I purchased a car from CarMax earlier this spring online and it was an easy process. Filled out some forms online, went through some questions on the phone and then had a car dropped off in my driveway a few day later.
Fully disagree. They publicly mocked a trans person, in clear violation of the TOS that all users agree to as a condition of use of the platform. They were then temporarily suspended, as clearly laid out in the TOS.
Twitter says "Hey, if X, then Y." Babylon Bee says "Yeah, ok." Babylon Bee does X, and experiences Y. They are not victims, and there is no "violation of free speech" here.
>They publicly mocked a trans person, in clear violation of the TOS
Unless the ToS specifically calls out misgendering, then the slight of hand here is the presumption that all misgendering is hate speech. Looks like Twitter may have decided that this isn't the case.
Well, Elon changed the TOS. He can now make shit you like against the TOS. You can't rely on unelected rich people to determine speech even if they make decisions you like
I don't think the parent argued that it was compliant with the TOS, he's more likely saying that the TOS was inappropriate and is glad that's been corrected.
The difference is a highly engaged set of authoritarian activists who will assassinate your character and get you fired. Other groups don't have the equivalent of a Red Guard to enforce their ideology or religion.
I’m pretty sure trans people are a protected minority in most jurisdictions. So you are wrong. The judicial system has evaluated that—for some valid reason; according to our laws—mocking trans people is worse then mocking cis people.
> "I’m pretty sure trans people are a protected minority in most jurisdictions. So you are wrong. The judicial system has evaluated that—for some valid reason; according to our laws—mocking trans people is worse then mocking cis people."
lol I don't know what "jurisdiction" you're living in, but "mocking trans people" is in no way a legal matter in the U.S. I can mock "trans" people as much as I want and there's not a damn thing you or the government can do about it as long as I am doing it on my own dime and on my own time.
I don’t think you can—or at least there are limits, I’m pretty sure targeted harassment is a crime, and I think targeted harassment against a protected minority approaches a hate crime. So mocking trans people is definitely a more serious issue then mocking cis people.
Regardless of dictionary definitions, when judged by the tone and context of common use, "cis" is primarily a slur which is used to de-legitimize and insult the people it is directed at. Of the people who are ostensibly "cis", exceptionally few will choose to self-describe using that word. Kindly refrain from using it.
The only people who would have cis used to "delegitimize" them would be ones who are saying something innacurate about trans people and are being told that they do not have relevant frame of reference for that comment.
Slurs are made by context, tone, and perception by the target. I have never been called "cis" except by people with antagonistic tones trying to get a rise out of me. Furthermore the overwhelming majority of the roughly two billion English speakers around the world who aren't trans do not self-describe as "cis".
> I have never been called "cis" except by people with antagonistic tones trying to get a rise out of me.
I can tell you from personal experience that this says more about you than the word.
The majority of people in my circle would self describe as cis, and most people I interact with would self identify as cis if the meaning was explained to them.
> I can tell you from personal experience that this says more about you than the word.
Backhanded insults like this won't convince me that I'm wrong. On the contrary, it shows me that you do intend to insult and that the word is in fact a slur.
I did intend to insult you slightly with that phrase, I apologize. I was hotheaded and in the wrong for that.
However, it is not an insult at cis people, but people who behave in a way that would get cis used in a conversation against them - which usually takes place in a circumstance where someone who is not trans is telling someone who is trans that they know more about their life than the person in question.
The reason cisness is relevant here is because much like I as a white person will never be able to _fully_ understand a black persons lived in experience, a non-trans person will never be able to _fully_ understand a trans persons experience, and it is _incredibly_ frustrating being told something that is objectively false, and having people who misunderstand the situation being in charge of your situation.
- Add an unnecessarily complex psuedo-intellectual layer to the discussion in order to catch normal people off guard and make them feel "uneducated" so that they can be "educated".
- Decouple the idea of normal from heterosexuality, which is, frankly, normal due to it being the most common state for of existence for people.
Overall it is a purposeful attack on the status quo. In summary, "cis" as a term is unnecessary.
> Decouple the idea of normal from heterosexuality
Um, no, other than arguably being wrong on the broad kind of motivation in either case, you seem to have also confused the word “cisgender” (or “cis” for short) with the word “heterosexual”.
Transgender people can be heterosexual or homosexual or asexual or any other sexuality, and the same is true of cisgender people; having a term to refer to people who do not deviate from the until-recently-in-our-society culturally obligatory stereotypical relation of gender identity and sex characteristics at birth does nothing to reduce heteronormativity of language compared to just referring to them as “normal” (and then, depending on context, elaborating further on the axis of normality and possibly whose norms are being referenced), to the extent that having a word does that, its the word for people who don’t deviate from the until-recently-in-our-society culturally obligatory stereotype of sexual preference for partner gender based on their own gender.
But, independent of undermining the norms involved, its sometimes useful to be have a convenient concise term, which both “cisgender” and “heterosexual”, in their respective domains, provide.
Nope. You can be a man or a woman. Or you, in a very minority case, might be trans. The point is that there is absolutely no need for the "cis" identifier.
The obvious response is that that that shouldn't result in a ban either. There's a right not to be physically threatened, but there is and should not be no right to not be offended.
I agree. The marketplace of ideas and opinions should be protected to the greatest extent possible. Restrictions should be limited to things such as actual threats, doxxing of private information, and illegal content.
Otherwise, allow people to use the block, mute, and unfollow buttons as they see fit as a form of personal moderation.
Sure I’d hate it if you called me a TexanLady instead of a TexanFeller. But I will defend your right to call me names. Speech that offends someone doesn’t imply speech that shouldn’t be allowed.
I've been called a sissy on many an occasion. That is in fact, being misgendered, and I cared a lot when I was young. I no longer care about being mocked and I reject gender norms in general, but I'm just old enough to just realize a bully being an asshole is a tale as old as time.
I realize though that it isn't always on option for people. This can be much more challenging if it's in the workplace, or when people are younger and social acceptance is more important.
I think the trans movement would be helped massively if we just focused on that being anti-trans is just being bullying. The focus on edge-cases and ontology and essentialism of gender makes the debate much more muddy.
a simple example: people who get mocked for being bald don't typically get killed for their baldness. People who get mocked for being trans ARE FREQUENTLY killed for their transness. We don't need to protect bald people from mocking, because the consequences are minimal. We need to protect trans people from mocking because the consequences are _maximal_.
trans people are an endangered (in the most literal sense) minority that is not doing anything to hurt others and yet is frequently targeted for many heinous things. Thus, they are special and need our protection.
I see single digits per year. Worldwide. What is your definition of frequently?
If you know of more cases with reliable sources then perhaps the article should be expanded.
While Wikipedia is of course not the most exhaustive source, it ranks quite high in Search Engines.
For many people it is frequently their sole source of information for such issues, which is why I see merit for people who know more than I do about the issue to make the necessary edits to expand the article.
I don't see why you think that everyone should be blamed for what a handful of others do. Their crimes are not my crimes. That's not the way a free society works.
Also, mocking "trans" people is not a gateway to murder. I mock "trans" people all the time and I've never murdered one or even thought about doing so.
It is indeed. But my experience from what I saw from Twitter was a clear bias towards certain... authoritarian ticks? u know. It is a private company anyway, just mentioning the had those. They could do whatever.
Just an observation :)
I hope it is more balanced from now on. Now is when we will be able to see if Elon delivers on his words.
Just coz it's hard to do it well doesnt mean they were trying to do it well.
Neither will Musk, most likely. Im sure we will be regaled with "unappreciated subtleties" about why tweeting about his private jet flights is a no no.
Transphobia is pretty clearly against twitters rules. They weren't really banned, they were locked out until they deleted their tweet. All they had to do was delete the tweet.
He could've gotten a lighter sentence if he just accepted the plea deal! Do you understand how silly this sounds.
Moreover, they awarded Rachael Levine "Man of the Year" as a parody because they are a parody website that is right-leaning. Of all the things you could class as so-called "transphobia" this is what you choose? They never deserved to be banned. Additionally, I can go, right now, to Twitter and find a literally gold mine of rule breakers who lean far left that seem to never get touched. Strange, that.
I personally am excited for the reckoning. Twitter is absolute disaster and hopefully the left leaning bad actors get the bans they have deserved since 2016. I've read absolutely disgusting things, especially regarding white people ("white"-phobia in your terminology?) that should be banned and in many times investigated by the FBI. Hopefully we see those bans come down soon. There's a huge difference between Parler and what gets banned on Twitter. To the point you could consider Twitter a very good approximation of Parler for the left. It's time these bad actors get the bans they deserve.
While I agree that the Bee should never have been banned, the answer to this problem is less censorship, not more. It sounds like you are calling for people who have different ideological views from you to be banned, but that is not how a healthy society should function.
There are already tools you can use on Twitter and other platforms to ignore content you don’t want to see (mute or block, for example). Banning someone should only be done in extreme circumstances like if someone is breaking the law or making literal calls to violence.
> It sounds like you are calling for people who have different ideological views from you to be banned, but that is not how a healthy society should function.
It only sounds this way because I targeted the left here. I only did that because it’s Twitter. I would rather have the extremes removed from the platform regardless. It’s already enough of a mess as it is.
The argument that a person can be a different gender than the one that all their physical biology points to is absolutely not an open-and-shut case. I know many people believe that it is, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t valid opposing arguments. To me, that means that you shouldn’t be banned for contesting the idea of transgenderism.
I think a more reasonable argument is that people should be allowed to present themselves how they want without prejudice, but that there are still some undeniable facts about the world. Clearly there are people who want to have this discussion and silencing one side of the discussion doesn’t resolve it. It just causes the tension to fester. Get it out in the open and the truth will come out.
> To me, that means that you shouldn’t be banned for contesting the idea of transgenderism.
While I'm mixed on the ban, this is a mischaracterization of what they were banned for. They were banned for misgendering a specific person not questioning transgenderism. There is a significant distinction between questioning an idea and targeting a specific person.
Toleration is a funny thing isn't it? If you have a problem with transgenderism how much do you need to support it to be tolerant? If you have a problem with people who have a problem with transgenderism how much do you have to support them to be tolerant?
There are great yard sticks to this question in theory "I tolerate everything except intolerance. Your right to swing your arms stops when they come into contact with someone's nose." In practice though it's always easy - on every side - to pick out the things we don't like and decide that they're violent or intolerant.
Everyone is tolerant of the things they like - and they ask everyone to join them in that if they like those things or not.
I see what your saying here, and it might be a relevant discussion in a different context, but here it's really not. If they wrote a deep thoughtful article about Rachel Levine, but simply misgendered her because they don't believe in trans people for religious or whatever reasons it'd be worth asking " If you have a problem with transgenderism how much do you need to support it to be tolerant?". But they didn't. The entire point of their post was to misgender her. Not misgendering her didn't require showing any kind of support for transgenderism, it simply required... doing nothing. Instead they deliberately singled out an individual person to mock for being transgender.
If this was some random trans Rachel from Boring, Oregon, I'd call this a clear case of bullying and say the ban was 100% justified and shouldn't remain, but I think there is a much, much higher bar when the target is a government official or celebrity. But that doesn't change the fact that the entire point was singling out an individual for mockery.
Sure. But Twitter has said "we want to make sure that we have trans voices on our platform, so in the interest of a broader marketplace of ideas, we're going to say no to one particular idea - making fun of trans people, who typically face a much higher level of violence, rejection, discrimination, and hate than most".
If Babylon Bee makes a joke about trans people how is that removing trans voices from the platform? If making a joke about a group is the same as encouraging violence or whatever then you can't make any jokes about people.
If you think trans people shouldn't be allowed to be berated online then why not ban berating of Trump or whites? Why should their experience on Twitter be a "shitty experience"?
Regardless, you didn't answer my question: "If Babylon Bee makes a joke about trans people how is that removing trans voices from the platform?"
People voluntarily leaving is not removing voices.
> People voluntarily leaving is not removing voices.
This is naive. If a Klan bar doesn't literally throw out Black people, they still are preventing Black people from being there by making the environment so unpleasant they cannot remain.
You could make that argument about any group that has a large amount of critics. Congress, for example, has an approval rating under that of trans people.
I propose Twitter bans anybody who "berates" a politician. If we don't do that then Twitter is allowing the environment to be too unpleasant for one the most marginalized groups out there.
Why would my plan be bad, but yours good?
Just because there is an environment that is too unpleasant for some people to remain in, doesn't mean that environment should change to conform to the wants of that person. People who are sensitive to sound can't go to some loud bar and demand everybody stop making noise. (Well they could demand it, but nobody will care). The bar isn't forcing the person to leave by not lowering the volume.
Partly due to power imbalance. Congresspeople are not typically subject to routine violence just because they are congresspeople. They aren't typically dealing with a healthcare system that is actively hostile to them. They don't have high levels of homelessness, abuse, and suicide.
Additionally, congresspeople are public figures - being satirized is part of the social contract when you become a public figure.
And congresspeople have power. Lots of power. Saying that an average congressperson and an average trans person are equal is just not true.
If you pulled out another minority group with little power, your rule might be more agreeable.
A) It's not just surgery, there's the difficulty in getting HRT.
B) For some trans people, the surgery is necessary from a quality of life perspective and a reduction of dysphoria.
C) It varies by country. In the US, the medical system is actively hostile to everyone (but especially trans people). In the UK, the requirements to just get HRT as a legal adult are insane.
>Partly due to power imbalance. Congresspeople are not typically subject to routine violence just because they are congresspeople.
Congressmen are attacked all the time. They have assassination attempts all the time. The average trans person doesn't need protection, but the average congressman does.
>They aren't typically dealing with a healthcare system that is actively hostile to them. They don't have high levels of homelessness, abuse, and suicide.
Healthcare is absolutely not hostile to them. Doctors are being threatened with firing (or may have been fired?) if they don't use the correct pronouns.
I do agree that trans people have higher levels of homelessness, abuse and suicide, but I don't think it is relevant.
>Additionally, congresspeople are public figures - being satirized is part of the social contract when you become a public figure.
Having a public social media account makes you a public person in a sense. If you don't want public attention don't make a public account.
>And congresspeople have power. Lots of power. Saying that an average congressperson and an average trans person are equal is just not true.
Seeing how a trans person was able to get a company that has something like 10% of the internet going through them (Cloudflare) to remove a site I would say trans people have a massive amount of power.
>If you pulled out another minority group with little power, your rule might be more agreeable.
I think we should have consistent rules regardless of how much power a person has. Should politicians not have the right to a trial because they are powerful? Of course not. Rules should be uniform.
Galileo wasn't really under house arrest. All he had to do was recant.
The comparison seems apt because while the magnitude of the punishment is out of proportion the refusal to yield to orthodoxy by taking the simple way out is similar.
Babylon Bee isn't under house arrest. This analogy is absurd. They weren't allowed to target hate towards a specific, named individual on their Twitter account. Everything else they were saying was more or less ok.
And they still had plenty of other outlets, including their very successful website.
This is like a single book publisher telling Galileo, "we won't print this one page, but the rest of the book is ok".
It's hateful in the sense that it's very derisive in the culture of the target and Babylon Bee has a large enough audience that the individual is likely to receive targeted threats as a result.
Reach and influence are important, because they impact the magnitude of what a derisive comment can do to a target.
You saying, "lol, man!" In your living room has no reach, it won't cause harm. The Bee saying it has huge reach, and when aimed at a specific minority individual can lead to serious harm.
> derisive in the culture of the target
> the individual is likely to receive targeted threats as a result.
Obvious and simple solution here:
1. Allow people to say whatever offensive jokes they want.
2. Keep banning the actual problem: those who make the targeted threats.
The entire concept of "incitement" is ridiculous. We have agency. Nobody can force me to go threaten someone. Go after the ones who commit actual harm, not the ones who make jokes.
This is true for you and me, but when we're dealing with the laws of large numbers I can guarantee there are folks who are not able to understand that these are "just jokes".
Looking at what the families of Sandy hook victims suffered at the hands of mentally ill viewers of Alex Jones is heartbreaking. When you have an audience of millions, I believe you have a responsibility to be intentional about what you publish, because you know that someone might take you very seriously and do awful things.
Sure, we can catch the people who make threats often enough, but the damage has already been done. It's far better to ask folks to be considerate and intentional about who they target, rather than try and sweep up the wreckage of someone's life after the fact.
If your ideology is printed in the rules before you enter, and you agree to respect those rules before entering, and the rules are things like "don't target individuals with racism, transphobia, homophobia, etc" it's really not authoritarianism.
I can't yell in a library, the librarians aren't authoritarian. I know going in that libraries aren't the place for that.
Except Twitter does allow racism against whites. So its rules are not “don't target individuals with racism”, but “don't target non-white people with racism”, which sends a clear ideological message. Same with other demographics.
They targeted a public person who exists at the upper echelons of power and privilege. For a group of people so obsessed with comedy only “punching up” it’s ironic to see the justification.
And they didn’t which means they’ve earned gobs of respect because of their principled and dignified stance to refuse to be bullied. They won and showed the world you don’t have to lick the boots of elitist corporate oppressors.
A joke about trans people may or may not be transphobia. There's a ton of context to consider - who is telling the joke, whi is the punchline, etc.
But this case was not that. This case was specifically targeting a specific individual and making fun of them being trans. That's absolutely transphobia.
>A joke about trans people may or may not be transphobia.
That is good. A lot of people don't agree.
>who is telling the joke,
Not true.
>whi is the punchline, etc.
Maybe. The problem is the inconsistent standards on that. Punch lines that are anti white or anti male aren't considered sexists or racist, but anti trans ones are.
We need a consistent standard and we don't have it.
>But this case was not that. This case was specifically targeting a specific individual and making fun of them being trans. That's absolutely transphobia.
That was not the case. They were parodying the newspaper or magazine that said Levine was the woman of the year.
The right of free speech doesn't apply to a private company. A company has every right to dictate what services it will provide and the conditions for using those services. It is not a public communications carrier.
This is to conflate (as so often) the USA's legal/constitutional codes with the principle of free speech. That principle has to do with promoting criticism of ideas, and preventing the suppression of criticism. The US codes are (just) one instance of a way to support that principle. The principle applies to all criticism, and all suppression of criticism.
They were suspended with a little Maoist struggle session setup that they were required to go through to repent their sins, and included is an admission that they were sinners for doing it, in order to get their account back.
They had to delete the tweet which awarded a specific named transwoman "man of the year award". The tweet was cruel identity-based harassment and not worthy of defense, but it for some reason seems to have radicalized a certain segment of the tech elite. In fact it may very well have been the inciting event that led to Musk's purchase of twitter.
Anyway, having to delete your harassment tweet in order to keep tweeting is not a Maoist struggle session
Twitter could have just deleted it for them. But no, they literally went to the trouble of building and testing code where you have to delete your own tweet, and part of doing is to so admit that what you did was "wrong". This is a textbook Maoist struggle session.
What were they banned for? Looking through the content, I don't see any of the egregious hate speech or incitement of violence that we've seen in other bans like Trump.
They gave a trans woman their man of the year award and tweeted about it. Twitter said misgendering is against their rules and blocked the account until they deleted the tweet.
Babylon Bee felt attacked and refused to delete the tweet, so they just left their own account locked.
I'm not sure if they felt 'attacked'- more that they were standing up for their right to do what they do (satire) without being censored and giving into the censorship by deleting the tweet. The 'mis-gendering' in this case was absolutely truthful in a scientific sense, thereby making their point that truth being somehow harmful in today's society. Whether you agree that's a 'good' point or not it seems to fall squarely in the area that should be open for public comment.
It's not "absolutely true in the scientific sense", except at the "I have an understanding of high school level biology and sociology" sense.
Sex and gender are both significantly more complex than just chromosomes, genitalia, or organs. If you are interested, I'm happy to dive into a good faith discussion of where the science actually falls.
If it was a niche viewpoint 7 years ago (which I would quibble with, given third gender and trans people have existed for millennia across many cultures, just not commonly in modern America), then great, we've seen science advance.
We used to think that being gay was a mental disease. We now recognize it as something that many animals have as a part of their population, including humans. 20 years ago, being gay was like, pretty much not accepted in public and the science was developing.
Trans identities are coming a bit later, but we're still learning and developing our models.
I am all about being nice to people who live their lives however, but the idea of "gender" as a fluid philosophical concept distinct from sex is super squishy.
It's massively overstating things to call it "settled science" or even "science" at this point. It's philosophy in theory and public opinion in practice.
Science: this phenomenon exists and people exist who've had these experiences. That's a factual statement.
Politics: you must talk and think about the phenomenon in these proscribed ways. That's an ideological statement.
When I talk about fluidity of gender, or gender distinct from sex, I start with well accepted terms.
Consider: you would probably agree with me that a butch tomboy and a valley girl fashionista are both women. But they represent different extremes on what we, socially, agree femininity is. We might say the butch woman is less feminine than the valley girl.
Likewise, we'd typically say Clint Eastwood is more manly than, say, Bill Gates. A similar spread of "manliness" for men.
If we're on the same page so far, we're comfortable with the idea that gender has a spectrum - two separate spectrums, one for men and one for women. I don't need you to agree that they intersect at all, just that the concept of "manliness" and "femininity" are not single points in their respective genders.
Now let's look globally. Are the same spectrums universal? In the Middle East, east Asia, Russia, central Africa, and Polynesia... Does feminity look the same?
I'd argue no. A hijab or niqab might evoke feminity in some parts of the world but not in others. Following this, there must be a social component to feminity and manliness. And this component is not genetic. So there must be "something" that exists that's a social construct related to sex.
What should we call this social construct, assuming we agree there is no chromosomal need to wear a niqab?
Academically, gender has evolved to be the word that describes the cultural expectations placed on men and women. These expectations allow for some flexibility for culture and personality.
If you are comfortable with this so far, and we can agree on the above, I'm happy to dive into the fluidity, non-binary, and forget separation of gender and sex as a follow on discussion. But if we disagree about the above, we should sort that before moving on.
That's fair! Science is never settled, in any field. It might be better to say something like, "the current consensus is tilting towards gender as a social construct, and sex being more complex than 'XX or XY'"?
Social norms are inherently non-scientific in their motivation.
It's an accurate observation to say that higher-income liberals tend to think this way and enforce these norms but the norms themselves are in the realm of culture and politics.
Similarly, it's accurate to say conservatives tend to think people who flout traditional gender norms matched to their genetics are weirdos. Not scientific on their part either.
Social sciences aim to be descriptive, reflecting the understanding of cultures.
But also, gender is beyond just US liberal and conservative. Plenty of cultures around the world and throughout recorded history have had third genders and trans people, and they were not considered "weird". I believe sociologists are attempting to review human behavior across all spans and across cultures and compare even to animals (there are recorded instances of animals fulfilling reversed gender roles for their species).
"gender" as a term on its own is used very confusedly by a lot of people, but there's a simple definition that makes things clear: "gender == sex". The trick is that "gender" disambiguates that you mean "sex as it relates to a social context" instead of "sex as it relates to a biological context".
Where this all gets cleared up is that you should use more specific terms such as "Gender norms", "gender presentation", etc. Someone of the male gender can present as very feminine, but that doesn't make them a woman. It is not bad that their gender presentation is at odds with the gender norms expected of their gender, but their gender is not fluid and doesn't change. Only their gender presentation.
I realize I'm probably tilting at windmills here, but if everyone realized that gender is simply sex as it relates to social contexts and got more specific with their terminology, there'd be a lot less talking past each other.
Gender doesn't equal sex, though. My non binary friends are very much equipped with penises or vaginas.
There's a wide variety of genders in the rest of the world as well. While this is a newer concept in American and Western cultures, there are non male, non female genders dating back to mesopotamia.
My point is just that more specific terminology should be used. Your friends have nonbinary gender presentation, but that doesn't make their gender something other than male or female.
And sure, there's historically been a wide range of gender roles, norms, and expectations, but there's only ever been two genders.
I didn't talk down. Genuinely, high school biology teaches us that there are two sexes XX it's a woman, XY it's a man. That's literally what we learn.
It's only after you dive into the science at a collegiate level or higher that you learn there's a small percentage, maybe 1-2% of people, for whom this binary understanding is not a good model.
I'm not saying it's bad to only have a high school understanding, just that it's an incomplete understanding.
Apologies! Text is difficult. If I did a poor job, I'm open to suggestions on how I could have rephrased (and if I can still edit the post, I'll try to do so).
What happened to Reimer was a travesty, and an affront to human decency on all levels.
That doesn't change the truth that gender and biological sex are both characteristics of the human experience - usually they line up, and sometimes they don't.
>That doesn't change the truth that gender and biological sex are both characteristics of the human experience - usually they line up, and sometimes they don't.
I think it does, as that's the foundation of the notion. Prior to that, they were completely interchangeable and authors would use "gender" to mean "sex" where it was considered more crass to say "sex". Gender is just a euphemism for sex.
It was believed that since they were not the same thing it would be possible to safely raise someone as an arbitrary gender despite that not being the case.
The failure is in that both gender and sex are biological characteristics, and at that point in time Money believed that gender was strictly social - which is _clearly_ inaccurate.
In short - Reimer was forced into the life of being a trans person, despite having been born cis.
For sure. I've had this discussion many times with many people.
I'd argue that most women, in fact probably 99% or more, fall into a fairly straightforward definition - two X chromosomes, raised to behave like whatever their society expects from women. (I think we can agree that "woman" might have different cultural/social expectations depending on where they were raised? E.g. in some parts of the world a niqab or hajib is expected, for instance.)
But there exists a small group of people who don't fit in with that definition. They might have been born with a penis but two XX chromosomes, they might have been born without functional ovaries or an abnormal set of genitalia.
They might have been born with XY chromosomes but never developed a penis.
These folks are intersex, and are often raised as women.
I would say, in these cases, that we might agree that they are women - their chromosomes might not always be XX, but all their features and body development and social upbringing in the world suggests that they are women.
Then we come to another group. A group whose bodies are functionally male but who feel a deep revulsion at being a man.
But before we dive in to that case, are you comfortable with the other two cases and have any disagreements about the 99% or intersex cases?
You're using intersex ppl and the very real issues they have faced to then push gender ideology (your transition at the end to "A group whose bodies are functionally male but who feel a deep revulsion at being a man"). That's exploitative of intersex people but is sadly consistent with gender ideologues always trying to piggyback on other group's issues (e.g. the attempt to piggbyback on the struggles that same sex attracted people have faced).
I'm starting a discussion about the definition of women and men, first by discussing cis people, then introducing the idea that the simple label doesn't always apply, and if there is agreement, I planned to discuss trans and non binary identities.
The goal is to explain that it is not as simple as XX or XY, not to say trans and intersex people face the same challenges.
You are aware that trans individuals have been part of the LGBT movement feom the beginning, even back before AIDS when it was the GLBT movement, right?
I didn't say anything about your so-called 'LGBT movement'. I talked about 'the struggles that same sex attracted people have faced', struggles that span millennia and cultures. Your so-called 'LGBT movement' is highly western culture oriented (particularly US American / New York culture, see the other commenter's reference to Stonewall), historically recent and ideologically constructed. That is very different to my formulation, which is non-ideological, non-identitarian and consequently universally inclusive (for all same sex attracted people).
Trans people have spanned history, and much like people who experience same-sex attraction have experienced a variety of acceptance and rejection based on the culture at the time.
In what way is this piggy backing? In addition, as far as western contexts pre-GLBT, both transgender and same sex attracted people have been related since pre-nazi Germany and both were persecuted by the Nazis (to be clear, this is not an invitation to invoke Godwin's Law, nor me comparing you to a Nazi. It's just an example of a case where gay and trans individuals have been joined together).
Yeah, fuck, Stonewall was instigated by trans women, lesbians, and eventually gay men fighting back against oppression together. The Ball scene has always had a trans component.
To say that gender issues are piggybacking on homosexual issues is revisionism, full stop.
Sex, scientifically, is determined by the kind of gametes an organism produces in sexual maturity. Males produce small sex cells, females produce large sex cells. There is no overlap among mammals (i.e. human sex is “binary”)
Gender is a concept made up by feminists with no consistent definition, use mainly to confuse.
Are there peer reviewed papers or something on Arvix that explicitly dive into the "beyond high school level of biology" where sex is not defined at the cellular level (wrt Autosomes)? I am not interested in debating the sociological version, to be perfectly honest.
It's important to remember we're discussing the margins. The XX, XY definition is functionally good enough for nearly all cases.
But there exist people whose sex doesn't work into that model.
Consider some 46 XX intersex people. In these cases, outside conditions (typically an endocrine imbalance in the mother) leads to the development of a penis, and the loss of a vagina. These children may be raised as boys. Similarly, some XY people are born with autosomal defects that prevent them from effectively processing testosterone into dihydrotestosterone. As a result, their bodies develop into what we would consider typically female. They are often raised as girls.
There are dozens of conditions similar to these.
"XX male syndrome" might be one example of specifically what you are looking for - people who are scientifically discussed as male despite having XX chromosomes, a typically female karotype. It can be caused by autosomal origins
Ultimately, we cannot remove the discussion of sociological science from biology, because we make choices for kids in these cases. And those choices differ depending on culture. The US preferentially gives intersex people male gender, while Saudi Arabia does the opposite, even for the same conditions. In this way, even biological sex has some social component.
And if you want to make that argument, fine. But when people are banning those who disagree, I will reflexively side with those banned and against the people doing the banning, whether or not I agree with them.
Did you not say “But when people are banning those who disagree, I will reflexively side with those banned and against the people doing the banning, whether or not I agree with them”?
Saying "the Earth is round" is hateful from the perspective of flat earthers. Would you apply the same logic equally and make it an offense to satirize this particular belief?
Or to bring it full circle, I doubt the Bee would petition to get someone banned for satirizing "God" or saying "God is not real". If they did, we would call it out too.
You can trust Twitter and activists to make those decisions all you like. But don't expect people to stand by and accept that as an acceptable solution to societies problems.
Because you're making these zero-transparency and zero-due process systems fill this role. Which is naive and idealistic in the worst ways.
I would probably believe in these exact things when I was an ill-formed and very socially concerned 16 year old, but I can't honestly take that position today. The only people I see taking this position are people willing to gamble for today for short term gains of their pet ideologies while ignoring long term harm.
Let's say you have a big nose and you're out on the town attending a comedy club.
A comedian gets up during his stand up routine and comments on your big nose, which you're sensitive about and wish no one would comment on, since you've always wanted a small, delicate nose, and in fact you've scheduled surgery to 'fix' it.
After they comment on your nose you loudly protest and ask the comedian to cease, since you really don't think the nose represents the true 'you.'
Is it 'hate' for the comedian, against your wishes to continue to make jokes that night, and in fact, he finds the whole exchange (and you) so funny that he incorporates the exchange into all his routines going forward?
I'd argue that it is maybe a bit rude, but it is exactly why we have people like comedians- they are the court jesters for our society, they point out when our good intentions turn into pathologies and give us room to reflect on progressive and regressive overreach.
Taking that out of the public sphere removes a good chunk of society's ability to make course corrections.
> What makes you thing they weren't talking about biological sex?
Biological sex is unrelated to the topic at hand, unless of course they were working on some genetics homework, or working on a eugenics project I suppose.
> Which are not applicable in this case, since the sex of the individial in question is inambiguous.
Is it - where do you draw the line? If it's production of gametes, what if she doesn't? If it's hormonal balance, she's now biologicaly female. If it's presence/absence of a penis/vagina, she could have either. If it's X/Y chromosomes, she could be XY, XXY, XX[0], or chimeric.
More importantly, in what way does her biological sex impact her public influence? I certainly hope her chromosomes or genetalia have little to no impact on her public life.
> A man is defined as an adult male.
From Trans Man in Webster:
Definition of trans man
: a transgender man : a man who was identified as female at birth
Making it acceptable per webster to use singular man/woman for a trans individual.
> Yes, the intent of satire is to make fun of absurd situations.
That's The Onion. The Bee is propaganda wrapped up in "it's just a joke bro". The Onion punches both ways, the Bee doesn't.
> Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
I'm on main and will be willing to continue this discussion when you or someone else comes back with yours/theirs.
E: And if you or someone else _isn't_ willing to come back and attache their name to that statement, I guess you understand the point.
> Biological sex is unrelated to the topic at hand
So is hormonal balance or whatever you use for defining gender. Why do we care about gender at all?
> Is it - where do you draw the line?
When a person's body has all typical characteristics of a specific sex, then it's unambiguously that sex. Otherwise, they can rightfully identify as intersex, but that has nothing to do with transgenderism, where the body is unambiguous and only the mind seems to differ (and that's only considering people with gender dysphoria, aka “truscum”, and not those that are doing it for other reasons).
> From Trans Man in Webster: Definition of trans man
: a transgender man : a man who was identified as female at birth
If politically motivated people create a dictionary entry, then it agrees with them. What a surprise.
The word “assigned” is nonsense. The doctor doesn't flip a coin to determine the sex. The sex is observed.
> The Onion punches both ways, the Bee doesn't.
The Bee makes fun of conservatives too quite often.
> So is hormonal balance or whatever you use for defining gender. Why do we care about gender at all?
Gender is defined by the person who is experiencing it. More specifically, gender is clearly biological to an extent (source: every trans person, as well as Reimer who was discussed elsewhere in the thread), but tends to represent itself with various social norms for a given gender (see: Various trans and third gender people across history, who align with gender roles not matching their birth sex).
Gender is relevant here due to that second section - it impacts how one sees and interacts with the world.
> When a person's body has all typical characteristics of a specific sex, then it's unambiguously that sex. Otherwise, they can rightfully identify as intersex, but that has nothing to do with transgenderism, where the body is unambiguous and only the mind seems to differ
The point is that far more people could be defined as 'intersex' then are, and many people who could have any of the conditions I listed above and not realize it. As there is no biological definition that doesn't need an exception to match many people who would be traditionally considered male or female, trying to argue this point is meaningless.
A simple Male/Female model is Good Enough for most peoples understanding, but is fundamentally flawed.
> If politically motivated people create a dictionary entry, then it agrees with them. What a surprise.
This argument can be used to dismiss anything, and thus cannot prove anything. Do you have other examples of political motivation here, or is it just that it is political because it disagrees?
> The word “assigned” is nonsense. The doctor doesn't flip a coin to determine the sex. The sex is observed.
Sex is observed, and gender is assigned based on sex. Usually, this matches up just fine. Sometimes, it doesn't.
> (and that's only considering people with gender dysphoria, aka “truscum”, and not those that are doing it for other reasons).
Truscum != people who have gender dysphoria. Truscum == Trans people who believe that you require gender dysphoria to be trans _and_ try to prevent other trans people from seeking treatment based on that belief.
> The Bee makes fun of conservatives too quite often.
Of eight articles on their landing page, four articles clearly attack the left from the headline, one could ambiguously attack either, but becomes clearly about the left in two paragraphs, One appears to be about the Bee itself - but actually is anti-left, and two appear to be benign "haha people funny[0]".
[0] "Batman In Hospital After Gotham Thugs Realize They Can Attack All At Once Instead Of Just One At A Time" was subscriber only, but "Man Celebrates 40th Birthday With Finely-Aged, Single Malt Bottle Of Advil " made me actually laugh.
E: Trimmed bad copy at the bottom and some spelling errors/phrasing.
E2: Should note, the description of the Bee's articles is accurate as of time of writing and time of this edit. Presumably this will change eventually.
Language is moving towards a disambiguation between male (as a kerotype or body plan) and man (as a social concept of what it is to be 'manly' in that society.)
This evolution of language has been very rapid in some circles, and slow in others, but everyone uses it to some degree.
For example, when people say, "Be a man!" Or "man up!", they aren't saying, "show your adult male body".
They are saying, "meet our standards for what a man in our culture is!" Mulan's famous song, "I'll make a man out of you" has nothing to do with chromosomes or penises. It has everything to do with the social side of the term "man".
So at the very least, the word man is ambiguous and could mean adult male or it could mean someone who is manly in behavior.
> Language is moving towards a disambiguation between male (as a kerotype or body plan) and man (as a social concept of what it is to be 'manly' in that society.)
No, some people are artificially trying to create this distinction. In normal speech, “man” and “male” are pretty much interchangeable.
> For example, when people say, "Be a man!" Or "man up!", they aren't saying, "show your adult male body".
They're saying “show properties that are traditionally associated with males”. These stereotypes have to place in modern society and I find it appalling that the people who claim to want equality are continuing to perpetuate them.
>My hot take is that it's OK to mock senior government officials, actually.
Mocking senior American government officials is the most protected speech in the country, in fact. I do it liberally an encourage others to. It's the most fundamental part of holding them accountable.
Is all mocking fair game? I mean, I hard agree with you, but I think there are things that are gauche or hurtful to mock. Like, I think Obama was a bad president and there are plenty of mock worthy things there, but depicting him and Michelle as apes is beyond the pale for me. Mock his policies, mock his affect, mock his social behaviors in other countries, hell, mock his tan suit. But to bust out racist memes? I dunno... I think that sucks.
Michelle Obama is fairly tall (5'11") and has a masculine jawline. I'm black and I LOL'd the first time I saw her called a Wookie (probably in the dumpster fire comments section of ZeroHedge). I mean, take a look: https://starsunfolded.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Michell...
Alicia Keys or Keri Hilson she ain't....
If she were an absentee First Lady and less proactive, I could totally see someone calling her "Sasquatch" (a big mythical ape-creature rarely captured on camera) as a criticism and I'd be ok with that.
Babylon Bee attacked a high-profile trans public servant in a way meant to (IMO) provide commentary on society's approach to trans issues and the implications for biological females? I'm ok with that too. I think some comedian, maybe Bill Burr or Andrew Schulz, had a similar bit: "Men are so awesome we're even better at being women than actual women. That's why a Man[Bruce Jenner] is Woman of the Year[Caitlyn Jenner], in his first year as a woman." or something to that effect.
For some context, and why some believe that Babylon Bee's suspension was the catalyst for Musk buying Twitter:
Twitter is the defacto online public square for a great number of people in politics, journalism, academia and many other fields.
Twitter's TOS was, for whatever reason, deliberately written to disenfranchise half the voter base, half the country more or less by making it so simply expressing deeply held political or religious views would get half of them banned.
"half the country" overstates things. Roughly 40% of Americans believe that trans rights are good, roughly 30% believe they are bad, and 30% are undecided.
I'd argue that if Twitter has a liberal bias, it reflects the mostly majority opinions. (Speaking as a leftist whose friends are constantly banned for trivial nonsense, Twitter also hates the left. Not the Democrats, they aren't leftist.)
What the 40% figure your citing might represent and what 'woke inc' are actually pushing in legislature and in medicine are most certainly two very different things.
