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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30410 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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In a "what the fuck even is this timeline" update: Anderson lee Aldrich, the Q Club shooter, is apparently non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, and already had an Encyclopedia Dramatica article detailing his career as a 15 year old "professional hacker", calling him a pedophile, and describing his absent father as an MMA fighter and porn star.

I'm feeling very vindicated in my impulse to hold off conclusions... but I would think that, given my biases, wouldn't it? The real test would be a tragedy that looks at first glance to fit my biases perfectly and allows me to cathartically Boo Outgroup. I suspect that differences in media ecosystems have that less likely... but I would think that too, wouldn't I?

Plus obvious, audacious narrative updates in real time.

And our first echo shooting, as usually happens in the immediate wake of a highly publicized mass shooting. No apparent political/CW element, disgruntled employee.

There's a lot of people going "look at all these people proven wrong by not holding off conclusions" who aren't... holding off conclusions, such as the conclusion that this non-binary identification shuts out the possibility that the shooter might be anti-gay far-righter. One might quickly imagine why such a shooter might announce they-them profiles to be written in official documents: to own the libs. ("Lol! They have to call me by this shit now!") Of course, I don't know if that's the case - that's what holding off conclusions indicates.

TBH I suspect there's even a simpler solution: his lawyers told him to do it in an effort to avoid hate-crime charges.

Lawyers don’t generally advise their clients to lie.

The phrase "If you were to identify as non-binary, you'd be less likely to get hate-crime charges." is not legal advice. It's a statement about the legal system that is likely true (and might be useful for an accused person to know).

What someone else takes from that is not necessarily the lawyer's business.

"A statement that would be useful to know" is advice. And it's coming from a lawyer, so legal.

Advice is specific direction on how to proceed. That statement does not qualify.

I'm not sure it could be considered a lie, even in principle. If you inform the court that you'd like to use nonbinary pronouns, then you are literally and factually identifying as nonbinary.

In principle it could be a lie if he is snickering to himself and his stream of consciousness contains the symbols "owning the libs."

A truthful self identification wouldn't look like that at all

That's how they identify themself to the court, which the court can verify because that is how they identified themself to them. Is the idea that they have a different "true" pronoun identity? In the absence of a brain-scanning machine that can determine one's "true" pronouns, I don't know how that could be demonstrated. Is the idea that they identify differently to their friends and family? Well, there's no rule that you have to identify with the same pronouns to everyone.

I dunno, I think a lawyer would not be doing anything wrong to basically cue up the decision. "With what pronouns would you like to identify yourself to the court? We could use he/him, she/her or they/them. It's your choice how to identify, although the prosecutors will likely have a slightly more difficult time establishing the elements of a hate crime charge if you use she/her or they/them. Let me know what you decide." I don't think there's a lie there, no matter how you squint.

I don't think the way you identify to court can be a lie in principle, so on that we agree.

But, I think Lauren Southern was lying here. She was kind of laughing at all this as a joke. I suppose, similar to the courts, you can say she identified to the government as a man, and you can't lie about that in principle.

What the left gets right is that a right-wing troll could lie about their identity. (Like Lauren was doing). The gunman could be, or could not be. You would get a good feel for if he is lying or not based on hearsay of private conversations he's had with friends. Or you could try guessing if you knew what his reddit posts looked like or whatever.

What the left gets right is that a right-wing troll could lie about their identity. (Like Lauren was doing). The gunman could be, or could not be.

Yeah that's true. It still opens a can of worms for the trans movement, though. Once you can construe falseness in someone's purported gender identity by ascribing an ulterior motive and looking to ulterior behavior, each being inconsistent with someone who is "actually" a woman or whatever, then you kind of open the door to (e.g.) discrediting a trans woman as pursuing an ulterior motive of indulging a sexual fetish (autogynephilia), if you can in principle substantiate it by looking to ulterior behavior (does his browser history contain some type of porn that suggests he is getting off on pretending to be a woman).

This of course raises the question, what if it's all a troll job? The entire non-binary thing, or even the entirety of Queer Theory. Given it's internal contradictions it would hardly be surprising. Maybe it's all a giant joke that got out of hand. It could be, or could not be.

Seems like it should be hard enough to prove that it's false, but maybe I'm wrong.

is that even a legally sound defense strategy? seems more like something he came up with himself

No idea; it could be the reverse.

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