Via Mr Muldoon, a guide to finding ‘Pride’ in the taxidermy collection of Manchester Museum:

Have you found everything on our Pride Trail yet? 🏳️‍🌈

To Celebrate Manchester Pride we’re shining a spotlight on stories in our museum that speak to today’s LGBTQ+ community.

Here’s Nick with more about why there are so many more males than females in our taxidermy collection. pic.twitter.com/ovcDGbKwUU

— Manchester Museum (@McrMuseum) August 21, 2024

Whether taxidermied birds will in fact, as claimed, “speak to today’s LGBTQ+ community,” and prompt some radical and liberating mental uplift, remains something of a mystery. Still, at least we’ve been made aware of Nick’s fabulist pronouns, and her – sorry, them’s – badge collection. Manchester Museum is, sadly and perhaps inevitably, blocking enquiries and replies from those not pre-approved:

Apparently, the initial comments from the public, including museum visitors, were not the unanimous affirmation that was expected. An expectation that in itself is somewhat revealing. It does rather suggest a mindset, a bubble. And hence the rush to clamp down on unauthorised opinions.

Among which, the opinion that bemoaning the evils of “cis, straight, white men” may require a more solid pretext than the fact that Victorian collectors and taxidermists used for display the most eye-catching specimens they could find.

Similarly, any suggestion that the positioning of some stuffed male birds slightly higher than the females – so that their sexes might more readily be grasped by visitors – is hardly a basis for indignation, or indeed woke job creation.

And remember,

A stable structure for raising offspring. How terribly unfashionable.

Readers will doubtless recall the likeminded “queering” of Portsmouth’s Mary Rose Museum, home of all things Tudor, where visitors were informed, with some satisfaction, that, “Many objects can be viewed through a Queer lens and can indirectly tell LGBTQ+ stories.”

The word indirectly was, it turned out, doing some heavy lifting. And so, those curious about the favourite warship of Henry VIII were shown a mirror salvaged from the wreck, and were told how mirrors in general can induce psychological crises in the sexually dysmorphic. Because, obviously, when you’ve travelled across the country to learn about Tudor England, the first thing you want to know is that reflective surfaces can upset men who pretend to be women.

A display of sailors’ nit combs was likewise accompanied by a reminder that, “for many Queer people today, how we wear our hair is a central pillar of our identity.”

Yes, I know. Breath-taking stuff. The bleeding edge. Those with a taste for cack-handed incongruity will find much to marvel at.

Natasha Biase brings niche pornography news:

In what might just be the most insane story of the year – Two female OnlyFans models have gone viral after pretending to be transgender to sell porn content.

Trans activists are now accusing the women of “appropriation” for identifying as men who identify as women. / @natbiase pic.twitter.com/z3aqbszcZ7

— ThePublica (@ThePublicaNow) September 1, 2024

So, to summarise:

Opportunist female porn models who pretended to be men pretending to be women, to thereby rake in lots of cash, have annoyed actual men who pretend to be women, including men who pretend to be women while making pornography.

See, I bring you the wonders of the world.

The ladies’ act of presenting themselves as the opposite sex, albeit with extra steps, was not, it seems, deemed affirming by those who like to present themselves as the opposite sex. “My gender isn’t your costume,” said this chap here, a self-styled “eGirl, but like, with a penis or whatever.” Other indignant rumblings included accusations of deception and fraud, the inevitable “transphobia,” and demands that the ladies in question “don’t get in our space.”

Another bewigged gentleman denounced the “masquerade” as “disgusting.”

Update, via the comments:

Needless to say, in the replies to our “eGirl, but like, with a penis or whatever,” mischief is underway:

And my current favourite:

And so on, and so forth. Truly, we live in an age of wonders.

Wax and other objects. || Bodes well. || The science of bunnetics. || A little buffing should do it. || She doesn’t give two shits. || She didn’t like the look of it. || It’s not cold, Mom. || Comets, catastrophes, and the oldest solar calendar. || Neater than yours. || On animating Akira. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || Upper West-side mansion, now only $10 million. || Pride, baby. || On piercings, tattoos and mental health. || Cold plasma. || This doesn’t happen in Waitrose. || Explanation underway. || Your toilet paper is shrinking. || The progressive retail experience, parts 575, 576, and 577. || “That’s alright, it happens all the time.” || Spa day takes a turn. || Suboptimal situation. || I’ll just leave this here. || The thrill of phone mites. || And finally, something to think about before you go to sleep tonight.

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Via pst314 in the comments, some intersectional complication:

The company’s founder, Brandon Anderson, is alleged to have embezzled a quarter of a million dollars to fund a “lavish” lifestyle, including an extensive designer wardrobe, international travel and glamorous holidays, and the renting of several mansions. Evidence of which was proudly uploaded to Facebook.

Bling, as I believe they say.

Masculine-presenting black people. Which perhaps tells us something about the company’s employees and the mental landscape they inhabit.

No laughing at the back.

The company in question, Raheem AI, is a chatbot app launched in 2017 with a stated mission to abolish the police and to replace them with “community-based crisis teams” and “liberated dispatchers” – namely, anti-police activists and likeminded social workers – who would respond to emergencies armed with bottles of water and lots of “social justice.”

I know. You’re tempted to invest.

And should this particular cake require icing, Mr Anderson was named “one of 100 Black LGBTQ Leaders to Watch” by the National Black Justice Coalition.

Leaders to watch, indeed.

If the trajectory above sounds a little familiar, readers may be thinking of this saga here, in which Ms Xahra Saleem, co-founder of the activist group All Black Lives Bristol, and an applauded statue-toppler, decolonised a charity’s bank account to the tune of £30,000. A sum subsequently put to use enabling Ms Saleem’s appetite for cosmetics, hairstyling, and takeaways.

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

And in woke dining news:

Setting aside the small matter of, er, assault and strangulation, readers may wish to ponder the notion, advanced by Mr Rivera and his numerous supporters, that white people, especially white people with blonde hair, shouldn’t be allowed to serve Japanese food.

At which point, I suppose I should mention this:

A shocking twist, I know. I do hope you were sitting down.

When not harassing people for having the wrong colour skin, and when not strangling women, Mr Rivera spends quite a lot of time blocking those who dare to quote his own social media statements.