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Topic: Individualist Feminism
I am back from a much needed vacation, and I'll be here every day for the foreseeable future. If you value the blog and ifeminists, please donate to their support at the donation button to the side or by writing to wendy©wendymcelroy.com. I thank you.

LGBTQ+ organizations eye legal challenge
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: Edmonton Journal
...of Alberta's new transgender policies if passed. "It's impossible to overstate the seriousness of the risks that the Smith government is imposing on the population right now, so both because what she's done is illegal, unconstitutional, and because it will cause such severe harm, we will be challenging it in court". [Ed: of course, I disagree with this sentiment.]

Iran Student Strips
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Off the Press
A now-viral video shows the young woman in a bra and panties in the courtyard of Tehran’s Azad University, while other footage shows her soon being shoved by men into a car and being driven away. The unidentified student was protesting security forces who had ripped her clothing earlier while confronting her for not wearing a headscarf, which Iranian law demands for all women in public, Iran International reported. After the woman stripped in protest, she was filmed from above sitting on a wall — with one man approaching her and making a phone call before casually walking away as bemused students looked on. A university rep said, “Campus security intervened and handed the individual over to law enforcement authorities,” blaming the incident on “an indecent act by a student.”

These states have abortion laws on the ballot for the 2024 election
Topic: Abortion
Source: CBS News
The 2024 election will not only decide who succeeds President Biden in the White House, but in 10 states, voters will also have the chance to weigh in on abortion access through ballot measures. In the wake of the Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which had established the right to an abortion in the U.S. Constitution, abortion rights groups have turned to ballot initiatives to put the issue of reproductive rights squarely before voters.

House Education Republicans’ Long-Awaited Report
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Townhall
...on Antisemitism on College Campuses Is Here. This week, Republicans on the House Education Committee released a report regarding antisemitism on college campuses. This occurred after a yearlong investigation that was instigated by the slew of antisemitic protests at schools following Hamas’ barbaric invasion of Israel. The investigation collected more than 400,000 documents from 11 schools that were known for its rampant antisemitism. “For over a year, the American people have watched antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities, but what was happening behind the scenes is arguably worse. While Jewish students displayed incredible courage and a refusal to cave to the harassment, university administrators, faculty, and staff were cowards who fully capitulated to the mob and failed the students they were supposed to serve,” committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said of the report.

French families sue TikTok over alleged promotion of self-harm content
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Politico
They allege the platform is responsible for self-harm-related content promoted by its algorithm. Seven French families are hoping to set a precedent by holding TikTok liable for insufficient content moderation they say put their children at risk. The families, part of a collective called Algos Victima, are suing the social media platform whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing. They accuse it of promoting content tied to self-mutilation, suicide or eating disorders. “Our challenge is to see TikTok held accountable for its lack of moderation, which makes the service flawed,” said Laure Boutron-Marmion, the lawyer for the collective, confirming the civil lawsuit first reported by Franceinfo.

Family pleaded to have son's assault rifle seized
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Newser
...before deadly school shooting. Officers had few options. Orlando Harris' family pleaded with Missouri police to confiscate the 19-year-old's bulletproof vest, ammunition, and AR-15-style rifle. They knew his mental health was fragile after more than one suicide attempt. Nine days later, Harris entered his former St. Louis high school and declared, "All of you are going to die." A new 456-page police report details the efforts Harris' family took to try to take his gun away in the days before he walked into Central Visual and Performing Arts High School on Oct. 24, 2022, when he killed a student and a teacher and wounded seven others before he was fatally shot by police, per the AP.

Trans issue muddies battle over New York ballot measure
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Politico
Dems scramble as GOP opposition paints Prop 1 as threat to girls’ safety and sports. Proponents of Proposition 1, which New York Democrats have long called the Equal Rights Amendment, say it’s a necessary step to enshrine abortion, LGBTQ+ and other rights into the state constitution. The well-funded and increasingly vocal opposition says it’s a liberal “Trojan horse” endangering the safety of girls in locker rooms, the sanctity of girls’ sports and parental consent for gender-affirming care. Prop 1 does not explicitly address parental rights or participation on sports teams, and it would not change existing laws that impact either, including Title IX. But its prohibition of discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression leaves much open to interpretation and could invite legal challenges to existing laws.

Sixth Circuit Will Rehear En Banc Case Involving High School's Pronoun Policy
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Volokh Conspiracy
The order granting rehearing was just filed today, so the court will reconsider the case in the coming months. Here's an excerpt from the now-vacated panel majority opinion (Judge Jane Stranch, joined by Judge Stephanie Davis), which deals with school policies that "prohibit students from repeatedly and intentionally using non-preferred pronouns to refer to their classmates": "Tinker v. Des Moines Ind. Cmty. Sch. Dist. (1969) … does not require school authorities to wait for a disturbance before regulating speech, nor does it "require certainty that disruption will occur." Even this limited preliminary injunction record contains evidence of the substantial disruption that repeated, intentional use of non-preferred pronouns to refer to transgender students can cause. The PDE parent-members themselves "understand[]" that use of non-preferred pronouns "will be considered 'insulting,' 'humiliating,' 'dehumanizing,' 'derogatory,' and 'unwanted' to those who want to go by different pronouns."

Washington Sued for 'Racially Conscious' Homeownership Program
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Reason
Washington's Covenant Homeownership Program excludes certain applicants on the basis of race. The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) submitted a complaint on Tuesday against the Washington State Housing Finance Commission (WSHFC) for its Covenant Homeownership Program, which explicitly bars certain applicants from eligibility on the basis of race. The commission cites the 2024 Covenant Homeownership Program Study as empirically justifying its "race-conscious" special purpose credit program, but it's unlikely to pass strict scrutiny. The Washington State Legislature passed the Covenant Homeownership Act in May 2023 to remedy "past and ongoing discrimination and its impacts on access to credit and homeownership for black, indigenous, and people of color."

Former Disney Exec Blames Hollywood’s Collapse on Woke DEI Policies
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Breitbart News
Ex-Walt Disney TV executive Monica Harris is blaming Hollywood’s collapse on high-dollar investment firms for forcing the woke DEI initiatives that have driven customers away. Harris noted that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideas have flooded Hollywood from the writer’s rooms to the board rooms, and the agenda has become far more important than the products Hollywood is producing, according to The Park Place. Harris pointed to how many corporations are failing so badly, with companies such as Target, Kellogg’s, and others suffering boycotts and loss of revenue thanks to the indulgence of woke, DEI policies. And she said Hollywood is suffering the same short-sighted obsession over such policies.

Trudeau Liberals want pregnancy counseling centers to reveal if they provide abortions
Topic: Abortion
Source: The Post Millennial
"We're introducing this legislation to ensure that ... those who mislead Canadian women are not rewarded with subsidies from Canadian taxpayers." In a bid to strip the charitable status of some pro-life groups, the Trudeau government wants to introduce legislation that would force charities that offer pregnancy counseling to also reveal whether they offer abortion, birth control or referral to either of these options. Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland revealed the strategy Tuesday at a news conference in Ottawa. Freeland acknowledged that her government is trying to sideline pro-life groups that encourage women not to have abortions as a means of birth control and to remove any tax-exempt status from charitable organizations.

Witness In Diddy Case Claims To Have Sex Tapes
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Modernity News
With 'Intoxicated' Celebrities And Minors. Alleges feds have subpoenaed him for 11 flash drives... During an interview with NewsNation, Courtney Burgess, who testified against Combs before a grand jury in Manhattan, claimed that he has in his possession flash drives featuring videos of eight celebrities with Diddy. Explaining his relationship with Diddy, Burgess said “I’ve been knowing him for 35 years. I think we probably entered into the music business at the same time.” Burgess said he is willing to turn over eleven flash drives to the court, claiming that the videos on them feature six well known males and two celebrity females. Burgess said “I think all, to be honest — all,” those in the tapes seemed “victimized” and “intoxicated.”

How Gender Ideology Captured the State Department
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The City-Journal
An executive order prompted the agency to recast its mission. The U.S. Department of State is charged with advancing American interests abroad through complex and delicate diplomatic missions, as well as maintaining the safety of those missions and the Americans serving them. The institution’s lodestar should be the national interest, but under President Joe Biden, the State Department has demoted that critical objective in favor of a new global agenda: to spread radical gender theory to foreign nations. The shift began at the top. President Biden and, in turn, the apparatus beneath him led America’s leftward charge on the world stage. Upon taking office in 2021, the administration used the previous year’s racial unrest as a pretext to issue a slew of executive orders and memoranda entrenching left-wing ideologies in all levels of the federal government, under the guise of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” or DEI.

How Long Can Universities Defer Maintenance?
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: James G. Martin Center
Organizations that don’t have to make a profit—such as governments—are more susceptible to deferring maintenance than are private profit-making companies. For a profit-making firm, the ultimate costs of deferred maintenance are potentially so high that they can make the difference between success and bankruptcy. So maintenance in private firms is rarely deferred. In contrast, governments hardly ever go bankrupt, and non-profits rarely do. In fact, Comptroller Regan pointed out that “deferred maintenance” (sometimes called DPR) has become a widely accepted term in many political circles. The term is “not even viewed as a pejorative,” wrote Regan; “it sounds like a government program!”

‘Not legal’
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The College Fix
Delta Dental excludes whites from med school scholarships. Insurance company Delta Dental works with Midwestern University to offer scholarships that exclude white students. This is ‘not legal’ according to a civil rights activist. A medical school scholarship that excludes white students is “not legal” according to a civil rights activist who regularly calls attention to illegal racial discrimination on college campuses. Midwestern University and insurance company Delta Dental of Illinois, continue to offer five “Diversity Admissions Scholarships,” which exclude white students.

How the Harris-Trump Divide Broke This American Family
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Politico
What the Johnson brothers of Centralia, Illinois, tell us about the causes of our nation’s political divide. Make America great again? It sounded like Ted was more interested in just making America talk again. He told me it was in part because he hadn’t talked to his brother in years. Ted and Fred Johnson were both registered independents, and both were tempted by Haley’s Republican run — but Trump, it turned out, had come between them as something like an unbending wedge, the source of a new split in an already frayed fraternal bond. Ted had voted for him — Fred had not and would never. But Ted, he had said, was weary of the rift. He was interested in repair.

Julia Roberts ad sparks debate about gender gap, voting in marriages
Topic: Children and Family
Source: The Hill
A pro-Harris campaign ad encouraging women to break with their Trump-supporting partners at the ballot box is striking a nerve amid signs of a growing national gender gap in the high-stakes presidential race. Vote Common Good, which encourages evangelical and Catholic voters to break from the GOP, aired an ad voiced by actress Julia Roberts reminding women “you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know” — prompting pushback from several prominent conservatives who criticized it for calling on wives to lie to their husbands.

Identity Politics and the Government We Deserve
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Townhall
According to what’s been reported this week about remarks from the Democrat apparatus supporting Kamala Harris, I am a fascistic Nazi piece of human garbage who worships Hitler and is married to a weak, stupid woman, and we both want to kill our mothers and daughter. Among the many differences between American liberals and conservatives is the thickness of our skins. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but by and large conservatives don’t take this sort of wacky hyperbole very seriously. That’s why conservatives can wear ‘Deplorable’ and ‘Toxic Masculinity’ and ‘Garbage Man’ t-shirts with pride and a hint of a smirk. Most conservatives know these slanders are preposterous, giving license to mock their unhinged accusers.

Sad: Thousands Of Women Left Standing Clueless In Voting Booths
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Babylon Bee
After Husbands Fail To Tell Them Who To Vote For. Several advertisements in this election cycle have encouraged husbands to stop telling their wives how to vote. Sadly, many husbands heeded this advice, leaving their poor wives completely baffled and anxious. "I'm so lost. Oh, how I wish a man had explained to me what to do!" exclaimed local woman Stephanie Griggs, staring blankly at her ballot. "Curse this womanly brain of mine!"