6 ms·

If the outcry in the media were that she had no place on such a committee due to representing an organization which forwards unsound and poorly reasoned argumen

If the outcry in the media were that she had no place on such a committee due to representing an organization which forwards unsound and poorly reasoned arguments, misrepresents the scientific consensus, or similar, then it would be a completely different discussion. Instead, as far as I can tell the objection is to the views she expresses themselves. In particular, she (and others) are painted as abhorrent, openly hostile to trans people, and other such things. I suppose she might actually be? But I looked, and could only find her expressing concerns about restrooms and sports teams. I don't agree with her, but those actually seem like perfectly reasonable questions to ask and not particularly hostile. > or that the transgender acceptance movement is tantamount to "[changing] the definition of women to include men" [3]. That reason isn't liberal bias - it's scientific consensus. Well I suppose that would depend on your definition of women and men, your definition of biological gender, how you think gender relates to gender identity, etc. To be blunt our society doesn't seem to have worked that stuff out yet (despite what many on the far right and the far left would have you believe).

tfehring 8y ago
> In particular, she (and others) are painted as abhorrent, openly hostile to trans people, and other such things. I suppose she might actually be? But I looked, and could only find her expressing concerns about restrooms and sports teams. I'll re-cite [0] from my previous comment. If that's not "openly hostile to trans people" I don't know what is. And referring to trans acceptance as "[changing] the definition of women to include men" might plausibly be unintentionally ignorant in a vacuum, but it's clearly transphobic in the context of the Heritage Foundation's positions more generally. There's room for reasonable discussion on issues like the inclusion of trans folk in competitive athletics. But I don't see a place for pseudoscientific posturing or transphobic rhetoric in that discussion. And not only has the Heritage Foundation demonstrated that it's incapable or unwilling to produce anything more substantial in that area, its willful, bad-faith ignorance of scientific evidence has also made it clear that it's not a reliable contributor to science-based discourse more generally. > Well I suppose that would depend on your definition of women and men, your definition of biological gender, how you think gender relates to gender identity, etc. To be blunt our society doesn't seem to have worked that stuff out yet (despite what many on the far right and the far left would have you believe). I'm not sure that the definition of "biological gender" or the relationship between gender and gender identity are subjective in the way you're insinuating. "Women" and "men" are arguably a bit trickier on paper, but in practice, my impression is that trans-exclusionary usage of those words is virtually always driven by either well-meaning ignorance or deliberate transphobia, not by an educated, good faith difference of opinion on their meaning. In the case of James's comment specifically, I'll reiterate that context matters - I don't think anyone who speaks for the Heritage Foundation can credibly claim either ignorance or good faith on that issue. [0] https://www.heritage.org/gender/event/when-harry-became-sally-responding-the-transgender-moment https://www.heritage.org/gender/event/when-harry-became-sall...
- anjc 8y ago
  > But I looked, and could only find her expressing concerns about restrooms and sports teams. > If that's not "openly hostile to trans people" I don't know what is ... There's room for reasonable discussion on issues like the inclusion of trans folk in competitive athletics Discussing trans in sports is which one? Hostile or reasonable?
  - 0x2AF31DA8 8y ago
    I believe the content of the linked video is what's being referred to as "openly hostile", with discussion of participation in competitive sporting events being reasonable.
- 0x2AF31DA8 8y ago
  First, I admit I haven't watched the video you linked. I do want to engage with you in good faith, but videos are generally just too much of a time sink for me - especially when it's from an organization I don't particularly care about on a political hot potato of a topic that the whole world seems to be losing its mind over. All I was responding to in my previous comment was her tweets plus the textual synopsis of the event on the page containing the video that you linked. You say: > pseudoscientific posturing or transphobic rhetoric if you could respond with explicit examples, ie reasonably specific instances of viewpoints you think fit this label, I would be interested to see them. I agree that the Heritage Foundation as a whole seems to have expressed some views that don't appear to reflect the scientific consensus regarding climate change. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if there were other, similar lapses of rigor in their rhetoric on other topics, however I haven't examined their publications and postings in any detail. Let's address the elephant in the room. You stated that I was "insinuating" that "the relationship between gender and gender identity [is] subjective" in some way. To me, this reads as you rejecting the notion that there could be any reasonable disagreement over how those two things are defined and relate to one another. You go on to openly admit that you assume from the start folks that disagree with you don't have an "educated, good faith difference of opinion on their meaning". That's hardly what I would describe as an open or positive attitude towards discussion of a topic. You even refer to such definitions as "trans-exclusionary". To be blunt, my impression is that you have already made up your mind and don't appear to be concerned with understanding on a fundamental level why others think what they do. I apologize if this is not the case, but it is certainly the impression I get from your wording. As for the terms in question, it truly doesn't seem to me that society has an acceptable working definition for either of them at this point, let alone a shared understanding of how those two hypothetical definitions relate to each other. Historically, the term "gender" was used in the way many people currently use the term "sex". So is "gender" equivalent to "sex", ie biological and binary for all practical purposes? Or is "gender" now something else entirely? I've encountered people who viewed "gender" as equivalent to "gender identity". I've also seen views expressed that they are three different things entirely. If you happen to be of the view that the current definition of "gender" is non-binary and is therefore not the same as "biological sex", then the next question is: what are the acceptable values? Is it an ordinal data type, or a string? If you feel it's an ordinal, then who gets to pick the acceptable values? Do these things need to be codified into law? Then there's the issue of defining "gender identity". Is it simply "the gender you identify as", or does it include elements of your sexuality? What about elements of your social role? The trouble seems to be that historically you were biologically one of two things, were stuck that way, and there was only a single "acceptable" sexual orientation with related social role to go along with it. Many of our laws, customs, and language still reflect this history; the necessary refactoring appears nontrivial to say the least. Worse, the users are the dev team, the dev team has no idea what the f--- it's doing, there's no road map or even cohesive goals, and to top it all off they've split into multiple polarized factions that are refusing to communicate. But I'm sure we'll still manage to release in a timely manner. Finally, do note that the above doesn't even begin to address questions such as how to legally handle someone of one biology identifying as another. For better or worse, our law currently segregates biological males and females - bathrooms, sports, etc. These segregations have legal force, meaning a judge has to be able to make a determination, meaning there needs to be some explicit criteria. Historically, that was simple. Now, that criteria has to be modified to account for how and when changes can legally occur. It should not surprise you that there is social friction associated with such modifications to how things are done. Be understanding of this and engage with others without portraying them as monsters - doing otherwise won't improve anything, and is in fact likely to make things substantially worse. Of course I personally think the answer is simple. Get rid of the segregation entirely. Why do we need separate bathrooms again? Stop worrying about all of it. Leave people to get whatever medical procedures they want done, it's no one else's business anyway. Pass a law that prohibits discrimination based on any trait not directly physically relevant to the issue at hand. One and done. You'll still have to clean up photo IDs and all of the social baggage, but at least you'll have a functional systematization (ie none, just "human") and thus a clear end goal. Of course if we ever achieve AGI there will be a whole slew of new problems to contend with (what is "human", anyway?) but hey, let's just punt on that for now. Or I suppose we could all keep flinging shit at each other via social media, painting entire groups in broad brush strokes based on 140 (or now a whole 280!) character opinions and talking points, trying to get those we don't agree with removed from things. Yeah, was I thinking? That will obviously fix things.

tfehring 8y ago

> In particular, she (and others) are painted as abhorrent, openly hostile to trans people, and other such things. I suppose she might actually be? But I looked, and could only find her expressing concerns about restrooms and sports teams. I'll re-cite [0] from my previous comment. If that's not "openly hostile to trans people" I don't know what is. And referring to trans acceptance as "[changing] the definition of women to include men" might plausibly be unintentionally ignorant in a vacuum, but it's clearly transphobic in the context of the Heritage Foundation's positions more generally. There's room for reasonable discussion on issues like the inclusion of trans folk in competitive athletics. But I don't see a place for pseudoscientific posturing or transphobic rhetoric in that discussion. And not only has the Heritage Foundation demonstrated that it's incapable or unwilling to produce anything more substantial in that area, its willful, bad-faith ignorance of scientific evidence has also made it clear that it's not a reliable contributor to science-based discourse more generally. > Well I suppose that would depend on your definition of women and men, your definition of biological gender, how you think gender relates to gender identity, etc. To be blunt our society doesn't seem to have worked that stuff out yet (despite what many on the far right and the far left would have you believe). I'm not sure that the definition of "biological gender" or the relationship between gender and gender identity are subjective in the way you're insinuating. "Women" and "men" are arguably a bit trickier on paper, but in practice, my impression is that trans-exclusionary usage of those words is virtually always driven by either well-meaning ignorance or deliberate transphobia, not by an educated, good faith difference of opinion on their meaning. In the case of James's comment specifically, I'll reiterate that context matters - I don't think anyone who speaks for the Heritage Foundation can credibly claim either ignorance or good faith on that issue. [0] https://www.heritage.org/gender/event/when-harry-became-sally-responding-the-transgender-moment https://www.heritage.org/gender/event/when-harry-became-sall...

anjc 8y ago
> But I looked, and could only find her expressing concerns about restrooms and sports teams. > If that's not "openly hostile to trans people" I don't know what is ... There's room for reasonable discussion on issues like the inclusion of trans folk in competitive athletics Discussing trans in sports is which one? Hostile or reasonable?
- 0x2AF31DA8 8y ago
  I believe the content of the linked video is what's being referred to as "openly hostile", with discussion of participation in competitive sporting events being reasonable.
0x2AF31DA8 8y ago
First, I admit I haven't watched the video you linked. I do want to engage with you in good faith, but videos are generally just too much of a time sink for me - especially when it's from an organization I don't particularly care about on a political hot potato of a topic that the whole world seems to be losing its mind over. All I was responding to in my previous comment was her tweets plus the textual synopsis of the event on the page containing the video that you linked. You say: > pseudoscientific posturing or transphobic rhetoric if you could respond with explicit examples, ie reasonably specific instances of viewpoints you think fit this label, I would be interested to see them. I agree that the Heritage Foundation as a whole seems to have expressed some views that don't appear to reflect the scientific consensus regarding climate change. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if there were other, similar lapses of rigor in their rhetoric on other topics, however I haven't examined their publications and postings in any detail. Let's address the elephant in the room. You stated that I was "insinuating" that "the relationship between gender and gender identity [is] subjective" in some way. To me, this reads as you rejecting the notion that there could be any reasonable disagreement over how those two things are defined and relate to one another. You go on to openly admit that you assume from the start folks that disagree with you don't have an "educated, good faith difference of opinion on their meaning". That's hardly what I would describe as an open or positive attitude towards discussion of a topic. You even refer to such definitions as "trans-exclusionary". To be blunt, my impression is that you have already made up your mind and don't appear to be concerned with understanding on a fundamental level why others think what they do. I apologize if this is not the case, but it is certainly the impression I get from your wording. As for the terms in question, it truly doesn't seem to me that society has an acceptable working definition for either of them at this point, let alone a shared understanding of how those two hypothetical definitions relate to each other. Historically, the term "gender" was used in the way many people currently use the term "sex". So is "gender" equivalent to "sex", ie biological and binary for all practical purposes? Or is "gender" now something else entirely? I've encountered people who viewed "gender" as equivalent to "gender identity". I've also seen views expressed that they are three different things entirely. If you happen to be of the view that the current definition of "gender" is non-binary and is therefore not the same as "biological sex", then the next question is: what are the acceptable values? Is it an ordinal data type, or a string? If you feel it's an ordinal, then who gets to pick the acceptable values? Do these things need to be codified into law? Then there's the issue of defining "gender identity". Is it simply "the gender you identify as", or does it include elements of your sexuality? What about elements of your social role? The trouble seems to be that historically you were biologically one of two things, were stuck that way, and there was only a single "acceptable" sexual orientation with related social role to go along with it. Many of our laws, customs, and language still reflect this history; the necessary refactoring appears nontrivial to say the least. Worse, the users are the dev team, the dev team has no idea what the f--- it's doing, there's no road map or even cohesive goals, and to top it all off they've split into multiple polarized factions that are refusing to communicate. But I'm sure we'll still manage to release in a timely manner. Finally, do note that the above doesn't even begin to address questions such as how to legally handle someone of one biology identifying as another. For better or worse, our law currently segregates biological males and females - bathrooms, sports, etc. These segregations have legal force, meaning a judge has to be able to make a determination, meaning there needs to be some explicit criteria. Historically, that was simple. Now, that criteria has to be modified to account for how and when changes can legally occur. It should not surprise you that there is social friction associated with such modifications to how things are done. Be understanding of this and engage with others without portraying them as monsters - doing otherwise won't improve anything, and is in fact likely to make things substantially worse. Of course I personally think the answer is simple. Get rid of the segregation entirely. Why do we need separate bathrooms again? Stop worrying about all of it. Leave people to get whatever medical procedures they want done, it's no one else's business anyway. Pass a law that prohibits discrimination based on any trait not directly physically relevant to the issue at hand. One and done. You'll still have to clean up photo IDs and all of the social baggage, but at least you'll have a functional systematization (ie none, just "human") and thus a clear end goal. Of course if we ever achieve AGI there will be a whole slew of new problems to contend with (what is "human", anyway?) but hey, let's just punt on that for now. Or I suppose we could all keep flinging shit at each other via social media, painting entire groups in broad brush strokes based on 140 (or now a whole 280!) character opinions and talking points, trying to get those we don't agree with removed from things. Yeah, was I thinking? That will obviously fix things.