Mick Hartley

The ACLU [American Civi Liberties Union] comes to the rescue again, in their continuing  – you might say obsessive – battle against transphobia. From Genevieve Gluck at Reduxx:

A trans-identified male convicted of murdering his own parents is attempting to be get back into a women’s prison after being transferred out due to his sexual behavior with the female inmates. Amber FayeFox Kim, 35, whose birth name is Bryan, is suing the state’s Department of Corrections, claiming that being housed in a male prison is “cruel and unusual punishment.”…

According to The National Review, a prison guard witnessed Kim and his 25-year-old cellmate, Sincer-A Marie Nerton, “actively having sex” on the floor of the cell. The guard, who chose to remain anonymous when speaking with the outlet, filed a report in March detailing a firsthand account….

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington has announced their legal support for Kim in a bid to have him transferred back into a women’s prison while arguing that incarceration at a men’s detention center places him “at imminent risk of harm.” A press release issued by the ACLU on December 17 argues that the placement of Kim in Monroe, a prison for men, is “unconstitutional” and an example of transphobia….

Kim says that he “became involved in a coalition supporting transgender prisoners” which assisted him in legally changing his name from Bryan to Amber Fayefox, adding, “My name change was used as a template for other incarcerated transgender people who wanted to change their names.”

Bizarrely, Kim adds his rationale for choosing the feminine name ‘Amber,’ saying, “I chose the name Amber because it is one of few precious stones that was once part of a living being; it preserves the past within it and yet is electrically alive. I was also draw to the name Amber because, in Greek mythology, the name Amber is equivalent to the name of the Greek goddess Electra… The name Amber reflects my true identity.”

The convicted murderer also claims that his 2021 transfer to the female prison estate was “a massive improvement” because he could “truly live and be seen as a woman.”

And have sex with women.

Translation: a man threatens his neighbour with murder & successfully utilises legislative confusion to be housed with imprisoned women while awaiting trial. He believes his desire overrides his violence, women's rights, and common sense.

His desires win. Because insanity. https://t.co/ZP2ILYnr5r

— Jenny Lindsay (@msjlindsay) December 20, 2024

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Report here:

A transgender woman won a High Court case to be transferred to Northern Ireland's female prison while being held on charges of threatening to kill her neighbour, it has emerged.

Michelle James, 63, was moved from Maghaberry Prison to Hydebank Wood on Thursday after taking court proceedings.

The move happened after the Department of Justice accepted there was a lack of policy in place for transgender prisoners and consented to the transfer.

How lovely for him.

Photographer Paul Hart with his latest project – a further look at the Fens with a particular bleak English sensibility: backwaters, melancholic mist and grey, landscapes fashioned by people with no people in sight:

Hart’s most recent work Fragile is a personal and poetic reflection on nature made in the landscape close to Hart’s studio in the east of England….The aesthetic is rooted in the notion of a heightened awareness of the natural world, of both a physical engagement and spiritual connection to the land. Whilst becoming absorbed in this instinctual, visceral approach, Hart has become acutely aware of both the physical beauty and delicate vulnerability of these natural forms. Although concerns of the environment and sustainability are present throughout, the series goes beyond a central study of place to evoke an abstract ethereal sensibility.

And book.

[Photos © Paul Hart]

Paul Hart previously:

Reclaimed
The Fens
Poetry of Place

It's the ones who've transed their own children who are the last holdouts. Susie Green, former CEO of Mermaids, transed her son after the father complained about him playing with girlie toys, with the coup de grace of a visit to Thailand on his sixteenth birthday to be castrated. She's spent her life since pushing for other kids to be given puberty blockers, and be medically mutilated  – like her son – into some grim sterile parody of the other sex. 

From the Times:

An organisation led by the former chief executive of the transgender support charity Mermaids has vowed to keep on helping children get access to puberty blockers, despite a permanent UK ban.

Anne Trans Healthcare, co-founded by the former Mermaids leader Susie Green, hit out at Labour after it was announced that the government would keep a ban on the drugs for under-18s….

In a post on Instagram aimed at trans youth and their families, Anne Trans Healthcare said that it would still be facilitating the use of puberty-blockers.

It said: “We offer a legal, compassionate, and supportive routes [sic] to accessing puberty blockers with medical oversight from experienced endocrinologists.

“Our team will guide you through every step of the process, ensuring you feel reassured and supported.⁠”

A dangerous, deluded woman.

Two not unrelated stories from the JC:

Egypt revises textbooks to remove antisemitic and anti-Israel content:

Eighty per cent of Egyptian schoolchildren are now being taught from revised textbooks which have removed antisemitic content found in previous editions, with students showing improved attitudes towards Jews and Israel according to a new report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se) published last week.

“Review of Changes and Remaining Problematic Content Egyptian Textbooks: Selected Examples 2023-24,” published by the international research institute and authored by Yonatan Negev PhD, revealed that year-on-year revisions to the Egyptian school curriculum, which has in the past portrayed Jews through antisemitic stereotypes, have yielded promising results….

The report noted that ten antisemitic passages previously identified by Impact-se researchers, including a multiple-choice question in which Jews were described as “people of treachery and betrayal,” were replaced with passages “emphasising peace, coexistence, and cooperation between Islam and Judaism.”

The antisemitic depiction, which has since been removed, was included in a lesson comparing the Yom Kippur War to the Prophet Muhammad’s battles with Jewish tribes in Arabia and asked students to use the internet to search for Qur’anic verses about “the treachery of the Jews.”

Since the revisions were made, students are instead tasked with creating a booklet titled “A Guide for Dealing with Others” to foster respect for Jews and those of other faiths.

Swedish government to stop funding UNRWA:

Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli hailed the move as a "courageous and critical decision by the Swedish government."

"UNRWA, whose personnel actively participated in the October 7 atrocities, whose facilities became terror hubs, and whose schools spread Hamas propaganda and incitement, has lost its legitimacy to exist," Chikli wrote on X.

A whole new set of problems are now arising in the Middle East, with Erdogan's Turkey at their heart. Interesting analysis from Richard Kemp in the Telegraph:

The future of Syria is going to be influenced by Israel and Turkey beyond all other forces. The two countries are far from friends, but both have national security interests in Syria. Until Netanyahu ordered the shattering of Syria’s military hardware last week, the country had for decades represented the greatest direct conventional threat to Israel. Courtesy of Assad, Syria was also the principal supply route from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Unlike Netanyahu, Erdogan has broader designs on the Middle East, including, at least in his mind’s eye, the resurrection of the Ottoman caliphate. He has close ties with Qatar and Sunni jihadist groups in the region, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which themselves may now gravitate further towards Ankara as Iran descends: an increasing threat for Israel and many of the Arab countries as his regional power strengthens.

More immediately the 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey are politically problematic for Erdogan and he wants them sent home.

But his highest priority is ending the idea of a Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria, which he sees as a direct threat to Turkey given the pressures over Kurdish separatism in his own country. There are indications now that Erdogan is winding up for a major assault against the Syrian Kurds.

Significant though they are, the Kurds are just one part of a complex ethno-religious patchwork of rivalry and often deadly antagonism, which includes Sunnis, Shia, Alawites, Druze and Christians. It is unlikely HTS leader Al-Julani will be able to re-unite a long-fractured country any more than Assad could.

As the influence of the Iranian Ayatollahs wanes, Erdogan now steps in. There are certainly indications that Turkey has designs on northern Syria. "You cannot encounter a son of the homeland whose heart does not tremble at the mention of Aleppo, because Aleppo is Turkish and Muslim to its core".

Is it too much to hope that this appalling case will sound the death knell for unisex toilets in our schools and mean a return to prioritising the dignity, safety and privacy of girls? The ideologues who pushed this nonsense should hang their heads in shame. https://t.co/C5XFza561R

— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) December 19, 2024

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Jonathan Spyer in the Spectator – We all knew Syria was hell:

The liberation of Syria’s notorious Sednaya jail close to Damascus a week ago has resulted in a wave of belated outrage in much western media toward the former dictator and his methods. For Syria watchers, there is something rather surreal about this late discovery of the methods of Assad’s regime.

Some of the precise numbers remain disputed. There is, as yet, no independent verification of the statement by Mouaz Mustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, that the mass grave at al-Qutayfah contains the remains of at least 100,000 people. The task of piecing together the precise dimensions of the Assad regime’s crimes against the Syrian people, and crucially the names and whereabouts of the victims, is only now beginning. And yet, the fact that this regime was a monstrous one, engaged in the mass slaughter of Syrian civilians, was known to both policymakers and publics in the West.

The facts were in plain sight. A huge body of research and eyewitness testimony has long been available. But there was no widespread public revulsion against Assad in the West.

Generally along the lines of: not really our business; let's not get involved. With Obama leading the way. We don't want another Iraq – so they ended up with something much much worse. And of course Arabs being killed is of no interest anyway unless Jews are involved – in which case: omigod! it's a genocide!

Sednaya and the Assad regime’s practices were not particularly aberrant, in the context of the recent history of Syria (and Iraq… and Lebanon). Bashar, who was indeed a ‘weak’ man as John Simpson described him, didn’t invent any of these practices. His father and his father’s predecessors used similar methods. His fellow Ba’athist Saddam Hussein (and his successors) used and use them in Iraq. Indeed, there is ample evidence to suggest that Bashar’s own successors, now busily being normalised by the same people who three weeks ago wanted good relations with the deposed dictator, follow similar practices themselves.

In April 2022, in cooperation with Syrian colleagues, I wrote an article called ‘Erdogan’s Secret Prisons in Syria.’ The article was based on a 140-page report titled ‘Sednaya of the North’ produced by Syrian activists and based on eyewitness testimony. The report details the random detention and widespread torture (including sexual abuse) of civilians in northern Syria by Turkey-supported militias, the same militias now allied with the new ruling authorities in Damascus. All of which proves, in the immortal French adage, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The "moderate Jihadi" line from the new Syrian rulers seems to be paying off, as their leader assures us that they're absolutely not a threat to Syria's neighbours or to the West.

We shall see.

Photographer François Prost went on a road trip round Japan to capture the colourful kitschy facades of love hotels:

“The venues aim to evoke a sense of romance, escape, and fantasy, yet they also need to feel safe and inviting—not tacky or sordid,” Prost says. “It’s why some of these places have an almost ‘Disney-like’ aesthetic, playful yet carefully curated.” Estimates of how many love hotels dot Japan range from 10,000 to 40,000.

[Photos © François Prost]

Tremaine Carroll is a lifelong criminal and biological male. After California passed a law requiring inmates to be housed in prisons based on their "gender identity," Carroll abruptly declared that he was a woman, and got himself transferred to a women's prison. Last January, he… pic.twitter.com/TTzskqxGHA

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) December 18, 2024

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"Last January, he was accused of raping two women there.

"Now, a California judge says that the prosecutor must refer to Carroll by "she/her" pronouns. Presumably, witnesses will also have to testify that "she" assaulted them with "her" penis.

"California is a state at war with women and with reality."

Article here:

California District Attorney Eric DuTemple might become the first criminal prosecutor to be forced to refer to a convicted male rapist as a woman, using opposite-sex pronouns in court. The motion may also force witnesses and victims of the man to refer to him as “she” and “her.” This dystopian, Orwellian horror show in the courtroom is an inevitable result of laws like California’s Senate Bill 132 (SB 132), the “Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act,” which prompted WoLF [Women's Liberation Front] to sue the state in 2021.

When laws are passed pandering to the absurdity of "gender identity", it's inevitable that they'll be used by the worst sort of men.