Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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  • Baying crowds

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  • Violence against women

    Brendan O'Neill at Spiked on the Olympic boxing:

    There’s a new sport at the Olympics: violence against women. Yes, biological males laying hands on women might be a crime in the real world, but at Paris 2024 it’s a must-see event. Leave your feminist morals at the door, park your petty worries about male power, and enjoy the sight of two people with XY chromosomes punching women in the face for 10 minutes straight….

    We need to talk about this. That before the eyes of the world, at the literal Olympics, a woman was whacked so forcefully by a biological male that she struggled to catch her breath is an outrage. It is a testament to the irrationalism of the new elites. These people have tumbled so hard down the rabbit hole of gender ideology that even the sight of a male hitting a female fails to stir their conscience or make them recall their GCSE biology. Their devotion to the religion of gender is unflinching – so much so, they’ll happily sacrifice a woman or two at its altar.

    Khelif and Lin’s cases are complicated, for sure. These aren’t ‘transwomen’. They’re not normal blokes who suddenly decided to ‘change sex’ and invade women’s sports for an easy win and undeserved medal. They’re not like Lia Thomas, the huge fella who competed (let’s say it: cheated) against women in US collegiate swimming. They’re not like Laurel Hubbard, the big dude from New Zealand who competed in the women’s weightlifting at the Tokyo Olympics. And they’re not like those people with penises who insist on swimming in the ladies’ pond at Hampstead Heath or parading around bollock-naked in ladies’ changing rooms, presumably for some cheap thrill of power.

    No, their cases are more sad than outrageous, more likely to induce pity than fury. It would appear that both suffer from some kind of disorder of sex development (DSD). This might mean that they were born with abnormal genitalia. It might mean they were believed to be girls at birth and were raised as such. However, it seems clear, from the evidence we have, that their lives will have changed dramatically when they reached puberty. Then, their underlying male characteristics would have become apparent. Their innate maleness will have surged through their bodies.

    For here’s the most important thing about the IBA tests on Khelif and Lin: they were not testosterone tests but genetic tests. The tests found, ‘conclusively’, says the IBA, that ‘both athletes did not meet required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors’. IBA officials say the tests found that Khelif and Lin have ‘XY chromosomes’. In the mammal world, including the human world, only one sex has XY chromosomes: the male sex. Khelif and Lin are males.

    Strikingly, Lin did not appeal the IBA’s decision. Khelif did, briefly, but later withdrew the appeal. This means the IBA’s findings are legally binding. It is a legally enforceable observation, in the world of sport, that Khelif and Lin have genetic benefits that make them unsuitable for women’s boxing.

    So why are they at Paris 2024 punching women? Shockingly – or perhaps not – the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was informed in June 2023 that Khelif had failed her IBA gender-eligibility testing. It was told that the tests ‘concluded the boxer’s DNA was that of a male consisting of XY chromosomes’. It doesn’t get any clearer than that. And yet still the IOC flung open the doors of Paris 2024 to this genetic male who fights women. The IBA’s British chief executive, Chris Roberts, says this is down to the IOC using its ‘own criteria’, which is basically a passport test: Khelif and Lin presumably have female passports, so they’re female, right? That’s the IOC’s post-truth attitude.

    It's particularly unfortunate that the IBA present themselves as such a bunch of clowns, with president Umar Kremlev – a friend of Putin – calling the IOC's Thomas Bach a “sodomite”. It just makes it easier to dismiss the whole business as a cack-handed Russian attempt to blacken the Olympic name after they were banned. But on this they're right: these are men beating up women in the name of sport.

  • Rural America

    Portland-based photographer Brendon Burton:

    Throughout North America, relics of past inhabitants dot fields and foothills, glimpsing complex lives. Dilapidated farmhouses, churches, and grain elevators stand amid the stark, magnificent landscape in areas that seem to exist in a different world and operate on their own time. While people are typically absent from Burton’s images, the human impact on the land is everywhere. He approaches these places with a keen and admiring curiosity, reveling in layered, fraught, and sometimes unknowable histories.

    This year, Burton has collected a decade’s worth of photographs into a new book titled Epitaph, which seeks to “unravel the knot of mystery” he says in a statement, “…shedding light on unseen histories and buried past lives.” The book is scheduled for release in early October and is available for pre-order now on his website. You can also keep up with Burton’s travels on Instagram.

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    [Images © Brendon Burton]

    Brendon Burton previously, here and here.

  • Rio 2016

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  • Boxing and femininity

    Victoria Smith at The Critic on the Olympic boxing row, and the absurd argument that those complaining are doing so because the two boxers concerned just don't look very feminine – don't conform to "conventional standards of femininity”. 

    Many of those seeking to defend Khelif and Yu-ting’s inclusion have wilfully conflated concerns about female safety with prejudice regarding the boxers’ supposedly unfeminine appearance. The Labour MP Zarah Sultana has declared they are under attack for not conforming “to conventional standards of femininity”. In an article for the Independent, Kat Brown claims that being 6’1” and having her “dad’s jawline” would put her in the firing line, too, due to not being “your classic example of 1950s femininity”. These are ludicrous arguments. Not one female boxer can be described as gender conforming (the clue is in “being a female boxer”, something the Olympics did not even allow until 2012). The red flag isn’t hair length or jawlines; it’s those failed eligibility tests.

    These women’s arguments do more than trivialise a serious issue, though. They insult every single female victim of male violence who has felt shame at not being able to fight back, not because they were too feminine, but because they were female and their attacker was male. It becomes about so much more than two individuals, or boxing in general. It’s about the myth that male people don’t physically dominate female people because they can but because we let them — because it is in our natures.

    The stranger who attacked me was no prime specimen of masculinity. Even so, I couldn’t move his arms — his basic bog-standard arms, stuck to his basic, non-athletic body — off me at all. This is not because I was too busy “conforming to standards of femininity”. The fact that I had half the upper body strength of my assailant is not evidence of some secret desire to join a Facebook tradwife group. That I am writing about it now is not some performance of feminine victimhood, aimed winning male protectors. There is nothing “feminine” or “conforming” about noting the strength disparity between male people and female people. Once you start claiming there is, you are inches away from full-on victim blaming….

    Whether or not Khelif has XY chromosomes, it is not whiny or manipulative to note that it matters — in the boxing ring, on the street, in enclosed spaces — whether or not someone does. This is an issue that goes way beyond sports. Women and girls are not subjected to an unprecedented degree of male violence because we are too busy policing the boundaries of heteronormative patriarchy to fight back. We don’t identify with being weak; we don’t love it really. There is no connection — none whatsoever — between not being able to hit as hard as a man and being gender conforming.

    The argument also comes with added racism.

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  • Russian luxury goods

    The perks of North Korean consular officials in Russia – returning home with shipping containers full of luxury goods:

    North Korean diplomats in Russia have been recently returning to the North with cutting-edge appliances and pricey musical instruments in their personal luggage, Daily NK has learned.

    Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in Russia told Daily NK recently that a number of North Korean construction workers in Russia were dragooned into packing the personal luggage of North Korean consular staff ordered to return home at the beginning of July.

    The consular staff heading back home are diplomats with the foreign ministry who have been serving in Russia for at least four years.

    The luggage they packed for the journey home includes not only the typical clothing, shoes, bags, cosmetics and blankets but also large numbers of home appliances in their possession, including washing machines, refrigerators and big screen televisions.

    The workers called up for the moving job were amazed that all the consular staff seemed to have brand-new models of the sort rarely seen in ordinary North Korean homes. They were also astonished at the profusion of top-shelf musical instruments, including pianos, accordions, violins and flutes.

    “One worker recalled that each consular staff member had a shipping container measuring 12 meters (about 39 feet) long, 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) wide and three meters (about 10 feet) high at their disposal, but even that apparently wasn’t big enough to hold all their furniture and appliances,” the source said.

    The source explained that the containers loaded with the consular staff’s possessions will be shipped to the port of Wonsan and then transported to Pyongyang.

    The consular staff were able to afford the latest furnishings, despite the steep price tags, because of their lucrative foreign currency earnings.

    Daily NK’s source said that North Korea and Russia are expanding cooperation in the economy and various other areas, giving North Korean consular staff there more opportunities to earn foreign currency than diplomats assigned to other countries. As a result, foreign ministry officials prefer assignments to Russia.

    Daily NK previously reported that North Korean consular staff in Russia deliver letters and cash from North Korean workers to their families back home in exchange for a 25% – 30% fee.

    However, the North Korean workers who were mobilized to pack the personal luggage of the consular staff apparently did not receive any compensation for a full day’s work.

    “It was basically a volunteer job, since we didn’t get anything after working all day long. Nobody would willingly take on such drudgery, but you can’t say no to the company managers when they ask you to come in,” the source said.

    As long as they don't watch South Korean movies on their lovely new big-screen TVs. Though it's likely that different rules apply to high-ranking diplomats in Pyongyang than to the toiling masses.

  • Gender clinic waits

    This is all very depressing. From the Times:

    A child under the age of five is among thousands on NHS waiting lists for gender clinics, new figures show.

    More than 5,700 under-18s are waiting for a specialist appointment at two clinics set up to help children wanting to change gender. The youngest patient is under five years old, according to the NHS England data provided under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Children can be referred to one of the specialist clinics by their GP if they are in severe distress due to a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender. Previously, the only NHS clinic providing gender services for children was at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

    In April the clinic was closed down and replaced by two new services, at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. These were designed to offer more “holistic” care to children struggling with their gender identity, bringing together existing mental health, hormone and autism services.

    The clinic was shut after a review by Dr Hilary Cass raised concerns that it was providing unsafe care, including giving children puberty blockers and rushing them into medical transition….

    Dr Roman Raczka, president of the British Psychological Society, said: “These latest figures make for concerning reading. It is imperative that children and young people have timely access to the professional care and support they need.

    “We must remember that behind the numbers, headlines and often toxic public discourse, there are children and young people who need to access care. All too often the issue of gender care which has played out in public has been damaging to the children, young people and families desperately seeking help and must change.”

    Ashley Grossman, an endocrinologist who has been practising for more than 40 years and who has treated adult transgender patients, described the figures as “deeply depressing” although they “probably reflect the huge disparity in general between the requirements for mental health services for children and the resources available”.

    The emeritus professor of endocrinology at the University of Oxford added: “There seems to have been a large rise in demand for these services, especially since the isolation and loss of schooling during the pandemic, so I suspect this is a wider problem than for children with gender dysphoria alone.”

    It's unfortunate that the experts quoted feel unable to state the obvious truth: that children are unable to change gender, and it's unconscionably cruel to let them believe such a dangerous lie. The surge in numbers is a result of social contagion and – certainly in the case of the under-five child, and likely in many others – pushy irresponsible parents. The best thing that can happen to these children is to be left alone to go through puberty, when in the vast majority of cases the problems will resolve themselves – gay, most likely – without them havng to suffer life-changing (life-ruining) medical interventions.

    No children are "born in the wrong body". No children are trans.

  • Being fair

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  • Captured by gender activists

    Joan Smith has a comprehensive piece at Quillette on Mridul Wadhwa and the Edinbugh Rape Crisis Centre. It's basically, I suppose, aimed at Australian/Canadian readers who may not be familiar with a saga which should be well-known by now to UK readers, but it provides a useful overview of the whole wretched business. Gaslighting Scottish Rape Victims in the Name of ‘Trans Inclusion’:

    Few countries have surrendered so completely to the maximalist demands of transgender activists as Scotland, where two former First Ministers, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf, both recently had their careers cut short after they supported unpopular legislation permitting men to self-identify as women. And yet, even in Scotland, the latest example of men taking over women’s spaces has left jaws hanging open.

    You might think that one of the United Kingdom’s most venerable rape-crisis centres, founded almost half a century ago, would be safe from the incursions of trans-identified men. But the social-service sector in Scotland has been captured by gender activists just as thoroughly as the country’s political class—as illustrated by a bizarre sequence of events that ended in court last month, when someone who accessed support services at the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) was exposed as a sexual predator.

    Naturally, both principal characters here are biological men. One is Cameron Downing, a 24-year-old “non-binary” former drama student and onetime darling of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP), who was able to attend the ERCC for several months even as he was abusing half a dozen men and women.

    The other is Mridul Wadhwa, a trans-identified man who was hired as the centre’s CEO in 2021, and who then went on a campaign to punish a female counsellor on his staff named Roz Adams, who’d suggested that perhaps rape victims visiting the centre were entitled to know the biological sex of the staff members they were talking to. In May, an employment tribunal ruled in Adams’ favour, denouncing Wadhwa and the rest of the ERCC’s management for conducting a “heresy hunt” aimed at anyone who questioned trans-activist shibboleths. This would be a scandal even if the ERCC didn’t receive generous funding from a long list of public entities….

  • IBA press conference

    According to the Telegraph the whole event has been shambolic. Oliver Brown:

    I am half-expecting a fight to break out at this IBA press conference. The atmosphere is truly toxic. Malfunctioning video leaks, exploding speakers, an hour-long delay, and a rambling tirade from the organisation’s Russian president via video link. There are serious questions to answer in this boxing scandal. But the longer this goes on – over two hours now – the clearer it becomes that the IBA executives are not the people to do so credibly.

    Nevertheless, we have this:

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    Full text:

    Highlights so far:

    *Both boxers were initially subjected to a chromosomal test by an independent laboratory in Istanbul after the IBA received complaints from coaches and competitors during the 2022 Women's World Boxing Championships.

    *Both boxers were re-tested in India again during the 2023 Women's World Boxing Championships to clarify and confirm prior results. *Both boxers were found to have XY chromosomes.

    *Both boxers were informed of the results of the tests in writing.

    *Both boxers were given the opportunity to appeal the findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

    *The IBA offered to pay for the majority of the costs to allow both boxers to appeal.

    *Lin Yu-Ting did not appeal the decision.

    *Imane Khelif appealed the decision, and then withdrew the appeal.

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    Full text:

    Dr. Ioannis Filippatos, the former Chair of IBA Medical Committee and an OB/GYN with three decades of experience, has spoken.

    He has confirmed that neither Lin nor Khelif are biological females, and has slammed the IOC for using passports as a system for determining gender.

    "Medicine is knowledge, it is not opinion … One passport can give to us the opportunity to be men, and, tomorrow when I go back to Athens, I can go to my government and change my name from Ioannis to Ionnia. That means I am a woman tomorrow? Please. The nature and the biological world do not change."

    Also:

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