A question is asked and answered:

Highly neurotic, antagonistic, passive-aggressive. Borderline. https://t.co/xFEKa2jooG

— J.D. Haltigan, PhD 🏒👨‍💻 (@JDHaltigan) May 24, 2026

Bluesky is, it has to be said, a strange, unhappy place. One where everything, but everything, is fraught, problematic and seething with complication.

Including grilled cheese sandwiches and the paranormal:

Readers may recall previous mentions of the platform as a favoured watering hole for those who demand the pre-emptive deletion of untoward thoughts:

Got banned from BIuesky within the first 30 seconds for posting a biological fact pic.twitter.com/uxQzPVn2SR

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 17, 2024

People so immensely progressive that they are enraged by even polite statements of fact. Such that, in response to polite statements of fact, they issue repeated, quite colourful death threats and publicly share the polite person’s home address, including photos of his front door and directions to the nearest subway station.

One might almost appreciate the attention to detail.

People so immensely progressive that they then complain that the person being threatened, by them, has taken screenshots of said threats. Because, in the world of the immensely progressive, that constitutes harassment, the “doxing” of trans people, and indeed “trying to have them killed.” By simply quoting their own words.

Update, via the comments:

Rafi quotes this,

And adds,

Answers on a postcard, please.

The whole thing had an air of inversion and unrealism, of something not unlike madness. It called to mind the James Damore ‘Google memo’ incident, detailed here, or Cathy Newman’s bewildering interview with Jordan Peterson. It didn’t feel like a difference in political outlook, so much as one of incompatible psychology. It became quite surreal.

At one point, Mr Singal was the most blocked person on Bluesky*, with mass reporting campaigns and a petition of at least 18,000 Bluesky users demanding that he be banished immediately. Amid endless, openly malicious efforts at defamation and numerous, quite vivid demands that he be killed, with helpful instructions on how to go about that task.

The participants in this weird fever included Harvard-educated professionals, or supposed professionals, and alleged champions of decency and justice. Albeit of a kind who favour gratuitous pronouns in their bios, and who claim that the US is a “totalitarian fascist state.”

And lest we forget, this uproar, this psychotic reaction – what some have dubbed a tightening purity spiral – was not a result of Mr Singal being rude or abusive or racist or indecent, or anything of that sort. But for politely correcting factual errors and suggesting that maybe, just maybe, children shouldn’t be drugged and mutilated such that their lives will be forever ruined.

That’s quite a feat.

Much of the left-leaning tech-related media joined in the farce, of course, with claims that “marginalised communities” – people “who escaped Twitter” – escaped! – “now feel their Bluesky experience is at risk because of Singal’s joining.” As if he, one man, a political liberal who has only ever voted for Democrat candidates, were befouling their paradise, their refuge, “harassing” users with his polite statements of fact.

Taken as a snapshot of progressive psychology, a general mindset – like the ‘Google memo’ saga and the Cathy Newman interview – it was quite… revealing.

*That title, of most blocked, is now held by JD Vance, The official White House account, and the US Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Misstep to remember. || A Trip to the Planets, 1963. || Trial and error. || Cleaving scenes. || Question asked. || Camouflage insufficient. || You must listen without questioning. || Not-so-small small intestines. || Teens. || Yes, it will be on the test. || Bra testing of note. || Briefly airborne. || A binary was detected. || Hungry bear encounters pigs. ||  Spray thoroughly. || Specialised sauce mop. || Not exactly helping his case, I fear. || The progressive retail experience, parts 728 and 729. || Why pigeons don’t rule the Earth. || A project was undertaken. || Do you want to see her nipples? || “Homer Simpson arse shoes.” || The science-fiction cover art of Richard M Powers. (h/t, Things) || Outdoor fun for all the family. || For oldies who miss dials. || And finally, on the ease of using international email, 1986.

To enable extra commenting options – including @username mentions, comment editing, upvotes, custom avatars, and live notifications – scroll down to the black ‘Meta’ box at the very bottom of the page and click register. It’s free and quite painless.

For additional rumblings, follow me on X.

In the comments, Pst314 and Dicentra steer us to new realms of niche woe:

An exchange of views ensues.

In which, Ms Taylor Lorenz, an “online culture journalist,” struggles with causality. Including the seemingly difficult concept that a heavy reliance on delivered takeaway, and the mindset that implies, may have some bearing on how little cash one has left at the end of the month. And so, via some contortion, we arrive at the conceit that preparing a simple meal, even a packed lunch, is a physical impossibility for those deemed downtrodden.

Readers may note that, during the exchange, the more excuses that Ms Lorenz conjures into being, the more she pretends to care, the less she sounds like an actual person so much as a weird programme that’s been left running.

Despite Ms Lorenz’s pretence of cosmopolitan expertise, there’s no sense at any point in the exchange that the topic has actually been thought about, autonomously, poked at from various angles. Her mouthings merely suggest someone who’s memorised some pre-approved excuses for suboptimal behaviour. I don’t believe that any actual thinking has taken place.

Instead, there’s a sense that Ms Lorenz has merely recalled the mouth sounds that will denote some fashionable stance, an approved position, one selected well in advance of any mental activity.

Should any occur.

Update, via the comments:

Chow Bag adds,

When not dining out, that is.

At risk of sounding insufficiently sensitive, I’d suggest that if your life is so disorganised that you use delivered-to-the-door takeaway services for the bulk of your meals, week after week, in ways you cannot afford, then the problem, the actual problem, is your being so disorganised.

Readers will note how Ms Lorenz has to add implausible and contradictory complications to bolster her assertion.

And so, not only are these weirdly incompetent young people all working double shifts, every day, every week, but they’re also elderly and disabled and unable to operate a hob or reach for kitchen utensils. And they’re so pressed for time, so downtrodden, that they can afford to spend half of their food budget on dining out in restaurants.

As one does.

I doubt it’s ever occurred to Ms Lorenz that, by excusing foolish, unaffordable behaviour and the habitual displacement of responsibility, by encouraging the cultivation of victimhood, she’s making poverty more likely, and more likely to persist.

Her supposedly compassionate philosophy, such as it is, seems to be, “Carry on doing that really stupid thing. Just remember to blame other people for your own bewildering choices.”

Ms Lorenz has subsequently restricted who may reply to her assertions.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Via the comments, and the pages of Gay Community News, more attempts to justify the odd and improper:

Ah, a glimmer of realism, one might think. Perhaps the fever is passing.

Or put another, less dramatic way, cross-dressing men will be excluded from ladies’ toilets.

And yet.

You see, not being allowed to violate the intimate boundaries of other people – specifically, women – in order to exult in a deception, a sexual fantasy – is deemed both oppressive and terribly unfair. Indeed, “cruel and demonising.”

We’re then told, in ways both emphatic and unconvincing, that restoring normal proprieties to toilets and changing rooms is “actually dangerous for cis people as well.”

If a law keeping weird, cross-dressing men out of ladies’ toilets and changing rooms doesn’t sound obviously dangerous to women – unlike those aforementioned weird, cross-dressing men – an attempt at persuasion is made. Or at least some crumbs are scraped into a pile:

As you might imagine, the word many is doing some heavy lifting, to a degree one might call deceptive. However, we’re steered towards a handful of examples, spread over a decade, in which actual women were mistaken for cross-dressing men and questioned on their use of female spaces:

A slightly absurd situation, granted. Though readers will note the phrase a man twice her size – and perhaps ponder how that phrase might inform objections to men intruding in women’s intimate spaces. Including rape shelters, where, as we’ve seen, events much like a nightmare can rapidly unfold.

Because it turns out that when forcing brutalised women to share a space with mentally ill men, the result is not, amazingly, one long, girly pillow-fight.

Oh, and we mustn’t forget Mr Morgane Oger, mentioned here, who spends his time campaigning to financially cripple women’s rape shelters, on grounds that said shelters don’t also cater to cross-dressing men, i.e., men much like himself. A preoccupation that possibly tells us quite a bit about the kind of man he is.

The author then performs a bold rhetorical manoeuvre:

Female readers – sorry, “so-called ‘biological women'” – are welcome to say whether they would feel safer in toilets and changing rooms with or without the presence of weird, cross-dressing men who feel entitled to violate normal boundaries. And whether the overlap of cross-dressing and unsavoury phenomena is a thing one might wish to bear in mind.

Unsurprisingly, the piece includes many questions of a somewhat disingenuous nature. Among which,

And,

Regarding the latter, it turns out that human beings are actually quite good at determining the sex of other people, especially of adults, and especially men. With studies suggesting an accuracy very close to 100%, even in restricted conditions – i.e., no visible hair, no make-up, no facial hair, ears hidden, no movement, etc.

The author of the quoted piece, Mr Sophie Molly, aka Sophie Sparkles, aka Euan Weddell, is, you’ll be shocked to hear, one of those weird, cross-dressing men. The ones that women and girls should welcome into their toilets and changing rooms. His activities include boasting of demanding needless bra fittings from lingerie department shop assistants, and sharing photos of himself wearing only a ball gag and improvised nipple-clamps.

So, hey, nothing to worry about, ladies.

At which point, readers may wish to consider some of the factors pointedly not mentioned by Mr Molly. Among which, the fact that the incidents he refers to, in which actual women have been challenged on their use of female spaces, are not only extremely rare, but have only occurred since cross-dressing men – men much like Mr Sophie Molly – have started barging into women’s spaces, heightening sensitivities. Which one might think has some bearing on the case he’s trying to make.

As commenter Ollq puts it,

Indeed.

Should any readers be blissfully unfamiliar with the boastful, territory-marking nature common to such boundary violations, a compendium of intrusions can be found here. Though I should add that the linked video, while strongly recommended, is rather vivid and not for the faint of heart.

Update:

One of Mr Sophie Molly’s favoured slogans is “Trans led journalism that reports the truth behind the lies.” Which is almost funny, in a grim kind of way.

Setting aside Mr Sophie Molly’s implausible omissions, contrived framing and ludicrous hyperbole, we’re left with a claim that a law keeping mentally ill men and cross-dressing perverts out of spaces where women and girls get undressed is “actually dangerous” for women and girls and should therefore be abandoned.

Why, it’s almost as if men who lie continually – whose “identity” is premised on an attempt to deceive – and to coerce – are not entirely trustworthy.

Fancy that.

The results can be… revealing:

You see, caring about your family, your ancestors, your lineage, your children, is “actually absurd,” apparently. And by implication, some kinds of context – where you came from, say – are to be scorned as worthless.

An earlier, related exchange comes to mind:

One more time:

I’m guessing that’s some kind of progressive metaphysics.

Though I doubt mere obliviousness would fully explain this phenomenon. There’s an element of contrivance, of affectation and perversity.

Mr Convente is currently invoking victimhood – because people have read his pronouncements and have either laughed or pointed out why those pronouncements are unconvincing. Mr Convente is also calling Mr Burkett various vulgar terms and is insinuating some nefarious racial motive, despite offering no actual evidence to that effect.

Because if you pause to consider the physical basis of family, even in measured terms, and if you point out the logical idiocy of the “It’s only by chance you were born to said ancestors” school of thought, seemingly favoured by so many progressives, then this can only be explained by some seething racial animus. Apparently.

Mr Convente also declares, with some pride, “I don’t want kids.” Being, as he puts it, “too selfish.”

Our Betters, ladies and gentlemen. See their pieties shine.

Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading, of course.