FtttG
User ID: 1175
FtttG
5hr ago
Well, the fact that you have to resort to such contrived hypotheticals sort of illustrates our point, I think.
Any purpose that does not involve anyone interacting with said penes.
Well, that's just sort of stupid, isn't it? Male people have an insurmountable advantage in strength and speed over female people, and this advantage doesn't disappear even if the male people in question have "medically transitioned". Ergo, any definition of "woman" which includes people with penises will make it impossible for female people to have a fair shot at winning sporting competitions. This is true even though none of the people involved will ever interact with any of the penes involved at any point.
I know they're the same word, but the concept of "sex" has meaning and predictive power beyond the narrow domain of "sexual intercourse" and "sexual gratification".
Sometimes reality has multiple sets of joints, and at which ones we choose to cleave reality can be a function of our goals
True. And I think the goals of the trans activist movement are incoherent, quixotic and disturbing. You'll note that, unlike the various definitions for "woman" proposed by trans activists, both the current definition and the older definition of "fish" were coherent, self-consistent and non-circular. I have a hard time believing that any circular definition can possibly cleave reality at any of its claimed joints.
So you would consider someone with XY chromosomes, who, due to some hormonal-response factor, developed ovaries instead of testicles, to be female?
Does such a person exist in reality, or is this a hypothetical?
The anti-trans faction, believing themselves entitled to know, and act on the knowledge of, the genital/gonadal configurations of strangers
I am so, so fucking sick of trans activists suggesting that gender-critical people are perverts because they want to know what sex people are, by framing this desire in the most maximally uncharitable way. I've said before that the reason they frame the desire this way because they themselves are pornsick fetishists who can't conceive of wanting to know a stranger's sex for any reason other than sexual gratification. And, well, my opinion hasn't changed.
So let me try, once again, to explain why it's perfectly reasonable and understandable (and not in any way indicative of sexual depravity) for people to want to know the sexes of the people in their vicinity.
Female people face a disproportionate risk of rape and sexual assault, and most rapes and sexual assaults of female people are committed by male people. Male people also commit a disproportionate amount of violent acts in general, not just sexual ones. Owing to their smaller size and reduced strength & speed compared to male people, female people are particularly vulnerable to assault, including rape and sexual assault: that is, if a male person attacks a female person, then 9 times out of 10 he will succeed in overpowering her. Ergo, if a female person is walking down a darkened lane alone at night and notices someone walking behind her, it matters to her a great deal whether that person is male or female. If that person is male, the female person instantly knows that he is vastly more likely to assault her than if that person is female; and that if he assaults her, he stands a very good chance of overpowering her compared to if the person is female. Thus, knowing whether a stranger is male or female plays a vital role in a female person carrying out a risk assessment. If she's walking down a darkened lane at night and notices a female person walking behind her, she'll probably keep walking; if she notices a male person walking behind her, she might try to duck into a bar or a restaurant rather than risk being attacked.
"Propensity to commit assault and sexual assault" is predicted by sex, not by the unobservable, unfalsifiable "trait" called gender identity. Trans-identified males who have medically transitioned commit violent crimes (including violent sex crimes) at 18 times the rate of female people, which is functionally indistinguishable from the rate at which non-trans-identified males commit violent crimes. In other words, if a female person is walking down a darkened lane at night and notices a male person walking behind her, the fact that said male person purports to "identify as" a woman doesn't change the risk calculus at all. It's a completely irrelevant statement, like whether or not he likes strawberries or enjoys the films of Jean-Luc Godard.
Likewise, physical strength and speed track sex, not gender identity. A male person does not magically become less strong and fast (less capable of overpowering a female person, should he choose to) simply because he purports to "identify as" a woman.
To a lesser extent, all of the above is true of why male people might want to know the sexes of people in their vicinity. When a male person gets assaulted, it's usually by another male person, and male people (being stronger) pose a vastly higher threat than female people. Thus, if a male person wants to avoid getting seriously assaulted, knowing the sexes of the people in his immediate vicinity is of paramount importance: male people are vastly more likely to commit assault than female people, and vastly more likely to cause serious injury should they choose to. If you're a male person walking through the streets and a drunk female person starts mouthing off at you, unless she has a broken bottle in her hand then she's at worst an annoyance. But if a drunk male person starts mouthing off at you, then you may want to beat a hasty retreat, as there's a very good chance he's capable of killing you with his bare hands should he choose to.
As a final point, this really has nothing to do with "genitals". "Sex" really just refers to the reproductive organs a person was born with, not the reproductive organs they currently have. As previously established, even emasculated males are vastly more prone to committing violent crimes than female people.
avoid anyone asking why they are concerned with other people's anatomy.
Well, I just told you why they're so concerned. I've been moving in gender-critical circles for years, and most of these activists are not the least bit shy about explaining why they want to know the sexes of the people in their vicinity, especially in intimate quarters. You're acting like there's some ulterior motive they're refusing to disclose, but that's just – a lie, I guess?
the biological differences would be as private as any other medical history, HIPAA avant la lettre.
I mean, if this is the state of affairs you want to bring about, I can't stop you. But politics is the art of the possible. While sex is ultimately determined by whether you were born with the organs associated with the production of small or large gametes, contra your dark insinuation, getting a close look at these organs is rarely necessary in order to identify a particular person as male or female, and we have a range of near-instinctive heuristics to do the job for us (height, wingspan, facial features etc.). From as young as 3-6 months old, babies can already distinguish male faces from female, before they even know what genitals are. Like it or not, virtually everyone can accurately "clock" an individual's sex within seconds of meeting them, even if that person has spent a small fortune doing everything in their power to try to pass themselves off as a member of the opposite sex (as freely admitted by innumerable trans people). Certain parts of one's medical history can (and should) remain private: if you've been diagnosed with HIV, if you suffer from diabetes, if you have a prosthetic leg etc.. Other parts of your medical history simply cannot remain private: if you suffer from obesity or require the use of a wheelchair, everyone you pass on the street knows about it, sorry. No prizes for guessing which category "sex" falls into.
It's really tiresome that you're insisting that gender-critical people are disgusting perverts simply for accurately inferring a trait about someone that pre-verbal babies reliably can before they've even achieved object permanence. Or are you suggesting that 6-month-old babies are also creepy sex pests because they can tell male and female people apart?
Goddamn, this whole "every accusation is a confession" concept is really paying down dividends.
I also just want to come back to the first part of your comment I quoted:
The anti-trans faction, believing themselves entitled to know, and act on the knowledge of, the genital/gonadal configurations of strangers
I will reiterate: babies as young as three months old can reliably tell the difference between male and female faces. This is not some subtle difference that gender-critical people have carefully honed their ability to detect, like a sommelier who can estimate the alcohol percentage of a glass of wine by sight. This is a skill learned from such a young age that it might as well be instinctive. Whether people are "entitled" to know (and act on the knowledge of) the sex of people in their vicinity is beside the point: they do know, at an unconscious, pre-verbal level, and they can no more train themselves out of it than they can train themselves not to experience vertigo atop a tall building.
What you essentially seem to be demanding is that people not use a valuable, evolutionary advantageous skill that they learned before they could talk; that they pretend not to notice the accurate information this skill is bestowing upon them; that they consciously refuse to make use of this accurate information in their decision making, even if doing so would be in their own best interests. And why should they do this?
Because it makes a bunch of autogynephiles sad when they don't. Because this group of totalitarian, controlling narcissists cannot tolerate the slightest suggestion that anyone, even a complete stranger, is failing to "validate" them and their "identity" 100% of the time, even unconsciously. You are not only demanding that cisgender people yasslight trans people, but also that they gaslight themselves.
I'm actually sort of astonished that someone could openly promote such a nakedly psychologically abusive worldview without once stopping to ask themselves "are we the baddies?"
FtttG
7hr ago
If your point is that "a bunch of people got shot but only one person was killed" does not reflect how the term "mass shooting" is used in common parlance, then I agree with you. Is that what you're driving at?
FtttG
8hr ago
I mean, I don't think even the TERFiest TERFs really have any objection to 16-year-olds undergoing laser hair removal, even if it's nominally under the auspices of "gender-affirming care".
FtttG
9hr ago
I still don't understand your point. The number of people killed doesn't make a meaningful difference to what does and doesn't count as a mass shooting? If a lot of people aren't killed, in what sense is it a mass shooting?
Compare "mass casualty event".
FtttG
9hr ago
a lot of trans-skeptical people have been pointed to this lawsuit as the first pebble in an avalanche.
To my eyes, far bigger than this case itself was the announcement that came a few days later, when the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended against carrying out gender-affirming procedures on people under the age of 19.
With the exception of hormone therapy which falls under the domain of endocrinology, almost everything we call "gender-affirming care" falls under plastic surgery. When the body in charge of that discipline is recommending against gender-affirming care for minors, that does indeed suggest we've hit an inflection point. And it's not just the US, with the UK and several Scandinavian countries also hitting pause on this prolonged experiment.
Another possible response might be "With what purpose do you inquire?".
I have a hard time envisioning a helpful "purpose" for which the answer to the question "what is a woman?" includes people with penises.
It's been awhile since I read the Sequences, but my recollection is that Big Yud put a lot of stock in the idea of definitions that "cleave reality at the joints". Like Zack Davis, I think he ought to take his own advice: I'm baffled as to how he (or anyone else for that matter) could think that the definition "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" is one that cleaves reality at the joints, as opposed to "a woman is an adult female human".
And what is a 'female'?
An entity born with the organs associated with the production of large gametes.
FtttG
12hr ago
That principle is downstream of a more general left-wing ethos, that it is unjust for people to be limited by the circumstances of their birth
But with rare exceptions, just about every trans person is quick to claim that they didn't choose to be trans, that they knew from a very young age that they were "really" a girl, that it's not their fault they were born a girl trapped inside a boy's body. Taken at face value, this implies that their (our?) gender identity is just as innate as their sex. Why is it unjust to limit someone on the basis of one trait they have no control over (their sex) but not another trait they have no control over (their gender identity)?
Bad analogy. The question "is a hotdog a sandwich?" is a query about whether an edge case falls inside a category. In the sex/gender debate, equivalent questions might include "is an emasculated male with breast implants a woman?" or "is a person with androgen insensitivity syndrome a woman?"
It's also a bad analogy because nothing actually hinges on the question of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. Quite a lot does hinge on the question "what is a woman?"
The third reason it's a bad analogy is because "is a hotdog a sandwich?" is a question which inspires disagreement, but which no one feels the least bit of discomfort about answering, and will be happy to present arguments for or against ("it's a piece of meat surrounded by bread, so it's a sandwich!" "but it's only one piece of bread, while a sandwich has two pieces!"). By contrast, among progressives the stock response to the question "what is a woman?" is a sputtering refusal to answer, usually attempting to dodge it by changing the subject ("I'm not a biologist", "I take care of people with many different identities"). This is not because it's a complicated question, but because progressives know that one answer ("an adult human female") will anger woke people, while the other answer ("anyone who identifies as one") will make them look like a lunatic.
FtttG
14hr ago
Even in the hoplophobic UK
I understand the point you're making, but the adjective "hoplophobic" is weird to me. As tools for intimidation, guns are specifically designed to be scary. You should be scared of guns. If someone is pointing a gun at you, fear is an entirely appropriate emotional response.
FtttG
14hr ago
I think it's profoundly unlikely that Van Rootselaar deliberately targeted people who had bullied him in the past. I suspect the narrative will be something along the lines of "Van Rootselaar faced such a relentless onslaught of transphobic abuse and bigotry that she finally snapped and lashed out", the clear implication being that the shooting is ultimately society's fault.
FtttG
20hr ago
A journalist reporting on a mass murderer probably doesn't owe them the same level of social nicety.
Especially not when they're already dead, along with most of their immediate family who might care about such things.
(Incidentally, this xkcd comic is very relevant to your username.)
FtttG
20hr ago
How are they not?
For one thing, certain bodies (among them Mother Jones) define a "mass shooting" as one in which at least three fatalities are incurred.
First paragraph:
Canadian police have identified the suspect who carried out a school massacre in remote British Columbia as an 18-year old woman with a history of mental health problems.
The article is 1,291 words long, and it's not until the tenth paragraph, 375 words in that we get any indication that the perpetrator was anything other than a "woman" in the traditional (i.e. adult female) sense of the term: "McDonald said police 'identified the suspect as they chose to be identified' in public and in social media". How many people are going to read down that far?
Also surely not a coincidence that they didn't include a photo of the perpetrator (despite doing so for the Brown University shooting and this UK shooting in September 2024), as no one could possibly mistake him for an adult female.
They may not be burying the story, but they're certainly running interference.
FtttG
23hr ago
'memba when 4chan was referring to young black men as "joggers"? Seems like a lifetime ago.
That would be a solution I could get behind, if the last fifteen years hadn't featured a nonstop deluge of handwringing about the dangers of young white men becoming radicalised by far-right/incel content, and how this poses such a grave threat to our society that we need to suspend freedom of expression and browbeat young white men into submission with artfully produced agitprop about how loathsome and contemptible they are (which no less than the prime minister of the UK erroneously referred to as a "documentary" on two separate occasions).
If it's legitimate to speculate on the societal factors that led to Elliot Rodger, Nikolas Cruz etc. to commit their horrific crimes, it's legitimate to speculate on why this guy did so. If young white men are susceptible to radicalisation by social media echo chambers, I see no reason why young white trans-identified men couldn't be also. Being trans should not be a get out of jail free card.
The sort of mildly-spectrumatic social misfits that would historically have been overrepresented as school shooters are now being nudged hard into transitioning
It's funny to think that, if Columbine had happened today, the names that would have lived on in infamy would have been Erica Harris and – well, I suppose Dylan can be a girl's name too.
FtttG
1d ago
Third option: the fact that this person was driven to commit such a horrific crime is testament to how widespread transphobic bigotry is, even in an ostensible progressive utopia like Canada.
I'm sure the TRAs themselves are pushing this one on the backchannel. Trans cannot fail, they can only be failed.
The 1996 buyback as far as I can tell made little difference - firearm deaths were a straight line trending downwards prior to Port Arthur, and continued their descent afterwards, with no visible change. There's just no particularly strong evidence that the policy change did anything.
In the article, I said that the buyback program must be judged a roaring success in the limited sense of reducing mass shooting deaths in Australia, even if it's only a qualified success relative to the equivalent metric in the US. But correlation obviously does not prove causation, and it's entirely possible the steep decline in mass shooting deaths after Port Arthur was just a particularly pronounced regression to the mean and the gun buyback program was coincidental. But even if the scheme did have an effect, its success relative to the US has been vastly overstated. The way progressives (namely John Oliver) talk about the scheme, you would think that mass shootings literally never happen in Australia anymore, as opposed to them occurring 20% less often per capita compared to the US.
The point was for the government to communicate, "We care, and we are taking this seriously."
Agreed, it's just the politician's fallacy.
FtttG
1d ago
Yes, likewise with Bennington and Ransone, with journalists falling over themselves to highlight how both men had been victims of child abuse. I'm sure they meant well (attempting to highlight how abusing a child can traumatise them for literally decades hence), but the clear subtext was that their suicides were logical decisions in light of their experiences.
FtttG
1d ago
as is the case for celebrity suicides
I feel like that long standing journalistic practice is being more and more flagrantly ignored these days. To give one recent example, multiple outlets in different nations had zero qualms about specifying that James Ransone (Ziggy from The Wire) died by his own hand. Going a few years back, Chester Bennington from Linkin Park, Chris Cornell from Soundgarden. I really don't think there was any pretense of discretion.
I was more surprised than anyone else to find that, per capita, Australia reports 80% of the deaths from mass shootings as does the US. And that's after multiple gun buyback schemes which supposedly prevented mass shootings altogether.
"The only country", indeed.
Yes. We didn't agree that "it isn't right" for people to know the sexes of people in their vicinity.
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