Swapping stereotypes
The first comment objects that that’s “punching down at transgender folks.” But is it? It’s reality that a good many trans activists on social media do threaten women (not men so much) with violence for putative crimes such as “misgendering.” Isn’t that “punching down”?
Yeah, when/if you are literally punching people, you can’t complain that being satirized about it is punching down coming your way. If you’re claiming underdog status, pummeling people who aren’t raising a hand or weapon to you isn’t still an option.
I was going to say, in fairness, I don’t know of any actual punching, but then I remembered the Speakers Corner one – that was planned on Facebook and caught on tape when it happened.
Author just can’t help taking on fanatics, can he? :)
I applaud his humor, his humanity, and his courage.
Also blog owner’s.
Jeff Engle @1,
Conversely, once you’ve convinced yourself that disagreement with your doctrines is “violence,” it makes it pretty easy to work yourself up to actual, you know, violence.
Misgendering, schmisgendering. This fad for using “folks” for people in damn near every situation has me wanting to punch some people.
That really seems to be part of the strategy of transactivists – declare yourself the lowest social class, so that you when threaten or perform violence, you can call it ‘punching up’ even when quite literally punching someone smaller than you.
I posted this in the J&M thread, but it is not going up. It is possible that it is just being held for Author approval, but just in case something messed up, I guess I’ll post it here and try to post it there later if it doesn’t show.
Tim Reid
I would say that rather than criticising all trans people, Author is criticising a subset: those trans women that act decidedly male in their violence. An important distinction I think, as that ignores all trans people that do not employ violent rhetoric.
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Darwin Harmless
How do you know you have a feminine side? Or perhaps a better phrasing would be, why do you consider those feminine traits feminine in the first place, given that you – a male – have them? It seems that those traits, which you call feminine here, can be expressed in both male and female people and are thus not intrinsic to either.
This sort of observation leads me to believe that there are precious few or zero personality traits that are inherent to either sex, but rather there are many that are inculcated in boys rather than girls, and others vice versa, that they eventually internalise.
This leads me to lean quite strongly to the nurture rather than nature side, and while there may indeed be something innate within the sexes that cause some behavioural disparities between them, 1) it seems that no trait is exclusive to either, and 2) the true proportion of male and female personality types (assuming such exist) cannot currently be uncovered, as cultural mores place a rather large thumb on the scales.
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M27Holts
Those things you mention – height, strength, hairiness – are physiological, and are not disputed except by a tiny fringe, even amongst trans people. The concept is called sexual dimorphism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism#Humans
It becomes extremely murky when talking about personalities, behaviours, mental aptitudes and similar… it is commonly said, for example, that mathematics is not suited to women’s brains. When asked for the data for that claim (and many other similar claims), the person making that claim will usually fall back on the more established differences – the physiological – while arguing along the lines of ‘well these differences exist, it is only natural that we also think differently!’
But this class of argument is fallacious; the claim is essentially that because A is known to exist, B also exists simply because it is somewhat related to A. The rebuttal to this is that there is copious data supporting A – as demonstrated in that wiki page – but not much beyond speculation suggesting B exists.
Virtually all violent groups encourage their frenzy by greivance, by posing themselves as downtrodden and opwesséd. Klansmen, Neo-Nazis, hell, the old-school Nazis, ALL seamlessly combine a whiny sense of being hard done by with a smug sense of superiority.
John the Drunkard, you forget to mention the largest group that whines about oppression and persecution whilst maintaining a smug sense of superiority, namely the American Christian right.
Quite an interesting conversation over there, but I have to grit my teeth at the Peterson, Scott Adams and Christina Hoff Summers fans :(
Just one or two can seem like a whole mob.
Although, with Scott Adams, it could be that the mob is just him, sockpuppeting….