I'm tired of living in a world where "Then a trans activist who possibly ate her own testes has a message for TERFS." is a real sentence that I'm suppossed to take seriously.
Also it's not actually true. He apparently did take a razor blade to his testicles while in prison, but didn't manage to hack them off completely, and didn't eat them.
What made me grimace was the part where she said they laughed at her threat to cut off her testicles, as if that's how staff react in medical clinics to people who threaten to hurt themselves.
?? I've been a psych pt in the ER and inpt once, but I've also worked in hospitals for over 20 years, and I've never known a medical care provider who would do such a thing.
I think it might come down to just a difference in experience. I’ve definitely known medical providers who would do this, particularly in environments that are understaffed or badly run, where medical staff who are going through high stress will lose empathy for their patients and treat them more like animals they need to handle.
As someone who had worked in healthcare in British prisons, and who has worked extensively with trans prisoners... I can say with some confidence that this is wrong...
Prisons are not simply staffed by prison officers, we have nurses, doctors, MH workers,
(Continued) and people from external agencies such as the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) who see prisoners daily.
There are very stringent procedures re. threats of suicide and self harm that are followed very closely... I know, as a massive amount of my time is spent following them.
I'm a big Katie fan, and the accent is a part of it. Most of the time, she just kind of slurs her words - it sounds more like she's really drunk than like she's from England.
I find this very relatable, because when I am very drunk my (American) brain's thought process goes, "you are drunk and might sound sloppy. You need to sound upright and proper. Who is upright and proper? English people." and then I start using a terrible English accent.
I save my terrible accents for Dungeons and Dragons, where I can say "What? That's not a terrible French accent, it's a perfect GOBLIN accent, which just happens to sound like an inconsistent French accent."
Someone said it below and I think they nailed it. First names for (genuine and convicted) criminals is odd. Had they used his last name I don't think it would have grated as much.
I also was frustrated because they constantly mess up pronouns, part of their charm of course, but managed to figure it out for the torturer so that was annoying
I’m not sure that referring to people using pronouns that they requested (or demanded) that you use is truly a courtesy to begin with.
Personally, I think it’s much better that people talk about me in ways that accurately reflect their perceptions and beliefs, not in ways that reflect my wishes.
I’ve always been willing to do it as a way of being polite for people who are just trying to pass and get on with their business. But I’m not doing it for people who demand that I pretend they are actually women or who are criminals. It’s very annoying and sometimes confusing when it’s a rapist and murderer being called “she”. Obviously YOU don’t have to do it in any case. We’ll all have to pick our own hill to die on. Rapists and murderers are mine.
Totally agree. Also Katie and Jesse need to realise that the US justice system is not the yardstick that most other Anglo countries aspire to. Breaches of licence/parole conditions are freaking serious - especially on this man’s case. He’s a convicted, violent criminal and got his proper legal just-desserts.
And while we're at it, can we get them to stop going on about how other countries don't have a 'first amendment'? The reason they don't have a 'first amendment' is that they don't have the US Constitution. Funny thing that. Seriously though, the hosts need to take note that just about every country has some kind of legal/constitutional protection for free expression - they just don't go quite as far as the US in valuing it over other interests like reputation, physical safety. The UK is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and its laws have been heavily shaped by that for decades.
Could you explain the connection there? I don't like bullshit pronouns either, but as far as I can tell, it has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not someone morally or ethically deserves it.
Two things. One, if you are a male rapist that means something definitionally. Two, pronouns are a show of courtesy and violent felons don't deserve that courtesy. Especially while advocating for violence
Also, they are most likely NOT listening to BARPOD so who gives a fuck which pronouns you use? The only people who care are genderists because they know that if people don't comply with the language demands the spell is broken. Transness is only as "real" as other people are willing to play along.
You'll find no argument from me there. Gender is a myth as far as I'm concerned. I'm just trying to play the game as best I can while staying morally and logically consistent, and expecting the same of others.
Pronouns are only a show of courtesy if it's a lie. "You're not actually a woman, but I will refer to you as a she/her, because I'm politely lying." That's not why people use incorrect pronouns. People use those pronouns because they actually do consider the trans woman a woman now.
I was only writing out the logic as I see it. Where did I go wrong? Why would a person refer to a trans woman as she/her, if not one of the two cases I laid out?
As for the “moral connection”, it’s not moral, it’s reality that men commit violent crimes far, far more than women, and that sexual crimes are something like 98% committed by men. When violent male criminals “identify as women” I 100% don’t believe them and don’t think anyone else should either. We should in no way be enabling men to get into women’s prisons. When we hear on the news “a woman raped and tortured” someone, it’s truly surprising (if it really was a women). To refer to men who do this as women is confusing, and twists our understanding of the types of crimes that women and men make. When we discover that said “woman” is actually a “trans woman” we suddenly understand—oh, it was a man, that makes more sense. So it’s about logic and reality, not morality.
I probably misunderstood you! this makes me irritated and and little on edge, I shouldn't have been short with you, I apologize. :D
Most of the time people using pronouns are engaging in a polite...oh, it's not a lie, exactly.
It's like if someone who has a PhD in - I don't know, philosophy - wants to be called "doctor"? That isn't a big deal most of the time, right, it's technically true and generally harmless, but everyone understands that if you're on a plane and the flight attendant asks "is there a doctor on board" it would be wrong for the PhD in philosophy to say yes. That's not an offer to play logical games, that's a serious situation where everyone needs to be a grownup.
(I might be torturing this metaphor, but most people are not maliciously lying about pronouns nor do they really believe that trans women are the same as - I am sorry to be blunt and mean - actual women, in my experience.)
I don’t think that what I’m saying fits into most of the stuff around this. Basically, if you act like a person who understands other people exist and don’t just fly off the handle demanding everyone cater to you specifically, I’ll be polite to you and extend courtesies that may not match my own understanding of base reality. But if you come stomping around and specifically committing crimes against the group you’re trying to affiliate with, I respect the right of that group and everyone else to say “no, you don’t get to play this game anymore.”
"femininity accepting you" counts as truly believing it. You either believe it or you don't. You can't stop believing it just because you no longer like the person.
Eh, I see where you are coming from I think but there are levels to it. I will accept someone as an American if they go through some customary rigarmarole to be an American. There are other identities like that. I don’t think a trans woman is as a matter of fact a woman but Blaire White for instance seems to have done enough customary rigarmarole to be ceremonially a woman, which I hold a separate space for in my head. Never factually a woman but there was a ceremony and mutual courtesy thing there. When you attack a woman, I think it’s required to reject you from the ceremony of courtesies.
This is really just leaving space for the people who I think would have been trans before it became fashionable and a lot of crazy people glommed on to it.
But it is a lie because humans cannot change sex. Even if they get their drivers' licenses changed it's not true. Legal fictions are fiction.
"Trans is only 'real' to the extent others (are compelled to) play along. This is the basis for claims that people who don't believe that gender identity should override sex in some or all settings are "denying" or "erasing the existence of trans people." Think Tinkerbell: if the audience claps, thus demonstrating their belief in the existence of fairies, Tinkerbell lives. (You can see hints of this in media coverage, like the time the New York Times described the Trump administration’s push to define sex as biological sex under Title IX as “‘Transgender’ could be defined out of existence under Trump administration.”)"
"Trans is only 'real' to the extent others (are compelled to) play along"
Yes, this is the difference between trans and gender nonconforming. You can be gender nonconforming with no support whatsoever. You can only be trans by virtue of a social contract.
So you shouldn't refer to a trans woman as she in any cases, since the person isn't really a she, right? So why does behavior have anything to do with it?
It's probably not important but TheNuclearBlonde said you lose your pronouns when you do something egregious but I didn't think Baker had adopted those pronouns before her terrible acts so she didn't have female pronouns to give up!
Lose or not be granted pronouns is all the same to me. As I said in other threads, it's a courtesy I'm not granting to violent males who are advocating violence against women
Hi Davis-appreciate the question. I'm already skeptical of compelled speech of preferred pronouns but it's downright farcical regarding the type of crime. A male raping a woman (or two) then pretending (or even sincerely adopting) a gender identity of female is not something I'm willing to grant. (Isla grant comes to mind)
Trying to think of an analogue for your other examples and the closest I can come for is when Kevin spacey raped male teenagers then expected sympathy when he "came out." Nope, hes just a felon unworthy of any extra courtesy.
I think you misread my response and it was a hypothetical. Of course spacey is gay, but his coming out at the time was clearly done in a way to engender sympathy which I'm not going to grant. Similarly for these males who are felons that suddenly transition in prison or afterwards, I'm just skeptical and am not going to bend myself backward to affirm
The type of violence means that speaking of this person as a woman obscures the facts. That's where I would draw the line on referring to gender identity over biological reality. If a male embezzles from a workplace and then says "Actually, I'm a woman", then the headline could say "Woman embezzles from business" and that's fine because the biology part of "woman" isn't relevant to the crime. In a rape, the biology is absolutely relevant. This isn't a clean bright line I realize. Males are more likely than females to commit all types of violent crimes so I don't think "Local woman kills ex and sets house on fire" would be an acceptable if the perpetrator were male unless she had been living for an extended period of time as a woman in the community.
The analogy would be if a white person were convicted of a lynching, and then declared him- or herself to be black. (Also imagine that there were some basic unit of speech where we differentiated between black and white people - which thankfully we do not - and then that person insisted on being described in language normally applying to black people)
If trans activists were *ever* willing to criticize the edge case examples brought up, those of us who are critical of gender ideology would have less opportunities to do this. J & K said there was only one prominent person willing to criticize Baker's comments, and even then it was couched in both sidesism.
I said the same thing a few others have in the comments on this episode, and it was something Katie noted in the episode, too, when she brought up Peter Thatchell (spelling possibly wrong). Movements that want to persuade people need to be mindful of their image. If they don’t mind the convicted torturer, attempted murderer, possible self-neuterer says to punch women in the face… then their silence suggests they condone it. After seeing the trans activist punching an older woman in the face in New Zealand when Kellie Jay Keen spoke there — anyone paying attention already knows it.
Respectfully and politely I'd like to ask whoever posts these to stop with the AI generated artwork. It's ugly and far worse than just using the blocked and reported logo. While we're at it can we please get a higher resolution version of the logo
Yeah, as a gag it’s clearly run it’s course. If you want to keep doing it, at least try to do it sincerely and keep going till you get a good one. Okay maybe throw in a few ridiculous ones, but like “haha” funny, not body horror.
As I understand the accusations of "denying trans people's existence," it doesn't mean that the offender actually means the trans person doesn't EXIST, but that the offender doesn't agree to cooperate with the trans person's identity. So if you don't agree to use preferred pronouns or if you say something like "people with penises are men," then you are (under this definition) denying someone's "existence."
For clarity, I think it would be preferable to say that the offender is not respecting someone's identity, but I guess denying their existence sounds more catastrophic.
I’m curious about whether there are any self-identified psychics who have started claiming that skeptics “deny their existence” by believing that people can’t actually have psychic powers.
It only makes sense if you believe that one’s existence as a human being is entirely based upon their self-perception.
I love this question because I have started comparing “gender identity” to ESP. A small minority of people claim they have a “gender identity.” There’s no objective evidence that “gender identity” exists as a quality inherent in people. Most people would say there’s no such thing as “gender identity.” Some other people believe it exists but say that they themselves don’t have one.
And yet we’re making all kinds of social and educational policy based on the assumption that “gender identity” is real.
Makes no more sense than making policy on the assumption that ESP is real.
Yeah, to outsiders, if you say "that's not a couch, that's a love seat," you're not denying that the piece of furniture exists, but you're disagreeing with the other person about how we should define the terms "couch" and "love seat."
Many trans people report strong emotional reactions to having people disagree with definitions that concern their identities,* and I think the use of "deny my existence" is an attempt to capture the emotional valence, even if it doesn't match up with every day definitions of "existence."
* (For example, I think I recall Ozy Frantz writing on their old blog that misgendering them felt like being stabbed with a knife or something similar.)
It’s a slippery rhetorical slope though (I would argue intentionally): disagree with my identity -> deny my existence -> threaten my life and safety -> ongoing genocide of trans people.
And the last step on that slope is thrown around with abandon.
They actually should - they are one of the “autistic rationalist” sort of gender-havers that *usually* provide pretty even handed and reasonable, or at least genuinely thought provoking, takes.
I am sorry someone misgendering you is not “like a stabbing” and if you think so you are not a reasonable person worth listening to.
I had a girl begme to get engaged for a year, and then right after we got engaged she ran off with a rich guy she met. At no point would I have described that as “feeling like I was stabbed”.
I’d need to see it in context. I’ve read a fair amount of their stuff (they are a friend of Scott Alexander’s) and them saying that statement and meaning it as a literal comparison the way you are treating it would be out of character for their writing.
But it’s not denying that people who think they are psychics exist. Or people who make money by claiming to provide supernatural services. Those people are definitely real flesh and blood human beings, they’re just not what they claim to be (whether their claims are in good faith or not).
There is a difference between denying the existence of psychics as a group (there is no such thing as a psychic) and denying the existence of a given person who claims to be a psychic. The TRA rhetoric is always in the latter vein
This is another case where hyperbolic rhetoric is unhelpful.
Even if one buys the framing that there is such a thing as truly trans people who are neurologically intersex and have a female brain in a male body or vice versa (which I do), even if one acknowledges that there are groups of people who do not believe or actively disbelieve this claims (which there are), it hardly makes them “stupid” and they’re almost certainly not “evil”.
If I said there was a group of people whose pee smells like maple syrup, I think most people’s first reaction would be to disbelieve it. There are such people (it’s actually quite a serious condition), but it’s hardly reasonable to expect the average Joe who isn’t a physician to do their research on this. Most people with rare and strange medical conditions deal with a lot of skepticism. It’s not great for them, but it’s not because everyone else is “evil”. Some people can’t go outside because their ability to resist solar radiation is compromised. Some people can’t eat meat because of a tick bite. Some people feel like they’re being stabbed every time someone touches them. It is tough to be those people, but it’s not because everyone else is being mean to them by not immediately recognizing these facts.
And even more so, most people with rare and strange medical conditions do not try to reform all of human society to serve their specific needs. If all playgrounds and carseats had to be designed so that people with osteogenesis imperfecta couldn’t break a bone on them, life would be impossible for the rest of us. If using red and green as signals was banned because of red-green colorblindness, I don’t think that would go over very well either. No assertion that radical changes to human society should be made to accommodate people who number in the fractions of a percent of all humanity is going to go over well, nor should it.
Your example doesn’t work, because maple syrup urine is objectively verifiable, and transgender status is not. At least, not presently; developments in neuroscience may be able to help us identify which people truly have “male brains” and “female brains”, at which point, this whole issue will probably be solved.
The rest of this is nonsense. Beating people up is illegal, regardless of what you think about their gender. Occupational discrimination against transgender people is illegal and was affirmed by a conservative Supreme Court, and was a theoretical concern to begin with. There is no FDA-approved treatment for gender dysphoria, and there are no evidence-based off-label medical or surgical treatments. The ones that are being used in the U.S. are being used without normal restrictions that would apply to any other treatment for any other medical condition. Peeing in public is indecent exposure and is illegal, peeing in the bathroom matching your sex (whether you feel like doing that or not) is not illegal.
And perhaps the bigger point is that there’s a difference between the fact that actually being trans is probably legitimately quite difficult, but it’s not because the world is out to get you.
If you think that the EEOC is some kind of apolitical, neutral arbiter of fact, that certainly explains a lot.
I would agree that a bad faith actor can rationalize virtually anything. In the case of gender dysphoria or transgender issues, a rare condition with which most people have no first or secondhand experience, I find it far more parsimonious to imagine good faith. Homophobia was (and still is) a problem because there were enough gay people to make an effective target for an actual social movement among various religious groups. Trans is probably several orders of magnitude less common, meaning that most people just can’t be bothered to care. Is that a great situation for someone who’s in that category? No. But it’s not some kind of conspiracy to oppress them either.
Doesn't this show that the law is in fact protecting people who face discrimination? That the government is properly protecting LGBTQ+ people?
There will always be sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and racist people. And if they exhibit behaviors that negatively impact people they should face consequences. If they just have those thoughts and yet behave themselves in public, it kinda sucks but we have to deal (there is way higher volume of sexism than homophobia out there and always has been).
It is evident that those who claim that there are people who state “trans CB people don’t exist” are being purposely obtuse.
No denies that there are human beings who wish to be or be identified as the opposite (or no) sex; what remains a perfectly valid position is that those people ARE NOT the opposite sex -- this is what people mean when they state “trans people don’t exist”. And since no human in history has ever actually transformed into the opposite sex or has rendered themselves sexless, the statement is objectively true.
I think there's an interesting philosophical question here about when a person has "changed sex" sufficiently for societal purposes. It's sort of like the Ship of Theseus thought experiment (how many planks of the ship must you change to make it not a ship anymore, or not a sail boat, or maybe more relavently is now a house rather than a ship, etc).
One of the primary issues is that obviously not every person who identifies themselves as being transgender (e.g. they are AFAB but wish to be seen as male) is anywhere close to the substantial resemblance. You have some people who are the equivalent of houseboats, you have some who are houses though maybe there's a sail sticking off the top. Some look like hosues from the outside but lack any rooms. Which one is a house?
Most good-faith actors on this topic understand that it's squishy and depends on circumstance. The wing-nuts however hold one of two positions. Either any ship that says its' a ship is a ship (TRA); or No ship will ever be a house even if it was completely disassembled at at the atomic level and then reassembled because it was originally a ship. Both of these are equally dumb and most people can see it right away.
In this forum, sure the "sex uber alles" position is more popular. But in many forums it's quite the opposite. Look at reddit - here's a random example from this week's open thread where everyone in this crocheting forum is furious that someone said that a uterus as a thing that women have which is an opinion that 99% of humanity agrees on https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/comments/15981on/it_speaks_for_your_self/
Anyway. I think most people will end up "being polite" most of the time. But they might resist being TOLD that they MUST be polite all the time to everyone regardless of the circumstances or else they are bigots. Meanwhile, wingnuts, being wingnuts, will be impolite most of the time, just to different people that they are currently placing into the "them" camp.
Hello from TERF island. Yes, some people do go to jail for not paying their TV license fee - that is if they fail to pay the fine. It’s actually a criminal matter, which is really weird. You can’t even watch TV catch up services on the Internet without a license fee. But you can watch Netflix and Amazon Prime, so they are looking to change the system to an Internet tax.
Also, on the matter of trans kids. Yeah sure, there are kids who trans-identify or even adopt a transgender presentation. But the whole concept of “trans kids” is a dangerous one, because it implies that there is this group of people who are intrinsically “trans kids” and need campaigners to protect their rights (to transition).
That’s why so many people like me say that there is no such thing as a trans kid. not because anyone is denying the existence of transgender identity or gender dysphoria among children.
Prior to 2015(?) children were not asking to be recognized as the opposite sex, or demand a name or pronoun change.
Anyone born before 1990 will tell you not a single person from their school used opposite sex pronouns-- and I will speak anecdotally, but not a single person I ever went to school with took their own life because their “gender” wasn’t affirmed.
I know more people who died of suicide during lockdowns (2) then I know people who died because of trans-a-mania (0). But of course everyones dying on the minuscule and pointless Trans rights hill as opposed to the fundamental right to just you know, life your life and not have your Church/Business closed by government fiat.
Thank you! I Agree, and the handling of this point on the pod really bothered me. If you are talking about pre-pubertal kids in particular, they are at most “pre-trans.” But since there’s not way to distinguish the kids with gender dysphoria in childhood who persist into adulthood from the majority who do not (many of whom are likely to be gay), the social construct of the trans kid seems downright harmful to me.
It also seems odd to equate having gender dysphoria with being trans, and I was shocked to hear Jesse (of all people) make this connection. Not only do many kids grow out of it, we also have a massive cohort of detransitioners who were convinced (for many years in some cases) that transition was right for them. Many of these did obviously suffer from some form of gender dysphoria at some point.
As someone who used to be super onboard with the trans stuff (since long before the whole framing of the subject changed into something else entirely), I’m still open to the idea that transition may be the right choice for a select few individuals. I’m less sure that there is such a thing as “true trans” anymore. My idea of trans remains the old-school transsexual who has undergone some kind of treatment. Whether they are actually “in the wrong” body in any real sense seems increasingly unlikely to me, but is also irrelevant to my acceptance of those people who’ve decided to transition. I don’t think such an explanation is needed at all.
I still think saying "no trans kids" is unhelpful. Wouldn't it be better to be clear and say "this is a population containing a mixture of kids, only some of which will transition as adults, and studies show it's impossible to tell which?"
But how is “trans kids” an appropriate label for these kids? It’s better to refer to them as gender dysphoric kids. That describes their current state. The label “trans” (at least in our current discourse) presumes an essentialist quality.
I agree, it's not useful to call the whole group trans kids. Gender dysphoric kids, or even some more generic term for kids who aren't dysphoric like gender expansive or whatever is better, since it leaves the door open to many outcomes.
My point is that saying "there are no trans kids" or "there is no such thing as a trans kid" is un helpful since to most people's ears it sounds like you're saying adult trans people don't exist (since at one point before they transitioned they would tell you that they were a "trans kid").
ETA: I've always been of the opinion that it could be better to talk about transition as something you do instead of something a person inherently is. So, actually, someone could be said to be "a trans kid" if they have undergone social and/or medical transition. Does this mean they will grow up to be happy about that? No. People who have since detransitioned or desisted were trans at some point, and at that point just "as genuinely trans" as someone who never desisted but was as far along in the process.
The TV licence thing is the reason why British TV is so good. I don’t have a problem with it in principle, but because the BBC is so biased against Israel, and won’t release the Balen Report, I don’t particularly want to give them my money.
Not just TV - it also pays for national and local radio, educational programmes for schools and revision materials (when the schools were closed for Covid they put together a whole TV channel of curriculum-based programming within about 2 weeks, to help with home schooling), a couple of orchestras and choirs, The Proms, and a whole bunch of talent-development programmes and technology innovation projects. That innovation arm has done incredible stuff - they invented streaming television with the Iplayer.
It’s easily the best-value cultural investment anyone makes, anywhere.
Kids don’t have the maturity, knowledge, or perspective to say they were somehow born in the “wrong” body. That’s a metaphysical claim, not a scientific one. I’m deeply skeptical of metaphysical claims in general (things like the soul, the afterlife, fate, and so on) when I hear them from adults. I definitely am not trusting kids on that.
It just seems like with that statement that you are saying "there are no children who if left alone will grow up to become adults who will transition and be happy with it for the rest of their lives".
Is that what you mean? If it's not what you mean I guess I feel it's misleading. Most people think a "trans kid" is just that - someone who will ultimately grow up to be a trans adult. If it is what you mean it seems a bit delusional given the existence of adult trans people, so I think that most people assume that's what you mean and treat it accordingly...
I'd like to respond to what you wrote above in response to Christine. Yes there may be children who have gone through some kind of physical transition, which I consider to mean that they are victims of medical abuse. What do we call such children? Since there is such a danger that the term "trans kid" validates an essentialist view (which you say you reject), a better term would be trans-medicalised kid, or socially transitioned kid. Best to use terminology which describes what has happened to the child, rather than validating this essentialist nonsense that they were born with the body of one sex and the soul of the other. Language really does matter.
Is it possible that some children may find when they grow up that becoming trans is the best path for them. Sure that is possible. Let them make that choice as adults, preferably not before age 25. Then if they transition, they will become trans.
It's always worth remembering that the push to use puberty blockers on gender-dysphoric kids was inspired by a desire to help them pass better as adults. So purely aesthetic and social. Not medical at all.
Well, despite all the claims that TRA calls to punch TERFs are mere hyperbole from a vulnerable group rightly letting off steam - actual TERF-punching occurred on this day of our lord, 7/22/23, in Scotland: https://twitter.com/darcywahf/status/1683175697177538560?s=12
I’m sure all the fantasies about raping TERFs (plus Jesse) are also only words.
Once on Facebook a friend posted about how we had to defend transwomen from attacks against their rights to participate in sports and claiming that opposing transwomen in women’s sports was just a right wing attempt to rally people against trans people. In the comments, I remarked that all decisions open and close doors and participation in competitive women’s sports isn’t a right I think should be afforded to transwomen. I referenced my own positive life experiences as a female athlete. I wasn’t saying transwomen shouldn’t be allowed to compete anywhere and I specifically said I supported co-Ed and recreational level opportunities. But I questioned that this was supposedly only a GOP talking point issue.
There was a transwoman who took issue with my comments. Later that day, I got vile rape threats in my PMs from a different, anonymous, account but I think it had to be the same person because I didn’t see any one else have an emotional reaction to my comments. It’s FB so the only people who saw the exchange were friends of my friend. The transwoman who was upset by my comments was listed as a volunteer or employee of a trans rights organization. I blocked both accounts. But I do credit that interaction with being one more step in my peaking on this issue.
the Punch a TERF rhetoric is an extension of punch a nazi because antifa in the western world have basically constantly said TERFs are Nazis therefore it must be ok to punch them. The Nazi party doesn't exist anymore so who cares but obviously TERFs do still exist so the violent threat is a real violent threat. It should have legal consequences imagine if someone yelled at a crowd to punch your nearest socialist, stop talking about beating the people you disagree with. If people say punch TERFs enough someone's going to do it.
I see you have not provided any links to support your claims made above, particularly evidence of gender critical women physically attacking transgender activists.
I said it should be against the law to tell people that they should attack someone else I said nothing about whether current US law bans that and am fully aware that it does not. At the very least it should be enough to get them shunned by major organizations until an actual apology. When it comes to the partisanship of political violence I think that for the most part both the far left and far right are about the same in magnitude and provoke eachother more often than not. I guess the only difference is that antifa has fewer feds that have infiltrated their ranks.
So if I commuted a violent political act, it wouldn’t count as violent because I’m a Labour voter and historically that’s not what we’re known for by the ADL?
I haven’t seen a public video. I read a tweet claiming that the police have video. But the police only issued a warning, and his victim found out about through the media, prompting additional terven anger.
I read later on in a post by the woman who was punched, that they're keeping the video out of the public for the moment (I don't see why), and probably pursuing charges (I hope!).
Someone on Twitter pointed out today that terven have been arrested for putting suffrage-themes ribbons on fences, with the argument that they're supposedly miniature nooses. This is apparently violent, but an actual punch results in only a warning. If they do pursue charges, it will only be due to public pressure.
Even worse - woman named Marion Miller was charged with a hate crime for merely TWEETING a photo of a suffragette ribbon which was tied on a fence, which got a large muscular man named David Paisley's knickers in a knot. She's a mother of 6, at least one with Autism, and she's been critical of gender ideology because of how Autistic kids are getting swept up in it. She had to crowdfund money to support her legal defense, and they eventually dropped the charges because of public pressure. The process is the punishment.
Yes, I was thinking of Marion. IIRC, her tweet implied she'd put the ribbon on the fence. I followed this in real time, made a tiny donation to her crowdfunder (like, 5 or 10 pounds - I regard this as a TERF tax), and sent her a DM of support. I don't see my DM exchange with her anymore, which makes me think she closed that account at some point.
While I understand the Katie and Jesse have their stance of “respect” or “politeness” vis a vis pronouns for trans people, I think there are certain people who don’t deserve said respect—namely people who are obviously men, particularly those who have committed violent crimes. Pronouns are not honorifics, they are words we use to help make sense of the characters involved in our narratives. “Her testes” makes no sense and imho should never be said. The violent, kidnapper-torturer in this story is a man. His voice is male, his actions are male, his crimes are male, his body parts are male. I am begging Jesse and Katie to draw the line somewhere—at some point before this case. It is jarring and confusing to hear female pronouns in reference to this guy. And yeah, women don’t usually commit crimes of kidnapping and torture (or rape), and until one actually does (which would be surprising and newsworthy), I think it is actually irresponsible to refer to men who commit these crimes as women in that it distorts our thinking of the world. I’m not saying “refer to all males as he”, but do what makes the most sense in context (I would refer to Buck Angel as He because it would be confusing to do otherwise): help your readers and listeners understand who is being referred to, please. Also, for guys like this, it’s appropriate to refer to them by last name, instead of their full feminized name.
I’m inclined to think they made a point of being consistent with pronouns to underscore the absurdity of “her testicles.” I can’t recall which episode, but I recall our hosts saying that their use of preferred pronouns is at least in part pragmatic, spurred by their not wishing to pick fights in areas that they think are less-important.
I don’t think J&K harbor any illusions about what Sarah Jane Baker and Isla Bryson really are: violent males.
Not in the same way as when we're talking about one of the fundamental differences between men and women. I'd say there is also a distortion when we talk about pregnancy and childbirth as if it's something men can do
There's nothing mean about calling a man a man. There is something really fucked up about exhorting women to pretend males are women just because they say they are.
According to trans ideologues everything is transphobic, especially relating to words spoken by a woman unwilling to kowtow to the gender bullies. I could care less what you call me. I have real things in my life like a spouse, children, and a new dog and we’re off for a day hike.
I’ll only add that biological sex is objective, and verifiable, unlike your comment which is merely opinion. 🤷♀️
OMG. I wrote it out quickly but enjoy biting my head off.
You’re the one who went to ad hominem first, for the record. If you’re going to be a lawyer you’ll have to be able to argue your points without resorting to that.
If it’s true, it might still be mean, but it’s probably not--because in the long run lying to people is bad for them--and even if it is, telling the truth is more important than being nice.
Just in relation to the testicle eater going to prison, it's not so much a free speech issue as it is a violation of parole. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, and had been released on parole. Someone that's released on parole for violent offences worthy of life imprisonment, who then goes on to tell other people to commit violent offences, isn't going to be able to remain on parole.
I understand the freedom of speech argument, but this person's civil liberties are rightfully restricted as result of a jury of their peers finding them, beyond reasonable doubt, to be an outrageous piece of shit. Twice.
Do they really have to respect the pronouns of a guy who subjected a man to heinous torture, nearly killing him, then another guy, nearly cuts off his own nuts (for a snack?), and says he wants women punched in the face?
I need to find references to this, but my recollection is that Ray Blanchard's original diagnoses of "Gender Identity Disorder" and "Autogynephilia" were lobbied to include "gender dysphoria" Gender dysphoria was a term originally coined by Harry Benjamin who founded the "Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association" (what became WPATH).
It's possible to argue gender dysphoria isn't real. (Usually boys) have been known to have an identity disorder where they literally believe they are the opposite sex. It's almost always homosexual boys and usually revealed to be predicated by trauma at an early age.
I've come to understand gender dysphoria as simply being gender-related distress. This definition demystifies it while not completely dismissing it. It can be unbearably painful just like other kinds of body dysmorphia and self image issues. The cause and solution of these issues though are almost always psychosocial, not physical.
Yeah, liberal feminism really got lost and diverted from “abandon gender roles!” to “gender roles are so rigid that EVERYONE is an egg ❤️”.
Jesse talked about this at the end of the episode, and I can’t help but feel like a lot of the loud internet trans women are living out a drag dream and fetish of womanhood... I was so shocked by the popularity if “Detransition, Baby” for this purpose
`loud internet trans women are living out a drag dream and fetish of womanhood'
I can't speak to other's motivations but please remember that there are non-loud trans women, some who are online, who transitioned to relieve gender dysphoria and are genuinely just interested in `blending in' as women.
Also, unfortunately some trans women haven't quite realized something that young women learn: just because an article of clothing looks pretty/cute does not mean that it will look good on you. A certain reluctance to offer constructive criticism in the community probably allows this non-realization to go on for too long.
You really need to be saying this to the loud “gender positive” people too. Backlash sucks, but it’s 100% predictable and 100% normal human behavior. The loud internet trans people bear some direct responsibility for the difficulties the just-trying-to-pass-and-be-left-alone trans folks are having.
The fact that nobody saw any downsides to picking the *person who went to jail for kidnapping and torturing somebody and then tried to self-castrate in some sort of apparent mental break* as the literal spokesperson for a trans rights rally is... not good.
I don't understand how we're supposed to keep saying 'well surely this community just wants to get along with their lives like all the others' when this is like the 1000th time some crazy creep has called for violence in front of a cheering crowd. A monstrosity managed to get the 'Day of Vengeance' canceled, and even on that day a sitting state governor had to fire her communications rep for posting in support of TRA violence. There's got to be a very real community issue afoot. The redirection to the normal, non-activist crowd isn't going to mask that.
I don't have the answers, shoot if I did I'd fix feminist activism tomorrow because we have MANY internal problems. I just don't get why we're supposed to pretend everything is fine in the trans community when it's obvious there are multiple radical extremists within them and in support of them. I often fear it absolutely will go too far one day and tbh that's the base of my concern.
Has anyone seen a civil rights movement move like this? I'm genuinely curious because obviously some did use fear as a tactic. I'm just very skeptical that my fear of an eventual tragedy carried out to 'stop trans genocide' is coming from transphobia or a warped perspective.
Good points. I have never seen a civil rights movement at all like this. It makes you think it is an underground right wing movement posing as trans that wants to utterly disgrace the trans rights movement in order to move normies to the right. If that is so, it is working.
`You really need to be saying this to the loud “gender positive” people too.'
Do you think they're going to listen to me? About all that I feel I can do is present a different view here.
The pick was poor, in retrospect, but she is an advocate for a (potentially?) important population of untreated trans people. I don't know the statistics/situation of un-treated trans people in jail in the UK, which is why I say potential, and I'm of course discounting those who seek gender reassignment simply to be moved from the men's prison to women's prison (I believe the recently transitioned should have to live as the new gender for one to two years before transfer).
I try not to be too judgmental about the self-castration act because of personal experience with the pain that gender dysphoria brings. It can be unrelenting and the fact that the testes are producing a male hormone would only add to the distress. I'm assuming she was not granted legitimate treatment, e.g., hormones, and her desire to transition is genuine.
Or maybe I'm just trying to be understanding to the point of naivite? In any case, her statement was despicable.
I guess I’m just saying that if these people will listen to anybody, it’s more likely to be an “ally” rather than an “enemy”. I am very much in favor of promoting internal skepticism / contrarianism within a movement, which is exactly why I support people like Jesse and Katie despite disagreeing with them on a lot of things politically.
I would hardly knock you for providing a gender-dysphoric perspective here - that’s valuable and important! I’m just increasingly frustrated by how often people within a group/movement who could provide valuable constructive criticism feel unable to voice these concerns except outside the group.
"Or maybe I'm just trying to be understanding to the point of naivite?"
Bingo.
To borrow a religious phrase, they are your "brothers and sisters in Christ". Yes, Virginia, it is your responsibility. Your silence gives them power and indulgence.
"I can't speak to other's motivations but please remember that there are non-loud trans women, some who are online, who transitioned to relieve gender dysphoria and are genuinely just interested in `blending in' as women."
I think this is an important point.
I have known a number of activists (although not for trans rights) and they are loud, opinionated, and fearless. They often act like assholes, and they often do not represent the bulk of the people who agree with their position, at least in general. I have no reason to think that trans rights activists are any more or less representative of average trans folks. So, as vexing as I find these gender issues, I try to remind myself that most trans people probably don't buy a lot of the crazier stuff, either.
I don’t think the commenter was ascribing those views to Blanchard et al, just expressing their own.
I think the evidence is so mixed as to make it hard to say for sure that any individual benefits. Although it at least seems some don’t suffer large downsides in the 10-20 year term either. But evidence of very large benefits even for a subset of recipients is not apparent, whereas very large costs to another subset definitely are. And as one might imagine those costs are larger with the more invasive interventions. So I’m not convinced medical interventions should be on the table and certainly not as first-line approaches.
Autogynephiles have gender dysphoria, too. Ray Blanchard's entire reason for creating his typology was that both types were exhibiting dysphoria and seeking surgery but he thought only one would benefit from it. Anne Lawrence (who interviewed hundreds of AGPs) said they had worse dysphoria than gay men, because gay men aren't interested in vaginas, so they're not as invested in having them--it's more about trying to date straight men for them. Note that in many countries gay transsexuals don't bother to get surgery.
I was married to an autogynephile, and I watched him acquire and exhibit gender dysphoria. I would argue it is pretty indistinguishable from body dysmorphia, for what it's worth. I believe more and more types of cohorts are acquiring it.
ya im fairly comfortable saying i don’t believe in gender dysphoria, as a stand-alone medical condition anyway. obviously most cognitive distress is subjective and everyone is going to describe their own symptoms in different ways using the language that’s available to them at the time.
discomfort in one’s body can be attributed to lots of things e.g. depression, anxiety, EATING DISORDERS, other types of personality and identity disturbances etc. female puberty is generally understood to be traumatic as it is, so it’s not really a surprise that girls are now trying to opt out of it in droves. unless jesse and katie can come up with a compelling reason why “gender dysphoria” isn’t just a new word for well known symptoms of other mental health issues mixed in with a bit of old timey sex stereotyping, i feel like they should stop scoffing at the “small minority” (?) of people who aren’t really buying the concept
The Savile case is truly horrific, when I relocated to London I'd heard about him but not really the details. The documentary on it is interesting (though errs on the side of too much focus on his 'better' characteristics). He would sexually assault women in audiences right in front of public camera's - in the doc you can see the look of abject terror on their faces. All very dark stuff, particularly the abuses at Broadmoor (the psychiatric hospital) where he would predate on the most vulnerable of people battling mental health issues. He had his own set of keys and could visit at will, it went on for years. The great shame the Brits tell me they feel is as much in the cover-up; in-patients at Broadmoor were 'encouraged' not to report assaults; halted police investigations, BBC senior-level cover-ups and his high profile friendships. It was a full-on systemic break-down of trust in protecting the 'star' over vulnerable people, women and children by major institutions, and the public has not forgotten. Bears saying that two BBC journalists bravely risked their jobs to bring this to light, one of them was spurred to this as he recalled his parents being distressed that Savile was allowed to remove children from schools to go on 'driving trips'. They felt it wasn't right, but back then, no one dared speak out. This fostered his drive to expose Savile when he (the journalist) was in a position to do so. Excellent article by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore on it.
We live in a world with Jeffrey Epstein and the Catholic Church. How could anyone with a more reality-based worldview than a flat earther ever deny that there are pedophiles with power?
Lioness update: they now think it's just another boar (though I don't know how you can mistake a boar for a lioness). Given that it's Berlin, my guess is it's just a drugged up guy in a fursuit.
Vienna public library posted on facebook, that the lioness is epected to get a full body tattoo and open a vegan cafe, as it is normal for staying in berlin longer than 48h.
True. Though more people speak English than German .while way more people speak German than Yiddish .I am pretty sure the letter writer truly thought the Yiddish speakers were speaking German badly .
The link doesn't seem to be working for me, but I would be very surprised if learning German were not easy for Yiddish speakers. I took German and Hebrew in college and I can usually get the gist of Yiddish with some effort.
I don't deny gender(sex) dysphoria exists but I do deny gender as a concept. I'm not attracted to people who act/look "womanly," I'm attracted to women. I'm not a man because I played with GI Joes or want to see Oppenheimer more than Barbie, I'm just a man.
They argue that there never was a peace treaty between the US and Germany, and so they are not a sovereign country but occupied territory. You should really do an episode about the Reichsbürger. They are very entertaining bat shit crazy. Last december there was a big joint police action in germany and austria against some Reichsbürger who planned a coup in germany, with even some mid high profile people involved. Jolly good fun that!
The most German thing about the Reichsbürgers is that they have their own little parallel bureaucracy set up, so you can get your car registered to the Reichsbürger-aligned parallel government.
I was watching "The Billion Dollar Code" about a German company suing Google over Google Earth and the defense attorneys asks one of the plaintiffs about whether he was a member of the Chaos Computer Club, which did a lot of very illegal hacking in the '90's and they produce the club's membership records showing that he never filled out the membership application. The American judge asks why a hacker group that does illegal hacking has membership forms, membership records and membership cards and the response is that it's a German club. That seemed so German to me.
I mean, they basically *were* occupied territory for most of the Cold War, but since the alternative was being behind the Iron Curtain (which half of Germany was!) - count your blessings, dudes.
I'm tired of living in a world where "Then a trans activist who possibly ate her own testes has a message for TERFS." is a real sentence that I'm suppossed to take seriously.
Also it's not actually true. He apparently did take a razor blade to his testicles while in prison, but didn't manage to hack them off completely, and didn't eat them.
Oh. Ok. That's much better. For a minute there, I thought we might be dealing with a mentally unstable person.
:)
Yeah, that’s a pretty big sign you’re not “leadership material.”
What made me grimace was the part where she said they laughed at her threat to cut off her testicles, as if that's how staff react in medical clinics to people who threaten to hurt themselves.
As someone who's been a patient in a lot of er's, I can believe it.
And none of those were even in a prison...
?? I've been a psych pt in the ER and inpt once, but I've also worked in hospitals for over 20 years, and I've never known a medical care provider who would do such a thing.
I think it might come down to just a difference in experience. I’ve definitely known medical providers who would do this, particularly in environments that are understaffed or badly run, where medical staff who are going through high stress will lose empathy for their patients and treat them more like animals they need to handle.
As someone who had worked in healthcare in British prisons, and who has worked extensively with trans prisoners... I can say with some confidence that this is wrong...
Prisons are not simply staffed by prison officers, we have nurses, doctors, MH workers,
(Continued) and people from external agencies such as the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) who see prisoners daily.
There are very stringent procedures re. threats of suicide and self harm that are followed very closely... I know, as a massive amount of my time is spent following them.
It’s really disturbing.
What, you never thought of eating your own testes? Lol
I'm not woman enough to do that no matter my righteousness in the protest.
I hear you lol.
I heard Marilyn Manson had a rib removed so he could do that
Sublime.
The BARpod’s attempts at a British accent are going to spark an international incident.
Katie's horrendous British accent gives me life
I'm a big Katie fan, and the accent is a part of it. Most of the time, she just kind of slurs her words - it sounds more like she's really drunk than like she's from England.
"it sounds more like she's really drunk than like she's from England."
THEY'RE THE SAME THING
I find this very relatable, because when I am very drunk my (American) brain's thought process goes, "you are drunk and might sound sloppy. You need to sound upright and proper. Who is upright and proper? English people." and then I start using a terrible English accent.
I save my terrible accents for Dungeons and Dragons, where I can say "What? That's not a terrible French accent, it's a perfect GOBLIN accent, which just happens to sound like an inconsistent French accent."
I’m genuinely curious why goblins are French in your head canon
They’re cowards and they surrender a lot?
HEADSHOT!
Loljk
I generally just pick a random accent when I have to do a new NPC, then roll with it.
Katie's English accent is so weird it's actually a bit creepy. Big fan.
It’s like weird AI drawings of people. “Why is the hand like that??”
It started to sound like my (Pakistani) mom’s voice at one point. Jump scare!
When Katie tries to do an accent I genuinely worry that the cause is an acute medical issue.
I honestly do not understand how it’s even *possible* to be so bad at an English accent.
Katie’s British accent is great. Almost as good as my Australian accent.
Lol and the one celebrity she inserts for “redacted” isn’t even British she’s Australian 😅😂
I ugly laughed in the super market.
HE/HIS/HIM
I think you lose your female pronouns when you torture and murder. This was farcical and cringe to listen to.
I totally agree but I also understand why that wasn’t Jesse/Katie’s hill to die on today
Someone said it below and I think they nailed it. First names for (genuine and convicted) criminals is odd. Had they used his last name I don't think it would have grated as much.
I also was frustrated because they constantly mess up pronouns, part of their charm of course, but managed to figure it out for the torturer so that was annoying
They didnt want to be tortured and murdered, that’s all.
OOF you’re not wrong there.
Yes, it’s a courtesy not deserved by HIM.
I’m not sure that referring to people using pronouns that they requested (or demanded) that you use is truly a courtesy to begin with.
Personally, I think it’s much better that people talk about me in ways that accurately reflect their perceptions and beliefs, not in ways that reflect my wishes.
I’ve always been willing to do it as a way of being polite for people who are just trying to pass and get on with their business. But I’m not doing it for people who demand that I pretend they are actually women or who are criminals. It’s very annoying and sometimes confusing when it’s a rapist and murderer being called “she”. Obviously YOU don’t have to do it in any case. We’ll all have to pick our own hill to die on. Rapists and murderers are mine.
Sure, my point is the pronouns I use to identify someone are mine, not theirs.
I can confirm that an intervention is unlikely to work.
What about Bud?
Totally agree. Also Katie and Jesse need to realise that the US justice system is not the yardstick that most other Anglo countries aspire to. Breaches of licence/parole conditions are freaking serious - especially on this man’s case. He’s a convicted, violent criminal and got his proper legal just-desserts.
And while we're at it, can we get them to stop going on about how other countries don't have a 'first amendment'? The reason they don't have a 'first amendment' is that they don't have the US Constitution. Funny thing that. Seriously though, the hosts need to take note that just about every country has some kind of legal/constitutional protection for free expression - they just don't go quite as far as the US in valuing it over other interests like reputation, physical safety. The UK is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and its laws have been heavily shaped by that for decades.
This has become my policy too.
“You support trans rights, unequivocally. I support trans rights except for like six things. This is one of them.”
The only people who have the right to female pronouns are women.
Could you explain the connection there? I don't like bullshit pronouns either, but as far as I can tell, it has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not someone morally or ethically deserves it.
Two things. One, if you are a male rapist that means something definitionally. Two, pronouns are a show of courtesy and violent felons don't deserve that courtesy. Especially while advocating for violence
Also, they are most likely NOT listening to BARPOD so who gives a fuck which pronouns you use? The only people who care are genderists because they know that if people don't comply with the language demands the spell is broken. Transness is only as "real" as other people are willing to play along.
You'll find no argument from me there. Gender is a myth as far as I'm concerned. I'm just trying to play the game as best I can while staying morally and logically consistent, and expecting the same of others.
Gotcha. I wasn’t sure if you were a true believer or not.
That's great. I always prefer people deal with my argument rather than me as a person.
Pronouns are only a show of courtesy if it's a lie. "You're not actually a woman, but I will refer to you as a she/her, because I'm politely lying." That's not why people use incorrect pronouns. People use those pronouns because they actually do consider the trans woman a woman now.
As a working class woman who is close to other working class women with children: I respect your opinion but it doesn't align with my experience.
I was only writing out the logic as I see it. Where did I go wrong? Why would a person refer to a trans woman as she/her, if not one of the two cases I laid out?
As for the “moral connection”, it’s not moral, it’s reality that men commit violent crimes far, far more than women, and that sexual crimes are something like 98% committed by men. When violent male criminals “identify as women” I 100% don’t believe them and don’t think anyone else should either. We should in no way be enabling men to get into women’s prisons. When we hear on the news “a woman raped and tortured” someone, it’s truly surprising (if it really was a women). To refer to men who do this as women is confusing, and twists our understanding of the types of crimes that women and men make. When we discover that said “woman” is actually a “trans woman” we suddenly understand—oh, it was a man, that makes more sense. So it’s about logic and reality, not morality.
People refer to trans people with the pronouns they prefer because:
A) politeness
B) social pressure
C) extreme social pressure (the risk if being yelled at/attacked if not)
D) it makes the most contextual/linguistic sense (the person passes as the opposite sex)
E) they believe it.
I probably misunderstood you! this makes me irritated and and little on edge, I shouldn't have been short with you, I apologize. :D
Most of the time people using pronouns are engaging in a polite...oh, it's not a lie, exactly.
It's like if someone who has a PhD in - I don't know, philosophy - wants to be called "doctor"? That isn't a big deal most of the time, right, it's technically true and generally harmless, but everyone understands that if you're on a plane and the flight attendant asks "is there a doctor on board" it would be wrong for the PhD in philosophy to say yes. That's not an offer to play logical games, that's a serious situation where everyone needs to be a grownup.
(I might be torturing this metaphor, but most people are not maliciously lying about pronouns nor do they really believe that trans women are the same as - I am sorry to be blunt and mean - actual women, in my experience.)
I think it’s a fair custom that if you attack femininity then femininity gets to reject you.
I reject femininity.
Still female.
Agreed.
I don’t think that what I’m saying fits into most of the stuff around this. Basically, if you act like a person who understands other people exist and don’t just fly off the handle demanding everyone cater to you specifically, I’ll be polite to you and extend courtesies that may not match my own understanding of base reality. But if you come stomping around and specifically committing crimes against the group you’re trying to affiliate with, I respect the right of that group and everyone else to say “no, you don’t get to play this game anymore.”
"femininity accepting you" counts as truly believing it. You either believe it or you don't. You can't stop believing it just because you no longer like the person.
Eh, I see where you are coming from I think but there are levels to it. I will accept someone as an American if they go through some customary rigarmarole to be an American. There are other identities like that. I don’t think a trans woman is as a matter of fact a woman but Blaire White for instance seems to have done enough customary rigarmarole to be ceremonially a woman, which I hold a separate space for in my head. Never factually a woman but there was a ceremony and mutual courtesy thing there. When you attack a woman, I think it’s required to reject you from the ceremony of courtesies.
This is really just leaving space for the people who I think would have been trans before it became fashionable and a lot of crazy people glommed on to it.
But it is a lie because humans cannot change sex. Even if they get their drivers' licenses changed it's not true. Legal fictions are fiction.
"Trans is only 'real' to the extent others (are compelled to) play along. This is the basis for claims that people who don't believe that gender identity should override sex in some or all settings are "denying" or "erasing the existence of trans people." Think Tinkerbell: if the audience claps, thus demonstrating their belief in the existence of fairies, Tinkerbell lives. (You can see hints of this in media coverage, like the time the New York Times described the Trump administration’s push to define sex as biological sex under Title IX as “‘Transgender’ could be defined out of existence under Trump administration.”)"
—Eliza Mondegreen
https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/phobia-indoctrination-not-trans-genocide?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fphobia%2520indoctrination&utm_medium=reader2
"Trans is only 'real' to the extent others (are compelled to) play along"
Yes, this is the difference between trans and gender nonconforming. You can be gender nonconforming with no support whatsoever. You can only be trans by virtue of a social contract.
So you shouldn't refer to a trans woman as she in any cases, since the person isn't really a she, right? So why does behavior have anything to do with it?
I don’t use wrong sex pronouns. (If I was in a conversation with one IRL I’d use their name or the 2nd person pronoun “you.”)
I believe she committed the crimes before transitioning?
How is that important?
I don’t care what he identifies as- his crimes have forever identified his character. He’s also literally advocating violence against women.
It's probably not important but TheNuclearBlonde said you lose your pronouns when you do something egregious but I didn't think Baker had adopted those pronouns before her terrible acts so she didn't have female pronouns to give up!
Lose or not be granted pronouns is all the same to me. As I said in other threads, it's a courtesy I'm not granting to violent males who are advocating violence against women
Hi Davis-appreciate the question. I'm already skeptical of compelled speech of preferred pronouns but it's downright farcical regarding the type of crime. A male raping a woman (or two) then pretending (or even sincerely adopting) a gender identity of female is not something I'm willing to grant. (Isla grant comes to mind)
Trying to think of an analogue for your other examples and the closest I can come for is when Kevin spacey raped male teenagers then expected sympathy when he "came out." Nope, hes just a felon unworthy of any extra courtesy.
My policy - if you use your penis as a weapon, you're a man. End of discussion.
Maybe a better analogy would be falling all over yourself to honor Prince Andrew's honorifics when he's possibly/probably/definitely a scumbag?
I think you misread my response and it was a hypothetical. Of course spacey is gay, but his coming out at the time was clearly done in a way to engender sympathy which I'm not going to grant. Similarly for these males who are felons that suddenly transition in prison or afterwards, I'm just skeptical and am not going to bend myself backward to affirm
But that's not analogous.
The type of violence means that speaking of this person as a woman obscures the facts. That's where I would draw the line on referring to gender identity over biological reality. If a male embezzles from a workplace and then says "Actually, I'm a woman", then the headline could say "Woman embezzles from business" and that's fine because the biology part of "woman" isn't relevant to the crime. In a rape, the biology is absolutely relevant. This isn't a clean bright line I realize. Males are more likely than females to commit all types of violent crimes so I don't think "Local woman kills ex and sets house on fire" would be an acceptable if the perpetrator were male unless she had been living for an extended period of time as a woman in the community.
The analogy would be if a white person were convicted of a lynching, and then declared him- or herself to be black. (Also imagine that there were some basic unit of speech where we differentiated between black and white people - which thankfully we do not - and then that person insisted on being described in language normally applying to black people)
If trans activists were *ever* willing to criticize the edge case examples brought up, those of us who are critical of gender ideology would have less opportunities to do this. J & K said there was only one prominent person willing to criticize Baker's comments, and even then it was couched in both sidesism.
I said the same thing a few others have in the comments on this episode, and it was something Katie noted in the episode, too, when she brought up Peter Thatchell (spelling possibly wrong). Movements that want to persuade people need to be mindful of their image. If they don’t mind the convicted torturer, attempted murderer, possible self-neuterer says to punch women in the face… then their silence suggests they condone it. After seeing the trans activist punching an older woman in the face in New Zealand when Kellie Jay Keen spoke there — anyone paying attention already knows it.
https://twitter.com/Sorelle_Arduino/status/1639988067900481536?s=20
Respectfully and politely I'd like to ask whoever posts these to stop with the AI generated artwork. It's ugly and far worse than just using the blocked and reported logo. While we're at it can we please get a higher resolution version of the logo
I usually think it's funny but this week's was disturbing. They should _at least_ run a few until they get something that looks human.
Is that AI generated? I was worried it was a burn victim or someone who had cut someone else's face off and was wearing it as a mask.
Yeah. Very disturbing. I’m relieved that my brain not making sense of whatever that was supposed to be might be a sign of sanity.
You can tell by the hands and faces, when you look closely the people don't really look like people.
Just spit drink all over
Yeah, as a gag it’s clearly run it’s course. If you want to keep doing it, at least try to do it sincerely and keep going till you get a good one. Okay maybe throw in a few ridiculous ones, but like “haha” funny, not body horror.
Thank you. I was just having this exact thought. It’s not really funny anymore.
I agree; that image is nightmare fuel, please stop posting warped AI crap.
I thought it was maybe to avoid paying image library or licensing fees. Had to scroll real fast past this week's though *shudder*
The Angela Lansbury one was particularly grotesque.
Yes please. Also Katie's twitter photo.
The logo should be a gif (not animated) to eliminate the noise at the edge of the colours. Too few people know this hack.
Seriously, Jesse loves good food with so much delight! I think images should alternate between the latest meal Jesse savored, and Moose.
As I understand the accusations of "denying trans people's existence," it doesn't mean that the offender actually means the trans person doesn't EXIST, but that the offender doesn't agree to cooperate with the trans person's identity. So if you don't agree to use preferred pronouns or if you say something like "people with penises are men," then you are (under this definition) denying someone's "existence."
For clarity, I think it would be preferable to say that the offender is not respecting someone's identity, but I guess denying their existence sounds more catastrophic.
I’m curious about whether there are any self-identified psychics who have started claiming that skeptics “deny their existence” by believing that people can’t actually have psychic powers.
It only makes sense if you believe that one’s existence as a human being is entirely based upon their self-perception.
I love this question because I have started comparing “gender identity” to ESP. A small minority of people claim they have a “gender identity.” There’s no objective evidence that “gender identity” exists as a quality inherent in people. Most people would say there’s no such thing as “gender identity.” Some other people believe it exists but say that they themselves don’t have one.
And yet we’re making all kinds of social and educational policy based on the assumption that “gender identity” is real.
Makes no more sense than making policy on the assumption that ESP is real.
Yeah, to outsiders, if you say "that's not a couch, that's a love seat," you're not denying that the piece of furniture exists, but you're disagreeing with the other person about how we should define the terms "couch" and "love seat."
Many trans people report strong emotional reactions to having people disagree with definitions that concern their identities,* and I think the use of "deny my existence" is an attempt to capture the emotional valence, even if it doesn't match up with every day definitions of "existence."
* (For example, I think I recall Ozy Frantz writing on their old blog that misgendering them felt like being stabbed with a knife or something similar.)
It’s a slippery rhetorical slope though (I would argue intentionally): disagree with my identity -> deny my existence -> threaten my life and safety -> ongoing genocide of trans people.
And the last step on that slope is thrown around with abandon.
Ozy sounds like someone who should be taken remotely seriously then.
They actually should - they are one of the “autistic rationalist” sort of gender-havers that *usually* provide pretty even handed and reasonable, or at least genuinely thought provoking, takes.
I am sorry someone misgendering you is not “like a stabbing” and if you think so you are not a reasonable person worth listening to.
I had a girl begme to get engaged for a year, and then right after we got engaged she ran off with a rich guy she met. At no point would I have described that as “feeling like I was stabbed”.
That’s just not a sane reaction to misgendering.
I’d need to see it in context. I’ve read a fair amount of their stuff (they are a friend of Scott Alexander’s) and them saying that statement and meaning it as a literal comparison the way you are treating it would be out of character for their writing.
Ozy is worth reading - they're probably over analytical but very thoughtful.
To be fair, they've written a lot about having autism and BPD, so some of the reaction to being misgendered may be from those factors.
Feeling offended at being misgendered is only possible in a world where some people previously agreed to the gendering request.
Well. In a more fundamental way, you very much are denying the existence of psychics if you think psychic powers don't exist.
But it’s not denying that people who think they are psychics exist. Or people who make money by claiming to provide supernatural services. Those people are definitely real flesh and blood human beings, they’re just not what they claim to be (whether their claims are in good faith or not).
There is a difference between denying the existence of psychics as a group (there is no such thing as a psychic) and denying the existence of a given person who claims to be a psychic. The TRA rhetoric is always in the latter vein
This is another case where hyperbolic rhetoric is unhelpful.
Even if one buys the framing that there is such a thing as truly trans people who are neurologically intersex and have a female brain in a male body or vice versa (which I do), even if one acknowledges that there are groups of people who do not believe or actively disbelieve this claims (which there are), it hardly makes them “stupid” and they’re almost certainly not “evil”.
If I said there was a group of people whose pee smells like maple syrup, I think most people’s first reaction would be to disbelieve it. There are such people (it’s actually quite a serious condition), but it’s hardly reasonable to expect the average Joe who isn’t a physician to do their research on this. Most people with rare and strange medical conditions deal with a lot of skepticism. It’s not great for them, but it’s not because everyone else is “evil”. Some people can’t go outside because their ability to resist solar radiation is compromised. Some people can’t eat meat because of a tick bite. Some people feel like they’re being stabbed every time someone touches them. It is tough to be those people, but it’s not because everyone else is being mean to them by not immediately recognizing these facts.
And even more so, most people with rare and strange medical conditions do not try to reform all of human society to serve their specific needs. If all playgrounds and carseats had to be designed so that people with osteogenesis imperfecta couldn’t break a bone on them, life would be impossible for the rest of us. If using red and green as signals was banned because of red-green colorblindness, I don’t think that would go over very well either. No assertion that radical changes to human society should be made to accommodate people who number in the fractions of a percent of all humanity is going to go over well, nor should it.
Your example doesn’t work, because maple syrup urine is objectively verifiable, and transgender status is not. At least, not presently; developments in neuroscience may be able to help us identify which people truly have “male brains” and “female brains”, at which point, this whole issue will probably be solved.
The rest of this is nonsense. Beating people up is illegal, regardless of what you think about their gender. Occupational discrimination against transgender people is illegal and was affirmed by a conservative Supreme Court, and was a theoretical concern to begin with. There is no FDA-approved treatment for gender dysphoria, and there are no evidence-based off-label medical or surgical treatments. The ones that are being used in the U.S. are being used without normal restrictions that would apply to any other treatment for any other medical condition. Peeing in public is indecent exposure and is illegal, peeing in the bathroom matching your sex (whether you feel like doing that or not) is not illegal.
And perhaps the bigger point is that there’s a difference between the fact that actually being trans is probably legitimately quite difficult, but it’s not because the world is out to get you.
If you think that the EEOC is some kind of apolitical, neutral arbiter of fact, that certainly explains a lot.
I would agree that a bad faith actor can rationalize virtually anything. In the case of gender dysphoria or transgender issues, a rare condition with which most people have no first or secondhand experience, I find it far more parsimonious to imagine good faith. Homophobia was (and still is) a problem because there were enough gay people to make an effective target for an actual social movement among various religious groups. Trans is probably several orders of magnitude less common, meaning that most people just can’t be bothered to care. Is that a great situation for someone who’s in that category? No. But it’s not some kind of conspiracy to oppress them either.
Doesn't this show that the law is in fact protecting people who face discrimination? That the government is properly protecting LGBTQ+ people?
There will always be sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and racist people. And if they exhibit behaviors that negatively impact people they should face consequences. If they just have those thoughts and yet behave themselves in public, it kinda sucks but we have to deal (there is way higher volume of sexism than homophobia out there and always has been).
It is evident that those who claim that there are people who state “trans CB people don’t exist” are being purposely obtuse.
No denies that there are human beings who wish to be or be identified as the opposite (or no) sex; what remains a perfectly valid position is that those people ARE NOT the opposite sex -- this is what people mean when they state “trans people don’t exist”. And since no human in history has ever actually transformed into the opposite sex or has rendered themselves sexless, the statement is objectively true.
“Substantially resemble” the opposite sex, does not mean one actually is, or ever will be, the opposite sex.
I would think someone who just finished their first logic course would understand that.
I think there's an interesting philosophical question here about when a person has "changed sex" sufficiently for societal purposes. It's sort of like the Ship of Theseus thought experiment (how many planks of the ship must you change to make it not a ship anymore, or not a sail boat, or maybe more relavently is now a house rather than a ship, etc).
One of the primary issues is that obviously not every person who identifies themselves as being transgender (e.g. they are AFAB but wish to be seen as male) is anywhere close to the substantial resemblance. You have some people who are the equivalent of houseboats, you have some who are houses though maybe there's a sail sticking off the top. Some look like hosues from the outside but lack any rooms. Which one is a house?
Most good-faith actors on this topic understand that it's squishy and depends on circumstance. The wing-nuts however hold one of two positions. Either any ship that says its' a ship is a ship (TRA); or No ship will ever be a house even if it was completely disassembled at at the atomic level and then reassembled because it was originally a ship. Both of these are equally dumb and most people can see it right away.
In this forum, sure the "sex uber alles" position is more popular. But in many forums it's quite the opposite. Look at reddit - here's a random example from this week's open thread where everyone in this crocheting forum is furious that someone said that a uterus as a thing that women have which is an opinion that 99% of humanity agrees on https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/comments/15981on/it_speaks_for_your_self/
Anyway. I think most people will end up "being polite" most of the time. But they might resist being TOLD that they MUST be polite all the time to everyone regardless of the circumstances or else they are bigots. Meanwhile, wingnuts, being wingnuts, will be impolite most of the time, just to different people that they are currently placing into the "them" camp.
But even that is not “denying their existence.”
It’s denying the existence of the mental state they claim to have.
Big difference.
Saying 'that no one is really trans' is not the same thing as saying 'that trans people do not exist'
Hello from TERF island. Yes, some people do go to jail for not paying their TV license fee - that is if they fail to pay the fine. It’s actually a criminal matter, which is really weird. You can’t even watch TV catch up services on the Internet without a license fee. But you can watch Netflix and Amazon Prime, so they are looking to change the system to an Internet tax.
Also, on the matter of trans kids. Yeah sure, there are kids who trans-identify or even adopt a transgender presentation. But the whole concept of “trans kids” is a dangerous one, because it implies that there is this group of people who are intrinsically “trans kids” and need campaigners to protect their rights (to transition).
That’s why so many people like me say that there is no such thing as a trans kid. not because anyone is denying the existence of transgender identity or gender dysphoria among children.
I'm also a TERF Islander and came here to say almost exactly this about "trans kids". Thank you.
Exactly.
Prior to 2015(?) children were not asking to be recognized as the opposite sex, or demand a name or pronoun change.
Anyone born before 1990 will tell you not a single person from their school used opposite sex pronouns-- and I will speak anecdotally, but not a single person I ever went to school with took their own life because their “gender” wasn’t affirmed.
I know more people who died of suicide during lockdowns (2) then I know people who died because of trans-a-mania (0). But of course everyones dying on the minuscule and pointless Trans rights hill as opposed to the fundamental right to just you know, life your life and not have your Church/Business closed by government fiat.
Thank you! I Agree, and the handling of this point on the pod really bothered me. If you are talking about pre-pubertal kids in particular, they are at most “pre-trans.” But since there’s not way to distinguish the kids with gender dysphoria in childhood who persist into adulthood from the majority who do not (many of whom are likely to be gay), the social construct of the trans kid seems downright harmful to me.
It also seems odd to equate having gender dysphoria with being trans, and I was shocked to hear Jesse (of all people) make this connection. Not only do many kids grow out of it, we also have a massive cohort of detransitioners who were convinced (for many years in some cases) that transition was right for them. Many of these did obviously suffer from some form of gender dysphoria at some point.
As someone who used to be super onboard with the trans stuff (since long before the whole framing of the subject changed into something else entirely), I’m still open to the idea that transition may be the right choice for a select few individuals. I’m less sure that there is such a thing as “true trans” anymore. My idea of trans remains the old-school transsexual who has undergone some kind of treatment. Whether they are actually “in the wrong” body in any real sense seems increasingly unlikely to me, but is also irrelevant to my acceptance of those people who’ve decided to transition. I don’t think such an explanation is needed at all.
I still think saying "no trans kids" is unhelpful. Wouldn't it be better to be clear and say "this is a population containing a mixture of kids, only some of which will transition as adults, and studies show it's impossible to tell which?"
But how is “trans kids” an appropriate label for these kids? It’s better to refer to them as gender dysphoric kids. That describes their current state. The label “trans” (at least in our current discourse) presumes an essentialist quality.
I agree, it's not useful to call the whole group trans kids. Gender dysphoric kids, or even some more generic term for kids who aren't dysphoric like gender expansive or whatever is better, since it leaves the door open to many outcomes.
My point is that saying "there are no trans kids" or "there is no such thing as a trans kid" is un helpful since to most people's ears it sounds like you're saying adult trans people don't exist (since at one point before they transitioned they would tell you that they were a "trans kid").
ETA: I've always been of the opinion that it could be better to talk about transition as something you do instead of something a person inherently is. So, actually, someone could be said to be "a trans kid" if they have undergone social and/or medical transition. Does this mean they will grow up to be happy about that? No. People who have since detransitioned or desisted were trans at some point, and at that point just "as genuinely trans" as someone who never desisted but was as far along in the process.
well said
This TV-license-jail thing is wild. I have a lot of Brit co-workers and plan to ask them about it in our social meeting next week.
The TV licence thing is the reason why British TV is so good. I don’t have a problem with it in principle, but because the BBC is so biased against Israel, and won’t release the Balen Report, I don’t particularly want to give them my money.
Not just TV - it also pays for national and local radio, educational programmes for schools and revision materials (when the schools were closed for Covid they put together a whole TV channel of curriculum-based programming within about 2 weeks, to help with home schooling), a couple of orchestras and choirs, The Proms, and a whole bunch of talent-development programmes and technology innovation projects. That innovation arm has done incredible stuff - they invented streaming television with the Iplayer.
It’s easily the best-value cultural investment anyone makes, anywhere.
I might have missed it, but I don't think the hosts mentioned the fact that the BBC is a governmental institution (unlike PBS). Big difference.
Kids don’t have the maturity, knowledge, or perspective to say they were somehow born in the “wrong” body. That’s a metaphysical claim, not a scientific one. I’m deeply skeptical of metaphysical claims in general (things like the soul, the afterlife, fate, and so on) when I hear them from adults. I definitely am not trusting kids on that.
It just seems like with that statement that you are saying "there are no children who if left alone will grow up to become adults who will transition and be happy with it for the rest of their lives".
Is that what you mean? If it's not what you mean I guess I feel it's misleading. Most people think a "trans kid" is just that - someone who will ultimately grow up to be a trans adult. If it is what you mean it seems a bit delusional given the existence of adult trans people, so I think that most people assume that's what you mean and treat it accordingly...
I'd like to respond to what you wrote above in response to Christine. Yes there may be children who have gone through some kind of physical transition, which I consider to mean that they are victims of medical abuse. What do we call such children? Since there is such a danger that the term "trans kid" validates an essentialist view (which you say you reject), a better term would be trans-medicalised kid, or socially transitioned kid. Best to use terminology which describes what has happened to the child, rather than validating this essentialist nonsense that they were born with the body of one sex and the soul of the other. Language really does matter.
Is it possible that some children may find when they grow up that becoming trans is the best path for them. Sure that is possible. Let them make that choice as adults, preferably not before age 25. Then if they transition, they will become trans.
No one is born trans.
It's always worth remembering that the push to use puberty blockers on gender-dysphoric kids was inspired by a desire to help them pass better as adults. So purely aesthetic and social. Not medical at all.
Well, despite all the claims that TRA calls to punch TERFs are mere hyperbole from a vulnerable group rightly letting off steam - actual TERF-punching occurred on this day of our lord, 7/22/23, in Scotland: https://twitter.com/darcywahf/status/1683175697177538560?s=12
I’m sure all the fantasies about raping TERFs (plus Jesse) are also only words.
The victim has vowed she still won’t wheesht.
Once on Facebook a friend posted about how we had to defend transwomen from attacks against their rights to participate in sports and claiming that opposing transwomen in women’s sports was just a right wing attempt to rally people against trans people. In the comments, I remarked that all decisions open and close doors and participation in competitive women’s sports isn’t a right I think should be afforded to transwomen. I referenced my own positive life experiences as a female athlete. I wasn’t saying transwomen shouldn’t be allowed to compete anywhere and I specifically said I supported co-Ed and recreational level opportunities. But I questioned that this was supposedly only a GOP talking point issue.
There was a transwoman who took issue with my comments. Later that day, I got vile rape threats in my PMs from a different, anonymous, account but I think it had to be the same person because I didn’t see any one else have an emotional reaction to my comments. It’s FB so the only people who saw the exchange were friends of my friend. The transwoman who was upset by my comments was listed as a volunteer or employee of a trans rights organization. I blocked both accounts. But I do credit that interaction with being one more step in my peaking on this issue.
Their male entitlement & rage at women saying “no,” is something they can never hide.
the Punch a TERF rhetoric is an extension of punch a nazi because antifa in the western world have basically constantly said TERFs are Nazis therefore it must be ok to punch them. The Nazi party doesn't exist anymore so who cares but obviously TERFs do still exist so the violent threat is a real violent threat. It should have legal consequences imagine if someone yelled at a crowd to punch your nearest socialist, stop talking about beating the people you disagree with. If people say punch TERFs enough someone's going to do it.
I see you have not provided any links to support your claims made above, particularly evidence of gender critical women physically attacking transgender activists.
I don’t think that person is actually trying to have a conversation.
Genuinely mystified as to why some people pay at least $5/mo to be here if they’re not even going to try to engage in truly good faith.
I said it should be against the law to tell people that they should attack someone else I said nothing about whether current US law bans that and am fully aware that it does not. At the very least it should be enough to get them shunned by major organizations until an actual apology. When it comes to the partisanship of political violence I think that for the most part both the far left and far right are about the same in magnitude and provoke eachother more often than not. I guess the only difference is that antifa has fewer feds that have infiltrated their ranks.
So if I commuted a violent political act, it wouldn’t count as violent because I’m a Labour voter and historically that’s not what we’re known for by the ADL?
Is there a video? I have a thread on Twitter about this stuff & want to add it.
I haven’t seen a public video. I read a tweet claiming that the police have video. But the police only issued a warning, and his victim found out about through the media, prompting additional terven anger.
I read later on in a post by the woman who was punched, that they're keeping the video out of the public for the moment (I don't see why), and probably pursuing charges (I hope!).
Someone on Twitter pointed out today that terven have been arrested for putting suffrage-themes ribbons on fences, with the argument that they're supposedly miniature nooses. This is apparently violent, but an actual punch results in only a warning. If they do pursue charges, it will only be due to public pressure.
Even worse - woman named Marion Miller was charged with a hate crime for merely TWEETING a photo of a suffragette ribbon which was tied on a fence, which got a large muscular man named David Paisley's knickers in a knot. She's a mother of 6, at least one with Autism, and she's been critical of gender ideology because of how Autistic kids are getting swept up in it. She had to crowdfund money to support her legal defense, and they eventually dropped the charges because of public pressure. The process is the punishment.
Earlier article which outlines the basics:
https://www.womenarehuman.com/transgender-activist-gets-woman-charged-with-hate-crime-for-posting-suffragist-ribbon/
After the charges were dropped:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/10/28/the-shameful-treatment-of-marion-millar/
The thought of having police show up at your house because of something you Tweeted, which was obviously not a threat, is chilling.
Yes, I was thinking of Marion. IIRC, her tweet implied she'd put the ribbon on the fence. I followed this in real time, made a tiny donation to her crowdfunder (like, 5 or 10 pounds - I regard this as a TERF tax), and sent her a DM of support. I don't see my DM exchange with her anymore, which makes me think she closed that account at some point.
While I understand the Katie and Jesse have their stance of “respect” or “politeness” vis a vis pronouns for trans people, I think there are certain people who don’t deserve said respect—namely people who are obviously men, particularly those who have committed violent crimes. Pronouns are not honorifics, they are words we use to help make sense of the characters involved in our narratives. “Her testes” makes no sense and imho should never be said. The violent, kidnapper-torturer in this story is a man. His voice is male, his actions are male, his crimes are male, his body parts are male. I am begging Jesse and Katie to draw the line somewhere—at some point before this case. It is jarring and confusing to hear female pronouns in reference to this guy. And yeah, women don’t usually commit crimes of kidnapping and torture (or rape), and until one actually does (which would be surprising and newsworthy), I think it is actually irresponsible to refer to men who commit these crimes as women in that it distorts our thinking of the world. I’m not saying “refer to all males as he”, but do what makes the most sense in context (I would refer to Buck Angel as He because it would be confusing to do otherwise): help your readers and listeners understand who is being referred to, please. Also, for guys like this, it’s appropriate to refer to them by last name, instead of their full feminized name.
I’m inclined to think they made a point of being consistent with pronouns to underscore the absurdity of “her testicles.” I can’t recall which episode, but I recall our hosts saying that their use of preferred pronouns is at least in part pragmatic, spurred by their not wishing to pick fights in areas that they think are less-important.
I don’t think J&K harbor any illusions about what Sarah Jane Baker and Isla Bryson really are: violent males.
Katie damn sure doesn’t anyway.
Does referring to men who don't commit these crimes as women not distort our thinking of the world?
Not in the same way as when we're talking about one of the fundamental differences between men and women. I'd say there is also a distortion when we talk about pregnancy and childbirth as if it's something men can do
There's nothing mean about calling a man a man. There is something really fucked up about exhorting women to pretend males are women just because they say they are.
To your final point, I'm glad you at least lead by example.
Requesting, requiring or forcing (via threat to) people to lie to themselves and others about obvious reality makes you an asshole.
I'm secure enough to be comfortable with that.
How do you feel about properly sexing people?
Using wrong sex pronouns doesn’t magically make them the other sex. Speaking the truth is not a hate crime.
According to trans ideologues everything is transphobic, especially relating to words spoken by a woman unwilling to kowtow to the gender bullies. I could care less what you call me. I have real things in my life like a spouse, children, and a new dog and we’re off for a day hike.
I’ll only add that biological sex is objective, and verifiable, unlike your comment which is merely opinion. 🤷♀️
OMG. I wrote it out quickly but enjoy biting my head off.
You’re the one who went to ad hominem first, for the record. If you’re going to be a lawyer you’ll have to be able to argue your points without resorting to that.
I'm wearing a t-shirt and pants, sandals, and glasses, and have hair that just reaches my chin. What's my gender presentation?
If it’s true, it might still be mean, but it’s probably not--because in the long run lying to people is bad for them--and even if it is, telling the truth is more important than being nice.
Your words make absolutely no sense.
Just in relation to the testicle eater going to prison, it's not so much a free speech issue as it is a violation of parole. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, and had been released on parole. Someone that's released on parole for violent offences worthy of life imprisonment, who then goes on to tell other people to commit violent offences, isn't going to be able to remain on parole.
I understand the freedom of speech argument, but this person's civil liberties are rightfully restricted as result of a jury of their peers finding them, beyond reasonable doubt, to be an outrageous piece of shit. Twice.
Do they really have to respect the pronouns of a guy who subjected a man to heinous torture, nearly killing him, then another guy, nearly cuts off his own nuts (for a snack?), and says he wants women punched in the face?
I need to find references to this, but my recollection is that Ray Blanchard's original diagnoses of "Gender Identity Disorder" and "Autogynephilia" were lobbied to include "gender dysphoria" Gender dysphoria was a term originally coined by Harry Benjamin who founded the "Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association" (what became WPATH).
It's possible to argue gender dysphoria isn't real. (Usually boys) have been known to have an identity disorder where they literally believe they are the opposite sex. It's almost always homosexual boys and usually revealed to be predicated by trauma at an early age.
I'll get some references when I'm not at work.
I've come to understand gender dysphoria as simply being gender-related distress. This definition demystifies it while not completely dismissing it. It can be unbearably painful just like other kinds of body dysmorphia and self image issues. The cause and solution of these issues though are almost always psychosocial, not physical.
Yeah, liberal feminism really got lost and diverted from “abandon gender roles!” to “gender roles are so rigid that EVERYONE is an egg ❤️”.
Jesse talked about this at the end of the episode, and I can’t help but feel like a lot of the loud internet trans women are living out a drag dream and fetish of womanhood... I was so shocked by the popularity if “Detransition, Baby” for this purpose
`loud internet trans women are living out a drag dream and fetish of womanhood'
I can't speak to other's motivations but please remember that there are non-loud trans women, some who are online, who transitioned to relieve gender dysphoria and are genuinely just interested in `blending in' as women.
Also, unfortunately some trans women haven't quite realized something that young women learn: just because an article of clothing looks pretty/cute does not mean that it will look good on you. A certain reluctance to offer constructive criticism in the community probably allows this non-realization to go on for too long.
You really need to be saying this to the loud “gender positive” people too. Backlash sucks, but it’s 100% predictable and 100% normal human behavior. The loud internet trans people bear some direct responsibility for the difficulties the just-trying-to-pass-and-be-left-alone trans folks are having.
The fact that nobody saw any downsides to picking the *person who went to jail for kidnapping and torturing somebody and then tried to self-castrate in some sort of apparent mental break* as the literal spokesperson for a trans rights rally is... not good.
I don't understand how we're supposed to keep saying 'well surely this community just wants to get along with their lives like all the others' when this is like the 1000th time some crazy creep has called for violence in front of a cheering crowd. A monstrosity managed to get the 'Day of Vengeance' canceled, and even on that day a sitting state governor had to fire her communications rep for posting in support of TRA violence. There's got to be a very real community issue afoot. The redirection to the normal, non-activist crowd isn't going to mask that.
I don't have the answers, shoot if I did I'd fix feminist activism tomorrow because we have MANY internal problems. I just don't get why we're supposed to pretend everything is fine in the trans community when it's obvious there are multiple radical extremists within them and in support of them. I often fear it absolutely will go too far one day and tbh that's the base of my concern.
Has anyone seen a civil rights movement move like this? I'm genuinely curious because obviously some did use fear as a tactic. I'm just very skeptical that my fear of an eventual tragedy carried out to 'stop trans genocide' is coming from transphobia or a warped perspective.
Good points. I have never seen a civil rights movement at all like this. It makes you think it is an underground right wing movement posing as trans that wants to utterly disgrace the trans rights movement in order to move normies to the right. If that is so, it is working.
`You really need to be saying this to the loud “gender positive” people too.'
Do you think they're going to listen to me? About all that I feel I can do is present a different view here.
The pick was poor, in retrospect, but she is an advocate for a (potentially?) important population of untreated trans people. I don't know the statistics/situation of un-treated trans people in jail in the UK, which is why I say potential, and I'm of course discounting those who seek gender reassignment simply to be moved from the men's prison to women's prison (I believe the recently transitioned should have to live as the new gender for one to two years before transfer).
I try not to be too judgmental about the self-castration act because of personal experience with the pain that gender dysphoria brings. It can be unrelenting and the fact that the testes are producing a male hormone would only add to the distress. I'm assuming she was not granted legitimate treatment, e.g., hormones, and her desire to transition is genuine.
Or maybe I'm just trying to be understanding to the point of naivite? In any case, her statement was despicable.
I guess I’m just saying that if these people will listen to anybody, it’s more likely to be an “ally” rather than an “enemy”. I am very much in favor of promoting internal skepticism / contrarianism within a movement, which is exactly why I support people like Jesse and Katie despite disagreeing with them on a lot of things politically.
I would hardly knock you for providing a gender-dysphoric perspective here - that’s valuable and important! I’m just increasingly frustrated by how often people within a group/movement who could provide valuable constructive criticism feel unable to voice these concerns except outside the group.
"Or maybe I'm just trying to be understanding to the point of naivite?"
Bingo.
To borrow a religious phrase, they are your "brothers and sisters in Christ". Yes, Virginia, it is your responsibility. Your silence gives them power and indulgence.
"just because an article of clothing looks pretty/cute does not mean that it will look good on you."
Yes indeed. This is what 7th grade was for. All those mean girls made life hell, but you did learn which outfits really did make your ass look fat.
"I can't speak to other's motivations but please remember that there are non-loud trans women, some who are online, who transitioned to relieve gender dysphoria and are genuinely just interested in `blending in' as women."
I think this is an important point.
I have known a number of activists (although not for trans rights) and they are loud, opinionated, and fearless. They often act like assholes, and they often do not represent the bulk of the people who agree with their position, at least in general. I have no reason to think that trans rights activists are any more or less representative of average trans folks. So, as vexing as I find these gender issues, I try to remind myself that most trans people probably don't buy a lot of the crazier stuff, either.
The non-loud trans women are letting the loud trans women get away with their bullshit. Because it's useful to them.
There's no reason to give them sympathy or consideration.
`The cause and solution of these issues though are almost always psychosocial, not physical.'
Blanchard, Zucker, Bailey all acknowledge that some people do benefit from physical treatments.
I don’t think the commenter was ascribing those views to Blanchard et al, just expressing their own.
I think the evidence is so mixed as to make it hard to say for sure that any individual benefits. Although it at least seems some don’t suffer large downsides in the 10-20 year term either. But evidence of very large benefits even for a subset of recipients is not apparent, whereas very large costs to another subset definitely are. And as one might imagine those costs are larger with the more invasive interventions. So I’m not convinced medical interventions should be on the table and certainly not as first-line approaches.
Autogynephiles have gender dysphoria, too. Ray Blanchard's entire reason for creating his typology was that both types were exhibiting dysphoria and seeking surgery but he thought only one would benefit from it. Anne Lawrence (who interviewed hundreds of AGPs) said they had worse dysphoria than gay men, because gay men aren't interested in vaginas, so they're not as invested in having them--it's more about trying to date straight men for them. Note that in many countries gay transsexuals don't bother to get surgery.
I was married to an autogynephile, and I watched him acquire and exhibit gender dysphoria. I would argue it is pretty indistinguishable from body dysmorphia, for what it's worth. I believe more and more types of cohorts are acquiring it.
ya im fairly comfortable saying i don’t believe in gender dysphoria, as a stand-alone medical condition anyway. obviously most cognitive distress is subjective and everyone is going to describe their own symptoms in different ways using the language that’s available to them at the time.
discomfort in one’s body can be attributed to lots of things e.g. depression, anxiety, EATING DISORDERS, other types of personality and identity disturbances etc. female puberty is generally understood to be traumatic as it is, so it’s not really a surprise that girls are now trying to opt out of it in droves. unless jesse and katie can come up with a compelling reason why “gender dysphoria” isn’t just a new word for well known symptoms of other mental health issues mixed in with a bit of old timey sex stereotyping, i feel like they should stop scoffing at the “small minority” (?) of people who aren’t really buying the concept
The Savile case is truly horrific, when I relocated to London I'd heard about him but not really the details. The documentary on it is interesting (though errs on the side of too much focus on his 'better' characteristics). He would sexually assault women in audiences right in front of public camera's - in the doc you can see the look of abject terror on their faces. All very dark stuff, particularly the abuses at Broadmoor (the psychiatric hospital) where he would predate on the most vulnerable of people battling mental health issues. He had his own set of keys and could visit at will, it went on for years. The great shame the Brits tell me they feel is as much in the cover-up; in-patients at Broadmoor were 'encouraged' not to report assaults; halted police investigations, BBC senior-level cover-ups and his high profile friendships. It was a full-on systemic break-down of trust in protecting the 'star' over vulnerable people, women and children by major institutions, and the public has not forgotten. Bears saying that two BBC journalists bravely risked their jobs to bring this to light, one of them was spurred to this as he recalled his parents being distressed that Savile was allowed to remove children from schools to go on 'driving trips'. They felt it wasn't right, but back then, no one dared speak out. This fostered his drive to expose Savile when he (the journalist) was in a position to do so. Excellent article by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore on it.
The children’s hospital shit he did is why I don’t dismiss pedophilic conspiracy theories out of hand.
We live in a world with Jeffrey Epstein and the Catholic Church. How could anyone with a more reality-based worldview than a flat earther ever deny that there are pedophiles with power?
Trunchbull defense. The crimes are so horrific as to be almost absurd and therefore no one can believe them.
And he had a key to the morgue so he could do what he wanted with corpses. He really did not have a type.
Lioness update: they now think it's just another boar (though I don't know how you can mistake a boar for a lioness). Given that it's Berlin, my guess is it's just a drugged up guy in a fursuit.
On Israelis who move to Berlin (or Germany in general): I once read a pretty entertaining article about a rabbi who moved from NY to Israel and then to Germany because he assumed that if you speak Yiddish, learning German will be very easy. (https://www.zeit.de/2020/21/rabbi-akiva-weingarten-dresden-basel-online-gottesdienst)
My husband shared that there was a to-do on Berlin social media about whether or not want to have the cops find the lion is in conflict with ACAB.
This sounds like the most Berlin thing ever.
Vienna public library posted on facebook, that the lioness is epected to get a full body tattoo and open a vegan cafe, as it is normal for staying in berlin longer than 48h.
Can come confirm. I recently spent 48h in Berlin and found myself checking out full body tattoos on the way to the airport.
Regardless, we need Matt Walsh to get on the question of "What is a lioness?"
My mom was telling me that a Yiddish language radio station in Israel got a letter from a German, which basically said their grammar was all wrong..
True. Though more people speak English than German .while way more people speak German than Yiddish .I am pretty sure the letter writer truly thought the Yiddish speakers were speaking German badly .
The link doesn't seem to be working for me, but I would be very surprised if learning German were not easy for Yiddish speakers. I took German and Hebrew in college and I can usually get the gist of Yiddish with some effort.
Having seen neither lions nor wild boars IRL, of course I saw a lioness in the video as well
The Haystack rock cougar is real though. And Haystack rock is a big rock formation just off the coast. You can go there to look at tidepools.
There are those who were raised chassidush and are no longer....though that's a nitpick
I don't deny gender(sex) dysphoria exists but I do deny gender as a concept. I'm not attracted to people who act/look "womanly," I'm attracted to women. I'm not a man because I played with GI Joes or want to see Oppenheimer more than Barbie, I'm just a man.
Hearing this thing about germany is one of the USes strongest allies, made me think about the Reichsbürger movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsb%C3%BCrger_movement
They argue that there never was a peace treaty between the US and Germany, and so they are not a sovereign country but occupied territory. You should really do an episode about the Reichsbürger. They are very entertaining bat shit crazy. Last december there was a big joint police action in germany and austria against some Reichsbürger who planned a coup in germany, with even some mid high profile people involved. Jolly good fun that!
The most German thing about the Reichsbürgers is that they have their own little parallel bureaucracy set up, so you can get your car registered to the Reichsbürger-aligned parallel government.
I was watching "The Billion Dollar Code" about a German company suing Google over Google Earth and the defense attorneys asks one of the plaintiffs about whether he was a member of the Chaos Computer Club, which did a lot of very illegal hacking in the '90's and they produce the club's membership records showing that he never filled out the membership application. The American judge asks why a hacker group that does illegal hacking has membership forms, membership records and membership cards and the response is that it's a German club. That seemed so German to me.
Oh yes, they are complete whackjobs. Kind of comparable to the "sovereign citizens" in the US and Canada, but even crazier.
I was just going to say they sounded like sovcits. Maybe a big less entertaining when they go to court though.
Was one of the plotters from some old Prussian aristocratic family or am I misremembering?
You remember correctly 😁
Now I'm imagining him parading around in a Kaiser Wilhelm style uniform complete with ostentatious hat.
I mean, they basically *were* occupied territory for most of the Cold War, but since the alternative was being behind the Iron Curtain (which half of Germany was!) - count your blessings, dudes.
Of course, tha Iron Curtain was just a different power’s occupation.
Paging Peter File
As ever, The IT Crowd delivers.