Gender Follies
February 25, 2025 — John Hinderaker
This story is from Rochester, Minnesota. Some would say it is a narrative of narrow-minded oppression. Why shouldn’t elementary school students be instructed–by the public schools–in the gay S/M culture? The local newspaper headlines: “Rochester Pride cancels reading by Emily Neilson, whose book was removed from Franklin Elementary.” After planning to travel halfway across the country to visit the community where her book was removed from the shelves of an
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February 22, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Minnesota, like California and Maine, has announced that it will not follow President’s Trump’s executive order which takes various measures to prevent men from competing in women’s sports. The Minnesota State High School League asked Attorney General Keith Ellison for guidance, given its view that Minnesota’s civil rights act requires schools to permit men to compete in women’s sports. Attorney General Ellison has now responded with a letter opinion telling
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February 21, 2025 — John Hinderaker
This could be huge: Target was sued on Thursday by the state of Florida for allegedly concealing the risks of diversity and social initiatives that led to a customer backlash and wiped billions of dollars from the retailer’s market value. The securities fraud lawsuit by the State Board of Administration of Florida, an agency overseeing public pension funds that own Target stock, was filed in the federal court in Fort
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February 10, 2025 — John Hinderaker
President Trump has issued an executive order that, in various ways, seeks to prevent men from competing on women’s sports teams. The state of California has announced that it will not abide by Trump’s executive order, and will continue to allow men in women’s sports. That has gotten quite a bit of publicity; what is less well known is that the Minnesota State High School League has said the same
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February 7, 2025 — Steven Hayward
I noted here a couple days ago that the Babylon Bee—America’s most trusted news source, partly because it receives no USAID funding—has an astonishing track record of prophecy. You’d almost think they had some Old Testament mojo going or something. Little did I know that the Telegraph would report on yet another Bee prophecy coming true: And the Bee, back in 2021: As someone—maybe Malcom Muggeridge was the first—once said,
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February 6, 2025 — John Hinderaker
President Trump’s executive order banning men from women’s sports has gotten a lot of attention, most of it positive. But, as with many of his orders, I had questions about what exactly it said. Does the president actually have legal authority to “ban men from women’s sports?” No. So what, exactly, did he do? And will it stand up in court? In my view, the order is impressively specific and
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February 2, 2025 — John Hinderaker
I remember this case, because it was so horrible: in July 2007, Steven Hayes and a younger accomplice invaded the Connecticut home of Dr. William Petit in Connecticut. They held the family prisoners for hours, after tying up Dr. Petit and beating him with a baseball bat. Hayes forced Petit’s wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, to withdraw $15,000 in cash from an ATM. He brought her back to the house, where he
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January 26, 2025 — Steven Hayward
A few propositions on the present moment: • Someday we’ll look back on this period as we do 1950, with some demagogue saying, “I have in my hand a list of 57 genders and pronouns. . .” (With the due caveat that the first guy was more right than wrong. . .) • What prompted this was an amazing self-own by Bruce Bartlett, a once-sound supply-side economist who succumbed somehow
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January 23, 2025 — Scott Johnson
In his inaugural speech on Monday, President Trump let the word go forth to friend and foe alike: “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.” In the video clip below Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre responds to questions about this controversial statement of policy in an interview with the CP24 news channel.
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December 26, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The Associated Press announced its awards for the top women athletes of 2024. Caitlin Clark won the title, as you would expect. But then you have this: Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was second with 25 and boxer Imane Khelif was third, getting four votes. What is odd about this is that Imane Khelif isn’t a woman. He is a man who boxed in the women’s division in the Paris Olympics.
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December 14, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The entire country met Minnesota’s own Tampon Tim Walz this past August when Kamala Harris selected him as her running mate. The more the country saw him, the less it liked him. Walz thrilled Democrats in convention assembled when he called Trump running mate J.D. Vance “weird.” That proved an unfortunate choice of words on Walz’s part. The more the country saw Walz, the weirder it thought he was. He
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December 6, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
In U.S. v. Skrmetti, the Biden-Harris administration seeks to strike down Tennessee’s law restricting “transgender” procedures for minors. As Steve noted the case has revealed that the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), has taken direction from Admiral Rachel Levine, Biden’s Assistant Secretary For Health. The admiral is on record that cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, are gender reassignment surgeries are “medically necessary, safe, and effective for trans and non-binary youth.”
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December 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Supreme Court hearing in United States v. Skrmetti featured several highlights. As framed by the Biden administration, the case raised the question: Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,”
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December 4, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Oral argument is underway at this hour at the Supreme Court in the case of U.S. v. Skrmetti, in which the Biden Administration is seeking strike down a Tennessee law restricting transgender treatment of minors. The case will be argued along the traditional lines of whether minors suffering from “gender dysphoria” constitute a “protected class” under civil rights law, and related questions of whether “strict scrutiny” review applies, etc. I’ll
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December 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
On the local front I have sought to draw attention to the case of JaycCee Cooper v. USA Powerlifting in several posts accessible here. Filed in Ramsey County District Court and assigned to Judge Patrick Diamond, the case raises the question whether USAPL’s separation of men from women in USAPL’s Minnesota competitions must yield to Cooper’s self-identification as a woman. Although a biological male, Cooper seeks to compete with the
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December 1, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
Actual women such as Riley Gaines, Paige Spiranac, J. K. Rowling, and the female Israeli soldiers Steve helpfully displays each week, just got the news from the New York Times that they should be known as “non-transgender women.” This drew flak from tennis great Martina Navratilova, British Olympian Sharron Davies, and Rep. Nancy Mace, among others. The dynamics going on here will be of interest to all people. NYT reporter
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November 27, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
Steve is right that stories about the mysterious San Jose State (SJSU) volleyball player are on the strange side. So is everything that takes place under the Dictatorship of the Subjunctive Mood (DSM), the imposition and enforcement of unreality, biological and otherwise. Under DSM, Elizabeth Warren can claim to be a Cherokee and continue her political career even after exposure as a fraud. William Thomas, a bust on the men’s
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