. It is particularly telling that Greer uses the word 'asked' in this context. After all, nobody in our society ever asks for permission to belong to one gender or another; rather, we just are who we are and other people make assumptions about our gender accordingly." She's using "different standards of legitimacy" for cis and trans people, and thus she's "producing and exercising cissexual privilege."

(Julia Serano, Whipping Girl, "Chapter 8: Dismantling Cissexual Privilege," first published 2007, 3rd edition published 2024.)

By the way, a description for an IAI Live talk ("The Final Wave," July 19, 2021) said of Greer that "liberal feminism, "combined with cancel culture ... has seen Germaine Greer take early retirement, J.K. Rowling denounced by progressives worldwide and the UK Employments Courts forced to protect some feminist beliefs in law." The "early retirement" remark is odd, as Greer was at this time 82 years old, and had just voluntarily moved into an aged-care home because she could no longer live independently in her house.

Victim-blaming on a metaphysical level

A.R. Moxon talks about this in the context of in-person protests. Often, victims are pre-blamed depending on what side they're on. This is evidence of supremacy:

"...whenever supremacists commit acts of violence against demonstrators for justice, the blame for the violence gets attributed to all those who march for justice, not to the supremacists responsible or to the underlying injustice that made the demonstration necessary. This is a state of affairs that makes it impossible for a demonstration for supremacy to ever be considered intrinsically violent, and impossible for a demonstration for justice to ever be considered intrinsically peaceful. A litmus test for institutional supremacy if ever there was one."
A.R. Moxon, interviewed by Parker Molloy (Patreon), May 30, 2024

Ohio: Trans people continue to exist

Ohio has been a battleground for the existence of trans people. Yet there have been victories, and trans people continue to exist.

2022

Erin Reed tweeted on October 12, 2022: "Happening now... The waiting room is overflowing in Ohio as people pack the building in order to speak out against a policy that will force teachers to misgender Ohio trans students and ban them from bathrooms statewide." And the next day: "Y’all I can’t overstate how big a victory we just won in Ohio for trans people was. We got a boardroom full of Republican school officials to vote AGAINST moms for Liberty anti trans policies. The activists speeches objectively swayed things. The anti-trans group was stunned." And on December 16, 2022: "Great news! Ohio Republicans couldn't agree on if genital inspections should be required to play school sports. The House and Senate disagreed, and powerful testimony from trans allies and athletes ensured the bill failed."

'Moms for Liberty' are extremists

"The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the controversial right-wing organization Moms for Liberty as an “anti-government extremist group” in its annual report [published November 7, 2023]." — HuffPost

Oh hey: "Moms for Liberty outreach leader exposed as registered sex offender": Phillip Fisher Jr, who served three years in prison, volunteered at Philadelphia summit for rightwing parental rights group. Edward Helmore. The Guardian. 21 Nov 2023. According to the article, Fisher had "pleaded guilty in 2012 to a charge of aggravated sexual abuse involving a 14-year-old boy when he was 25..."

By the way, they seem to define "grooming" as any non-parent (like a teacher) interacting with a child in ways the parent might not have interacted, using language the parent might not have used, providing information the parent might not have provided. ("South Carolina school district reviews, returns dozens of books after ban attempt," CBS News, March 3, 2024):

"Another tweet [by Moms for Liberty] targets a school librarian profiled in a magazine article. "You want to groom our children and we're supposed to give you love?"

When asked what they meant by grooming, Justice replied, "Parents want to partner with their children's schools. But we do not co-parent with the government.""

2023

The Ohio legislation, House Bill 68, banning gender-affirming care for minors and trans girls' participation in girls' sports, is sponsored by Rep. Gary Click, a Republican. He supports conversion therapy for gay and trans people alike. He does not want people to be gay. He does not want people to be trans. He has associated with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

The Washington Post reports ("Ohio governor vetoes ban on gender-affirming care for minors," Anumita Kaur, December 29, 2023, subscriber gift link):

"Hundreds of people testified in hearings on the legislation this year, with 87 people testifying during a state Senate committee hearing in early December that stretched past 11 p.m. A majority of them testified against the bill, and many of those who supported the ban flew in from out of state to testify.

* * *

The bill passed the Ohio Senate 24-8 and the House 61-27, largely along party lines in the Republican-controlled chambers, joining more than 20 states that have passed similar restrictions in the past two years."

On December 29, Governor Mike DeWine vetoed the legislation. He explained: "Were I to sign House Bill 68, or were House Bill 68 to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government knows better what is medically best for a child than the two people who love that child the most: The parents."

A three-fifths vote in the Ohio Legislature could override DeWine's veto. DeWine said he is asking his administration to develop administrative rules in the hopes of avoiding a veto override.

The New York Times (subscriber gift link) notes that if the veto is overridden, trans kids who are already receiving gender-affirming care will be able to continue to receive it, but trans kids who haven't started yet won't be able to start.

Erin Reed explains that 43 people submitted testimony in favor of the anti-trans bill, most of whom "came from out of state and included high profile right-wing figures like Riley Gaines and Chloe Cole." By contrast, 525 people submitted testimony for the other side, supporting trans people. These included

"leading representatives from most major medical organizations in the United States and Ohio, including the Ohio Children’s Hospitals. Others who testified included parents of trans youth in the state, the trans kids themselves, business leaders, therapists, and local activists. Significantly, even many detransitioners — individuals who previously identified as transgender but have since returned to a cisgender identity — spoke out against the bill."

Governor DeWine said he was most influenced, as Reed put it, by "his conversation with parents as well as testimony from directors and doctors of Ohio’s Children’s Hospitals, which rank #1 in the United States." However, he "announced his intention to use administrative processes to prohibit surgeries in the state and to gather data on transgender care for both youth and adults," and there's "potential for increased scrutiny of transgender adults in Ohio. The specifics of these administrative processes and rules are yet to be determined." So trans people must remain vigilant.

(Ohio Governor Mike DeWine Vetoes Trans Ban, "It Is Parents Who Know Their Child Best": The move is a stunning blow to proponents of gender affirming care bans and shows that there may be cracks in the Republican Party's strategy on targeting trans youth. Erin Reed, December 29, 2023. Please subscribe to Erin Reed to support her work.)

Update

DeWine signed an executive order that's a defacto ban on gender-affirming care for all ages, including adults. I discussed it in my article "How many anti-trans laws were proposed last week?" There's no paywall.

Jessica Kant says on Bluesky: "The criteria set out in DeWine's proposed regulations on gender-affirming care are so strict as to constitute a near-total ban for the majority of adults. It is the strictest set of rules currently being proposed anywhere in the United States." The new criteria for gender-affirming care providers in Ohio "most closely mirror the AHCA rules in Florida," and "the bioethicist requirement narrows down provision to an impossibly small number of providers, potentially down to a handful of university hospitals." Any sort of doctor-patient conversation about gender-affirming care that is remotely pragmatic or instructional in nature (like receiving it somewhere else) might be considered an "indirect referral," which is prohibited. Kant says: "What's most astonishing, frankly is that there is no type of care regularly provided outside of and largely including end of life care, that requires this level of oversight. This makes gender-affirming care uniquely regulated in medicine. It is the most basic definition of discrimination." Kant adds: "Bioethicists, while great, are not actually qualified to make this decision because the ethical dilemma is not in service provision at all, but in service denial. By requiring an ethicist, DeWine is creating an ethical dilemma that didn't exist." It's from the anti-abortion playbook: "DeWine is using the TRAP law handbook whereby pointlessly difficult regulations are placed on care that eliminate the majority of providers while intimidating and subjecting the remaining ones to monotonous and arbitrary scrutiny designed to force clinic closures."

Ohio's GOP-Controlled Senate Overrides Republican Governor's Veto, Bans Gender-Affirming Care: The new law bans gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapies, and restricts mental health care for transgender individuals under 18. Samantha Hendrickson, HuffPost, January 24, 2024.

Stephanie Sy explains the override: "The new law bans gender-affirming surgeries, new prescriptions for puberty blockers and hormone therapy, and restricts mental health care for trans minors without a parent's or guardian's consent [emphasis mine]. Doctors who provide care in violation of the law can lose their medical license."
— Ohio becomes latest state to restrict gender-affirming care for minors, PBS, Jan 25, 2024

August 2024

Absolutely appalling decision out of Ohio where a district court has ruled in favor of a substitute teacher who argued her religious beliefs preclude her from using students' affirmed names. After finding out she had trans students, she told another teacher she wanted them out of her class.

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— Jessica Kant (@jessdkant.bsky.social) Aug 25, 2024 at 4:30 PM

Somehow the decision gets worse the farther down you go. Judge Barker, please do share with the class what is meant by "any alternative practices to the use of names or pronouns." Grunting? Pointing? Would that be for the whole class or just students you don't like? www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

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— Jessica Kant (@jessdkant.bsky.social) Aug 25, 2024 at 4:39 PM

The ruling contains emails from the student asking respectfully, and far more graciously than is honestly reasonable to expect given the circumstance. I would not have been this gentle. This is an adult level of responsibility and care being shown by a teenager to an adult who has shown none.

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— Jessica Kant (@jessdkant.bsky.social) Aug 25, 2024 at 4:50 PM

Good God. After she raises a shitfit about not using the students' preferred names or pronouns because it's against her religious beliefs, someone comes up with "well just use their last names, which don't have anything to gender" and she refuses even that. What a foul, ugly human.

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— Chair of the Sewer Maintenance Board (@sidewalkslam.bsky.social) Aug 25, 2024 at 5:36 PM

Substack says they must continue to pay Nazis

As background: "Substack faces criticism for giving Nazis a platform", Dominick Mastrangelo, The Hill, December 15, 2023

Here's Substack's decision yesterday. In essence:

"We don’t like Nazis," but some people are Nazis. If we stop paying them, they will become more Nazi. Therefore, we will continue to pay Nazis for Nazi words, so that they'll merely hold steady in their Nazi views or maybe even stop, precisely because we allowed them to continue publishing and paid them for it.

The part beginning "I just want to make it clear" is "the single worst paragraph ever written by a tech founder," Ryan Broderick said on January 10.

Justin Hendrix wrote:

"McKenzie’s argument is a straw man. No one thinks banishing Nazis from Substack will make fascism 'go away.' But some do think that it is ethically wrong for Substack to do business with Nazis, and for it to distribute and promote Nazi content.

* * *

'Substack's position on Nazis only makes sense if you ignore the last eight years of world events and tech policy debates,' Melissa Ryan, the CEO of Card Strategies, an expert on far-right extremism, and one of the protest letter's signatories told me. 'We know from experience that these choices have dangerous, sometimes deadly consequences.'" (Substack Cofounder Defends Commercial Relationships with Nazis, Justin Hendrix, Tech Policy, Dec 21, 2023)

Substack's position continued (ever more bizarrely) to argue that Nazis are best understood as aligned with the powerless among us, who most need help making their voices heard.

Yes, that's contradictory.

On the one hand (per Substack), Nazis are sort of holding us hostage, because they'll increase their hate and violence if we stop paying them.

On the other hand (per Substack), the Nazis are powerless and need to be helped.

If you aren't really up for this, then follow Marisa Kabas on Bluesky. She led the push for Substack to answer this question. She hints (unsurprisingly) that she may be moving her publication, the Handbasket, elsewhere.

Substack's position on this "has been common knowledge since trans people protested Substack in 2021," says Jude Ellison Doyle, and

"the question of what trans people were supposed to do about Substack — leave and lose the income, stay and lose the moral high ground, take the money and pretend Substack wasn’t transphobic, take the money and “make change from inside” (though the people who promised to do this all wound up leaving) — was bitterly fought. That fight created some fairly deep enmities. Disagreements about Substack account for maybe 90% of the conflicts I’ve had with other trans people in my time."

In the second week of January, Substack talked to Platformer and explained a new strategy (read this on Platformer).

As CNN explained: "After Casey Newton, founder of Substack tech news publication Platformer, flagged a list of publications violating content guidelines to the company, Substack says it is removing five. None of the nixed newsletters have paid subscribers and, in total, account for about 100 active readers," and "a November article in The Atlantic pointed out at least 16 different newsletters with Nazi symbols, as well as many more supporting far-right extremism."

Later, Casey Newton published: "Why Platformer is leaving Substack. We’ve seen this movie before — and we won’t stick around to watch it play out." Jan 11, 2024. Newton explained: "I’m not aware of any major US consumer internet platform that does not explicitly ban praise for Nazi hate speech, much less one that welcomes them to set up shop and start selling subscriptions." Only Substack. Newton and some colleagues identified seven Substack publications that "conveyed explicit support for 1930s German Nazis and called for violence against Jews, among other groups. Substack removed one before we sent it to them. The others we sent to the company in a spirit of inquiry: will you remove these clear-cut examples of pro-Nazi speech?" Substack leaked the info to another outlet on Substack, "along with the information that these publications collectively had few subscribers and were not making money. (It later apologized to me for doing this.)"

Newton believes Substack did this to make the discourse about Nazis on Substack "appear to be laughably small," when in fact the journalists had not attempted "a comprehensive review of hate speech on the platform" and had only sent several examples.

Thomas Fuchs on Bluesky: The fact that "Substack owners deliberately shared confidential private discussions they had with Platformer with authors they liked" show that they're untrustworthy.

"Substack did the basic thing we asked it to," Newton says, by removing five of the six publications. But Newton has "larger concerns" that Substack hasn't addressed. Substack's "defense boils down to the fact that nothing that bad has happened yet. But we have seen this movie before, from Alex Jones to anti-vaxxers to QAnon, and will not remain to watch it play out again"

Regarding his withdrawal, Newton said on January 18, “a big part of it was: Can we sleep at night?...Do we feel good about where we are spending our time? Do we feel good about who we are building value for? And in the cases of X and Substack, the answers were no."

Ryan Broderick summed it up: "essentially," Substack will, going forward, expect "users and writers to flag objectionable content." The problem is that Substack, which writers have used to make email newsletters, has lately been putting effort into turning itself into a social media network more like Twitter where people are more likely to encounter strangers' work. If it's a social platform, it needs to moderate itself like one, Broderick suggests; "you can’t protect your social network on a case-by-case basis when you 'become aware' of it."

In January, Hamish McKenzie says he “never imagined” their six-year-old platform “would one day grow this big. Now that we’re here, we feel a greater responsibility to writers than ever before.” What responsibility does he feel? To grow bigger, with less moderation? But that's not what writers are saying they want. Less moderation isn't an unavoidable error rate; not getting rid of identifiable Nazis is a choice.

A.R. Moxon writes (January 26):

"Then it came out that Substack founder McKenzie had astroturfed a "grass roots" creator response to get ahead of an actual grass-roots movement by creators who were asking him to explain himself about the Nazis. And then it came out that Substack leaked information from a publication investigating the Nazi story—Platformer, one of the flagship publications on Substack—to try to reframe the nature of the complaint as being about a few sites rather than Substack’s posture toward those sites, and position the whole thing as much ado about nothing rather than a deep foundational rot."

A parting thought:

"Flies don’t stop coming into the house because you want them to; they stop because you get off the couch and close the screen door. Any social media or blogging platform faces this. Substack may attract more Nazis than average because Substack has a “okay you don’t agree with me now but what if I wrote another 8,000 words about it” vibe. 2023 Nazis have a very “I didn’t have this insight until I read The Fountainhead for the sixth time, let me elaborate” thing going. Say what you want about the 1939 Nazis, but at least they were occasionally terse." (Ken White, "Substack Has A Nazi Opportunity," Dec 21, 2023)

Michael Foran: 'Thinking it from within the perspective of the groups that might be affected'

Five days ago, a YouTube video was posted in which Michael Foran explains how he ended up on Julie Bindel's anti-transgender side.

“I initially wrote a short blog post," he begins, "in a specialist constitutional law blog about the definition of sex in the Equality Act, and how that feeds into what, at that point, was an ongoing trajectory of legislation through the Scottish Parliament: the Gender Recognition Reform bill, which would have introduced self-ID as a legal policy into Scotland.” At that time, he wasn’t interested in activism, he says; rather, he “just kind of posited...that there was a legal mechanism here that the UK government could have relied on if it wanted to block this bill.” He said that one could claim that the bill could have “adverse impacts” on equality law for “women and girls” and especially for “communities like Muslim women or Orthodox Jewish women.”

His blog post was published on “the second day of the reading of the bill in the Scottish Parliament,” and Pauline McNeill cited it on the floor.

Foran says it used to be that anti-discrimination protections only covered people who were “proposing to undergo, you are undergoing, or you have undergone a process, or part of a process, of changing aspects of your sex,” so that if they came out to their employer, their employer couldn't fire them just because they were starting a gender transition.

Bindel chimes in: “Which of course feminists have always supported. We shouldn’t discriminate against people because of the way they live their lives — in the sense that they live as the opposite sex. It started to get very difficult, didn’t it, when trans activists started to say ‘we are women, we are female, we will enter the spaces, and we don’t agree with exemptions.’” (She ignores the obvious fact that telling a transgender person that they do not belong to their own gender and that they cannot use a bathroom that corresponds to their gender is a form of discrimination. A person — transgender or cisgender alike — is made unsafe when others question or deny their gender and tell them they're in the wrong bathroom.)

Bindel refers to Foran’s blog post as "your baptism of fire." She notes that he’s supported "organizations such as LGB Alliance, particularly with the vexatious case taken against them by Mermaids." (Mermaids has been "supporting trans, non-binary and gender-diverse children, young people and their families since 1995," according to its website. LGB Alliance is a four-year-old anti-transgender hate group.)

Update, October 2024

Resuming...

Bindel says this has been “a very, very painful and bitter time for feminists, and has been for some years, because of the gender ideology and the capture of institutions and the like.”

Foran says he had been “following these debates” without “thinking it from within the perspective of the groups that might be affected by it.” (He doesn’t mean trans people. At no point in the 35-minute discussion is the perspective of a trans person ever considered. In this sentence, trans people are the "it" that requires "thinking," and cis people are the people with "perspective" who are in "the groups that might be affected by it," where the "it," again, is trans people.)

Regarding “Muslim women or Orthodox Jewish women,” he says: “In an ideal world, you might think, we" — he means people like himself, outside of the specified groups — "don’t want to have women wear headscarves, we don’t want to have women in contexts where they’re being separated. But in the world that we’re in, we have to deal with the fact that these women do exist and that they do believe these things and they find deep spiritual satisfaction from them. And they’re not going to alter their behavior in the way that people expect.” For example, he says, Muslim women realistically won’t remove their headscarves even if scarves are formally banned. (At no point does he say anything like: We have to deal with the fact that trans people exist, believe what they believe, find deep satisfaction in their own lives, and aren't going to alter their behavior in certain ways just because random strangers might expect them to.

Bindel adds that, “largely,” such religious women are pressured to wear headscarves and don’t choose to do it “from an absolute open vacuum of free choice.” (Does anyone engage in any behavior from a vacuum in which they make decisions free of anyone else's influence?)

Foran says “there’s slight parallels to be had between what happened to Kathleen Stock and an experience that I had.” He says “she was not safe on campus” and “now basically has police protection pretty much everywhere she goes.” He says he hasn’t suffered to that degree, but some people likewise tried to get him fired from his university. He adds: “I had a very senior colleague — Professor Adam Tompkins, who’s the chair of constitutional law at Glasgow — who very publicly said: You come for Michael, you come for me.” He said Kathleen Stock didn’t receive such support.

Separately, I wrote about Kathleen Stock's book.

Please see my essays on transphobia.

Climate comedy

A recommendation from Bill McGuire:

"Because comedy can engage people in ways that other approaches to climate change can’t, it can be an effective way of getting the message across.

This is why ventures like “Climate Science Translated,” which I took part in earlier this year, are so important. The British-based project — brainchild of ethical insurer Nick Oldridge and the climate communications outfit Utopia Bureau — teams climate scientists up with comedians, who ‘translate’ the science into bite-sized, funny and pretty irreverent chunks that can be understood, digested and appreciated by anyone.

Four film shorts have now been made — all of which can be viewed on Youtube — the first ‘starring’ me and brilliant comedian and actor, Kiri Pritchard-McLean."

— "Opinion: I’m a climate scientist. This is why I’m laughing," Bill McGuire, CNN, December 15, 2023

Is the state taking away kids from parents who object to their child being transgender?

You may have heard a rumor: Governments everywhere are taking children away from their parents, because the kids say they want to change their gender, the parents object, and the government decides the parents are wrong and shouldn't have a say.

When we hear narratives like this, we should immediately challenge them and dig a little deeper. Imagine, for example, the child in the story is gay, and the state has removed the child from parents who don't approve of the child being gay. What details might we fill in to help ourselves understand what's going on? We might guess that the parents are extremely homophobic and inflict severe punishments on the child, causing physical and psychological damage, to an extent that the state has to intervene. That seems plausible. It's one possibility. It would be an explanatory reason for the state's action. If we really wanted to know the answer, we'd ask: What was going on in that situation? We'd learn the relevant facts.

But for some reason, when the child is transgender — by which here, in this immediate context, I mean that the child has expressed a transgender or nonbinary identity, or that they commonly "crossdress," etc. — people are more likely to assume that the parents were having calm and reasonable conversations with their child, whose well-being they always supported, and that the state took the child away "for no reason" except to impose a postmodern queer agenda on faithful Christians.

When we hear a story in which the state got involved with the welfare of a trans child, the first thing we ought to remember is that the best interests of the child are what matter most. Every child is unique, and if we don't know this child nor anything about their family situation, we aren't equipped to know what's in this child's best interests. And so we might quell our curiosity and drop our inquiry there, as perhaps the family's situation is not our business.

But if we are inclined, we might look to see what details of the case are publicly available. Here's a court opinion, M.C. v. Ind. Dep't of Child Servs. (In re A.C.), dated October 21, 2022. The case summary says that the child had identified themselves as "a child in need of services (CHINS) pursuant to Indiana Code Section 31-34-1-6 (CHINS-6) because Child was substantially endangering Child's own health." The court goes on to review the facts: "on May 11, 2021, DCS received a report alleging that Mother was verbally and emotionally abusing then-sixteen-year-old Child by using rude and demeaning language toward Child regarding Child's transgender identity, and as a result, Child had thoughts of self-harm." Ten days later, "DCS received a second report alleging that the Parents were verbally and emotionally abusing Child because they do not accept Child's transgender identity, the abuse was getting worse, and the Parents were being mean to Child due to Child's transgender identity. A DCS family case manager (FCM) investigated these reports, met with the Parents, Child, and Child's siblings, and spoke by phone to a representative from Child's residential school." The investigator concluded that the child [emphasis mine]:

"had been suffering from an eating disorder for the past year but had yet to be evaluated by a medical professional; the Parents had withdrawn Child from school, and DCS was unaware of the family's intent to enroll Child in a new school for the upcoming school year; Child had been in therapy, but the Parents had discontinued it; Child did not feel mentally and/or emotionally safe in the home; Mother said things such as '[Child's preferred name] is the bitch that killed my son'; and Child 'would be more likely to have thoughts of self-harm and suicide if [Child] were to return to the family home due to mental and emotional abuse.'"

The mother was uncooperative with investigators and "refused to sign any consents so that DCS could verify any medical concerns or past therapy services."

Oh.

These are parents who are not getting their child the physical and mental healthcare they need and are not encouraging their child to attend high school.

Yes, a Christian magazine leads an article by describing the child as "trans-identified," the parents as "devout Christians," the core issue as "disagreements over their child’s gender identity," and the detail as "the parents’ refusal to use their son's self-declared female name and pronouns after he decided to start identifying as a girl." That framing is sympathetic to the parents, and the information is incomplete.

The Christian Post does note: "The case has also inspired legislation in Indiana, with House Bill 1407 aiming to prevent courts from removing trans-identified children from parents who refuse gender-affirming care. However, the bill did not pass."

Trans kids are not only trans. They are unique individuals who might also have common healthcare problems like eating disorders. They are human beings who deserve to be cared for; they have a right to be taken to doctors and psychotherapists. When there is an issue involving a trans kid, the issue might also involve some other thing. It might be a complicated or private thing.

(By the way, this is why it's harmful to treat "trans" as a synonym for "fake," as Peter Boghossian explicitly does. When trans kids are assumed to be fakers and liars or to be deluded, it predisposes adults not to trust them on other issues that affect their lives.

Were this an issue between divorcing or separated parents, they could write their values in a parenting plan, and they might go to trial if they couldn't reach agreement.

However, people who are not involved in that child's life or court case are not people who are positioned to make a decision about that child's life.

In this case, it appears that the parents have the time and energy to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, yet they originally couldn't find the resources to take their anorexic child to the doctor. So, yes, there is a dispute that goes beyond the parents not wanting to call their child by the child's preferred name and pronouns, and someone will examine the facts and make a decision about what's right for this teenager.

At this time, the parents seem to have updated their thinking:

"...the parents say they’re willing to treat the eating disorder, just not affirm the child’s trans identity. The court said ... sending this particular child back while the conflict over gender is ongoing would risk a relapse of her eating disorder..." — Evan Urquhart, Assigned Media

(Incidentally, this kid is approximately right now a legal adult and will soon begin making decisions for themselves.)

So, yes, in this case, the parents object to their kid being transgender and the state took the kid away. But that is not a full and accurate characterization of the story. Here, the word "and" is not "therefore." The parents' values about gender may have contributed to the outcome, but it was not the full reason. This characterization is so incomplete that it's misleading.

The parents are acting as if the eating disorder is entirely separate from the gender identity, and the court is saying: Look, it's the same kid. The same kid is happy or unhappy, eating or not eating, having her gender or having the gender someone else wants her to have. For her, the issues do not separate, and the family history is complicated.

If you hear a rumor that a parent refused to change their child's pronouns, and the state took the child away, please question that narrative. It is likely not the whole story. Just like any other kid, a trans kid is a full human being with complex family relationships and narratives. There is no need for strangers to simplify a trans kid's story by concluding that the parents are being persecuted by the state simply for being "devout Christians."

I am asking everyone to please reduce your anxiety over the idea of trans kids. Thank you.

Also in Indiana

Hemant Mehta tells us on December 22, 2023: "Months after courageously announcing that transgender women would be considered for admission beginning next fall, Saint Mary’s College, an all-women’s Catholic school in Indiana, has reversed course..."

Indiana Republicans want to re-write the law to eliminate the word “gender”, LGBTQ Nation, January 17, 2024

Read more

"You can find ten versions of 'Christian parents fight for custody of children because they refuse sex change' and its an abusive father in a custody battle with his ex-wife because she refuses to lock their kid in a basement."
Gillian Branstetter, Bluesky, October 27, 2024

Father Knows Best: Divorce, fascism, and transgender children, Gillian Branstetter, The Autonomy, Mar 10, 2024

Trans people have trans community even if Rich Lowry says we don't

Trans people have always formed community

This is true in the US, for example:

"...a few well-heeled trans women and drag queens began the first American trans periodicals, establishing new platforms of community news, art, and inevitably, gossip. Pharmacologist Virginia Prince started widely distributing her underground journal Transvestia in 1960 (under her own publishing banner “Chevalier Productions,” named for the famous French spy Chevalier d’Éon), and in 1963, Siobhan Fredericks began Turnabout: A Journal of Transvestism. Prominent drag queen Lee Brewster, the owner of “Lee’s Mardi Gras Boutique” in Greenwich Village and sometime STAR collaborator, followed suit in 1971 with the debut of Drag magazine. In 1978, publisher Merissa Sherrill Lynn introduced TV/TS Tapestry, which was eventually renamed Transgender Tapestry and managed to last until 2006."
— This Archive Offers an Incredible Window Into the Early Trans Internet, Samantha Riedel, them, November 22, 2023

It's true in many cultures, across space and time.

You can literally make long-running periodicals documenting your community's existence, and transphobes still won't believe that you exist.

Rich Lowry says there isn't any such community

On April 2, 2023, Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review, published a short opinion in the magazine, headlined: "There Is No Trans Community." (The link goes to an archived version of the article on archive.ph.)

This is typically incoherent queerphobia. The most charitable version of Lowry's argument that I can come up with is:

A community is "a discrete set of people, often living in close proximity, who share common practices, values, and norms." In other words, neighbors. "Your neighborhood is a community, your church is a community, and your pickleball league is a community." So you can refer to an "Italian-immigrant community" in "North Beach in San Francisco."

Whereas LGBTQ people, he says, have diverse experiences and identities and are "spread out across the entirety of the country."

So he's saying there's no gay community either. Great, tell him thanks for his opinion.

I think I see traces of that idea here:

"It was not a crisis of one form of organizing societies, but of all forms. The strange calls for an otherwise unidentified 'civil society', for 'community' were the voice of lost and drifting generations. They were heard in an age when such words, having lost their traditional meanings, became vapid phrases. There was no other way left to define group identity, except by defining the outsiders who were not in it."
— Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century (1914–1991), London: Abacus, 1994. "The Century: A Bird's Eye View" [an introduction], p. 11.

But, the thing is, the fact that queer people are everywhere doesn't mean we don't form communities in the places where we are and also across long distances using this tool called the internet.

(I don't link to Twitter anymore, but here's a link to her YouTube, her writing on genderanalysis.net, and her writing on Medium.)

Zinnia's Twitter thread continues:

"That was another way of designating a minority group as inherently lacking in whatever human traits are necessary for us to participate in the universal phenomenon of lasting, lifelong commitments to one another Not only are we a community, we are a force. Just by existing, we are a threat to their plans.

We are a power. The transgender community is a fact. And all that Rich Lowry can do is close his eyes and make a wish that will never come true."

We make a come-truable wish — and that means we put in the work, financially and philosophically.

SPLC's CAPTAIN report against 'anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience'

Samantha Riedel in Them informs us:

"In a sweeping new report, researchers at the Southern Poverty Law Center say they have identified a network of more than 60 organizations pushing anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation, as well as 100 of their most common sources of “junk” science.

SPLC published the report, titled Combating Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscience Through Accessible Informative Narratives (CAPTAIN), on Tuesday this week. The anti-hate watchdog group said the CAPTAIN report is intended to document an extensive network of right-wing propaganda and pseudoscience, all of which is aimed at rolling back the clock for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. and abroad."

The CAPTAIN report is in six sections.

Anti-trans groups include:

• 4thWaveNow
• Women’s Liberation Front
• Transgender Trend
• American College of Pediatricians
• Transition Justice Project

More:

"The report especially highlights harmful work from the Heritage Foundation, a decades-old anti-LGBTQ+ group that veered sharply into trans issues (and voter suppression) after losing the battle against gay marriage. In 2017, SPLC first broke the news that Heritage Foundation leaders had chosen trans rights as a 'wedge issue' through which they could weaken the broader LGBTQ+ rights movement by 'separating the T from the LGB.' The CAPTAIN report especially raises the alarm about one of Heritage’s latest projects: Project 2025, a 900-page plan for Republican governance after the 2024 U.S. elections which involves reshaping the federal government and enacting sweeping regressive legislation. SPLC called Project 2025 'a significant node in the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network' that needs to be monitored over the next year."

Also: "The CAPTAIN report also references the trove of anti-trans emails obtained by Mother Jones earlier this year, which exposed coordinated efforts between Republican politicians and far-right lobbyists to push anti-trans laws."

Please read the article

"A New Report Exposes the Network of Extremist Groups Behind the Anti-Trans PR Machine: Researchers stressed that anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation is part of a larger reactionary conservative movement. Samantha Riedel, them, December 15, 2023

Caitlyn Jenner's words will prevent other trans women from having the same opportunity to transition

Caitlyn Jenner won Olympic gold competing against men in 1976. Four decades later, shortly after coming out publicly as a transgender woman, she posed on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2015 to reveal her new image.

She said she voted for Trump in 2016. She ran as a Republican for governor of California in the 2021 recall election (she did not win). She remains a Republican. And she's absorbed the Republican line on transphobia.

'Different'

‘I think I’m different from trans people’ was her headline quote in a Sunday Times (UK) interview (Polly Vernon, October 4, 2023).

John Cleese

She was recently interviewed by John Cleese, who signed a letter in transphobic solidarity with J.K. Rowling in September 2020. Two months after he signed the letter, a Twitter user asked him to "be upfront" about his "thoughts on JKR's position on trans folks," and he replied: "I’m afraid I’m not that interested in trans folks." (Despite having signed a letter against the inclusion of trans folks?) Another Twitter user asked more directly: “Why the fuck can’t you just let people be who they want to be?” and Cleese replied: “Deep down, I want to be a Cambodian police woman. Is that allowed, or am I being unrealistic?” A third commenter observed Cleese’s “superficial understanding,” to which Cleese replied that a trans woman in sports "has an advantage, because she inherited a man’s body, which is usually bigger and stronger than a woman’s. Does that prove phobia?” (A problem here is that he's more concerned with his own image, i.e., whether people view him as a transphobe, and not so much about trans people, since by his own admission he's "not that interested in trans folks," and one solution here would simply be to stop talking about the trans people in whom he's uninterested and about whom he's non-phobic, yet he doesn't take the easy way out? He has to keep running his mouth?)

The Cleese–Jenner interview aired on the U.K. TV show The Dinosaur Hour. It was uploaded to YouTube on December 10, 2023 by GBNews.

I watched a 9-minute clip on YouTube.

Cleese says: "Tell me, are there other aspects of 'woke' that you have sympathy for?"
[A taxidermied weasel on the coffee table, silently bares its teeth.]
"Sympathy?" Jenner responds, puzzled. She raises her eyes toward heaven.
"The fairness end," Cleese clarifies.
There's a long pause, so the camera cuts to a cat napping on an armchair.
"Welp, I'm for fairness," she says, hemming and hawing. "Number one."
"But I don't think — I just think the woke movement has just gone too far!"
"Yeah."
"OK. I can be fair and not be woke."
"Yes, I agree," Cleese says.
"I can be a caring person and not be woke, you know?"

She says she had a personal conversation with God before she transitioned: "I just got the feeling that he — It was like, it’s OK. You know, you can do this. You know, you can live your life authentically. I felt like He said yes."

She acknowledged that her traits, as a Republican and a conservative, are “not on the normal side of what trans people are. You know, they [trans people], they’re all kind of ‘woker’ than I am.”

She says she hasn't gone in a men's bathroom in eight years, and she reports that the women's rooms are much nicer. Cleese laughs congenially: "You're part of the few people who would know that."

She says: “I support President Trump. He did phenomenal things for our country in the four years he was there.”

She then says “I know so many trans people that are just wonderful human beings — hardworking, great. … It is this small percentage that are out there speaking into a microphone—“

She is of course speaking into a literal microphone on a TV show, saying that trans people who have a platform to speak are the opposite of “hardworking” and “wonderful human beings.”

Cleese interrupts to ask: “Why do they have so much effect on the people who don’t really like their policies, the other trans people?” He assumes that the majority of trans people to which Jenner referred (the wonderful, hardworking ones who don’t speak into microphones) must disagree with whatever “policies” are proposed by a small percentage of trans people who do have their voices heard publicly.

Jenner says she believes that trans people who use social media are just trying to become famous. “I didn’t start off wanting to be a celebrity in this thing,” she says. “I had no choice, OK? I was already a very big celebrity.” Ah, so that’s her explanation. She gives herself permission to use her fame to speak because she didn’t originally become famous for being a trans person — even though her current burst of fame over the past eight years, and the reason she has this particular interview right now with John Cleese, is indeed because she transitioned. She also doesn't consider the obvious truth that famous people can and do seek more fame throughout their lives, just as rich people can and do seek more money throughout their lives. Pointing out that she was already famous to begin with just doesn't prove that she wasn't seeking fame when she posed on the cover of Vanity Fair or when she sat for this interview with John Cleese, nor does the fact that most trans people aren't famous prove that all of us are seeking fame every time we go on social media.

Jenner begins to say “In my family—“ and Cleese cuts her off, saying: “I’m interested in the fact that they don’t really want to debate the subject.” Jenner tries to answer: “Because my views are different than theirs.” Cleese clarifies that he doesn’t mean that other trans people don’t want to debate Jenner specifically. “I’m saying in general, they want— in general they don’t want to debate or discuss it, because for some reason they regard that [debate] as unnecessary.” Jenner agrees: “They think it’s their way or they highway.”

Jenner mentions Riley Gaines: “I’m a big supporter, she’s a good friend and has done wonderful work.” She says that trans women make themselves look “selfish” when they say that trans women should play in women’s sports. She uses herself as an example, saying she’s refrained from joining the women’s golf club because “I can out-drive them by 100 yards. I haven’t been on testosterone in eight years, and I can still hit the ball 280 yards, OK?” But please look at this situation: Jenner, over 6 feet tall, was an Olympic athlete. She did the Decathlon. Of course she can beat the ladies at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousands Oaks. She can probably beat the gentlemen too. Probably none of them have a background as athletes in elite competition as Jenner does. Perhaps she’s making the point that Olympic athletes shouldn’t play at Hollywood golf clubs just to make a big show of beating the celebrities, but she hasn’t made the point that this is gender-specific.

Then, she explains that she’s changed her name and gender marker on all her IDs, and that she only uses the women’s room and has “never had a problem” and is “respectful of the other women.” (The cat begins drinking from her water glass, next to the taxidermied weasel.)

She says: “So I live my life as a woman, but I’m not — I don’t consider myself this, like, ‘I am a woman now,’ and on and on. No. I consider myself a trans person.”

I would like to point out that Caitlyn Jenner got everything she wanted in her transition — her name change, her gender-marker change, the opportunity to have long hair and wear makeup and women's clothes, widespread recognition of herself as a woman such that she is generally called "she," welcomed in women's bathrooms, and invited to join the women's golf team at her fancy club. She's even invited to be on TV in conversation about her gender with John Cleese, a man who is disrespectful to trans people, with extant tweets (i.e., he hasn't deleted them yet) saying that he's "not that interested in trans folks," that trans people have "unrealistic" expectations about their transitions, and that because a man's body is "usually" (emphasis mine) stronger than a woman's, therefore all trans women have "an advantage" in sports against all cis women, and that no one can demonstrate that he's transphobic as long as he gives something that has the appearance of being a reason for his attitude. Again, Jenner transitioned successfully and has the life she wants. She is trying to take those opportunities away from other trans people. When she says trans women aren't women, she's one more voice chipping away at trans women's opportunities to change their gender markers on their IDs and live in their genders. J.K. Rowling would not endorse her having the life she has. She is enabling John Cleese to feel good about himself, while he simultaneously supports hardline Rowling policies that try to suppress trans people from having their genders in the most fundamental way.

In this Dec 13, 2023 article by Trudy Ring in the Advocate, the Cleese interview is discussed.

Sad

More context

The Advocate gives the context that Jenner "founded the Fairness First PAC" to oppose trans women's participation in women's sports, and she is "friends with Riley Gaines," a young person who is now a Fox personality complaining about diversity.

The Advocate explains:

"The Biden administration has proposed a rule that would term categorical bans on trans inclusion in school sports a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs. Jenner claimed that if the rule becomes final, it would 'kill women's sports,' and she alleged that the effort is backed by George Soros, a liberal philanthropist who is a favorite target of right-wingers."

When people cite Rowling, Shrier, and Walsh and curse the 'evils of the trans movement,' they're transphobic

On November 22, Katya — a drag queen, you can buy her book — tweeted "FREE PALESTINE" (context: the war following October 7). Someone responded 40 minutes later: "You should visit Gaza, I am sure they are going to like you over there. All chopped parts of you." Katya replied 13 minutes later saying that this wasn't relevant, since queer people are murdered everywhere, and while we're at it, she'd like not to be murdered in Massachusetts for being queer.

Talking back to an annoying internet troll to defend one's dignity is a valid choice, and not wanting to be murdered for being queer seems a reasonable position.

Two days later, Michael Broukhim complained about "posts like the one below" (i.e., Katya's) which, according to him, is one example of how "the trans movement" manipulates language, in this case (so he says) to imply that there are no meaningful differences between Gaza and Massachusetts. Which is reading a lot into Katya's tweet, and I don't believe that's what she was saying. She was saying that queer people are under attack everywhere, so pointing out that a nation is homophobic or transphobic is not a very good reason for her not to have solidarity with their political goal of freedom. She was responding briefly to a person who aggressively said that Gazans would turn her into "chopped parts," and who was using that claim as a reason to say she couldn't have her political opinion. That person didn't really deserve a reply at all. Broukim, in attacking Katya, chose to turn his ire at a drag queen who was rolling her eyes at a jerk making annoying murdersome comments at her.

I say he attacked her because he used the word "evil" three times in his tweet.

Who are Rowling, Shrier, and Matt Walsh?

So glad you asked. See my articles:

— "On the 3rd Anniversary of J.K. Rowling’s Pledge for Trans Rights" It's a 6-min read on Medium.

— "Books Like This Cause Irreversible Damage". It's a 42-minute read on Medium.

— What I wrote about Matt Walsh on this blog.

People who cite Rowling, Shrier, and Walsh — that's Michael Broukhim — are the sort of people who refer to trans people as "evil" three times in a single tweet — also Michael Broukhim. Calling trans people evil is called transphobia.

Anyhow, I hadn't heard of Michael Broukhim until I heard that he was co-CEO of FabFitFun and was siding with Elon Musk. Elon Musk is also obscenely, powerfully transphobic. That's that.

---

Regarding who's blurring biological and scientific truths:

"Ted Cruz joined that push [to distance the term abortion from the procedures that many people sympathize with] on his podcast last week [in 2022], insisting that television host Chrissy Teigen was mistaken about her experience when she revealed that she’d had an abortion in 2020 to treat a pregnancy that had led to a partial placental abruption, a life-threatening complication. Cruz explained that he didn’t see her personal medical experience the way Teigen did: “She may want to characterize it as abortion in this political context, but she described it at the time as a miscarriage, and it certainly sounds like that was an accurate description,” Cruz said on the show."

He also told host Liz Wheeler, “If there’s a medical procedure in that context, it’s not an abortion.”

That might feel true to Cruz based on the vibes, but according to medical professionals, the context of the procedure doesn’t change what the procedure is called.

— The Effort to Redefine Abortion Goes Beyond Ted Cruz, Dan Solomon, Texas Monthly, September 27, 2022

Bill Maher is one of the transphobes:

"Recently Abigail Shrier was on Real Time with Bill Maher and she said JK Rowling is a crucial ally to gender critical feminism and a big source of recruitment in UK politics."
— "The Labour Party is Willing to Meet With JK Rowling?: So apparently both parties in Britain hate trans people," ElizaBeth, Medium, Jun 25, 2024

I think it's important to understand that the rhetoric around transmasculine people re. irreversible damage etc. is less of actual sympathy or concern for the trans person themselves, and more addressed to the Patriarch: "Look at what transgender ideology is doing to Your Property".

— Jess O'Thomson (@jessothomson.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 5:24 AM

This is also why I would be slightly critical of the notion that transmasculine people are treated as "victims" of transness. Can your stolen iPhone be a "victim"?

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— Jess O'Thomson (@jessothomson.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 6:05 AM

Victim as a term accurately implies the lack of agency and the anger over what has happened, but I think overestimates the actual sympathy for the trans person involved.

— Jess O'Thomson (@jessothomson.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 6:08 AM

To be fair, they're donning a pretense of feminism and a veneer of left-wing cosplay, attributing the desire to transition to societal misogyny. In that sense I'd say they play-act at considering transmasculine people victims to make their regendering appear more palatable than it is.

— Talia Bhatt, Third-Sexed Transfeminist ♀︎♀︎♀︎♀︎♀︎ (@enkiducoin.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 6:45 AM

Because transphobes see trans men as women, and they are massive misogynists, it’s not us but our families who are seen as victims. Like women who had children out of wedlock, we are treated as damaged goods, worthless to our parents or future husbands.

— Ziedrich Pengels (@thebigzeo.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 7:49 AM

Real transphobes pretend to care about us to attract the concerned liberals, but once you get them talking and they start ranting about the waste of our “healthy breasts” or the need to remove our medical autonomy over the age of 18, it becomes abundantly clear they don’t actually care about us.

— Ziedrich Pengels (@thebigzeo.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 7:52 AM

So, if Trump insists he won re-election in 2020, technically he's ineligible for a 'third term' in 2024

Seth Meyers on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" (NBC):

"It sounds like his plan is to win the 2024 election so he can redo the 2020 election and win that which would then make him ineligible to win the 2024 election he already won. At which point he starts fading out of inauguration photos Marty McFly-style?"

Seriously, though, this reminder from Seth Meyers:

"You got nothing ... that's over 60 courts and your own lawyers, several of whom have already pleaded guilty and apologized for lying about the election, like Jenna Ellis or Sidney Powell ... In fact, even Rudy, arguably Trump's closest ally when it comes to election lies, admitted: 'We've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence.'"

---

If you like that Marty McFly "Back to the Future" reference in relation to Donald Trump, please see my article: "You Have a Match, and You Know Where the Paper Is": He always prints his name on the matchbook. (14-min read) Medium, Aug 23, 2019. This link is unpaywalled because you are a friend.

COP28: A scandal and a new rule

Hey

Look here what we're dealing with:

What sea level rise will look like in cities that have hosted climate summits. Rachel Ramirez, CNN, December 3, 2023

"Ahead of this year’s summit, which kicked off Nov. 30 in Dubai, Al Jaber claimed that there is 'no science' to support the idea that phasing out oil, gas and coal is needed to limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the goal of the landmark Paris climate agreement, The Guardian reported Sunday.

Al Jaber on Monday [December 4] attempted to walk back the claim, saying he supports climate science and arguing his comments were taken out of context, but not before scientists condemned them as 'farcical' and climate change deniers celebrated.

* * *

'A phase-down and a phase-out of fossil fuel in my view is inevitable. It is essential,' he later added. 'But we need to be real, serious and pragmatic about it.'

The exchange, a video of which The Guardian included in its reporting, grew increasingly tense.

'The science is very acute now,' [former UN special envoy for climate change Mary] Robinson said. 'We don’t have any time.”

'You’re asking for a phase-out of fossil fuel,' Al Jaber responded. 'Please, help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.'

* * *

Al Jaber stressed he 'respects the science in everything I do' and said he’s been 'quite surprised at the constant attempt to undermine this message' and the work of the COP28 presidency.

* * *

His November remarks stand in stark contrast to what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told COP28 attendees on Friday: 'The science is clear: The 1.5 C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.'"

— "Head Of Global Climate Summit Manages To Deny Science In Pro-Science Comment." Sultan Al Jaber says his statement on fossil fuels was "taken out of context," but a full, unedited video of his comments suggests otherwise. Chris D'Angelo. HuffPost. Dec 4, 2023.

See also: Climate summit leader defends controversial comments that alarmed scientists and sent shockwaves through meeting, Laura Paddison, CNN, December 4, 2023

"Hilda Heine, a former president of the Marshall Islands, on Friday [December 1] resigned from the main advisory committee of this year’s United Nations climate summit, citing allegations that the conference president tried to use the international talks to strike oil and gas deals.

Heine’s resignation, first reported by Reuters, came just one day after the summit kicked off in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The Centre for Climate Reporting and the BBC reported Monday on leaked documents that purportedly show Sultan al-Jaber — the controversial president of the 28th Conference of the Parties, or COP28, and the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company — planned to leverage his role at COP28 to boost fossil fuel exports from the UAE."

"Ex-Marshall Islands President Resigns From Climate Summit Post Over Oil Scandal." Hilda Heine said allegations of backdoor fossil fuel deal-making "undermine the integrity" of the international climate talks. Chris D'Angelo, HuffPost, Dec 1, 2023.

Also:

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said:

“The 1.5-degree limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels.
Not reduce.
Not abate.
Phaseout – with a clear timeframe aligned with 1.5 degrees."

Of this, Bill McKibben explained that oil companies "want to 'abate' the damage of their product. It doesn’t really work..." Carbon capture is "so [cost-] prohibitive that no coal or oil or gas company or utility wants to pay for it themselves — instead, they use their political power to make taxpayers foot the bill, so they can keep selling their product. In order to secure Joe Manchin’s vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden had to lard it with billions of dollars in funding for this particular boondoggle." When you hear US climate envoy John Kerry advocating the Group of Seven's April 2023 agreement for "phase-out of unabated fossil fuels," he means abatement, not phaseout. That wording implies that there's something that can be done to fix fossil fuels so it won't be necessary to phase them out; only the unfixed products would be phased out. But the product can't be fixed. McKibben says:

"The point of the COP — the point of all climate efforts — should not be to produce a deal. Let me repeat myself. The point of climate negotiations should not be to produce a deal, no matter how many pixels are spilled about that prospect over the next two weeks. It’s to stop the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And Guterres is right: there’s one way to do that, and it’s renewable energy. Phase out fossil fuels period, and stat."

—

'Unabated': A single word can derail climate progress. Bill McKibben. The Crucial Years. December 2, 2023.

The Inflation Reduction Act, contains a little known provision of $1.5 billion for the US Forest Service to plant and maintain trees across American cities.. This is 40 times bigger than the agency's typical annual urban tree budget. https://buff.ly/3TYkw5X #ShareGoodNewsToo

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— Ada Palmer (@adapalmer.bsky.social) October 6, 2024 at 6:02 PM

Also:

"The Biden administration has finalized a rule to significantly cut the US oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, a powerful planet-warming gas that scientists and climate advocacy groups have pressed nations to rapidly reduce as global temperature soars.

The announcement came amid a wave of commitments at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai on Saturday, including a pledge from at least 117 countries to triple renewable energy by 2030. Vice President Kamala Harris also announced the US was committing another $3 billion to global climate action.

* * *

Methane emissions surged in recent years, to the surprise of scientists and energy experts, who are now advocating for capping leaks and ending flaring and venting as easy ways to pump the brakes on the pace of global warming."

"US announces rule to slash powerful planet-warming methane by nearly 80% from oil and gas," Ella Nilsen, CNN, December 2, 2023

Meanwhile, this is happening

Are the annual climate summits working? These countries are going to the courts, instead. Ella Nilsen, CNN, November 29, 2023

"Venezuelans voted by a wide margin Sunday to approve the takeover of an oil-rich region in neighboring Guyana – the latest escalation in a long-running territorial dispute between the two countries, fueled by the recent discovery of vast offshore energy resources.

The area in question, the densely forested Essequibo region, amounts to about two-thirds of Guyana’s national territory and is roughly the size of Florida.

Sunday’s largely symbolic referendum asked voters if they agreed with creating a Venezuelan state in the Essequibo region, providing its population with Venezuelan citizenship and 'incorporating that state into the map of Venezuelan territory.'"

— Venezuelans approve takeover of oil-rich region of Guyana. What happens next?, David Shortell, CNN, December 4, 2023

"The world is still off track to limit global warming to the crucial 1.5-degree threshold, despite pledges made by dozens of countries at UN-backed climate talks in Dubai, an analysis by the International Energy Agency published Sunday shows."
— "Pledges from climate talks not enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, IEA says," Angela Dewan, CNN, December 10, 2023

"‘Verge of complete failure’: Climate summit draft drops the mention of fossil fuel phase-out, angering advocates." Angela Dewan and Laura Paddison, CNN, December 11, 2023

An agreement

"Nearly 200 countries struck a breakthrough climate agreement Wednesday, calling for a transition away from fossil fuels in an unprecedented deal that targets the greatest contributors to the planet’s warming. The deal came swiftly — with no discussion or objection — in a packed room in Dubai following two weeks of negotiations and rising contention. It is the first time a global climate deal has specifically called to curb the use of fossil fuels." — "Countries clinch unprecedented deal to transition away from fossil fuels," Washington Post, December 13, 2023

"The final deal at COP28 is technically historic, in that it is the first deal that specifically calls on all nations to 'transition away' from fossil fuels." But calling it historic "convey[s] almost zero meaning. Because when you leave a massive problem like climate change unaddressed for decades, almost anything you do represents 'historic' progress." That's the assessment of Emily Atkin, "On climate deals, beware the word 'historic,'" Substack, December 14, 2023. "So I urge anyone reading climate news, both today and in the future, to keep this in mind: Just because a country or corporation did something 'historic' and 'unprecedented' to slow climate change, does not mean they did something laudable, effective, or in line with their responsibility. It merely means they did more than they ever did — which, in most cases, is very little."

"You can’t expect a negotiation among 198 parties to agree anything deep and substantial, but it can use its legitimacy to send a broad signal about the direction of travel. COP28 did that reasonably well.

* * *

Another signal, less noticed but still helpful, was the formal endorsement in negotiated text of a goal first agreed by leaders of many countries at COP26 two years ago, to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030.

Finally, a different kind of signal was sent by the commitment of $700m to the new ‘loss and damage’ fund – a recognition in all but name of the right to compensation. How much this will help in practice remains to be seen. According to one estimate, that amount of money is less than the losses suffered by the world every two days in extreme events attributable to climate change."

— COP28: signal, noise, and structure: Another one down. 28 of them. 100,000 people shivering in the air conditioning while the world bakes outside. Emissions still going up. What’s new? Simon Sharpe FIVE TIMES FASTER: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change. 13 December 2023

Bill McKibben said: "For two weeks every December, the giant global climate meeting—this year with at least 70,000 delegates, lobbyists, activists, and journalists enjoying the tacky spaceport that is Dubai—provides a cascade of feelings." He notes that Canada's environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, said: "I’ve been coming to Cop since Cop1 in 1995 in Berlin. It would be the first time in almost 30 years of international negotiations that we can agree on language regarding fossil fuels." McKibben goes on to observe that "it’s taken twenty eight annual sessions to maybe include some language about the thing that is, you know, the source of the problem," which shows that COP is "designed less to solve a crisis than to guard the interests of the world’s powers (both political and economic) as they relate to that crisis." The COP doesn't legislate. "Let’s say, for instance, that Guilbeault manages to convince everyone to include some phrase about phasing out fossil fuels into the text. It will be vague, ambiguous, unconnected to any particular time—and it will have no authority." Language is a tool, but it doesn't automatically "translate into action." Remember that "Donald Trump, currently leading in presidential polls, said last week that he would happily come to work as a ‘dictator’ on the very first day of his presidency, in order to ‘drill drill drill.’ If anyone thinks he will be slowed by the language of an agreement initialed by a bunch of functionaries in Dubai, I’d like to sell you the deed to the world’s tallest building, which as it happens is in Dubai." (The COP is the Scoreboard, not the Game: It's what happens in between meetings that matters, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, December 8, 2023)

Bill McGuire:

"What we needed from the climate summit in Dubai was a binding commitment to cut emissions in half within six years, so as to have any chance of keeping the global average temperature rise (compared to pre-industrial times) this side of 1.5°C, and side-stepping dangerous, all pervasive, climate breakdown.

What we got was a vague intention to transition away from fossil fuels — no timeline, no roadmap. It was the sort of outcome that elicits a chuckle and a shaking of the head in disbelief. But chuckling is a healthy response, even when things seem bleak — especially then, in fact."

— "Opinion: I’m a climate scientist. This is why I’m laughing," Bill McGuire, CNN, December 15, 2023

However, McGuire says: "If you don’t laugh, you will cry."