Star Wars actress Kelly Marie Tran deletes Instagram posts after abuse – BBC News

Star Wars actress Kelly Marie Tran, who has suffered months of racist and sexist abuse on social media, has deleted all her posts on Instagram.
Tran starred as mechanic-turned-Resistance fighter Rose Tico in 2017’s The Last Jedi.
But she experienced a fierce backlash from some fans, who took aim at her ethnicity and appearance.
The film’s director, Rian Johnson, has defended the star, apparently describing some fans as “manbabies”.

via Star Wars actress Kelly Marie Tran deletes Instagram posts after abuse – BBC News

Masterpiece Baker Jake Phillips Says “I Don’t Discriminate”

Everyone can relax: Jake Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop wants you to know that he does not discriminate, even though he refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple and then went all the way to the Supreme Court to appeal his case after the Colorado Civil Rights Division and the Colorado Court of Appeals found that he had illegally discriminated against the couple. I’m relieved, frankly.

The Denver-based baker spoke with Today’s Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb following the Supreme Court’s 7-2 ruling in his favor.

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Kotb asked Phillips about his response to critics who believe that he is discriminatory and is comparable to businesses that might not have provided services to an interracial couple 50 years ago.

“I don’t discriminate against anybody,” said Phillips. “I serve anybody that comes in my shop. I just want to say again: I don’t create cakes for every message that people ask me to create.”

via Masterpiece Baker Jake Phillips Says “I Don’t Discriminate”

Federal Court Rules in Favor of Transgender Teen Gavin Grimm

A U.S. District Court judge in Virginia has ruled that transgender teen Gavin Grimm has a valid claim to sex discrimination under both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, after his former school board implemented a policy to prevent him from using the boys’ restroom at his school.

Started in 2014, the policy said that bathrooms “shall be limited to the corresponding biological genders, and students with gender identity issues shall be provided an alternative appropriate private facility.” Because this is a cruel and isolating thing to do to a teenager who just realized that he’s transgender, Grimm—who graduated from high school in 2017—refrained from using the bathroom at school, and as a result developed a urinary tract infection. With the help of the ACLU, he sued the school board in 2015.

via Federal Court Rules in Favor of Transgender Teen Gavin Grimm

Belarus slams UK embassy over rainbow flag on day against homophobia – BBC News

Belarus has slammed the UK embassy in Minsk for flying a rainbow flag on the International Day Against Homophobia, calling LGBT relationships “fake”.
In a lengthy statement, the Interior Ministry said the UK was challenging the country’s “traditional values”.
“The LGBT community, and all this fight for ‘their rights’, and the very day of the community are just a fake!”
A spokeswoman for the embassy said it would not comment. Homosexuality is not illegal in Belarus but it is a taboo.

via Belarus slams UK embassy over rainbow flag on day against homophobia – BBC News

‘Unfuckable’ Women Don’t Go on Killing Sprees

Most of these stories had common threads: Women who feel cut off from access to sex, romance, and companionship often assume that they’re broken, that the odds are stacked against them, and they’re destined to be unlucky in love for the rest of their lives. “I spent a lot of time wondering what was wrong with me, why wasn’t I good enough, why wasn’t I fun enough,” Ashley said. “It’s isolating. It’s ugly. It’s a total mindfuck. And even as I was doing all these things to change myself and improve, I still hated myself and had this nagging feeling that my effort was pretty much hopeless.” These women feel the same sense of isolation that emanates throughout the incel ecosystem.

Yet despite the universal experience of loneliness and sexual failure, there appears to be one fairly significant difference between men and women: “I’ve never gotten anything from a woman blaming men for [their loneliness],” Shechter says. “But men, yes.” Of course, not all men blame their sexual woes on women’s failure to appreciate their value, nor on a female fixation on bad boy alpha males rather than more deserving “nice guys.” But, Shechter reiterates, “women have never said that.”

via ‘Unfuckable’ Women Don’t Go on Killing Sprees

Philosopher Kate Manne on ‘Himpathy,’ Donald Trump, and Rethinking the Logic of Misogyny

Manne posits that sexism and misogyny are distinct from one another. “Misogyny is law enforcement; sexism is justificatory,” Manne argues. “Sexism wears a lab coat; misogyny goes on witch hunts […] Sexism is bookish; misogyny is combative,” she writes later in the book. Sexism is not the “cudgel” of misogyny, instead, it’s a set of beliefs that work to naturalize the existing order.

via Philosopher Kate Manne on ‘Himpathy,’ Donald Trump, and Rethinking the Logic of Misogyny