25 ms·

The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism (2014)

60 points by greenail 5y ago

exikyut 5y ago
This is throwing up a paywall URL. Any alternative links?
- _ceb 5y ago
  https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2 https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...
  - exikyut 5y ago
    Thanks. I wonder how long that site'll work for...
cglong 5y ago
(2014)
- deleted 5y ago
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greenail 5y ago
pcmoney 5y ago
If everything is constructed, if everything is relative, if everything is subjective and if everything is on a spectrum then what are we even arguing about? Nobody fits their gender norms perfectly. No culture has identical gender norms. Even physiologically chromosomes are more nuanced than X and Y.
- slightwinder 5y ago
  Because not everything is constructed, nor relative. And the spectrum is not evenly. People are also not always honest, be it on purpose or by ignorance. And Science, as also society still has many open questions. That's why people are still arguing. And then there are also the gazillion of traumatized people who just fight against those who abuse them, whether it's justified or not, whether they hit the right target or the wrong one. It's all not that simple...
  - pcmoney 5y ago
    I don’t believe everything is constructed and I don’t believe in most statements of moral relativism. However the people involved in the arguments generally favor some view of subjective truth and/or moral relativism, at which point why do they care? (Similar to the question of: if people claim gender is a social construct how can someone be the wrong one?) I think the solution is nothing new, it relies on going back to teaching a classical liberal definition of tolerance and the objective morality of empathy and compassion. No need to reinvent the wheel.
- xupybd 5y ago
  The one thing that seems a little rough is in sports other than that I'd agree.
  - cloutchaser 5y ago
    It's also a bit rough on women in women's prisons where any sex offender declaring themselves a woman can now get moved to.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      Doesn't it say more about our prisons that this is a real concern though? That the lack of ability to prevent prisoners from sexually assaulting one another is the expected norm? And it isn't like there aren't women capable of sexually assaulting each other, but I guess that's more acceptable somehow?
biologicalwoman 5y ago
water8 5y ago
- auslegung 5y ago
  I’m not being a jerk, but are you aware of XXY syndrome? How does that fit into your statement?
  - water8 5y ago
    They have a Y chromosome. They are a male. It’s the lack of the Y not the presence of two Xs that make a woman a woman
    - emilyst 5y ago
      Do you know you don't have a Y chromosome? Did you check?
      - water8 5y ago
        emilyst 5y ago
        I think your comment was directed to the wrong person.
    - epgui 5y ago
      Unfortunately, it just is not that simple. It's up to you, but you have a choice between either letting go of this idea, or continuing to hold slightly wrong beliefs. (I am a scientist, but this is not my specific area of expertise) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the...
      - Ourgon 5y ago
jacobriis 5y ago
Must everyone pretend that words cannot have more than one definition for just this word? women (noun) 1) An adult female person 2) Whatever we say it means Typically in context it's not difficult to determine which definition people are using.
- slowmovintarget 5y ago
  By definition, literally, your secondary definition is meaningless. The more diluted a term is, the noisier it becomes, until it no longer conveys information. From everything I can see, this dilution appears intentional for the purpose of establishing new dominance hierarchies.
  - dwaltrip 5y ago
    As I'm sure you are fully aware, sometimes we find that certain concepts don't fully match reality as it is, and we then have to work to update our conceptual frameworks. Is it that hard to imagine that "woman" and "man" might be one of those concepts? Especially given the amount of scientific progress that has occurred in the past few centuries? Not saying I have all of the answers. It's just interesting to me how some people seem completely closed off to the idea that we may need to improve our understanding in this area.
    - xdennis 5y ago
      The reality and the science is very clear. What you're saying is that science should be adjusted to take into account people's feelings. That is not science. And it's only being made more ridiculous when the proponents for the fuzziness of the concept of what a women is also insist that there are a multitude more genders and that you can change between them on the fly several times a day.
      - dwaltrip 5y ago
        If the science is so clear, can you help me understand? Why do trans people claim what they claim? Can you point me to the research? I need a more detailed explanation than “they have a medical disorder”.
water8 5y ago
People are confusing their psychological mind with their physical reality. You don’t just get to decide you’re a bird and be able to fly. Why do we debate this stuff? Instead of getting so offended stop Defineing yourself by something so insignificant
- deleted 5y ago
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- dwaltrip 5y ago
  The psychological mind is a real physical thing. No one is claiming to be a bird. That's a non-sequitur. We debate these things because some people say "I feel X" and others say "You aren't allowed to feel that way and here is how we will marginalize you for that". These are complicated issues. We should be willing to listen more and not assume we have all the answers about people who may have a very different life experience than you or me.
  - hitpointdrew 5y ago
    > We debate these things because some people say "I feel X" and others say "You aren't allowed to feel that way and here is how we will marginalize you for that". Talk about missing the plot. This is 100% incorrect and not at all what the debate is about. No cares how anyone feels, people can feel any way they want, this is not the complaint. The issue is “I believe I am <gender>, and I demand you treat me as <gender>, and also demand that you also agree that I not only feel like <gender>, but that I actually am <gender>.” Yeah, sorry no that isn’t how biology works. It’s also selfish and narcissistic to demand everyone else partake in your self perception. Demanding everyone use your “pronouns” is just as silly if I demanded that everyone use the adjectives “strong and handsome” when they refer to me because that is how I feel and perceive myself. Having my own adjectives is extremely pompous, and so is having your own pronouns. You can feel however you want that’s fine, but you don’t get demand every else in the world must take part in your self perception and compel their speech and behavior to do so.
    - dwaltrip 5y ago
thinkingemote 5y ago
"an interesting game, professor falcon. It appears the only winning move is not to play."
- version_five 5y ago
  That seems to be the stance most people take on these kind of things because they are such minefields, but its allowed trolls to basically walk all over society because of our collective fear of offending anyone. See the "lemmywinks" south park episode from 20+ years ago.
  - igetspam 5y ago
    Agreed. The intro to the article claims that few feminists hold positions that there is a difference in the experience of being biologically female vs identifying as female. I would disagree. From what I've observed, many believe there are differences but are tired of being shouted down and "canceled," so they stay quiet. This is especially a problem in women's sports, which has long been a strength for women but is now a hotbed of anger and infighting.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    Yeah, most sensible people don't like to argue with fools for fear of being mistaken for one by sinking down to that level. But the cultural ideology trolls clearly need to be pushed back on and put in place in the larger perspective, where their concerns are overall minor. This is a great illustration of the point I like to use - arms race heats up just as china reveals space nukes america responds with trans admiral https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china-reveals-space-nukes-america-responds-with-trans-admiral/ https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china...
- exidy 5y ago
  *Falken[1] [1] https://war-games.fandom.com/wiki/Stephen_Falken https://war-games.fandom.com/wiki/Stephen_Falken
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wanda 5y ago
The mind of a person, in its authentic and self-aware form, has no gender. Any gender normative behaviour is imprinted by habit or selected by the subject by choice, because that's how they choose to identify. This person then has two options: to not mind what body they have, because it's irrelevant to who they are; or to select to alter their body because they don't like it, or prefer the aesthetic properties of another body enough to make the alterations. Analogy: imagine everyone is born and given a car. All the cars are identical in speed, economy and safety, but differ in terms of status and social stigmas attached to the badge on the hood. When they're old enough to drive it, if they think philosophically about it, it's irrelevant what brand the car is, provided that it works, and we'll say for argument's sake that all the cars work. However, plenty of people would pay to change their Skoda or Honda for a Mercedes or Tesla badge, and vice versa. This is because the brands have acquired a series of associations in the public consciousness -- Mercedes is associated with prestige, wealth and luxury; Honda with reliability, value for money, fuel economy, and so on. Some of these associations are deliberate results of marketing and design, and some (in particular negative connotations regarding the drivers) have been earned through what are essentially memes. Many people jokingly stereotype Mercedes and BMW drivers as assholes, and others stereotype drivers of Japanese or Korean cars as poor -- because they're not in a German luxury car, not because the Japanese and Korean manufacturers don't make expensive luxury cars. Let's get back to bodies. Since you cannot currently swap your body for another one, and since it has yet to be determined conclusively that there is a neat Cartesian division between mind and body (evidence suggests that the contrary is true, and that the line between mind and body is pretty blurry), people must resort to paying for modifications to their body to acquire the looks they want. The aesthetic construct of the body is obviously tightly coupled to the modifier-type person's sense of identity. It isn't simply that they want to be more beautiful, they want to feel more beautiful, and they want beauty to be a defining characteristic. This may stem from abuse in their developing years teaching them that their looks are coupled to their identity (you're ugly so you aren't good enough to play with us) or it may simply be their nature -- this debate is volatile, but more importantly it is irrelevant. Why is it irrelevant? Because it doesn't matter whether working to unwind the abuse to help people accept their natural body would reduce the popularity if plastic surgery or not, to try and make that judgement across the whole human race or indeed the subset that seeks out body alteration is both dangerous and not possible to do without misjudging someone. There are always outliers, people who get plastic surgery because they see no harm in it and just want something they see as an imperfection removed or corrected. And that's okay, it's every person's choice and no one should be made to answer for their choices in life provided that they didn't hurt anyone else in the process. This simply covers cosmetic alteration, of course. When coming to the question of gender re-assignment, it is not so much more complicated as it is more delicate. For starters, it's a bigger change that enlarging breasts or straightening noses. And while philosophically it makes no difference to the authentic, self-aware person's mind, in reality it is the culmination of a decision in that person's mind to change gender (which may not simply be a desire to look different, but rather a way to visibly manifest and perhaps even justify/normalise their desire to behave in line with gender norms that oppose their biological gender. Additionally, even if the person behaves no differently and just wanted to change for no apparent reason (for argument's sake) it will have a far greater effect on how the rest of society will perceive that person compared to cosmetic enhancements. Sure, people can be judgemental of others who get breast enlargement or nose correction, botox, whatever. But more people are likely to be more judgemental of people who change genders. The very notion, while considerably more mainstream and accepted than even 20 years ago, is still likely to evoke intolerance and discomfort in a lot of people -- they have simply been taught by TV or direct experience that they have to be selective with whom they confide their feelings to. The rudimentary answer to the question "what is a woman?" is a female human. And in a world where no one is judgemental, there is no historic prejudice, no patriarchal shaping of language and power, etc, this is all there would be. But that's not the world we live in. We live in a world where women were historically treated by many cultures as inferior humans who were only necessary for the production of offspring and the performance of housekeeping. Where women who tried to prove that they were anything more were mocked, criticised, ostracised, abused or just killed. We live in a world where man formed languages in direct reference/deference to himself, and some of our languages even attach genders to certain objects. We live in a world where a man is defined by his power, and a woman by her beauty and by how closely she matches whatever manifestations of the female gender archetype are en vogue. In other words, by her ability to attract a man. Ultimately, the same primitivism that caused women to be sidelined as cooks and mothers lies embedded in the marketing machine that pumps out glistening glossy airbrushed idols and bombastic celebrities for women to emulate today. The real danger of this, however, lies in the reaction. Women do not see through this ruse to make them buy perfume and eyeliner, instead they react the opposite way and try to emulate the male stereotype. This is like Camus compared to to Heidegger. Heidegger says Sisyphus, keep bringing the rocks, it sucks but if you can't accept that it sucks, you're just deluding yourself and that's no way to live. Camus says rebel, run away, fuck the rocks, rocks are whack. My point is that a lot of feminists looked at Sisyphus's wife getting her nails and think that carrying rocks is awesome because it's not feminine, and then another wave of feminists come and see other feminists carrying rocks and decide that it's better to embrace being feminine and go to get their nails done. And then you have your actual feminists who look at Sisyphus, his wife, and the other feminists and think how utterly absurd the whole picture is, and work to change the problems in society through literary criticism and post-structuralist psychoanalysis. The reason why people have problems with gender re-assignment is that they have thousands of years of history and opinions making them make emotional and thus bad judgements about the whole situation, and most importantly, not thinking critically about why they are making those judgements. They're just on autopilot. What is a woman? A woman is a female human. What is a female human? A human with a female body.
a_shovel 5y ago
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quantified 5y ago
What are the hermaphrodites?
azth 5y ago
Quite simple: a person with XX chromosomes. Or are people starting to deny biology now?
- sorethescore 5y ago
  You're understanding of biology is rather outdated. There are several X & Y chromosomal variations that are rather common but frequently undiagnosed. The X & Y Variations include 47, XXY OR Klinefelter Syndrome, 47, XYY (Jacob’s Syndrome) , 47, XXX (Triple X). There are also several variant disorders which include Tetrasomy X, Pentasomy X, 49, XXXX, 48, XXXY, 48, XXYY, and 49, XXXXY. So no, it's not quite simple.
  - azth 5y ago
    Not outdated. The cases you mentioned are extremely extremely rare, and are indicative of physical ailments. The are no excuse to generalize across the population to attempt to redefine what "man" and "woman" mean. A child can tell you what a man and woman are.
    - becquerel 5y ago
      Minorities still matter even if there aren't many of them. At what boundary does something being rare enough mean it's ok to not consider it a seperate form of sex? Is it 10% of the population, 5%, or 0.5%? Why?
      - _Algernon_ 5y ago
        Calling genetic abnormalities in sex chromosomes separate sexes makes about as much sex as considering cancer a developmental stage.
      - Ourgon 5y ago
        We do not consider people who suffer from dwarfism a separate species, they are humans with a condition which limited their growth. People with Hypertrichosis are not seen as a separate species either, they are humans who show abnormal hair growth over their bodies. People with Syndactyly are just as human as those who do not have webbing between their fingers or toes. In short, the presence of abnormal conditions does not create separate categories nor does it void existing categorisations, it just means that the individual who has that condition differs from the normal in some way.
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benmmurphy 5y ago
i think the more interesting questions are what is a women when adjudicating a rule involving who is a woman. it may even make sense to have multiple definitions of who a woman is depending on the rule. for example i don't think it makes sense for people who were previously men to compete in women sports when one of the main reasons for segregating women's sport is to protect them from competition from men who are biologically better at these sports. but that doesn't mean the same person should be excluded from being considered a woman when deciding some other rule. people also seem to deliberately be conflating sex and gender. clearly a lot of 'rules' seem to be based on sex but then people will claim gender identity is fluid and then try to use gender identification to backdoor a rule that is based on sex.
- forty 5y ago
  I think sport is a a exemple on why gender is a bad measure. Why are we doing separate competitions for men and women? Because men have physical differences that give them a significant advantage on many sports. For simplicity purpose I will assume this is only because they generate more testosterone though I'm sure it's more complicated. So people generating more testosterone have a significant advantage on sports. Why should then we care wether they are men or women, whatever that means? A good illustration of this are women who have hyperandrogenism, who are, ironically, sometimes excluded from competing in women competitions because of the unfair advance their high testosterone give them compared to other women, even though they are biological women. I'm sure some men have low level of testosterone compared to the "standard" level of most men, which would give them an unfair disadvantage in men competitions. So my question is, why, rather than doing men/women competitions, don't we do high/low testosterone competition, regardless of the gender?
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    After countless female leads in fighting roles pushed in agenda based Hollywood brainwashing, and the era of immense sociopolitical pressure to push the 'women can do anything' line, perhaps the answer is just don't segregate. Instead of the subjectivity, remove all the segregation and let reality sort it out. Would certainly clear up a lot of cognitive dissonance.
throwaway378037 5y ago
I don’t understand why this is being posted now, nor why it’s trending. There are far more up-to-date sources to be found. Human rights should not be a debate
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  Isn't it about clashing rights?
- david38 5y ago
  Almost by definition a “human right” is debated because it’s based on time and culture. It used to mean the right to be alive, then freedom from slavery was added, then access to food. Shelter isn’t even an established right, what makes you think wanting to be treated differently from how you used to be would be? What about access to sex? Internet? A car? Mass transit?
- rainonmoon 5y ago
  A British former TV writer who became a very prominent transphobe years ago was just interviewed and claims to have had his life ruined as a consequence of publicly vilifying a vulnerable segment of society. Be prepared for a new wave of anti-trans sentiment wherever you get your content as new people take up his ridiculous crusade.
  - raffraffraff 5y ago
    His life is ruined because of how he is online, as much as what his crusade was. While most people who spoke up for sex-based rights "buttoned it" when they were piled on and called TERFs, he decided the only way to clear his name was to fight the battle, but he found himself without many allies because he can be so toxic. He drove away his own friends and called people out on Twitter for not backing him up. However, while I say "this is as much about him as it is about his crusade", he behaved the same way during the Irish abortion campaign (he was for abortion rights btw) and Gamergate. The reason he wasn't "ruined" back then was because the trans rights issue is far more toxic. Nobody is allowed question the current narrative.
ComradePhil 5y ago
Changing entire social norms to include a very small population will only lead to problems. Accepting trangenders for who they are is a much better strategy in the long run. Why are they so keen on fitting into existing definitions, social norms and binary gender tropes when they are not the same? It's absolotely ridiculous.
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graevy 5y ago
> But, if that’s true, why would men demote themselves to womanhood? For reasons of sexual fetishism, says Jeffreys i just looked up some stats on trans death. it was hard to get a good international life expectancy source; most seem to peg it at about 32-40, or half the general population's. i did definitively find that 2 in 5 living american trans people self-report attempted suicide. must be quite the fetish, Sheila. the paradox of tolerance: tolerating bigotry replaces your alienated userbase with bigots until it stops couching itself in virtuous newyorker articles.
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- unmole 5y ago
  > good international life expectancy source; most seem to peg it at about 32-40 Which sources? The frequently cited 35 years figure is nonsense: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/09/23/41471629/is-the-life-expectancy-of-trans-women-in-the-us-just-35-no https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/09/23/41471629/is-the-...
  - graevy 5y ago
    the article that you linked is trying to debug the US life expectancy claim. i specifically wrote "international". your own article cites a (quite thorough! better than i found on short notice) analysis in latin america estimating the number between 30-35 as its 772nd citation...
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DeathArrow 5y ago
- frozencell 5y ago
  Why is this downvoted?
  - thr407891 5y ago
    Because it's a comment consisting of only four words that adds nothing to the discussion, and has little to do with the article? Or maybe it's because the evil SJW lobby has infiltrated Hacker News. It seems more reasonable to assume the former.
blippage 5y ago
As the saying goes: keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out. The more that things are discussed, analysed, out-analysed, over-analysed, the more they devolve into a cacophony of views. Particularly with hot-button topics such as this, there are many people pushing an agenda rather than trying to arrive at the truth. We are living in an age of moral relativism with the bleating of a thousand views, but no guiding principals to sort the wheat from the chaff. In the end, all we can do is throw our hands up and declare all views are right, and all views are wrong.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  As your first paragraph alludes, logic is a good test for what is actually wrong and should be pushed back on. That includes detecting those agenda driven drivels!
- esja 5y ago
  I would suggest that declaring all views to be right and all views to be wrong is indistinguishable from your brain having fallen out. We can do better.
xupybd 5y ago
Why does everyone need to control everyone else. Can we just live our lives and deal with everyone as individuals not as members of some other group?
- cloutchaser 5y ago
  We seemed to almost arrive at that situation up to around 2000, maybe 2005. The center of politics and individual rights won. Then something went wrong and the authoritarians took over, wanting to make everything about group identity again. Such a shame.
  - syshum 5y ago
    Libertarians where too focused on Right Authoritarians we got flanked by Left Authoritarians and never saw it coming, the problem now is too many liberty minded people are see the Right Authoritarians as allies to the cause of liberty making the same mistake as the 90's when we allied with left authoritarians to put down the right. Enemy of my Enemy of my friend is ALWAYS terrible doctrine
    - cloutchaser 5y ago
      The left authoritarians control almost all of culture. Movies, academia, tech. We're a long way from the right authoritarians to regain any sort of power. I do agree on your broad point though. There shouldn't allegiances with extremists of any kind.
      - syshum 5y ago
        Now, that was not always the case. Hollywood was changing in the 90's but it was very mixed then, more balanced. that was a time where Congress was holding hearings on Violence in Video Games, and wanting to ban pornography and other things like that. Academia was similar, left for sure, but libertarian left The Right was very much the authoritarian "side" of politics in the 90, started to change in 00's. then in 2016 Trump drove the Left right into Full blown totalitarian frenzy
low_tech_love 5y ago
”As members see it, a person born with male privilege can no more shed it through surgery than a white person can claim an African-American identity simply by darkening his or her skin.” Gotta admit I find it hard to disagree with this, even if I usually disagree with extremist ideological groups.
- polishdude20 5y ago
  How is that the same though? They're comparing privilege to identity. Two different things. "Male Privilege" is based on the fact that society treats you differently as a male than as a female. Not because you're born with some innate power that you collect once at birth and can never give away. This is why a surgery CAN shed male privilege. Maybe not all of what benefits you've accumulated this far, but you may have many years on this earth left afterwards which would not include that "privilege" anymore.
  - 7steps2much 5y ago
    Isn't skin color based privilege the same though? If someone darkens their skin so everyone perceives them as black instead of white, then that person lost their privileges of that point forth. White privilege is very much a treatment by society. Racism and sexism are both enacted upon by people based on social norms.
    - mc32 5y ago
      Rachel Dolazal. The overarching phenomenon is ‘dominant privilege’. In a gender studies program certain people have privilege. In Japan certain people have privilege, within a ghetto certain people have privilege, within Fortune 500s certain people have privilege. However people mainly focus on certain dominant groups in select socio economic areas of the US. But this phenomenon is found everywhere.
  - fif8fjrvuc 5y ago
- 5y ago
da39a3ee 5y ago
I'll just say that this issue has made me pretty upset and angry over the last few years. The idea that people, "friends" even, hate me because I choose (respectfully) to stick to the definition of "woman" that I learned as a child and which my education as a biologist confirmed was reasonable is an absurd fact about modern western societies.
incomingpain 5y ago
A surprising number of twitch and twitter bans this week. Destiny for example is now permanently banned from twitch because he took the position that trans shouldn't compete in physical sports. Meanwhile, he has extensive history of supporting trans rights in full on debates. As they say, the left eats their own because they could no longer attack anyone but their own. Let's throw down. I am trans and have had srs(brassard). I am absolutely not affiliated with the LGBT political activist group. What is going on? Trans people are treated like horseshit and ostracized from society. When you have a greatly disenfranchised group of people who basically hate society. Their goal becomes tearing down society. Destruction of society is the goal. You have some politicians who want to help and effectively help integrate trans people back into society. However, they did this through compelled speech laws. You either say their ridiculous pronouns or you end up in front of a 'hate crime tribunal' quite literally. This isn't helping the situation at all. This is in fact making the problem far worse.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  I agree with your points so much, all of them. What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess?
  - frozencell 5y ago
    Them to rebuild societies far from politicians
    - deleted 5y ago
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  - incomingpain 5y ago
    >I agree with your points so much, all of them. Honestly expected to get banned for my view. People are being banned off social media for far far less. >What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess? Some think the fix is straight forward, stop ostracizing people. This isn't just trans, it's all the usual 'cant discriminate against' and if we simply stop saying bad words that it'll be all better. That seems on the face like it would fix the problem; but clearly hasn't over how many decades now? The problem is that this approach is literally causing the problem. How about the baddest word of them all, the N-word. You dont dare say it. Has this done anything at all to stop this racism? Clearly not. Imagine we start saying it'll ILLEGAL to say some pejorative for white people. You know what happens? You will get a ton of people now saying it. It's edgy, it's maybe hurtful? They'll say it. If my political opponent says I cant say something. I am going to say it. I probably never said it before but because you say I can't say it. I'm going to start saying it. Bring me to the hate crime tribunal, send me to prison. So what? Government can't do anything? Precisely. The government is literally harming everything here. How does society fix prejudice? Not by force. For the general population, how did homosexuals start getting a good rap? People like Neil Patrick Harris being open about it, BUT not throwing it in anyones face. While also being an awesome person. Elton John? Queen? So many great examples. How about black people? Will Smith, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, SO MANY awesome black people who don't really get in your face about it. In fact, just stop talking about race and be awesome is exactly what they say to do. How about atheists? Penn Jillette talks exactly on the subject. You need to not throw it in people's face. You be a good person and nice person. You win people over. Dealing with extremists is not that different. Daryl Davis is beyond brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw Joe Rogan has also interviewed Daryl a bunch of times. Here's the complication. The current approach of banning people because they wont say their Ze/Zir pronouns does what exactly? It disenfranchises people. Is this not exactly what we are trying to fix? What happens when you now disenfranchise these *phobes. They will come to hate society in exactly the same way. If you are a daryl davis, these bans are hurting your cause. There will be people who see Destiny banned and will become transphobes. There's tons of people who see Babylon Bee ban and become even more entrenched against trans people. Rachel Levine being labelled women of the year because of being appointed to a job is beyond absurd. How about Kamala Harris as woman of the year? Clearly far more worthy. First female(and black?) vice president? What a huge success. I could name how many other far more worthy women. Tons of people say 'twitter isnt free speech. free speech is the government' On the contrary. Section 230 is how Twitter exists and clearly establishes free speech on twitter. You absolutely should have free speech on twitter and other social media. It's a political move by the government to not enforce Section 230 and therefore is the government removing free speech rights. Want to ultimately and quickly fix this problem. Enforce Section 230's free speech. Mandate free speech with the very few exceptions therein for social media. Disallow these entities to censor speech. You will quickly find this problem goes away.
hereme888 5y ago
- aklemm 5y ago
  This is essentially to say people need to behave to your exact expectations based on their physical appearance or you’re going to get mad and threaten their rights. It is literally bigoted.
  - gutitout 5y ago
    You can be accepting of others, however facts are facts. Gravity doesn’t stop existing, because you don’t “behave” as though it does.
    - aklemm 5y ago
      Gender is behavior, and it’s negotiable.
      - gutitout 5y ago
        The OP is now deleted, however it states there is XX and XY chromosome. How is this behavior? How is this negotiable? Legit curious.
        aklemm 5y ago
        The implication being based on those chromosomes, there is one way to behave; you must race with those of like-chromosomes. I think that's entirely up for debate, and for good reason. Further, there may be entirely new ways to organize our culture and society for broader justice for the marginalized. Organizing such things by gender breaks down (if justice is your lens) just like it does with race.
  - hereme888 5y ago
    Your own statement reveals your bias. I never described a behavior or expectation, but and embedded genetically-shaped characteristic. Your accusation of me being "bigoted" is a stereotypical "extreme leftist" / "woke" accusation based on no fact.
thr407891 5y ago
What I don't understand about the trans-in-sports issue is why there is never any discussion of transgender men (ie people born female who take testosterone and transition to male). Everything I have ever read suggests that there are just as many trans men as trans women, if not more, and yet trans male athletes seem rarely mentioned. There was an interesting case in Texas that did involve a trans male wrestler [1]. Because of restrictions imposed by the state of Texas, high school athletes must compete with their birth sex. The wrestler in question takes testosterone, which naturally gives him a huge advantage over the women against he competes against, leading him to consecutive victories at the state championships. According to news coverage of the championships, he was booed after his victory, and a lawsuit was filed to try and stop him from competing at all. And yet, if you believe that anyone with two X chromosomes is a woman, these victories were the correct outcome: the championship was a competition between two women. Sure, the hormones he takes give him an advantage, but they were prescribed by a doctor for a medical condition (gender dysphoria). If a women was very tall, a result of her biology (in other words, a medical condition), no one would object when she made the basketball team. What if we generalize his case to more elite athletes? If you have a problem with a muscular, bearded, man with a military haircut demolishing cisgender women in high level competitions, then you do not agree that people with two X chromosomes should always compete, because this is what many trans men look like. A more logical position might be that anyone with elevated testosterone shouldn't compete with women, but then we have another problem, trans women often have lower testosterone than cis women [2]. So, if you object to cases like Lia Thomas's, which I totally agree seems unfair from the media coverage, then this won't work either. It seems like the solution is pretty simple: in adult athletic competitions there should be two categories, women and "open". Women is for people with two X chromosomes and testosterone in the female range, while open is for everyone else. There is one last difficulty, though. Androgens are one of the most potent athletic performance enhancers that we know of. So, if you sample elite female athletes it is almost guaranteed that many of them have higher than average testosterone. Some may even be intersex without realizing it. They would all have to compete with men, which would be awkward for them, and likely make them less competitive. But hey, if you think that a trans man with a beard demolishing high school girls in wrestling is unfair, then you ought to think that female athletes with high testosterone is also unfair, even when those athletes have had long careers winning against other women [3]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/25/transgender-wrestler-mack-beggs-wins-texas-girls-title https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/25/transgender-... [2] https://www.sfaf.org/wp-content/uploads/resources/transfeminine-hormone-check-brochure-v2.pdf https://www.sfaf.org/wp-content/uploads/resources/transfemin... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/feb/18/caster-semenya-testosterone-levels-female-sport-court https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/feb/18/caster-se...

60 points by greenail 5y ago

exikyut 5y ago

This is throwing up a paywall URL. Any alternative links?

_ceb 5y ago
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2 https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...
- exikyut 5y ago
  Thanks. I wonder how long that site'll work for...

cglong 5y ago

(2014)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

greenail 5y ago

pcmoney 5y ago

If everything is constructed, if everything is relative, if everything is subjective and if everything is on a spectrum then what are we even arguing about? Nobody fits their gender norms perfectly. No culture has identical gender norms. Even physiologically chromosomes are more nuanced than X and Y.

slightwinder 5y ago
Because not everything is constructed, nor relative. And the spectrum is not evenly. People are also not always honest, be it on purpose or by ignorance. And Science, as also society still has many open questions. That's why people are still arguing. And then there are also the gazillion of traumatized people who just fight against those who abuse them, whether it's justified or not, whether they hit the right target or the wrong one. It's all not that simple...
- pcmoney 5y ago
  I don’t believe everything is constructed and I don’t believe in most statements of moral relativism. However the people involved in the arguments generally favor some view of subjective truth and/or moral relativism, at which point why do they care? (Similar to the question of: if people claim gender is a social construct how can someone be the wrong one?) I think the solution is nothing new, it relies on going back to teaching a classical liberal definition of tolerance and the objective morality of empathy and compassion. No need to reinvent the wheel.
xupybd 5y ago
The one thing that seems a little rough is in sports other than that I'd agree.
- cloutchaser 5y ago
  It's also a bit rough on women in women's prisons where any sex offender declaring themselves a woman can now get moved to.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Doesn't it say more about our prisons that this is a real concern though? That the lack of ability to prevent prisoners from sexually assaulting one another is the expected norm? And it isn't like there aren't women capable of sexually assaulting each other, but I guess that's more acceptable somehow?

biologicalwoman 5y ago

water8 5y ago

auslegung 5y ago
I’m not being a jerk, but are you aware of XXY syndrome? How does that fit into your statement?
- water8 5y ago
  They have a Y chromosome. They are a male. It’s the lack of the Y not the presence of two Xs that make a woman a woman
  - emilyst 5y ago
    Do you know you don't have a Y chromosome? Did you check?
    - water8 5y ago
      - emilyst 5y ago
        I think your comment was directed to the wrong person.
  - epgui 5y ago
    Unfortunately, it just is not that simple. It's up to you, but you have a choice between either letting go of this idea, or continuing to hold slightly wrong beliefs. (I am a scientist, but this is not my specific area of expertise) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the...
    - Ourgon 5y ago

jacobriis 5y ago

Must everyone pretend that words cannot have more than one definition for just this word? women (noun) 1) An adult female person 2) Whatever we say it means Typically in context it's not difficult to determine which definition people are using.

slowmovintarget 5y ago
By definition, literally, your secondary definition is meaningless. The more diluted a term is, the noisier it becomes, until it no longer conveys information. From everything I can see, this dilution appears intentional for the purpose of establishing new dominance hierarchies.
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  As I'm sure you are fully aware, sometimes we find that certain concepts don't fully match reality as it is, and we then have to work to update our conceptual frameworks. Is it that hard to imagine that "woman" and "man" might be one of those concepts? Especially given the amount of scientific progress that has occurred in the past few centuries? Not saying I have all of the answers. It's just interesting to me how some people seem completely closed off to the idea that we may need to improve our understanding in this area.
  - xdennis 5y ago
    The reality and the science is very clear. What you're saying is that science should be adjusted to take into account people's feelings. That is not science. And it's only being made more ridiculous when the proponents for the fuzziness of the concept of what a women is also insist that there are a multitude more genders and that you can change between them on the fly several times a day.
    - dwaltrip 5y ago
      If the science is so clear, can you help me understand? Why do trans people claim what they claim? Can you point me to the research? I need a more detailed explanation than “they have a medical disorder”.

water8 5y ago

People are confusing their psychological mind with their physical reality. You don’t just get to decide you’re a bird and be able to fly. Why do we debate this stuff? Instead of getting so offended stop Defineing yourself by something so insignificant

deleted 5y ago
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dwaltrip 5y ago
The psychological mind is a real physical thing. No one is claiming to be a bird. That's a non-sequitur. We debate these things because some people say "I feel X" and others say "You aren't allowed to feel that way and here is how we will marginalize you for that". These are complicated issues. We should be willing to listen more and not assume we have all the answers about people who may have a very different life experience than you or me.
- hitpointdrew 5y ago
  > We debate these things because some people say "I feel X" and others say "You aren't allowed to feel that way and here is how we will marginalize you for that". Talk about missing the plot. This is 100% incorrect and not at all what the debate is about. No cares how anyone feels, people can feel any way they want, this is not the complaint. The issue is “I believe I am <gender>, and I demand you treat me as <gender>, and also demand that you also agree that I not only feel like <gender>, but that I actually am <gender>.” Yeah, sorry no that isn’t how biology works. It’s also selfish and narcissistic to demand everyone else partake in your self perception. Demanding everyone use your “pronouns” is just as silly if I demanded that everyone use the adjectives “strong and handsome” when they refer to me because that is how I feel and perceive myself. Having my own adjectives is extremely pompous, and so is having your own pronouns. You can feel however you want that’s fine, but you don’t get demand every else in the world must take part in your self perception and compel their speech and behavior to do so.
  - dwaltrip 5y ago

thinkingemote 5y ago

"an interesting game, professor falcon. It appears the only winning move is not to play."

version_five 5y ago
That seems to be the stance most people take on these kind of things because they are such minefields, but its allowed trolls to basically walk all over society because of our collective fear of offending anyone. See the "lemmywinks" south park episode from 20+ years ago.
- igetspam 5y ago
  Agreed. The intro to the article claims that few feminists hold positions that there is a difference in the experience of being biologically female vs identifying as female. I would disagree. From what I've observed, many believe there are differences but are tired of being shouted down and "canceled," so they stay quiet. This is especially a problem in women's sports, which has long been a strength for women but is now a hotbed of anger and infighting.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  Yeah, most sensible people don't like to argue with fools for fear of being mistaken for one by sinking down to that level. But the cultural ideology trolls clearly need to be pushed back on and put in place in the larger perspective, where their concerns are overall minor. This is a great illustration of the point I like to use - arms race heats up just as china reveals space nukes america responds with trans admiral https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china-reveals-space-nukes-america-responds-with-trans-admiral/ https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china...
exidy 5y ago
*Falken[1] [1] https://war-games.fandom.com/wiki/Stephen_Falken https://war-games.fandom.com/wiki/Stephen_Falken

deleted 5y ago

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wanda 5y ago

The mind of a person, in its authentic and self-aware form, has no gender. Any gender normative behaviour is imprinted by habit or selected by the subject by choice, because that's how they choose to identify. This person then has two options: to not mind what body they have, because it's irrelevant to who they are; or to select to alter their body because they don't like it, or prefer the aesthetic properties of another body enough to make the alterations. Analogy: imagine everyone is born and given a car. All the cars are identical in speed, economy and safety, but differ in terms of status and social stigmas attached to the badge on the hood. When they're old enough to drive it, if they think philosophically about it, it's irrelevant what brand the car is, provided that it works, and we'll say for argument's sake that all the cars work. However, plenty of people would pay to change their Skoda or Honda for a Mercedes or Tesla badge, and vice versa. This is because the brands have acquired a series of associations in the public consciousness -- Mercedes is associated with prestige, wealth and luxury; Honda with reliability, value for money, fuel economy, and so on. Some of these associations are deliberate results of marketing and design, and some (in particular negative connotations regarding the drivers) have been earned through what are essentially memes. Many people jokingly stereotype Mercedes and BMW drivers as assholes, and others stereotype drivers of Japanese or Korean cars as poor -- because they're not in a German luxury car, not because the Japanese and Korean manufacturers don't make expensive luxury cars. Let's get back to bodies. Since you cannot currently swap your body for another one, and since it has yet to be determined conclusively that there is a neat Cartesian division between mind and body (evidence suggests that the contrary is true, and that the line between mind and body is pretty blurry), people must resort to paying for modifications to their body to acquire the looks they want. The aesthetic construct of the body is obviously tightly coupled to the modifier-type person's sense of identity. It isn't simply that they want to be more beautiful, they want to feel more beautiful, and they want beauty to be a defining characteristic. This may stem from abuse in their developing years teaching them that their looks are coupled to their identity (you're ugly so you aren't good enough to play with us) or it may simply be their nature -- this debate is volatile, but more importantly it is irrelevant. Why is it irrelevant? Because it doesn't matter whether working to unwind the abuse to help people accept their natural body would reduce the popularity if plastic surgery or not, to try and make that judgement across the whole human race or indeed the subset that seeks out body alteration is both dangerous and not possible to do without misjudging someone. There are always outliers, people who get plastic surgery because they see no harm in it and just want something they see as an imperfection removed or corrected. And that's okay, it's every person's choice and no one should be made to answer for their choices in life provided that they didn't hurt anyone else in the process. This simply covers cosmetic alteration, of course. When coming to the question of gender re-assignment, it is not so much more complicated as it is more delicate. For starters, it's a bigger change that enlarging breasts or straightening noses. And while philosophically it makes no difference to the authentic, self-aware person's mind, in reality it is the culmination of a decision in that person's mind to change gender (which may not simply be a desire to look different, but rather a way to visibly manifest and perhaps even justify/normalise their desire to behave in line with gender norms that oppose their biological gender. Additionally, even if the person behaves no differently and just wanted to change for no apparent reason (for argument's sake) it will have a far greater effect on how the rest of society will perceive that person compared to cosmetic enhancements. Sure, people can be judgemental of others who get breast enlargement or nose correction, botox, whatever. But more people are likely to be more judgemental of people who change genders. The very notion, while considerably more mainstream and accepted than even 20 years ago, is still likely to evoke intolerance and discomfort in a lot of people -- they have simply been taught by TV or direct experience that they have to be selective with whom they confide their feelings to. The rudimentary answer to the question "what is a woman?" is a female human. And in a world where no one is judgemental, there is no historic prejudice, no patriarchal shaping of language and power, etc, this is all there would be. But that's not the world we live in. We live in a world where women were historically treated by many cultures as inferior humans who were only necessary for the production of offspring and the performance of housekeeping. Where women who tried to prove that they were anything more were mocked, criticised, ostracised, abused or just killed. We live in a world where man formed languages in direct reference/deference to himself, and some of our languages even attach genders to certain objects. We live in a world where a man is defined by his power, and a woman by her beauty and by how closely she matches whatever manifestations of the female gender archetype are en vogue. In other words, by her ability to attract a man. Ultimately, the same primitivism that caused women to be sidelined as cooks and mothers lies embedded in the marketing machine that pumps out glistening glossy airbrushed idols and bombastic celebrities for women to emulate today. The real danger of this, however, lies in the reaction. Women do not see through this ruse to make them buy perfume and eyeliner, instead they react the opposite way and try to emulate the male stereotype. This is like Camus compared to to Heidegger. Heidegger says Sisyphus, keep bringing the rocks, it sucks but if you can't accept that it sucks, you're just deluding yourself and that's no way to live. Camus says rebel, run away, fuck the rocks, rocks are whack. My point is that a lot of feminists looked at Sisyphus's wife getting her nails and think that carrying rocks is awesome because it's not feminine, and then another wave of feminists come and see other feminists carrying rocks and decide that it's better to embrace being feminine and go to get their nails done. And then you have your actual feminists who look at Sisyphus, his wife, and the other feminists and think how utterly absurd the whole picture is, and work to change the problems in society through literary criticism and post-structuralist psychoanalysis. The reason why people have problems with gender re-assignment is that they have thousands of years of history and opinions making them make emotional and thus bad judgements about the whole situation, and most importantly, not thinking critically about why they are making those judgements. They're just on autopilot. What is a woman? A woman is a female human. What is a female human? A human with a female body.

a_shovel 5y ago

[flagged]

deleted 5y ago
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quantified 5y ago

What are the hermaphrodites?

azth 5y ago

Quite simple: a person with XX chromosomes. Or are people starting to deny biology now?

sorethescore 5y ago
You're understanding of biology is rather outdated. There are several X & Y chromosomal variations that are rather common but frequently undiagnosed. The X & Y Variations include 47, XXY OR Klinefelter Syndrome, 47, XYY (Jacob’s Syndrome) , 47, XXX (Triple X). There are also several variant disorders which include Tetrasomy X, Pentasomy X, 49, XXXX, 48, XXXY, 48, XXYY, and 49, XXXXY. So no, it's not quite simple.
- azth 5y ago
  Not outdated. The cases you mentioned are extremely extremely rare, and are indicative of physical ailments. The are no excuse to generalize across the population to attempt to redefine what "man" and "woman" mean. A child can tell you what a man and woman are.
  - becquerel 5y ago
    Minorities still matter even if there aren't many of them. At what boundary does something being rare enough mean it's ok to not consider it a seperate form of sex? Is it 10% of the population, 5%, or 0.5%? Why?
    - _Algernon_ 5y ago
      Calling genetic abnormalities in sex chromosomes separate sexes makes about as much sex as considering cancer a developmental stage.
    - Ourgon 5y ago
      We do not consider people who suffer from dwarfism a separate species, they are humans with a condition which limited their growth. People with Hypertrichosis are not seen as a separate species either, they are humans who show abnormal hair growth over their bodies. People with Syndactyly are just as human as those who do not have webbing between their fingers or toes. In short, the presence of abnormal conditions does not create separate categories nor does it void existing categorisations, it just means that the individual who has that condition differs from the normal in some way.

deleted 5y ago

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benmmurphy 5y ago

i think the more interesting questions are what is a women when adjudicating a rule involving who is a woman. it may even make sense to have multiple definitions of who a woman is depending on the rule. for example i don't think it makes sense for people who were previously men to compete in women sports when one of the main reasons for segregating women's sport is to protect them from competition from men who are biologically better at these sports. but that doesn't mean the same person should be excluded from being considered a woman when deciding some other rule. people also seem to deliberately be conflating sex and gender. clearly a lot of 'rules' seem to be based on sex but then people will claim gender identity is fluid and then try to use gender identification to backdoor a rule that is based on sex.

forty 5y ago
I think sport is a a exemple on why gender is a bad measure. Why are we doing separate competitions for men and women? Because men have physical differences that give them a significant advantage on many sports. For simplicity purpose I will assume this is only because they generate more testosterone though I'm sure it's more complicated. So people generating more testosterone have a significant advantage on sports. Why should then we care wether they are men or women, whatever that means? A good illustration of this are women who have hyperandrogenism, who are, ironically, sometimes excluded from competing in women competitions because of the unfair advance their high testosterone give them compared to other women, even though they are biological women. I'm sure some men have low level of testosterone compared to the "standard" level of most men, which would give them an unfair disadvantage in men competitions. So my question is, why, rather than doing men/women competitions, don't we do high/low testosterone competition, regardless of the gender?
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  After countless female leads in fighting roles pushed in agenda based Hollywood brainwashing, and the era of immense sociopolitical pressure to push the 'women can do anything' line, perhaps the answer is just don't segregate. Instead of the subjectivity, remove all the segregation and let reality sort it out. Would certainly clear up a lot of cognitive dissonance.

throwaway378037 5y ago

I don’t understand why this is being posted now, nor why it’s trending. There are far more up-to-date sources to be found. Human rights should not be a debate

raffraffraff 5y ago
Isn't it about clashing rights?
david38 5y ago
Almost by definition a “human right” is debated because it’s based on time and culture. It used to mean the right to be alive, then freedom from slavery was added, then access to food. Shelter isn’t even an established right, what makes you think wanting to be treated differently from how you used to be would be? What about access to sex? Internet? A car? Mass transit?
rainonmoon 5y ago
A British former TV writer who became a very prominent transphobe years ago was just interviewed and claims to have had his life ruined as a consequence of publicly vilifying a vulnerable segment of society. Be prepared for a new wave of anti-trans sentiment wherever you get your content as new people take up his ridiculous crusade.
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  His life is ruined because of how he is online, as much as what his crusade was. While most people who spoke up for sex-based rights "buttoned it" when they were piled on and called TERFs, he decided the only way to clear his name was to fight the battle, but he found himself without many allies because he can be so toxic. He drove away his own friends and called people out on Twitter for not backing him up. However, while I say "this is as much about him as it is about his crusade", he behaved the same way during the Irish abortion campaign (he was for abortion rights btw) and Gamergate. The reason he wasn't "ruined" back then was because the trans rights issue is far more toxic. Nobody is allowed question the current narrative.

ComradePhil 5y ago

Changing entire social norms to include a very small population will only lead to problems. Accepting trangenders for who they are is a much better strategy in the long run. Why are they so keen on fitting into existing definitions, social norms and binary gender tropes when they are not the same? It's absolotely ridiculous.

deleted 5y ago
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graevy 5y ago

> But, if that’s true, why would men demote themselves to womanhood? For reasons of sexual fetishism, says Jeffreys i just looked up some stats on trans death. it was hard to get a good international life expectancy source; most seem to peg it at about 32-40, or half the general population's. i did definitively find that 2 in 5 living american trans people self-report attempted suicide. must be quite the fetish, Sheila. the paradox of tolerance: tolerating bigotry replaces your alienated userbase with bigots until it stops couching itself in virtuous newyorker articles.

deleted 5y ago
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unmole 5y ago
> good international life expectancy source; most seem to peg it at about 32-40 Which sources? The frequently cited 35 years figure is nonsense: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/09/23/41471629/is-the-life-expectancy-of-trans-women-in-the-us-just-35-no https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/09/23/41471629/is-the-...
- graevy 5y ago
  the article that you linked is trying to debug the US life expectancy claim. i specifically wrote "international". your own article cites a (quite thorough! better than i found on short notice) analysis in latin america estimating the number between 30-35 as its 772nd citation...

deleted 5y ago

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DeathArrow 5y ago

frozencell 5y ago
Why is this downvoted?
- thr407891 5y ago
  Because it's a comment consisting of only four words that adds nothing to the discussion, and has little to do with the article? Or maybe it's because the evil SJW lobby has infiltrated Hacker News. It seems more reasonable to assume the former.

blippage 5y ago

As the saying goes: keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out. The more that things are discussed, analysed, out-analysed, over-analysed, the more they devolve into a cacophony of views. Particularly with hot-button topics such as this, there are many people pushing an agenda rather than trying to arrive at the truth. We are living in an age of moral relativism with the bleating of a thousand views, but no guiding principals to sort the wheat from the chaff. In the end, all we can do is throw our hands up and declare all views are right, and all views are wrong.

hackerfromthefu 5y ago
As your first paragraph alludes, logic is a good test for what is actually wrong and should be pushed back on. That includes detecting those agenda driven drivels!
esja 5y ago
I would suggest that declaring all views to be right and all views to be wrong is indistinguishable from your brain having fallen out. We can do better.

xupybd 5y ago

Why does everyone need to control everyone else. Can we just live our lives and deal with everyone as individuals not as members of some other group?

cloutchaser 5y ago
We seemed to almost arrive at that situation up to around 2000, maybe 2005. The center of politics and individual rights won. Then something went wrong and the authoritarians took over, wanting to make everything about group identity again. Such a shame.
- syshum 5y ago
  Libertarians where too focused on Right Authoritarians we got flanked by Left Authoritarians and never saw it coming, the problem now is too many liberty minded people are see the Right Authoritarians as allies to the cause of liberty making the same mistake as the 90's when we allied with left authoritarians to put down the right. Enemy of my Enemy of my friend is ALWAYS terrible doctrine
  - cloutchaser 5y ago
    The left authoritarians control almost all of culture. Movies, academia, tech. We're a long way from the right authoritarians to regain any sort of power. I do agree on your broad point though. There shouldn't allegiances with extremists of any kind.
    - syshum 5y ago
      Now, that was not always the case. Hollywood was changing in the 90's but it was very mixed then, more balanced. that was a time where Congress was holding hearings on Violence in Video Games, and wanting to ban pornography and other things like that. Academia was similar, left for sure, but libertarian left The Right was very much the authoritarian "side" of politics in the 90, started to change in 00's. then in 2016 Trump drove the Left right into Full blown totalitarian frenzy

low_tech_love 5y ago

”As members see it, a person born with male privilege can no more shed it through surgery than a white person can claim an African-American identity simply by darkening his or her skin.” Gotta admit I find it hard to disagree with this, even if I usually disagree with extremist ideological groups.

polishdude20 5y ago
How is that the same though? They're comparing privilege to identity. Two different things. "Male Privilege" is based on the fact that society treats you differently as a male than as a female. Not because you're born with some innate power that you collect once at birth and can never give away. This is why a surgery CAN shed male privilege. Maybe not all of what benefits you've accumulated this far, but you may have many years on this earth left afterwards which would not include that "privilege" anymore.
- 7steps2much 5y ago
  Isn't skin color based privilege the same though? If someone darkens their skin so everyone perceives them as black instead of white, then that person lost their privileges of that point forth. White privilege is very much a treatment by society. Racism and sexism are both enacted upon by people based on social norms.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Rachel Dolazal. The overarching phenomenon is ‘dominant privilege’. In a gender studies program certain people have privilege. In Japan certain people have privilege, within a ghetto certain people have privilege, within Fortune 500s certain people have privilege. However people mainly focus on certain dominant groups in select socio economic areas of the US. But this phenomenon is found everywhere.
- fif8fjrvuc 5y ago
5y ago

da39a3ee 5y ago

I'll just say that this issue has made me pretty upset and angry over the last few years. The idea that people, "friends" even, hate me because I choose (respectfully) to stick to the definition of "woman" that I learned as a child and which my education as a biologist confirmed was reasonable is an absurd fact about modern western societies.

incomingpain 5y ago

A surprising number of twitch and twitter bans this week. Destiny for example is now permanently banned from twitch because he took the position that trans shouldn't compete in physical sports. Meanwhile, he has extensive history of supporting trans rights in full on debates. As they say, the left eats their own because they could no longer attack anyone but their own. Let's throw down. I am trans and have had srs(brassard). I am absolutely not affiliated with the LGBT political activist group. What is going on? Trans people are treated like horseshit and ostracized from society. When you have a greatly disenfranchised group of people who basically hate society. Their goal becomes tearing down society. Destruction of society is the goal. You have some politicians who want to help and effectively help integrate trans people back into society. However, they did this through compelled speech laws. You either say their ridiculous pronouns or you end up in front of a 'hate crime tribunal' quite literally. This isn't helping the situation at all. This is in fact making the problem far worse.

hackerfromthefu 5y ago
I agree with your points so much, all of them. What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess?
- frozencell 5y ago
  Them to rebuild societies far from politicians
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >I agree with your points so much, all of them. Honestly expected to get banned for my view. People are being banned off social media for far far less. >What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess? Some think the fix is straight forward, stop ostracizing people. This isn't just trans, it's all the usual 'cant discriminate against' and if we simply stop saying bad words that it'll be all better. That seems on the face like it would fix the problem; but clearly hasn't over how many decades now? The problem is that this approach is literally causing the problem. How about the baddest word of them all, the N-word. You dont dare say it. Has this done anything at all to stop this racism? Clearly not. Imagine we start saying it'll ILLEGAL to say some pejorative for white people. You know what happens? You will get a ton of people now saying it. It's edgy, it's maybe hurtful? They'll say it. If my political opponent says I cant say something. I am going to say it. I probably never said it before but because you say I can't say it. I'm going to start saying it. Bring me to the hate crime tribunal, send me to prison. So what? Government can't do anything? Precisely. The government is literally harming everything here. How does society fix prejudice? Not by force. For the general population, how did homosexuals start getting a good rap? People like Neil Patrick Harris being open about it, BUT not throwing it in anyones face. While also being an awesome person. Elton John? Queen? So many great examples. How about black people? Will Smith, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, SO MANY awesome black people who don't really get in your face about it. In fact, just stop talking about race and be awesome is exactly what they say to do. How about atheists? Penn Jillette talks exactly on the subject. You need to not throw it in people's face. You be a good person and nice person. You win people over. Dealing with extremists is not that different. Daryl Davis is beyond brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw Joe Rogan has also interviewed Daryl a bunch of times. Here's the complication. The current approach of banning people because they wont say their Ze/Zir pronouns does what exactly? It disenfranchises people. Is this not exactly what we are trying to fix? What happens when you now disenfranchise these *phobes. They will come to hate society in exactly the same way. If you are a daryl davis, these bans are hurting your cause. There will be people who see Destiny banned and will become transphobes. There's tons of people who see Babylon Bee ban and become even more entrenched against trans people. Rachel Levine being labelled women of the year because of being appointed to a job is beyond absurd. How about Kamala Harris as woman of the year? Clearly far more worthy. First female(and black?) vice president? What a huge success. I could name how many other far more worthy women. Tons of people say 'twitter isnt free speech. free speech is the government' On the contrary. Section 230 is how Twitter exists and clearly establishes free speech on twitter. You absolutely should have free speech on twitter and other social media. It's a political move by the government to not enforce Section 230 and therefore is the government removing free speech rights. Want to ultimately and quickly fix this problem. Enforce Section 230's free speech. Mandate free speech with the very few exceptions therein for social media. Disallow these entities to censor speech. You will quickly find this problem goes away.

hereme888 5y ago

aklemm 5y ago
This is essentially to say people need to behave to your exact expectations based on their physical appearance or you’re going to get mad and threaten their rights. It is literally bigoted.
- gutitout 5y ago
  You can be accepting of others, however facts are facts. Gravity doesn’t stop existing, because you don’t “behave” as though it does.
  - aklemm 5y ago
    Gender is behavior, and it’s negotiable.
    - gutitout 5y ago
      The OP is now deleted, however it states there is XX and XY chromosome. How is this behavior? How is this negotiable? Legit curious.
      - aklemm 5y ago
        The implication being based on those chromosomes, there is one way to behave; you must race with those of like-chromosomes. I think that's entirely up for debate, and for good reason. Further, there may be entirely new ways to organize our culture and society for broader justice for the marginalized. Organizing such things by gender breaks down (if justice is your lens) just like it does with race.
- hereme888 5y ago
  Your own statement reveals your bias. I never described a behavior or expectation, but and embedded genetically-shaped characteristic. Your accusation of me being "bigoted" is a stereotypical "extreme leftist" / "woke" accusation based on no fact.

thr407891 5y ago

What I don't understand about the trans-in-sports issue is why there is never any discussion of transgender men (ie people born female who take testosterone and transition to male). Everything I have ever read suggests that there are just as many trans men as trans women, if not more, and yet trans male athletes seem rarely mentioned. There was an interesting case in Texas that did involve a trans male wrestler [1]. Because of restrictions imposed by the state of Texas, high school athletes must compete with their birth sex. The wrestler in question takes testosterone, which naturally gives him a huge advantage over the women against he competes against, leading him to consecutive victories at the state championships. According to news coverage of the championships, he was booed after his victory, and a lawsuit was filed to try and stop him from competing at all. And yet, if you believe that anyone with two X chromosomes is a woman, these victories were the correct outcome: the championship was a competition between two women. Sure, the hormones he takes give him an advantage, but they were prescribed by a doctor for a medical condition (gender dysphoria). If a women was very tall, a result of her biology (in other words, a medical condition), no one would object when she made the basketball team. What if we generalize his case to more elite athletes? If you have a problem with a muscular, bearded, man with a military haircut demolishing cisgender women in high level competitions, then you do not agree that people with two X chromosomes should always compete, because this is what many trans men look like. A more logical position might be that anyone with elevated testosterone shouldn't compete with women, but then we have another problem, trans women often have lower testosterone than cis women [2]. So, if you object to cases like Lia Thomas's, which I totally agree seems unfair from the media coverage, then this won't work either. It seems like the solution is pretty simple: in adult athletic competitions there should be two categories, women and "open". Women is for people with two X chromosomes and testosterone in the female range, while open is for everyone else. There is one last difficulty, though. Androgens are one of the most potent athletic performance enhancers that we know of. So, if you sample elite female athletes it is almost guaranteed that many of them have higher than average testosterone. Some may even be intersex without realizing it. They would all have to compete with men, which would be awkward for them, and likely make them less competitive. But hey, if you think that a trans man with a beard demolishing high school girls in wrestling is unfair, then you ought to think that female athletes with high testosterone is also unfair, even when those athletes have had long careers winning against other women [3]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/25/transgender-wrestler-mack-beggs-wins-texas-girls-title https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/25/transgender-... [2] https://www.sfaf.org/wp-content/uploads/resources/transfeminine-hormone-check-brochure-v2.pdf https://www.sfaf.org/wp-content/uploads/resources/transfemin... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/feb/18/caster-semenya-testosterone-levels-female-sport-court https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/feb/18/caster-se...