all 5 comments

[–]ClassroomPast6178[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If the editor had challenged me to come up with examples where the discontinuous mind really does get it right, I’d have struggled. Tall vs short, fat vs thin, strong vs weak, fast vs slow, old vs young, drunk vs sober, safe vs unsafe, even guilty vs not guilty: these are the ends of continuous if not always bell-shaped distributions. As a biologist, the only strongly discontinuous binary I can think of has weirdly become violently controversial. It is sex: male vs female. You can be cancelled, vilified, even physically threatened if you dare to suggest that an adult human must be either man or woman. But it is true; for once, the discontinuous mind is right. And the tyranny comes from the other direction, as that brave hero JK Rowling could testify.

[–]IMissPorn 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

That wasn't the most entertaining read, and there were even a couple points where I didn't think he made his case as clearly as he could have, but holy shit, comparing it the opposing article is hilarious.

Richard Dawkins starts by explaining why male and female are concrete biological categories, why gender, at least in the modern woke sense is meaningless, and finally answers the assignment (what is a woman?) with "A woman is an adult human female, free of Y chromosomes."

Jacqueline Rose rambles about oppression, feminism, identity, muggers, universal infantile bisexuality and all sorts of buzzwords before ultimately concluding that it would be politically incorrect to answer the question.

I almost feel bad for her. Obviously she's no mental match for Dawkins, and she had the unenviable task of defending pure nonsense to boot.

[–]ClassroomPast6178[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Jacqueline Rose rambles about oppression, feminism, trannies, muggers, universal infantile bisexuality and all sorts of buzzwords before ultimately concluding that it would be politically incorrect to answer the question.

Yeah, it’s crazy. I gave it its own thread because it is so nuts and I thought that it deserved attention for how deluded the author was.

That wasn't the most entertaining read, and there were even a couple points where I didn't think he made his case as clearly as he could have

I wonder how much interference there was from the editorial staff of The New Statesman, it’s the magazine of the British Left Establishment. I get the impression that they’re preparing the way, in particular their readership, to flip to the gender critical side, as gender identity stuff has turned out to be a vote loser and the public at large are fed up of the nonsense and increasingly worried about children.

[–]IMissPorn 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Could be. It does seem like public opinion is shifting that way, and perhaps especially in the UK.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's fairly inevitable I think. Once the gender ideology started going mainstream and the crazy started hitting the public light it was only a matter of time really. Same with hardline feminist theory.

So the basic idea that "trans people shouldn't be bullied or ostracized from society" is a basic one most people including myself can agree with, but once you start getting into biological gender isn't real and anyone who says they are X are physically X and allowed to get things reserved only for X the whole thing will fall apart and most people won't put up with it. Example I always liked to use was "is it transphobic to deny an abortion to a trans woman" and the answer is inevitably no since of course the trans woman doesn't have a womb.

But what if the trans woman is insistent that he has womb and definitely has a baby that needs aborting? You going to humor the person?

There's three possibilities here. Person is legit insane and actually believes it, in which case they need help.

Person is a troll and gets off on being a nuisance, which means they should just be kicked to the kerb.

Finally the person has some kind of weird fetish and just wants to get off on it, in which case they are a sex offender and need to be in jail.