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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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The ones that, if you don't know her very well, and aren't being hired for purposes involving her body, are any of your business.

What? I literally don't understand what this means.

"Bob is a woman for most purposes."

"Well, here is a list of the most pertinent ways in which women differ from men, or in which society treats female people differently from male, none of which are applicable to Bob. How, then, is Bob a woman?"

"None of your business."

Legitimately – what the fuck does that even mean? You're saying I have to treat Bob like a woman because he demands it, but if I express the slightest curiosity about how, exactly, Bob is a woman, you accuse me of invading Bob's privacy? I'm just supposed to take it on faith that Bob is a woman "for most purposes" (none of which he cares to enumerate) and should be treated accordingly? Wow, I can't imagine how this policy could be (has been) exploited by bad actors.

An individual is responsible for what they, personally have done; they are not responsible for what they are capable of doing but haven't done, or what people who share characteristics with them have done.

With respect: bullshit. Not only does this not describe how anybody lives their life, not only does it not describe how anyone should live their life – it doesn't even describe how you, personally, live your life. You literally aren't following the moral principle you demand everyone else follow.

When you are walking down the street late at night, and you pass a drunk person acting aggressively, I'm going to hazard a guess that the size of the berth you give them depends heavily on whether they're male or female. You do this not on the basis of what they, personally, have done (you don't know if they have a criminal record, they're a complete stranger to you). You do this on the basis of: if they're a male person who gets in your face and tries to hit you, if they succeed, they will do a lot more damage than if they're a female person.

Another example. If you're not the parent of a small child, imagine that you are. You need to leave your child alone for an evening, your child is too young to be left alone, and none of your friends or family are available to look after the child. You put up an ad saying you're looking for a babysitter, and receive two applications: a fifteen-year-old female, and a fifteen-year-old male. (If you like, the fifteen-year-old male can claim to "identify as" a girl, but still has fully intact and function male genitalia.) You aren't allowed to learn anything else about the applicants other than their age and sex. Who do you hire?

Am I wrong about any of the above? If not, I'm dying to hear your explanation for how you aren't a complete and utter hypocrite.

this is dependent on the axiom that the well-being of individuals is the measurement of ethics

My worldview is also dependent on that axiom, and a related axiom that not all harms are created equal. In order to prevent harm coming to their children, it makes sense for parents to hire babysitters who are not members of the demographic responsible for the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults of children (not to mention penetrative rapes, given that this demographic is the only demographic capable of penetratively raping others with anatomy alone). I do not dispute the fact that it's upsetting for the sexually well-behaved members of this demographic to be denied employment opportunities on the basis of traits they have no control over (although most of them are mature and empathetic enough* that they can eventually learn to understand why parents are more willing to leave their child alone with a female stranger than a male, without throwing a tantrum about being the victims of sexist discrimination): I just think that the amount of mental distress caused is infinitesimal compared to the amount of mental distress caused by a child being sexually assaulted or penetratively raped by an adult male. It's a trade-off I am perfectly willing to make (along with virtually every other reasonable adult), basic utilitarianism. I think it's frankly disgusting that you're invoking the historical example of marital rape when the policy you're advocating is a rapist's credo. If parents legally could not take "candidate's sex" into account when hiring a babysitter, can you envision any scenario in which this wouldn't result in tens of thousands of additional child rape victims every year? If so, how?

But you don't dispute that: you just think a man's right not to feel sad supersedes a child's right not to be physically violated by his or her guardian.

You still, still, still have not answered my question on whether "gender identity" is innate or not. Gosh, I wonder why.

*A category which includes me but, apparently, not you.

When you are walking down the street late at night, and you pass a drunk person acting aggressively, I'm going to hazard a guess that the size of the berth you give them depends heavily on whether they're male or female. You do this not on the basis of what they, personally, have done (you don't know if they have a criminal record, they're a complete stranger to you). You do this on the basis of: if they're a male person who gets in your face and tries to hit you, if they succeed, they will do a lot more damage than if they're a female person.

Another example. If you're not the parent of a small child, imagine that you are. You need to leave your child alone for an evening, your child is too young to be left alone, and none of your friends or family are available to look after the child. You put up an ad saying you're looking for a babysitter, and receive two applications: a fifteen-year-old female, and a fifteen-year-old male. (If you like, the fifteen-year-old male can claim to "identify as" a girl, but still has fully intact and function male genitalia.) You aren't allowed to learn anything else about the applicants other than their age and sex. Who do you hire?

Am I wrong about any of the above?

Yes, you are wrong about both of the above.

WRT the baby-sitter, I flip a coin, and take the same protective measures for 15F as I would for 15M, 15tF, 15tM, or 15X.

only demographic capable of penetratively raping others with anatomy alone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger

although most of them are mature and empathetic enough* that they can eventually learn to understand why parents are more willing to leave their child alone with a female stranger than a male

Agreeing with you is not a sine qua non of maturity.

without throwing a tantrum

Disagreeing with you does not necessarily constitute a 'tantrum'.

I just think that the amount of mental distress caused is infinitesimal compared to the amount of mental distress caused by a child being sexually assaulted or penetratively raped by an adult male. It's a trade-off I am perfectly willing to make

But if you consider second-/third-/umpteenth-order effects, people being treated as suspicious by default on the basis of natal anatomy and its physical sequelae creates a precedent, which will be seized upon by the 13/50 crowd to support similar suspicion-by-default on the basis of skin colour.

This will lead to escalating tensions in society, until it boils over. If we're lucky, we get a rerun of 1968 or 2020; if the dice come up snake-eyes, society collapses and we end up less able to prosecute rapes by strangers, and much less able to prosecute rapes within families.

you're invoking the historical example of marital rape

To make the point that, even if your sole goal is to minimise the rape of people-born-with-female-genitals, your strategy might be less than optimal.

the policy you're advocating is a rapist's credo

Less of this, please.

If parents legally could not take "candidate's sex" into account when hiring a babysitter, [emphasis added]

Legally, I do not support non-discrimination law intruding into that particular case; I do not think you should end up in the dock on suspicion of favouring a woman over a man, a white woman over a black woman, or any other such distinction, in hiring, in your personal capacity, an individual for services in your personal residence, even if I disagree with your reasoning.

can you envision any scenario in which this wouldn't result in tens of thousands of additional child rape victims every year? If so, how?

Teach children that certain parts of their bodies are private, that they have the right to not have them touched is a way that feels wrong, that this right supersedes parental or parentally-delegated authority; or at least don't ban books that teach this.

If their baby-sitter makes them feel uncomfortable in some un-nameable manner, listen to them and possibly find another baby-sitter rather than telling them to shut up and not be 'disrespectful'.

You still, still, still have not answered my question on whether "gender identity" is innate or not.

I believe it most likely is, per the reported experiences of transgender individuals; as I do not personally identify with gender any more than any other aspect of the meat-puppet I inhabit, I do not have the ability to say for certain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger

In the UK among other jurisdictions, rape is defined as forcible penetration with a penis. No one has ever been impregnated via digital penetration alone. I imagine the number of people who have contracted STDs via digital penetration is vanishingly small.

WRT the baby-sitter, I flip a coin

Do you have young children? If so, have you really just multiplied their risk of being sexually assaulted by 9x purely to prove how progressive you are?

I believe it most likely is

You claim that a basic principle of leftist thought is that it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of traits one has no control over. But by your own admission, you are demanding we stop discriminating on the basis of one trait we have no control over (sex) in favour of another (gender identity).

Disagreeing with you does not necessarily constitute a 'tantrum'.

I wasn't accusing you of throwing a tantrum, but you claim that some males feel "humiliated" by people correctly inferring that they are male and hence members of the demographic responsible for disproportionate amounts of assault and rape, and that they might lash out in consequence. "Tantrum" seems like an accurate description of the foregoing.

Less of this, please.

No. It literally is a rapist's credo. Even if it wasn't consciously designed with the intention of making it easier for rapists to commit and get away with their crimes, that's it's practical effect. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice and all that.

If their baby-sitter makes them feel uncomfortable in some un-nameable manner, listen to them

In other words, "if the babysitter has sexually interfered with them, don't hire the babysitter again" as opposed to "avoid hiring a babysitter who is a member of the demographic most likely to sexually interfere with them in the first place". Being progressive and not discriminating against male people is so important to you that you are completely fine with a male person sexually interfering with your child as many times as is necessary for your child to come to you and tell you that the babysitter has touched them inappropriately – as opposed to just taking the commonsense approach of not hiring a male babysitter in the first place.

This will lead to escalating tensions in society, until it boils over. If we're lucky, we get a rerun of 1968 or 2020

I truthfully don't get what the threat is here. Unless we stop acknowledging that male people are male (and allow rapists and sex pests free reign to rape and sexually assault to their heart's content), then the gamers incels autogynephiles will rise up and wreak havoc on our society?

As I've previously stated, the overwhelming majority of male people have no problem with people acknowledging that they are male and treating them accordingly. The only demographic who seems to have a problem with this is "trans women", who (as they are quick to remind us) are a tiny minority, perhaps as little as 0.5% of the population if we're being generous. They do not exist in sufficient numbers to pose a credible threat to the functioning of Western society. "Don't negotiate with terrorists" is sensible advice virtually all the time: all the more so when the terrorists in question are a tiny minority of extremely thin-skinned who can be reduced to floods of tears simply by catching a glimpse of their own reflection in a mirror or having a stranger address them as "sir".

In the UK among other jurisdictions, rape is defined as forcible penetration with a penis.

And it used to be defined as to not apply within marriage; we changed that, and we can change the other.

No one has ever been impregnated via digital penetration alone. I imagine the number of people who have contracted STDs via digital penetration is vanishingly small.

If Alan rapes Barb with his penis, and he wears a condom, Barb is unlikely to be impregnated or contract a social disease; he is nevertheless prosecuted no less vigorously.

Do you have young children? If so, have you really just multiplied their risk of being sexually assaulted by 9x purely to prove how progressive you are?

No, I take measures to protect them even from a cis-woman.

"if the babysitter has sexually interfered with them, don't hire the babysitter again"

I was more referring to the prodromal phase; what would have been referred to twenty years ago as 'grooming'; don't hire that baby-sitter again if he/she/they start laying the groundwork for the worst offences.

you are demanding we stop discriminating on the basis of one trait we have no control over (sex) in favour of another (gender identity).

No, I am also opposed to discrimination on that basis.

you claim that some males feel "humiliated" by people correctly inferring that they are male, and that they might lash out in consequence.

I truthfully don't get what the threat is here.

I am attempting to illustrate possible nth-order effects.

Society treats people-born-with-male-anatomy as suspicious-by-default --> a precedent is set that people may rightly be judged by the behavior of their demographic rather than innocent-until-proven-guilty --> the 13/52 crowd ignores your distinctions and uses that precedent to treat Black people as suspicious-by-default --> years and decades of being followed in stores/avoided on the street/not picked up by taxicabs/&c. build up until Black people (and their white allies) decide that they have Had Enough, as we saw in 1968 and 2020. If it doesn't boil over, it can still lead to Bad Things done to Black people, such as Emmitt Till; the same can be said of judging individual Jews, such as Anne Frank, by the alleged acts of the Jewish people as a whole.

After the revelation of the horrors of the Third Reich, combined with the cruelties in the Unitedstatesian South, progressives, and in subsequent generations moderates, came to the conclusion that judging individuals by their race/ethnicity is dangerous, and ought to be treated as radioactive. (I don't mean realistic radioactivity, e. g. a glove 1% more radioactive than the 80%-lower-than-global-average local background, or spent fuel pellets that, had they powered Kublai Khan's stately pleasure dome, would have cooled off to the point where one could pick them up bare-handed and, as long as one doesn't eat them, be none the worse for wear. I'm referring to the Hollywood/Simpsons image of three-quarters rusted yellow barrels full of glowing Avada-Kedavra-green sludge that, had they existed in the hoary days when first were laid the foundation-stones of the Great Sphinx, would still cause cancer and monstrous birth defects at 100 metres.)

Subsequently, the same logic was extended to sex/gender, which, even if one does not believe it obligatory per se, nevertheless functions in a manner akin to the Jewish practise of gader saviv HaTorah, a fence around the Law.

"avoid hiring a babysitter who is a member of the demographic most likely to sexually interfere with them in the first place". Being progressive and not discriminating against male people is so important to you that you are completely fine with a male person sexually interfering with your child as many times as is necessary for your child to come to you and tell you that the babysitter has touched them inappropriately – as opposed to just taking the commonsense approach of not hiring a male babysitter in the first place.

My argument is isomorphic to the late Charlie Kirk's 2023 remarks on gun control.

  • In both cases, there is a horrifying-to-contemplate problem threatening the most vulnerable members of our society (rape/mass shootings of the sort of which Columbine is the type specimen).

  • In both cases, a seemingly simple solution is proposed (treat half the population as guilty until proven innocent/abolish private ownership of firearms).

  • In both cases, many innocent people are held responsible for the actions of a few.

  • In both cases, proponents of the suggested policy frame the drawbacks as meaningless, and their opponents' objections as petulant whinging and/or evidence that they deserve to be so held responsible.

  • In both cases, the proposed policy is criticised for potential nth-order failure states (less credibility in opposing the more fanatical thirteen-fiftiers leading to either a racist dystopia or mass civil unrest/Iran in 2026)

  • In both cases, the argument is made that the proposed policy is both:

  1. a cure worse than the disease, and

  2. not necessary as there are better solutions (Mr Kirk's proposal to have armed guards at schools/teach children that certain parts of their body are private and if the baby-sitter shows too much interest in those parts they should tell an adult whom they trust; listen to them if they do so. [Note that if my young child thought as you do and did not wish to be left with an assigned-male-at-birth baby-sitter, I would not attempt to force the issue; this will also show that he/she/they can trust me if the assigned-female-at-birth baby-sitter behaves inappropriately with her fingers/an object, or brings in another person, assigned-male-at-birth or otherwise, who does so.])

you are demanding we stop discriminating on the basis of one trait we have no control over (sex) in favour of another (gender identity).

No, I am also opposed to discrimination on that basis.

Earlier you said:

To the best of my understanding, the pro-trans faction proposed to divide sex from gender, such that all social distinctions would fall under the latter category

What exactly is the difference between "discrimination" and "social distinction"?

I can't help but notice how parochial your dire warning is. If I'm reading you correctly, it's something like this. If we acknowledge people's sex and use that information to make predictions about how they will behave, this sets a precedent that it's legitimate to discriminate on the basis of people's inherent traits which they cannot control. People will hence begin discriminating on the basis of race more openly than they already do. Eventually, well-behaved blacks who are being discriminated against on the basis of something they cannot control will get so fed up with this that they will start rioting.

(Darkly reminiscent of the old joke about critics of Islam, but that's neither here nor there.)

I note that this dire warning is only applicable in societies which contain a critical mass of black men. In Ireland, they represent about 0.65% of the population. So do I have your blessing to carry on assuming that male people are more likely to be violent and aggressive than female people, and taking proactive steps to avoid being a victim of male violence on that basis?

Subsequently, the same logic was extended to sex/gender

Was it, though? Are you implying that I'm some kind of weird outlier because I think it's legitimate to preferentially hire a female babysitter over a male? I actually think I'm the normal one in this regard: you're the first person I've encountered who (claims he) would choose whether to hire a male or female babysitter by flipping a coin. It's trans activists demanding that we abolish sex segregation and the rest of society pushing back. Contrary to your implication that "anti-trans activists" are the weirdo minority, I think the overwhelming majority of people are actually in favour of sex segregation in certain key areas (e.g. sports, changing rooms, women's prisons, hospital wards). So if you're claiming that we as a society collectively agreed that discrimination on the basis of race was wrong and by extension that discrimination on the basis of sex was wrong (in the sense of "acknowledging that male people are responsible for a disproportionate amount of sex crimes"), then I think the latter half of that claim is simply ahistorical. I think it is exactly as difficult for a would-be male babysitter to get a job now as it would be seventy years ago.

If Alan rapes Barb with his penis, and he wears a condom, Barb is unlikely to be impregnated or contract a social disease; he is nevertheless prosecuted no less vigorously.

I'm not suggesting that rape which does not lead to impregnation or STI transmission is more criminal than that which does not. I'm saying that these are the two main reasons that rape (in the "forcible penetration with a penis, without protection" sense) is seen as especially heinous compared to other kinds of sexual assault.

What exactly is the difference between "discrimination" and "social distinction"?

One is imposed on people to deny them opportunities, the other emerges from what people choose and is not mandatory.

I can't help but notice how parochial your dire warning is. [...] I note that this dire warning is only applicable in societies which contain a critical mass of black men. In Ireland, they represent about 0.65% of the population.

Then, for 'Black' substitute whatever subaltern group is closest to hand. (There were times when Irish people fell, or were shoved by Englishmen, into this category.)

Darkly reminiscent of the old joke about critics of Islam, but that's neither here nor there.

It is 'neither here nor there' because the demands in question differ in one crucial aspect; the Muslim extremists are demanding superiority, that you follow the rules of their religion, under threat of violence, while they are not similarly obligated to follow the rules of yours; racial/ethnic minorities are seeking equality, and a redress of the far more legitimate grievance that no person ought to spend their entire life on probation because of the circumstances of their birth. The same applies to the notion of expecting half of humanity to accept being treated as sex-offenders-in-waiting.

Are you implying that I'm some kind of weird outlier because I think it's legitimate to preferentially hire a female babysitter over a male? I actually think I'm the normal one in this regard....

No, it is entirely possible that you might be the normal one and I might be the weird outlier; however, sometimes the weird outliers are right and the normal ones are wrong.

would choose whether to hire a male or female babysitter by flipping a coin.

...in the thought experiment you gave. "You aren't allowed to learn anything else about the applicants other than their age and sex." In actual reality-based reality, I would be allowed to learn other things about the applicants, interview them, ask for references, &c. Furthermore, my child might very well have opinions of their own; these could also be a factor.

I think the overwhelming majority of people are actually in favour of sex segregation in certain key areas

One, the phrase 'certain key areas' miiiight be doing a lot of the work there. (see below)

Two, there is no shortage of historical examples of times when the overwhelming majority of people were in favour of something which wasn't right. How many stood against the Laundries?

then I think the latter half of that claim is simply ahistorical.

I do not claim that the conclusions were universally adopted so much as that they have been put forth and I find them credible.

Unfortunately these past eleven years, many people have been crawling out of the woodwork who don't acknowledge that racial discrimination is wrong. As their policy proposals carry with them an alarming possibility of some very ugly outcomes, I can only conclude that, if we set precedents which have the potential to be used in an attempt to justify said actions, we are playing with fire, and risk being very badly burned.

sports, changing rooms, women's prisons, hospital wards

My proposals:

  • Each sport decides for itself (trans-activists and TERVes can direct their advocacy to the sporting bodies and hopefully turn down the temperature knowing that the other side gaining the upper hand won't be for all the marbles), defaulting to a definition based on hormone levels.

  • If you must have changing rooms divided by sex, use the 'currently possessed anatomy' or 'hormone levels' definition, the former of which would shield people from having to be exposed to the other genitals; also have a sufficient quantity and quality of one-person gender-neutral changing rooms that they are regularly used by both cis-men and cis-women.

  • Designate one facility specifically for trans-women; if you cannot protect a trans-man among cis-men, designate one for trans-men.

  • I was unaware that there were sex-specific hospital wards, other than for sex-specific conditions; there will still be male and female doctors even in a single-sex ward, and the patients are unlikely to be in a condition to cause much if any harm.

One is imposed on people to deny them opportunities, the other emerges from what people choose and is not mandatory.

What is the difference? You just answered a question with a question (or rather, with a Russell conjugation). What is the difference between "discriminating" against people based on an inherent trait they have no control over, and drawing a "social distinction" between people based on an inherent trait they have no control over? I choose to give drunken male people a wider berth than drunken female people. No one forced me to do this, so it's not mandatory. Couldn't you therefore say that I'm not discriminating against male people, I'm just drawing a social distinction between male and female people?

the Muslim extremists are demanding superiority, that you follow the rules of their religion, under threat of violence

That seems to be exactly what you're threatening, even if you're doing it on behalf of another group of which you are not a member.

...in the thought experiment you gave. "You aren't allowed to learn anything else about the applicants other than their age and sex." In actual reality-based reality, I would be allowed to learn other things about the applicants, interview them, ask for references, &c.

Oh, so you mean that in reality you would come up with some pretext to preferentially hire a female babysitter over a male, but insist that it's just because the girl is more "experienced" than the boy and their sex has nothing to do with it. Just like a suspiciously large number of white anti-racists just so happen to live in gated communities which are 90%+ white. Try not to twist your arm from patting yourself so hard on the back.

Furthermore, my child might very well have opinions of their own; these could also be a factor.

Of course your child would: nine times out of ten, your child would feel safer being left alone with a female babysitter than a male, because "discrimination on the basis of sex" is instinctive, not learned. "I think it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of sex – but the female babysitter was more qualified than the male, and my kid liked the female babysitter better, so I hired the female babysitter. Complete coincidence that I ended up making exactly the same decision as every other parent who would never leave their child alone with a male teenager, I swear to God."

defaulting to a definition based on hormone levels.

An extremely noisy and unreliable metric, given that male puberty imparts permanent changes to bone density and lung capacity.

If you must have changing rooms divided by sex, use the 'currently possessed anatomy' or 'hormone levels' definition, the former of which would shield people from having to be exposed to the other genitals

Trans activists sometimes accuse TERFs of being perverts who want to subject everyone to mandatory genital inspections before they're allowed to get changed. Interesting to see the shoe on the other foot. Note that such a rule would prevent ~95% of trans-identified males from using female changing facilities: advocating for it might get you tarred as a TERF by your erstwhile fellow-travellers.

Designate one facility specifically for trans-women

You realise what will happen, don't you? All of the male inmates who suddenly "realised" they had a female gender identity immediately after being convicted will be transferred to this shiny, comfortable facility. For a few months, all will be well in this facility. But eventually the number of "trans women" being transferred to this facility will reach the point at which the population density in this facility is the same as any other male prison, with all the opportunistic violence and rape that that implies, and "trans women" will be no safer in this facility than they would be in an ordinary men's facility. Actually, if you look at the prison population as a whole, the proportion of prisoners who've been convicted of at least one sex crime* includes a disproportionate number of trans women, and trans women are nearly three times more likely to have at least one sex crime conviction than ordinary men are: hence, it's entirely possible that trans women would be more at risk in the dedicated trans women facility than they would be in an ordinary men's facility. Meanwhile, the overrepresentation of sex offenders in the dedicated trans women facility would mean that, in the popular imagination, people would quite reasonably think of the trans women's prison as being "the prison where all the nonces are". As an advocate for trans rights, is this really the kind of connection you want to impart to the general public?

Perhaps you'll say that admission to the dedicated trans women facility would be made conditional on some kind of gatekeeping. Now would be an excellent opportunity to suggest what that might look like.

if you cannot protect a trans-man among cis-men, designate one for trans-men.

No need: convicted trans men are staying put in the women's prison because they know they're safer there. Per this article, of requests for trans people to be transferred to the opposite-sex facility, 96% came from male inmates. There are even examples in this article of trans men being incarcerated in the male facility, realising they weren't safe there (presumably shortly after learning that the sun rises in the morning and that water is wet) and requesting to be transferred to the women's prison. So much for their "male identity".

there will still be male and female doctors even in a single-sex ward

Yes, but doctors are gatekept and subject to safeguarding requirements. The only requirement for a patient to be admitted to a hospital is that they be sick. Hospitals cannot simply turn patients away because they are violent or prone to sexually assaulting other patients. There is simply no way that admitting male patients to women's wards does not greatly increase the rate of sexual assaults therein.

and the patients are unlikely to be in a condition to cause much if any harm.

Incorrect.


*Before you ask: no, that does not include prostitution.

What is the difference between "discriminating" against people based on an inherent trait they have no control over, and drawing a "social distinction" between people based on an inherent trait they have no control over? I choose to give drunken male people a wider berth than drunken female people. No one forced me to do this, so it's not mandatory. Couldn't you therefore say that I'm not discriminating against male people, I'm just drawing a social distinction between male and female people?

I was referring more to the choices made by the people between whom the distinction is drawn, and whether they have the ability to opt out of it if they personally choose to. It is the distinction between an Englishman choosing to attend a Protestant church and an Irishman choosing to attend a Catholic church, either being able to diverge from this if he so chooses, versus a charity giving food unquestioningly to a hungry Englishman while giving a hungry Irishman the third degree over whether he might fall short of perfect virtue in some way which would allow the charity matron to leave him to starve while thinking her own hands clean.

That seems to be exactly what you're threatening, even if you're doing it on behalf of another group of which you are not a member.

No, I am merely observing that, when one racial/ethnic group keeps its collective boot on the neck of another, karma has a tendency to bite the first group in the derrière.

This is no more the same thing as one group demanding that another group bare their neck to its boot, than 'Kyiv threatens to bomb Russia unless Russia stops invading them' is the same thing as 'Moscow threatens to bomb Ukraine unless Ukraine resigns itself to being Belarus writ large', or than the Easter Rising is the same thing as Bloody Sunday.

Oh, so you mean that in reality you would come up with some pretext to preferentially hire a female babysitter over a male, but insist that it's just because the girl is more "experienced" than the boy and their sex has nothing to do with it.

No, I mean that I would judge on the same characteristics as were I choosing between two applicants of the same sex.

I just happen to disagree with what seems to be your assertion that "allow rapists and sex pests free reign to rape and sexually assault to their heart's content" and "keep half the planet on a de facto sex offender registry from womb to tomb" are mutually exhaustive. (If this is not your assertion, what precisely do you acknowledge as being between those?)

nine times out of ten, your child would feel safer being left alone with a female babysitter than a male

I doubt that it would be that often, but I acknowledge the possibility that my child might agree more with you than with me, thus "I think it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of sex – but my child disagrees with me, and I believe that attempting to force the issue risks undermining both my efforts to teach them the things previous generations had to learn the hard way and my strategy for protecting them from abusers, sexual or otherwise, and regardless of any definition of the would-be perpetrators sex or gender."

Also, "my child might very well have opinions of their own" was referring to a broader category, which could include other, less one-sided, subcategories, e. g. the often-depicted-in-media 'opposite sex has cooties' phase. (I'm not sure whether this actually happens, and doubt that it is anywhere near as common, but if it happens, it could tilt the decision either way depending on whether I have a son or a daughter.

(In my response to the artificially constrained Gedankenexperiment posited earlier, note that, following the coin toss, I specified that I would take measures to prevent abuse by a male babysitter; they just happen to be the same measures I would take to prevent abuse by a female or intersex babysitter, both due to the fact that, even conceding your statistics arguendo I do not want to be the one individual in thirty-seven who loses everything betting at the roulette wheel on 'Albania' only to see it come up 'Ghadaffist Libya', and due to the fact that what I believe to be the most effective way of protecting a child from nonces can't be applied selectively. To the best of my knowledge, a sexual predator does not go from zero to Epstein in a single day. Like a tiger¹ unto Cervidae, they seek the most vulnerable; instead of a sambar with a broken leg, they seek a child who has been taught that (1.) they have no rights that their parents, or anyone given in loco parentis authority by their parents, are bound to respect, and that any word of complaint will be met with a total dismissal of the substance thereof in favour of a laser-focus on the sheer temerity of a child having any response to anything decreed by their owners parents other than a joyous acceptance² that makes an LLM chatbot seem like the enfant d'amour of R. Lee Ermey and Oscar the Grouch³, and (2.) anything involving certain parts of their body is (a.) deeply inherently shameful, and (b.) somehow their fault (even if they were praying the whole time that they would wake up and realise that it had been a nightmare).)

Trans activists sometimes accuse TERFs of being perverts who want to subject everyone to mandatory genital inspections before they're allowed to get changed. Interesting to see the shoe on the other foot. Note that such a rule would prevent ~95% of trans-identified males from using female changing facilities: advocating for it might get you tarred as a TERF by your erstwhile fellow-travellers.

I'm not advocating for it, per se; the operative word there is 'if'.

If you must have changing rooms divided by biological sex,

  1. Dividing by natal anatomy is more intrusive than by current anatomy, as the former involves digging into other people's medical charts as well as their genitals. If a woman walks into the women's changing room, takes off her clothes, and lo and behold! that individual has a vagina, than no woman had to see a penis in the designated penis-free zone; mutatis mutandis for the men's room.

  2. They should not be the only facilities available, compelling pre-operative trans people to use the facilities of their assigned-sex-at-birth, or the majority of them, making the use of the neutral facilities marked⁵ as indicative of transnessosity. Either would, in addition to exacerbating dysphoria and outing trans individuals, also demands that they endorse the anti-trans position; compare a Protestant schoolteacher demanding that the 80% Catholic student body recite the version of the 'Our Father' with 'trespasses' instead of 'debts'.

  3. Of the 87-95% (your link gave a range, 95% being only one end of which), how many have no intention or desire to undergo that part of transition, and how many have been denied the opportunity?

You realise what will happen, don't you? All of the male inmates who suddenly "realised" they had a female gender identity immediately after being convicted will be transferred to this shiny, comfortable facility. For a few months, all will be well in this facility. But eventually the number of "trans women" being transferred to this facility will reach the point at which the population density in this facility is the same as any other male prison

Perhaps I should have said 'one or more'; my point was that, if you cannot protect trans-women in the same facility as cis-men, and you cannot protect cis-women in the same facility as trans-women, then I don't know what else you can do but to treat trans-women as their own category in this instance.

What is not morally acceptable is to, whether it be motivated by personal animus or purely by bureaucratic indifference, decide that it is too inconvenient to fulfill the duty, inseparable from the practise of incarceration, of protecting all of the people one has deprived, even for the most solidly founded of causes, of the capacity to defend themselves⁴; this is the kind of thing that calls for people to end up in the dock at the Hague.

Yes, but doctors are gatekept and subject to safeguarding requirements.

¹My comparison is solely in terms of tactics; I do not intend to insult the character of these magnificent animals, whom I do not begrudge for their need to eat, any more than a military historian comparing the battle doctrine of an Allied general to his Axis counterpart is (at least prior to c. 2015) claiming any moral equivalency between them. Wildlife people, please do not send me angry letters again.

²If the sole determinant of entry into heaven is one's indirect effect on the prevalence of the sexual abuse of children, Aella will have had time to have an affair with every mutually consenting adult in the afterlife long before her mother's sperm donor (for he does not deserve any title a myriadth as respectable as 'father')⁶ has a snowball's chance in hell of coming within sight of the Pearly Gates. (And that's before considering the violent abuse.)

³Yes, I know they are both male; that is not in any way more than the most trivial obstacle, compared to the fact that one of them is a puppet.

⁴The same principle applies to the Ludovico Technique; if we posit an alternate universe, call it A Wind-Up Tangerine, in which Mr DeLarge either is never afflicted with or is cured of the part of the conditioning gives him an aversion to classical music, but is still incapable of violence, even if you think this is a improvement over the status quo, they shouldn't just abandon him to be victimised by everyone else.

⁵"The Joy Is Not Optional", Knowingless, May 2025

⁶"Marked Absent", Outlandish Claims, July 2024

I was referring more to the choices made by the people between whom the distinction is drawn, and whether they have the ability to opt out of it if they personally choose to. It is the distinction between an Englishman choosing to attend a Protestant church and an Irishman choosing to attend a Catholic church, either being able to diverge from this if he so chooses, versus a charity giving food unquestioningly to a hungry Englishman while giving a hungry Irishman the third degree over whether he might fall short of perfect virtue in some way which would allow the charity matron to leave him to starve while thinking her own hands clean.

I'm not being the least bit facetious when I say I've read this passage four or five times, and I still have absolutely no idea what point this "analogy" is meant to illustrate in the context of the trans debate. In this analogy, is the Englishman a trans-identified male and the Irishman is a female person? Is the Englishman a male person and the Irishman is a female person? Is a charity matron leaving a hungry Irishman to starve meant to be analogous to a trans-identified male being denied access to a female-only bathroom or sporting event?