The infinitude of girls
Victor Madrigal in all his diversity.
The repeated phrase is “girls in all of their diversity.”
It’s bio-essentialism to say elephants are not ostriches. It’s bio-essentialism to say whales are not lobsters. It’s bio-essentialism to say daffodils are not sequoias. It’s bio-essentialism to say potatoes are not grapes.
I begin to detect a pattern here.
We need to know the differences between things. It’s necessary for our enjoyment but also for our survival. Fire is not snow and it’s not like snow – if you touch it it will hurt worse than you can imagine. It’s important to know that. Imagination and fantasy and pretending are good things in their way and in their place, but in other ways and places we need to get our facts right.
Do we need to know which people are women and which are men? Ever? Often? Always?
As a biologist, I am not sure it is an insult to be called a bio-essentialist in this context. Part of being a biologist is knowing the difference between species, between living and non-living, and between male and female. 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.
iknklast, I’m with you here. It sounds to me as though they’re trying to make an insult out of being truthful, honest, and incorporating evidence into one’s worldview… Just another extension of anti-intellectualism, I guess? Seems a weird attitude to me, not wanting to be able to know what’s true and preferring to blindly trust the claims of others.
The days of bio-essentialism will soon join gender essentialism in the dustbin of history. I and the hundreds if not thousands of us who have loved and shared our lives with our Pet Rocks for nigh unto fifty years are about to file what will be a landmark case declaring them and other Trans-Living individuals as legally alive, with certificates to prove it! So there, “biologists” and “geologists”.
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.
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