Guest post: “NO DEBATE” and the ban hammer
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The infinitude of girls.
But…if you want to ignore biology all together, what are you? A biology denialist. I’m concerned about how many scientists (yes, P.Z., I’m looking at you) have entered this realm where fantasy is reality and reality is bigoted.
I seem to recall a post or two from regular commenters here who asked PZ how he knew the gender identities of the spiders he was studying with enough certainty to be able to call them “he” or “she,” and getting banned for it. Surely it’s not to much to ask for a little bit of clarity and consistency in one’s beliefs and assertions, unless you don’t have any to offer. If he could explain it, he would do so. He could answer questions. He could change minds and win them to his cause. Wouldn’t this be the response of someone defending an actual human rights or social justice situation? But no, his response is the orthodox one of “NO DEBATE” and the ban hammer. In the old days, he relished the visits by theists because it gave him (and the Horde) “chew toys” to practice their arguments against, and theist counterarguments and talking points to dismantle. Perhaps his ire is so strong because he knows the contradiction at the heart of his “trans” stance and dislikes having it shown up and pointed out, accusing those doing so of bigotry and JAQing off. Theists are fair game, but he’s not supposed to be the chew toy.
It’s amazing that the man who made such a big show of “desecrating” a “consecrated” host, and ridiculing the idea of some sort of invisible, ineffable, Holy entity taking up residence within the confines of a baked good after a priest’s muttering of some magic words (while reviewing the long history of abuse and worse committed by the Church against any who denied the True Presence of Christ in the wafers, or who desecrated them in any way) has come to believe in the existence of an invisible, ineffable Holy entity living in the confines of a “wrong” body with the invocation of some magic words, while joining in on the abuse and worse committed by trans activists against any, especially women*, who deny the presence of a “gender identity” in these Special People (or in anybody for that matter). And that this Holy Being is primary and foundational as opposed to the accidental, flawed husk of the physical body containing it, and that the latter should be cut, drugged and sacrificed to in service to supposed needs and demands of the former. He’s debunked one religious belief while accepting another with open arms and highly compartmentalized mind.
*Ironic given his vocal defence of the woman in the Shermer sexual assault allegations. Where did that PZ Myers go? It seems the “women” he’s most keen on defending now are the ones who have (and are) dicks.
I asked a legitimate question, and was accused of “just asking questions.” Not by PZ, but by a hordian. I just gave up after that.
The difference between spiders and humans when it comes to sex is that humans have culture and there’s a strong social aspect to being a man or woman. Fair enough, I think, but there seems to be a serious problem with uplifting the importance of cultural expectations and rules regarding the sexes (PZ says a woman is “ A rich cultural artifact with many cues used to designate that aspect of their identity”) while simultaneously rejecting the concepts of femininity and masculinity. We are, after all, feminists.
Yet if we remove social beliefs about masculinity and femininity from the cultural understanding of what constitutes a man or woman — what’s left? The answer seems to be a subtle shift in the question. Instead of asking “what is the cultural role of women in X society?” we ask “what cultural roles and attributes can a woman have?” The answer is “why, any type of role or attributes she wants. Teacher, heavy equipment operator, lawyer, race car driver, cook. She can be a rugged tomboy or be sweet and yielding. How dare you try to limit her!”
The problem has been ducked. What seems to be going on doesn’t really have anything to do with the cultural beliefs about how the sexes are different, but idiosyncratic subjective imaginings about what it would feel like to be a man instead of a woman, or a woman instead of a man, and identifying as one or the other based on what you imagine (i.e. “know about myself.”) “When I think about ducks, I’m thinking about them AS a girl does, because I’m thinking of them as a girl.”
This isn’t embracing cultural ideas of gender. Someone who was transgender would be a masculine woman or a feminine man. This is a serious form of play acting, one where what we believe and feel about OUR character’s sex is both more worthy and trustworthy than the hopelessly muddled gray areas of reproductive sex, which matter in humans only when reproducing (and even then Men Can Have Babies.)
Really, determining someone’s sex is as useful and relevant in daily life as determining whether they have one or two kidneys. It’s private. What’s public is being a kewl skater girl with braids and knee socks giggling about feeding the ducks but still being pretty butch. That’s what’s in the head, shaped by whatever cultural aspects they pick out. The public is expected to see a girl. Because girls can be like that (and have a penis, too— it’s private.)
I miss that old PZ. He was a smart, caring, engaging individual in person, and ruthless against all manner of Woo online, before the body snatchers got him and created this simulacrum we see today.
I remember being banned for reminding people trans women are male. Never mind that the very definition of trans men or women is that they are the sex that is incongruent with their claimed identity, all that starter theory has been verboten for years now.
A fact that is deliberately used to conflate the two.
I do, too. Going way back to talk,origins, before Pharyngula, I always took the opportunity to learn something cool about evo-devo and atheism from him, critical-thinking was always involved in even his most biting posts.
Damn.