On the Blowback to "What is a Woman?" and the Difference Between Debate and Bigotry - "After publishing a review of Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman? this week, the expected avalanche of blowback from activists and even a few friends did arrive. Most went straight to the word “bigot,” while others decried “platforming a fascist.”... some seem to feel that laughing when a professor is caught calling “truth” transphobic is equivalent to supporting genocide... I’ve probably interviewed twenty people in this field, usually over speech issues. These ranged from a trans activist who screamed at me before the first question... to others like Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who for 35 years headed Canada’s Gender Identity Clinic. I’m obviously no expert in the field, but I do know about media, and the Zucker case was a clear example of press malpractice. It also showed how a dynamic one colleague tabbed the “either TERF or saint” formula has become a mandatory coverage template. Zucker’s name is radioactive in the trans community. In fact, one of the supposed sins of writer Jesse Singal, as listed on his Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) “Accountability Project” page — his blacklist entry — is that he “wrote a defense in 2016 of Dr. Kenneth Zucker,” who supposedly believed in “conversion therapy.” It should be noted that soon after that “defense,” Zucker won a $586,000 settlement in a civil suit in which it was admitted that Canada’s largest mental health center “published a report that erroneously described [Zucker’s] interactions with patients.” GLAAD, supposedly an opponent of “defamation,” still cites that defamatory report... I had been led by articles to expect a pushy reactionary. I instead heard the story of a person who a) had been the first clinician to use puberty blockers in North America, and b) had a record of advocating for what one today might call “gender affirmation” therapy for adolescents... I have not been able to find evidence of Zucker ever suggesting he believes transgenderism needs to be “cured” — he clearly believes otherwise, as he’s said and as his long career demonstrated — or that his vision of therapy is to achieve a “cisgender goal.” Yet a person reading that Guardian piece, or the GLAAD page, or a PinkNews piece with a headline reading, “BBC documentary features doctor who tried to ‘cure’ trans kids,” will come away thinking those are his words. I can see legitimate disagreement with Zucker, but there is no reason I can think of why a legitimate movement would need to resort to such sleazy reputation-bashing tactics... on Useful Idiots with Katie Halper, I interviewed Dr. Erica Anderson, a trans clinician who has vociferously opposed Republican legislative bans on trans care and “worked hard to advance acceptance of trans identities.” Anderson is also now in the soup for writing editorials advocating more “gender-exploratory therapy” and raising concerns about what she calls “worrisome things about this massive, unplanned social experiment.”... Anderson expressed opinions that shouldn’t be controversial but somehow were, like “We don’t affirm all choices of all minors without exception.”... Before this issue became a hot-button, front-page fixation of popular media, activists, clinicians and trans patients worked for decades to secure rights and come up with reasonable standards for care. In place of those sensible debates, the public is now being asked to swallow a series of bold new assertions, like that peer pressure is a “myth,” biological sex is a fiction, Lia Thomas doesn’t have an unfair advantage at swim meets, and the clinical decision to wait and observe is not doing nothing, but a form of active intervention called “withholding treatment” or “conversion therapy.”... This is one of the reasons What is a Woman? was effective. Walsh in the video above asks Dr. Michelle Forcier if he’s safe assuming a chicken is biologically female if he sees it laying eggs. To which Forcier responds, “Does a chicken cry? Does a chicken commit suicide?” Walsh bites his lip in the middle of a sentence everyone is thinking, which is, “What does that have to do with anything?” Forcier’s is not a scientific answer, but we’re expected to show unflinching acceptance in moments like this. One trans person I’ve known for years wrote me yesterday complaining that Twitter activists and theorists are “destroying the progress we’ve made,” recalling days when the chief issues were things like, “Access to employment. Health care. Transition costs covered by health insurance. That makes sense… Acting indignant when people don’t live up to Tumblr gender theory is not.” Worse, the package of current social media fixations adds up to a political project that is almost guaranteed to lose in the end. “Getting rid of the role of the WHO standards for access to surgery and HRT and doing it over the counter? It’s just fucking crazy,” the person wrote, adding: “Everyone who has challenged this version of the community has been excommunicated… It’s morphed into something that’s just an unsellable message to a mass public”... No parent is going to respond any way but in the extreme negative to a suggestion that they might need to be cut out of discussions about their child’s development. When I did a series about education controversies at Loudoun County, proposals by schools to keep student gender identity changes secret from parents were near the top of the list of complaints among both blue and red voters I interviewed. This is an enormous political and strategic mistake, one I believe is responsible in large part for Democrats losing so much ground on the education issue... I think minors should take more than a few weeks before signing student loans, much less embarking on hormone therapy. Moreover, I remember being petitioned regularly by leftist activist groups to write stories about Republican politicians who took money from drug companies before approving student mandates for meningitis vaccines or ADHD medication. Activists were desperate for more discussion about issues like that. No activist hesitated then to pull out what Jezebel, in its absurd denunciation of Singal’s trans reporting, sneeringly called the “‘think of the children’ strawman.” About this, it’s the opposite. The less debate, the better. What changed?"
Anyone not on the far left is a Nazi
Jake Caswell wins non-binary race at the New York City Marathon - "Jake Caswell has won the non-binary division at the world-famous New York City Marathon. This year's race was the first event in World Marathon Major history that the top non-binary finishers earned prize money... Nick Dill, who finished fourth in the race, teared up after completing the event. “I’ve felt excluded from sports my entire life,” Dill said. “To show up on race day and be recognised for who you are - and to hear people cheering for who you are - is really special. It makes me really emotional.” “The marathon itself is one of the greatest examples of inclusivity, diversity, respect, and equality. So [the non-binary] discussion opens the floodgates a lot more,” she said. “In the race, I don’t know the guy over here who is a different colour than me, I don’t know the gender of this person over here—and I don’t care. We're sweaty and stinky together, and it doesn’t matter.” Jake Fedorowski, who is the creator of The Guide to Nonbinary Inclusion in Running, touched on the importance of non-binary categories to drive inclusivity."
Unsurprisingly, it looks like almost all of them are men
Weird. We keep being told that sex and gender are different, and that those who think they are the same are ignorant and need to educate themselves
The 2021 Australian Census Will Randomly Assign Non-Binary People Male Or Female - "The 2021 Australian Census is being criticised for the way it is approaching gender. There was outcry when sexuality and genders outside the male/female binary were left off the survey, however it's since been revealed what will happen when you try and input data. The census will only ask you about your sex (aka your genitals) and won't give you the option to highlight your gender (which can be different to your sex). While it does give you the option to select non-binary, it is under the section of sex and therefore could just be for intersex Australians. There is a box that allows you to type in gender non-binary, however this apparently won't make much of a difference... "The Census has let us down. What this means is we're basically unable to assess and understand how many LGBTIQ people there are in Australia. "It's not about being inclusive, it's the right thing to do in the most accurate way to get a sense of how many of us there are, and what we're experiencing." But the ABS said it has deliberately left gender options outside male and female off the census for a good reason. In layman's terms, it's to avoid a gendered version of the religion question. Many people thought it was hilarious when they put 'Jedi' down as their religion. However, all it did was skew the actual religious makeup of Australia. The percentage of atheists versus agnostics versus whatever else has been inaccurate because people were having a laugh. The same thing would have happened with gender because ignorant people would have listed themselves as an 'Apache helicopter' or something else ridiculous because they don't respect the difference between gender and sex."
Meme - Opheus337: "are there any differences between natal and neo vaginas
there's a lot of variation in vaginas but there's not infinite variation, there are outliers (disfigurement or birth defects) do neo vaginas look and feel like natal ones (excluding disfigurement and birth defects). like is the placement correct, texture, anatomy, etc. can another woman tell it's surgically made, or would that be impossible without medical tools. if they are anatomically correct to the point where it is impossible for someone to tell it's surgically made without medical tools, or inadvertently implying that a large portion of natal vaginas are surgically made (excluding outliers like disfigurement and birth defects) even during sex. where can I get such a surgery. cost doesn't matter if it costs $2,000,000,000 to get a passing vagina I will get it"
"thetitleofmybook Trans Woman
yes, they look and feel like one. any competent surgeon will be able to do a good one. Avoid known bad surgeons (Kathy Rumer, for example). 99.99% of people won't be able to tell a difference. the people who say they can tell a difference have prior knowledge. they are full of shit when they say they can tell a neo from natal vagina."
The delusion is strong
Meme - "The Timmies Under the Stairs @haytimmie: "Terfs are afraid of trans people shopping at Ulta because those haggard haters can't stand how much better we are at makeup."
Meme - "Normal People: Halloween is over, you can take your masks off.
They/Them/Zers: *sad clown*"
Matt Walsh on Twitter - "One really important aspect of the TN legislation banning gender transitions for minors is that kids will now be empowered to sue their doctors AND their parents for butchering them. Parents need to be held accountable for the abuse. And in this state they will be."
"When your OS fails to properly recognize the hardware, you run a driver update, not rip out pieces and try to turn printer into scanner."
Meme - "What teenage girls think they'll look if they take male hormones
How they actually end up looking like"
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ on Twitter - "SCOOP: Walt Disney Co. recently hosted a "cultural journey" for employees featuring a "Two-Spirit," "she/they," "drag queen," "merperson" named Geo Neptune. The company is following every fad of radical gender theory, from children's programming to pseudo-indigenous pantomime."
CANCELLED: Scholar says there are only two sexes, gets booted out of scientific discussion group - "An email discussion group ran by the American Psychological Association has just cancelled a scholar after the group member discussed the apparently taboo subject of biological sex. The full name of the supposedly scientific-oriented group is the "Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology Division 6 listserv". John Staddon, the ousted scholar, is an emeritus professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and recognized academic in the field of behavioral science. He is the author of the book The New Behaviorism. He has also been publicly lauded by Duke's chair of psychology in 2018 for having won an award given out by the same American Psychologist's Association... "This incident just illustrates the current inability of some scientific communities to tolerate dissent about issues related to sex and race. Psychology and sociology seem to be especially flawed in this respect.""
Thread by @zaelefty on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Here are 7 reasons why this sex spectrum graphic by Scientific American is wrong.
1. There are no units on this spectrum to quantify it.
2. The sheer number of overlapping arrows is evidence that sex cannot be plotted on a spectrum.
3. There is no objective method to decide where individual DSDs are placed on the spectrum.
4. Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia is placed farther to the male end than XX male syndrome, implying that XX males (with fully developed penis and testes) are more female than an XX CAH female with ovaries, uterus, vagina, and a slightly masculinized clitoris.
5. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome is placed in the center, implying that people with this condition are literally in between male and female.
6. Mixed Gonadal Dysgenesis is placed in the center, also implying people with this condition are literally in between male and female.
7. In reality, DSDs are singular, discrete conditions, each unique, and they cannot be placed on a continuum between male and female.
A major error in this graphic is the conflation of sex determination mechanisms with sex. Yes, the mechanisms involved in developing males and females are complex. That does not mean the end result is complex or that male and female themselves are challenged. The conflation of how sex is determined vs how sex is defined shows up all the time in discussion on this topic.
Defining Sex vs Determining Sex - "There’s two main reasons why the mechanisms that determine sex (like genes) are not the same thing as the definition of sex. First, because sex determination mechanisms vary across species and across time, we cannot use them as the definition for the sex of individuals across species. For example, mammals tend to use the X-Y chromosomal system, whereas birds tend to use the Z-W chromosomal system. Despite this difference in sex determination mechanisms, what unites male birds (ZZ) and male mammals (XY) is that they both develop the phenotypes that produce small gametes. And what unites female birds (ZW) and female mammals (XX) is that they both develop the phenotypes that produce large gametes... Second, because of developmental disorders, we cannot use sex determination mechanisms as the definition for the sex of individuals within humans and across species. Almost always, the Y chromosome determines sex in humans: those with a Y chromosome develop as males, and those without the Y chromosome develop as females. Males usually have 46:XY and females usually have 46:XX. However, rare errors of cell division during meiosis can result in a translocation or mutation of genes within the chromosomes, and this can result in a sex opposite of what is expected from the chromosomes... Though they cannot produce sperm, since this requires the AZF region from the Y chromosome, XX males are defined as male because they develop the phenotype that produces small gametes (determined by genetics)... this inaccurate logic—that absence of a Y chromosome is always female and presence of a Y chromosome always male—has immense ramifications if used by society. For example, activists who argue that males can be females and females can be males would love to use this reasoning to deconstruct the definition of sex for sociopolitical purposes, and those who have atypical development may be relegated to categories they do not belong in: people with fully developed, genetically determined male bodies in female spaces and vice versa. Because of this, it’s best we maintain the distinction between the mechanisms that determine sex and the definition of sex. Males and females are not defined by the mechanisms that develop them in the womb. They are defined by the phenotypes that produce either small or large gametes, respectively. For humans, this is determined by genetics. Defining sexes this way does not mean that sex is a spectrum or that one can change sex. One’s sex is determined at conception by the individual’s genetic profile, developed in utero, and immutable. If we wish to ascertain the full picture of a person’s sex, we must analyze their genetics and their genetically determined phenotype: the structures they develop that support the production and release of either gamete type. This is the only way forward for an accurate and consistent definition of sex."
Meme - Eggen @DrawingEggen: "My brain is boiling! Byond XX and XY ladies and gentlemen"
"BEYOND XX AND XY"
Emma Hilton @FondOfBeetles: "This chart is a futile attempt to pretend sex is a spectrum by taking a handful of DSDs and lining them up in a nonsensical order that in no way reveals a spectrum."
Emma Hilton @FondOfBeetles Developmental biologist. All views are my own. Manchester. Peri-clownfish. Problematic around chocolate.
Egeen @DrawingEggen Artist - Illustrator, Writer, Photographer I Animals, Women's Rights, Humour, Education #ProReality I eshop blog"
So much for "trust the science" and "trust the experts"
Meme - Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll: "Actual science would like a word."
"BEYOND XX AND XY"
Jerry Coyne @Evolutionistrue: ""Actual science" done by biologists shows 2 sexes, one with small mobile gametes and the other with large, immobile ones. There is no third sex. Disorders of sex development are not new sexes, and biological sex is binary. Let's not conflate sex, gender & developmental anomalies."
Jerry Coyne @Evolutionistrue: Superannuated evolutionary biologist, writer, humanist, atheist, secularist and ailurophile.
Sean Carroll @seanmearroll Physics, philosophy, complexity."
Keywords: Disorders of sexual development, chromosonal variants, are not new sexes, are not their own sex
Meme - Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll: "Actual science would like a word."
"BEYOND XX AND XY"
"The actual author would like a word."
Dr. Li Qi Huang @martian_mu... "In your piece 'Sex Redefined' are you making the claim there are more than 2 sexes?"
Claire Ainsworth @ClaireAinsworth: "No, not at all. Two sexes, with a continuum of variation in anatomy/ physiology."
James on Twitter - "Intersex are DISORDERS, which freeuently associate serious physical and cognitive defects. Those intersex that are not infertile due to their condition, also produce only one of two possible gametes: male or female. There's nothing more binary than that."
Amazing reply: "Ah yes. Disorders. A category that exists in nature and is totally not a product of subjective societal values that make up our conception of health"
Thread by @fem_mb on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "🧵THREAD: SCIENTISTS SAY SEX IN HUMANS IS BINARY.
1. Nobel Prize-winning biologist Dr. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard:
"All mammals have two sexes and man is a mammal. There are people who want to change theirs, but they can't do it. You remain XY or XX."⬇️
2. Genetics professor Dr. Alex Blakemore, Head of Life Sciences at Brunei University:⬇️
3. Dr. Jerry Coyne, evolutionary biologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago:
"Evolution itself produces a binary of sex! To be anthropomorphic, evolution wants a binary of sex."⬇️
4. Dr. Georgi Marinov, Stanford Univ. Genetics Dept:
"The objective truth is that sex in humans is strictly binary and immutable...Denying that sex in humans is binary attacks the very foundations of biological sciences."⬇️
5. Dr. Stéphane Bermon, Director of World Athletics' Health and Science Department:
"Biological sex is not a spectrum."⬇️
6. Dr. Emma Hilton, biologist at the University of Manchester:⬇️
7. Dr. Ross Tucker, exercise physiologist and chief scientist at World Rugby:⬇️
8, Dr. Dave Curtis, UCL Genetics Institute:
"Sex is not a spectrum & is not assigned at birth. There are only two categories, male & female & even if we take account of disorders of sexual development, we can't say it produces anything like a spectrum."⬇️
9, Physician Dr. Will Malone:⬇️
10. Dr. Paul McHugh, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine:
"Sex is well defined based on the binary roles that males & females play in reproduction. Sterility, birth defects, or even purposeful removal of healthy sex organs does not change one’s sex."
11. Biologist and humanist Dr. Richard Dawkins:
"Race is a spectrum. Sex is pretty damn binary. This point really is childishly obvious."⬇️
12. Biologist & Professor of Medicine Dr. Robert Winston:
"I will say it categorically: You cannot change your sex. Your sex is there in every single cell in your body...We are very confused about this, unfortunately."⬇️
13. Evolutionary biologist Dr. Heather Heying:⬇️
14. Biologist Dr. Colin Wright:
"There are no intermediate gametes, which is why there is no spectrum of sex. Biological sex in humans is a binary system."⬇️
15. Four medical doctors (two physicians, a professor of obstetrics & a psychiatrist):
"Humans are sexually dimorphic, with rare intersex conditions being anomalous developments of dimorphic sexual classes. It is not possible to change biological sex."⬇️
16. Neuroscientist Dr. Deborah Soh:
"The concept of sex is, by definition, binary...It isn’t necessary to redefine “sex” in order to facilitate the acceptance of people who are different."⬇️"
So many transphobes denying that trans people exist!
Supernova 💚🤍💜 on Twitter - "Really Erica? DSDs are not sexes. And ambiguous genitalia, for example under-developped penises due to 5-Alpha Reductase Deficiency are not a new sex. They're males for f**k's sake! It's incredibly regressive to think people with DSDs and ambiguous genitalia are not male/female"
Meme - XXY Klinefelter @KlinefelterDSD: "ALL DSDs are sex specific, our conditions affect only males or females only & they endorse the binary of sex. There's is no 'in between' as often suggested by gender queer activists - which is highly disrespectful & dehumanising to the many suffering with having a DSD."
Laid-Off Journalist Trying To Learn To Code Horrified To Discover The Code Is Binary | Babylon Bee
Meme - "So proud of our 12 year old daughter - she's just come out as anorexic! We've suspected since she was 9. The doctor has given her appetite suppressants and agreed to give her liposuction. Her pronouns are I/Hate/Myself #StunningAndBrave"
Why Labour is losing women - "Sometimes it’s difficult to understand why so many feminists continue to feel any loyalty to the mainstream left. A left that, broadly speaking, regards them at best as obsolete old hags and at worst as dangerous fascists. It is remarkable that so many women are being physically harassed by those they would otherwise regard as comrades. And the fact that the Labour leadership hasn’t extended them a sniff of solidarity is telling. It speaks not only of its disregard for the insight and commitment of gender-critical women, most of whom are experienced political activists, but also of the left’s insular and myopic worldview."
Putney tennis club's gender ideology-friendly membership form classes female as 'no longer valid' - "Member Julia Stephenson was reapplying her £300-per-year fees at Putney Lawn Tennis Club when she spotted the change. She posted a picture of the drop-down menu on Twitter, writing: 'I am renewing my tennis club membership but am confused that my gender, 'female' is 'no longer valid'... the drop down menu can be seen with options for members' sex. The first option is 'Female (including trans woman)', there is also an option for 'Male (including trans man)', 'Non-binary' and 'Other'. The final option is 'Female (no longer valid)'... 'So where is the option that says 'Male (no longer valid)?'"
Is facial recognition software transphobic? Controversial tech 'has a gender problem' - "The controversial tech is now so accurate that it can figure out the gender of men or women with little more than a brief glance. But if that face belongs to a trans person, the systems get it wrong more than a third of the time... Study lead author Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US, said: ‘We found that facial analysis services performed consistently worse on transgender individuals, and were universally unable to classify non-binary genders... On average the systems were most accurate with photos of cisgender women, getting their gender right 98.3 per cent of the time. Cisgender men were categorised accurately 97.6 per cent of the time. Trans men, however, were wrongly identified as women up to 38 per cent of the time. And those who identified as agender, genderqueer or nonbinary – people who do not identify as either male or female – were mischaracterised 100 per cent of the time... ‘When you walk down the street you might look at someone and presume that you know what their gender is, but that is a really quaint idea from the 90s and it is not what the world is like anymore. ‘As our vision and our cultural understanding of what gender is has evolved, the algorithms driving our technological future have not. That’s deeply problematic.’"
Meme - "1909:
Meme - "THE 70'S
Most children who think they’re transgender are just going through a ‘phase’, says NHS - "Most children who believe that they are transgender are just going through a “phase”, the NHS has said, as it warns that doctors should not encourage them to change their names and pronouns. NHS England has announced plans for tightening controls on the treatment of under 18s questioning their gender, including a ban on prescribing puberty blockers outside of strict clinical trials. The services, which will replace the controversial Tavistock clinic, will be led by medical doctors rather than therapists and will consider the impact of other conditions such as autism and mental health issues... The proposals say that the new clinical approach will for younger children “reflect evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence” and doctors should be mindful this might be a “transient phase”... before medics change a young person's name and pronouns, a teenager should have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria... NHS England will also “strongly discourage” young people from buying hormones from private clinicians and will not accept clinical responsibility for the treatment of those who have done so."
It’s happening: “LGB drop the T” keeps trending on Twitter as gay activists turn on transgender activists - "the inevitable clash between gay ideology and transgender theory. Transgenderism relies entirely upon the non-existence of a gender binary, assuming a sliding scale of gender identity that denies there even is such thing as truly "male" or truly "female." Needless to say, there can be no gay man if there is no such thing as a man. There can be no lesbian if there is no such thing as a woman. Beyond just that, the transgender movement has brought excess cultural baggage... None of that has anything to do with the original objectives, intents, and purposes of the lesbian, gay, and even bisexual equality movement. And it seems as though there is a growing, and increasingly vocal contingent of those individuals who have had enough"
Rick Westhorpe on Twitter - "The T hitched a ride a few years back, invited itself for dinner, and is trying to make out that it always lived here. It didn't. Pride marches, protests, and LGB rights happened WITHOUT the T. I remember - I was there. I also remember the T wasn't. #LGBdroptheT"
1/4 Gay Merry🏳️🌈 on Twitter - "#LGBdroptheT We didnt sign on for this shit. We dont want kids groomed. Not wanting men in our spaces or to have sex with certain genitalia does NOT make us transphobes. We promised it wasnt the slippery slope they feared. You took advantage of our good will. Its gone too far."
Meme - kresh @kreshfallen: "biggest flex is having a bigger penis than cis men while still being hotter than cis women *ugly*"
I would challenge the "no-one can change sex" crowd to tell me exactly what sex is."
Emma Hilton @FondOfBeetles: "Sex is the shared biological mechanism by which almost all complex species reproduce. It's is based on a binary system of gametes of two different types, with differently-specialised roles in the generation of new offspring."
Even if it were a good thing to make algorithmns less accurate, how are they going to do it?
Weird. We keep getting told that sex and gender are different
If even humans supposedly can't tell gender just by looking, how can a machine?
Woman: We are allowed to study now. I wonder, what the future will bring
1919:
Woman: We are allowed to vote now. I wonder, what the future will bring
1977:
Woman: We can work without our husband's permission now. I wonder, what the future will bring.
2022:
Liberal: Define "woman"
Other Liberal: I have no clue..."
I am Woman hear me roar
TODAY
I don't know what I am. Hear me whine"