It’s pretty much impossible to talk about trans inclusion without being labelled a transphobe. Are your thoughts on trans inclusion influenced by the fact that male patterns of violence and sexual aggression persist post-transition? You’re a transphobe. Do you recognise the differences between trans women and the class of people we’ve known as women since forever? You’re a transphobe. Do you think females have a right to spaces that males aren’t allowed to enter? You’re definitely a transphobe. So in my article, The Case Against Men, I decided to pick on another group that is cruelly denied access to female-only spaces; men.
"Attacks on young boys are naturally going to skew heavily towards gay men."
This is completely false. Homosexual men are attracted to men, men with adult male characteristics. We are not attracted to prepubscents because they lack the characteristics that arouse us.
It is facile (please note my restraint, Steve, because this really pisses me off) to make such a simplistic assumption as "men who molest young boys must be gay." In reality the pedophile population is much more heterosexual than the general population and the stimulus is not the gender of their victims, but their helplessness. A pedophile often lives a purely heterosexual life, married with children, but has a private life preying on children, usually without much discrimination based on gender.
This libel has been applied to gay men for generations and it's time to stop it.
"It is facile (please note my restraint, Steve, because this really pisses me off) to make such a simplistic assumption as 'men who molest young boys must be gay.'"
I both appreciate the restraint and apologise for not taking issue with it in the conversation. I did notice it, but was so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stupid, offensive things he was saying that I couldn't keep track of them all. This deserved to be challenged however.
Yes, I completely agree. This idea that gay men are somehow more likely to abuse children is absolutely gross. Plural doesn't really present himself as an enlightened soul here. So I'm not shocked that he's bought into this kind of homophobia.
What I learned when reading about the Catholic Church's pedophiles is that priests don't necessarily have to be gay to go after young boys (at that time, it was estimated about half of priests were gay...this was like 25, 30 years ago). Some, of course, did go after little/young girls but many went after boys/young men for a variety of reasons - gayness being only one of them. Other reasons included not being clear on their sexuality, not being properly trained for the priesthood (at that time there was *zero* training on how to handle eternal singlehood and fleshly desires), some who were simply sexually inexperienced. One sick practical reason was that boys are less likely to tell than girls, and don't have a telltale hymen to break.
I suspect that goes for the population at large. You're right, you don't have to be gay to go after your own sex - some men are on the down low, and others explore while married (think of all the Christian 'family values' politicians caught porkin' dudes somewhere).
In the past I mentioned that as a teenage hitchhiker gay men solicited sex for money. It was not a matter of them having short eyes. I was legally a boy but not pre-pubecent. I actually fit The demographic of male prostitutes. The issue was that it is far more likely that a man will solicit sex for money than women and a gay man will therefore seek a male prostitute. Not an indictment of homosexuality, but of men.
When I mentioned that you didn't cop an attitude. You probably understood the context, rather than a requirement for personal restraint on your part. At least I hope so.
Why would I cop an attitude? I had no reason to doubt your veracity and I know some men do this. I don't like it, I've never done it, but it's completely different from being attracted to and forcibly molesting prepubescent boys. The latter is an incurable mental illness.
I never had anyone come on to me until I was at least in my 20s ... anoymous phone calls from guys who had seen me at the gym showers and called to tell me they wanted to ... well. Probably the same as you. Then hung up.
Human nature is what it is. The drive to procreate is only a little less intense than the drive to survive. So we set up constructs to shield the vulnerable (females) from inadvertent and unwanted attention. T’was ever so. Keep males out of female spaces. Why is this even a debate? Keep females out of male spaces. Ah here’s the rub as we narrow and redefine what it means to be female. And what the roles are. The military is particularly fraught.
In two generations of my family, 2/4 females were attacked with intent to rape. By being outside in the middle of the day. As one of them who bears the scars, it’s kinda hard to see all this trans crap as anything other than an intrusion on hard fought privacy rights.
I have no accommodation for welcoming Lia Thomas’ penis into my locker room.
"Ah here’s the rub as we narrow and redefine what it means to be female."
I can't find it now, but I saw a tweet a few days ago by a trans women openly admitting that trans women want access to female spaces because they're terrified of men. Which is perfectly understandable. But it seemed lost on them the this is the same reason many women want ALL males out of their spaces.
As I've said, the problem of male violence in male spaces is significant. And affects trans women most of all. But it isn't women's problem to solve. Women solved it for themselves by fighting for their own spaces. The idea that they should now accommodate males in these spaces because they wear a dress and lipstick, even if they genuinely "feel" that they're a woman, is ridiculous.
Or, rather, the idea that the decision about which spaces and under what conditions these males might be accommodated isn't 100% in the hands of women, and that they should be abused or slandered as bigots if they assert their boundaries with regards to these spaces is ridiculous.
I think the extremes of trans activism have done such a huge disservice to trans people in general with their misogyny and entitlement.
It's true that transwomen are at great risk of violence from men, possibly even moreso than non-trans men. Genuine transphobia is homophobia in a dress. So I *do* have sympathy for transfolk (transmen, with their weak bodies and vaginas, are also at great risk). But you're right, you put it well, this isn't women's problem to solve. Frankly, with so many people declaring themselves trans, they can do what women had to do to protect and support themselves from male assault - form their own services - domestic, rape, sexual assault, etc. They can include or exclude whoever they want.
In response to Dan, what’s the rule? It’s that humans come in 2 sexes: male and female. We can alter our appearance, but we cannot change our sex no matter how much medical intervention we do. I know some will say but “wutabout”. Ok, there are exceptions. Exceptions like multiple chromosomes or ambiguous genitals. Just like some babies are born without all their fingers. But humans still are defined by having 10 fingers. So, that’s my rule. I’d love to hear people start affirming “you were not born in the wrong body” because, other than your sex “determined” at birth, anyone can be whatever they are or want to be. Humans can dress how they want, do sports or not, be religious or not, wear nail polish or not, long hair/short hair, sleep with who they want or abstain completely, marry who they want, etc. I don’t care. Unless the thing requires a penis or a vagina, you are free to be you! But I don’t want to walk into a bathroom with a undisguised man standing at the sink. I would walk back out. It used to be women’s bathrooms were shared with transwomen and we never knew about it. Because it was about appearance. 30 yrs ago I had an employee transitioning from male to female. For bathrooms, it wasn’t hard…use the unisex one until you look enough like a woman to pass. And it was never an issue. Today, with the move for men to just “feel” like a woman (no appearance change required), it changes everything for me, including even bathrooms. When men are allowed in women's spaces or sports, women will self-exclude. How can “inclusion” hurt us? That’s how. We aren’t going to stick around. I wish women prisoners could say the same. This was obvious and non controversial 5 minutes ago.
Hi Steve. I don't know if there is a more straightforward way to contact you. I enjoy your writing and agree with you often, but not always. I think that's the appropriate ratio. Have you ever commented on Hate Crime? The current story from the NYT
"Two of the men convicted in Ahmaud Arbery’s killing got additional life sentences for federal hate crimes. The third was sentenced to 35 years."
would be a good jumping off point. My view is that murder is bad, and that murder should be punished. Murder for money and murder for road rage and murder for dislike of a person's skin color or sexuality are equally heinous. Hate crime is thought crime. Should we prosecute a separate offence based on motive? Taking motive into account when sentencing seems to make sense to me, but why add a separate life sentence for what you THINK the person was thinking?
I'm sure you already have plenty to write about, but I'd be interested in your views.
"I'm sure you already have plenty to write about, but I'd be interested in your views."
Hi Dave, this is a actually a very interesting question. My knee-jerk response is that hate crime legislation is a good thing. We already consider motive when deciding punishment for crimes in the case of temporary insanity, or whether a parent kills somebody who hurt their child, for example. Similarly, we treat the rape of a minor more seriously than the rape of an adult. The nature and motivations behind a crime do matter.
There's also the idea that the way we treat different crimes sends a message about the kind of society we want to be. Hating somebody, simply for being who they are, is unacceptable in any decent society. So if you act on that hate, maybe it should be punishable? The additional life sentences were largely symbolic, they're already serving life. But maybe the symbolism matters.
But that said, I do totally see your point. As you say, there's often a significant amount of mind-reading that needs to take place to convict somebody of a hate crime. And in the current climate, there's certainly a risk that any inter-racial crime will be assumed to be based on hate. Definite food for thought. I'll definitely consider an article on this. Thanks a lot.
Creating a new category of crime for being hateful feels to me to be related to the speech-is-violence zeitgeist. What do you think?
Also, in many jurisdictions the definition of hate crime includes a list of identities susceptible to hate crimes. In California the list is “sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, immigration status, political affiliation, and position in a labor dispute.” Sort of looks like the practical effect is codification of identity politics.
"Creating a new category of crime for being hateful feels to me to be related to the speech-is-violence zeitgeist."
I don't think so exactly. Though there is a danger of it. But I'm talking strictly about violence-is-violence.
Consider Peyton Gendron for example. Peyton's stated aim was to kill as many black people as possible. Should we treat his crime in any way differently to somebody who kills indiscriminately? We're already clear that killing is wrong, but should there be *any* additional consideration for the racist element?
If not, does that mean that race based hatred is morally neutral?
Identity politics has taken some terrible turns. But it's not completely arbitrary. Those identities are selected because they're the main characteristics people use to discriminate against and hate others. Note that in law, they're all neutral. It's not "the black race" it's just race. It's not "the female sex" it's just sex.
I would very much hope that if a black person or an Asian person went on a white person killing spree, there would also be additional consideration for the racist aspect of their crime.
I get that there's a concern that this might not happen in practice, or that the law might be applied too loosely, but is that a problem with the law or the society enacting it?
What Plural seems to not understand is that keeping men out of women's bathrooms isn't keeping men out of bathrooms. They have access to their own bathrooms. Plural's argument would make sense if we were keeping men from public bathrooms. Why in God's name are we even arguing about this? I wonder what Plural thinks about keeping men out of women's prisons...
"What Plural seems to not understand is that keeping men out of women's bathrooms isn't keeping men out of bathrooms"
Exactly. This is the same fallacy in the "trans people are being banned from sport" arguments. No they're not. Literally not a single person is trying to ban trans people from sport. They're just asking that they compete according to their sex, exactly as everybody else does.
People often resort to name calling as argumentum. I've been called a sexist because of my view on women in combat roles in the military. Two things guide my view. Anyone reading this can tell me why it's sexist if they think so.
1. For a time I lived on a fire support base south of the Que Son Mountain range. A miserable place where we were frequently hit with mortars. That is not the reason. When I got there as advanced party there were no showers. We went to a stream just outside the fire base to bathe. When the higher ups figured out that some of the women there were not there to wash cloths, they decided that we needed a shower. In an open area in the compound, they put some wooden pallets and set up a pipe contraption with holes in it and pumped water from the stream for an hour every day. It was quickly a big mud puddle. We stripped, walked thru the mud, showered walked back thru the mud, dried ourselves and wiped the mud off our feet. The condition of my feet is another story. Women with rotten feet is not the reason either. Where in the hell was there going to be a woman's space?
2. I'm just one person, hardly a valid statistic, but every single woman who has talked about it with me who was in the military told me that they were raped at least once! The people you are supposed to have the tightest bond with raping you! Go back to number 1 and imagine being a young, fit, woman putting your naked body on display regularly in front of a bunch of young, horney jarheads. Splendid idea?
Women deploy now. I don't know how they deal with that, but we were certainly not ready to deal with it back then. I'm sure that the women on the medical staff at China Beach had women's spaces. I never had occasion to talk with them to see if it would change my every one of them metric. Maybe not, I don't know.
Yes, more extreme than in more civilized locations. That's my point, but I still get called a sexist. Men should behave themselves. Yeah right, sure they will.
"I'm just one person, hardly a valid statistic, but every single woman who has talked about it with me who was in the military told me that they were raped at least once"
Jesus. That is absolutely horrific. And more horrific that though I'm surprised, I'm also not surprised. You know?
It's a tough one. I understand why this would lead you to the belief that women shouldn't be in combat roles. And I understand your derision at the idea that men should behave themselves. But the alternative is that women have to forgo opportunities because men can't control themselves.
It's the same logic behind women having to wear the burqa to avoid "inflaming men's desires." Right? Men can't control themselves, so women have to adjust their behaviour and be treated as second-class citizens.
I don't have a simple solution. I'm not under any illusions about men's sexual behaviour changing with sensitivity training or the like. But given that I'd bet most of the men who raped the women you talked to weren't punished, I'd still lean towards pursing a climate where it was easier for women to talk about their sexual assault and where men were more likely to be severely punished for it.
The men who behave that way do so because they get away with it. I do believe it would change if they knew they couldn't.
It's the other side of the coin. Heads, men should stay out of women's spaces because men... Tails, woman don't belong in a worst case no woman's space available.
Both are about the safety of women, because men. I agree that the situation would improve if men were vigorously prosecuted. If is a very big word.
My comment pertained to "You're a [ ]" as a response to stifle an opposing view, the subject of this commentary. Am I a sexist for holding that view? Are you a sexist for your view on men in women's spaces? We are both addressing an unpleasant reality about the danger to women when in compromising spaces with men. It's hard to discuss the issue when the conversation is hijacked by a subject change to the evil of the speaker for daring to express a point of view. The validity of the idea be damned.
"My comment pertained to "You're a [ ]" as a response to stifle an opposing view, the subject of this commentary."
Ah, I see. Yeah, honestly accusations of transphobia (I'm not called a misogynist or a racist very often😄) just completely roll off me at this point. They'e applied so liberally, so lazily, and so reflexively that they're just meaningless.
If I am a [], fine, show me what I'm missing. I'm honestly listening. But if you're just calling me that to guilt me into silence, or you think just shouting at me will msake me take you seriously, then yeah, good luck with that.
I've often wondered what it would take to get the military to clean up its act re women. I can understand why you feel the way you do about women in the military, and I've often wondered why any woman would sign up for it. Rape seems to be pretty widespread in the military, I know of one female Medium veteran who's mentioned her experiences of multiple sexual assault in the military.
It tells you something when the military is supposed to protect all Americans, but thinks half of us are their fucktoys.
It may be changing a bit with more women in the military than while I was on active duty but I think that a big part of the problem is the ratio. In society approximately 50/50 men and women. In the military not even close, women a small minority. Add to that, the toxic indoctrination taking place for those men.
Boot camp call and response cadences like, "I don't know but I've been told. Eskimo pussy is mighty cold." or "This is my rifle. This is my gun. This is for killing. This is for fun." Respect for women, oh yeah.
Here's how I feel about the idea of my daughters or granddaughter in the military. Not a good place for them.
Yeah, a friend of mine who joined the Army after he got out of school (he had not choice...they paid for it) would tell me about some of the cadences they did. I didn't say too much at the time. I figured that was just how the military was. I'm a lot less understanding now.
Your restraint is truly impressive, Steve. However, I don't know of any other non-violent method to expunge bad ideas beyond airing them out, showing how empty they are, and providing better ones. I just wish the entire process wasn't so asymmetric (ie a slogan can be a brainworm for years, but good ideas need time to take root)
Like you, I’m sure, I have never knowingly gone through a door with a sign on it saying “Women”.
It doesn’t have to say “Women Only”; “Women” is enough. I also regularly step aside to allow women access to parts of the sidewalk that I would have felt entitled to use were they not there; my nose remains unskinned.
Why on Earth would any man want to be somewhere he is unwelcome? It must be so unpleasant.
"Why on Earth would any man want to be somewhere he is unwelcome? It must be so unpleasant"
This is really the question. The answer, in some cases, is even more unpleasant. But for the trans women who aren't perverts, I don't understand why they aren't pushing for their own spaces instead of demanding that women let them and their penises into theirs. It's not confusing to any reasonable person why many women object to this.
I've been reading a lot about the growing controversy of "woke" employees. The charge of "transphobia" comes so readily that employers are becoming wary of hiring the "woke" at all; their demands are endless, forever changing, and they bring chaos to the workplace with disruptive conflicts with coworkers and with management for not being "inclusive" enough.
"The charge of "transphobia" comes so readily that employers are becoming wary of hiring the "woke" at all; their demands are endless, forever changing, and they bring chaos to the workplace with disruptive conflicts with coworkers and with management for not being "inclusive" enough"
A friend of mine was telling me about this happening in her company just yesterday.😅 And yes, the company is terrified of being taken to court for discrimination by employees who literally refuse to do their jobs (we're talking about a call centre here, nothing onerous) because of "trauma."
Having owned a company myself, I would never hire somebody who even gave a hint of all this nonsense. If you can't think clearly, or if you find answering a phone to be "traumatic", I don't want you anywhere near my company.
The host of the series doesn't do a terribly good job; he repeats phrases like "capitulate to your worldview" too much and barely mentions the core issue that the workplace is not a stage for self-projection, not of "gender identity" or anything else. He also casts it too much into the "entitled youth" vein.
But the young woman whose meltdown is the center of this video ... my god. She rolls out "correct pronouns" and "misgendered" and "gender identity" so often you can hear the dust in the grooves. Her strangely inappropriate expressions, smiling while expressing exasperation, cast doubt on her stability. She got into a screaming match at work with a coworker who would not refer to her as "they," though how the third person came thrice into a face to face conversation remains unexplained.
I have no doubt that she lost her job over this outburst, and also doubt she can maintain a job because she comes to project her "gender identity" more than to do her work. Imagine a meeting:
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen—"
Excuse me, but I am *non-binary*
and how quickly things go downhill from there.
I don't do it now but at a number of startups I have been given the task of winnowing down résumés from the hundreds to the few who might be called for interview. If I was to do that again, pronoun pairs would be instant rejection.
"But the young woman whose meltdown is the center of this video ... my god."
It genuinely makes me sad that a young woman has became so confused that she has to leave a meeting because somebody won't refer to her as "they." That this is a source of emotional tumuli.
Seriously, what are the odds that she finds herself on the streets or being horribly taken advantage of at some point because she simply isn't emotionally resilient enough for the very basics of life.
It was not a meeting, it was a face-to-face conversation. Which is really odd because she screamed that her coworker "misgendered" her three times. Funny, when I'm talking to someone I address him as "you," not as "he." Her boss got involved and didn't take her side and she ended up storming out of the office.
She mentioned that silly neologism "transphobic" but she isn't transgendered; real repeat real transgendered people adopt the opposite gendered pronoun at some point during transitioning, usually after reassignment surgery. "They" is the affectation of those "non-binary" people.
The host of the video, which I unsubscribed from because he says "Democrat Party," didn't make a very clear case that the workplace is not a stage for projecting oneself, she was supposed to be there to work, not to project her "gender identity."
I wonder how many seconds she can go without thinking about her non-binaryness. My guess is that those intervals are very brief.
Well... I also often smile when exasperated with someone. It's a way to convey both exasperation and condescension. :) <----- not intended to be condescending!
I think it is reasonable for Plural to ask you for your proposed "rule". And we should be suspicious if our rule does not seem to do the right things in all the right circumstances.
I like that you are aiming away from chances of bad actions since I think those rates with respect to bathrooms is very very low. That is not the center of this issue. As you point out, it seems at center is how women FEEL about folks being in their space.
I generally find myself on the same side of this issue as you are. But I am UNCOMFORTABLE. The kind of rule that I imagine us gravitating towards has something to do with many folks being uncomfortable with the situation. But white of the past (or maybe present) could LEGITIMATELY argue that they were uncomfortable in the close presents of blacks. Even as we accept the truth of that, we basically tell them to "get over it"
so I just find myself confused.
And @Mark Monday if this conflation hard to read (I am not happy with it either), then can you slice them apart in a morally strong way? I at least for the moment can't.
"I think it is reasonable for Plural to ask you for your proposed 'rule'."
Where does he ask me for a "rule"? And with regards to women's spaces, why would he even need to ask me for a rule? Is there any man who is unclear about the criteria by which he's excluded from women's spaces?
And *please* tell me why white people of the past could legitimately argue that they were uncomfortable in the close presence of black people. I promise not to jump down your throat. But I think you're on incredibly shaky ground there.😅
Bathrooms are not at the centre of the issue. In fact, when talking about women's spaces, I rarely mention them. Because they're the one space that I think is segregated by gender expression far more than sex. In my experience talking about this issue, bathrooms are by far the least controversial (though still controversial for some) women's space.
Communal changing rooms, prisons, rape crisis centres, these kinds of spaces have always been segregated by sex. And it's understandable why women would be uncomfortable with men in those spaces in a sense that I see absolutely no way to compare to black people and white people. I'm all ears though.
People conflate race with the class issue. I live in a neighbourhood full of people who look like me and don't look like me, and while we've had some crime here I've never felt unsafe. When I was scouting 'hoods many years ago I applied my usual tests - What condition are their cars? How well do they dress (not fancy/expensive, just clean, basic decent clothes).
Class is what's important, or just basic decent appearance and minding one's own business. Poor, drug-ridden, criminal white people are just as scary as their darker similar brethren and sistren.
Absolutely. As I pointed out to Plural, most communities are segregated by poverty. If you just cast your eye over some communities, this is easy to mistake for segregation by race. There are many reasons for this. Racism among them. But it's both silly and unproductive to pretend that racism is the sole factor.
If you go back upstream to the origin of all this wokeism it comes from the logic of Critical Theory that cultural norms aren’t based on immutable truths, they’re based on the preferences of those at the top of the power hierarchy. Of course, from the evolutionary perspective there is some truth in that and people growing up in the modern worldview know it. This is why well-intentioned people tend to accept the premise of questioning the validity of every received cultural norm; it makes some sense to ask for “rules”. Cultural norms do change over time.
The problem with Critical Theory is that if everything is relative then so are the claims of Critical Theory. It’s just fancy nihilism. But it is a sort of logical predicament. The only way forward is to embrace the idea of progress in finding first principles for ordering society.
And yes, they are our preferences, and we do have to defend some cultural norms as better than others. So yes, we simply have to state that our culture has learned that women need protections from people with testosterone. We no longer accept slavery as normal. Women should have the right to vote. The law should be applied equally. Etc. That list will eventually get into grey areas, but the way forward is not to destroy the culture we are trying to improve.
"If you go back upstream to the origin of all this wokeism it comes from the logic of Critical Theory that cultural norms aren’t based on immutable truths"
Absolutely. Not only that, but cultural norms and the categories they're based on are all simply means of exerting "power" and should be torn down at every opportunity.
But is a woman exerting power over me when she asks me to stay out of her changing room or rape crisis centre? I don't think so. And if she is, I accept it gladly.
A characteristic I unfailingly find in people who espouse critical theory style arguments is a blind narcissism that presumes that they should always be able to do whatever they want. Even if it requires other people to change the entire way they see the world.
"Oh, you're uncomfortable with me getting my penis out in front of you and your daughter in a female changing room? Well, you're just a bigot. You need to change the way you think."
I actually saw somebody make the claim that women who don't want males in their spaces because they've been raped should "reframe their trauma" (https://thecritic.co.uk/reframe-your-trauma/). It's narcissism all the way down. And the extremists really don't care how much damage they do as long as they get their way.
Relativism is toxic. We should meet every new assertion of it with skepticism and demands for evidence.
I've seen enough of it to confidently claim that relativism is associated with sickness. In all but the most scoundrelous it has neutered conviction; we are forbidden to make even the most unambiguous value judgments lest we sound "just like the religious right."
I had a coworker who could not utter a sentence that didn't include "from [my | your | his | their...] perspective"; we were developing software and this added nothing to any discussion. One day I asked him privately to stop saying it. He instantly became a savagely nasty enemy and did everything he could manage to get me in trouble on the job.
This guy was a mess. At 5'10" he could not have weighed more than 110 lbs and he pulled all-nighters with a sack of candy bars. I could see the bones of his eye sockets if he stood under the lighting, something I had only seen before in people near death from AIDS or cancer.
The intensity of his hatred of me was just shocking. Just because I asked him to stop adding "from my perspective" to every sentence. It was really critical to his Weltanschauung.
I just had some guy on Facebook tell me that one in 120 is "trans." Medical criteria say one in 65,000. This is way way out of control. Even going to gay clubs in Norfolk where the gay scene was completely centered on transvestites the ratio was lower than that.
Unfortunately, idiocies rarely collapse under the weight of their absurdity.
Wow! I occasionally say "in my opinion" when I wish to make clear that I don't think my thought is truth from the lips of God, but in normal speech opinion is implicit. I guess I've been privileged to not have people openly hate me in the workplace.
First Fit: I agree with much of what you are saying, but consider the phrase: "the way forward is to not destroy the culture we are trying to improve"
Ok, but notice that on the issue of women's suffrage, and slave rights on indeed WAS destroying a culture when this progress occurred. So it remains to define "good vs bad" destruction.
It seems plausible to me that a generation or two hence the roles of gender end up so blurred that this male / female dichotomy is no longer the dominate way of thinking... then such rules would look antequated. Of course this could only happen if the actual risks of sexual assault were very nearly zero -- which I think is plausible with a bit of technology.
My point is before a cultural shift has occurred, one can genuinely argue that the shift will kill something essential within the current culture. So if we want to declare some of these shifts as progress, while others are not progress, we still are stuck defining this.
and @ChrisFox I say the same to your relativeism is toxic comment. I don't disagree, but the only defense against relativism is some non-relative rule that one can stand behind. What is the rule we are standing behind here? I am having difficulty articulatinig it!
"So if we want to declare some of these shifts as progress, while others are not progress, we still are stuck defining this."
I think this is usually very easy to do though:
Will this change create more or less human suffering? Does this allow more people to live in safety and dignity?
Not always, but in the vast majority of cases, the answer to these questions is self-evident. In the case of slavery, a few people were financially worse off after slavery ended. But millions of people were free to live lives as human beings. It would have been even better if the government had followed through on the promises made to freed slaves so they didn't starve to death.
As I said to plural, if we make all spaces gender neutral, nothing improves for ordinary, decent men. Rapists and perverts are happier, and pretty much every single women is less happy and feels less safe.
I think you might be right about the male/female dichotomy becoming "antiquated" in people's thinking. I guess it just depends on how much more rape and sexual harassment we deem acceptable. Because human nature doesn't care about progressive thinking. Abolishing the categories of male and female will lead to exactly the same problems it caused 100 or 1000 years ago.
I'm curious how you think technology cut cut the risk of sexual assault to nearly zero.
In principle I see and maybe even support your approach, but in practice I can't see how to make it workable. (Remember, I am confused on this, so I have no alternative to propose)
But my problem is, likely the number of actual assults that would occur as a result of trans in women's bathrooms is likely pretty small. Thus if we argue an material safety grounds we would need to band friday night football, co-ed classes, and many many other things first.
Thus the only angle is to say that is MENTALLY hurts all women to be thus exposed. That is the better argument, but human expectations and subjective measures of risk are massively malleable. Black slaves worked with their hands and backs all day, they were coarse and powerful. I expect whites of both genders really did have visceral fear in their presence (especially since these slaves had been wronged all of their lives in brutal ways. Thus brutality was known to them.) Thus I expect it was really true that whites would easily have MORE fear in close presence with such a slave, even more than the average women might have for her safety when in a bathroom with a trans woman.
But we don't want that white persons fear to be a justification for separation. Even in todays world one could argue for separation of public spaces by gender on this basis.
I feel any honest application of such a rule would end up outlawing alot of things that we would be uncomfortable with before it would outlaw trans in women's bathroom.
"likely the number of actual assults that would occur as a result of trans in women's bathrooms is likely pretty small."
Two things here, first, the widespread mistake of treating sexual assault as the only reason to keep males out of female spaces. If I stand in a female space naked, with an erection, but don't assault anybody, do women still have a right to complain? If women feel so uncomfortable that they're driven out of spaces built for them, do they have a right to complain? I think yes.
Secondly, even where we're talking specifically about assault, we're talking about *additional* assaults. Yes, women face dangers from men in many spaces. And anything we can do to reduce that is great. But if we abolish women's spaces, we're weighing additional assaults against 50% of the population against assaults against <1% of the population who are actually less vulnerable to sexual violence and its consequences (retain some strength advantages, can't get pregnant, may not even have a vagina).
And yes, antebellum white people had good reason to be uncomfortable around black people. But a) attacks on white people were still vanishingly rare, and brutally and disproportionately punished. And b) as you say, those reasons were almost entirely based on the cruelty those white people inflicted on slaves.
You're glossing over the vastly different reasons *why* those fears might exist, to arrive at something approximating, "all segregation is basically the same." No, it really, really isn't.
If women were uncomfortable around men because they'd stolen us from our homes and forced us and our children to work to death for them, we'd be having a very different conversation.
But any "honest application" of a rule regarding sex-based segregation is necessarily sex-based. I see no way to "honestly apply" a rule about racial segregation without being honest about why it's even an issue. You haven't been honest about that here.
> Two things here, first, the widespread mistake of treating sexual assault as the only reason to keep males out of female spaces. If I stand in a female space naked,
We agree, indeed as I wrote, I already stated that your better argument is about the discomfort women would have. So lets just focus on that sub-area that we both agree with as the key one.
> You're glossing over the vastly different reasons *why* those fears might exist,
No I am not. Recall I am 'confused' about a valid 'rule' here, I am simply noting a parallel situation. If you believe there is a valid rule that separates these two casese you are free to use any aspect of these situations in order to craft your rule. I am open to hearing it.
> But any "honest application" of a rule regarding sex-based segregation ... You haven't been honest about that here.
Well let me clarify here. For me the issues is when can one group require exclusion of another group from some communally manged space. I think a good rule should apply broadly to sex-based and non-sex based spaces. It should be a general rule about when exclusion is warranted.
Of course there can be sex-spaced based instances of the general rule, that is not problem. But I am very bothered is we cannot express the principle generally and then instantiated it appropriately for sex spaces. Indeed if we cannot do that, then I fear we are begin parochial and merely justifying prejudices that hold in our present moment. this his the high standard which I cannot see my way towards right now.
You might say, Dan you are holding us to too high of a standard. Perhaps. But I will just notice that down thru history when humanity "was up to no good" and justifying shit that later we would say "what the fuck were they thinking?" We would create specialty rules with specialty justifications for specialty cases. Hence my desire for a generalized rule. Something like:
Humanity is justified in excluding one sub-population from a community managed resource for benefit of another sub-population WHEN ...
I am having difficulty finishing that sentence in a satisfactory way. Can you express this rule in a way that you can stand behind?
What motivates such an odd idea, doing away with the dichtomoy of male and female. It's not as though this is some invented difference, whatever the postmodernists say. Men and women are distinctly different and the difference that matters most here is that women are more vulnerable.
We should be focusing on erasing the wage gap between men and women, lowering the incidence of rape and domestic violence, tangible and achievable goals, not this "woke" crap.
This is very much a side point, whIch I probably should not have raised, since the core of my argument rests on the fact that presently the absolute rates are low even w/o technology.
Still, now that I raised it.... I can imagine building deep learned models of struggle based on audio finger print and near IR visual signature. Such a edge device would be entirely on chip (like an occupancy sensor, or auto door opener technology today. (So no information leaves the device itself which is mounted in the ceiling.) But this device can 'phone home' if a felony might be is in progress. One would need to get the false positive rate down very low, else the police would not respond. Still I expect it would be pretty hard to "get away" with rape if the police could get there in minutes.
I think the loss of privacy is not much different than having an occupancy sensor automatically turn on the light when you enter the room. (Assuming it only phones home when actual felonies are in progress, and one is not concerned with maintaining privacy of felonies in progress.)
"Attacks on young boys are naturally going to skew heavily towards gay men."
This is completely false. Homosexual men are attracted to men, men with adult male characteristics. We are not attracted to prepubscents because they lack the characteristics that arouse us.
It is facile (please note my restraint, Steve, because this really pisses me off) to make such a simplistic assumption as "men who molest young boys must be gay." In reality the pedophile population is much more heterosexual than the general population and the stimulus is not the gender of their victims, but their helplessness. A pedophile often lives a purely heterosexual life, married with children, but has a private life preying on children, usually without much discrimination based on gender.
This libel has been applied to gay men for generations and it's time to stop it.
"It is facile (please note my restraint, Steve, because this really pisses me off) to make such a simplistic assumption as 'men who molest young boys must be gay.'"
I both appreciate the restraint and apologise for not taking issue with it in the conversation. I did notice it, but was so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stupid, offensive things he was saying that I couldn't keep track of them all. This deserved to be challenged however.
Yes, I completely agree. This idea that gay men are somehow more likely to abuse children is absolutely gross. Plural doesn't really present himself as an enlightened soul here. So I'm not shocked that he's bought into this kind of homophobia.
What I learned when reading about the Catholic Church's pedophiles is that priests don't necessarily have to be gay to go after young boys (at that time, it was estimated about half of priests were gay...this was like 25, 30 years ago). Some, of course, did go after little/young girls but many went after boys/young men for a variety of reasons - gayness being only one of them. Other reasons included not being clear on their sexuality, not being properly trained for the priesthood (at that time there was *zero* training on how to handle eternal singlehood and fleshly desires), some who were simply sexually inexperienced. One sick practical reason was that boys are less likely to tell than girls, and don't have a telltale hymen to break.
I suspect that goes for the population at large. You're right, you don't have to be gay to go after your own sex - some men are on the down low, and others explore while married (think of all the Christian 'family values' politicians caught porkin' dudes somewhere).
In the past I mentioned that as a teenage hitchhiker gay men solicited sex for money. It was not a matter of them having short eyes. I was legally a boy but not pre-pubecent. I actually fit The demographic of male prostitutes. The issue was that it is far more likely that a man will solicit sex for money than women and a gay man will therefore seek a male prostitute. Not an indictment of homosexuality, but of men.
When I mentioned that you didn't cop an attitude. You probably understood the context, rather than a requirement for personal restraint on your part. At least I hope so.
Why would I cop an attitude? I had no reason to doubt your veracity and I know some men do this. I don't like it, I've never done it, but it's completely different from being attracted to and forcibly molesting prepubescent boys. The latter is an incurable mental illness.
I never had anyone come on to me until I was at least in my 20s ... anoymous phone calls from guys who had seen me at the gym showers and called to tell me they wanted to ... well. Probably the same as you. Then hung up.
No ideas how they got my phone.
Human nature is what it is. The drive to procreate is only a little less intense than the drive to survive. So we set up constructs to shield the vulnerable (females) from inadvertent and unwanted attention. T’was ever so. Keep males out of female spaces. Why is this even a debate? Keep females out of male spaces. Ah here’s the rub as we narrow and redefine what it means to be female. And what the roles are. The military is particularly fraught.
In two generations of my family, 2/4 females were attacked with intent to rape. By being outside in the middle of the day. As one of them who bears the scars, it’s kinda hard to see all this trans crap as anything other than an intrusion on hard fought privacy rights.
I have no accommodation for welcoming Lia Thomas’ penis into my locker room.
"Ah here’s the rub as we narrow and redefine what it means to be female."
I can't find it now, but I saw a tweet a few days ago by a trans women openly admitting that trans women want access to female spaces because they're terrified of men. Which is perfectly understandable. But it seemed lost on them the this is the same reason many women want ALL males out of their spaces.
As I've said, the problem of male violence in male spaces is significant. And affects trans women most of all. But it isn't women's problem to solve. Women solved it for themselves by fighting for their own spaces. The idea that they should now accommodate males in these spaces because they wear a dress and lipstick, even if they genuinely "feel" that they're a woman, is ridiculous.
Or, rather, the idea that the decision about which spaces and under what conditions these males might be accommodated isn't 100% in the hands of women, and that they should be abused or slandered as bigots if they assert their boundaries with regards to these spaces is ridiculous.
I think the extremes of trans activism have done such a huge disservice to trans people in general with their misogyny and entitlement.
It's true that transwomen are at great risk of violence from men, possibly even moreso than non-trans men. Genuine transphobia is homophobia in a dress. So I *do* have sympathy for transfolk (transmen, with their weak bodies and vaginas, are also at great risk). But you're right, you put it well, this isn't women's problem to solve. Frankly, with so many people declaring themselves trans, they can do what women had to do to protect and support themselves from male assault - form their own services - domestic, rape, sexual assault, etc. They can include or exclude whoever they want.
In response to Dan, what’s the rule? It’s that humans come in 2 sexes: male and female. We can alter our appearance, but we cannot change our sex no matter how much medical intervention we do. I know some will say but “wutabout”. Ok, there are exceptions. Exceptions like multiple chromosomes or ambiguous genitals. Just like some babies are born without all their fingers. But humans still are defined by having 10 fingers. So, that’s my rule. I’d love to hear people start affirming “you were not born in the wrong body” because, other than your sex “determined” at birth, anyone can be whatever they are or want to be. Humans can dress how they want, do sports or not, be religious or not, wear nail polish or not, long hair/short hair, sleep with who they want or abstain completely, marry who they want, etc. I don’t care. Unless the thing requires a penis or a vagina, you are free to be you! But I don’t want to walk into a bathroom with a undisguised man standing at the sink. I would walk back out. It used to be women’s bathrooms were shared with transwomen and we never knew about it. Because it was about appearance. 30 yrs ago I had an employee transitioning from male to female. For bathrooms, it wasn’t hard…use the unisex one until you look enough like a woman to pass. And it was never an issue. Today, with the move for men to just “feel” like a woman (no appearance change required), it changes everything for me, including even bathrooms. When men are allowed in women's spaces or sports, women will self-exclude. How can “inclusion” hurt us? That’s how. We aren’t going to stick around. I wish women prisoners could say the same. This was obvious and non controversial 5 minutes ago.
Hi Steve. I don't know if there is a more straightforward way to contact you. I enjoy your writing and agree with you often, but not always. I think that's the appropriate ratio. Have you ever commented on Hate Crime? The current story from the NYT
"Two of the men convicted in Ahmaud Arbery’s killing got additional life sentences for federal hate crimes. The third was sentenced to 35 years."
would be a good jumping off point. My view is that murder is bad, and that murder should be punished. Murder for money and murder for road rage and murder for dislike of a person's skin color or sexuality are equally heinous. Hate crime is thought crime. Should we prosecute a separate offence based on motive? Taking motive into account when sentencing seems to make sense to me, but why add a separate life sentence for what you THINK the person was thinking?
I'm sure you already have plenty to write about, but I'd be interested in your views.
"I'm sure you already have plenty to write about, but I'd be interested in your views."
Hi Dave, this is a actually a very interesting question. My knee-jerk response is that hate crime legislation is a good thing. We already consider motive when deciding punishment for crimes in the case of temporary insanity, or whether a parent kills somebody who hurt their child, for example. Similarly, we treat the rape of a minor more seriously than the rape of an adult. The nature and motivations behind a crime do matter.
There's also the idea that the way we treat different crimes sends a message about the kind of society we want to be. Hating somebody, simply for being who they are, is unacceptable in any decent society. So if you act on that hate, maybe it should be punishable? The additional life sentences were largely symbolic, they're already serving life. But maybe the symbolism matters.
But that said, I do totally see your point. As you say, there's often a significant amount of mind-reading that needs to take place to convict somebody of a hate crime. And in the current climate, there's certainly a risk that any inter-racial crime will be assumed to be based on hate. Definite food for thought. I'll definitely consider an article on this. Thanks a lot.
Creating a new category of crime for being hateful feels to me to be related to the speech-is-violence zeitgeist. What do you think?
Also, in many jurisdictions the definition of hate crime includes a list of identities susceptible to hate crimes. In California the list is “sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, immigration status, political affiliation, and position in a labor dispute.” Sort of looks like the practical effect is codification of identity politics.
"Creating a new category of crime for being hateful feels to me to be related to the speech-is-violence zeitgeist."
I don't think so exactly. Though there is a danger of it. But I'm talking strictly about violence-is-violence.
Consider Peyton Gendron for example. Peyton's stated aim was to kill as many black people as possible. Should we treat his crime in any way differently to somebody who kills indiscriminately? We're already clear that killing is wrong, but should there be *any* additional consideration for the racist element?
If not, does that mean that race based hatred is morally neutral?
Identity politics has taken some terrible turns. But it's not completely arbitrary. Those identities are selected because they're the main characteristics people use to discriminate against and hate others. Note that in law, they're all neutral. It's not "the black race" it's just race. It's not "the female sex" it's just sex.
I would very much hope that if a black person or an Asian person went on a white person killing spree, there would also be additional consideration for the racist aspect of their crime.
I get that there's a concern that this might not happen in practice, or that the law might be applied too loosely, but is that a problem with the law or the society enacting it?
What Plural seems to not understand is that keeping men out of women's bathrooms isn't keeping men out of bathrooms. They have access to their own bathrooms. Plural's argument would make sense if we were keeping men from public bathrooms. Why in God's name are we even arguing about this? I wonder what Plural thinks about keeping men out of women's prisons...
"What Plural seems to not understand is that keeping men out of women's bathrooms isn't keeping men out of bathrooms"
Exactly. This is the same fallacy in the "trans people are being banned from sport" arguments. No they're not. Literally not a single person is trying to ban trans people from sport. They're just asking that they compete according to their sex, exactly as everybody else does.
People often resort to name calling as argumentum. I've been called a sexist because of my view on women in combat roles in the military. Two things guide my view. Anyone reading this can tell me why it's sexist if they think so.
1. For a time I lived on a fire support base south of the Que Son Mountain range. A miserable place where we were frequently hit with mortars. That is not the reason. When I got there as advanced party there were no showers. We went to a stream just outside the fire base to bathe. When the higher ups figured out that some of the women there were not there to wash cloths, they decided that we needed a shower. In an open area in the compound, they put some wooden pallets and set up a pipe contraption with holes in it and pumped water from the stream for an hour every day. It was quickly a big mud puddle. We stripped, walked thru the mud, showered walked back thru the mud, dried ourselves and wiped the mud off our feet. The condition of my feet is another story. Women with rotten feet is not the reason either. Where in the hell was there going to be a woman's space?
2. I'm just one person, hardly a valid statistic, but every single woman who has talked about it with me who was in the military told me that they were raped at least once! The people you are supposed to have the tightest bond with raping you! Go back to number 1 and imagine being a young, fit, woman putting your naked body on display regularly in front of a bunch of young, horney jarheads. Splendid idea?
Women deploy now. I don't know how they deal with that, but we were certainly not ready to deal with it back then. I'm sure that the women on the medical staff at China Beach had women's spaces. I never had occasion to talk with them to see if it would change my every one of them metric. Maybe not, I don't know.
Yes, more extreme than in more civilized locations. That's my point, but I still get called a sexist. Men should behave themselves. Yeah right, sure they will.
Women got killed too, but that is not the subject here, but I'll mention it because it matters to me. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/fact-check-why-are-so-few-womens-names-on-the-vietnam-memorial-wall
"I'm just one person, hardly a valid statistic, but every single woman who has talked about it with me who was in the military told me that they were raped at least once"
Jesus. That is absolutely horrific. And more horrific that though I'm surprised, I'm also not surprised. You know?
It's a tough one. I understand why this would lead you to the belief that women shouldn't be in combat roles. And I understand your derision at the idea that men should behave themselves. But the alternative is that women have to forgo opportunities because men can't control themselves.
It's the same logic behind women having to wear the burqa to avoid "inflaming men's desires." Right? Men can't control themselves, so women have to adjust their behaviour and be treated as second-class citizens.
I don't have a simple solution. I'm not under any illusions about men's sexual behaviour changing with sensitivity training or the like. But given that I'd bet most of the men who raped the women you talked to weren't punished, I'd still lean towards pursing a climate where it was easier for women to talk about their sexual assault and where men were more likely to be severely punished for it.
The men who behave that way do so because they get away with it. I do believe it would change if they knew they couldn't.
It's the other side of the coin. Heads, men should stay out of women's spaces because men... Tails, woman don't belong in a worst case no woman's space available.
Both are about the safety of women, because men. I agree that the situation would improve if men were vigorously prosecuted. If is a very big word.
My comment pertained to "You're a [ ]" as a response to stifle an opposing view, the subject of this commentary. Am I a sexist for holding that view? Are you a sexist for your view on men in women's spaces? We are both addressing an unpleasant reality about the danger to women when in compromising spaces with men. It's hard to discuss the issue when the conversation is hijacked by a subject change to the evil of the speaker for daring to express a point of view. The validity of the idea be damned.
"My comment pertained to "You're a [ ]" as a response to stifle an opposing view, the subject of this commentary."
Ah, I see. Yeah, honestly accusations of transphobia (I'm not called a misogynist or a racist very often😄) just completely roll off me at this point. They'e applied so liberally, so lazily, and so reflexively that they're just meaningless.
If I am a [], fine, show me what I'm missing. I'm honestly listening. But if you're just calling me that to guilt me into silence, or you think just shouting at me will msake me take you seriously, then yeah, good luck with that.
I've often wondered what it would take to get the military to clean up its act re women. I can understand why you feel the way you do about women in the military, and I've often wondered why any woman would sign up for it. Rape seems to be pretty widespread in the military, I know of one female Medium veteran who's mentioned her experiences of multiple sexual assault in the military.
It tells you something when the military is supposed to protect all Americans, but thinks half of us are their fucktoys.
It may be changing a bit with more women in the military than while I was on active duty but I think that a big part of the problem is the ratio. In society approximately 50/50 men and women. In the military not even close, women a small minority. Add to that, the toxic indoctrination taking place for those men.
Boot camp call and response cadences like, "I don't know but I've been told. Eskimo pussy is mighty cold." or "This is my rifle. This is my gun. This is for killing. This is for fun." Respect for women, oh yeah.
Here's how I feel about the idea of my daughters or granddaughter in the military. Not a good place for them.
https://youtu.be/vtdxBjgCgiw
Yeah, a friend of mine who joined the Army after he got out of school (he had not choice...they paid for it) would tell me about some of the cadences they did. I didn't say too much at the time. I figured that was just how the military was. I'm a lot less understanding now.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2022/08/11/sexual-assault-survivors-should-be-able-sue-for-damages-judges-rule/
Plural's conflating of issues around men in women's spaces with black crime rates was.... very ugh to read.
Tell it Steve. Women and girls who enter spaces and places every day that may not feel safe thank you.
Your restraint is truly impressive, Steve. However, I don't know of any other non-violent method to expunge bad ideas beyond airing them out, showing how empty they are, and providing better ones. I just wish the entire process wasn't so asymmetric (ie a slogan can be a brainworm for years, but good ideas need time to take root)
"I don't know of any other non-violent method to expunge bad ideas beyond airing them out, showing how empty they are, and providing better ones"
100%. Too many people seem to have forgotten this vital fact. Perhaps because they're afraid that their ideas are the bad ones.
Like you, I’m sure, I have never knowingly gone through a door with a sign on it saying “Women”.
It doesn’t have to say “Women Only”; “Women” is enough. I also regularly step aside to allow women access to parts of the sidewalk that I would have felt entitled to use were they not there; my nose remains unskinned.
Why on Earth would any man want to be somewhere he is unwelcome? It must be so unpleasant.
"Why on Earth would any man want to be somewhere he is unwelcome? It must be so unpleasant"
This is really the question. The answer, in some cases, is even more unpleasant. But for the trans women who aren't perverts, I don't understand why they aren't pushing for their own spaces instead of demanding that women let them and their penises into theirs. It's not confusing to any reasonable person why many women object to this.
I've been reading a lot about the growing controversy of "woke" employees. The charge of "transphobia" comes so readily that employers are becoming wary of hiring the "woke" at all; their demands are endless, forever changing, and they bring chaos to the workplace with disruptive conflicts with coworkers and with management for not being "inclusive" enough.
Or whatever.
I really hope this fad burns out soon.
"The charge of "transphobia" comes so readily that employers are becoming wary of hiring the "woke" at all; their demands are endless, forever changing, and they bring chaos to the workplace with disruptive conflicts with coworkers and with management for not being "inclusive" enough"
A friend of mine was telling me about this happening in her company just yesterday.😅 And yes, the company is terrified of being taken to court for discrimination by employees who literally refuse to do their jobs (we're talking about a call centre here, nothing onerous) because of "trauma."
Having owned a company myself, I would never hire somebody who even gave a hint of all this nonsense. If you can't think clearly, or if you find answering a phone to be "traumatic", I don't want you anywhere near my company.
It really has gotten this bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFjUjSJplfs
The host of the series doesn't do a terribly good job; he repeats phrases like "capitulate to your worldview" too much and barely mentions the core issue that the workplace is not a stage for self-projection, not of "gender identity" or anything else. He also casts it too much into the "entitled youth" vein.
But the young woman whose meltdown is the center of this video ... my god. She rolls out "correct pronouns" and "misgendered" and "gender identity" so often you can hear the dust in the grooves. Her strangely inappropriate expressions, smiling while expressing exasperation, cast doubt on her stability. She got into a screaming match at work with a coworker who would not refer to her as "they," though how the third person came thrice into a face to face conversation remains unexplained.
I have no doubt that she lost her job over this outburst, and also doubt she can maintain a job because she comes to project her "gender identity" more than to do her work. Imagine a meeting:
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen—"
Excuse me, but I am *non-binary*
and how quickly things go downhill from there.
I don't do it now but at a number of startups I have been given the task of winnowing down résumés from the hundreds to the few who might be called for interview. If I was to do that again, pronoun pairs would be instant rejection.
"But the young woman whose meltdown is the center of this video ... my god."
It genuinely makes me sad that a young woman has became so confused that she has to leave a meeting because somebody won't refer to her as "they." That this is a source of emotional tumuli.
Seriously, what are the odds that she finds herself on the streets or being horribly taken advantage of at some point because she simply isn't emotionally resilient enough for the very basics of life.
It was not a meeting, it was a face-to-face conversation. Which is really odd because she screamed that her coworker "misgendered" her three times. Funny, when I'm talking to someone I address him as "you," not as "he." Her boss got involved and didn't take her side and she ended up storming out of the office.
She mentioned that silly neologism "transphobic" but she isn't transgendered; real repeat real transgendered people adopt the opposite gendered pronoun at some point during transitioning, usually after reassignment surgery. "They" is the affectation of those "non-binary" people.
The host of the video, which I unsubscribed from because he says "Democrat Party," didn't make a very clear case that the workplace is not a stage for projecting oneself, she was supposed to be there to work, not to project her "gender identity."
I wonder how many seconds she can go without thinking about her non-binaryness. My guess is that those intervals are very brief.
I have no sympathy for her whatsoever.
Well... I also often smile when exasperated with someone. It's a way to convey both exasperation and condescension. :) <----- not intended to be condescending!
Yep, happened at my company.
I think it is reasonable for Plural to ask you for your proposed "rule". And we should be suspicious if our rule does not seem to do the right things in all the right circumstances.
I like that you are aiming away from chances of bad actions since I think those rates with respect to bathrooms is very very low. That is not the center of this issue. As you point out, it seems at center is how women FEEL about folks being in their space.
I generally find myself on the same side of this issue as you are. But I am UNCOMFORTABLE. The kind of rule that I imagine us gravitating towards has something to do with many folks being uncomfortable with the situation. But white of the past (or maybe present) could LEGITIMATELY argue that they were uncomfortable in the close presents of blacks. Even as we accept the truth of that, we basically tell them to "get over it"
so I just find myself confused.
And @Mark Monday if this conflation hard to read (I am not happy with it either), then can you slice them apart in a morally strong way? I at least for the moment can't.
"I think it is reasonable for Plural to ask you for your proposed 'rule'."
Where does he ask me for a "rule"? And with regards to women's spaces, why would he even need to ask me for a rule? Is there any man who is unclear about the criteria by which he's excluded from women's spaces?
And *please* tell me why white people of the past could legitimately argue that they were uncomfortable in the close presence of black people. I promise not to jump down your throat. But I think you're on incredibly shaky ground there.😅
Bathrooms are not at the centre of the issue. In fact, when talking about women's spaces, I rarely mention them. Because they're the one space that I think is segregated by gender expression far more than sex. In my experience talking about this issue, bathrooms are by far the least controversial (though still controversial for some) women's space.
Communal changing rooms, prisons, rape crisis centres, these kinds of spaces have always been segregated by sex. And it's understandable why women would be uncomfortable with men in those spaces in a sense that I see absolutely no way to compare to black people and white people. I'm all ears though.
People conflate race with the class issue. I live in a neighbourhood full of people who look like me and don't look like me, and while we've had some crime here I've never felt unsafe. When I was scouting 'hoods many years ago I applied my usual tests - What condition are their cars? How well do they dress (not fancy/expensive, just clean, basic decent clothes).
Class is what's important, or just basic decent appearance and minding one's own business. Poor, drug-ridden, criminal white people are just as scary as their darker similar brethren and sistren.
Absolutely. As I pointed out to Plural, most communities are segregated by poverty. If you just cast your eye over some communities, this is easy to mistake for segregation by race. There are many reasons for this. Racism among them. But it's both silly and unproductive to pretend that racism is the sole factor.
If you go back upstream to the origin of all this wokeism it comes from the logic of Critical Theory that cultural norms aren’t based on immutable truths, they’re based on the preferences of those at the top of the power hierarchy. Of course, from the evolutionary perspective there is some truth in that and people growing up in the modern worldview know it. This is why well-intentioned people tend to accept the premise of questioning the validity of every received cultural norm; it makes some sense to ask for “rules”. Cultural norms do change over time.
The problem with Critical Theory is that if everything is relative then so are the claims of Critical Theory. It’s just fancy nihilism. But it is a sort of logical predicament. The only way forward is to embrace the idea of progress in finding first principles for ordering society.
And yes, they are our preferences, and we do have to defend some cultural norms as better than others. So yes, we simply have to state that our culture has learned that women need protections from people with testosterone. We no longer accept slavery as normal. Women should have the right to vote. The law should be applied equally. Etc. That list will eventually get into grey areas, but the way forward is not to destroy the culture we are trying to improve.
"If you go back upstream to the origin of all this wokeism it comes from the logic of Critical Theory that cultural norms aren’t based on immutable truths"
Absolutely. Not only that, but cultural norms and the categories they're based on are all simply means of exerting "power" and should be torn down at every opportunity.
But is a woman exerting power over me when she asks me to stay out of her changing room or rape crisis centre? I don't think so. And if she is, I accept it gladly.
A characteristic I unfailingly find in people who espouse critical theory style arguments is a blind narcissism that presumes that they should always be able to do whatever they want. Even if it requires other people to change the entire way they see the world.
"Oh, you're uncomfortable with me getting my penis out in front of you and your daughter in a female changing room? Well, you're just a bigot. You need to change the way you think."
I actually saw somebody make the claim that women who don't want males in their spaces because they've been raped should "reframe their trauma" (https://thecritic.co.uk/reframe-your-trauma/). It's narcissism all the way down. And the extremists really don't care how much damage they do as long as they get their way.
"And the extremists really don't care how much damage they do as long as they get their way."
Lot of that going around lately.
Relativism is toxic. We should meet every new assertion of it with skepticism and demands for evidence.
I've seen enough of it to confidently claim that relativism is associated with sickness. In all but the most scoundrelous it has neutered conviction; we are forbidden to make even the most unambiguous value judgments lest we sound "just like the religious right."
I had a coworker who could not utter a sentence that didn't include "from [my | your | his | their...] perspective"; we were developing software and this added nothing to any discussion. One day I asked him privately to stop saying it. He instantly became a savagely nasty enemy and did everything he could manage to get me in trouble on the job.
"neutered conviction"--- precisely!
That goes to the heart of the matter. Generating controversy that contributes nothing to a work related issue should not be tolerated.
This guy was a mess. At 5'10" he could not have weighed more than 110 lbs and he pulled all-nighters with a sack of candy bars. I could see the bones of his eye sockets if he stood under the lighting, something I had only seen before in people near death from AIDS or cancer.
The intensity of his hatred of me was just shocking. Just because I asked him to stop adding "from my perspective" to every sentence. It was really critical to his Weltanschauung.
Apparently Netflix recently told 'woke' employees that if they can't handle 'offensive' content, maybe Netflix isn't the best place for them to work.
I'm definitely seeing the beginnings of pushback in the corporate world re this 'woke' nonsense.
https://nypost.com/2022/05/13/netflix-tells-woke-workers-to-quit-if-they-are-offended-culture-memo/
I just had some guy on Facebook tell me that one in 120 is "trans." Medical criteria say one in 65,000. This is way way out of control. Even going to gay clubs in Norfolk where the gay scene was completely centered on transvestites the ratio was lower than that.
Unfortunately, idiocies rarely collapse under the weight of their absurdity.
Wow! I occasionally say "in my opinion" when I wish to make clear that I don't think my thought is truth from the lips of God, but in normal speech opinion is implicit. I guess I've been privileged to not have people openly hate me in the workplace.
First Fit: I agree with much of what you are saying, but consider the phrase: "the way forward is to not destroy the culture we are trying to improve"
Ok, but notice that on the issue of women's suffrage, and slave rights on indeed WAS destroying a culture when this progress occurred. So it remains to define "good vs bad" destruction.
It seems plausible to me that a generation or two hence the roles of gender end up so blurred that this male / female dichotomy is no longer the dominate way of thinking... then such rules would look antequated. Of course this could only happen if the actual risks of sexual assault were very nearly zero -- which I think is plausible with a bit of technology.
My point is before a cultural shift has occurred, one can genuinely argue that the shift will kill something essential within the current culture. So if we want to declare some of these shifts as progress, while others are not progress, we still are stuck defining this.
and @ChrisFox I say the same to your relativeism is toxic comment. I don't disagree, but the only defense against relativism is some non-relative rule that one can stand behind. What is the rule we are standing behind here? I am having difficulty articulatinig it!
"So if we want to declare some of these shifts as progress, while others are not progress, we still are stuck defining this."
I think this is usually very easy to do though:
Will this change create more or less human suffering? Does this allow more people to live in safety and dignity?
Not always, but in the vast majority of cases, the answer to these questions is self-evident. In the case of slavery, a few people were financially worse off after slavery ended. But millions of people were free to live lives as human beings. It would have been even better if the government had followed through on the promises made to freed slaves so they didn't starve to death.
As I said to plural, if we make all spaces gender neutral, nothing improves for ordinary, decent men. Rapists and perverts are happier, and pretty much every single women is less happy and feels less safe.
I think you might be right about the male/female dichotomy becoming "antiquated" in people's thinking. I guess it just depends on how much more rape and sexual harassment we deem acceptable. Because human nature doesn't care about progressive thinking. Abolishing the categories of male and female will lead to exactly the same problems it caused 100 or 1000 years ago.
I'm curious how you think technology cut cut the risk of sexual assault to nearly zero.
In principle I see and maybe even support your approach, but in practice I can't see how to make it workable. (Remember, I am confused on this, so I have no alternative to propose)
But my problem is, likely the number of actual assults that would occur as a result of trans in women's bathrooms is likely pretty small. Thus if we argue an material safety grounds we would need to band friday night football, co-ed classes, and many many other things first.
Thus the only angle is to say that is MENTALLY hurts all women to be thus exposed. That is the better argument, but human expectations and subjective measures of risk are massively malleable. Black slaves worked with their hands and backs all day, they were coarse and powerful. I expect whites of both genders really did have visceral fear in their presence (especially since these slaves had been wronged all of their lives in brutal ways. Thus brutality was known to them.) Thus I expect it was really true that whites would easily have MORE fear in close presence with such a slave, even more than the average women might have for her safety when in a bathroom with a trans woman.
But we don't want that white persons fear to be a justification for separation. Even in todays world one could argue for separation of public spaces by gender on this basis.
I feel any honest application of such a rule would end up outlawing alot of things that we would be uncomfortable with before it would outlaw trans in women's bathroom.
Also, you didn't explain how technology could decrease the risk of sexual assault to nearly zero.
"likely the number of actual assults that would occur as a result of trans in women's bathrooms is likely pretty small."
Two things here, first, the widespread mistake of treating sexual assault as the only reason to keep males out of female spaces. If I stand in a female space naked, with an erection, but don't assault anybody, do women still have a right to complain? If women feel so uncomfortable that they're driven out of spaces built for them, do they have a right to complain? I think yes.
Secondly, even where we're talking specifically about assault, we're talking about *additional* assaults. Yes, women face dangers from men in many spaces. And anything we can do to reduce that is great. But if we abolish women's spaces, we're weighing additional assaults against 50% of the population against assaults against <1% of the population who are actually less vulnerable to sexual violence and its consequences (retain some strength advantages, can't get pregnant, may not even have a vagina).
And yes, antebellum white people had good reason to be uncomfortable around black people. But a) attacks on white people were still vanishingly rare, and brutally and disproportionately punished. And b) as you say, those reasons were almost entirely based on the cruelty those white people inflicted on slaves.
You're glossing over the vastly different reasons *why* those fears might exist, to arrive at something approximating, "all segregation is basically the same." No, it really, really isn't.
If women were uncomfortable around men because they'd stolen us from our homes and forced us and our children to work to death for them, we'd be having a very different conversation.
But any "honest application" of a rule regarding sex-based segregation is necessarily sex-based. I see no way to "honestly apply" a rule about racial segregation without being honest about why it's even an issue. You haven't been honest about that here.
> Two things here, first, the widespread mistake of treating sexual assault as the only reason to keep males out of female spaces. If I stand in a female space naked,
We agree, indeed as I wrote, I already stated that your better argument is about the discomfort women would have. So lets just focus on that sub-area that we both agree with as the key one.
> You're glossing over the vastly different reasons *why* those fears might exist,
No I am not. Recall I am 'confused' about a valid 'rule' here, I am simply noting a parallel situation. If you believe there is a valid rule that separates these two casese you are free to use any aspect of these situations in order to craft your rule. I am open to hearing it.
> But any "honest application" of a rule regarding sex-based segregation ... You haven't been honest about that here.
Well let me clarify here. For me the issues is when can one group require exclusion of another group from some communally manged space. I think a good rule should apply broadly to sex-based and non-sex based spaces. It should be a general rule about when exclusion is warranted.
Of course there can be sex-spaced based instances of the general rule, that is not problem. But I am very bothered is we cannot express the principle generally and then instantiated it appropriately for sex spaces. Indeed if we cannot do that, then I fear we are begin parochial and merely justifying prejudices that hold in our present moment. this his the high standard which I cannot see my way towards right now.
You might say, Dan you are holding us to too high of a standard. Perhaps. But I will just notice that down thru history when humanity "was up to no good" and justifying shit that later we would say "what the fuck were they thinking?" We would create specialty rules with specialty justifications for specialty cases. Hence my desire for a generalized rule. Something like:
Humanity is justified in excluding one sub-population from a community managed resource for benefit of another sub-population WHEN ...
I am having difficulty finishing that sentence in a satisfactory way. Can you express this rule in a way that you can stand behind?
What motivates such an odd idea, doing away with the dichtomoy of male and female. It's not as though this is some invented difference, whatever the postmodernists say. Men and women are distinctly different and the difference that matters most here is that women are more vulnerable.
We should be focusing on erasing the wage gap between men and women, lowering the incidence of rape and domestic violence, tangible and achievable goals, not this "woke" crap.
"Of course this could only happen if the actual risks of sexual assault were very nearly zero -- which I think is plausible with a bit of technology."
This is a very puzzling statement. Are your advocating universal surveillance?
Telescreens?
This is very much a side point, whIch I probably should not have raised, since the core of my argument rests on the fact that presently the absolute rates are low even w/o technology.
Still, now that I raised it.... I can imagine building deep learned models of struggle based on audio finger print and near IR visual signature. Such a edge device would be entirely on chip (like an occupancy sensor, or auto door opener technology today. (So no information leaves the device itself which is mounted in the ceiling.) But this device can 'phone home' if a felony might be is in progress. One would need to get the false positive rate down very low, else the police would not respond. Still I expect it would be pretty hard to "get away" with rape if the police could get there in minutes.
I think the loss of privacy is not much different than having an occupancy sensor automatically turn on the light when you enter the room. (Assuming it only phones home when actual felonies are in progress, and one is not concerned with maintaining privacy of felonies in progress.)