What was that about silly philosophical arguments?
This guy fancies himself a feisty contrarian (which is an amusingly banal thing for a contrarian to do) and yet he’s strikingly non-contrarian on The Orthodoxy de nos jours.
The argument of course isn’t that trans athletes are just like e-bikes. Read the introductory text again, or just read Jon Pike’s tweet again while paying attention.
The argument is that unfair advantage is unfair advantage.
The underlying implication is that people (including relevant officials) are systematically ignoring the fact that being male is an unfair advantage in women’s sports just as riding an e-bike would be an unfair advantage in the Tour de France.
Basic courtesies like not misrepresenting the other party’s argument?
I wouldn’t call that a philosophical argument. Roger seems to be missing the point on multiple levels. What does he think an “anti trans activist” is? I haven’t seen anyone fitting the description. Feminists who defend women’s and girl’s only spaces and endeavors are not anti trans, they are being attacked by trans activists. Defending women and girls against this onslaught is not anti trans, it’s a defensive position. Do we see protests against trans people? No, there are none. What we are seeing is feminists trying very hard to protect women’s rights. This is not anti trans, it’s pro feminism, which should not be viewed as in conflict with anyone else’s rights, because it’s not. The trans cult would like us all to believe that trans people are being persecuted in droves, but they are wrong. Roger is another one of those people who doesn’t understand what feminism is, what philosophy is, or how nefarious the trans cult is. He seems to have jumped on the trans cult bandwagon without thinking anything through. Why is this so common among otherwise intelligent people?
Twiliter@1: You made one small error in that post. There ARE ‘anti-trans people’ protests and threats, and so forth. That said, while I won’t say that no GCF has ever used such language or tactics (humanity can be surprisingly awful), the fact is that it would be an anomaly. Such are generally the provenance of groups like the Proud Boys, and other socio-religious conservatives, for whom transphobia is simply another flavor of homophobia.
What’s happening here is a kind of reverse forced-teaming, where TRAs are arguing that anyone who objects to any part of trans ideology MUST be in league with the worst elements of the anti-trans movement. This, of course, is as wrong as accusing anyone who disagrees with Israeli policy in the West Bank and Palestine of having to be in league with neo-Nazis.
But as wrong, deceitful and scurrilous as that claim is, it’s still important not to make statements that produce easy ‘gotchas’ for TRAs. By saying, “there’s no protests against trans people”, you enable folks like Roger to score an easy point by linking to, say, the Proud Boy protest outside the site of a drag show (that had to be shut down for safety concerns) that coincided with the attack on the power grid in North Carolina. A more accurate statement would be, simply, “There’s no protests by gender-critical feminists against trans people’s existence.” It’s true, and it blocks the aforementioned reverse-teaming by drawing a very clear line between GCFs and SRCs. Yes, it’s frustrating to have to hold to a higher standard than our opponents in terms of integrity in arguments, but that’s the price of being on the side of truth.
You’re right, I probably am wrong about that. Real hate groups do exist, and I’m sure they do proactive anti trans things. The xenophobic hate groups that hate everything that isn’t them. They are also anti feminism.